There is now more going on in the talk of our class than I can track alone. The proliferation of assignments, blogposts, fishbowls and all of everyone’s ideas has served to provide an incredibly dense and potentially powerful matrix for us to transform into some kind of cooperative product.
I am pleased that the concept of frames or framing was mentioned in several of the individual proposals. We have some resources already available in the part of the coursewiki that I’ve been developing:
- although we did not use the label (I don’t think?), some elements of our frame as a group was established on the first day of class
- Goffman’s concept of framing was introduced as relevant and applied in Week 4
- also during the 4th class, we began to recognize some of our own emergent norms
My mind has been spinning all week with the conversation we began trying to distinguish among representation, symbolism, and mimesis. Do we want to (re)produce something of art or something of knowledge? Can we attempt both? I saw a hint of art/knowledge in “Let’s Be Serious.” If you read the post with “Busy” playing in the background, there is a juxtaposition of different kinds of knowledge (different modes of knowing?). What emerges from the mix is an interesting kind of timespace, eh? A moment is created for the reader/viewer/listener of the mediated “space” that conveys more than is actually said. Could we do something like that? If we wanted to, what is the “feel” that we might seek to create? Ch0c0latemilk commented on the favorite songs track that playing during WikiLab #1, “The music is making me want to type fast.” Do we want to provide a uniform sensory experience for our audience? If so, why, what, and how? If not, again, why, what, and how?
I wonder if a next step is to start configuring working design teams? How? (Feel free to make specific recommendations and/or provide organizational criteria.)
A Place in Space 
Monday March 31, 2008 at 11:49 am
I read this post about 3 times. I’m still confused about what you are trying to articulate.
Monday March 31, 2008 at 12:29 pm
🙂
You’re so ahead of the game!
You have to give me a substantial clue. I am not going to rewrite the entire thing all over! What points do you “get” and where do you feel “lost”?
Monday March 31, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I think it might be helpful to read the ideas from the homework due today, for instance:
Summer22 wrote: “After analyzing the cultural term “Bitch”, Steph brought up some interesting points involving gender being “one of the only identities that has received any obvious attention in our conversations so far”, this is interesting to think about as we go forward with our project, do we want to include sections or a part of the project focusing on our cultural analysis of these terms, are they important enough (maybe they/some are)?”
Samesies says: “…it is very possible that we could expand our frames to indeed show that love can be used in our group dynamic setting…”
Now, it appears some of you are posting to last week’s blogpost (starting with comment #19) and some of you are posting to this week’s blogpost. Read ’em all! (What might this confusion indicate about the group process/stage of development right now?!)
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:05 pm
I think that we can articulate the frames in our interactions. The “lets be serious” post did a good job if outlining how “busy” our culture is. I would like to re-read the post but for some reason the internet explorer won’t display the page..? Weird. Anyawys, I have repeatedly talked about this idea of framing and that my peers and I come from a college frame. I think that this allows us to have similar view points on this like finances, time management, and social lives. This is why I don’t understand why it has been so hard to decide on a project for the course wiki. I know that we want to include everyone’s interests but all of our interests have something to do with college, don’t they? Anyways..I’m feeling confused about today’s activities and exaclly what I should be responding to.
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:07 pm
I think in order for our wiki page to be successful, we need to combine both art and knowledge. We all know that a bunch of words on a page is not a good way to engage the reader. For example, in the English classes that used the wiki- there was a page with Marvin Gay lyrics that were encorporated with art work. That page was probably the most interesting out of all of them. If we correctly mesh the two, it would be the best chance of success for our page.
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:09 pm
The more this class progresses, I can’t help but become more and more inclined to bring forth new and creative ways that I myself can contribute to the coursewiki. Going along with the analysis of “Busy”, I am a musician myself, and write a lot of music. If there is some way I could factor my musical ability into my part of the coursewiki, it could add a lot to the overall “artistic” feel of the website. I definitely think we need some sort of “artistic” aspect to the website, because in order to attract attention from people outside the class, you need something that’s different than just text. People, especially in this day and age of the internet and html, are looking for something that catches their attention, not just plain text. I hold a very strong interest In Greek life at the university, so maybe I could create a page dedicated to Greek life and write a song about Greek life to play in the background. Or maybe I could create a page about music and write a song about music itself. I definitely feel like I haven’t been as involved as I would like to be and I know that it is definitely not too late to change that. This coursewiki site could be something of great use and importance to many people, but we definitely have to make some serious decisions within the next two weeks about what exactly it is going to consist of in order to move forward and actually begin to create the site. But knowledge and art must absolutely be merged together on the site in order to attract any outside attention, as opposed to just keeping this site within the frame of a semester-long class.
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:12 pm
After viewing the diverse proposals I find it interesting how each studen’s individual focus is different than the others. Many people are focussing on content, or what they would like to contribute maybe because that is one of the most solid aspects of the project so far. I’m not focused on content so much because I don’t think that’s where my thoughts should be right yet. I’m still trying to grasp the idea of the project as a whole and how it should be created, I don’t think that there is a right way to think about this project just because were all coming from different places, however. Because we are (in my opinions) storming group stage, trying to figure everything out, we hold onto things we know….Maybe it would be beneficial if we strayed from content for a sec and focussed on process. It might help us get a little further a little quicker…MAYBE
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I think that the wiki page should combine both art and knowledge. I think anything has to have a least some element of the other. We can more heavily focus on knowledge if we want to, but just what our page looks like at all is a form of art. We often frame one from another when it goes to art or knowledge. But I think they can’t be separated very often. We have to know that when doing this project. We can have more of a focus on one.
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I am not exactly sure about a reply to this post but I am going to try my best. I agree that it is slightly ridiculous that we are still trying to come up with an idea for this when we make decisions everyday.. so why is this so hard for all of us?!?! I think it is definitely true that we need to make it interesting for our readers so adding a creative touch to the pages rather then just having it be a bunch of words will make it much more appealing to the viewer. I think this page has potential to be very good and helpful to our class for learning group dynamics as well as for other people to learn about all the subjects we plan to talk about! I hope we make more progress on this today and come up with steps to move a little further on this Wiki project. I think we should try and come up with design teams and see different ideas for how to create this site and make it as appealing to the eye as we can so we can attract people to it!
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:26 pm
As Steph said, “there is now more going on in the talk of our class that I can track alone.” I have to agree with that, because I feel a little off track. For our homework I had just finished writing a post about how I think we are all starting to get on the same page with the course Wiki page. Now as I write this response, I am starting to feel like i’m missing something.
I understand frames, and framing. I think it applies directly to our wiki page idea of each person participating and possibly writing about what is of interest to them. By each of us writing anything at all, we are displaying our frame. And in a larger picture we are all a part of the same frame, the Umass Communications 352, Group Dynamics frame.
I did enjoy our class exercise of picking a term and defining it. It was interesting to see everyones view and output on a “simple” term that we have all at one time used. I don’t, however, really understand why we did that exercise, or understand how that relates directly to our course wiki page.
It seemed that most people last week really enjoyed the class. It was much smaller and easier to communicate with the whole group. As Steph had said, it is interesting that every persons “best part of class” was different, and all together just about every part of class was mentioned. And with everyone’s responses to ideas on the wiki page it seems as if people are starting to focus a little bit on the process of creating this page. We have mostly been talking about content, what is going to be on that page, while figuring out how we would actually do that, was talked about much less. As we are slowly coming together and agreeing on certain ideas, it seems that process and content will also come together to make this end product.
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:28 pm
After reading over the class’ favorite parts of last week, along with most of my classmates proposals, I think that we will end up making a wiki with a good mix of art and academic content. Or at least art and knoledge. I feel this way for several reasons. All of us are operating within a college frame, and I think because of this many of us are coming up with similar style proposals to contribute to the site. And this content that we are yet to generalte seems like it will be a good resource, as well as artistic. People in this class are musicians, artists, and aspiring writers (among many other things) and with that mix I feel that the content will have a good mix of art and knoledge.
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:29 pm
I believe that we all share the college frame, however we all have had different life experiences that contribute to that frame. I missed last class after Spring Break. It seems that there has been a transition from the sort of survival guide to personal pages. I have not participated in that many activities throughout my college years. I did a lot with friends outside of the school setting. However I could provide a page about internships and the experience I am gaining through the organization I am working with. This could be a “Pro” Internship page that could persuade incoming students that internships will enhance your college experience and better prepapre you for when you leave college. I think it is very important to make our page visually appealing. We want our space to attract visitors and make them want to poke around in all the pages. I could go either way- I could do a personal page or do the actual work on wiki to make things go smoothly. There already seems to be a lot of people who want to contribute to the content of our wiki page. As a senior I am definitely feeling the semester coming to an end. I think in order to make a successful wikipage that we need to make concrete decisions as soon as possible and start getting to work.
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:29 pm
I agree that after every class, coming into the next, there is more and more to think about and it is hard to track everything that is going on. I still feel as though we are unsure of what we are going to put on our wiki page, however I was absent last week, and might have missed out on some more decision making. I think that the “artistic” aspects as well as “knowledge” both have to be represented within the page/pages. If we are going to go ahead with the “personal pages” I think the decision must be made soon seeing as though we do not have much time left to create.
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:30 pm
There are a lot of different ideas going on surrounding the content of the coarse wiki. It is interesting to me to see how ideas can be combined to create new ones. For example, http://vertebralsilence.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/class-project/ suggest that we go out into the Umass campus with a street video, maybe we could videotape Summer22’s http://summer22.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/key-elements-combined/
idea about wheel throwing and dedicate a page to campus activities that we are involved in? I think this involves both art and knowledge, ceramics is an art form as is shooting a video, and posting the information or knowledge on the wiki pages combines both. I think a lot of people including myself have ideas about the content but not for the process. I think that as a group we need to work on this. I am not sure how we begin this maybe we should have a fishbowl on how to begin the process of the Wiki?
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:32 pm
In order to have a successful wiki page I think we are going to have to incorporate many different things including both art and knowledge. A just like a webpage a wiki page could have a ton of useful information on it, but if it looks bad or is confusing no one will want to use it. I think knowledge is looked at as in being familiar with the topic we are writing/reporting about, but I also think it needs to be used in the design process so that certain problems like usability are addressed. I think knowing our exact target audience and framing the look and feel of the page to that group will be one of the first things we will want to do when we design the page. I think if we are able to incorporate both knowledge and art into our wiki page we will have a very interesting page that people will want to look at.
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:34 pm
There have been many ideas pertaining to the content of the course wiki. But the one thing that is missing is the process in which we are going to combine all of these ideas. With only a couple weeks left to the class, our main focus should be putting this wehole thing together. With votes behind us (for the most part) we need to kick start the pocess of our class creation.
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I believe in order to “get things going” we are going to have to start building more of a framework around the ideas we have come up with. That being said, it seems entirely logical, as Steph suggested, to create design teams to actually create the content of t he wirkipage. I think we can all agree that we have the frame of UMASS in common, but that hasn’t been the problem. Is it that necessary that all of our contributions are one cohesive unit in the wikipage? Do they have to all blend so well together that we absolutely need such a similair perspective? I don’t think so. It’s the diversity of ideas that would make the page interesting. Why don’t we all just do our thing and see where it goes? Maybe I am completely off on a different tangent here…
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:39 pm
One of the major questions Steph suggests is,
“I wonder if a next step is to start configuring working design teams? How?”
I think this is something we as a class should consider looking into. We are into April now and we are down to a handful of classes. We have 1 more class then a vacation day and before we know it we are down to the final few weeks of class. I know throughout the semester we have had problems with moving forward and when we need to make decisions by. In posts past, I would say I think it is time for the class to come to a decision on this. I have learned to be more political and say, I think as a class, we should consider making a decision on this matter.
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:40 pm
The hardest part is most definitely being able to articulate our ideas into a creation. As you state, we have so much going on. Even though we talk about this wiki page everyday, there is still so much else going on that it becomes difficult to get down to business. It is about time we do so. As a small class last class, our discussion was more driven and articulate. It may be smart to create these design teams for the sake that there will be a bunch of small groups within our not-so-big group itself. I know there are people like myself who would like to focus on art, so why don’t we have a team together yet? We need to make time IN CLASS to do so. There is a definite need for progress and it needs to start NOW. Having only one day a week and so much to do takes away from our ability to progress, so if we don’t act today, or next class, we won’t get as far as we plan to. People are way to concerned about who is going to see our wiki. This class is GROUP DYNAMICS. It is about us working together. Who cares if no one sees it. If we do it well, it will demonstrate that as a group, and as an individual, we can successfully create something. That is what we need to stress and focus on. This is for us, not for others.
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:41 pm
As I write this, time is limited. In how many ways? Our page should definitely incorporate art into our page. It has it look good. We aren’t a bunch of drones incapable of expressing ourselves. I definitely think it is a good idea to incorporate the content of our class to our Wiki page. This would certainly define the page as our own and also state something that the hundreds of seniors here couldn’t. I like the idea of analyzing our frames. Also it seems like people have similar interests. Some groups I see are film, greek life, night life, and so on. Also, I was thinking that if our page had profiles of RSO’s on campus, it probably would be updated after the semester as passed. I’m sure all RSOs would want to be represented and would make their own pages.
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:42 pm
I think that the class is coming together on the course wiki. Many people are thinking about what they will contribute to the overall page. After reading everyone’s proposals, I think that they all bring something interesting and unique to the course wiki. I enjoyed last class (#8) and think that it was a good setting to talk about our ideas and get some ideas actually down on paper. It’s good to see people wanting to make a really good page and I think everyone in the class is serious about bringing solid ideas to the table. I don’t think there’s any “right” or “wrong” ideas about the wiki. I like the ideas about bringing “art” and “knowledge” to the site and think that an interactive and aesthetically pleasing site would work very well. I also think that Steph should use some of the webspace that she purchased because I think that many of the ideas that we’ve all had might to too complicated for just the wiki. Also it would be nice if the course website was something simple, i.e. umassguide.com instead of complicated i.e. http://www.umasswiki.com/wiki/Class:COM352_-_Group_Dynamics_-_Spring_2008/course_outlines_and_in-class_activities/fifth_day_of_class/Test#The_Best_Parts_of_Class_.238
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I’m into both art and knowledge (don’t they often overlap?) In my most recent post I had read through all of the blogs about the wiki project that I could find and commented on them in what I thought would be a productive way. You can see it here: http://vertebralsilence.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/an-attempt-to-synthesize/
Some possible themes that stand out are: music, on campus clubs/activities, sports, personal pages, our class specifically, film/video etc. There were more themes that overlapped in our individual posts, but you get the idea. Maybe we should split up into groups based on these content themes and then in those groups talk about process. So the people interested in music could figure out what they want to talk about specifically and HOW to that (imbedding music, etc) This seems like a logical next step and these smaller groups (it’s looking like 2-4 ppl have shared interest in any given topic) would be more manageable. Maybe I’m way off base – it’s just an idea.
I also am interested in the general wiki technology we’ll be using – because this will affect all of us. I mean we all know Wikipedia. I’ve also seem wikis here: http://www.wikispaces.com/
But I feel a little confused – is our “project” wiki going to be in the same place as our class page on the umass wiki? And, if so, can we look at the technology of the umass wiki? Because I have no clue…
Monday March 31, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I was absent last class, so I may be missing out on some key ideas.
I think it is completely possible to incorporate art and knowledge into the wiki. Both are not mutually exclusive, they work together. People our age will be turned off if they just see lines and lines of text on an article. Adding an artistic touch to our page will make it more engaging for us and the people reading the page.
I like to think that in this context art is also incorporated into what we write. We could be factual and to the point in our writing, but in my experience it’s more fun to read something with someone’s own personal touch. As much as people like reading text books, I think they would prefer to not feel that way when they read our wiki. I am excited for our page, I think we’re narrowing down even more into what we will be doing.
Wednesday April 2, 2008 at 11:56 pm
agree with akademakid that our final product should combine both art and knowledge. Our ideas and discussions are gearing towards that direction. At this point we should able to construct a frame that will help us develop a site that we can find to be very useful and insightful. I don’t think it will be difficult to frame something consisting of these two concepts. Once we fully develop a strategy that will help us achieve our goal we can then say we are prepared to create this site. I’m glad that we are actually making progress. Hopefully we can come up with some artistic ways that will not only be appealing and breathtaking but, also something that can be used as a tool to help people as well. And yes Steph, my mind is spinning only because I have had the same headache for 3 days now.
Friday August 8, 2008 at 10:50 am
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