TASK 8/9:  Valerie

I chose to examine the links between our selection of tracks and analysis of the Palladio app for presenting these connections.  Valerie and I selected several similar tracks (7/10), yet we had completely different criteria for these selections.  

Valerie focused on the movement within the music and tried to include songs which would inspire children to move in creative ways.  I, on the other hand, focused on songs which inspired an emotional response, and also tried to include songs from across the globe.  Even though we used such different criteria, we ended up with a pretty remarkable number of identical selections, especially considering the number of songs we had to choose from.   

This led me to reflect on the overall intention of this assignment.  For Task 9 we had to analyze the digital representation of the song selection results in Palladio.  Both Valerie and I noted that the rationale for the song selections was absent from the presentation of connections.  While Palladio has great potential to represent a wide range of information, this would seem to be a significant limitation, which we both identified. 

Another link I noticed is that Valerie’s posts have a very authentic and conversational tone.  In fact, I think they are so authentic because of the conversational tone.  This is an area of digital communication where I tend to struggle, as I get caught up in the clarity of my expression, or focus on the academic merit of my posts, hoping to contribute to the overall learning of the class.  Valerie makes excellent contributions but does so in a way that is personable and engaging.  A great deal of my thinking in this course, and my final assignment, has led me to reflect on the nature of digital communication, and the challenge of creating an online identity.  The process of reviewing Valerie’s posts once again highlighted this important aspect of how we communicate online.