Outside of the news stories on the home page of my computer and the occasional blog post I run into when researching a topic, my experience with blogs and other forms of digital media has been very minimal. Blogs are definitely a new way of writing and thinking about writing for me. Previously I thought of them as not very credible and almost pointless because they did not give me the information I was looking for, which was usually facts. Although after being in this class and having an actual formal introduction to blogs, I now see they can play a valuable role in the formation of new ideas by serving as a virtual meeting place for discussions and creativity.
The only other blog I had encountered in
some amount of depth before this class was one called Yappi, specifically the
page about high school cross country in Cincinnati. Basically coaches, parents, and really
anybody hold discussions about upcoming races and runners throughout the season. The few times I visited the page I was
quickly drawn into the conversation and immediately found myself siding with
the opinions of some people and not others.
I find the digital storytelling project very similar to Yappi in the
fact that I am easily pulled into the story and want to know what is going to
happen next. Maybe this is the case with
all digital media for me since I have had very limited experience with it, but
I really do think that digital media adds a whole new dimension to the reading
of a piece since there are so many directions that can be taken with all the
hyperlinks and pictures. Sometimes it
can even be hard to know where to begin reading since there is so much going
on.
Not only have I discovered digital media difficult
to read, I have also found hard to create.
I am not a very technology savvy person and was not very comfortable at
all with Google sites in my first few visits.
Thankfully my partner helped figure out the hyperlinking of specific
words among other things because otherwise I would have spent a lot more time
trying to figure out how to use all the tools.
Even though I found all the options we could go in creating our story to
be a little overwhelming, it was really neat how many different ways there were
to put our story together. With books,
there is really only a limited number of ways they can be compiled and written,
but digital media seems limitless. It
seems to me that it would be possible to talk about the same story in many
different types of digital media since the directions one can be taken are
endless.
After this project and the many different
types of stories we have read in the class, I have developed a great respect for
digital media. Reflecting back, my
opinion of them before was uninformed and too narrow. I mainly viewed the internet as a place to
confirm facts, discover new information on websites, or even play games. Now I see how much more the internet can be
used for and other places I can find information besides basic websites. Also I have learned that digital media is
very conducive to creativity and new ideas.
With regard to our digital storytelling project, the directions we could
go with the plot line of the story are endless along with the ways we can
portray the plot line. This can be
looked at as completely overwhelming or as an opportunity to tap into the
creative thoughts we do not usually get to display in the structured form
learning and projects take in many classes.
You said that before this project you thought blogs were “not credible and almost pointless,” but after completing the project you found that they can “play a valuable role in the formation of new ideas.” I sincerely agree with you that blogs can play a very specialized role in creating new idea and that they have the power to disseminate the information to enormous audiences. However, blogs are written for personal use and often with personal agendas. Blogs can still not be very credible since the authors are not responsible to anyone. I think it is ok and I encourage reading blogs, but just make sure that you are reading them with a grain of salt. Consider the authors statements and what he might be accomplishing by writing the information/opinion and use that to decide of you think the blog is credible or just useful in forming your opinion.
ReplyDeleteI think that Eli made a lot of very good points. When I read a blog I look for the opinion of the writer and the bias that comes from that. Being biased though is not bad, it is how blogs work. People can post there views and opinions and readers take them or leave them. I think blogs can be used as a tool. If you have a specific topic you are focused on; the opinions of other bloggers, whether right or wrong, can help to open your eyes to different view points.
ReplyDeleteEli and Matt both bring up very good ideas, especially about the credibility of blogs. I was just surprised by the lack of technological "savyness", especially in this day in age, but i think with practice and more experiences with new forms of technology and story telling you will get used to it, and realize how important of a medium it is.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both you and Matt in your comment on how blogs can be very valuable in forming new ideas. I was the same way before blogs in that I thought they were subjective and biased and thus not credible information sources. I also shared your troubles with navigating the Google site when creating the page. I am also not a very technology savvy person and it took a lot of time to figure out how to hyperlink in my story post. However, I do think that after you cross that barrier and figure out how to do things like that, the site becomes much easier to navigate and even a little fun to create posts because of the numerous possibilities to be creative when making a story or even an informative post.
ReplyDeleteyour writing style is kind of different than other students. for me as an international student. it is little hard to understand. i think it is very interesting that you talked about how digital storytelling is easy to understand but sometime is hard to read. i agree about that we didn't actually do blog a lot before, this is my first time that i write blog too. After i experience this. I think it is very interesting i can keep writing this some time. we can share blog together too.
ReplyDelete