Practicum #8-Nicole

As I wrap up my practicum semester project, I have found that the topic of support groups allowed me to see how different groups of people use the Internet differently on a regular basis. To fully understand the lives of support group users, I had to immerse myself in their networks. It was quite different from how I imagined the stereotypical support group to be. I imagined support groups to be like AA or some sort of sitting in a circle telling each other how their feelings are. Using support groups online is a much more convenient, private and non-committal way of receiving the help and guidance someone may need. Although I don't intend to continue my use of SupportGroups.com, I have learned a great deal about this type of online community. However, I do intend to continue using the marathon support groups I have joined.

practicum #8--Kailin

it is good to check back and realize I still have one pose to go.
compared with famous SNS like Facebook, personal homepage provide a wider space to establish my online identity. It gives me a better sense of self-understanding, allowing me to characterize myself or change myself to who I really want to be. for example,I was explored by multiple me in my homepage. The “Mode” page shows that I am interested in trend. My traveling diaries express I like to broaden my outlook. And the collections of lomo camera represent I am a big lomo fan.

However, in the process of building online identity, we should concerned piracy problem.Parts of what I did with my blog might refer to soft piracy. agreed with Lessig’s critiques that copyright law should be more inflexible in digital age. The overly strict law will create a “chilling” effect on creativity. I found many interesting or gorgeous collection pictures. Unfortunately, they were under copyright so I cannot use them. I didn't do the filesharing for profit purpose. In fact, this is a new way of spreading content. In digital time, tons of images or music or videos are uploaded or downloaded every single moment. I argue if copyright only mainly focus on how to overly protect the original producer. The key point I believe should be how to preserve the benefits of filesharing, while minimize the wrongful harm it causes artists.

It is pity that rarely people use personal sites although it fills us in a more freedom space. Homepage is collection of data forms a publication, while SNS forms participation. Lack of participation directly leads to the reduction. People concern more social connection than personalization. No matter how wonderful one does, he doesn't feel his contribution matter and feel some degree of social connection, he will easily loss the dynamics to contribute more.

over all, I really enjoy doing my project.

Practicum #7-Nicole

Within the last week, I have come a long way with my online relationships. As I mentioned before, I actually met people that I connected with online, but I also continue to connect with people from SupportGroups.com. I'm not just connecting with one group, but several groups. Since you are able to participate in multiple topics, I chose three to participate in: Weight Loss, Death and Divorce. I realize that most of those don't exactly seem overexciting, but I was able to contribute to each in a different way. Recently, I have been really connecting with a user dealing with her sister's death. We met on a discussion board and have no began talking in our own personal conversation. I message her about once or twice a day. Although I've never had to deal with the loss of a sister, I can sympathize. She has been telling me how helpful I am for her situation. Very rewarding.

Practicum 8--Angela

To wrap up my project I wanted to go back to the main idea of trying to integrate oneself into a community. In some ways I feel like I really have made a connection and become an "expert" in the community such as in my previous post when I talked about the gym facebook group. I feel like I can go back to the actual gym now and feel more at home and part of the "crowd" than I have since high school. The other blogs and forums will take much longer to become an "expert" in and I will probably never be a top poster, but I do feel like I fit in more in smaller parts of the forums such as the midwest specific part.

Its been pretty fun following blogs, etc. in a topic that I really understand and find interesting. I've definitely had to reconsider the relationship the internet and technology has with even something as opposite as rock climbing. I plan to keep following the blogs and posting in the forums--which before this project I was a bit too shy to post in.

Practicum: Twitter

Over this past semester, I have become incredibly familiar with Twitter. I went from only knowing what I knew about it from the media, to interacting with the site on almost a daily basis. However, one issue that I realized that I have not yet discussed on the blog is that of access. While it is free for anyone with Internet access to visit and become a member of Twitter, in order to really engage and participate in the site, one needs to have a smart phone, or some mobile device that can support the Twitter application. At various points during the semester, I found myself thinking, "If I did not have my blackberry, I don't know how I would do this project". So while Twitter's membership has increased greatly in the past year, we must still be concerned with the issue of access. Not everyone has the means to afford a smart phone, or even Internet access for that matter. Because a smart phone makes using Twitter so much more practical and enjoyable, I would argue that Twitter faces greater challenges regarding access than other social networking sites, such as Facebook, which are primarily accessed on the computer. Perhaps Twitter will become even more mainstream when all cellular phones have the capability of supporting Twitter.

Number 8

I think that politicians are trying to use new media, but are still nervous about implications. Feingold uses his blog to post press releases. Twitter is not used to give insight into candidates lives, but as just another way to post links to the same press releases. I am not generally one who says I want to know what my president is really like, I want their policies to play the important role, but politicians have a unique chance with facebook and twitter to reach people on a more personal note. They can tell us who they are and why the policies are important that they are recommending.

Grassroots organizations as seen by the most recent elections can play a larger role then ever before. Reaching people 24 hours a day is now possible for small organizations. The two party system is still strong, but these organizations will force the democrats and republicans to look at the new issues.

Bloggers change the news cycle. Television has already made politics a 24/7 operation, but print is a powerful medium and now it is also 24/7.

I found that the internet is used differently by all three of these groups that I explored, but what I would want you all to take away form my presentation and my post is that politics has only just scratched the potential of the Web and the power and importance of new media will only continue to grow.

I will leave you with this: D.C political offices are starting to create a department specifically for new media in addition to traditional communication's offices

importance of online political activism

One the things that I constantly thought about while doing this project is the role of online political activism.

When I was looking at the Tea Party forums and my blogs i kept coming back to the idea that Web 2.0 was trying to democratize the internet. I think that by giving people a voice it also makes the governments democracy stronger as well. Do you guys remember when it was discovered that Sarah Palin's clothing was paid for by the GOP? Well politico broke that first online. Instantly the word was everywhere because the article reached users as soon as it was finished.

In addition, anyone can create a blog to discuss politics now and small niche groups that may get left out of main stream media. Through this these groups can end up getting heard and become relevant in the political discussion the possibilities are endless when it comes to what political activist can now achieve because of the Web.

Yes, this is not always a good thing. I have read some pretty crazy things while doing research for this project, but at the same time it is pretty great that major papers like The New York Times no longer control the news

More on the Tea Party

I enjoyed exploring the Tea Party forums especially surrounding the elections. It was interesting because while there was a consistant updating of the message boards leading up to the election a lot of the discussion remained very general. There was talk about what was important standards for the country to maintain and of course more on going hunting. I expected more political get out the vote messages, but there really was not that much of that. The only reason I could think of for this would be that the Tea Party forum that I visited is not necessarily for political unity, but social unity to communicate people that have shared values

I never actually participated in the discussions because it was not a place for debate, but agreement the "virtual community" was well established and I didn't feel that I could enter into the conversation.

Professional Bloggers

I explored political activism through the use of blogs. I broke blogging into two groups, professional and amateur blogging. The difference is that professionals are current or former journalist and the blog is not just a hobby, but functions and a digital newspaper searching for new information with the aim to break a story. On the other hand amateur political bloggers are people with an interest in politics as a personal hobby, but are not aiming to create news just discuss it.

Although, both types are important I focused on the professional blogs such as talking points memo and Huffington post. I tend to group politico in this group because they are mainly on the web, but do publish a small newspaper in D.C.

I spent each day of my project searching these blogs. There is a strong influence of the print tradition on these blogs because most of them are Journalists. What is interesting about these media is that they allow for a lot of user comments and talking points memo allows people to participate in certain sections of the website. Usually these sites are starting by younger people looking to make a splash in political reporting with out all of the restraints that print media has

Practicum 8

For my final practicum post and as I have finalized my thoughts on my experience, I wanted to share how impressed I was with an online activist community. I personally choose to join Breast Cancer Research Advocacy groups because it has been a cause important to me, my friends and family. By joining these groups and following forums and walls, discussions, and news sources I felt like I was much more informed and part of a new community. In particular I felt that the democracy through the groups was an important and defining feature that attributes to much of the success that has come from these groups. It gave me quick and easy information, a diversified group, division of power that everyone here was as an equal and could do what they wanted and it allowed for communication within the members. It amazed me to see how much could be done online with the assistance of the Internet and these groups.
I personally chose to follow more than contribute because I am not as active outside of the online community as many other members are, but I still felt the benefits of joining a group. I was still able to participate by posting links that I found helpful, or clicking links posted by others and signing petitions but my personal actions towards the cause went as far as that.
I also looked at the way members chose to communicate with each other in order to see how dedicated and activists used online groups. I found that because this is generally a one sided activist group that the members were very encouraging and supportive of what other people had to say. For instance when I started a forum topic about a news break about Chicago's health care, I was flooded with responses that had to do with the discontent about the current situation and news updates about what was happening.
From doing this project and becoming an active follower of this group it has given me the opportunity to see how much could be accomplished on the internet. Although it may not be the most popular thing on the internet, it still shows how involved people can be outside of the physical reality and how much is being moved to the internet and the virtual community.

Practicum 8 Mike

For my last post I was going to wrap up all that I had found over my research, but because I just finished writing that in my paper, I thought I would discuss how people create identity through their gamer profile. Not only does the username itself say a lot about the user, but the user also gets to post two profile badges that are awarded for certain achievements within the game. The most striking feature I found about these profile badges, however is the fact that there are many drug related ones. These badges say more about the user than that game character as there are really no drug references in the game. Badges like "joint ops" and "blunt trauma" feature pictures of marijuana leaves on them and were visible on many player's profiles. I found it interesting how public these references were, as well as how prominent. I would think that people would feature things more about the game, but I supposed when trying to create identity on the online space, people choose to draw references to other aspects of their life.

Final Essay Promts...

... are up! Look under "Assignments."

Happy studying, and good luck on all of your finals this semester!

Last Practicum Post - Max

With this post, I will summarize my project on Twitter from a business perspective.

First, I just compiled our weekly Twitter stats for @UWBadgersdotcom. As I mentioned, I was curious to see if my tweeting from the Kohl Center inspired a new high in at mentions for the week. We had over 65 at mentions this past week! What I have learned as far as at mentions is: you see a noticeable jump when your football team defeats #1, wins the Big Ten, or goes to the Rose Bowl. Other than that, we were at about 15-25 per week. So did my tweeting help? I hope so. I hope it gave some followers the chance to interact with us and see some new content on there, but did I make a big impact? I was not even close to having the impact that the football team causes on our social media sites when they have success. It's just the way it goes, I guess; when your football team succeeds, social media succeeds.

That brings me to my final thoughts on this project. I was extremely happy when I received this assignment because the project would allow me to learn even more about something that I care deeply about (social media in the world of athletics). Combining concepts we learned in class, it was interesting throughout the semester to see the different levels of usage by followers (see who was participating) and to see how different businesses construct their identity on Twitter. As we have hit on, Twitter is a challenge because the site gives you a framework with which to work, but you have a good amount of freedom to give your page the look and feel you want it to have. A business Twitter is so much different than a personal Twitter and I got to experience that first hand. Punctuation, spelling, content, clarity of messages, what I could or could not say were just some of the noticeable differences I encountered over the semester.

It is hard to get down everything that I learned or discovered, but I think the big takeaway I will have from this project that I will use later in life is that in order to successfully engage your fans, you need to stay active on Twitter. Every person out there uses Twitter differently and our goal from the athletic department is to touch every single follower that we can. People go on Twitter to be a part of a community, and we are in the unique situation in that we already have so many fans across the country, we just have to get them to buy in to what we are selling on Twitter. Many people automatically flock to our page because they want to be identified with the Wisconsin Badgers. But as happy as we are that they want to identify with us, we want to reach out to them and give them all the more reason to like Wisconsin Athletics and become a fan on more than just Twitter. All athletic teams are the same and all businesses on Twitter are the same in that regard; a business is a unique Twitter page because people will automatically flock to the page to be identified with that product. Your goal is to give them a reason to follow you other than just having their name appear in your followers list. It is very different from a personal page; as a business on Twitter, the people come to you. Usually, a business would struggle to get people to come to its store or buy its product. With Twitter, the people come by the thousands just because they want to be associated with your business. The goal is to capitalize on that and make it worthwhile for them and profitable for you.

This was a fun project (one that I will be continuing during the spring) that I will no doubt use knowledge from class in helping to make our social media sites all the more effective. I hope everyone keeps following us!

http://twitter.com/UWbadgersdotcom

Practicum(8)-Allison

For my final post I will wrap up some of my final thoughts about social networking. Before this project I used Facebook and Twitter for my social networking needs, and now I am a member of 43things, last.fm, and bebo as well. Honestly, after this project I don't think I will keep up with any of these new sites. Because I do not know anyone on these sites I felt it hard to make connections. On 43things however I did feel a small connection with people who reached out to help with my goals. Overall, I think the three main aspects of class to draw on for this assignment are identity on the internet, online community, and web 2.0. For most social networking sites it is essential to feel part of a community or else you won't get anything out of the site. Also, I think it is important to represent yourself truly or else you may make connections that are not real and will not translate into real life. In regards to web 2.0 I do not think social networking sites would be around without this shift. Keen may thinks this brings about amateur content and it loses professionals, but I think it draws back to community and identity. Blogging or goal setting may give someone an identity that they never had before and this may build a community they were never a part of. Overall, I am glad I got this as my topic and I think I have learned a lot.

Practicum 7-- Angela

Lately I have found myself branching out a bit from the original blogs and forums I was reading. While I continue to follow my original sites, it was interesting to stumble upon some other blogs by pro-climbers as well as a blog by 2 acquaintances of mine on their trip to the Grecian island Kalymnos for an amazing climbing trip. It was fun reading about the amazing things other climbers are doing as well as some funny stories about their adventures.

I have also continued to receive newsletters from Adventure Rock climbing gym and follow them on facebook. Participating in this group has been very fun. Usually they have fun upcoming events advertised in the newsletter, things that I care about and would love to participate in if I could make it there more often. Their facebook group is always interesting and it's nice that they update regularly. Sometimes the statuses are a question or a phrase meant to spark comments. I feel like I have stayed much more connected to this group and even made some new connections by commenting and reading what others have commented. It's been several years since I've been able to regularly visit that gym and now, following them on facebook and participating in the group, this is the most connected I've felt since I left Pewaukee/Brookfield for Madison and college.

Practicum 8 - Lauren

For my final practicum post I will recap my experiences using ARIS. Overall I think I have developed a pretty decent understanding of what exactly ARIS is. My understanding of this iPhone/ iPod touch application came; however, mostly from my research as opposed to my hand-on experience with the application. Throughout the course of the project I read many articles, kept up-to-date with ARIS’s website which has an RSS news feed and news page on it, and I even read the creator of ARIS’s online blog.

As for my personal experience, because my access to an iPhone was limited, I don’t think I was able to comprehensively explore this networked “gaming” application in its entirety. There are still so many things that ARIS offers that I never got a chance to try. These things include creating my own game, Steel: one of the already created games, and even interacting with other ARIS users.

Before starting this assignment, I thought my experience with ARIS would be more interactive. I was unable to find any websites to discuss the application with other users and I felt that my experience with the application was entirely “solo.” The one game “sing –a-long” that is supposed to have videos of other users “video posts” seemed to be completely empty.

Overall I think that ARIS has the potential to be a great learning tool, but right now its too immature. The software needs to be simplified AND made more accessible to a wider audience. Right now, application is pretty limited to users on the UW campus and I think that the website needs to be simplified to make understanding the purpose of each game and how to play a little easier.

When thinking about ARIS in the context of networked games, I am not sure if this application would exactly fit under this genre. From my understanding of networked games, they founded on interaction with other users on the network. Like I said, I have very little, in fact, no interaction with other users. The lack of accessibility and difficulty to understand ARIS leads me to question if ARIS demonstrates a digital divide. If ARIS were to become a learning tool, what would this mean for people who did not have access to that technology or did not have the knowledge to understand it.

ARIS also made me question the concept of ubiquitous computing. If ARIS became the norm for education, would this change the way we learned things? Would we lose or gain in terms of our educational experiences? I wonder if ARIS is the future of education, and part of me fears that it could be. I do know however, that even if it is in our future, it definitely needs more time to mature. More people need to learn what ARIS is and its capabilities before we can ever think about it being used to replace a classroom.

Overall I think, although frustrating, I enjoyed what I learned about ARIS and I look forward to seeing how this application develops in the future.

Practicum #6-Nicole

I have made a lot of progress with moving my support groups from online to in person. I recently contacted members of the Movin' Shoes Running Club. Hopefully, I will be able to connect with them and find additional marathon training support. I realize that many online support group users don't want to meet people in person. That is the convenience of connecting with an online support group. You don't have to commit to meeting in person at a certain time and location. You are able to go online whenever and where ever as long as you have Internet access. However, I prefer to meet in person when it comes to running because it's much easier to train in person rather than via online messaging.

Check out this link to the running group I recently joined!

Practicum 8 - Sara

The practicum project ended up being kind of a fun assignment. I like that I was forced to use other websites that I had not used before because otherwise I probably never would have. I learned that people will join Facebook groups or follow people on Twitter even if they do not like the person. For instance, some people in Justin Bieber's Facebook group were NOT fans of his; they were the exact opposite. Although there are people who don't seem to fit in some of the groups, for the most part it seems that these groups provide a good meeting place for fans to get together to talk about their favorite celebrity like Justin Bieber for instance.

The part that I found most interesting in my practicum was what I learned about what tweens are allowed to do on the Internet. I am sure that when I was a tween I didn't like the restrictions that my parents set for Internet use, but as I did more research I found that it is definitely important for parents to play a role in a tweens computer and Internet use. Just because I think that parents should play an important role, doesn't mean that the tweens cannot do anything; there should just be some supervision. In fact, there are plenty of websites and games that are safe for kids and tweens if you take a little amount of time to look. I played plenty of games and visited sites that I feel would be safe for tweens with very little parent supervision. Although there are many fun, safe sites for tweens, there are still many sites that tweens should not participate in without supervision.

Overall, I thought this practicum was definitely one of the more exciting assignments I have had in a while. I learned a lot more than I thought I would and gained new experiences on sites I had never been on before. I now feel like I know my way around the Internet a little more and have more insight on what is safe for tweens on the Internet.

Practicum-- Angela

I've found some of the forums for this project to be coming in handy as the weather gets colder. Lately, I've been watching the Midwest specific climbing forums to see if any of the Wisconsin ice climbing places have frozen yet. This is probably one of the most useful functions of Mountain Project. It's a great place to collaborate and not everyone has to make the trek out to Wisconsin's typical ice climbing spots in the early season to see whether or not the ice is in. Those with the inclination and a free Saturday who go out to Governor Dodge State Park or Wyalusing can post their report--which is usually disheartening this early into winter--and inform the masses of how conditions are. This also makes me feel a part of a closer knit community. It goes from all climbers anywhere to ice climbers to local ice climbers...and I don't have to make a journey out into the cold to look at half frozen waterfalls!

Practicum #5-Nicole

Quick update: I have officially used one of my online support groups outside of the Internet. Today, I ran with a person I met in a marathon runner support group. We were both from the Madison area and looking for a person to train with. I did bring my roommate with just in case it was weird.