Dan+Lee

//**Nov 12th -**// **Online Gambling (History)** //**Nov 17th - Logo of TOAD on home page (Added - 1st to advertise my project wikispace! :D)**// //**Nov 23rd - History of Hip Hop (added timeline under History) Dec 6th - New Media From Borges To HTML - A Summary (Added) Dec 7th - The Rise and Fall of the Hit - A Summary (Added) Dec 7th - The Resurrection of the Mass Media in the New Media Economy (Added) Dec 8th - Online Gaming - Online Poker (Added) (Analysis of Genre)
 * //Edits://**

1. When first encountering wiki at the beginning of the course.**// > >
 * **//What do you think/feel about this collaborative learning environment ?//**
 * **//What are your expectations for yourself ?//**
 * **//If you have previously used wiki in another course, describe what you have previously learned and how you want to expand your understanding.//**
 * **//What can you contribute as an experienced participant?//**

I am brand new at this intereting online idea collaborations. Before I entered the course I didn't really understand what "Wiki" is and the advantage of it, I just thought it was an online encyclopedia. After learning a few things about "Wiki" in CCT300H5, I am beginning to understand the importance of collaborative ideas and contribution. I am actually getting pretty comfortable with the interface here on wikispaces.com and I am actually really enjoying my stay here. I can, and have been, learning more about the web and websites itself after getting a better understanding of "Wikis". One can start to understand how "HTML" works and how it can be implemented in different scenarios. I have never used a "Wiki" in another course, and I personally think that this is an amazing opportunity for exposure. I will keep on contributing to the best of my ability, I actually should start logging my contributions here. Step by step, I believe I can eventual get a good grasp of the fundementals of websites, and maybe design one myself in the very near future. You never know, although internet has been around for almost a decade now, there are still many opportunities for an individual to shine.

> >
 * //2. Think about the following and answer to the best of your ability://**
 * **//How do you choose which postings to contribute or change? What do you look for?//**
 * **//What are your thoughts on adding, editing or re-arranging other people's work?//**
 * **//Do you regularly check your own postings for alterations? Has anyone changed your work and how have you felt about it?//**

Regarding contributions, I like to read what other people have to say on a particular subjects. I would browse through the "Table of Contents" and look for things thats either strike an interest in me or seem to be educating. I do have to admit, if the content is boring, I typically just scroll through it and don't take more notice. However, if a subject is well organized and the ideas presented are interesting and relevent, I would stop and see what I can contribute. For example, I've been contributing to the "Online Gambling" topic in "Table of Contents" because it is relevent to my Cultural Jamming Project ([|TOAD]). However, I do have to step it up a notch and contribute more. I am definitly pro-wiki, I believe it is very useful because afterall, no "one source" is ever correct or up-to-date, it takes a collection of bright minds to define everything thats around us, what we call "reality". In this era or sharing, from Napster to BitTorrent, from Wikis to online forums, although against large corporations liking, people are coming together (a little political I know, but I can't help it). It balances out the power between the grand public, the government, and the corporations. I can get a little scared sometimes when I'm contributing however, because I personally don't want to put in wrong information, but if it is wrong, other people can definitly make changes to it as well. I check my own postings from time to time, and unfortunately, I havn't have the pleasure of having someone change my contents yet, but I am sure that will come soon.

//**3. As a final reflection for the course, post your thoughts and ideas on:**//
 * //**challenges or limitations you experienced while working collaboratively on wiki**//
 * //**advantages or benefits from participating in this wiki**//
 * //**things about the course you thought worked well and/or suggested improvements**//

After the course, I would say I had quite a bit of experiences on the the collaborative nature of wikis. Definitly a few things I believe should be improved. The visual editor is helpful, but it does create alot of problems sometimes. It doesn't always grant posters the freedom he/she wants. Many times when I tried to change pictures, edit words, change fonts (bold, underline...etc), the wiki would do a totally unexpected thing. In addition, when it came to saving edits, the wiki always added wierd symbols and spacings onto the saved copy. This gave me a lot of headache when I was involved heavily on the final project wikispace. There are many technical problems that should be fixed. For instance, when many people are editing a page at the same time, the system sometimes would get confused who is saving what edits, and I would lose work at times. This had happened to me a few times. Another difficulty I faced was hypertexting words. It was hard for me to find the wanted page to be linked in the "link" pop-up. I always had to manually copy the URL of the pages that I wanted to link to. Maybe my inexperience with the wiki contributes to that factor, but since wiki is targeted towards alot of people, it should be made as idiote-proof as possible. One last problem wikis face is not a technical one. Although the collaborative nature of the wiki improves learning in a collaborate environment, but for people who likes to get credit for the work he/she has done, wikis aren't the prime medium for it. Getting credits isn't just about pride, it is about recognition and possible reputation building. This ties into alot of the course materials covered this semester such as the issue with decentralization of mass media. Even though receivers on wikis are also the senders and vice versa, building a "community" within wikis still relies somewhat on name recognitions.

However, with that being said, wikis do offer plenty of advantages and benefits. One of the most apparent ones is obviously the collaborate nature wikis offer. It definitly helps in group all contributors as "one". That benefits of that is of course a collaborative learning, which utilizes the idea of "many brains is better than one". Another benefit of wikis that stands out is the fact that people can express freely their opinion, and obviously questions which can be witnessed the FAQs of this course wikispace. Again, it benefits in the nature of collaborative learning in that aspect. One last interesting advantage of wikis is extremly simple in idea, but very important in our society, and that is the purpose of wikis. It isn't about gains anymore, it is really about people coming together to deliver various knowledge and "information" accurately. This benefits human kind and can possibly bring learning into a higher level.

In contrast of benefits again, I just like to state that although I am all for the development of wikispaces and other collaborative "learning" tools, I believe the collaborative nature should stay in the education aspect of things. The society does need "credits" and "recognized contributions" to differentiate the elites from the average joe, which obviously gives an edge to those who works hard in the society. If it isn't kept in the education aspect, it isn't much different from Communism. However, I am debating myself here a little, but I have to restate that the fact that "receivers are also senders" is a very democratic movement, which gives the power back to the people. It is just the idea of gains spread among everyone that is a controversial part of collaboration. Again, since what I have experienced so far has been within the education and collaborative learning point of view, I still believe that wikis are very useful for defining our perception of "reality" in a way encyclopedias cannot compete with. This is just my opinion.

Aside from experiencing wikis, I really truly believe that this course was exceptional! Issues that impacts our society in an extremely important way were addressed and the neccessary questions were asked. Even after writing the exam, I personally had a nice long chat with my father who was very involved in the advertising field in his younger days, and we discussed about the problem internet poses towards the advertising business. The problem with internet being both broadcasting and narrowcasting is evident through the AOL/Time Warner merger. Until this day, I still don't believe they achieved anything influencial that benefits the coporations (I'm talking from the viewpoint of large corporations). The audience has been given too much control with the internet (please don't judge me on what I am saying, I am just talking from a money making perspective), and advertisements on the internet simply arn't living up to their full potentials like how it did with television (since television is a one-way street in the process of communication between sender and receiver). This is a very frustrating situation. If the balance is tipped too much towards the audience, advertisements of corporations start losing its influences. However, if the balance is tipped too much towards the large players (mass media), the audience starts to get acustomed to the on-going commercials and gets irritated. This balance is unbelievably hard to achieve! The "YouTube" example brought up to me by friends and even the course exam itself is truly a phenomenon. It just hit a tiny bit of this delicate equalibrium, and look at where YouTube is now, and the potential it can have as an advertising medium (yes you have probably guessed it, advertising is an immense interest to me). I can honestly go on and on about this sort of discussion, but I will save you guys a few minutes by concluding that this course has been very interesting, and it really did help me define my interest with an educated mind. The part about McLuhan's Tetrads is also very new to me, which really gave me a different perspective of "balance". A few things that this course can utilize is definitly involvements among the classmates. I think these are issues that cannot be taught (obviously besides the important theories and ideas), they need to be discussed, which will benefit the students alot better than just listening. Another is the part about "genre", it is too loosely defined and the material gathered from lectures regarding genre isn't particularily mind boggling. Basically what I am suggesting is making the materials on "genre" more diverse, as in history of genre, formation of these genres, important theories behind each genre, what is the purpose of each genre...and so forth. Obviously that is just a thought, because I know that understanding "genre" in depth isn't really beneficial (for me anyways).

Overall, I have to give both Profs a really good handshake. This course really did influence me and have me give faith back to education again. The way this course was taught was truly a "university education" experience, and this is the first time I felt this way ever since I first stepped foot in U of T. Again, thanks Mike and David for a great experience!