Practicum 1

At first, I was a little confused with my practicum project. I have never really thought in depth about all the components that go into online gaming, even though I have played games online for years now. For this project, I took the approach as if this was the first time I was playing a video game online. I turned on my Xbox 360 and I was ready to go. 

Next, I had to figure out how to active the online feature of the game. I learned that in order to play Xobx Live, which was this online function, you needed to register and pay for an account. This kind of sucks because I know on Playstation's systems the online feature is free. Anyways, I went online and paid for the account. They had a variety of different plans, each unlocking different features that Xbox Live can offer its users, plus I had to give out all of my personal inormation, payment information, and agree to the terms of policy. I chose the $40 for 1 year plan, and after about an hour of registering I was finally ready to go online.

Question: Have you thought about or questioned how the video games are connected to the internet?

Practicum 1: Video Editing

To be honest, this practicum project made me puzzled at first because I have never had an experience of media production. Surely I have seen and listened to many remix productions of videos and music, either done my public users or professional producers. So I decided to take an approach frankly as a beginner. I started with a program Windows Live Movie Maker, a program from Microsoft that was installed into my computer along with other Microsoft Office programs.

Image of the Windows Live Movie Maker from the Microsoft Website

The next challenge I encountered before starting my project was that I had no idea what to do. I've seen many video mash-ups on YouTube that were either funny parodies of other texts or interpretations of original works, but when I actually became the producer of remix videos nothing "creative" came into my mind. So I began searching YouTube for ideas, watching various clips made by different users. After watching different videos, I finally decided to do a mash-up of a video clip from a particular movie with soundtracks of different texts to turn that movie into a new genre.

For the video I chose an opening sequence of Kill Bill, where action scene takes place. I decided to take sound effects and background music from Mario games and incorporate them with the video clip to add some gags into a fancy action scene. Trying to add a different soundtrack to a video was much more harder than I have anticipated. In order to make them synchronize and appear less awkward I had to break up the clip in to every second, which was a strenuous and annoying process.

Another video mash-up I did was changing the genre of a movie. For this I used a Korean movie "Tale of Two Sisters", which is originally a horror movie, and turned it into a homosexual romance movie between two girls. I have not posted it up yet, but I did publish the Kill Bill sequence on YouTube and shared it on Facebook with my friends. So far I haven't got any particular feedback from anyone on YouTube, but I did get some comments and "likes" on Facebook. This difference between the two sites may be from the fact that the audience of my work is much more smaller and limited in Facebook, which makes it easier for discussion and feedback, whereas on YouTube the amount of video posts are too much every minute that it is harder for my video clips to be recognized by large number of people.

Here is the link where I have published my work on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoUNKvsT7jA

Feel free to leave any comment!

Throughout the semester I am planning to go in depth in video editing and try out more professional programs to do different remix productions. If you have any idea please leave a comment!

Remix Production

Admittedly, I haven't been on top of blog posts this semester. Instead I created, though neglected to share until now, my own website. Called The Element of Style, My website is a mass collection of  the work I've done for the class this semester. I spent a lot of time diversifying what I created from an original We found love (in chipotle) to occasionally making memes of my roommates when I was bored. Originally started for class purposes only, I'm now looking forward to continuing my blog into the summer. I've created a small following from my friends on Langdon and am weirdly grateful for this assignment. As an aspiring film maker exposer is key. With the help of my friends (and fans) I have built a moderate following of the works I have been putting out. From the album I made remixing the works of lil wayne with the red hot chili peppers and even, although not proud to say it, the call me maybe video I made this project has opened up a lot of possibilities for me. I even got my first filming job working for Hillel, called Israelity TV, just couple weeks ago after showing off what I've made in the past few months. The next few posts I'll take specifically about each type of media I've remixed.. hope you guys like it!

The Element of Style... http://benroif.wordpress.com/

Practicum Post 1 - Customization

For my Practicum project which focuses on Interactive Media, more specifically MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game), I have chosen to explore the online world of DC Universe. I have always had an interest in superheroes, and after reading the description of this MMORPG online, I am more than excited to start playing this game. Luckily, I have a Sony VAIO laptop, which allows me to play almost any game as many games are incompatible with non Windows computers. In this post, I will focus on the earliest stages of the game including; downloading the game, the opening videos, world selection, character selection, and character customization.

Downloading the game was very simple, except I had to wait almost 2 hours for all of the games files to install onto my computer. Once I finally had the game running, the program took over my entire screen and I was unable to take notes on Microsoft word (I took notes on a pad of paper instead), and I was also unable to take screen shots which is a problem I did not expect to have. Right away, it is easy to notice how many customizable options there are in an MMORPG game. First I had to chose between Player vs. Environment or Player vs. Player. I chose PvE because in PvP anyone can attack anyone while in PvE, you are only attacking what the game designed to be your enemies and the other members are your allies. I did not feel that game did a sufficient job explaining the differences between the two options and I was forced to look up further information on my phone. Next, there was an introductory video which explained the plotline which is simply the superheroes (including every member) used to fight each other, and now they are fighting against an evil alien named Braniac to save earth & humanity. After this short video, which contained some Hollywoodesque graphics, I finally began to choose and customize my character.

The number of choices available when customizing your character is unbelievable. First, you can choose your gender, size, character type, hero or villain, personality, mentor, power, mode of movement, and weapon. Or, you can just choose a character inspired by an actual super hero like Flash Gordon or the Green Lantern. For my character, I chose a Large Male Striker, with a Powerful personality, Mental powers, Flight for movement, Hand Blast as my weapon, and I chose Superman as my mentor. Next, you are able to completely customize the appearance of your character to match almost anything you can imagine. I personally chose a relatively simple character appearance, but I couldn't help but add a green mustache to my patriotically red, white, and blue superhero. Finally, I was asked to name my character which was by far the most difficult task of all. As the emblem on my super hero is an M and my name is Max, I attempted to name my character Professor Max, MAXIMUS, Magnificent Max, Professor M, Master Max, Super Max, Super M, and many others. After each and every one of those names were rejected for being previously taken by other members, I finally thought of a name unique enough for my Superhero: MACRO MAN!!!

Senior Citizen Internet Users- One

For my practicum, I am studying the ways in which elderly people (65+) use the internet. I have joined online discussions on sites such as senior.com and aarp.org, but my first major task has been teaching my Grandma how to work a computer and navigate the internet.
She just recently got a computer with internet access for her house and she wanted to know how to use email and set up a Facebook account. I started off by getting her a Gmail account and immediately found it difficult to, as they say, teach an old dog new tricks. Not that my Grandma is old or a dog.
First we had to decide on a username and password for her account. She picked a standard username consisting of her name and a number and a password that she said she would easily remember. Then I showed her how to do some of the basics like composing an email, reading messages in her inbox, and deleting unneeded ones. She seemed to understand most of it, but then she struggled once I tried to show her all of the customization available on Gmail.
At first, she didn't want anything to do with the more complicated stuff. But she was intrigued by the picturesque backgrounds you can add to your account, but she just wanted me to set it for her and didn't try to understand how she could change it on her own.
After about an hour or so, she had her account set up and she even sent out a couple emails with my help. I figured she could do all the basic things she needed to and would mostly use it to keep in touch with friends and family. About a week after initially setting it up, I don't think she had used it much because I had gone back to Madison and wasn't there to show her how to do anything. Then I got this email from her:

If you can't tell what she did, she typed the entire message in the subject line and didn't notice when she ran out of space and the message was cut off. This shows that she can't type very well and was looking at the keyboard instead of the screen (which, admittedly, I am often guilty of), or that she figured the message would be sent even if what she was typing wasn't showing up.
I replied to the email trying to tell her what she had done, but I didn't get a response. So then I called her and talked her through what she needs to do and she sent me a message with the text in the correct spot.
So far, she still needs help with a lot of the basics, but she is getting better at it. It can be puzzling for someone like me who grew up with computers and the internet that other people don't know how to use them. But for someone of my Grandma's age, they are often very new and strange things. And just like any new task, it can take awhile to fully learn and use the internet.
From my experiences so far, I have two questions for consideration:
1. Do you think you will still use social media as much when you reach the age of 65 as you do now?
2. Do you think if you hadn't grown up with computers and the internet that you would understand them quickly at your current age? How would this change as the age you were introduced increased?

Practicum 1-Foursquare

So this is my first post for the practicum assignment. I wanted to have a few weeks to try it out before posting anything about it. My experience with the locative service Foursquare has been an interesting one to say the least. Let me first tell you all about the Internet service first. Foursquare is a locative service that lets you “check-in” to any place that you are. You can see where your friends are, explore new places, and even get discounts and specials at certain places. Although this service has a lot on it and may seem to be useful to some, I do not yet feel this way. I only have 2 friends on Foursquare and both of them do not use it on a regular basis, so really I am just checking into places for no reason. Since none of my friends are actually on Foursquare it really has no use to me because I cannot see where they are or meet up with them somewhere. So I guess the only use it has for me is the discounts and specials that “checking-in” to a place will get me, yet so far I have only received one special and that was 20% off at bar in Chicago. Hopefully more of my friends will join and I can really experience all of what Foursqaure offers.

Special Interest Group 1

As my first post for my practicum, I will be laying out what exactly I am doing and what I am participating in. My interest group is the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. I chose 3 different websites to contribute to; The official CoD forum website, a fan-run game-specific website, and the official Facebook page for the game. I chose this topic mainly because I had a little bit of prior engagement with this online community and wanted to participate more. What better time to do it than now, for school and research purposes.

Like many official forums, there are many subtopics. I chose to focus on a specific discussion post topic to narrow my subject of interest. Also because it is one that I know is the most busy in regards to posts and updates. I chose to do the updates discussion board for the topic to focus my attention on. In the past 2 weeks, I have created an account and posted my experiences on current issues at work. Also, just reading through some posts to catch up on what the current issues and talks are so I can be in-sync with everyone posting.

On the smaller fan-run website, things are a bit different. Unlike the official forums, where there are thousands of people going through the website and reading and contributing, the smaller website has a much smaller discussion board and forum topics. So on this one, I started to contribute to more topics and posts. I also don't see as much new posts in this one either.

On the Facebook page, it is another completely different interaction experience. First, it is less of a "forum" than a place to state your comment. Official posts are made by the page owner, and it ranges from videos, pictures, questions, news, and even surveys. It's a completely different style of community and interaction than the other two sites.

Throughout the semester, I will be making more posts capturing my experience in these communities and what I got out of it and what I observed.

For my practicum presentation tomorrow, this is the question I pose to everyone:

—What do you think are the defining aspects of a “community”? And do you think the one you are currently in is considered one? Why or why not?

Media Social Networking - Post 1

For my practicum (Media-Based Social Networking), I have decided to use Kongregate.com.  For those of you who aren't familiar with Kongregate, it is basically a site that collects the latest and greatest Flash games that the Internet has to offer and puts them under one site.  The site, to help encourage users to try out new games that they may not otherwise sample, they offer Badges (who doesn't want to collect shiny badges?), including a Badge of the Day that the most diehard Kongregate people can achieve daily.

When I initially was assigned Media Social Networking, I wasn't sure if I wanted to do Last.fm or Kongregate, so I spent a couple of days posting and interacting with both sites message boards and getting a feel for their communities.  My experience with Last.fm was a message board that was pretty quiet, with the only posts that were active were posts that wondered "What is your favorite band?" or "Make a comment about the above user's last played song."  These threads were often into the thousands in terms of replies and didn't seem to foster must of a discussion.

Kongregate's forums, on the other hand, are super active and have a wide variety of different categories to choose from, from Off Topic, to general gaming, to Serious Discussion.  While I have had an account on Kongregate since Sept. of 2009, I have never visited the forums until I was assigned the practicum (something that a poster even commented - but that will be mentioned in my next post).  During the practicum, I will be contributing/participating in the forums, and will try to contribute and read from several different forum groups on the site.

Social Networking Sites: Nicole Chorney

I was thoroughly excited when I was assigned to Social Networking Sites for my practicum project because of a variety of reasons. First off, I am not a huge social media geek except for the obvious, Facebook and Twitter. By being assigned to this project I feel like I will be able to open my horizons to other social networking sites and get a more diverse view of what these sites are all about. Secondly, a few of these sites had been ones I was planning on joining in the recent past but I hadn't found time to start up a page - now I feel like I'm killing two birds with one stone - completing an assignment and crossing some things off my to-do list! I think this project will allow me to not only extend my knowledge of social networking sites but also allow me to engage in a little fun, while working of course!

The first site I am choosing to join is Google+. While I received an invite to this site awhile back, I didn't take it seriously enough and never set up my account. I was hesitant because I had heard that many people weren't following through on using it and I just figured it would be another social networking site that flopped. This seems to be somewhat true, in that many people haven't "caught on" to the idea of Google+ yet, but this could change quite rapidly. With Google being somewhat of a monopoly, I think that once it creates enough buzz people will begin to really dive into the site as a more mature form of social networking.

Secondly, I chose to start a LinkedIn profile. This is the one site I chose that I have really been meaning to do since this summer. LinkedIn, as many of you know, is a great way to market yourself in the professional world - I even know people that have had job opportunities just from having a LinkedIn page. As I said in my introduction, I accepted a job with Target Corporation this fall so once this happened starteing a LinkedIn profile was put on the back burner. I am excited to finally get this done and hopefully I can network with current and future Target employees and maybe even make some new friendships prior to my arrival there in September!

The last site I am ready to join is called 43Things. Compared to the other two sites, I am assuming that many of you do not know exactly what 43Things is. In a nutshell, it is a social networking site that has users create accounts and list their goals or hopes for the future. It then uses tagging techniques to connect you with not only people, but also resources, to getting those things done. As I'm sure many of you seniors can relate to, I am working through a "Bucket List" before I graduate from Madison. This bucket list not only contains "badgerly" things I want to experience, but also sets me up for my future in Minneapolis. I am hoping that through these goals and hopes I present on the site I will be able to completely my "list" of things prior to graduation - come along for the ride and get an idea of some of the fun things this campus has to offer!

As you can all probably tell, I'm more than excited to begin this journey through three new social networking sites. If any of you have accounts on them feel free to add me - I'd love to start accumulating some new friends. If not, maybe after sharing my experiences with these sites you'll become inspired to join one, two, or maybe even three! I look forward to the weeks to come and sharing my experiences with you - feel free to ask me any questions or give me any suggestions regarding these sites; I'd love the help.

Microblogging: Sammy Luterbach

I was really excited to be assigned to microblogging for this practicum project for a couple of reasons. First of all, I already have both a Twitter and Tumblr account and I love them, so I am comfortable with both and can really delve into doing something different with them. Second, I have a social media internship with CollegeFashionista where one of my jobs is to control the site's Tumblr page, so I spend a great deal of time on Tumblr thinking about ways to improve the page, gain more followers, and get our photos re-blogged. This project will be a great extension of my work and fun on both Twitter and Tumblr.

I was hesitant to create a Twitter when it first became popular because I thought it was just going to be a different version of Facebook, but once I bit the bullet, I found out that I couldn't have been more wrong. On Twitter, you only have 140 characters to say what you need to say, and it better be creative or no one will read more than two words. It's a challenge! I've also found that Twitter is somewhere where people share a lot of links and news. In fact, I really consider Twitter to be a news source for me, because I follow reputable sources. On Twitter, I like to talk to people in the fashion industry, celebrities, and the other CollegeFashionista interns across the country. I've even had celebrities Tweet back at me; it's so fun! I don't really use Twitter to talk to my friends, and I don't post a ton of original content, so I am going to start doing more of that in hopes of receiving more comments and starting more conversations.

Tumblr is one of the easiest platforms to share original information on in an original way. You can share photos, blog posts, quotes, anything on a page that you can totally control to make it look like it's your very own blog. On Tumblr, you also follow other Tumblr pages. When you first log-in, you are brought to your Dashboard where you can see all of the photos or information that the people you follow have shared, and you can re-blog any of this so it will appear on your own page. On my personal Tumblr, I pretty much only re-blog inspirational or cool photos. I want to make an effort to include more original content and gain more followers. On CollegeFashionista's Tumblr, we are already undergoing changes in order to gain more followers. I will share more on the changes in a later blog.

Practicum Intro - Social News Site

I believe this option was my second choice for practicum, so I'm excited to get started and explore a bit! My practicum assignment is working with social news sites like Reddit, Digg, and Delicious, and sort of investigating them in terms of their usage, demographics, etc. I am somewhat familiar with all of the sites, but am choosing to work with reddit and Digg for this assignment. Like I said I don't have a super extensive knowledge of these sites and what they're all about, so that should make things more interesting. For reddit, users post various articles, images, and links to the site, and other users can vote them up or down, determining how popular the item is and where it fits in on the front page. Digg is similar, except voting on which items are good or bad (up or down) is termed "digging" or "burying" (hence the name, I imagine).

I'm sure many of you already know the basics of these sites, if not all the ins and outs! Anyway, though the sites are similar in that they operate in a somewhat similar way, I am going to investigate their demographics and what makes each of them unique. Hopefully through this practicum I can become better acquainted with these sites and understand/use them to their full potential.

Social MOO #1

When I got the assignment that I was supposed to work with a Social MOO I was kind of apprehensive because I had never even really heard of that kind of thing before this class. For those of you who may not know or may not feel like looking it up, MOO stands for: MUD, Object Oriented; MUD stands for: Multi-User Dungeon. This might not tell you much, but basically it’s just a text-based game.

After much looking around and going through lists of various social MOOs I finally decided to just go with LambdaMOO because the description promised an adventure. However, getting started on the game wasn’t as easy as just deciding which one to play. The links that should have led me to where I needed to go got me nowhere because apparently I needed a special application on my computer to run a MOO. A short search led me to the answer: telnet, but as far as I knew I didn’t have this application on my computer, even though the site I had found the answer on told me that all I needed to do to run telnet was type it into by run bar along with the address for the MOO I wanted to play. This, of course didn’t work.

As it turns out, telnet has not been a default application on Windows since XP. I finally googled a webpage that told me how I could turn on my computer’s telnet application. Then I was golden. I typed in the run program: telnet lamba.moo.mud.org 8888. This little black box popped up.

The real box is a little bigger than this, but not by much.

Victory! It had taken me an hour, but I was finally connected. I typed help and it told me how to either log in as a guest or create a new character which I did. I was told I’d have to wait a day for the administrators to send me my username and password, so here I am anxiously awaiting the information I need to log in and start my journey on LambdaMOO.

Media Fandom

           Today I received my Practicum assignment as Media Fandom. I am thrilled and am excited to get started. There are two aspects of media that I absolutely love, television and film. There is no better place than IMDB (http://www.imdb.com/) to get the latest on television shows and film. Be that as it may, I am planning to become engaged with the website message boards. Currently I am excited for the upcoming premiere of The Hunger Games and as this is a highly anticipated film, I plan on interacting on this page. Furthermore, I love television and plan to frequent many of these pages after the release of the latest episodes. Overall I am fully enthused about Media Fandom!