My Digital Northwest Passage: A Semester of Exploring the Digital World

Self-directed Learning / Personal Blog Posts
Even though I wasn’t very interested in the Internet when this class began, before long I was gobbling up Dr. Burton’s lectures and seeking more information for myself on the web.  This self-directed learning has been an important part of my learning this semester that has fueled my enthusiasm for learning and for digital culture.  

My self-directed learning was often sparked by a lecture Dr. Burton delivered in class.  When I heard about something that interested me I would go look it up online.  Sometimes my classmates would post on topics that interested me and I would learn about them from their posts and then sometimes look for more sources online.  Much of my self-directed learning was also related to my group project.  An important part of my self-directed learning was my blog posts, because writing about a topic would help me to understand it better and think of new questions about the topic.

Four topics I researched this semester were badges, open content, use of media by the Church, and credibility.  My interest in badges as alternative accreditation led me to an interest in how credibility is created and maintained online.  Because badges are open and because of a lecture about openness, I also looked into open content and it’s advantages and disadvantages.  Trying to use badges as a tool to reward informing oneself about Mormonism led me to investigate how the Church uses media to educate.  Following are links to my blog posts on these topics:

Badges
http://dyckellis326.blogspot.com/2012/09/open-badges-future-of-learning.html
http://dyckellis326.blogspot.com/2012/09/evaluating-credibility-of-badges.html
http://dyckellis326.blogspot.com/2012/09/ideas-for-mormon-info-badges-project.html
http://dyckellis326.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-mission-statement-for-mormon-badges.html
http://dyckellis326.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-story-of-mormon-badge-project.html

Open Content
http://dyckellis326.blogspot.com/2012/11/argument-for-apple-pie-internet.html

Use of Media in the Church
http://mormonbadges.blogspot.com/2012/10/efforts-by-lds-church-to-promote.html
http://dyckellis326.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-new-idea-for-online-missionary-work.html

Credibility
http://dyckellis326.blogspot.com/2012/09/evaluating-credibility-of-badges.html
http://dyckellis326.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-lesson-from-importance-of-being.html

Much of my learning was demonstrated in the Google+ stream.  Here are the links to some of my posts:

Badges
https://plus.google.com/109246995627383520220/posts/F3JGkmyjUY8
https://plus.google.com/109246995627383520220/posts/1zu16Jqcjm1
https://plus.google.com/109246995627383520220/posts/QuBFPTp1jiB
https://plus.google.com/109246995627383520220/posts/AzQU3DkRTkG


Open Content
https://plus.google.com/109246995627383520220/posts/i4PmvBVmdCP
https://plus.google.com/109246995627383520220/posts/1uMWDe4HAjA

Use of Media in the Church
https://plus.google.com/109246995627383520220/posts/Wg5eZiio6v9
https://plus.google.com/109246995627383520220/posts/LwuhtQefZiq
https://plus.google.com/109246995627383520220/posts/GtxmVzpKtD2
https://plus.google.com/109246995627383520220/posts/eYiexFwbTcD

Here are some of the websites I used in my self-directed learning:
http://opencontent.org/definition/
http://openbadges.org/en-US/
http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/
https://p2pu.org/en/badges/

Collaboration

My contribution to my group project can be described by two roles: idea generator and prototype maker.  As an idea generator, I was responsible for the idea that was the genesis of the project and I continued to invent new ideas for applications of badges as the semester progressed.  For example, I came up with using badges to reward indexing for FamilySearch and helped develop ideas about how badges could be used in proselytizing.  

My other main role in the group was as a prototype maker.  Throughout the semester, I developed prototypes of graphics for our badges.  At the beginning of our project I designed slides with prototype badges to introduce our project.  Later in the semester I made prototypes for a Personal Progress badge, a Restoration badge, and an indexing badge.

I also contributed to other groups projects by offering feedback and sharing new ideas.  Early on in the group process, I created a blog post of feedback for the CCC group.  Later, I contributed more to Menagerie and the Sweet Homies.  I gave occasional feedback on new developments in their work such as Menagerie’s new websites or blog posts by Sweet Home members.  More often, I would think of ideas that might be interesting and share them on the Google+ stream.  For instance, I suggested to Menagerie creating a space to allow feedback and revisions.  Another time I alerted the Sweet Home group to a MMSS presentation that related to their topic.
I think I also contributed in a small way to class in general by making comments or asking questions during lectures and student presentations.

Others’ assistance

The two students who have contributed most to my learning in this class were Jessica and Josh.  They helped come up with ideas for our project that I wouldn’t have thought of on my own.  They were also supportive and enthusiastic about my ideas and contributions to the project, which motivated me to keep working hard.


Two other students who contributed to my learning were Katie and Greg.  It was inspiring to watch their progress and the professional results of their project.  They were good examples of good design values and of seeking social proof.


One more student who helped me this semester was Rebecca Graham.  Though she probably didn’t know it, Rebecca encouraged me by responding to my Google+ posts with helpful, friendly comments, and by being enthusiastic and interested in our project when I talked to her in person.

Digital Literacy
Because one of my concerns at the beginning of the semester was that the Internet was primarily a time-waster, the Consume, Create, Connect model was instrumental in helping me realize how I could make the Internet a beneficial asset in my life.  Before my Internet use was mostly consuming with a little bit of connecting, which was why I’d drastically scaled down that use over the summer.  But the idea of creating online helped me understand how to achieve a better balance.  Even though creating is something really important to me (especially because I write poetry) I hadn’t before thought of the Internet as a creative tool.  Once creating took a larger place in my Internet use, my consuming and connnecting also became more meaningful.

My first efforts to incorporate Create were to write the weekly blog posts.  When I knew that I wanted to have something meaningful to share in a post, my consuming became more significant.  My consumption became more focused as I chose specific topics to explore that I thought I would like to write about.  Later in the semester, much of my creative activity was related to my group project on badges.  This also helped direct my consumption, which became primarily focused on learning about badges.  One important part of my creating this semester was Prezi.  Once I learned to use it for this class, I started using it in my other classes.  Prezi was a good way to incorporate all three C’s.  I had to consume information to put in the Prezi, then create the Prezi to organize that information, and then I connected with other people when I presented it.  

Throughout the semester, the Connect aspect of digital literacy suddenly became more important to me because it made my creating and consuming more relevant.  When I was learning about something, I would also be thinking about how to share it with the class on Google+ or in a blog post.  I pushed myself to learn more things because I wanted to share them with my classmates. Creating also became more exciting because I had people to share it with.  It was motivating to know that if I made a prototype badge I had interested people to share it with.

Even though this class is over, I’m going to try to continue using the three C’s to regulate my Internet use and make it more useful and meaningful to me.  This coming semester I’m going to be spending much of my time completing an original collection of poetry for my Honors thesis.  To enhance my creating, I plan on reviving my defunct poetry blog so that I can connect with others and receive social proof to help me revise my poems.  I’m going to try to relate my consumption to my creative efforts by reading more online poetry publications and maybe by keeping up with Menagerie.  When I consume other media or information online, I’m going to try to moderate that consumption by looking for opportunities to connect with others in meaningful ways and by letting that consumption inspire creation.  What I’ve learned in this class will keep influencing how I use the Internet and will continue helping me to take control of my digital life.
 

My Exam Questions

OBJECTIVE QUESTIONS

1. According to @ Is for Activism by Joss Hands, "it is very difficult for one person or people to dominate or dictate what happens on the network" (p78) because:
A. International agreements forbid governments from censoring the web.
B. Information sent online bounces between routers instead of traveling in a direct line, making it nearly     impossible to intercept and censor.
C. There are so many voices present online that the rule of the majority nearly always triumphs.
D. Almost anyone can connect to the Internet because it is not expensive to purchase a router.

See Ellis Dyck’s review of the book at http://dyckellis326.blogspot.com/2012/09/preliminary-review-of-is-for-activism.html 

2. According to Jessica Lee’s post “Copyright and the Open Movement” at http://leesjessica326.blogspot.com/2012/11/copyright-and-open-movement.html, the purpose of Creative Commons licensing is to
A. allow, through contracts, increased access to and use of artistic and scientific works.
B. to remove obstacles to creative activity.
C. help small artists make a profit from their work
D. both A and B

3. A new service Ellis Dyck made use of in this class is Prezi. According to http://prezi.com/about/, an advantage of using Prezi for a presentation is that
A. It uses gamification to keep viewers interested.
B. it’s more flexible because you can zoom in on smaller pictures instead of being limited to include only large photos in a slideshow.
C. Prezis are more memorable to audiences because they engage spatial memory.
D. Prezi’s superior graphics capabilities keep your audience from getting bored.

ESSAY QUESTIONS

1. Badges have the potential to help earners gain job opportunities because employers will be able to see evidence of their experiences and granular knowledge. See my post at http://dyckellis326.blogspot.com/2012/09/open-badges-future-of-learning.html

2. Although meme culture makes more people “creators” because anyone can create variations on a meme, memes actually inhibit significant creativity because most people recycle the same photos over and over and don’t think outside the box of a meme. See Josh Mckinney’s post at http://mckinneyjoshua326.blogspot.com/2012/09/what-is-meme.html

How Telemedicine Saved my Weekend

How remote medical attention from a generous friend saved my "six-monthiversary" celebration.

Wikipedia defines telemedicine as “the use of telecommunication and information technologies in order to provide clinical health care at a distance.”  It uses various communication mediums like telephones and the Internet to connect doctors with patients who live far away from medical services or cannot easily travel.  Medical records can be sent to doctors in another location, or a doctor may examine a patient remotely with phone and video devices.  Telemedicine can be used in emergency situations when a patient in critical condition will not be able to reach a hospital in time.

I spend my weekends in Cedar City with my husband, Brandon, who attends SUU.  We live just one mile from a hospital.  So how did telemedicine become necessary to save my weekend?

Brandon and I were looking forward to celebrating six months of marriage on Saturday.  But on Friday night, Brandon, in a fairly characteristic fit of restless athletic ability, decided to do a handstand in our living room.  Just as he balanced his feet above his head, I saw him make a very odd face.  He told me his left shoulder had dislocated.  Here we go again, I thought.

Since a minor bicycle accident over a year ago, Brandon’s shoulder has been prone to pop out of its socket during mildly strenuous or even normal activities.  In August for instance, Brandon woke up in the morning, let his left arm slide off the edge of the mattress, and felt his shoulder pop out of the socket.  We spent the morning in the emergency room and left several hundred dollars poorer.  Brandon didn’t have insurance.  Later, the ER doctor billed us separately, siphoning off more money.

So when I realized Brandon was stuck upside down on his head with a shoulder joint that found amusement in trying to wander out of its cubby hole (this became very funny later), getting him right-side-up without worsening the injury wasn't the only thing I was worried about.  The family finances were not going to take kindly to another ER visit without insurance.  That could mean only one thing: we had to do this ourselves.

Unfortunately, majoring respectively in choral education and English did nothing to prepare us for self-treatment in a medical emergency (in retrospect, I should have spent more time playing the board game of the Worst Case Scenario Survival Manual instead of studying).  After I helped Brandon ease out of the headstand onto the floor, some painful, experimental wiggling of his shoulder convinced us we needed help.  So we called up an acquaintance from our ward who is an ER doctor.  We didn't know that he is something of a specialist in reducing dislocations without anesthetic.  He was out of town and couldn't come over himself, but he generously offered to walk us through some methods to fix Brandon’s shoulder on our own.  Enter telemedicine!

Over the phone, our friend talked us through how to rotate Brandon’s arm along the floor in a snow-angel motion so that his shoulder would pop back in.  When that didn't work, he emailed us a PDF of another auto-reduction method.  We tried it and then modified it slightly and Brandon’s shoulder popped back into place!  We were so relieved.  Brandon improvised a sling for his shoulder and all he had to worry about after that was sore muscles.

So thanks to telemedicine and a generous friend willing to work free of charge, just 24 hours after that ill-fated hand stand, Brandon and I got to enjoy celebrating together the “monthiversary” of our first six months of marriage. . .without having to discuss which of our possessions we could hawk on Craig’s list to help pay the bills.  I have seldom been so thankful for digital technology! 

Thankful for Digital Literacy

Today in the Cedar City Library in the Park I was using one of the public computers when a fifty-something man with salt and pepper hair and a red baseball cap sat down at the computer next to me. After about a minute he asked me, “How do I get the Internet to work?”  I leaned towards his monitor and saw that he had Internet Explorer open.
“It looks like it’s working.  What are you trying to do?”
“Where do I write the dot com?”
So I showed him where the address bar was.
“You just click in here to highlight the text and then erase it.”  I took his mouse and showed him, then hit Backspace.
“That key gets rid of the words?”
“Yeah, that’s the Backspace key.  It means erase.”
“Oh, I thought that arrow was to erase.” He pointed with his mouse at the Back arrow in the browser. “They’ve gone and changed everything on me since I last used one of these.”
“You haven’t used a computer in a long time?”
“It’s been about ten years.”

This experience helped me realize how crippling it could be to lack basic digital literacy.  I don’t consider myself among the extremely digitally literate, but I realize now I’ve taken for granted how important my fairly basic knowledge is to accomplish tasks online.  Without that knowledge, much of my homework and many day-to-day tasks would be impossible to accomplish.

And it’s not just the technical knowledge of how to navigate the web that’s important.  It’s also understanding the culture of the Internet so you know what to look for and what to avoid.  When my acquaintance at the library navigated to the website he was looking for, it turned out to be one of those “one weird trick” advertisements, this time to “evade Obama’s energy monopoly and reduce your energy bills by half.”  I wanted to explain to him that that sort of advertising wasn’t any good, but I wasn’t sure he would believe me, so I didn’t say anything.

As the Digital Age becomes more and more digital, lack of digital literacy is going to become a bigger and bigger problem for people like the man I met in the library.  What will these people do if services that are traditionally offline move online?  How will they function?  I hope that as digital literacy becomes increasingly important, more communities and organizations will offer free computer classes to help.  In the near future, not knowing how to use the web may be just as crippling as not knowing how to read.

Argument for an Apple Pie Internet

When Dr. Burton talked about open content again in class on Tuesday, I thought of a metaphor, like the English major I am.  What if people who grew apples didn’t let people they gave them/sold them to share with other people or make apple pie?  In other words, what if apples weren’t open?

I’ve decided to share this tasty metaphor with you, in hopes of giving you a little more information about what open is.  I’ve taken concepts from David Wiley’s opencontent.org  and changed them to make them about apples, partly to have fun and partly to make an argument for openness.  Enjoy! 

Apples that Aren't OpenPay to Use Apples-- You can’t have this apple unless you pay for it.
Free Apples-- This apple is free, but all you can do is consume it in its original form. You can’t make it into anything else.  No apple pie, no apple crisp, no apple sauce, no baked apples for you!

The 4R’s of Open Apples
Reuse—you can grow identical apples from the apple’s seeds, but you can’t necessarily alter the apple or its “copies” from its original form.
Revise—you can alter the form the apple takes by blending it into apple sauce or apple butter or baking it.
Remix—you can combine this apple with other ingredients to create tasty things like apple pie or apple crisp or apple Jello or an apple-pomegranate salad!
Redistribute—you can revise and remix this apple and share it with as many people as you want.  You can also share identical apples you’ve grown (copied) with as many people as you want.

Apples are tasty.  Free apples are tastier.  So are apple pie and other tasty apple things!  Life is better because apples are open.  Could the same concept apply to online content?  I realize that there are situations when it might not be desirable for content to be open, but in general, wouldn't more openness be better?  Wouldn’t we find ways to make life better (and tastier) if more online content was open?

Jesus teaches us computer science and kindness

My husband Brandon and I were recently called as Primary teachers for the seven-year-old class in our ward in Cedar City.  Last Sunday one of the counselors in the Primary asked all the Primary children to draw a picture that would help them remember Jesus.  Brandon and I drew pictures too while we supervised our class’s drawing.  Brandon is a former computer science major and whimsically drew some ticker tape with binary code and two stick figures, with the caption “Jesus teaches us computer science and kindness.”

At first I laughed, chalking the picture up to my husband’s goofy sense of humor.  But when I found his picture again today, I felt like it had deeper meaning worth discussing here.  The profound truth enclosed in the seemingly lighthearted statement “Jesus teaches us computer science and kindness” is that Christ is a teacher of all good knowledge as well as the source of a moral code that teaches us how to live.

I remember at the very beginning of the semester having the attitude that digital literacy was not important knowledge.  It seemed frivolous since I saw the Internet mostly as a way to waste time.  But very early on this class forced me to confront the real good that can be accomplished through the Internet.  The first time I remember this happening is when Dr. Burton showed us the Youtube video of the virtual choir.  I was moved when I saw so many people uniting to create something beautiful.   I began to open up to the possibility that the Internet was a tool that could be used for good.

Now I believe that the Internet is, in many ways, a blessing from God.  Like any powerful tool, it can be misused, but it also has incredible potential to unite us with others in creating good things, like information, art, music, education, communication, wholesome entertainment, or missionary work. 

I believe that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ want us to use this medium in good ways and that they are willing to help us learn to use it properly.  Jesus can teach us to be kind and live morally, but he can also teach us secular subjects like computer science or digital literacy, because that knowledge comes from Him as well.  Most importantly, he can inspire us to apply spiritual values to secular subjects, even to the Internet.  So, yes, like my husband, I believe Jesus teaches us computer science and kindness.     

A New Idea for Online Missionary Work

Everyone needs their own space and their own identity.  When we use our spaces to represent our identities, it can help us to feel like members of a group.  During the first days of school each year, elementary school children like to organize and decorate their desks to reflect what makes them them, merging their old identities with new identities as  students in a new grade.  Desk workers do the same thing when they start a new job to cement their identities as members of the office team.  People of all ages arrange and decorate their bedrooms and rooms in their houses to represent their personalities and interests, symbolically claiming those spaces, saying “I live here.”   We all use our bodies as a space to wear clothes and accessories that reflect who we are and sometimes to reflect our status as members of a group—BYU t-shirts for instance. 

So what does this have to do with online missionary work?  Every person who joins the Church must make an identity transition and begin to see themselves as a Mormon.  But that transition is hard.  People who successfully learn to see themselves as Mormons have to create new symbolic or physical spaces in their lives where they can build their Mormon identity.  In the Digital Age, more and more often we create our own spaces and paint our own identities Online.  What if we could give investigators their own online spaces to explore and forge their new Mormon identities?

What if investigators could create Mormon.org accounts, not to advertise their identities, but as private spaces to let each person organize what they are learning and reflect on what it might mean for them to become Mormon?  Here are some features I would like to see in the accounts:

• A way for the investigator to keep track of pages on Mormon.org and other church websites that she has read.  Basically a feature that would let her curate the information she learning.  It would be great if an investigator could send an article on lds.org or Mormon.org to their account and be able to insert her own personal notes and then save those annotations with the article on the account.
• I’d also like to see a tab where the investigator could save links to videos on Mormon.org and Mormon Messages so he could watch them again at will.  Again, a function allowing him to write notes beneath each video about what he liked or how he felt would be great.
• Another tab could let the investigator organize the “I’m a Mormon” profiles she likes.
• The account should have a journal built in for the investigator to record his thoughts and feelings about what he is learning and any spiritual experiences he has had.
• Of course, the account dashboard should also have a sidebar to chat with the missionaries, if and when the user feels comfortable.  Then the missionaries could even issue challenges to the investigator that would appear on their account profile.  “You’ve been challenged to say a prayer.  Do you accept?”  Once the investigator accepted the challenge, the account could keep track of it.  “3 days left in your challenge.  Do you need help?”
• There could even be a feature to let the investigator send and receive messages or posts with members who have Mormon.org profiles that interest them.  “I was really inspired by your story about the first time you read the Book of Mormon.  Can you tell me more about what it was like to be baptized?”

I propose that if we give investigators an online space to organize their learning and shape their identity, more people will make a successful transition to being able to say, “I’m a Mormon.”  What do you think?

The Story of the Mormon Badge Project

I can has a Mormon badge?

The Inspiration
In recent months, Mitt Romney’s candidacy and other events have thrown Mormonism into the spotlight.  All sorts of things have been said about Mormons and Mormonism, some of them true, some of them not.  As practicing Mormons, we decided that the world needs more information about Mormonism and less misinformation.   At the time we were also doing research on badges, a new Internet phenomenon.  We thought, what if badges could be used to spread information about Mormonism and correct misconceptions?  What if a regular person or even a journalist could earn a badges to learn basic facts about Mormonism and then display it online to show their credibility when they participated in online discussions about Mormonism?  We decided to create a series of “Mormon Badges” to educate curious people who want accurate information about the fastest growing American religion.


The First Badge
Many people still believe that Mormons practice polygamy, even though the Church ended the practice over one hundred years ago.  We wanted to use our first badge to correct this misconception.  Our “Mormons and Polygamy” badge requires users to read two web pages published by the LDS Church and take a short quiz to test their understanding.

Reflecting and Rethinking
After publishing our first badge, we wanted to step back and reflect on our goals for Mormon badges.  We realized that it was more important to us to educate people about what Mormonism is than about what it isn’t.  With this in mind, we chose the founding or “restoration” of the LDS Church as the topic of our next badge, instead of choosing another misconception to correct.
We also began thinking about other ways that badges could be used in the Mormon community.


New Possibilities
As we continue to develop Mormon literacy badges, we are exploring what badges can do for the youth programs of the LDS Church.  Possible future badges include ones to help girls 12-18 complete the Church’s Personal Progress program and badges to help Mormon youth in church-run religious education classes memorize verses of scripture.

A Mission Statement for Mormon Badges

As we prepared content for our first badge, “Mormons and Polygamy,” I started thinking about what we wanted to accomplish with this badge and with our other badges. I knew we wanted to educate non members about Mormonism, but I wasn’t sure what that entailed. So I came up with this statement which encapsulated for me more specifically what I want to do with Mormon Badges:

We can’t get rid of controversy, but we can help correct misconceptions. We do this, not by trying to convince people the Church is not controversial, but by trying to inform them about the facts. Our primary aim is not to win converts (though I would hope that better information would lead some people to investigate the Church) but to create understanding.

For example, in our first badge (after some guidance from Prof. Burton) we decided not to try to convince people that polygamy was commanded by God. For most people, that would have just heightened the controversy. We did choose material from the church newsroom that explained, briefly, Joseph Smith’s revelation and the doctrinal rational, but we left out additional content from the scriptures to back it up. Instead, we made sure our focus was on correcting the misconception that Mormons still practice polygamy.

I think presenting all our badges this way will win more trust from non-member badge earners. We will be more convincing when it is clear we are not trying to convince them. Our badges will be more effective to the degree that we focus on correcting misconceptions, not stamping out controversy.

Semester Reflections

1. My nonfiction book was @ is for Activism by Joss Hands. Reading some of this book was an important jumpstart for me in beginning to see the Internet as more than just a research tool or waste of time. When I started this class, I’d just spent the summer using the Internet very little and I was proud of it. I was wary of having to use social media on a daily basis for this class. Then I read about how protesters in Iran and other places used Twitter to promote their cause. I realized that the Internet could be a powerful social force to create positive change. This opened the door for me to start learning about lots of ways the Internet can benefit society, individuals, and myself. Now, thanks in part to my new belief that the Internet can create change, I’m working on the Mormon Badge Project.

Another way this book influenced me was by explaining how the structure of the Internet works to benefit activism. I’m embarrassed to say that before reading this book, I had no idea about the technical details of how the Internet worked. From reading this book (and asking my ex-computer science major husband for more details) I learned that the Internet is composed of a network of servers and routers that exchange packets of information. The decentralized structure of the Internet makes it difficult to censor, because information is nearly impossible to intercept and shutting down one router can’t keep information from rerouting through another path. And because Internet protocols are publicly available, anyone can set up a router and the network can keep expanding infinitely. So activists can promote their message to more people than ever with a lower risk of being shut down by hostile governments. Now that I understand better how the Internet works and how that structure is so important, I find using the Internet much more interesting and meaningful.

2. My literary work was one of my favorite plays, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. I compared the fluidity of online identity and the related difficulty of establishing credibility online to Jack and Algernon’s problems with multiple identities in the play. I reread a scene in which Jack is told by his fiancee’s mother that he cannot marry her daughter because she does not know his family, even though she finds him acceptable in other respects. This helped me realized that a lack of credentials can throw acceptable content into question. I applied this problem especially to badges. The content of a badge may appear to be acceptable to show a person has a certain skill set, but if the identity of the issuer is uncertain or lacks credentials, a potential employer or badge earner might doubt the overall validity of the badge.

3. My self-directed learning has focused mainly on credibility, badges, and, more recently, how the Church uses online content to spread information and battle misconceptions. Some interesting things I’ve learned:

a. According to one study I skimmed, people often use social resources to evaluate the credibility of online content. For instance they rely on sources such as customer reviews, comments sections, and recommendations from friends to decide what content is credible.

b. Badges, badges, badges! What gets me most excited about badges (other than their potential for battling misconceptions about Mormons) is that they allow earners to display granular knowledge instead of just general qualifications. If badges catch on, I think they could be especially useful to obtain and display sets of specific skills tailored by the user to attract specific employers.

c. As I’ve begun to look at Church content about misconceptions that we can scoop to use for our badges, I’ve been really impressed with how the Church deals with difficult issues. They seem to find a balance between giving too much and too little information and between explaining and justifying. For instance, a page on the Church newsroom about polygamy shares enough details to help the Church appear open and transparent to some extent, but doesn’t share so much that it just raises more questions and doubts. The newsroom page also explains why early Saints felt it was acceptable to practice polygamy, but doesn’t try too hard to convince the reader that polygamy was ok. I’ve taken this as a model for our Mormon badges. I think our mission isn’t to battle controversy by convincing people, but to battle misconception by informing people. So we can’t convince them that Polygamy was inspired by God, but we can make sure they know that we don’t practice it anymore.

4. One of the things I love about his class is that as students we do influence and help each other’s learning. Because we share all of our class work with each other, I feel more motivated to produce good work. Seeing what other students are doing to move their projects along gives me ideas for my project and motivates me to keep improving my work. And, it’s just fun to be able to see others’ ideas take shape.

Right now, I’m being influenced a lot by Katie Wilkie and Greg Williams, the edbadgers. Not only do they often help my group by sending us links related to our project, but it’s been helpful to see how they are structuring and producing their badges. I’ve been really impressed by how well-designed their badge blog is and by their promotion video to show to the 8th graders. I’d like to imitate that by redesigning the Mormon Badges blog (which needs a serious facelift) and producing a video to post on you-tube that will promote the Mormon Badges.

I’m also really interested in what the litmag group is doing. I worked on litmag staffs in highschool and on Inscape here at BYU for a couple winter semesters. I really like the idea of a literary magazine that’s more interactive. I think art and writing lose some of their vitality when their audience’s are limited just to elite groups of specialists. It will be interesting to see if their magazine can build a wider community of readers than just academics and English majors.

As the semester progresses, I want to focus more on learning how to get publicity and social proof. I also need to understand the technical details of web design and badge baking better.

Communication Breakdown/ Shameless Plug for my Poetry

In the digital age, we have more ways to communicate than we ever have before. Cell phones, email, Skype, social media. We have shared some great stories online and in class about how technology has helped us communicate. But sometimes there is still a communication breakdown. Online comments and texts are misinterpreted, pictures with ex-significant others get posted and tagged after the person has already moved on to someone new, there are trolling wars. No matter how much technology advances, communication is still hard work. 

This poem I’m working on isn’t about digital communication, but it is about the difficulty of communicating what we feel. When I reread it today it made me think of digital culture. With all the new technology, what is the best medium to express what we feel? Will those mediums be adequate?

Recipe for Love
Ellis Beth Clark Dyck

I wanted to woo you with food,
speak to your palate in passionate flavor.
I decided on a cake,
your mother’s recipe,
homemade butter cream frosting,
shaped like a heart. And then I thought,
what if it burned, what if you weren’t hungry,
what if you didn’t understand
this cake was my love for you?
What if my heart
spoke to yours in baking
and your tongue, teeth, esophagus
tasted, chewed, swallowed
without relaying the message?
What if your soft palate and lips
didn’t give a soft answer?
Delicious! I love you!
What if the masticated remnants of my love
passed through undigested,
never nourishing your blood and bones
with the surety that I love you wholly and completely?
What recipe, even from your mother’s cookbook,
Could measure out passion, affection, desire, and loyalty
In proportional quantities so that the sum
Of these ingredients was undying love?

Comments for Group CCC

Sorry I didn’t get these to you last week, I sort of didn’t realize that was when they were due.  I hope these comments are helpful:

What I liked:

·         A twitter account and blog for Angelina!  Nice use of transmedia.  I can see how this could help you guys develop her character and know how to write her in the novella.  Are you planning on using the twitter account and blog to generate publicity too, or is it just to help you guys write?

·         Your collaboration.  I can tell from the notes on your blog and Google doc that your team is already falling into a rhythm of bouncing ideas off of each other and changing those ideas together to make them better.  I noticed you aren’t afraid to voice concerns about possible weaknesses of other’s ideas, which is good.  That way you can keep each other in check.

·         I enjoyed reading your character and plot outlines so far.  I think this will be a fun project to read when it’s completed.

Suggestions

·         Do you have a plan for how to manage contributors outside the class?  What are your plans to recruit collaborators outside of class?  (I saw your Facebook page.  Is that working?)  What tasks will you assign them and how will you decide who to assign to what?  What will you do if someone takes too long or ignores the group plan for the plot?  Will you allow outside collaborators to suggest changes to the plot or characters?  I think it is important to think about these issues early on in the process so there is less confusion and you can find as many outside collaborators as you want.

·         What about compiling a guide for people who might want to write or edit part of the story?  You could use material you already have about plotlines and characters, but also add directions about specific guidelines and ways to contribute.

·         Since you are writing about a team of people with different personalities, I’d suggest looking for inspiration by reading books or watching movies that contain a team of characters.  The Italian Job is the first one that comes to mind.  See what you can learn about how to have characters with different personalities act believably.   Remember this paraphrased tip by Orson Scott Card: every character is a different person depending on who he or she is with.  So if you have one character who interacts with three others, you essentially have to imagine three characters (or three facets ) for that one character, one for Polly with James, one for Polly with Micro, one for Polly with Angelina, etc.  Anyway, don’t know how useful that quote is, but I think Card is right.

·         Have you done any research on how artificial reality can benefit people emotionally?  I think a little bit of research would help a lot in making your plot believable.

Reflections on 3 types of learning: peer to peer, professor to student, and mentored learning.

How do people learn most effectively?  As a student and a future teacher, I'm fascinated by this question.  So taking Professor  Burton's class and learning about badges on my own have been thrilling peeks into new educational models.  Badges often represent a peer learning model (like at Mozilla's Peer 2 Peer University) that seems in sharp contrast to the more top-down, professor to student model we are used to in traditional education environments like the university.  Both learning models have advantages.  Peer learning promotes initiative, independent thought, and collaboration with others. The professor to student model delivers high quality information and transmits knowledge from the valuable experience of an expert.  Professor Burton's class is a good mix of both learning models, combining the advantages of each.

One of the things I love about our Digital Culture class is that a lot of the discussion and homework for the class revolves around our relatively self-directed learning and the resulting connections we make and ideas we create.  We get to learn from each other and be inspired by each other's good ideas.  I'm really excited about our semester group projects which we design ourselves and about the chance to participate in other group projects on an advisory basis.  I've never had a final project that was so participatory and relevant-- people  other than me and my professor, if only my other classmates, are going to see my work, and hopefully some people outside my class will see it as well.  I've always enjoyed school, but I'm extra excited about my work for this class because I determine a lot of it for myself and I get to discuss it with others and get feedback.

But another of the strengths of the class is that we aren't just left alone to learn for ourselves.  Professor Burton's lectures introduce us to new ideas we wouldn't find so quickly on our own.  With his expert knowledge he provides context and direction for our self directed learning, helping to nudge our exploration and creation in productive directions.  One way he helps us learn is by establishing criteria so we know how to judge our work and so we're encouraged at the right time to move from the relatively cushy development stage to some formalization of our ideas.

In a sense, the Digital Culture class gives us the best of both worlds: initiative and creativity-building peer learning, and the context, direction, and expert knowledge offered by professor to student learning.  Today I've been thinking about a third learning model: mentored learning.  On Jessica Lee's recent blog post, "Badges and Adapting Education in a Digital World," which discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the open, often peer-based learning that happens online, "William" left a comment that got me thinking about mentored learning: 

When I look back at all my education, the experiences that most stick with me where the ones that produced something large, tangible and objectively valuable (having intrinsic merit) as a by-product, such as a research paper or thesis paper or production-grade computer program. The point being was that it was the extensive, mentored effort at delivering something significant through an end to end process of design, construct, review iterations that had to meet a real-world bar - this "labor" over time was the realization of the instruction.

This "supervised labor to delivery of significant things" is what seems to be missing from any easy and convenient open-house of content.

I'm not willing to throw out open or peer learning, but I think William makes a good point about the importance of mentored learning on significant projects. I'm currently writing a collection of poetry and working with a faculty member who helps me revise my poems.  I'm also taking a poetry class from this faculty member in which the students critique each other's work.  While I appreciate and learn from my classmates' feedback, my faculty mentor's feedback is invaluable because of her experience and knowledge from years of being a published poet.  I predict working with her will be one of the most significant experiences of my undergraduate education. 

Could mentored learning as well as peer to peer learning become part of the online learning experience and not just something available at a university?  With the resources available on the net, I think it could definitely be possible to connect with experts or experienced enthusiasts and set up meaningful mentored learning relationships with them online. That's probably one of the relatively untapped possibilities for online learning. It would be great to see a website aimed at connecting mentors and mentees. I can see how mentored learning could enhance and complement the valuable peer learning that goes on in many open online learning models.  A mentor could easily issue a badge to a learner who had completed a significant supervised project.

What do you think?  How could mentored learning enhance the online learning experience?  How could we use the Internet to make it happen more often?

Showing our Beliefs in our Creative Efforts: some thoughts

Something our class visitors said on Thursday really struck me.  One of them said something to the effect of: Non-mormons are getting rich off of The Book of Mormon Broadway musical, but a church member would have been afraid to title a musical that, thinking it would turn people away.  We're paying for that reluctance because other people are using The Book of Mormon and maybe not portraying us in a way that we would like.

Can you see the truth in this?  When we fall silent about the church, in our creative efforts or in our conversations online and  offline, other people come in and say what we wouldn't say, how we wouldn't have said it.

As I looked for more possible sources of social proof for the Mormon badge project, I ran across this NBC interview with Matthew Bowman, a church member and religion professor at Campden-Sydney College.  The interview was to discuss misconceptions about Mormon doctrine in the song "I Believe," from, you guessed it, The Book of Mormon musical.  I think Bowman did a great job of explaining our beliefs and clarifying the problems in the song.  Check it out: http://rockcenter.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/23/13436403-true-or-false-how-accurate-is-the-book-of-mormon-song-i-believe

I think it is really important that members engaged in creative efforts periodically include evidence of their spirituality in their work, and as appropriate, include positive and accurate portrayals of the Church.  As a poet, I guess that means I should try more often to include spiritual themes in my work.  Here is a preliminary attempt that I wrote for my poetry workshop class last week.  Feedback appreciated.  This poem is definitely in beta. :)

Tools of His Trade

Ellis Clark Dyck

In a moment carved from heaven’s timelessness,
Jesus walks alone, barefoot
down miles of gold paving stones,
past fresh snowfall mansions glittering
in the ubiquitous, source-less light,
to his workshop.

It’s a small house, diamond bright,
except for the unadorned cedar door,
which he opens, entering with a smile
for the golden light lofting
a million motes of sawdust
and for the scent of cedar,
maple, and rosewood rising like incense.

Here, the tools of His trade,
the bronze headed chisels, the hand adze
and hand saw, the bow drill and brad awl,

the whetstone waiting for His hand.

He goes to the work bench, begins
again the work of carving and shaping.

With the adze he planes timbers from Lebanese cedars
for a fishing boat that could have carried him
over the choppy waters of Galilee,
on a day when sunrays burned his neck red
and squeezed sweat from his temples and back,
a miraculous day of living that the Gospels forgot.

Reaching for a mallet to pound a plank in place,
he thinks briefly of the Roman nails,
how he gave up his hands
long before the cross,
forsook Joseph’s sunlit workshop
for the fishermen and tax collectors

and well women who would follow Him.

He does not regret His trade,
 but as he prepares to leave, brushing
sawdust and shavings from his clothes,
he wills his omniscience to ignore
a single curl of cedar
clinging to the hem of His robe.

Reflections on the Media Fast: We Are so Lucky

My media fast was more like Jalena’s idea of a media diet for a day.  I committed to only use the Internet for work and school, not to listen to music, and only to use my telephone to communicate with family.  This wasn’t that different than my normal media use because lately I rarely use social media except for this class.  I felt slightly more tempted than usual to use the Internet in other ways just because I knew I couldn’t, but resisted.   So in summary I didn’t feel like this experience was a big change from the routine.  In the past I’ve had problems with using too much social media or surfing aimlessly, but lately I’ve been pretty minimalist in my Internet use. 

But what the media fast did do for me was, ironically, make me really grateful for media technology.  I started thinking how difficult it would have been for me to give up my phone entirely by switching it off.  I use it as a watch, I use it at the supermarket to call my husband to remind me what we decided to buy, I use it as a timer when I’m baking, I use it to talk to my family in North Idaho (and I like to talk to them a lot).  Just not being able to check the time would have driven me crazy.  What an amazing tool! 

And what if I didn’t have the Internet for schoolwork?  This semester I’m taking an online section of Physical Science.  Because I just married and my husband lives in Cedar City, I spend four days a week in Provo and go home on Thursday afternoons for the weekend.  It was hard to find classes that didn’t meet on Friday, and if it weren’t for my online class, I would have one less day to spend with my husband—that is a big deal to me. 

Not to mention that email and facebook let me keep in touch with some (thought not all) of my converts in Argentina, people I have no way of seeing.  

I expected the media fast to alert me to the ways the “machines” were controlling me.  Instead it reminded me what a tremendous blessing most media technology is, reminded me especially of the ways it keeps me connected and even makes it easier for me to be with the people I love.  We are so lucky to live in the Digital Age.

Ideas for Mormon Info Badges Project

Thanks, everyone, for the social feedback about my Mormon info badges today.  We all know there is a lot of misinformation or sometimes just a lack of information about the Church.  We’ve all been annoyed by people who share their false assumptions about the church without bothering to check facts.  But at this moment, because of all the Romney hype, everyone wants to know what Mormonism is about.  It’s our chance to help people get informed and get accurate.  Here are some more specific ideas about the project: 

Purpose
Use badges to inform people with little to no knowledge about the Church about our basic beliefs and clarify common misconceptions or controversies.  Create publicity for the project by encouraging people to push their badges to their blogs or social media profiles so others will see them and want to earn them too.

Project Tasks

·         Learn Mozilla specs, how badge-baking (I think this just means embedding a link to the host website into the badge icon) works.

·         Write badge content.  I imagine reading material followed by multiple choice questions to test knowledge.  Any different ideas? 

·         Design host website for badges.

·         Design attractive looking badge icons that will catch people’s attention.

·         Find a way to publicize: get large numbers of BYU students to earn the badges, post them, and invite non-member friends to earn them?  It would be great to release the badges before the election.

Possible Badges and Content – I’m not sure how many we’ll want to make.  How many is too many?  I think it would be best if each badge only took 5-10 minutes to complete, but what do you guys think?  We want them to be accessible, but I certainly don’t want people doing a 5 minute badge and thinking they know everything about the church.  Here are some ideas for badges.  The bolded words are badge titles.

·         How Was Mormonism Founded?

o   Prophets and apostasy (define term: restoration)

o   First Vision

o   Book of Mormon

o   Missionary efforts today

·         What Do Mormons Believe about God?   (this badge could maybe be combined with the following two badges under the title What Do Mormons Believe?, but I thought it might be too long.)

o   God is our loving Heavenly Father

o   3 separate beings

o   God has a body like ours

o   Heavenly Mother too!

·         What Scriptures Do Mormons Use?

o   Book of Mormon

o   Bible

o   Doctrine and Covenants

o   Pearl of Great Price

·         What Do Mormons Believe about Family and Community?

o   Eternal families

o   Importance of Service

·         Why Mormons Don’t Drink Coffee

o   Word of Wisdom background

o   Good: fruits, grains, small amount of meat  Bad: tea, coffee, tobacco, illegal drugs, alcohol

·         Articles of Faith (a short explanation of each one)

·         Mormon Controversies: Polygamy

o   Brief history of polygamy in the Church and the Manifesto.

o   NO member in good standing practices polygamy.

o   Polygamist groups in S. Utah, Arizona, etc. are NOT affiliated with the church in any way.

·         Mormon Controversies: Banning the Priesthood to Blacks

o   For their times, early church members were racially progressive and opposed slavery.

o   President Kimball and the lifting of the ban in 1978.

o   Statement by President Hinckley warning against racism, BoM scripture that says all are alike unto God, both black and white, male and female, etc.

·         Mormon Controversies: Women and the Church

o   Women have played an important part in the Church since its founding.

o   Although women do not hold the priesthood, they do serve in some leadership positions.  (Women and men have complementary roles.)

o   Relief Society?

o   General authority quotes about the importance of women, respecting women, etc, including quotes by female general authorities.

o   Maybe some quotes by regular Mormon women about how they feel about Mormonism and womanhood.

·         Meet a Mormon

o   Mormons come from all parts of the world and all walks of life.  Some of them probably have a lot in common with you!

o   This badge would require participants to read a certain number of mormon.org profiles.  But we’d have to make it clear our badges aren’t affiliated with mormon.org.

So, who wants to work on this project?  What suggestions do you have (even if you don’t want to be a project member)?  Which badges do you like?  What others would you suggest?