Eliza's Midterm 1 Reflective Post: Consume/Create/Connect

These are the posts I’ve put online so far:

·         Call Me Eliza.

·         DigHT What?

·         Discovering on the Shoulders of Giants, e.g. with Pinterest

·         Science Writing in Moby Dick  

·         #LDSConf Experience

I don’t see much of a theme in my posts so far, but I would like to ponder on this page about a topic blogged about by Kylee of Team Ishmael in a post called “Seeing Good.” She talked about a perspective change regarding video games. I want to discuss a similar perspective change through my own lens.

Here’s where I’m coming from: Before my mission, I spent a lot of time online doing things that really weren’t necessary, every single status update on Facebook and hunting repeatedly for smidgens of news about upcoming films and albums. The internet helped me keep up with some news and people, sure, but I was overusing it to procrastinate and soothe. During my mission, I decided to spend less time on the internet and more time in “real life.” (Texting and Facebook were introduced in missionary work after I went home.) I have been slightly successful in that resolution and have been proud of it, so this class’ enthusiasm towards and focus on embracing and exploring technology and the internet is a bit jarring.

I didn’t realize that a clear, even public, online life is so important now in the real world, and I’m still concerned about excessive time spent online. That time online was mostly spent consuming, in my case, and it seems that many negative stereotypes concern excessive consumption. Our class emphasizes connecting and creating as the other two sides to the digital literacy triangle. Connecting and creating are crucial skills in the modern career world.

My research/writing question is this: what is the most effective way to help knowledge/social media/news junkies transition into regularly creating and connecting online?

Socially Optimized Voyage (Midterm Prewriting)

Here is my brief outline for what I'm thinking of doing my paper on:

Basically after talking about Socially Optimized Research in class last Wednesday, I got this impression that this is what Captain Ahab did preparing for his voyage to get Moby Dick. First he had to "tell people" about the trip. He searched high and low for different crew members to join him (even if they didn't initially know they were going on a trek for an unbeatable white whale) who had a love for the sea and training in whaling. Next step is "curating research." There's a quote in chapter 44 about how Ahab has "large wrinkled roll of yellowish sea charts" and books and and logs of sperm whale sightings. Then we have "searching new media and social networks" (content vs people) which to me would be the first mates (specifically Starbuck) who have more insight on this quest, but still aren't scholars on Moby Dick (this is a little different from my initial notes above - more specific and less about all the crew members who fit better in the "tell people" stage). In addition to that, I thought of the log and the line in chapter 125 and how Ahab went from a compass to "new media" using the log and the line to get pointed in the right direction again. Last is searching traditional scholarship. All the ship captains Ahab talks with during the voyage would, to me, be the traditional sources he would go to for specific information about the whale because these ships like the Rachel (ha I said Rebecca in my notes - ignore that) actually encounter the whale.

Anyway, I'm still working on an exact thesis statement and the "so what," but any thoughts? If you think I'm stretching it please let me know. Good luck to you all on your own papers! I've seen some really excellent ideas.

Where Do We Belong (Midterm Reflection Post)

So to examine what I have so far, here's the index of my posts as of right now:

• About Myself (intro post)
• Syntax of Moby Dick and the Internet (syntax of Moby Dick and how that relates to today's digital syntax)
• Classifying Literature and Blogs (the different classifications/labels that apply to Moby Dick and the written word in general)
• Avatars of Moby Dick (looking at the persona of Ishmael, the many genres Moby Dick fits with, and how this all relates to the avatars we create for ourselves on the internet)
• Crowdsourcing with Moby Dick (how people are using crowdsourcing to sponsor Moby Dick)
• Catching Our Moby Dicks of the Internet (discussing long tail effects and the isolation vs community we find online)
• Which Character are You? (discussing personas of the characters in Moby Dick and how they would be avatars of people in this class/entering digital culture)
• Spiraling into Academic Blogging (discussing the spiral metaphor and the class' next steps in blogging)
• Digital Culture in the LDS Church (how the church approaches the advantages of the internet)

I think a lot of my posts relate to the people behind the post. This theme is especially pointed out in "Which Character are You?," "Avatars of Moby Dick," and the second paragraph of "Catching Our Moby Dicks of the Internet." I've even mentioned in plenty of comments on other people's blogs and in Google+ updates how people use the internet and crowdsourcing in ways to promote their work. I commented in this post asking how scholarly blogs will find a place in the internet, a Google+ update talking about how this video found its success on the internet, commented here how the LDS Church has found ways to utilize the internet, two more comments here and here thinking of everyday people behind academic posts giving credible information, and so on.

Needless to say, I'm a bit more focused on what the person behind the screen has to say, and how to effectively get out there through the proper avenues online. We talked in September about Kompoz, Galaxy Zoo, mormon.org, Wattpad and dozens more websites available for crowdsourcing, for getting out there. But with so many options, it's difficult to decide which avenue would be right for you, and how to be recognized as a credible blogger, or musician, or cinematographer. In addition to that, what characteristics and goals will put one person into the Youtube vortex and another in the Vine world for example? Blogger vs reviewer? Ultimately I suppose I'm asking this: where do people entering the digital world belong in the digital world?