Month: August 2011

This last LIBR559M module on immersion has forced my hand, and I must admit a guilty pleasure: World of Warcraft. I’ve had an active account for over four years. Although it doesn’t offer as many ways to emulate practical experiences in ‘real life’ as an immersive world such as Second Life, it certainly comes close. And as far as social media is concerned, it is a perfect game to experience the module topics we’ve talked about in class: Participation, Collaboration, Creation, Aggregation (indirectly), and of course Immersion. I’d like to talk briefly about the ways in which it achieves this. My apologies for not displaying any badass images; I’m away from home and don’t have access to the game at the moment.

Participation:

By virtue of signing up for an MMORPG such as WoW, one is naturally participating in social media; WoW has as many as 20 million participants across its realms, and there is no offline option…you MUST run into people and interact with them. While playing, one will undoubtably make friends, chat with them (either through text or voice chat), trade with them in a massive economy (either directly or through the auction house), and inevitably FIGHT TO THE DEATH against them.

Collaboration

Because I’m not the fighting kind, I tend to participate with others mainly by collaborating with them. The best way to do this is by joining a guild. Guild members pool their resources and help out with quests, money, gear, or whatever else others might need. Because everyone has different professions (alchemy, herbalism, enchanting, etc.) that others won’t have, the game lends itself naturally to collaboration. Plus, many quests and dungeons require groups, so people have to learn to work together for a common purpose.

Creation

While the game is not as creative as say, a pen and paper RPG, where one must develop their characters without the assistance of avatars and a virtual world, WoW still challenges the creativity of those who wish. This is particularly true in Role-playing servers and guilds, which encourage people to stay in character and true to the lore surrounding the game. Indirectly, the game has spawned thousands of creative efforts by people making websites, fan fiction, art, and to develop game modifications for themselves and others.

Aggregation

While the game is more loosely correlated with aggregation, players need to acquire a MASSIVE amount of information in order to be skilled. There are many informational websites where people gather together data, such as Wowhead, which has a database of items, forums, a collection of guides, and news feeds.

Immersion

And of course the world is immersive. People create avatars, travel across fleshed-out continents, and get sucked in to the story lines and gameplay. As a long-time gamer but neophyte RPGer, I was shocked by how much there is to do, and by the various elements of interactivity. While the social network I’ve formed through the game does not extend outside of the game, I have gotten to know some people really well, forming connections. Because of and through the game I chat, voice chat, participate (and lurk) in forums, and comment on blogs; while World of Warcraft did not come immediately to mind when I began to consider my social media use, I’m now certain it’s been the tool which has allowed me the greatest variety and experience with it.

In the article “Always on: Libraries in a world of permanent connectivity, Lorcan Dempsey explores how mobile communications lead to “a general diffusion of networking capacity through the fabric of our lives” (2009). From mobile phones to netbooks to game consoles, people are jumping from one internet access point to another throughout the day- whichever best suits their needs from moment to moment. Dempsey points out that “communication patterns alter consumption patterns, and that “as the interaction experience moves to multiple different kinds of device…the expectation is to get to relevance more quickly, to do a small number of things well, to understand individual needs” (2009).

These changed expectations have majorly affected the way many people get their news. As much as I love sitting down to the Sunday New York Times crossword with my cup of coffee, the rest of the newspaper no longer suits my information needs. It’s unwieldy, and fairly expensive, considering most online newspapers are completely free. And with the popularity of the iPad and the slew of other tablets that are being introduced, we are no longer tied to our desktop computers or even need to power up our laptops to reed our news/RSS feeds/tweets/etc; we can do so conveniently with a number of cool apps. I’m going to highlight two iPad content aggregation apps here, Flipboard and Editions.

Flipboard:

Rated #1 App of 2010 by Apple itself, Flipboard is an ultra-popular app which aggregates news websites, blogs, and social media. You can read your Facebook Twitter, Flickr, and even Google Reader feeds, along with many news articles, which you can browse by category. It has a slick, magazine-style interface that you “flip” through like pages, which is more appealing (at least to me) than a traditional website interface. The pages all load ultra quick because of it’s clean text, which is one of it’s major assets. Its social media integration is the best I’ve seen, and in some cases is better than on the original sites; when someone shares a link on Twitter, for example, a previous automatically comes up…majorly useful when looking for relevant and interesting information. And you can post/comment directly from Flipboard itself. And because iPads are great for images, the app is perfect for viewing Flickr photostreams. I highly recommend it!

Editions:

Dempsey states that “resources will be increasingly socialized, personalized, and location-aware” (2009). While Flipboard excels at making reading the “news” more social, Editions strong point is personalization and location-based news. Released by AOL this month, I admit I was cynical from the get go because of the company’s reputation, but I think it is a strong challenger to Flipboard for news content, as it customizes the articles you see based on what categories you’re interested in or not- Local News (which it determines from your postal code, Technology, Music, Sports, etc. You can also rate articles, and it will further customize, similar to Netflix. It’s also super simple to add feeds. A major drawback is that it does not display Facebook or Twitter feeds, so it’s not as comprehensive of an aggregator as Flipbook. Also, to view each article, blog, etc., it links you to the original site, so it takes longer to load and isn’t optimized for reading it on a tablet like Flipbook’s minimalist design. I would recommend it for news, but without social media integration I don’t think I’ll be switching any time soon; still, a good effort.

References:
Dempsey L. (2009). Always on: libraries in a world of permanent connectivity. First Monday, 14, 1-5. Retrieved from http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2291/2070

In our library 559m module on creation, we explored ways in which libraries and information professionals use social media to create new ways for patrons to interact with their libraries. Many libraries are making strong efforts to keep up with the trends, including creating Flickr photostreams, YouTube videos, blogs, Facebook pages and much more. With the ever expanding list of tools available to try out and experiment with, it is an exciting time for those wishing to introduce new ideas and services to their communities.

In addition to using these digital creation applications to create content ourselves, these tools provide us with a great opportunity to foster creativity within the community, particularity with kids and teens in  public and school libraries. After fiddling with Glogster, I feel that this is one tool out of many that could appeal to kids. Since it is web-based, it would be easy to hold a Glogster day in a library’s computer lab, where kids and teens could showcase their design skills and could express themselves in their own personal glog. The glogs could then be showcased on the library website. By giving kids tools and opportunities to express themselves, we empower them and give them confidence.

This can obviously be supplemented with fun non-digital projects. A couple of summers ago, I developed and implemented curricula at an urban day camp, where the most successful activity I planned was a creative writing unit. We had the kids, aged 4-12, create superhero comics about themselves and illustrate them. This project made it abundantly clear that these kids really need creative outlets in their lives, and that they may not be getting the opportunity within schools. With No Child Left Behind in the United States, teachers are limited in what they can do with their students; because necessary funding is doled out based on standardized test scores alone, they feel the pressure to only teach the tests. This unfortunately leaves a gap that must be filled elsewhere. Low cost summer programs such as the one I participated in are a great option, but I feel that there is a great opportunity here for public libraries (and the school libraries that haven’t already been cut). We need to develop creative and interesting programming in order to stimulate our new generation to become our future creators.