I, Me – Course Introductions
I was intrigued by the course introductions and it gave me a change to bring out some of my interests, many of which have involved Internet collaboration on shared digital artworks and models. This kicked off some work on a personal “Life Wall” which was fun. Only a small number of Lifestream events were triggered by this work, but it was a fun exercise. I thought originally it would be a way to get ahead with a digital artifact for the course exercises… but eventually decided to do that on more interesting topics as the readings and discussions progressed.
I, Ai – Personal Identity, Avatar Identity
I have been a user of professional simulation environments and also multi-user immersive social games and virtual worlds for several decades, so I was in my element for some uses of such platforms in the MSc in e-Learning courses. This is reflected in my Digital Artifact entitled “AI – Avatar Identity” and the associated Lifestream events, and also in the contributions made in blogs, in my personal learning space.
I, Us – Community Participation
I enjoy collaborative projects and have had a number of long lived on-line groups I interact with. I chose to do the Digital Cultures course on-line community ethnographic study on the Gerry Anderson Model makers’ Alliance (GA-MMA) at http://atate.org/mscel/ethno/.
I, Robot – Think Like a Robot
The creation of the digital artifact “Think Like a …” and related blog posts led to a number of Lifestream events where I discuss the use of educational argumentation from an artificial intelligence agent viewpoint. And even beyond that to take a robot or alternative species viewpoint. This is a useful device to prevent a dominant human species position always being assumed.
Digital Cultures + Digital Artifacts
My other explorations on digital artifacts on and around the course themes have generated Lifestream events and include:
- bat Life Wall
- Another Planet – Experimental Digital Artifact
- Austin, Ai and the Personal Satellite Assistant – Blog Post
- Posthuman – Connected – Blog Post
- AI, Cyborgs and Robots – Blog Post
- By the Side of a Methane Lake on Titan – Blog Post
- Ai’s Home Page – Na’vi and Beyond (work prior to Digital Cultures Course and expanded during the studies)
WallWisher Walls
I have been an enthusiastic contributor to the Wallwisher walls set up at the start of Digital Cultures and IDEL11 for participant introductions, and used for a number of exercises through the course.
This was a new shared media and social tool to me, and it works very well. I have also used Wallwisher walls in a number of my own digital artifacts. The Lifesteam events do not reflect Wallwisher contributions very well, and only seem to post a single event for the initial post onto a wall.
Lifesteam Access
My Lifesteam for the MSc in e-Learning Digital Cultures Course in 2011 is at http://edc11.education.ed.ac.uk/austint/my-lifestream/.
Technically the Lifestream events for many types of feed from Delicious, some blogs, Wallwisher, etc., leave a lot to be desired and often only state the blog title as the source with little indication of the real content I am afraid.
A PDF format archival copy is available at http://atate.org/mscel/archive/EDC11-Lifestream-Austin-Tate.pdf though the printed version is not laid out as well as the original WordPress blog.