EME6414: Web 2.0

 As a child, I remembered when anything not in the Microsoft Office suite was "playing on the computer." At least that's how my mother put it.  So it's strange to think about how much social media has changed our lives.  Mine in particular.  There are so many examples I could share, but the first anniversary of one is coming up. Social media changed how I bathe. If you're like me there are certain news stories that you purposely avoid when they trend online.  For me, the story of Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis discussing how infrequently they bathe their children and themselves was an automatic "pass."  Every year this cleanliness debate comes up: some people admit to not showering daily or brushing their teeth or washing their clothes...then the rest of the Western Internet immolates them with critique.  I've even participated in the outrage, but I realized a while ago it's not productive.  Are you going to convince this famous or popular person...

 For your consideration, please share and review my knowledge sharing project on the 2022 US election: https://padlet.com/jsl80311/ft7t62y5om7omda5

 I use two Instagram accounts regularly.  For #eme6414, I use my public account, dedicated to my holistic health journey @fitby40orelse .  Therefore, a Instagram challenge was right up my street. Imagine my surprise when I was playing catch up. Monday, I shared the advice (and pet peeve) of people using their video calling out in public.  This is the problem with the use of "intuitive technology" that requires no training...nobody told you that it was rude, did they?  Required netiquette classes for all! https://www.instagram.com/p/CfDV7sVD5UU/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= Tuesday, I recalled the days of early pandemic when churches were closed and we worshipped at home.  I was smart enough to capture on my personal account one communion Sunday when I had no bread or grape juice.  With Ritz crackers and orange juice I remembered Christ.  As we look at how tech changes our life, I was proud of that moment. https://www.instagram.com/p/CfIiRFcs-MF/?igshid=YmM...

 In perusing Dr. Dennen's draft on instructional design with social media, she highlights accelerated development and prototyping within the classic ADDIE process.  The section resonates with me because working in corporate learning and development means constantly answering the question, "can we develop this faster?" And my classic answer is NO. Her description reminded me of the design sprint process from Google Ventures - one I learned of when the first time about a year go working for another company.  The process reduces what I am accustomed to  taking 6-10 weeks to 5 days. Had I not done it - worked with a team together get to a prototype one can test in five days - I would have dismissed the process as startup nonsense.  Growing up in old-school corporate hallways, so much of the Google/Oracle/Meta era of big business has felt goofy and gimmicky.  Casual clothes, unlimited PTO, passion projects, and failing forward works for them but becomes problema...

 I claim to be...socially awkward.  I wouldn't say I have full-blown social anxiety (neither would my therapist) but I have anxious moments when interacting with new people.  When I take personality assessments, I am constantly affirmed as an introvert with a true limited capacity to interact with people daily.   This Web 2.0 course has been comfortable for me, allowing me to interact with people just as much as I wanted to for a grade.  Twitter, blogging, Instagram - all either platforms I used avidly or have in the past.  Even the new tools have been easy enough.   Then Dr. Vanessa said to do a Twitter Chat. The key to Twitter for an introvert for me is being able to curate my experience.  Yes, I tweet with (and at) strangers.  Sometimes people I don' t know respond to me.  It still feels controllable: ending the interaction is as easy as ignoring the thread.  Or blocking or muting.  The idea of a Twitter Chat or Space just f...

 Thanks to a wacky few weeks, I had to settle for the concept version of the Online Communities assignment.  If I did have the chance to do the full version, I would have spent time capitalizing my decade of time wading into the fitness and bodybuilding communities.  I have been obese since the summer after I turned 6 years old and have been under some sort of pressure to be fit. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jason C-L ✈️💪🏾🙏🏾🧠 (@fitby40orelse) My desire to be fit was under tension: be slim and sporty like my cousins (and my father in my youth) or aspire to be as big as the bodybuilders in the grocery store magazines.  Option 1 is what led me to several phases of movement: infrequent gym engagement, on-demand dance videos, the BeachBody movement (P90X and Insanity), yoga, running.  It wasn't until I moved down to South Florida that Option 2 came back into my life.   Through it all...I have been using social media to ge...

 As an avid tweeter, I truly enjoyed using my skills with learning.  Tweeting every day is easy, but bringing instructional design into it was an encouraging experience.  Here’s what I put out there: My dream on #MemeMonday is to referee most of the Internet arguments I see (esp #onhere ) based on good ole logical fallacies #EME6414 pic.twitter.com/OIvfnXmnbg — Jason Clarke-Laidlaw (@jclarkelaidlaw) June 7, 2022 Seriously, scroll through your feeds and see if you can find a few of these.  I’m sure you can…   For #tooltuesday , I’d like to share MyFitnessPal- my calorie tracker. Now that I’m working with a health and #fitness coach, he’s able to see what I’m eating as I report it #eme6414 https://t.co/HfOmEq78V1 — Jason Clarke-Laidlaw (@jclarkelaidlaw) June 7, 2022 Follow me @fitby40orelse on Instagram or Twitter to follow my health journey.  Ok my turn for #wonderingwednesday : online spaces. Are they private spaces that should have rules of ...

 I mentioned The Social Dilemma in a previous blog and its assertion that social media uses the reward loop to stimulate dopamine.  That point continues to rattle around in my dopamine dependent brain when considering my own social platform use and our semester’s work with social media in learning design.   Diving further into the dopamine relationship, I found an explainer article from Harvard that contained a compelling quote: Although not as intense as hit of cocaine, positive social stimuli will similarly result in a release of dopamine, reinforcing whatever behavior preceded it. Cognitive neuroscientists  have shown  that rewarding social stimuli—laughing faces, positive recognition by our peers, messages from loved ones—activate the same dopaminergic reward pathways. Smartphones have provided us with a virtually unlimited supply of social stimuli, both positive and negative. Every notification, whether it’s a text message, a “like” on Instagram, or a Face...

 Even though #throwbackthursday has passed, I can’t help but go back to my digital past as I think through the concepts for this course.  When reviewing things like open educational resources and the Dennen and Ward article about it in the context of microlearning, I recall the days of freeware.  Do you remember?   The free internet service providers did send out their fair share of freeware, but several applications were available for everyone to use for no cost - word processors, photo editors, audio players.  Many of us average Internet consumers avidly downloaded and used these products, pleased to save the hundreds of dollars for the fancy software.  We pinned this movement of generosity to the idea of open-source: the concept that the Information will not be powered by money-driven motivations but an altruistic, higher calling.  Not completely outside of capitalism; more like if we all share things like software we can make money together.  ...

I can confidently say that without EME6414 I would have no exposure to the term "folksonomy". However, if you really want to understand how adults learn in the Information Age and this time of Web 2.0, things like folksonomy will be requisite in your exploration.  Folksonomy, from what I gleaned from the article in week 4's reading , is the people-driven approach to gathering, classifying, and categorizing information.  This at first does not sound intriguing - why do I care what another learner calls or categorizes other information?  I have had this sentiment when made to create word-based diagrams for college courses.  When reviewing others' work it feels like an amalgam of the same.  It's governed by the source of information, right?  It should look the same.  What's  the point? Consider from the designer perspective. To do more than engage learners or create exciting edutainment, to get learners to retain the information, being aware of how t...

 (Giant shout out to Sarah in my EME6414 section for this idea, inspired by her blog post .) I hate making decisions.  As a Millennial, apparently, I'm not alone .  Which is what makes crowdsourcing decisions so appealing.  Crowdsourcing, or soliciting free information and opinions online, is as easy as a tweet or Facebook post.  Web 2.0 and quick clicks mean loyal followers are too eager to offer their opinions.   For example, one of my favorites on Twitter (not a Millennial), activist April Reign allowed her followers to help pick her headshot this week:   Twitter Thread There's something comfortable about this idea...take something that is meant to face the public and ask the public themselves to select what they want.  It's marketing.  It's engagement.  In project management terms, it's Agile, dare I say. Could we be taking it so far?  Chiefly, when we get this information and opinions from wherever on the Internet...do we make ...

Between Uvalde, Buffalo, and the ongoing war in Ukraine and others that don't make the trending pages, mourning has been on my mind. I wrote in my personal blog before that my view on mourning in America has changed. For years, I indicted American society as one that could not properly mourn. More recently, I declared that my fellow Americans do mourn, but don't do it collectively. My hypothesis was because of the battlements within our society that we mourn in communities. Other than the President declaring flags flown at half-staff, there is no collective gesture in the United States that marks death or encourages others to mourn. To be fair, all of my judgments are against how we mourn in the Caribbean. While even as Jamaica entrenches itself in the cultures of its neighbors, there are some things that are still requisite. My short list includes:  The long list of phone calls  The emotional church service  Clothing that is set aside for just such an occasion  Dis...