January 2011
15 posts
Quotes on distributed intelligence and inspiration...
James:
http://edc.education.ed.ac.uk/jamesl/2010/12/05/once-more-with-feeling-looking-ahead-to-the-submission-of-my-lifestream/#comment-459
For me, the very nature of the lifestream exercise lends itself to the creative expression of ideas. We’ve each had the room to try and present information in ways that are suited to our individual interests or the information we have wanted to share. I’m...
Reponses to creativity presented by others in the...
Comments on Michael’s blog post and posthuman task:
Sian:
http://edc.education.ed.ac.uk/michaelg/2010/11/27/week-10-lifestream-summary-posthuman-pedagogy/#comments
“Michael, I’ve been really enjoying your Joyce postings, here and in your prezi, and I think the connection you have made between Joyce’s re-working of all the rules of narrative, and the online re-working of the ‘rules’...
Quotes on the generative nature of 'Splace'
Comments in response to Dennis’s visual artefact which was a screen video capture and a CAD demonstration of 3D electronic drawing.
http://edc.education.ed.ac.uk/dennisd/2010/10/11/visual-artifact/#comments
Marie:
“@dennis Oh my word, this really did blow my mind. I feel like I learned something! I struggle with spatial literacy, it seems, the different views actually felt hard for...
Quotes on emancipatory creativity from EDEDC class...
James:
http://edc.education.ed.ac.uk/jamesl/2010/12/05/once-more-with-feeling-looking-ahead-to-the-submission-of-my-lifestream/
“The lifestream has given me the space to creatively explore new ways of collecting and presenting information”
Mark:
http://edc.education.ed.ac.uk/markg/2010/12/12/marks-lifestream-summary/
“For me, perhaps the biggest element has been the...
Where is splace?
Where is splace?
The splace I encountered during the Digital Cultures module was
in the unbounded cyberspace
but alongside fellow learners and tutors (distributed)
cultivated and continually stimulated by all: tutors, peers, audience, my own response
spontaneous and unbounded, facilitating personal freefall, exploration, experimentation and travel
a dislocation rather than any particular...
A cautionary tale
The question and answer puzzle you have just engaged with could be considered creative however Hayles Raffle, principal researcher at Nokia Research Labs and designer of open-ended techno toys ZOOB and TOPOBO says:
“most digital creativity tools are like puzzles rather than paint brushes - children can discover what designers have hidden for them and every child makes the same discoveries....
“The idea of inspirational teaching bequeaths to us this idea, of new air. To...”
– Barnett, Ronald. (2007:116) Will to Learn : Being a Student in an Age of Uncertainty. Buckingham: Open University Press [Ebook]
“there are several parallels between the bungee jumper and the idea of learning...”
– Barnett, Ronald. (2007:14) Will to Learn : Being a Student in an Age of Uncertainty. Buckingham: Open University Press [Ebook]
“In the ritual of the N’gol, an event full of power, the jumper hurls himself off...”
– Barnett, Ronald. (2007:14) Will to Learn : Being a Student in an Age of Uncertainty. Buckingham: Open University Press [Ebook]
“Improvisation involves exploring, continual experimenting, tinkering with...”
– Barrett, F, J. (1998:606) Creativity and improvisation in jazz and organisations: implications for organizational learning. Organizational Science, 9 (5) pp. 605- 622
“The metaphors of leaping into the unknown, hanging out on a limb, suggest the...”
– Barrett, F, J. (1998:606) Creativity and improvisation in jazz and organisations: implications for organizational learning. Organizational Science, 9 (5) pp. 605- 622
“I’m attracted to improvisation because of something I value. There is a...”
– Barrett (1998:606), quoting Bailey (1992:57 cited in Barrett) and Jazz Saxophonist Steve Lacy, notes the excitement and danger inherent in improvisation and the comparison Lacy makes by likening it to existing on the edge of the unknown.
Barrett, F.J (1998). Creativity and improvisation in jazz and...
“We are all inclined to want the safety of feeling sure of ourselves and certain...”
– Macleod and Ross (2007) on facilitating student tolerance of the absurd and paradox and the notion of creating disruption and tension in teaching and learning for cognitive growth, generative education and fresh insight: ‘the view is marvellous as you fall’
Macleod, H., Ross, J. (2007)....
“Tricksters challenge the status quo and disrupt perceived boundaries. …....”
– cited by Macleod and Ross (2007) whilst discussing the role of online tutor as trickster.
Macleod, H., Ross, J. (2007). Structure, authority and other noncepts: teaching in fool-ish spaces [online]. Revised version of a paper first presented at the 3rd Ideas in Cyberspace Education conference,...
“a tutor’s role is such a space is not to regulate, but rather to...”
– Macleod, H., Ross, J. (2007). Structure, authority and other noncepts: teaching in fool-ish spaces [online]. Revised version of a paper first presented at the 3rd Ideas in Cyberspace Education conference, 21-23 March 2007, Loch Lomond, Scotland. Available at URL:...
December 2010
10 posts
Splace
Splace is a term I coined whilst following the Digital Cultures module as part of the MSc in Elearning run by Edinburgh University Autumn 2010.
It actually manifested as the result of a typing error (or Freudian slip) as I tried to write one word whilst thinking of two: place and space whilst commenting on a blog. Similar Freudian slips or typos coined for the discussion of online teaching and...
Quotes on creativity and discomfort from EDEDC...
Sharon:
http://edc.education.ed.ac.uk/sharonb/2010/12/01/essay-topic/
“That sounds very clear and confident when I read it back, but I’m not really. Like everything on the MSc though, I find that when I throw myself into it, the “doing” teaches as I go”
http://edc.education.ed.ac.uk/sharonb/2010/10/24/week-5-reflection/
“This week, I have been visiting other artefacts,...
“‘These spaces in which we must ask students to move these days are ‘fluid...”
– Barnett, R. (2007:71). A will to learn: Being a student in an age of uncertainty. Buckingham: Society for Research in Higher Education
“‘glimpsing reality with our senses and our imaginations’”
– Barnett, R. (2007:4). A will to learn: Being a student in an age of uncertainty. Buckingham: Society for Research in Higher Education
“‘we apprehend …. the sensible (as) that which can only be sensed, at...”
– Deleuz, G (2001:56-57) Difference and Repetition cited in Barnett, R. (2007). A will to learn: Being a student in an age of uncertainty. Buckingham: Society for Research in Higher Education.
Lost in splace - weird or wired? - my experience
Splace: a hybrid of place and space, of the real and the virtual. A strange, disconcerting environment cultivated as such to heighten senses and tease out creative responses as students try to assimilate the strangeness of the ‘splace’. Could be visualised as foggy, hazy, shadowy and felt as confusing, uncertain, fluid and continually morphing with no fixed compass points (Barnett...
“Volatile, unfamiliar digital spaces for learning perhaps materialise and to an...”
– Bayne, S. (2010). Academetron, automaton, phantom: uncanny digital pedagogies. London Review of Education, 8/1, 5-13.
“In defamiliarising the familiar, through creative pedagogical appropriation of...”
– Bayne, S. (2010). Academetron, automaton, phantom: uncanny digital pedagogies. London Review of Education, 8/1, 5-13.
“Such pedagogies work positively, creatively and energetically with the new,...”
– Bayne, S. (2010). Academetron, automaton, phantom: uncanny digital pedagogies. London Review of Education, 8/1, 5-13.
“Barnett (2007:71) - writing within a context which is not explicitly concerned...”
– cited in Bayne, S. (2010). Academetron, automaton, phantom: uncanny digital pedagogies. London Review of Education, 8/1, 5-13.
November 2010
17 posts
“Technology is not neutral. We’re inside of what we make, and it’s...”
– Harraway in Kunzru (1997). You are cyborg. Wired [online] Available from URL:,http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffharaway_pr.html> [Accessed 22 November 2010]
Harraway in Kunzru also cited in
Angus, T, Cook, I, Evans, J et al (2001:198) A Manifesto for Cyborg Pedagogy? International...
“we scatter our ‘bodies’ across the web where they gain a kind of...”
– Bayne, S. (2010:9). Academetron, automaton, phantom: uncanny digital pedagogies. London Review of Education, 8/1, 5-13.
“the digital medium…encourages a branching discussion in which students...”
– Tabbi (1997:239) cited in
Usher, R. and Edwards, R. (1998). Lost and found: ‘cyberspace’ and the (dis)location of teaching, learning and research. SCUTREA 1998, Exeter.
“there is no way to know the world except through subjectivity that precedes and...”
– Hayles, N.K. (2006:163). Unfinished Work: From Cyborg to Cognisphere. Theory Culture Society, 23/7-8.
“distributed cognition in turn is linked to a dispersed sense of self, with human...”
– Hayles, N.K. (2006:162). Unfinished Work: From Cyborg to Cognisphere. Theory Culture Society, 23/7-8.
“Human awareness comprises the tip of a huge pyramid of data flows, most of which...”
– Hayles, N.K. (2006:161). Unfinished Work: From Cyborg to Cognisphere. Theory Culture Society, 23/7-8.
“Computation, in this sense. is not restricted to any given medium. It is a...”
– Hayles, N.K. (2006). Unfinished Work: From Cyborg to Cognisphere. Theory Culture Society, 23/7-8.
Fail Whale Field Note 3
Fail Whale relationships spread offline:
This is the letter sent to the twitter team by the emerging twitter community (with fail whale tee shirts), supporting the twitter teams efforts to scale Twitter and minimize downtime and to support the designer of the image adopted as the twitter teams error 404 message which was activated when the social network went down due to over capacity
Letter to...
Fail Whale Field Note 2
2 parties organised by San Franciscan 36 year old. In Feb 2009 300 people attended including designer (Australian)
Fan site ran june 2008 to oct 2009 most posting june and july 2008
One fan asked designer to produce wedding invitaitons - the Win penguins others tried to coin winguins or pengwins
On istockphoto - originally called ‘lifting a dreamer’ - peaceful whale held aloft...
Fail Whale Field Note 1
Some spaces empty now - fanclub website - last post october 2009 and the google newsgroup now inactive but twitter feed continues and tagged entries and facebook group has occasional postings. In some of these spaces designer still active - eg posted star piece of work.Flickr images continue to grow
Flickr continues to grow flckr.com/photos/tags/failwhale
Twitter fans were passionate and zealous...
Fail Whale Community as Socio-Material Network
Perez (2008) highlights the value of open content and its role in the Fail Whale story, indicating that Yiying’s successes
come from more than just the work itself, but also from the power of the community who embraced it. The marriage of the two breathed life into the art and created a modern-day social object which emanates the hope of the community and the love they have for the...
Fail Whale Community Norms
Whilst the formation of the Fail Whale community seems to have been a relatively organic and collective affair, in that it seems to have no clear leader, is not influenced by designer of the image nor microblogging site Twitter, involves non standard interaction (linking, commenting, bookmarking, uploading), has members who don’t always identify themselves as such and seems to have coalesced...
Fail Whale Networks and Interaction
The Fail Whale community is actually spread over several networks and websites including:
http://failwhale.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/FailWhale/64467830480?ref=mf
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/failwhale
http://www.flickr.com/groups/failwhale/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/811261@N21/
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=%22Fail+Whale%22&s=rec
http://www.zazzle.com/failwhale
...
Fail Whale Formation, Coalescence and...
The formation of the ‘Fail Whale’ community seems to have been a relatively organic and collective affair in response to a series of random events. Much of this is charted in the time line elsewhere but in essence events include designer posting image to Istockphoto; twitter licensing it and using it as error message; twitter users seeing error message on a regular basis and taking it to their...
Travellers' Tales
Although signed up to Twitter, I am not a regular user and so I was completely unaware of the Fail Whale community and pop cultural icon that the Fail Whale image and error message had become.
Whilst studying for the Digital Cultures Module on the MSc Elearning course run by Edinburgh University I encountered two error messages in quick succession. One whilst using Wallwisher and the other when...
Ethnography Final Thoughts and References
FINAL THOUGHTS
When I started out on this study I was concerned that it was too superficial a topic and too remote from how communities of practice are manifesting within cyberspace and ‘the work context’.
However this micro-study has revealed that community formation plays out in many ways and the seemingly superficial or lightweight can actually hide a deep complexity. By following...
“The fallacy is to think that social networks are just made up of people. They’re...”
– Why some social network services work and others’ don’t. Or: the case for object centred sociality
http://www.zengestrom.com/blog/2005/04/why-some-social-network-services-work-and-others-dont-or-the-case-for-object-centered-sociality.html
October 2010
15 posts
“After a few hours of [online] work, my body is screaming with pain. My back...”
– The reality that is cyberspace - in line with my own view as depicted by course visual object. The hands feature highly in many of my images and it’s this last line that strikes a chord with me most.
Markham in Kozinets p 30 - to be completed
“In terms of the way the whole system is propogating and evolving, think of...”
– Rheingold cited in Bell, David (2001: 99) Community and cyberculture, chapter 5 of An introduction to cybercultures. Abingdon: Routledge. pp92-112
Welcome
This is a micro ethnography (accounting for around 12 hours of research) of the ‘Fail Whale’ community which started to coalesce, manifest and galvanize between May and June 2008. It remains active today.
The ‘Fail Whale’ community originated in the microblogging site Twitter in response to the image Twitter used as their error 404 message during system downtime....
“… And I thought, that’s how we just sort of connect. Purely because of love of...”
– http://mashable.com/2010/08/02/fail-whale-designer-interview/
Interview with Yiying Lu appearing in ‘The Origin of Twitter,s ‘Fail Whale’. In response to a question regarding whether ‘Fail Whale’ has opened doors for the designer or pigeon holed her into a design style
“Again, it’s something I’d leave to the public to decide because originally the...”
– http://mashable.com/2010/08/02/fail-whale-designer-interview/
Interview with Yiying Lu appearing in ‘The Origin of Twitter,s ‘Fail Whale’. In response to a question regarding whether she is seeking to reclaim the image
“It’s really just about how people interpret the picture. Rather than people...”
– http://mashable.com/2010/08/02/fail-whale-designer-interview/
Interview with Yiying Lu appearing in ‘The Origin of Twitter,s ‘Fail Whale’
WatchHere is my video comment byte back on Sue’s essay blog post: http://edc.education.ed.ac.uk/sueg/2010/10/11/another-story-of-cyberspace/
Internet Paradox
Just read an article entitled ‘Linkedout’ (Krotoski 2010) in the RSA journal which considers how far online interaction translateds into real-world civic engagement. Aspects of this article seemed relevant to unit 2 of our course on communities and the ethnographical studies we are about to undertake. A couple of quotes leap out at me and I have added these to my lifestream using...