Update 20/5/2018
I am taking a study break and will probably be using this blog to entertain myself whilst waiting for my research methods unit to begin in January 2019
I am also looking for a more intresting job with better pay and flexible hours. Then I will find a magical golden unicorn and ride it to Valhalla. I’ve got my digital CV on linked in.
FINAL RELFECTIONS ON THE EDC LIFESTREAM BLOG 06/04/17
https://youtu.be/W4_sw0trdNc?t=42s
In terms of digital activities, I am now definitely more open to working on other platforms. I tried to make use of a lot of different digital tools to reflect my engagement with the course. Many of them for the first time ever. These have included video, MS paint, note taking web apps (both writing on my own and with others), voice-to-text apps podcasts, and twitter. I told myself it was just as important to critique the various methods used, as it was to make “notes” on the readings. This made me more open to experimentation. If it went wrong I could always write a post saying why it went wrong.
I think I expected the “being public” element of EDC to be more important than it ended up being. Rather than having my every post scrutinised and debated it was only very rarely that I had people other than my tutor comment on my blog. This is perhaps an accurate reflection of present day digital culture. With so many alternatives sources of information and entertainment it is actually far more likely your output will be lost in the datacloud rather than pilloried by keyboard warriors.
Looking back at my lifestream the main thing I that struck me is that I haven’t ever wanted to look at my lifestream. For this post, I found it more useful to re-read my weekly syntheses as they condensed the sprawling morass of the lifestream into something more manageable. The lifestream was worthwhile in so far as it useful to have links to all my posts on various platforms available on my blog’s dashboard. What I think this reflects is that is not enough just to bring data together in one platform, it needs to be processed into useful information and then made easily navigable so it can be connected to more information, either by myself or others, This is a worthwhile principal to embed in my learning processes as it will make it easier to work on larger, more sustained projects such as the dissertation.
One interesting thing about the lifestream though is the fact that, thanks to the RSS feeds from other blogs, it will continue to grow even after I have moved on from writing the blog. The blog will become a sort of strange shifting memorial to my EDC learning.
This will probably be the last time I get to blog as part of my MSc as none of the courses I am planning to take are assessed that way. I will miss the freedom that comes from an absence of word counts limits.
Finally, I would just like to note how much I enjoyed the Nethnography/Community Culture block as it gave me a chance to link my studies to my interest in drumming and musical education. I thought this would be a bit self-indulgent but I’m beginning to come around to the idea that by looking at Digital Education as a drummer I may have found a unique research angle. This may well end up being how I approach the dissertation.