Hudson,+Philip

=Phil's Analysis and Reflection Page=

Contributions
Please note that as per instructions, I'm not listing any graphic, spelling, editing or minor text additions. Only contributions of more than 150 words or milestone events are listed here. I've been looking through everyone elses contributions section, and I'm a little confused. I originally had my items done by date, and mentioned some pages I'd done smaller edits on as well. After a tutorial for 333 in which Prof. Jones said "don't list grammer and spelling mistakes in your analysis page" I decided I would not. I changed to this format, and stopped noting anything under 150 words (which was a good deal of my edits, I discuss that below in my reflections section). Now I've done that I see anyone else with a reflection page has my old style, and is including smaller edits! I checked the A2 page and in fact it does say that. Well I figure your spreadsheet will show you, but I've been in 4 major wikis this year (300, 333, and project pages for both) and finished last year with about 150 edits. I now have over 500. I did 37 on the 333 project wiki, and 43 on my 300 project wiki. So that's about 300 edits over 2 wikis. That means i've done about 150 edits each wiki. So when you see how small my list is compared to some other people, keep that in mind :)

> > > >
 * Got Post #2000! Pretty sweet I'd say!
 * Created a page on Preacher, the comic I did for A1
 * made cartoons my own
 * put up branding and brand awareness
 * I think I need a little explaination here, because it doesn't seem like a genre of media on the surface. I'd argue (and do so in the article) that advertising is a subgenre of branding and brand awareness. And advertising a definately a media genre. We have ad collections, books on ads, studies, and many other items that validate it thus! We even have shows on ads! Read the article for more. This was really my major writing, but you could always include cartoons, which are definately a striaght up genre and I do have 507 words of my own on (but don't do that! My branding page is slick!).
 * Added controversy section to Blogs
 * Threw in a section in Game Shows
 * Put a section in Advertising

Reflections
I felt almost like I was cheating to lift these answers from my CCIT333 page, because here I was using the same answers for two courses. I came to the conclusion that since the questions were the same and the answers to the CCIT333 page were both accurate and a true account of my feelings towards what was asked, I should in such a case answer the same way. This leaves me with a conundrum: answer the questions without looking at what I just wrote, knowing that it will turn out much the same way, or directly copy/paste the items in. I decided to do the latter, as I liked my answers. This left me wondering what exactly you'd give me marks for in the second section, having just seen the same thing in the first. Certainly the motivation would be there to give a mark for the first set of answers, and not for the second, being only the photocopy of the first. To avoid this I decided I **would** write something different in this reflection space (this explanation), and explain why I should not get a separate grade for the same answer. First, and most logically, the questions asked were identical; this is what led to the above conclusions. Secondly, we come to why exactly those two sets of questions were identical: these classes are taught by the same professor, marked by the same TA, populated by most of the same students and run on the same wikis. I would submit that in fact they work on similar principles, though in separate fields. This might seem counter-intuitive at a glance: analyzing comics and media against interface design? How do they connect? How indeed. Both involve a high level of intuitive analysis, both study technological creations (where technology is used in a broad sense: language and printing as well as computers and the internet), and both are subject to increasing advances in said technology (with a broad convergence as a theme we see in McCloud's reinventing comics, where one of his strongest themes is that the internet is changing the way comics work). With this in mind, the courses are joined at the hip so to speak, meaning that these wikis are in my mind extensions of one another. It makes sense then that an assignment such as this, on the same medium for classes that share so much, should be copied exactly between the courses. With this in mind, the grade should not change between either assignment based simply on the fact that the answers remain constant. If anything, that is an attestment to the great convergence we see in the two courses. >
 * 1) This is the second time on wikispaces, and the third time I've used a wiki. I'm a big fan of wikipedia and have done several edits and posts. It's November, and I haven't had the kind of time I had for 205 last year so far. My goal is 100 posts in each wiki (300 and 333), and I expect a lot of myself, so I was particularly concerned when Mike Jones said "well, chances are if you haven't answered the analysis questions yet you're not going to get a good mark". It's probably not true in my case, but it does underscore the need for work and the problem with this format - if you don't get into the habit of doing it every so often, you can just forget about it until it's too late. My previous understanding of wikis is pretty comprehensive, so as far as it goes I didn't think I'd learn too much more; I was wrong. They've added a bunch of new features, and I didn't realize that they let you customize the interface to your heart's content. I'm thinking that I'll get into that and see what I can do. I did one of the prefab layouts for the 300 wikispace, but I'm thinking I'll try and make my own way on the 333 one if I have the chance. It could be fun. As for learning, a big part of what makes this so important is that I can just go through and pick through and read different articles that interest me. I find I learn best that way - a massive amount of what I know from the last few years has serious connections to wikipedia, which I'll peruse for hours at a time. I'll click on one article, read it, click something inline that I don't understand, read that article, and so on. I think I can contribute a lot, because as I do the above I see things that people have written that 'bug me', and I feel the need to fix them. I'll see spelling and grammar mistakes, and I'll fix them more often than not; I absolutely hate incorrect facts. I can tell when someone has no idea what the book is talking about and has put an idea into 'their own words', only to have it come out incomplete and inaccurate. I like to fix that if I can, and my extensive computer-related knowledge and fact finding skills tend to come to the advantage of myself and the wiki.
 * 2) As I said in the above posting, I tend to contribute to and change postings that I run across that hit on some kind of small nerve. If I see one or two spelling mistakes, I'll usually let it slide. If there's any grammar issues, I'll tend to edit that more often. Factually inaccurate statements or obviously plagurised work gets my goat, and that's in my top list to edit. With this in mind, I am quite fine with adding to and editing / redoing other peoples work. Some people get a bit bent out of shape over it, but I feel that occurs in direct ratio with how little they understand the idea of a wiki. I don't usually check my own work for modifications, but I do enjoy it when someone comes in and fixes something I've half done and come back to. If someone thinks there's a problem with my work, I'd be happy for them to try and fix it. If it's not as good as what I did, then a quick check of the history will show that; if it is better, then they've helped me and the community.
 * 3) It's difficult to write this because again, I've written the same answers to the same basic questions just yesterday on the 333 wiki, but in any case. What challenges and limitations did I face while working collaboratively on the wiki... I spoke about this in my 333 response, that I felt like I had less time for real edits and way more superficial ones this time around, because of the extra work this term and the fact that there was so many more wikis than in 205. I got the real feeling nobody was doing the real idea of wikis this year: we were mostly minding our own businesses. I'd edit a page, come back to it 2 weeks later and it'd be the same almost exactly, sans one sentence. There's a real problem in that. I think rather than repeating the same mantra every tutorial ("Do your wiki! work on your wiki!" It became a joke. You'll remember the guy who walked into class impersonating Prof. Jones - "To summarize every tutorial, just work on your wiki). You say that, everyone leaves, and eventually nobody comes. I think a stronger focus on what you expect people to do with the wikis - get involved, read what everyone else is writing and contribute to it, and then have them sit there in class while you lead by example and edit a few pages yourself maybe every so often while people do the same thing themselves. Walk around and make sure people are on the wiki, not chatting on msn, and editing pages. If they're not, ask them why. Show formatting techniques. We literally were told "here's a wiki, go to it!" and as silly as it sounds I knew a few people who couldn't figure out how to properly do linking or know about TOC. I still have people (this is Thursday I'm writing this) who are telling me "oh I have my doc done in word, I'll just paste it in tonight". Hello? This is a challenge to wikis, and they're not going to get it in a lot of cases unless it's put directly in front of them. What advantages are there to wikis? More opinions and more workers on the same problem optimally. It's a great thing, when people work together for a common goal. And even better than that is when people become enthusiastic about working together for a common goal. I think we've seen a bit of that, especially with the nice graphical banners and other 'you didn't need to do that' type edits we've seen. That needs to be fostered, so everybody is doing that kind of stuff on a bi-weekly basis. Then we'd have wikis that would really shine.