Analysis+and+Reflection+(John+Liu)


 * Community building and maintenance**

= = Setp 28 added name to " Wikispace Alias" Oct. 26 added to “Hierarchy of Media Genres”: Different types of action-games and strategy-games. Oct. 31 added “Reflection Part 1” Oct. 31 created a new page " Windows Vista " and added "Windows Vista" banner image Nov. 1 Posted My review of "Windows Vista" and Added an image of the Windows interface Nov. 1 Posted "Proposal**"** culture jaming project Nov. 2 Created"Jss Banner" to proposal Nov. 2 Added 4 links to Bibliography Nov. 4 linked works to " Community building and maintenance" Nov. 4 created a new page " Strategy game" and added more information to "Refelction" Nov. 5 Added "Analysis and Reflection Part 2" Nov. 6 created new page "Real-time strategy",added a list of popular games and created "RTS Banner" Nov. 8 Linked 25 RTS games titles to related website and subdivided Real-time strategy page Nov. 10 Added Introduction and Bibliography to Real-time strategy page Nov. 12 Added to History of RTS and Bibliography to Real-time strategy page Nov. 16 Posted linkes to "Research" page Nov 17 Added screenshots for Dune 2 to Real-time strategy page (screen captured and edited by me) Nov. 24 Reorganized the "proposal page" and changed some spelling errors and added more information about the project Dec. 1 Added 49 screenshots of 4 different videos to "Mock-ups" page and added to "Reference" page Dec. 8 Posted part 3 of "Analysis and Reflection", added images and informations to "Real-time strategy"


 * Analysis and Reflection**

Part 1

After my first encounter of Wikispaces, I felt intimidating, overwhelming and frustrating by this new learning environment. At first glance of Wiki’s interface, I had no idea where to begin because there was a vast amount of links and functions that was available on the page. But I would expect myself to navigate through Wiki without much problem as times goes by. Nevertheless, I was also amazed at how this collaborative environment is contributed by free labors of many hard online working users. I think this is a great social networking community for users to express and share their opinions and ideas where everyone can respond to it and edit it.

For beginners, I would suggest them to view the help sections in Wiki to get a general grasp of what Wiki is and its functionalities. Moreover, under the “[|Help section]” there is a Tour link that contains a series of flash movies that demonstrate the features of Wikispaces which I think are very helpful for beginners. The best way to approach Wiki is to use it and test the functions with the start of a blank page. To begin, just click on the “New Page” Icon that is located at the right hand corner of the navigation menu and see what you can do. Don’t worry! There is no way you can mess it up, Wiki allows the user to remove a page or undo it with a single click. So, just go and knock yourself out.

Part 2:

As I progresses through this Wiki assignment and get more familiar with Wiki’s interface, I found that Wiki has a user friendly environment. All the features are very accessible once you get use to its layout. I have mentioned above that Wikispaces is a collaborative environment and contains huge amount of postings on many topics. It is because of this that makes it hard for a user to contribute to every single one of them. Most of the time, I choose to contribute and change postings out of my own interest. For example, I like to test new softwares that are out on the market. So I wrote a review on the upcoming Windows Vista operating system. And occasionally, I might just contribute randomly as I browse through Wiki.

I believe the ability to adding, editing and re-arranging other people’s works in Wiki is the essence of this community building. This is the place where we see the true beauty of human race, a place that allows the sharing of knowledge and showing our care about something. I have regularly checked my own postings for alterations. Wiki has made this process easy by viewing the “History” page with a complete listing of changes to a post. For instance, under the history page on Nov 2 Shehatas has contributed to my proposal page with a few changes to my paragraph. After viewing some changes made by members, I found that the changes are made for the better of the community. This Wikispaces is for CCT 300 student, so I believe that no member would abuse this community and use it against their own interest.

Part 3:

It is almost the end of the term and our wikispaces is getting more active. I am impressed and amazed by the vast amount of information and knowledge produced by CCT300 students. From this collaborative environment, I have gained new knowledge that will be beneficial to my education. Most important of all, by reading and contributing to other’s works, I learned more about the people that are around me. For example by looking at students’ choice of topic and postings, we get a sense of what interests them the most. I believe Wiki would be a great social networking environment for the creation of knowledge and information that bring the world together.

As a beginner to wikispaces there are still many functions that I might not have explored, however I enjoyed this new learning environment. Even though this is the end of the term, I will continue my works with wiki and share all my interests and knowledge with others.