rays_analysis

=Ray's Reflection and Analysis= toc

Contributions

 * 1) Started Page"Iconic Superheroes" - December 2
 * 2) Removed dead picture links from "Culture Jamming" page - December 5
 * 3) Added examples of recent editorial cartoons to "Editorial Cartoons" page - December 6
 * 4) Started page "Zine History" - December 8
 * 5) Fixed layout of "Gutter, The" - December 8
 * 6) Added Table of Contents to "Al-Jazeera" - December 8

Main Contributions

 * 1) Iconic Superheroes
 * 2) Zine History

Part I
With a wiki learning environment I have to question whether we’re learning anything at all. Are we really visiting every page and learning? What do we do when we’re in this type of environment? Generally, I’d have to say most of us are looking for a way to critique and refute someone else’s postings, this leads to Wikipedia flaming issues.We’re definitely not going to have all the time in the world to go and check out every page and when we check out a page we’re probably not reading but just looking to make links and add pictures to what is already there to gain those all valuable “edits” Is that really learning? I don’t think so.

For this wiki, I personally expect myself to get started on it sooner but to be honest I don’t see myself being on it every day and checking out other peoples pages and making modifications. It just gets repetitive, tedious, and boring

From my previous experience with a wiki from CCT205 last semester, I feel that the wiki can get quite tedious and repetitive. Like many other people from last semester, I didn’t start the wiki until there was a couple of weeks left and when I did, I found that I was constantly going over the same things over and over – check my own content, check content of others, add a few things here and there.

I don’t even know if I personally learned anything from the wiki. There was so much random stuff that had nothing to do with the course just thrown up just because. Therefore, I don’t even know if the last wikispace (CCT205) can be declared a success. What is success? Is it the sheer amount of content on the space, whether or not it has anything to do with the course success? Or is it students taking away something from the space that they truly didn’t know? If the definition of success is the latter, I would have to say the previous wikispace crashed and burned.

Part II
When looking to edit to a page, I’m looking for something that I’m personally interested in so that I’ll care enough to do the proper research and contribute to the page in a meaningful way. I’m not looking to click around, hit a random page and add a few links.

There’s nothing wrong with re-arranging other peoples work, as long as it’s done in meaningful way. If you think something that I’ve posted can be better said if it was organized differently, then by all means re-organize it but don’t go and re-organize somebody else’s work just because your desperate to get some edits attached to your name.

It’s human nature to care about the things we create. It’s no different on the wikispace, when we create something we feel as if it is ours. As a result, we’ll constantly monitor it and see what others are adding or subtracting. But that’s where people tend to get emotional, they created it and if anybody changes anything it’s wrong and not as “perfect “ as it used to be. Having said that, I don’t have a problem with people editing what I’ve posted as long as they make a meaningful addition to what is already there.

Part III
Final Thoughts

The greatest challenge that I found on working collaboratively while on the wiki was not other students removing content that I had posted, but rather it was the actual wiki editor itself. I found that I spent a lot of time editing the content after I copied and pasted it from Microsoft Word because the editor would never paste the content correct. This is especially true when it came to bulleted lists that would never end up displaying correctly. After about 15 minutes of trying to align it correctly and it still not working sheer head banging frustration starts to set in. On the other hand, I also have to say the wiki editor has drastically improved from my experience with it in CCT205. Why? The ability to add content is easier, embedding media is easier, the picture alignment toolbar is great, and the “draft recovery” function is a godsend. However, even with all of these improvements, adding content to the wiki can still be a frustrating experience.

Advantages The only benefit I see in participating in the wikispace is most likely to be is come test time when other students start posting their summaries of lecture notes. Otherwise, as I’ve stated previously I don’t think much of the wiki as a collaborative learning environment. We’re not really learning anything aside from how to use a wiki editor, add a few links here and there, and “community maintenance” (code word for add any random thing you can pull out of your head).

I know I’m more than likely to get slammed for not starting this wikispace before December 1st but the wiki as a learning environment drives some students away.

Course Reflection Overall, I thought the course went pretty well. However, I have to question the need to buy "Understanding Comics" because only a very small section of it was used. Additionally, I know it may sound like I’m beating a dead horse, but biggest problem I had with this course is the wiki. It seems like every course I’m taking now has a wiki and when you look around the wiki people have posted contents from other wikis, but how can they help it though? There are only so many things you can say about “Critical Media” analysis before you start posting random pages like “ICQ” and “Console Wars”. I don’t mean to pick on those two pages but they just seems so random. Therefore, I would have preferred an essay or a different assignment that took up 25% of the class mark. In all honesty, I hope never to see another wiki again.