Category: Block 1 – Cybercultures

“This first block will consider some of the over-arching narratives within popular ‘cyberculture’ which have driven our understanding of digital culture and its relation to education. It will begin with a course ‘cyberculture film festival’ and accompanying tutorials in Togethertube, connecting these with a reading which will familiarise you with some orienting theories of cyberculture. It will then link these to the notion of ‘technology enhanced learning’, considering how such representation continues to inform our understanding of the nature of education online.” From http://edc17.education.ed.ac.uk/block-1-popular-cyberculture/

Pinned to “Future” on Pinterest

The idea of security by the machine is taken up by Eset, an internet security/Anti-Virus company, the products and services of which I have used in the past. Fitting in with the idea of AI, but also perhaps fitting with Harroway’s genderless cyborg. We assign a male gender to this robot (or do we?), so perhaps we feel more secure under its watchful eyes than a specifically genderless design, but would it work similarly if the robot was obviously female?

Just Pinned to Future: Reference ESET, (Sep 11th 2011), ESET Smart Security 5 is here! ESET ESET [ONLINE]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vL09TmKu6s&feature=youtu.be [Accessed 6 February 2016]. Smart Security Robot by Puppetworks Studios for Eset. Ideas for robotman character. http://ift.tt/2l45MQb

Pinned to “Future” on Pinterest

The lips almost appear to be stitched, were the vertical lines extended to the top lip. Quite unsettling. I take less notice of the chunk of silicon welded on to the side of the face.

Just Pinned to Future: The process was quite amazing. I couldn’t wait to see what I would look like when I had it done. http://ift.tt/2kZ8Jpb

Pinned to “Future” on Pinterest

Just Pinned to Future: Cybershot of Linh Cinder leaked from the Cyborg Draft Research Facilities located in the Imperial Palace. Our Anonymous source claims this is from the first round of test trails run on Linh Cinder by the once esteemed Dr. Dmitri Erland,now Crown Traitor! http://ift.tt/2koJZmU

From Youtube: PostHuman: An Introduction to Transhumanism

Transhumanism is a concept mentioned by Bayne (2014) which she claims is often used interchangably with Posthumanism despite being in “radical tension with each other” (p5)

Bayne, S. (2014) What’s the matter with ‘Technology Enhanced Learning’? Learning, Media and Technology, DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2014.915851

From Twitter: Through experimentation with technology, we bring about our own downfall – a twist in the tail

My reading and viewing activity tonight took me in to a future world which has animal, machine and human merged in near perfect symbiosis. Harroway with animals as kin. But what might happen before we reach the cyborgian/transhuman utopia is that the animals get wise and start to take us out before we get there. The series “Zoo” (linked in the tweet below) offers an entirely different take on sci-fi than what I was expecting. My wife started watching it and told me about, so it seemed relevant to post here as a counterpoint to it all. If transhumanism would have us shake off our tribal instinct, this series sees us amplifying it. Perhaps there is room for sci-fi where it is not the augmented, super human from the future that we’ve to fear, but animals. Oh wait. That’s what Planet of the Apes was about….

From Twitter

Even when entirely consumed by a technology that separates us physically, our human need for society, tradition, ceremony and personal contact remains and will find ways to be expressed.

From Twitter: Another successful Togethertube meeting

From Twitter: VR meeting spaces

If Virtual Reality (VR) is to become successful/popular/widespread, it will meet the “needs” of online communication. Something like AltSpace VR will provide a social space similar to instant messaging, facebook messages, hangouts and so on. The implications of doing so are worth studying, as we merge our human self with the machine in an “alternative” universe which exists solely through binary code running on computers somewhere on the internet.

From Twitter: More IFTTT tinkering…

It takes up time to set up, but I hope this works. Perhaps a “manual” cut and paste is as quick in any case?

From Twitter: still ironing out the kinks of IFTTT

I’m sticking some of these together now.

From Twitter: Virtual Reality Classrooms?

If you can get your preferred platform, system, device in the classrooms around the world then you stand to gain financially. So why not talk up your investment’s future.

But it also works both ways. Will education demand the technology?

From Twitter, with love… not.

I like when technology works. I like it a lot. But at the moment, this is not working reliably. Subsequently to the tweet below, I now have to enter into each post and setup the IFTTT twitter URL as a link via the WYSIWYG and then update the post. But it only works if you click the WYSIWYG link button and then press submit. Any other click between the two, and the tweet will not embed as this one here:

From Twitter: Twitter Meta

Last week, I created an IFTTT applet to draw together people who were using the #mscedc hashtag on twitter. It worked! It’s useful, because I can follow the people and keep up with their tweets.

IFTTT WordPress -> Twitter (and back again….)

Can’t say I’m enjoying using IFTTT at the moment. I’m sure I grasp it. It just lacks enough hooks to make it really versatile. Or perhaps I don’t grasp it, and it requires problem solving on your own. I have made a living largely reliant on not being slow on the uptake when it comes to “new” technology, so I don’t like to be beaten. Turns out that the reason I couldn’t get my tweets to display in a reasonable acceptable aesthetic manner was because of the WordPress template.

Now I’ve sorted that, the IFTTT feed from twitter isn’t updating my blog.

Meanwhile, I’ve added an IFTTT applet which posts “blogpost” category WordPress entries in to Twitter. Which will create a single feedback loop, unless I can find the “If this then NOT that” equivalent…..

 

Comments on Mathew’s Blog and From Twitter

Open means open, and you can take advantage of opportunity to discuss, or not…

“cmiller
JANUARY 29, 2017 AT 4:11 PM
I read your post twice and skimmed it several times, went out for some fresh air, then came back to it with a cup of tea, before committing to this comment. I don’t have an existing field of studies to draw upon to make more sense of it than I do. I’m not a scholar by trade, but I embarked on this MSc to learn, and I am interested in what you write because I can feel it scratching away at my brain, even if it’s beyond my initial attempts to unlock its meaning or access the background it comes from.

Continue reading “Comments on Mathew’s Blog and From Twitter”

from Twitter: another togethertube session

from Twitter https://twitter.com/c4miller

From Twitter: More togethertube.

IFTTT – If “MSCE” + “Important” THEN “put in work calendar”.



from Twitter https://twitter.com/c4miller

Ninefox Gambit [spoilers] and Embodied Virtuality

I not long ago finished a book I was gifted at Christmas time. “Ninefox Gambit” by Yoon Ha Lee (2016) . I really enjoyed it, nice and short, fast paced and an interesting, alien culture. I tend to read a lot more books at this time of year. When it’s dark, cold and wet outside, and you’ve just got back in from a surprise snow storm during your dog’s evening walk, the fire is burning and the comfy sofa awaits…. There are spoilers in this post so please do look away now if you plan to read this book and do not like to know the ending before you start.

Continue reading “Ninefox Gambit [spoilers] and Embodied Virtuality”

From Twitter: interesting from games perspective

Computer gaming is a hobby of mine. I’m interested when the worlds of digital education and gaming overlap.



from Twitter https://twitter.com/c4miller

“Where is Internet Studies?”

I was strangely disappointed to find out that this title by Silver (2006) wasn’t a plaintiff cry for something that didn’t exist, but rather a call to map the progress of the discipline at that time. I wonder if, ten years on, much has changed?

Continue reading ““Where is Internet Studies?””

From Twitter: Continual process of improvement?

Institutions often give an appearance of leaving adoption of certain technologies to the last minute, resulting in significant changes in a relatively short period in response to external influences such as the National Student Survey (NSS).



from Twitter https://twitter.com/c4miller

From Twitter: Still dreaming of Minecraft

from Twitter https://twitter.com/c4miller

From Twitter: getting to grips with ITFF, part #124



from Twitter https://twitter.com/c4miller

Can you decide what a normal day is, never mind a normal life ….. ?

My colleague, Thusha Rajendran, presenting at a TEDx event recently. He’s very tech-orientated, like myself. One of his arguments is that we should not be so quick to decide on a level of what is “normal” as humanity needs us all to understand what we are if we are to ever reach our full potential.

Continue reading “Can you decide what a normal day is, never mind a normal life ….. ?”

Post-humanism and IRL

Post-humanism suggests to me that we were human to start with, and that we’re going to be something different (soon?).  In Prof. Bayne’s paper in this block, we are examining the use of words and our acceptance of them through ideological and cultural norms. Post-humanism is equally loaded. If we’ve always been using tools, then we’ve always been human, and continuing to use them doesn’t change that.

It’s like gamers talking about “IRL”. In real life. Most gamers I know, and have grown up with through the communities of 18 years or more, have dropped that term for the most part. Our use of games has not changed, and it is very much part of our life. The fact that old folks homes now recognise some benefits in gaming is of note. It is RL now. I think that there is probably a lot more to understand about post-humanism, so I’ll see how many understanding develops over the next few weeks.

 

Bayne, S. (2014) What’s the matter with ‘Technology Enhanced Learning’? Learning, Media and Technology, DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2014.915851

Miller, V. (2011) Chapter 9: The Body and Information Technology, in Understanding Digital Culture. London: Sage. 

image from http://tapnewswire.com/

Week 1 – round up

I love “new” technology. I love talking and reading about technology. Working with technology excites me because it’s always changing. I gave up on twitter some time ago for all but complaining visibly about poor customer service.  The physical act of posting in twitter represent a return for me to “old” technology, which I need to get over.

I am drawn to comment or highlight technical items from a pragmatic point of view. I see technology as a tool to achieve what I need to achieve, and when it does not do so reliably, I lose patience. Persistent errors are worth commenting on, least of all that others may avoid the same pitfall. Using If This Then That offers a means to have the machines take on some work, but I appreciate there’s a fine art to making it work well to a real human standard. But then I created the feedback loop with WordPress. I stopped that one already.

I was able to sense community with the cohort using twitter. When I reached out to my peers on the course, I was met with warmth and offers of help and assistance. That at least suggests that for those using the platform frequently, a sense of community can be built that transcends the coldness of the pixels on-screen.

Catching up with peers on TogetherTube was a good social experience, though the platform itself lacked any means to capture the discussion to aid my memory.

It’s been a slow start for me, but I’m getting there. Roll on Week 2!