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Signal to Noise – How to cope with work, family, and being a (online) graduate student!

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I have just posted a page to this blog entitled Signal to Noise – How to cope with work, family, and being a (online) graduate student. The intent is that it will help current and future students be able to balance out the signal to noise ratio that comes with being a student online. I even encourage face-to-face students to at least read over it as I think there is beneficial information for them in it as well!

A few weeks ago I presented a paper by Jen Cardew (a fellow student a year ahead of me in the program) on how to successfully approach the program and the tools you need to succeed. As a part of my presentation I asked how many had ever taken an online class and only 2 out of 16 raised their hands. This was partly to be expected as the online portion of this program attracts non-traditional students who are in most cases returning to school to seek a higher level degree after a lapse in education. This means that these students are usually older and most likely already have a career of some sort if not a family as well. However, this also concerned me just a bit and this is why I have taken the time to put this document together (and will be adding to it soon as well).

While yes the program is mirrored as closely as possible to the on-campus masters program, being an online student is an entirely different ball game. You have to be able to approach it differently and be prepared for the amount of work it entails. This is NOT a blow off program and in many ways it actually comes across as more difficult than the on-campus program. Not because the material is any different, but because the amount of discussion that goes on and the amount of extra work required to fully participate in a always on going always open classroom. It takes a high level of maturity and responsibility to simply keep up with it all – not even counting what it takes to be a meaningful participant. Both of which are very important in an environment where every single interaction is time/date stamped and saved to be referred back to over and over again.

This is not to scare anyone off, simply to educate people on what it takes to do it successfully and to encourage people to take it very seriously. I think it’s about time online education starts to shed the stigma of be ‘second rate’ as compared to a face-to-face class. As a hybrid student (one who takes classes both online and on the campus the program is hosted at), I can speak to both the digital and analog classrooms. This puts me in a unique position that I hope I can utilize to the success of not only myself, but others as well. Hey, I’m an anthropologist (participant observation at it’s finest) – this is what I do!

Accio Wand! iPhone 3G and Portus a Harry Potter Conference

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This past weekend I attended Portus a Harry Potter literary conference. Part of the reason I attended was indeed my love for the series, but another part was the fact that Henry Jenkins was a guest speaker. For anyone interested in cyber anthropology (especially the flavor I promote here), I highly suggest that you take note of this sociologist and read his books ‘Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers‘, ‘Convergence Culture‘, ‘Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture‘, and ‘From Barbie® to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games‘. He’s as fascinating to listen to in person as he is to read on paper and I enjoyed his panels immensely.

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Collaborating online…

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As I have stated before, I am in an online Masters in Applied Anthropology program. These past two days I’ve been collaborating with my partner over Basecamp which has been a very interesting experience. We are only using the free version at the moment so we are limited to 2 writeboards and can’t upload files. But working around those obstacles we deleted our last project out and created a new one for our analysis then we separated the two parts of our project between the two writeboards. Within 8 hours we had 7 different iterations and 9 comments on one write board, plus 32 emails, 2 slide presentations, and two written reports.

Though there actually came a point though were we had to use the phone in order to clear up some questions we each had, I’m amazed at how well Basecamp worked for us. At first I thought it was a bit of overkill for just two people working on a single project, but with the ability to do different versions as well as compare differences was pretty awesome. I think the best part of it all for us poor college students is the fact that there is a free version! It is likely that as my college career continues I’ll go ahead and spring for one of the paid versions, especially if I ever end up in a group with more than 2 people and/or really need the upload capabilities.

I think I’ll seek out other online collaboration sites to do more of a compare and contrast. Anyone have any suggestions?

The perils of technology…

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I worked on a long eloquent post on the way to my father’s (where I am now) via my Blackberry. Apparently Opera Mini has no idea how to post to a Word Press blog, or Word Press was upset with Opera Mini and much to my irritation my post was eaten in transmission. So, here I am on my father’s eMac making a quick to post say as much. Perhaps I’ll try again tomorrow on the topic I was so very eloquent with. However, I am afraid it will not come out quite so eloquently the second time.

The addicts of the most wired nation in the world…

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Just who is the most wired nation in the world? Well, Korea boasts this title and it may well be true with over 90% of Korean homes online. For a nation as well wired as Korea it has been suggested that many of its internet users have become compulsive or even addicted to being online. It is generally suggested that such addictions are only looked at as problems once they become disruptive to ever day life, causing behavior that is other abnormal and potentially damaging. Such is the case of people who die at their computers after days of endless online gaming. To combat such a problem, South Korea has instituted a first of its kind real world Boot Camp to help break the addiction.

During a session, participants live at the camp, where they are denied computer use and allowed only one hour of cellphone calls a day, to prevent them from playing online games via the phone. They also follow a rigorous regimen of physical exercise and group activities, like horseback riding, aimed at building emotional connections to the real world and weakening those with the virtual one.

While I agree that disruptive and damaging behavior caused by the internet is unhealthy and something should be done about it, my suggestion is to start from the other side. Instead of trying to correct the problem after it happens, how about prevent it before it occurs, especially when it comes to adolescents?

One participant, Lee Chang-hoon, 15, began using the computer to pass the time while his parents were working and he was home alone. He said he quickly came to prefer the virtual world, where he seemed to enjoy more success and popularity than in the real one.

He spent 17 hours a day online, mostly looking at Japanese comics and playing a combat role-playing game called Sudden Attack. He played all night, and skipped school two or three times a week to catch up on sleep.

I am in no position to place ‘blame’ anywhere, but I do have to question why was there a lack of parent forethought or supervision? I feel the same way about games being rated M or movies being rated R. Nothing should prevent access to the internet, or games being released, or movies being shown just because kids may or may not have access to them. Why should it become the industry’s or government’s burden to bare? Do the parents not hold any responsibility here? I wonder how long before a boot camp opens in the US. One think you can be sure of, unlike in South Korea where the government sponsors the camp, there will be no free help here.

Culture target marketing online…

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Let me preface this post by stating my point of view here is on how a big named company has targeted a specific culture through its online and commercial campaign. Should anyone want to comment, I do not wish to discuss the lifestyle, only how it is being addressed as a culture online.

“Snowboarding fly boys. Gender-bending hipster babes who shred. Après-ski bars brightened by the banter of sass-talking divas. Think you’ve died and gone to Oz? Well, wake up, Dorothy! With Travelocity’s exclusive hotels in top gay and lesbian ski destinations, you’ll get more queer than you can shake a feather boa at–and, honey, that’s a lot of queer–for way less moolah. That means more cash for those darling go-go dancers!

This year, ditch the office digs, grab those designer ski poles, and get ready to go all-out gay with these flaming hot ski getaways. Book now for fabulous savings.”

What you just read is real copy off of Travelocity’s site for Gay-Friendly ski hotels. Not only has the company targeted this specific culture for advertising potential, but where they could have stopped at just creating the deals they took it one step further and crafted and entire ambiance around it that tries not only get the audiences attention but tries to empathize with them as well. To coincide with their travel offers Travelocity has also created a tv campaign alluding to this particular culture as well.

In doing a bit of research it turns out that in May, Travelocity partnered with Travel Alternatives Group (TAG), a group that specializes in making finding travel locations easier for GLBT people. Not only does this group look to see whether these companies offer a GLBT friendly atmosphere, but they in their search for gay friendly companies they have made an “effort to qualify accommodations based not only on their desire for gay travel revenues, but on their employment policies, services, and support returned to the gay community”. I wonder if this partnership alone lends credence to the Travelocity campaigns and without it would they be considered derogatory in any way? I also wonder how other cultures would respond to similar marketing techniques.

SXSW Interactive Festival

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If you have no plans from March 7th – 11th I suggest you head on down to Austin Texas for the SXSW Interactive festival. The keynote speaker is Henry Jenkins who is the head of Comparative Media Studies at MIT. The two books I have by him on my currently reading bookshelf are Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide and Fans, Bloggers and Gamers. Neither of which I have finished, but both I have started and so far very much enjoy. Then there are the multitude of panels which on their own should make for one hell of an interactive festival. I only hope I can get the three days off to go!

Well, that and a hotel room…

Internet Woes…

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So, as I am sure happens to most people who are knowledgeable about computers and the internet, we have been called away to work on my in-laws Internet connection for them as they just switched providers and are having problems. In the end this benefits us as much as it benefits them because it allows us to communicate with each other when we are unable to meet face to face to do our very busy schedules. I find it interesting though that they find their connection to the Internet to be of up most importance and wonder how many others within their demographic feel the same way.

Blogging to elicit response…

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In an unprecedented move (to my knowledge), the AAA has created a blog in order to share their latest statement on the U.S. Military’s Human Terrain System (HTS) project. While I think they made a bold statement and I am very interested as an anthropologist to see how this plays out, the most interesting thing to me as a cyber anthropologist is their use of a blog in order to elicit response to their statement.

 

While I applaud their step forward with a blog, I don’t believe they understand how to truly utilize a blog or what the purpose of a blog is. You can see this by their failure to actually post what they are blogging about. Instead, they provide a link AWAY from their blog in order to read their statement. Not only that, but who ever posted the statement on their website failed to format it properly. I’m not trying to be critical here, only pointing out that organizations making attempts to branch out of their modus operandi should seek advice about doing so if they are unsure how to go about it. Otherwise, these organizations end up doing more of a disservice to their audience than the good they originally intended.

 

The amount of work I have to go through to get to what I want to get to would seem to me to be a bit of a deterrent for those who are not as cyber-patient as I am. By cyber-patience I mean that I am more willing to go through things to get to what I want before I give up than most others are simply by virtue of spending as much time as I do online and being easily able to filter out the good and bad distractions before I get to frustrated with the process. It takes a lot to frustrate me online, however, with my new job I have to step back into the average users shoes and see it from their point of view.

 

  • First we have to log into our email.
  • Then we go through our email deciphering what is spam, what is important, and what is bacn for later.
  • We find an email from AAA stating the executive board has made a statement on the HTS project.
  • We click on the message to read our email.
  • We read the email that tells us about a blog on the statement we’ve been eagerly anticipating. It does not list what the statement is, or the contents of the blog, or responses that have since filtered through. Instead, it just tells us there has been a statement issued and that the AAA launched a blog to solicit member comments and that the blog includes text of the statement
  • We click on the link to go to the blog, taking us away from our email and the task we were originally performing.
  • We get to the blog to read that the AAA has made a statement and get a bit of an explanation of why they made the statement and what it was about.
  • We get to the end of the blog post to see a link to the AAA site where we can actually find the statement we went through this entire process to get to.

It would have been simpler to have included the statement in the email, include it again on the blog with the option to comment, and include a link from the blog to the statement on the website just for posterities sake. This is what I mean by doing a disservice to their audience rather than the good they originally intended. So, while I give the AAA kudos in finally catching up with the 21st century, I suggest they have a little more to learn before it actually becomes useful for them or their members.

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