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?