Reflection

Well, it's time for summary. 

In terms of what I expected for this series of exercises, I was surprised in a lot of ways.  At first I expected this to be completely centered upon different tools one could implement into Blogger; while a lot of the things we examined can be integrated directly into blogger, they are most certainly their own stand-alone products.  I hadn't heard of over half of these tools before we were given tasks to explore them. I like to keep my internet usage as simple and streamlined as possible, and to avoid finding more and more things to distract me online (I have enough of those already).  I hadn't used social bookmarking like delicious, nor had I ever signed up for a Twitter account.  Facebook was too much for me as it is- I only check it once every few days, and rarely if ever make comments or post updates.  I can see the use and benefits of a lot of these tools; I just don't think that they fit with my personal ideal internet experience.  I'm a firm believer in the KISS principle.

No, not that one.  I mean "Keep it Simple, Stupid".

In all honesty, I wasn't that interested in the Wordle assignment.  On a very large news website or social networking site this tool may be interesting: it would be a very easy way to assess the general mood, political affiliations, personal ideals, etc. of the user-base that utilizes the tools on those webpages regularly.  For me, a person who has been keeping up two blogs for a relatively short amount of time, it seemed less beneficial.  All I could thing to grasp from the exercise was what I mentioned earlier; to try and vary word usage more so as to not seem repetitive.

I think my favorite post was the assignment where we were supposed to create a mashup: it allowed me to focus on a topic that I found interesting and enjoyable, while at the same to flex my creative and argumentative muscles in a unique and cohesive multimedia resource.  I spent a good deal more time on this post than any of the other 13 things postings, simply because I actually enjoyed the experience quite a bit and wanted to make the mashup look proffesional and presentable.

I think in the future, if I try and develop it into a habit, Google Reader could be a great tool for me with its RSS feeds.  I often find myself hopping back and forth between websites throughout the day checking for new updates: if I could integrate all of my favorite sites into Google Reader, it would save me a lot of time and procrastination excuses in the process.  As I don't have the desire to keep up a twitter account or other social networking media, I believe Google Reader will benefit my internet experience most in the future.

There's been a lot of buzz in the news about the way that technology is rewiring our brains; we are no longer chmically rewarded for sticking to and accomplishing one task- instead, our brains ahve become rewired to reward us by jumping back and forth between numerous tasks, encouraging distraction, procrastination, and poor focus.  This video details some of that:



As such, it was nice being allowed to take this series of assignments at my own pace, and to be exposed to these "distractions" in non-threatening and simple ways.  It allowed me to explore the topics thoroughly, mess around with them, squeeze them for potential uses, all the while never feeling burnt out or annoyed with the tasks.  That being said, outside of very specific or circumstantial situations, I don't see myself making any of the tools we researched a part of my daily life.  I have enough things to take care of, be passionate about, and manage as it is.  Still, it's a very good thing to be aware and experienced in these things, even if we don't intend to use them personally; our world is shifting into a constantly more-digitized iteration of itself, and you have to keep up with trends if you're going to stay competitive in business and personal interactions.

Word Clouds

So, gang, we're going to play with word clouds today.  Here are two word clouds: one for this blog, and one for my other blog, Stoner at the Movies.





Well, it's nice to know that the most often words in my movie blog are "movie" and "film".  This seems appropriate, while the rest of the words in that cloud are mostly actor names or movie titles, or common things I analyze in movies.  As for this blog, it seems kind of all across the board.  "Like" and "share" are huge, but that makes me seem like a Facebook page.  I also use the word "seem" a lot, which probably means that the things I"m talking about are things that I am just recently forming opinions on, and therefore I don't have concrete opinions or judgements of them yet.  Past that the next biggest titles are all of the different tools we've used in our different exercises. 

Though I don't find this exercise particularly helpful with these two blogs, I can see how it would come in handy when trying to find specific content within a convoluted webpage, or to see which words you use too often in order to make sure that your prose is diverse.  If I kept a professional blog this is certainly something I would check from time to time as a precaution against my prose becoming too formulaic or stale.  Other than that I can't think of too many relevant applications, though it is another fun thing that I enjoy fiddling around with.

Visual Thesaurus

For my exploration of visual thesauri, I chose the word "estimate".  In all honesty, for the first few minutes I just dragged the center dot along the screen and entertained myself by watching the words fly around behind it.  From there "estimate" I went to "idea", then to "musical theme", then off to "melodious", then to "mellow".  It's interesting to see where these distantly connected words will take you.   "Mellow" is my favorite word that I came across, so I chose to stop on it.  This word can mean everything from "adj. having attained to kindliness or gentleness through age and experience; "mellow wisdom"; "the peace of mellow age" to "adj. unhurried and relaxed; "a mellow conversation".

Usually, I don't use a thesaurus when I'm writing.   I have a relatively large vocabulary, and I only implement the use of a thesaurus if the only words that come to mind don't quite achieve what I've been trying to accomplish.  When I do, I'm always very careful with the words I choose to ensure that my intent is communicated correctly.

When I chose to look up the word "lounge" I came across "lollygag", which is a fantastic word that isn't used nearly enough, in my opinion.  When I looked up "stand", I came across "hunker down" (to bend or huddle into a crouch or seated position) and "joggle", which means "n. a screw that screws into a nut to form a fastener".  Can't say that I see the connection there.

 I enjoy coming across fun words here and there, but I don't actively seek them out, for the most part.  When I do find complicated or unusual words that I like, I usually don't implement them in conversations.  It tends to be more hassle than it's worth to explain the word's meaning to someone who doesn't understand.  Still, this is an interesting online tool that I wasn't previously aware of.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons seems like a great concept to me.  So often copyrighted material online is used completely illegally, without permission from the owners or anyone involved with its creation (pirating, unauthorized distribution, etc).  It believe that the CC license is a great way to sponsor collaboration between artists and creators, and can ultimately produce works that outclass anything the original creator of a CC product could ever have imagined.  Music and visual media seem to be the most common uses of such a license, but I can think of many different ways that it could be applied to topics such as writing, as well. 

I've heard of round-robin stories, which allow for many different writers to create a story together, taking turns per chapter, or something similar.  CC could allow some writers to embellish or expand upon CC'd material, to create their own version of a story, or to tell their version of what happened to characters after the CC'd story ended.  For journalistic writing, CC may allow further distribution and proliferation of your work while still maintaining credit for it. 

I'm not sure I understand all of the ins and outs of Creative Commons yet, but it seems like a great concept that could be put to great use.

That being said, perhaps I wouldn't want some written material of mine to become creative commons.  If I retained credit for the original work and someone modified it into something that is of inferior quality to the original, it may be difficult for a reader to tell which parts were mine and which were the contributor's, making me look bad in their estimation.

Google Reader

RSS feeds are something I'd never heard of before this assignment.  I'd seen the orange symbol floating around on different sites for some time, but never really decided to look into it further.  It seems like a really cool concept: I know that when I have a few minutes with nothing else to do, I flip through bookmarked web pages compulsively just to see what's new, even if nothing is.  This might help save me a bit of time and effort, if I can find which sites I frequent use RSS.  It's nice to be able to see at a glance the headlines of all of the niche news sites I visit.  It's definitely a tool I think I'll play around with some more.

Professionally, I think that this could be used in a number of ways, particularly for PR or Advertising majors.  You could keep in touch with world news and stay up to date with cultural, worldly, and pop culture trends.  Additionally, you could track web pages of clients/pages that are surfed by target demographics to see how best to appeal to them.  For those that read a number of blogs, this is a great help as well, just loading up one page to see what's new with all of them.

Delicious

This seems like an incredibly useful tool.  I've been meaning to start up a Delicious account for a while now, so this was a good excuse to get into the habit.  What seems most beneficial about this site to me is for cataloging interesting sites or articles that you stumble across on the web that you don't visit regularly, but would like to keep track of.  With a nicely tagged catalog on Delicious, you can easily access those sites for reference or to show to friends.


In terms of using a Delicious account for college work, it may be most beneficial for people working on research papers who reference a number of online sources, or for those planning larger projects in order to keep track of all of the urls and sites that may slip your mind.  My fiancee is currently using her Delicious account to plan tons of different things for our wedding: dress ideas, catering options, decoration colors, furniture for our house she finds online, whatever.  Seems like a really handy tool I'd like to start using more often.

Delicious username: chrisstoner

Twitter

1.  I'm currently following a variety of people in the movie, comedy, and gaming industries.  These include The Onion, Jon Favreau, Nathan Fillion, Rooster Teeth Productions, and Rotten Tomatoes. 

It seems to me that professionals utilize twitter mainly to get the word out about something new they're working on, or to weigh in on contentious pop culture/social issues.  It's definitely a good way to let people know that you still exist and are doing things that are interesting.  Writers and PR majors could use it to advertise their work in ways that don't initially seem like advertising- advertising done through Twitter seems a bit more like "friendly-recommendations from people you know" than just seeing a Facebook message or banner ad.  The brevity seems to work to people's advantage here: interest is piqued, and you have to click links to look into things more. 

On more personal levels, it seems like a good way to get to know a person a lot better.  With the limited format, people can't ramble on about things, and have to distill it down to what they really want to say.

I'm not sure I'll keep Tweeting the rest of the semester-  It just seems like one more thing I could get tied up in that doesn't have enough benefits to be worthwhile, in my particular case.  I'm sure I'll check in on the people I'm following to see what they're up to through their tweets, but it's not a networking site that immediately grabs my attention.

Commenting and Tagging: Organizational and Motivational Necessities

I think commenting on blogs and having an active reader community for your own blog is incredibly important.  Without readers and their comments, their input, an online writer may as well by scribbling away in a journal that he hides under his mattress at night.  No one will ever read it, and no one will ever care.  If online writers do not get regular comments, they will lose motivation, and will likely not keep their blogs continually updated.  With commenting readers, PR people also know whether their articles are having the desired effect or not.

I think that some of my fellow students are doing some really interesting things.  I love the photo-a-day project that Angelea is starting (she's got some really interesting snapshots on her Flickr account already), and Jason's Raw Fitness blog is very well-researched and informative in regards to losing weight and staying healthy.  It's also been fun reading Cia's blog about her experiences as a foreign student on Coe's campus, and the interesting presentation and links that she has posted on the blog to give it a personal flair.

For the most part, on my Stoner at the Movies blog I have used tags to differentiate between articles.  I have two main categories in my tags so far: Reviews and Overanalyze That.  I also tag any entertainment IP I mention in a post, such as the movie I'm reviewing or the actors that star in it.  This will help my viewers seek out what articles interest them as the blog grows in its content and scope.

Mind-Mapping

I really enjoyed this activity.  Not only was it a good way to get my plans for my blog down in a visual format... It also showed me which segments might get a little overwhelming if I focused on them too much or too often, and which could use more consideration and expansion in the future.  It's great for brainstorming writing topics or planning order of events, and making connections between topics that might come in handy.  It definitely applies to different subjects than Mashups do.  This seems more writing, thought, and conceptual based, while Mashup seems to be more about actually conveying information visually, textually, and audibly. 

I think I liked this better than making a bubble-graph on paper- it's quick, it's easy, it makes sense, and you can rearrange at will without the drawing getting all confused-looking.  This seems like a really handy tool for someone who needs a lot of reminders and notes about ideas they come up with, like me.

Wiki Work

 Post on How to Set Up a Page

From the Facebook login page, look at the bottom right corner of the screen, and there will be a link that says "Create a Page for a celebrity, band or business". After clicking on this, you are taken to a screen that offers a choice between two types of pages: Community Page or Official Page. For a business, you want to choose Official page. In that column, fill out all of the relevant data: Type of business, name of the business (and page), and confirm that you are indeed the official representative of the group in question. From that point on it is a simple matter of appointing others within your organization who are also capable of managing the page, and formatting the page itself to fulfill your business's aims.

Post on Advice for Posting

If you are a product/sales based organization, such as a coffee shop or a publishing outlet or what-have-you, perhaps it would be beneficial to post promotional items on the Facebook page, such as coupons or notifications of sales to pique patron interest and to get them to invite their friends to "like" the page. Of course, background, locations, mission statement, logos, and pictures of your business and staff are a must to present a friendly and accessible attitude. In addition to advertisements, polls such as "what is your favorite drink/product offered by us" to encourage participation may be helpful as well.

Post on Great Professional FB pages

Domino's Pizza Posts many times a week- all posts are pizza related, but usually have fun plays on common phrases or basic polls quizzes that don't come off as blatant advertisements. They keep a conversation and mindfulness about their product while not badgering their fans with belligerent advertising.

Roger Ebert and Video Games

Last April, Roger Ebert wrote a lengthy article for the Chicago Sun-Times explaining an off-the-cuff comment he once made clearly stating that video games "can never be art".  After months of angry online comments and controversy springing up on film and video game news sites alike, Ebert wrote a followup article in July revising, though not rescinding, his original stance.

I, like many others, felt rather betrayed by Ebert's initial article: a man whose opinions I greatly valued denouncing something that's been a part of my life since childhood.  After reading his second submission on the subject, I have to empathize with where he is coming from, although I don't agree with the "foregone conclusion" attitude he still takes in categorizing the video game genre as entirely devoid of artistic significance.

Though I do not necessarily intend to change his, or anyone's mind, I decided to compile a mashup of some of my initial ideas on the topic.





This was my first experience with creating a mashup.  It was an interesting experience: the collage aspects of the program definitely helped encourage the use of a variety of different mediums in communicating ideas.  I liked how all of my information didn't have to be contained on that one page; thanks to links and embedded videos, my mashup encourages viewers to explore the topic further outside of my mashup page.  However, I find the space somewhat confining.  I had more to say, but there just wasn't room for it.  I'm a heart a writer, and would certainly prefer to give a thorough and detailed write-up of the subject to compliment the mashup and expand on my ideas.  In the end, it was a fun thing to experiment, but I feel may prefer the standard blog format.  With that, I can still embed videos and display images, all the while keeping a focused and driving written commentary going to string the ideas presented in the visual media together.

Getting Started

The Blog's Name

I'll be straightforward with you: I have never read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.  I just liked the book's name and couldn't come up with a title for my blog.  I had only a little time to set up the site, and I wasn't feeling creative-- I was feeling referential.  That does leave the fact that I knew next to nothing about the book that I was naming my blog after.

Until now.

Thanks to my good old pal Wikipedia, I am aware that the cover of the book looks like this:

And, having read further, I am aware that The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test details the life of hero Ken Kesey and his friends, the "Merry Pranksters", who do little more than go to Grateful Dead concerts in their tie-dye school bus, "Furthur", all the while tripping on insane amounts of LSD.

Think Scooby-Doo without the dog.

• Or the creepy old men in monster costumes.  
• Or the family-friendliness.  
• Or those delicious-looking Scooby Snacks. 

Back to Writing 
 
Anyway, that little nugget of late-1960's counter-culture memorabilia isn't my point-- at least not directly.  In our generation, the way we perceive the world has changed dramatically-- as has the way we read and write about it.

Consider, for a moment, this aforementioned tale of traveling and self-discovery through hallucinogenic experimentation.  Back then, the way to find yourself was to get out into the world and experience it, to break away from the familiar.  I think that starting with our generation, we have become much more likely to define ourselves through technology: we form a persona online, through Facebook, or blogs, or even creating digital "avatars" of ourselves in video games or other social websites.  

Our reading habits have become digitized as well-- more and more people are buying Nooks, Kindles, and iPads to conduct their leisure reading upon.  As these trends have become more exaggerated, the way we read and write have changed substantially.

Here's what "Uncle Stevie" has to say about the issue:
 



Food for thought.

Interests in Web 2.0

What I find most interesting about Web 2.0 applications (blogs, specifically) is the way that they give writers an instant outlet to the readers, and are capable of receiving instantaneous feedback as well.  Our parents had "Letters to the Editor"... we have Facebook and blogs.  There is perhaps no more accessible and socially relevant way for a writer to get his or her material out there and affecting the world.  Blogs are also an ideal way for individuals with similar interests to follow each other and grow in their appreciation for common enthusiasms.  With this blog, I hope to learn the basic functions of the blogger website- mess around with the tools so that I become proficient in using blogger.  As a result, my other blog will look all the more professional with these experiences.

My mission with my other blog, Stoner at the Movies, is to provide reviews for and commentary upon the new movies that hit theaters every week.  These discussions will come in a variety of formats, including journalistic reviews, in-depth film analysis entries, and video podcast quick-reviews.

I hope that by providing this content, I can advise my readers what movies are worth their skyrocketing ticket prices during these tough economic times.  I also hope to foster the cinematic enthusiasms of my readers by interesting them in films that they may otherwise not have considered, or movies that passed them by without their knowledge.

Jumping into Web 2.0

So.  I've been given this assignment in my Advanced Writing Workshop class to dive headfirst into Web 2.0.  I suppose my experience with Web 2.0 started in high school with a Xanga profile, which I used to prove to people I didn't know how emotionally deep and whiny I was.

Since then, my only other foray into the medium has been a Facebook account that I fail to check more than once or twice a week.  I post on someone else's wall maybe once a month.

Suffice it to say that I'm not a major proponent of social networking.  I have, however, been curious about starting up a blog, and this is as good an opportunity as any to get one up and running.  In addition to this one (which will be a "test blog", a repository of random entries made on a whim or for class assignments), I will also be frequently updating a film review blog, Stoner at the Movies.