Oh my… What was I thinking when I decided to sign-up for this course?  I’m taking this class, DS106,  as an open online student, and I wasn’t expecting the level of work requested by the instructors and the speed at which the material and assignments are rushing by during this summer version of the course.  I’m planning on doing what I can now and participating again during a future full semester course, hopefully this Fall.

Although warned when first reading over the material that this was not something to take lightly, I was still not prepared.  My own enthusiasm has surprised me with wanting to fully absorb the material being taught, completing the assignments and taking the time to do them well, and my desire to interact with my fellow students  There is so much good information, as well as the technical skill learning, that I feel I just don’t have enough hours in the day to digest it all.  Writing up this weekly summary is a huge job in and of itself. Any suggestions on how I might streamline the process?  Is this time well spent and appreciated by the instructors or my class mates if I’m just an open onliner?

THE BLOG: I started late in the game (Thursday of week one) and creating my new blog site was the first hurdle.  I unsuccessfully attempted to create my first blog site with the RapidWeaver software I have been using for the last couple of years.  After hitting my head against the wall for a couple of hours I decided to try using WordPress, since it was being used for the UMW students anyway, and I knew I could get additional help if needed.  GREAT DECISION!  My web hosting site, BlueHost, had a simple script download option for WordPress that worked great once I got out of the way with my RapidWeaver obsession and let it do its thing.

I liked and used the free 2012 theme that was offered.  Then customized it with the banner header and background color I use at my Rockylou Productions website. (The tree logo was designed by my daughter Amber.) I love all of the widgets and how easily I can update my pages and blog entries with WordPress from any computer or mobile device. I’ve used all of my Apple devices at some point, my iMac, iPad and iPhone. I watched the tutorial videos for week one on setting up your blog, checked out the Embedding Media in Your Blog Tips page and happily followed all of the recommendations, as well as TalkyTina’s requirements for becoming her “true friend”.  I will definitely be changing over my current blogging tool for Rockylou Productions to a WordPress template when I finish up the course.  I’m continually tweaking my DS106 blog design and pages (especially my About page as I learn more about its purpose and importance), and updating past posts with new links when it seems useful. I’m not happy with the Twitter feed formatting though, or the recent comments format in the sidebar.  I’ve seen some better formats on other blogs and will be asking for suggestions soon.

GETTING SOCIAL: I’ve had a Twitter account, @rockylou22, for at least 3 years and finally tweeted my first tweet this week.  YIPEE! Learning the proper etiquette and how to utilize the hashtags correctly has been quite a learning curve.  I don’t think I’ve got it right yet since I don’t always see my posts at the #ds106 feed. I had my privacy settings to restrictive at first, but  I thought I fixed that. I’ve also had a Flickr account for quite some time, but never posted anything until now, just used it to gather creative commons photographs for some of my video creations that I post to my YouTube channel.  I not only created my SoundCloud account, but uploaded a podcast that my daughter and I had created a few years ago to see how it worked.  (Link to the rest of the podcast series. ) No issues there. Oh… and I almost forgot.  I created my gravatar too.

DAILY CREATES: I’ve enjoyed playing with these, but since I’ve had to play catch up they are all posted to one blog page.  But I’ll get into the swing of things this week.

Daily Create Assignments: Introducing Myself, Alien Rochelle, 500th Daily Create Celebration, Life, Love & Laughter with my grandson, iPad + Toes = FunFunFun

VISUAL AND DESIGN ASSIGNMENTS: Again, it’s unfortunate that I didn’t learn about the course sooner so that I had time to complete the required number of assignments.  I’m hoping when I have a whole week to work on them it will be different. But with a full-time day job as a Business/Technology Opportunity Analyst at 3M, I’m not sure if I will be able to. If not, I’ve decided to prioritize those assignments I choose as enjoyable and worth while for me personally.  I’ve not had too many technical issues yet.  I’m pretty well versed in the technology needed to complete the assignments I’ve chosen so far.

• ManyMe In Spring Multiply Yourself: VisualAssignments943 (5 stars)
• Splish Splash Splash the Color: VisualAssignments340 and VisualTutorials340. (3 stars)  While I was at it I thought I might as well create a quick one-page tutorial on how to make one of these photos with Photoshop Elements.  Do I get extra points for that? 😉
• Go Daddy…. Wheeeeeeee Required GIF VisualAssignments920 (4.5 stars).  This was my first attempt at creating a GIF. FUN!FUN!FUN!  I used one of my own videos to cut down on the time required to find a clip I could easily use. I felt the downloading and watching a Twilight Zone episode was better spent on learning how to create the GIF itself. I loved this assignment.
• GIF Evolution of ManyMe Photo It Like Peanut Butter: VisualAssignments347.( 3 stars) I enjoyed the GIF assignment so much I wanted to use my newfound skills for another project.  I started to make it and realized that maybe there was an actual assignment heading I could use.  Yep… there was.  Killed two birds with one stone.  I had fun with a new skill and got to claim it as a completed assignment. You’ve no doubt noticed the creative GIF I made for this post?  🙂 Any extra stars for that one too?

MEDIA REFLECTIONS:

Scottlo’s Podcasts: I haven’t found them especially informative yet.  So I’m listening for style.  I found his vivid description of the beach in episode 4 to be a good audio technique learning moment.

Gardner Campbell’s essay and video Key take-ways:

• “No digital Facelifts”, Open education is not just open to content, but open to other ways of doing it.
• I am the architect of my own digital life.
• The objective is to be a participant AND a producer. Narrating, Curating, Sharing.
• 3 levels of openness: Open to the world, open to each other, open to ourselves

Michael Wesch’s presentation (Part 1 , Part 2):  Now this was some powerful stuff. I had to keep pausing the video to take notes.  I didn’t want to miss a word. A few key take-ways:

• Learning to BE rather than learning ABOUT
• GLOBAL DANCE, GLOBAL COLLABORATION
• The goal isn’t to learn the technology.  It is to do something much larger by using these tools as a resource.
• Media are not just tools, not just a means of communication.  Media changes the way we connect with one another
• Web 2.0 is linking people: Sharing, trading and collaborating.  We need to rethink copyright, authorship, identity, ethics, aesthetics, rhetoric, governance, privacy, commerce, love, family, ourselves.
• “Long slow death of the middleman”, 10% of financial loans expected to be peer to peer.
• A ubiquitous, context-aware, semantic, social network of things, people & information
• All the reasons to learn to read & write are relevant to creating video now.  Being a good citizen and having an effect on the world.
• Moving from Information Literacy => Meta-media fluency => Digital Citizenship (Gardner Campbell)
• Meaning Seekers => Meaning Makers
• People think we are creating an unstructured environment, but we are actually creating a structure for participation
• Creates possibility for more, but has darkside as well.
  • Freedom < – > Control, 
  • Openness < – > Surveillance
  • Community < – > Isolation
  • Participation < – > Distraction