Evaluation On My Blogging Project

At first I didn’t expect to pick up new things in Writing for New Media course. For me, the use of new media is something that you come across and pick up in daily life instead of studying it in class, taught by a teacher. Given the fact that new media are becoming “newer” and “newer” every second, how could a course possibly cover it? The reason I applied for this class was simply hoping to improve my writing skills in English.

But then I realized, this course was to make informed a new kind of literacy that may have already been adopted yet not have been aware of: the new media literacy. In the context of new media literacy, as I mentioned before in my previous post, writing is no longer the act of using a pen to write sentences on the paper. It is a general term for creating content using new digital tools and share it with the whole Internet world. From the blog posts of my classmates, I learned that many people do not think that they know about new media, although actually for me, they are already using quite a lot of new media tools. Therefore, this course meets the need to make known the fact that everyone can get involved in the new media world.

Apart from that, I did learn some new media tools that I had never heard of before. The most impressive tool is Prezi. A few weeks ago I served as voluntary worker in a local primary school. I was there to teach Form 6 students interviewing skills which prepared them for the upcoming interviews for entering middle school. I made my presentation slides using Prezi...

Putonghua Language Workshop on Prezi

...and found it easy to use and highly welcomed by the audience. For this, I must thank Johnna for introducing this amazing tool.

I was quite surprised when we were assigned the blogging project because in my viewpoint, blogging was no longer the newest Internet tools now. With twitter, tumblr, facebook and all those new media websites, we still had to write blogs? But the fact is…I had never create a blog for a general audience before despite the fact that blogging service had been there for years. So it is actually a brand new experience for me when I started to write my posts and asked my friends to comment on them. When I quoted the freedom video in my previous post, I asked the owner and creator of the video, Andrea Lopez-Portillo for permission and told her about my blogging assignment. She said she would love to see my blog so I gave her the URL. Since Andrea is a Mexican artist who used to work in London and now in Austria, can I say that my blog now went global? It just feels good when you are writing for someone else and expecting feedbacks, and YOU DO GET FEEDBACKS at last, some of which are really inspiring.

There are two kinds of writing: you write for yourself, and you write for someone else. This blogging project made me try the latter one. To me, it works pretty well. Meanwhile, however, I am still wondering could it be NEWER? As I mentioned before, blogging is not new enough to me. Next time why don’t we switch from blogging to tumblr, twitter or even Facebook group?

Speaking of Facebook group, participants of the 2011 Salzburg Academy on Media and Global change use Facebook group to stay in touch. Amer Al-Sarie, a participant who comes from Syria came up with an idea that each week we vote among various topics to choose a topic of the week for discussion. Here are some screen shots of our discussions:

Since then I fell in love with the Facebook group function. An excellent tool to arouse inspiring debate – I love debates.

What I also found out is that in new media age, one thing that matters is who you are following. Facebook, twitter, tumblr, weibo…all these are just platforms, through which you can explore various issues. We have to choose the right ones to follow, find the best ways to turn meaningless “message” into meaningful “information”.

Well, I guess that’s pretty much about it. Or should I say, that’s it about this blog. But the “writing for the new media” thing is not over – it will never be, because writing for new media is basically what I do everyday. To keep in touch with me, you are all welcome to find me on these websies: Facebook: duyunyi@hotmail.com; twitter: @dodoluvu


Ciao!

Appendix: Comments I made on my classmates’ blogs

http://en4166kandice.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-digital-life-inspiration-from.html?showComment=1320820449323#c7011321932603571241

http://en4166jenifer.blogspot.com/2011/10/innovations-in-writing-for-new-media.html?showComment=1320841092566#c2429710571930673567

http://en4166jenifer.blogspot.com/2011/11/critical-issues-in-writing-for-new.html?showComment=1320843022044#c7430766355434812452

http://en4166kitty.blogspot.com/2011/10/week-9s-class-was-about-video-games.html?showComment=1320902668752#c4468201660233023001

Facebookized?

Nowdays,

When I meet new friends, instead of asking them for their telephone number, I will ask them “what’s your Facebook?”;

When I am working on a project with partners, instead of booking a time available for everyone, I will create a Facebook group, add everyone in and post any thoughts I come up with in the group;

When I want to tale to a friend online, instead of logging in MSN, I will open the Facebook website to see if he or she is online and send him or her a Facebook message;

…

For the record, I did not started to use Facebook until July this year. Before then, I used the equivalent version Renren in Mainland China. But now, I would make an effort to climb over the Great Fire Wall to get on Facebok even if I am in Mainland China.

Facebook-addicted? Definitely. But why?

First of all, unlike Renren that connects only with people within Mainland China, Facebook is a global network. I have friends from the U.S., the U.K., Russia, Lebanon, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Syria, Iraq, etc and THEY ALL USE FACEBOOK. Recently I met a new friend that comes from Burma and HE USES FACEBOOK TOO. Without Facebook, I am just an ordinary Chinese girl isolated in the world, immersed in the highly-restricted Chinese network which I thought to be the real whole world. Facebook provides a window for me to connect to other parts of the world.

Facebook is a social networking site in its nature. Regarding this, it is doing a great job. One good thing about using Facebook to connect with your friends is that you are learning what they’ve been up to PASSIVELY instead of getting to know ACTIVELY. I’m not saying that this is a a positive side, but it surely saves a lot of trouble calling people asking them how are they. Facebook allows us to take a few steps back and take control of our social network.

What’s more, Facebook helps maintain constantly going-on conversations. Those status updates, messages and groups discussions are always there; they are saved on the server. When you open your Facebook, they won’t go away. Whether participants of conversation is online or not is not an issue anymore – they can still see it when they get on. This feature helps us go beyond the limit of time and space. It also reduces the pressure of face-to-face real time communication.

Four months ago, I did not know how to tag people on Facebook. Now, Facebook is the best way to reach me and I’m writing this post to say good things about it. How amazing!

Writing For New Media - First Glimpse

* What's Writing For New Media?

Two keywords: Writing and New Media.

It does not necessarily have to be limited to writing literally: tweeting, updating status on Facebook, posting on blogs, making a video and uploading it onto video-sharing websites..."Writing" in this context is actually a general term for creating new content.

New media are media that allow their users to become content creator/provider and share with other users. It is compared to the "old media" where there is an authoritative content provider to act as the center of the circle. Its audience either can not give feedback to it, or can interact with it by simply commenting under the post. But they can never take the place of the "writer" in order to provide content other than what the original writer wants. In "old media" days, only one person or one specific group of administrator have the right to let their voice be heard whereas in new media age, everybody has the right. In this sense, the "old" media is more of a autocratic regime while new media is more of a civil society.

* What's in it for Me?

Why should I care about writing for new media? Why is it so important? 

I will not answer the question directly. Instead, I'd like to show you a video first.

Look at this baby. She grows up in a world that iPad is taken for granted while a paper magazine seems unfit. For her, the Apple product makes an integral part of life.

"The medium is the message." says Marshall McLuhan. It means that the medium influences how the message is perceived. With the iPad and all those interactive touch-screen new electronic devices around during her growing up, this baby will internalize a brand new kind of media literacy, based on which she is likely to build works that can barely be created or even well understood by our generation. It excites me all the time just to think about what this new generation of digital natives will create in the future using the new media devices right at their disposal.

So, why is writing for new media so important? It helps you to reborn into a digital immigrant, well-adapted to a new era that is gradually and rapidly forming into shape - before it's too late.

* My Experiences in Writing for New Media

Here I'd like to show you two videos. 

I attended the Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change this summer, where I spent the most amazing three weeks in my life  with over 50 participants and top scholars from around the world. One of the tasks that I managed to accomplish in the Academy is to make a public service announcement and put it online:
(if you don't mind, can you please tell me your opinion about this video by posting your comment under this post?)

During the Academy, participants worked collaboratively to create and index of statistics on Violation of Freedom. We also participated in an on-site photo contest under the topic of Freedom(and the lack of it). Each of us submitted a photo that we thought can best represent the concept of the topic. This is my submission:

Andrea Lopez-Portillo, an talented artist who also worked as an intern in the Academy made a video out of all the photos and statistics submitted. Please enjoy it.

Amazing, isn't it? I can't tell you how proud I am for having been involved in this work. In this video, you can see the extraordinary chemistry created by the proper mashing up of ordinary pictures and statistics. It perfectly shows how pictures showing various perspectives of different people echo with each other as well as the startling statistics.

* Innovations in Writing for New Media

The point I want to make by describing my experinces in writing for new media is that innovations in writing for new media does not have to do with fancy, fashionable, brand new tools. Instead, it is all about presenting ordinary content in innovative ways. The technology to create the two videos above has been around for years. But for me, they are still some new forms of writing for/with new media.

Don't be intimidated. New media is the best platform we have now. Come and exercise your individual autonomy in the new media world!

My Digital Life

I use computer everyday. I surf on the Internet everyday. I am an Internet-addict. I am hopeless.

Who cares? I just want to be plugged to the world.

photo by Conor Lawless on Flickr


Here're some media that I use everyday:

1. Twitter - Twitter is a combination of innumerable fragmented pieces of people's lives.
2. Facebook - The key reason why I try so hard to climb over the Great Fire Wall standing between mainland China and the outside world: to get on Facebook.
3. Weibo & Fanfou - two microblogs based in mainland China, equivalent to twitter, yet with more Chinese characteristics.
4. Douban - a useful website to find people who share common interests with you in books, music and movies.

What do I want to learn in this course? Hmmmm...I am so used to writing in new media. In fact, I write a lot via new media. But the things I write are mostly fragmented, incoherent pieces. This course is a good opportunity to force myself to write something logical, coherent, complete, making the most of the fabulous new media tools we have in today's digital era.

Hello world!

Good morning!