Reflection

Now it's time to say goodbye...

Well folks, it's been real, but, like steam engines and Apple II, my time in my Digital Civilization class is history. This long beauty of a post is a "what we have learned today" type of post, and while it is largely for the benefit of the grading system of my Digital Civilization class, it can also be a useful source for those interested in seeing how a class like this can be structured, or for those who just want to hear my thoughts on my blog in general.

1. History

Throughout this course, while the class itself addressed the historical periods very little, I learned a lot through the personal study I conducted before each historical class session so I could discourse intelligently on the subject during class discussion time. Since I was assigned to the 19th century, the majority of my attention was focused there, but I also blogged and commented on Google+ about the other periods. Here are some historical blog posts I wrote:

16th and 17th Centuries:

Greensleeves, Facebook and Humanism.

18th Century:

Pinhead Efficiency.

Classical With a Capital C.

19th Century:

Arts Education in the 19th Century.

Don't Forget the Chopin Liszt.

I don't know anything!

20th Century:

Cell Phones and Star Trek: 20th Century Reality Inspired by Sci Fi.

Standardization - Is a Ballerina Less Intelligent Than a Biochemical Engineer?

Since we're still at the beginning of the 21st century, I didn't write a big over-arching blog post for this century, but most of the posts I wrote had to do with current issues from this century. In the Arts chapter of the e-book that we worked on as a class, I worked on editing all the historical period sections, and wrote the one for the 19th century. I also wrote part of the chapter's section on the 21st century, which you can read here.

2. Core Concepts

We focused on a few specialized concepts as we studied digital civilization. You can hopefully see examples of these core concepts reflected in many of the historical posts, as I tried to mix the concepts and the history and the other course goals throughout all of my work, but I also wrote some more specialized content as I focused on one or another of the aspects of control, information, openness and participation.

Control

Because of SOPA and current piracy issues, I discussed the control concepts of identity, security, disruption and law a lot in class and researched them quite a bit out of class. In my blog post Identity Theft: Your Very Own Evil Twin, I explore the concept of identity theft and share some suggestions to improve identity security.

Information

The informational concepts of computing, connectivity and disruptive innovation are ones that I discussed in class quite a bit. I also explored these concepts in my blog, especially disruptive innovation, in such posts as Not Quite the Same..., How digitally civilized am I?, Is It Written in the Stars? and PowerPoint Power: Taking That First Step, and I particularly address the subject of the digital divide in Sorry, Promethius. I also explore the power of internet information as a weapon in the form of music videos on YouTube in my post Music as a Weapon.

Openness

This class taught me to think about openness principles such as open software, copyright and standardization, which were some things I had not really seen as big issues before. In Standardization - Is a Ballerina Less Intelligent Than a Biochemical Engineer?, I discuss Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences, which separates human intelligence into different domains and illustrates why standardized testing may not always be the most effective tool.

Participation

I learned a lot about collaboration in this class through multiple group projects and situations where the need was great for everyone to work together and share content in order to get massive projects done. Social networking was a huge part of my class experience, as I have used it to promote things, communicate with others, and make arrangements for projects to be done. I never missed a class session - I wouldn't have dared to, since it seemed like there was always a new assignment being given out at each class session that wasn't written down anywhere. I wrote about finding ways to participate in an event I couldn't attend in my post The Event I Wasn't At... You can see I learned the process of agile development - the process of making releases of a product - by comparing two editions of a piece of the ebook chapter that I posted on my blog: Do You Sing in the Shower? and Integrating Music in a Technological Culture.

3. Digital Literacy

The points of digital literacy, consuming, creating and connecting, were the story of my life this past semester. I was constantly doing these things both in class and in my private work outside of class. I was introduced to many new sources, created all sorts of content, and got many online accounts as a result of this class.

Consume

I learned about consuming many new sources through this class, and learned how to seek innovative ways to find quality information. While I still used Google and Wikipedia to gain basic information about some things, I also tried many other sources. Some of the sources that I explored for this class to gain information include the books I was assigned to read for this class (which I rated on Goodreads), other books that I was not assigned, databases such as JSTOR, open informational websites such as Prezi, informational video websites such as YouTube, library websites, and the personal websites of professionals. You can see an example of a few of the many sources I consulted in my post Arts: An Annotated Bibliography.

Create

Throughout this class, I have definitely put the "create" principle to the test. Over the course of the semester, I have posted regularly on Google+ and my blog, I wrote two sections for the Arts e-book chapter, and I edited both the Arts and the Business chapters. I participated in three class presentations. I filmed each Arts group member talking about the arts. I was filmed for the promotional video for the Arts chapter. Not counting e-mails and Google+ posts, I estimate that for this class I have created somewhere between 70 and 80 pages of content. I wrote about how failure is a part of learning to create effectively in my post Nothing Ventured: Burned-Out Light Bulbs, Missed Baskets, and a Bombed F Harmonic Minor Scale.

Connect

Learning new ways to connect has been a big part of my learning experience in this class. As part of this class, I interacted with others through Google Docs, Google+, Goodreads, Twitter, Gmail, Facebook, Dropbox, Flickr, Blogger, Google Chat, and Prezi, and perhaps a few others that I can't remember the names of at the moment. I have spread fliers and advertised events in a method of connection quite new to me. You can read about those efforts in my post Becoming a Flier Hawker: A Quest for Social Proof. I discussed the book and its content with friends and teachers, and I even went so far as to question the head of my department, who was interviewing me at the time to decide if I would be accepted to my major. You can read about that crazy experience in my post Crazy? Me? Well... Maybe a Little....

4. Self-Directed Learning

Self-directed learning is something that has fascinated me for a long time, and I agree that students learn better when they are passionate about the subject and spend lots of time independently researching it. This is a difficult concept to utilize fully when one is very wrapped up in a full schedule of other classes that follow traditional learning methods, and I find that self-directed learning usually works best for me in the summer. Despite that, I still learned almost everything I learned from this class through my own exploration. You can read some of my thoughts about self-directed learning in my posts Cannibalistic Chickens and the Classroom Cage: Think Outside the Coop and You Tweet, I Whistle.

5. Collaboration

Collaboration was one of the biggest parts of my experience in this class, with me coming to know most of the students in the class by the end of the semester. Collaboration requires a great deal of trust that others will fulfill their responsibilities, which, since I was a group leader, could be quite scary, especially when others didn't do their parts and I was left trying to pull the pieces together. At the same time, however, hidden talents came out of the woodwork from people that I would never have guessed were talented in those directions, and together we were able to create something greater than any one of us could have created on our own. I recorded some of my thoughts about group projects in my post What Do You Think of Group Projects?.

That's All, Folks!

Well, since my focus was largely on the arts and music side of digital civilization, I think it's quite fitting for me to quote Michael Buble when I say that "it's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me, and I'm feelin' good"! I've learned lots in this class, I've worked lots in this class, I've grown lots in this class, and I will certainly never look at digital civilization the same way, ever again.