tiffanywu

=Welcome to Tiffany's Page ;)=

Hey everyone! My name is Tiffany I am currently a second year student at UTM majoring in CCIT. I transferred here from McMaster University, where I spent my first year specializing in commerce. This is my first time using wikispaces and I must say, it's going quite well. My interests include music, theatre and film, cultural studies, and consumer culture. Therefore, my page edits are based upon these topics. The media genre that I have created is "commodity fetishism," which is a part of consumer and popular culture. This is the topic that I would like to be graded on. I hope you find the information and the analysis' I provide to be interesting and worthwhile. = =

Major Contributions
nov.9.2006 - edited content and added bands to the "emo music" __bands__ nov.9.2006 - all content for "myspace" dec.5.2006 - organized and added bands to "alternative rock" dec.5.2006 - added all content and personal examples of __closure in film__ to "closure" dec.5.2006 - added __free photo booth__ video to comedy section of "funvideolinks" dec.5.2006 - organized layout and added __progressive bands__ to "progressive" music dec.5.2006 - added __post-hardcore bands__ to "post-hardcore" music dec.5.2006 - created and added all content for "indie" music dec.6.2006 - created the media genre "commodity fetishism." researched, organized and added all content. dec.6.2006 - added Nike Inc. examples and pictures to "commodity fetishism" dec.6.2006 - added two paragraphs of content to __experimental film__ for "independent film" dec.6.2006 - created and added content to __civilization without writing__ to "communication in ancient rome" dec.6.2006 - added content and examples of slang to the topic "slang in language" dec.6.2006 - created __images section__ and added images to the topic "shonen" dec.6.2006 - organized layout and created/added content to __the concept of form in film__ to "history of film." dec.8.2006 - organized format and created and added pictures to __image gallery__ for "fairy tales" dec.8.2006 - created and added content to __hot and cool media__ for "marshall mcluhan" dec.8.2006 - edited format and organized the media genre "hardcore" music dec.8.2006 - edited content for "myspace," corrected spelling errors, added references, organized format dec.8.2006 - added personal experience and feedback to "our final thoughts" for CCT300 = =

First Encounters
In my opinion, I believe that wikispaces helps students like us participate and be a part of a community where we can post our own opinions and thoughts about certain topics we are interested in. When I first encountered wikispaces in the beginning of the year, I was confused to what it really was. I had no idea that we were actually able to edit pages and post our thoughts online. I actually thought it was a site similar to ccnet: a place for students to get their lecture notes and look at their grades (eep!) However, I was clearly mistaken as I played around with the site and figured out what it really was. After discovering wikispaces this year, I believe that it is an effective learning environment for students to partake in. Those students who are too shy to participate in class are finally able to do so by posting their own thoughts online. In addition, this form of learning allows us to interact with other students with similar interests over the net, as we are prone to edit the topics we enjoy! The expections that I have for myself are that I will thoroughly research the topics that I feel strongly about. I will post these topics online for other students to view, expanding both my knowledge and theirs. Furthermore, I will view and edit other topics posted by other students to broaden my views.

Getting Comfortable...
When I look for postings to contribute or change on wikispaces, I generally search for topics that interest me. In this way, I am able to learn more about the background of the topic I've taken a particular interest in, as well as providing some feedback and possible new information that I can share. So far, I’ve been looking at topics regarding music, film, movies, and websites that I have joined, such as facebook and myspace. I'm a big music fanatic and I've taken film courses, which aid to helping me successfully contribute to these specific topics. In regards to my thoughts on adding, editing, or re-arranging other people's work, I feel that it is a great way for our peers to communicate with each other by sharing our knowledge of the topics we are experienced in. It's important for us to get our facts straight in an organized manner, and I believe that editing and re-arranging is the right solution to this. Lastly, I check my own postings every few days to see who has altered my page. In this way, it helps me see what errors I may have committed, while viewing new information as well. I do not feel negatively about other peers altering my posts. I would actually call it constructive criticism!

Final Thoughts
The challenges and limitations that I experienced while working collaboratively on the wiki was the fact how two people cannot edit the same media genre at the same time. This is understandable, but I found it pretty annoying when I clicked the "save" button" and discovered that someone else was editing the same content. This wasted some of my time as I had to wait for them to finish editing. In addition, I'm always unsure whether or not to "discard" other people's information when the pop-up shows up and tells me "someone has been editing this page. do you want to save or discard?" I have no idea what that means! Besides that little technical issue, another challenge was the amount of time I spent on community building. Given that I am currently taking 6.0 credits, also known as the maximum course load, I was unable to focus entirely on updating the wiki and viewing everyone's updates. However, I managed to salvage some time and spent a couple hours per day, consecutively editing and adding countless amounts of content to make up for my community building.

In my opinion, I believe that the advantages and benefits from participating in the wiki are that students are able to read up on their favourite topics of interest, while being able to edit the content and post their own thoughts at the same time. I believe wikispaces is an effective learning environment for all students. In addition, the things about CCT300 that I thought I worked well in was definitely the culture jamming project. I believe that project helped me criticize media effectively, while allowing me to familiarize myself with wikispaces through the creation and maintenance of our group wiki. I definitely like this course the way it is, so I do not have any suggestions for improvements. Thank you for the wonderful learning experience!