Disruptive Technologies

Course site for Disruptive Technologies. Exploring identity, community, & design.

Tag: Identity (page 1 of 2)

Bittersweet, Like an Apple Removed from My Heart

So guess what? This is it. It’s a bittersweet moment as I sit here typing out my final blog post. I had so many goals and aspirations to achieve this semester and reached some while never thinking twice about some others. Then there are the goals that I achieved without intending to. You may be wondering what some of those goals are, but I’ve decided to not tell you. If you’re reading this, then let me tell you that you have been blessed with a magnificent brain that can come up with ideas that I could never dream of—don’t let me hold you back.

 

There is one thing that I learned this semester that I really think you should keep in mind. It’s all about people.

All of this. School, technology, families, the postal service, all of our communities, everything. Don’t take people for granted, but in turn, don’t take yourself for granted either. You’ve fought half the battle by just taking the moment to read this. It proves that you not only want to, but can do it. If you’re having this read to you, guess what, you still can.

 

After school special aside, this has been a great semester. It’s one of the first courses where I felt like whatever I put in I got in return. I definitely appreciated that it was taught and attended by university administrators–not to have an outlet to vent, but it was encouraging to see that the people behind so many emails care about improving the school and are motivated to do it with students in mind.

As you should know by now if you’ve been keeping up with this blog and course, we had iPads all semester. Needless to say that all my plots to keep mine have been thwarted by that nifty ID number on the back. Oh well. I must say that I don’t know if this semester could have been possible without them. They established a baseline technology that we could implement in whichever ways we saw fit to be successful in school. I frequently caught myself panicking if I left my iPad at home (moreso than if I left my phone). It has been everything this semester–never leaving my side. It took some getting used to, but wasn’t unbearable, and since it was new, it forced me to begin thinking out of the box in general. In essence, it was disruptive. Knowing that I would be giving the iPad back, I can speak honestly and say that I failed and didn’t push it as far as I could. As a broke college kid, I refused to spend money on it. If I had brought my own, or purchased it in the beginning, I think my selection of apps and utilities would have been much more in depth (would have had an external keyboard too). Do I think iPads should be implemented in education? Definitely. Will something new need to be added eventually? Definitely. Is that okay and natural? Definitely.

 

I bid you adieu, and may the dreams of a back button forever rest with you, my dear Future People.

Technically Yours,

Richard.

Closing Remarks Chris W.

This class has been a great experience. Coming into this class I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Honestly, I enrolled in the class because I heard we’d get to use an iPad for a semester. While the iPad was nice, I’d say the best thing about this class were the excellent discussion we had in class and how fluid the syllabus was. This class has really opened my eyes to the subtle complexities of community development and really helped me define who I am as a person. The guest we had in class pushed me to do what I want in life (which is to work in the gaming industry). The last section, Design, helped me take a new approach to the creative process that I will definitely use later on in life.

This class has shown me a few apps that I really enjoyed using. In no particular order SwiftKey, Adaptxt, Evernote, and POP.

Adaptxt: If you want swept functionality on your iOS device I would definitely recommend this app. The user interface is clean and is very responsive.
SwiftKey: This is another third party keyboard that has the swipe functionality. From my experience sometimes the keyboard wouldn’t appear and you’d have to tap on the lobe icon more than once. Otherwise it is a great app to use.

Evernote: This app is a powerhouse! From presentations to website layouts Evernote can do it all!

POP: In the design section of the course both teams used this to make the layout of our apps which were our a part of our Final Synthesis.

Lastly, the iPad was really useful this entire semester. Slowly substituted paper with the iPad and it became an integral part of my day to day. This device is useful beyond belief and after this semester is over I will seriously consider buying one for myself.

Cheers to a great semester!

Listen Up, Can Anyone Hear Us?

To prepare for Thursday’s synthesis presentations, those of us that like to be Too Disruptive would like for you to do two things. First, take a look at Sam Richards’s Ted Talk,  “A Radical Experiment in Empathy.”

Then, we would like for you to take a brief, semi-anonymous quiz. Especially since this is such a small class, we hope that everyone gets a chance to take the quiz (even Cole). Also, please do so no later than Thursday at noon so we will have time to compile the results.

Click here to take the brief quiz, Making ‘My’ Way Downtown

Identity Video Project

I am an artist.
I create conversations that challenge normalcy and comfort, that shift focus to the unnoticed and misunderstood, that demand self evaluation and the scrutiny of implications. I respond to questions, just not the questions that are often asked, and not the ones that are coated in layers of sugar for ease of consumption. I disturb and unnerve to enlighten and share perspective.

I am a technician.
With technology, I forge, otherwise unattainable, aesthetics to shape worlds on stage and to build a platform for art’s consumption.

I am a producer.
Working with teams of designers and artists affords me the opportunity to grow as an artist and a theatre practitioner. Collaborating innovators push the limits of theatre as we know it. I am an interface between production teams and the world– I manipulate circumstance to facilitate the making.

Let’s make something.
Innovate with me.

Christopher Stratis

Kate’s Weekly create

I tweeted a little experiment with making abstract animations today. It’s really important to me that when I work in different apps that it doesnt call attention to the app that was used so that it remains consistent with my artistic identity and adds positive qualities to my work. In choosing what aspects of my identity to put on Twitter, I would like it to be about my experimentations with different media (including apps) as well as ideas. Twitter is a powerful tool for shaping identity and I think it’s important to take that into consideration at all times. I find it interesting that when I google my name it is one of the top three sites that appear along with this blog despite how infrequently I tweet, which shows how important it is to make sure that these are the aspects of my identity that I want to be public.

Week 9: Wrapping Up Identity

Let’s play catch up and review where we are and where we are headed. I have graded all of your things … some items are missing and you can see what I missed for you in the Garde Center in Blackboard. Please let me know if I missed things! Also, I’d like to give everyone a chance to get caught up, so whatever you have missed, you can go back and add it to get caught up by Sunday at 5 PM.

Today we wrap up the block on Identity and while I can tell from reading your work that you’ve gotten stuff out of the experience, I am disappointed in the fact that we lost so much time together. With that said, it is time for you guys to take over again next week and produce your second Team Synthesis Post and Presentations. Same format as last time, but I want you all to me cognizant of the time you take to deliver your synthesis. Each team has an hour.

Conversation Starters

We define who we are by the ways we experience ourselves through participation as well as by the ways we and others reify ourselves. — Wenger

Identity as negotiated experience. — Katherine

Buckingham and Wenger coincided in their discussions on identity in several ways. Both authors emphasized that identity is neither static nor steady; instead, they describe how it is a “state of becoming,” and that the process of “identification” is going on all the time. — Jay

Thinking about how you can have “multiple” identities thanks to the power of anonymity on the Internet a more fluid definition of identity works. A definition where you are not only identify with your physical characteristics, but also your interest, your thoughts, and the content you create. — Shady

Identity Posts

Let’s talk about digital identity and how social identities can shape other people’s overall impression of us. Does the “web function as tools for people to create constantly changing projections of their identities through content production online?[1]” Take for example the stories of the Star Wars Kid and David after the Dentist.

Out of Class

David After the Dentist

From Wikipedia

Because this was David’s first surgery and his mother could not be there, his father decided to video tape the experience to share with her and their family.

After the surgery, David was feeling confused from the anaesthesia he was given. While in the car, he was asking his father questions like “Is this real life?” and “Is this going to be forever?” and also telling him that he had two fingers. At one point he even attempted to push himself up from his seat (while still buckled in) and began screaming before sinking back in exhaustion.

Seven months later, David’s father uploaded the video on Facebook. Being overwhelmed with people wanting to see the video, he decided to upload it to YouTube, but did not notice there was a private option. Just 3 days after the upload, it had been seen over 3 million times.

The DeVore family were soon made YouTube Partners. This gives YouTube the right to run ads over the videos they post, and in exchange, are given a share of the revenue. They also sell “David After Dentist” t-shirts and donate a portion of the revenue they earn to dental charities. However they have made very little money on it so far, and are currently in the process of filming a similar video to the original.

David DeVore Sr. has received criticism for exploiting his son. DeVore has stated that he appreciates the concern, but feels that it was innocent and has been a very positive experience for his family.

[We] Identify as Disruptive Too

A person’s identity indicates something about them. As a set of social classifications, identity is created by viewing two or more people or groups in relation to one another (oneself is included). Identity  is a paradox in two ways.

First,  it is constantly in flux, but at the same time, suggests an ever-developing constant within a person. How someone chooses to identify his/herself (or someone else) can change over time; there can be momentary or long-term changes. For example:

  • Momentary: Role as friend takes precedence over role as student if a friend is in a car accident.
  • Long-Term: Gender or sexuality can fluctuate over time.

Second, a person’s understanding of their own identity affects the lens through which they view his/herself and others.

 

You are what you tweet.

For #CDT450 I tweeted this article about Martese Johnson – he was brutally beaten up by police in front of a bar near the campus of the University of Virginia, where he is an honor student.

Part of the title to the article in the Daily Beast asks: HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? The article addresses issues of prejudice, racism, and the unproportionately high levels of violence that are unleashed on African Americans by police officers. Hopefully, we are becomeing more aware of this systemic injustice thanks to people using social media to get the word out and create an infuriated buzz about it.

What does this have to do with how  Twitter can shape my identity? The first thing that comes to mind is that my choice of tweets says something about who I am.  Why do I want people to know this story? Why is it important to me? I tweeted this article after reading Cole’s post about how UVA students reacted to this act of brutality, and it reminded me that we need more dialogue about  race relations on college campuses in America. We have an excellent opportunity at Stony Brook to open up discussions about race because we have such a diverse community here. Hopefully Twitter, FB, Yammer, blogs, and other social media tools can be useful to help start conversations and to create opportunities for people from different ethnicities and backgrounds to get together and  get to know each other and improve race relations through social interaction – online and face to face.  #Integreat

Hello, My Name is Apple

A couple of weeks ago when Apple came to visit our class, I was very excited to really jump into creating content on the iPad. I was disappointed, however, when much of the class was spent on “lecturing” about identity. I was personally taken aback by this as I must have been confused about the reason of their actual visit. It was occasionally disconcerting because of the inevitable Apple advertising.

Eventually we did get into creating some content–that being said, we did not do much creating, ourselves. For me, the most beneficial part of this presentation was the discussion about Keynote. I was surprised at how “perfected” this PowerPoint app really was. I was especially impressed at its ability to create a mock app. As a hyperlink-driven application, I see Keynote acting more as an interactive presentation rather than one say, for an actual keynote or other address. Another app that I would be curious to look at more for actual presentations is Quip. The representatives from Apple did not do a full walk-through, but did mention that it was a very effective app. I hope to eventually explore this one further.

Over all, the effectiveness of Keynote harkens that the iPad be considered further in terms of using it in education. I appreciate the fact that students can create an accessible overview of a project while on the go.

Technically Yours,

R.

P.S. Why yes, yes I did use the word “harkens,” and although Google does not accept it as a modern word and insisted on underlining it with that nasty, squiggly red line, it is the perfect word as it can be read into further.

Kate’s identity and iPad reflection

Using the iPad to create this was an over all positive experience. I shot the footage using the native photo app as well as iMovie and a short segment using the “stop motion” app. I made slides using the Phoster app and compiled it in iMovie and added some of the stock music as well as voice recording done in the app. As someone who works with video editing and animation frequently I found several pros and con

pros-

-basic video capture and organization of the iMovie is good for general use. Cutting video was simple. When I think back to classes I’ve taken, I could see this being used to support assignments in most subjects.

-easy to import video and photos from other apps

-sound is decient and easy to record. I liked that I could have several tracks and though it took me a moment, they were simple to move around.

– being able to crop the image and videos

-uploading I will put under pros but at first it was not so simple. In order to up load to YouTube I had to Chang my settings in my YouTube account to allow interaction with “less secure” apps. Though this took some time to figure out and get past it constantly asking me to sign in I know I will not have this issue again and things will go smoothly.

cons

– as someone who works with video editing I wish there were more features such as better filters and lighting adjustments to make it look more professional. I would have liked more control over the text and title features since there was no ability to move them on the screen and change other aspects including the timing and duration of their appearance So I could have had a text overlay/captions. I would have liked more control over the transitions and audio transitions. I also wish it was possible to change how much a video is cropped over time- zoom in and out.

Over all though I think it’s a great app and it can be limited only by a lack of creativity however I would be even happier if those ther features existed.

Reaction to Week 6 readings – Team Right Shark

Early on Wenger mentioned “We define who we are by the ways we experience ourselves through participation as well as by the ways we and others reify ourselves.” Far too often people say nobody affects who they are as a person. To which we would argue is not true. The way we define our identity has a lot to do with the world around us and how we react and respond to other people asserting their identity.
In the Wenger reading I got caught up in the way trajectory was defined. The world is more networked than it has ever been before, so it makes sense how we, as people identify become networked as well. Wenger suggests trajectory in not a fixed path nor is it a fixed destination but continuous motion. The former definition of trajectory falls more in line with past definitions of identity, static and rigid. Thinking about how you can have “multiple” identities thanks to the power of anonymity on the Internet a more fluid definition of identity works. A definition where you are not only identify with your physical characteristics, but also your interest, your thoughts, and the content you create.

An interesting part of Youth, Identity, and Digital Culture was the dichotomy between Giddens’s and Foucault’s views. The true nature of identity probably lies somewhere in between these two opposing philosophies. The individual is shaped by societal norms and constricted by society’s expectations, which can be both good and bad. Society deems what is acceptable behavior, which can act as a chilling effect on undesirable behavior but also any behavior at all that deviates from the norm. The Internet just accelerates this process by providing a more effective feedback loop.

Definition of Identity – Team Right Shark

The set of characteristics that physically and mentally distinguish one person from another.

 

Jay Loomis – Voices of Wenger on Identity

I was inspired by the RadioLab Podcast “Voices in your head.” I used Ableton Live software to create music accompanied by several Apple voices (and my own), reciting the closing section of Wenger’s chapter 6 on identity, from Communities of Practice.

TOO DISRUPTIVE – Reaction to Readings on Identity

David Buckingham. Youth, Identity, Digital Media. Chapter 1 “Introducing Identity.”

Etienne Wenger. Communities of Practice. Chapter 6 “Identity in Practice.”

RICHARD:

BUCKINGHAM–
The Giddens-Foucault binary is especially revealing of talks concerning identity. On one hand there is Giddens who believes in the “choice” of identity. On the other, is Foucault. Michel Foucault, whose theories revolutionized 20th-century thinking (yet is as of late becoming known as being old-fashioned and almost cliche) aligns himself with the idea that people’s identities are shaped by the world they live in. I believe that each scholar has their own merit. As the lines between “identity” and “identification” are perceived to be more blurred, so do these two arguments. Technology seems to serve as the catalyst for self reflection with regard to others.

Buckingham also critiques (overly harsh in my opinion) Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical sense of self. Goffman argues the idea of the situational self. The situational self can be regarded as a person that presents his or herself with regard to the current definition or “rules” of the situation. For example, a person that maintains a job as an elementary school teacher will present in a different way than we they work in a bar on the weekends. In terms of the Internet, the web may be seen as a particular situation that one may choose to identify in a certain way. However, I also believe that the technological methods of information and social transfer are slowly changing the way in which a “base” or “backstage” or “ideal” or “felt” self is constructed.

The ways in which the Internet may or may not affect identity (transcendent- vs. desocialized-technological determination) calls to mind the idea of the medium. What or who is the medium? At this point I’m still not sure if people are or are not.

WENGER–
The biggest point in the Wenger article that stands out is his idea of the “trajectory” of identity as the rest of his ideas align with general sociological teaching. I believe that making the focused distinction that not only does identity form over time (which sociologists agree on), but that it is the cumulative process (including all points along the self-growth timeline) is what separates Wenger’s identity theory. In this way, it aptly reflects a CoP form of tradition: the CoP in-group is formed over time.

CHRIS:

Wenger

Wenger speaks about the community’s ability to speak for us, about our nature, qualifications, knowledge base, etc. This works to our benefit in organizational environments, where membership and participation indicate status and value. In some cases, especially in communities based on a single attribute, the projection of the community stereotype is limiting. Several negative outcomes caused by generalizing based on single/limited communal attributes: racial profiling, use of stereotypes to justify escalating “objectively” determined risk levels–leading to sanctioned violence, and genocide.
Increasing the complexity of the community’s membership positively influences the trajectory of the identificational trajectories. A wider membership, experience-base, knowledge base, and access to resources, [networking] culminates success.

Buckingham

Buckingham’s theories indicate that social progress, mutation, and/or development occurs on a timeline that has departed from chronological realism. Such identity changes are more closely measured by events and experiences.

Our digital facades allow us to explore communities in any way that we choose to approach them, making the experience unique to that digital exploration of self.

KATHERINE:

David Buckingham. Youth, Identity, Digital Media. Chapter 1 “Introducing Identity.”

social identity should be seen not so much as a fixed possession, but as a social process, in which the individual and the social are inextricably related
Individual selfhood is a social phenomenon, but the social world is constituted through the actions of individuals. As such, identity is a fluid, contingent matter—it is something we accomplish practically through our ongoing interactions and negotiations with other people. In this respect, it might be more appropriate to talk about identification rather than identity”
the Internet provides significant opportunities for exploring facets of identity that might previously have been denied or stigmatized, or indeed simply for the sharing of information on such matters. Such arguments presume that media can be used as a means of expressing or even discovering aspects of one’s “true self,” for example, in relation to sexuality.
Yet on the other hand, these media can also be seen to provide powerful opportunities for identity play, for parody and subversion of the kind promoted by queer theory. Here, the emphasis would lie not on honesty and truth, but on the potential for performance and even for deception. Sherry Turkle’s discussion of the fluidity of online identities—for example, in the form of “gender bending” in Internet communities—provides one well-known (and much debated) instance of this kind of approach.
Technological determinism – from this perspective, technology is seen to emerge from a neutral process of scientific research and development, rather than from the interplay of complex social, economic, and political forces.

Wenger. Communities of Practice. Chapter 6 “Identity in Practice.”

Identity as negotiated experience. We define who we are by the ways we experience ourselves through participation as well as by the ways we and other reify ourselves.
Identity as community membership. We define who we are by the familiar and the unfamiliar.
Identity as learning trajectory. We define who we are by where we have been and where we are going.
Identity as nexus of multimembership. We define who we are by the ways we reconcile our various forms of membership into one identity.
Identity as a relation between the local and the global. We define who we are by negotiating local ways of belonging to broader constellations and of manifesting broader styles and discourses.

JAY:

Buckingham and Wenger coincided in their discussions on identity in several ways. Both authors emphasized that identity is neither static nor steady; instead, they describe how it is a “state of becoming,” and that the process of “identification” is going on all the time. Wenger and Buckingham discuss several perspectives on identity in the modern era, and how identities are perceived and projected in digital realms. One of Buckingham’s most compelling arguments is that he juxtaposes common concepts of identity politics (focused on gender, ethnicity, age, etc.), with the way digital technology and the web function as tools for people to create constantly changing projections of their identities through content production online. In his discussion he contrasts the fluid expressions of identity through social media with fixed ideas of identity that characterize certain aspects of traditional identity politics mentioned above. Buckingham suggests the term “identification” as a possible replacement of “identity,” to emphasize the dynamic process that is involved in the way people are constantly defining themselves in different ways. Wenger contributes to this discussion on identity by describing several specific ways that people participate in the procession of “identification.” He says that identity is “lived” through “participation and reification,” and that a person’s perception of self is in a constant process of “negotiation;” this process is not reserved only for adolescence. Wenger emphasizes that identity is also lived out in community, and we understand ourselves through the “familiarity that we experience in certain social contexts.” He goes on to say that our identity is the result of a “nexus” of interlocking contexts and our ability to function “across boundaries of practice.” According to Wenger all of this “identification” takes place both locally and globally.
One of the most interesting parts of these readings for me was the paradoxical etymology of the word identity which Buckingham described in the opening of his chapter. From its roots, the word identity describes both sameness and difference at once. On one hand, our identity is something that indicates who we are and defines us (somewhat consistently) by setting us apart, but at the same time our identity is also defined by who we are connected to. As the Spanish proverb says: “Tell me who you hang with and I’ll tell you who you are.” “Dime con quien andas, y te dire quien eres.”

 

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