The BBC doco on internet history (additional Resource for this week) provides a comprehensive and balanced take on the emergence of internet infrastructure and online cultures. Their discussion on Wikipedia and interview with Ory okolloh (founder of Ushahidi) makes me think of Landow’s suggestion of hypertext environments as “a model of society or conversations in which no one conversation, no one discipline or ideology dominates or founds the others.” (Landow 2006:123)
How the internet works
In the lecture this week I mentioned a video that explains how information data is accessed and distributed online, in a bit more detail that I did. You can find it here.
I know that this may not interest a lot of you, but the idea is about developing a deeper understanding of what goes on when we create content online. Also it’s less than 5 minutes long, so worth watching!
What you’re writing – Week 4
Lots of good work happening on the blogs, heres a quick digest of some students to check out:
Alana makes some good notes about engaging blogs, and Amalie lists the ways in which she wants to personalise her blog
Cass finds some valid issues with Instagram
Lexie shares some thoughts on active blogging (and/or jogging?)
Belynda critiques 2 hypertext examples with a personal angle, and Karl examines Hypertext in Social Media spaces
Heather & Daisy share their thoughts on Copyright and Creative Commons, and Shantelle looks at rights online
Louis has found a good way to integrate photography into the broader narrative of his blog
Natalie has found her niche
Great reflection on Hypertexts by Juliet including her explanation of what they are, how they work, and an example to boot
Natasha explores the heuristic nature of blogs
Dominic has discovered a great alternative photo sharing community for himself
Dylan provides his take on network literacy, and Cat discusses her strategy for demonstrating it
Sally discusses a media sharing site introduced to her by Annie
Let Caitlin know what you think of her vocal performance on a Demo for Tina Arena
Friday student blog links
Friday 8:30-10:30
kyranetworked.wordpress.com
michaelagraceblog.wordpress.com
emmasnetmed.wordpress.com
secretviking.wordpress.com
linhdn95.wordpress.com
lachlansmind.wordpress.com
mcsrblog.wordpress.com
networkmediablog.wordpress.com
amaliemoeller.wordpress.com
sarahmizzi.wordpress.com
michicant.wordpress.com
radishish.wordpress.com
mediafactory.org.au/lydia-watt
rhiannonhf.wordpress.com
Friday 11:30-1:30
thetiradeblog.wordpress.com
mediafactory.org.au/samantha-beniac-brooks
ashleyboglisblog.wordpress.com
anniemaegoldring.wordpress.com
mediafactory.org.au/jason-hendriks
chloeholdingblog.wordpress.com
incollatoblog.wordpress.com
carpethatdiem2016.wordpress.com
netmed2016s3487271.wordpress.com
declanzane.wordpress.com
sallylewiss.wordpress.com
caitlinminfa.wordpress.com
laurennicolo.wordpress.com
aliceredmondwrites.wordpress.com
apprehensivesocialite.wordpress.com
maryspanos.wordpress.com
marioblogdog.wordpress.com
ellewarwickblog.wordpress.com
indieindiblog.wordpress.com
alyssakatelyn.wordpress.com
davidzita.net/category/networked-media
philo-sophie.co
mariamosos.wordpress.com
searching4story.wordpress.com
jaimekcardilloblog.wordpress.com
katrina679.wordpress.com
rachaelcarrollblog.wordpress.com
Student Blog links – Tuesday Workshops
See below for a list of Netmed student blogs. This isn’t quite everyone, only students who have added their blog URL to their Assessment Google Doc (thank you to those who have).
Week 4 Workshop
So far, weeks 1-3 have mostly involved building basic skills, knowledge and awareness about blogging. By now, if you’ve been working hard on your blog, it may be starting to get a little messy – this is ok. At this point we’re going to start looking at ways to organise our content to provide an ideas experience for our readers.
At the end of the video lecture for this week, there are two resource’s to check out: Joyce’s Twelve Blue and Prezi – Engaging Blogs . Have a look at each of these (before the workshop) and think about these questions:
- What makes them hypertexts (or not?)
- How do they enhance (or detract from) your experience of story?
- What are they lacking? What would you do differently?
More workshop here:
Get codin’
For those of you who are interested in learning more about code (beyond what this course requires), check out Code Academy which takes you through tutorials, exercises and quizzes on HTML, HTML5, CSS, CSS3, PHP, Javascript and more. It’s great to do just a couple of these at a basic level, to gain a better understanding of what’s going on ‘behind the scenes’, help you troubleshoot issues and perhaps broaden your scope of what online writing allows you to do.
If you’re feeling really nerdy, you can take this a step further and check out Lynda.com for tutorials on PHP, Javascript and more. You can set up a profile using your RMIT email, follow the steps here.
Lynda is an excellent resource that you have access to as part of your enrolment at RMIT. It features entire courses, so while this would be a lot of extra work, it could be a great challenge to set yourself for Netmed – learn to code and try to make something with your new found skills.
Copyright & Creative Commons
Some good discussion came up in the workshops last week about the complications that arise around the issues of copyright online. Some good perspective is offered in this article from Artslaw about Australia’s stance on the issue.
By now we should all have an understanding of what Creative Commons is, and how it is applicable to the work we’re creating on our blogs.
Week 3 Workshop
By now you should have your blog set up, a few posts (at least), and all the checklist items for Assessment task 1. This week we’ll start to get a bit more adventurous with our content (if you haven’t already).
Follow the link below for more:
Free WordPress blog accounts: Dashboard, pages, categories & links
As I’ve mentioned, we’re putting some effort into working with 2 different blogging platforms – the Mediafactory (MF) blogs for Media students, and the free WordPress (WP) blogs for everyone else.
If you have a free WP account and want to use the same dashboard as the MF, here’s a quick little hack: once logged into your blog, type in your blog home page address (should be there already) then add the following: /wp-admin . So the URL in your browser bar should look like this:
with your blog name in place of netmed2016testblog, obvs. This will take you to the same dashboard as the MF blogs, and while there are a lot more options, it’s all there in front of you. A few students had trouble adding links, so if you want to do that, check out WP support here.
I would recommend this way of doing things, so we all have a common experience. However, if that all sounds like too much, read on…
Continue reading Free WordPress blog accounts: Dashboard, pages, categories & links