Final Project

For my final project I have created a new Social Network on Ning. The link to the site is listed below.

www.wpmusical.ning.com

My audience for this site is the cast members and parents of the cast members of the musical I direct at my Middle School. While it’s currently a work in progress, even the handful of comments and videos that are posted represent e the potential the site has for being an extremely useful tool. Even though auditions won’t be held until the fall, I see a great potential for use before the rehearsals start, during rehearsals and even after the show is over.

Communication to the cast will be a lot easier with this site. There is a “broadcast message” option so anything (Rehearsal schedules, costume notes, reminders, cancellations) that needs to be communicated to the cast can be done so easily and quickly! We often have Saturday “rehearsals” that are completely devoted to set construction or set painting or costume sewing and I could easily organize these through the events tab. If I were to send out an invitation to a construction day I could invite the entire cast and ask them in their response to let everyone know what kinds of tools they are bringing so if we would need five power drills everyone could see who was bringing what.

The previous things I’ve mentioned will certainly make my life easier in organizing and communicating but they don’t dig into the deeper issues that are presented by using the site. “Passions, then engagements, then imagining…” The students in the show already have the passion and they’ll engaged themselves in that passion by auditioning for and rehearsing and performing but unfortunately, I have to question the extent to which I’ve ever really asked them to imagine. Fortunately there is a lot of potential within the site to help this.
What I’ve already done with the site is to post videos segments of other productions that were found on YouTube. For two out of the five big musical numbers, we are already beginning to discuss how we think they should be staged. For example, should it be a big production number with lots of dancing and flashing lights and confetti and more importantly why do they feel it should be staged that way. I’ll be finding videos of other number in the show and ask them if what they see is what they imagined.

I’ve always very much felt that talking to the cast about who their characters are and what makes them tick is one of the most important aspects in directing a show. Unfortunately, I’ve always felt so pressed for time so the depth of the discussion is sometimes lost and therefore the students experience is in a way cheated. With the site I’ll be able to communicate and discuss with each actor or actress the details about their character so our time in the rehearsal space is spent on shaping the body and other character work that requires real time communication

Because members of the network can post pictures and videos, I’m looking forward to seeing what they find on YouTube and feel inclined to post. I’m hoping they’ll post pictures in sharing ideas for costumes or for scenic design. I also hope they post videos of other productions and start conversations of their own.

Lastly, I really look forward to taping their rehearsals and being able to parts of their rehearsals on the site and ask them to comment on their own work. I think this will be one of the most powerful tools. Instead of just me or any adult in the room giving feedback or constructive criticism, that can all come from other members of the cast or even better, themselves.

There are certainly drawbacks and barriers. The site isn’t as navigator friendly as I’d really like it to be and I won’t be able to log on at school meaning all the managerial work will have to be done at home. As the manager of the site I can filter every photo, video and comment that is made and because students and their parents will be using the site, I want to make sure that everything is appropriate. While I do feel the need to act as a filter I don’t want to turn into a manipulator of information.

“…I want to find a way of speaking of community, an expanding community that will take shape as people speaking as who, not what they are, come together in speech and action, as Arendt puts it, to constitute something in common among themselves”. In this case, the theatre, the organization, is the community. It’ll will be exciting to watch it take shape, watch grow and form and branch based not on what I tell them but based on who they are and how they think and question in order to create the common goal of opening night.

Video

Week 4

Wikipedia

I remember in elementary or middle school (they’re starting to blend together) being told that for our research projects we could only use an the encyclopedia Britannica once in our works cited page and I also remember always going to the encyclopedia first…always…and for me that’s what Wikipedia is. It’s a starting point, a frame of reference, a “what else has that actress been in” basic, raw, springboard into further, deeper and richer realms. I could completely relate to what the author , meant when they mention how you start looking up Stephen Sondheim and 30 minutes later you’re reading about Madeline Albright and while you’re not sure how you got there the ride has been enjoyable.On a personal note, my partner and I started a Wikipedia site about our house because it is on the national registry of historic landmarks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gershom_Craft_House.

Too Down to Rise

While the internet has given us many places to express our reaction and to connect with other people concerning those reactions, has it given us a means for action? Sure, people have expressed their anger through digital media but has digital media given those people who are expressing their thoughts a chance to actually do something about it?

It troubles me to think that a reason the previous administration got away with as much as they did was because people were too busy on their blogs discussing and expressing but not taking the hands on approach that has been done in the past

Is Facebook Growing Up Too Fast

I’ve seen politicians with facebook/myspace/twitter accounts but I always assumed they weren’t really two way streets. I’ve assumed that they have someone who maintains the site for them and that their personal interaction with site and therefore the direct contact with the other people connected to the site is minimal.

Does the prime minister of Denmark really check is own facebook page? If the Prime Minister of Denmark did in fact check his facebook page and personally responded to the teachers note then yes, the medium absolutely allows the public to get closer to public figures and breaks down a wall.

With that said, I doubt that that was the case and that they’re leaving out other information such as how many people write to the Prime Minister on facebook vs how many other s does he actually respond to. Also, I wonder if the same teacher had written a letter and snail/mailed it, would he have received the same reaction from the Prime Minister.

I do feel that our connectedness to political figures through myspace/facebook is kind of superficial. How close are we really? President Obama hasn’t tweeted in quite some time.

Celebrity Twitter Ecosystem

I’ve really enjoyed reading the tweets of the people that I follow because the people that I follow are people that are either in my life now or have been part of my life at some point. Initially, I simply thought of this as People Magazine in blog form with the difference that it’s the stars writing about themselves. If one is really interested in the daily life of Hollywood personalities than this is great new medium for them to follow. I can see how the younger demographic could get into this, feeling that they are closer to the stars that they follow in the teenage ritual of obsession. I don’t know how often celebrities post but if it’s as often as some of my friends you start to get a feel for what they’re day is like. If a celebrity posts often enough one could spend every day with the stars.

Reaching Baby Boomers

“Make that process dead simple"

These were the words written giving advice on how to make entice the baby boomer generation into giving feedback or criticisms on blogs.

I think the quote should apply to everything that is related to technology. I’ve mentioned this somewhere else but I feel purpose of technology is to make is to make our lives easier and increase our efficiency in what we do. Sure I could was a load of dishes in twenty minutes but I could load the washer in 2 and spend the other 18 minutes doing something else.

I’m twenty seven and therefore not a baby boomer but if a program crashes on me after several attempts, I give up and find another way to solve the problem at hand. A perfrect example would be the latest version of Windows Movie Maker vs. imovie from 3 years ago. I look at WMM and don’t even know where to begin. That plus the fact that everytime I’ve attempted to use it this little box shows and keeps flooding my computer screen until it crashes. When I look at imovie it makes sense, all I have to do is click and drag and everything just seems to magically work.

In order for the general public to be using technology to it’s greatest extent, it needs to be easy-to-use and affordable.

Just how thick is my (and their) accent?

After reading March Prensky’s article I would have labeled myself a Digital Native. In my wing, I’m the guy who many of the other teachers go to when they can’t open something online or they’re having difficulty with the online grading system. After reading Marc Prensky’s article, The Emerging Online Life of the Digital Native and being a part of this class for the past month, I’ve been very humbled and have come to realize that my accent is much thicker than I thought and is much thicker than I would like it to be.

After comparing my life to that of what Prensky describes as a native I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not a native but I’m certainly not an immigrant
The areas into which I would label myself as a native are listed below.

Communication - I e-mail and text all the time, I check facebook daily but don’t spend a lot of time on it and I’ve most recently signed up for Twitter.
Learning- I look everything up on-line. Gardening tips, cooking tips, if there is anything I’m curious about I go to Google or Wikipedia.
Searching –As I mentioned above I use the internet daily to look for information.

The following things are where my accent starts to thicken.

Buy & Sell – It depends on what I’m buying. Part of me still feels the need to see the item in person if I’m going to buy it so if I’m looking for a big ticket item I’ll go to the store and get it there. But things like theatre tickets, books, things that I’m 100% sure that I know what I’m looking for, I’ll buy on-line.
Meeting – Almost all of my dates in high school were people that I met on-line. This was ten to fifteen years ago and I’m gay and was the only person who was out in my high school so my choices were limited. My partner and I have been together for ten years so I haven’t had a reason to be on a personals page in quite some time. Looking back I remember thinking that it really wasn’t that big of a deal and nowadays it’s perfectly normal for people to meet from a dating site.
Coordinating – I use e-vite every once in a while and I’ve yet to ever create an invitation on facebook. I’ll need to do that sometime soon.
Evolving- I can text without looking but I’m not comfortable with it and I certainly can’t do it in my pocket.

I wouldn’t say I have an accent for the rest…I’d say I don’t speak the language.

Exchange – Create – Collecting - Coordinating – Evaluate – Games -Analyzing No, Reporting – Programming –

With the exception of this class, I don’t blog, I’ve never created anything and posted it to YouTube, I still play my Nintendo 64 (I’ll have to skip over game cube and go straight for the wii) I never give feedback when I buy things from Amazon.com or e-bay and after reading the article I feel guilty about it so I’ll be doing that in the future.

Just the other day I asked them to save their final projects on a playlist on iTunes and save it to the playlist. Over half of them didn’t know what I was talking about. I thought maybe I was unclear so I repeated. “All you need to do is create a playlist and drag it from the music library to your playlist” They didn’t know what I was saying. I was shocked...at two things....1) They weren't the digital natives I thought they were going to be and 2) My own ignorance in just assuming that because they were kids that they would all be technical wizards.

Clearly what I need to do is take inventory. I would have assumed that they would all be digital natives but I’m learning that this is not the case. Based on the some of the ideas presented in the Prensky I’m thinking I should create a little survey create a survey and give it to my students to see how much of a native they truly are.

Knowing who they are as digital natives or imigrants and what they do would seem to be the first logical step in attempting to create an environment that reflects who they are and what they do.

Week 3 Readings

Friends Until I Delete You

What I really want to know is what was Burger King was trying to prove as a result of the contest? Were they trying to point out that a hamburger is more important to many people than the depth of friendships on Facebook? The contest is kind of telling though in that there were many who were willing to drop people for a $3.00 piece of meat.
I can empathize with some of the droppers though. It’s my feeling that sometimes in any relationship friendship or otherwise there comes a point where making a clean and complete cut is a healthy option. It’s not to say that the relationship can never be put back together but even something like dropping someone on facebook can be symbolic of deeper emotional ties.

Being There

As a new-comer who with a little more us is rapidly gaining interest in Twitter, my favorite line of this article was “we FINALLY have a polite space for ‘My sponge smells like a hot dog.’ ”
Spontaneous bursts of being: perfect.
One of my first gripes with Twitter was that I have 5 people who are following me so if I make a comment my thought is, “who is going to read this?” After this article though, I kind of don’t care if anyone reads it. While Twitter can provide a place for me to give realistic updates, none of my friends who I’m in contact with in real time are on it so for now Twitter is my place to say, “My dog’s feet smell like corn chips” (And they do…)


Twitter Survey

The results aren’t surprising to me. The younger generation are the first to embrace the newest technology.
I’d like to see the same survey done in 6 months, 1 year, 2 years and see if A) Overall usage of twitter increases and B) if like many other uses of technology (cell phones, facebook) the trickle-down effect will occur and to see how much the percentage in the older generations will change.

Twitter

Just throwing this out there....

I've been telling people that I've signed up for Twitter and I've tried to explain what it's about and when I do the people that I'm explaining it to say the same thing. "Who cares?"

They say that if they really wanted to know what a person was up to that they'd call them and find out.

I'm completely torn because what they say makes perfect logical sense. If you want to find out what someone is up to call them or write to them. There is a part of me that says, "Yea, twitter is silly and why should I spend any time on there!!!"

But I have to admit there is a part of me that enjoys reading and I enjoy posting even more. The first time I texted a posting to the site I thought my cell phone (a motorola razor, which I hate) was the most powerful tool in the world. I'm not even sure I can quite put my feelings about the site into words yet as I'm still so new to it but there is someting exciting and powerful to it that I'm sure I'll see more of with more use...