Infographic Reflection

   As you can tell, the infographic assignment was close to my heart. I had jokingly responded to Cicily's comment about making hers on her English Bull dog with a quip about  my pitbull... but in the end I couldn't get the idea out of my head and the more I thought about it the more perfect it seemed. I incuded a pre-infrographic collage of my puppy, Badger, just to show that the ad was true! I really love the breed of dog so I felt compelled to speak for them in this case. 

   I was conflicted at first on whether or not to make it an Adopt-a-Pit spiel or something that just proved wrong the many myths surrounding the breed, or something simply educational. In the end, I tried to make a mix of all three, which I think sort of convoluted the graphic in a small way. I made a list of some of the things I really wanted people to know-- like the different kinds of pitbulls that make up the breed, but I also wanted people to be able to relate to the ad if they still didn't care for pits. The most common anti-pitbull argument is that pitbulls are violent and aggressive animals, which could not be more false (they are the most cuddly breed too but no one bothers to acknowledge that. They have up to thirteen different dogs categorized as a Pits which make them statistically easy to blame), so I wanted to go about proving this 'wrong' and that's why I included the sidebar on ridiculous things that would kill you first before a Pitbull became a threat to your life. I thought the formatting on this section was understandable, but Doug mentioned that it seemed broken up for the readers eye and after this was pointed out I can understand how that would be the case. 

  I'd never made an infographic before, and there are so many online resources that really made it a breeze, though formatting the actual aesthetics and making decisions on where to put text and how much, when to choose between image and text, how to balance the overall result, were all decisions that are very similar to those made in the writing process-- or even more complex! I really enjoyed this assignment and am happy overall with the work I did. 

Anderson, McGonigal, Priebatsch, and Dash- Video Networking

I've grown up to be technologically challenged, for this generation at least. My boyfriend frequently plays Grand Theft Auto (GTA) where you literally run around with an armory of weapons, killing civilians and stealing their wheels to outrun the police. I've been 'game' enough to attempt a few rounds, and just recently I was able to use my left and right hands independently from one another to successfully choose an grenade launcher, blow up and murder a woman on the sidewalk, step over her bloody body and steal her Ubermacht Oracle. What an accomplishment. I am NOT by any means 'a gamer' or someone who is drawn to spending my time in that manner-- but I don't attribute this to the concept of video games, instead, to the genre they've constructed.

It seemed to me that video games tended to fall into a few categories-- violent 'war' games like World of Warcraft and League of Legends, 'Epic Quest' games like the popular Skyrim and time-passers like Nintendo's Mario Brothers. But, before you jump down my throat, I'll admit games are evolving, and apparently evolving us right along with them. While I was constructing this blog post, I came across a wikipedia article that you can read HERE  that took me on an enlightening journey through all the incredibly detailed genres of video games (seriously, from Beat 'em-Up-Hack-and-Slash to Christian games). This got me thinking, what is it that I missed about the video game craze? Where does my aversion to gaming come from? Have I been conditioned to view it as a time waster? Is it because I'm a female? Is it because of the kind of learner I am? Because I just wasn't exposed to them in my childhood? Because I'm not good at them now and feel discouraged?

I really don't have the answers, but when thinking more critically about it I think the popularity has something to do with the same reason we love movies and books, the stories they tell-- only in the online game, you have the ability to manipulate those stories and essentially, create them. Huffington Post has an interesting article on the benefits of gaming, which has been popping up more and more in all social contexts lately. This article  is really, really worth the time reading through: there are some shocking benefits that line up very closely with what McGonigal had to say in her TEDx talk. She mentioned that gaming could be the "future survival of humankind" and sited a really interesting mythology of Herotitus and what games were potentially able to do for his community so long ago. McGonigal was engaging and worked well with the other talks we were to watch and learn from. I particularly liked Anderson, who claimed the opportunities we have gained from Dash's 'better tools, and better networks' have allowed for massive spread of ideas through the flexibility of medium on the web. He says, "that primal medium that your brain is exquisitely wired for has gone global", imagine that! From the 'evolution of dance' via the internet, to scientists on Jove spreading experimental details, to the other thousands of people spreading data and responding online, that internet has opened (and that's his key word) a full cycle of learning framed by the presence of our ever growing population.

In an attempt to better understand the potential for gaming and the influence gamers could have on our global community, I thought I should prode a gamer myself and see what I could discover and learn from their experience. I talked to Montana State University student Dillon Bauernfeind, a junion in Sustainable Bioenergy systems, and a 'former' gamer.

An Interview With a Gamer: Dillon Bauernfeind, MSU student

1. What do you like best about gaming? What's your favorite game?
D: It [gaming] helps me to pass the time and it's amusing. It can be really interactive, too. I really like the motion games like 'Connect' on Xbox360 that lets your body be the controller. It lets you be active and gets you up and burning calories. I like both types equally, but Call of Duty is my favorite. Shooting and killing is fun in the game because it's sort of outside the normal realm-- that sounds sociopathic- but it let's you do things in another reality.

2. At what age did you begin playing video games or online games?
D: I got a original Nintendo when I was 8, that had fun games that required movement like Duck Hunter where you shoot ducks that fly across the screen with a plastic gun. It was pretty cool but I didn't play it a lot, I was outside a lot as a kid skiing and what not. I wasn't huge on gaming then but then I got a PS2 for Christmas when I was 11 or 12, which had racing games like car racing and dirt bike racing and a James Bond series of shooter games. Those were my fucking favorite. It was first person shooter so you got to pretend to be 007.
L: What is 'first person shooter'? 
D: First person is the perception of you being the person, the character, the guy with the gun. Third person shooter games like Halo are third person shooter where you control the character but you watch from a removed aspect.
L: When did you get more into gaming? Did you collaborate?
D: When I was 15 or 16 in high school I used some money I made over the summer to get an Xbox360 console with Call of Duty 1-6. I played with friends that I would see at school and we'd set something up after [school] to play together. Most of the time we would be problem solving because we would have to come up with solutions to tactical scenarios like if the enemy is coming one way, we needed to decide if it was worth it to walk around and flank them from a different side. It's pretty social. I was less into it after high school though, played a little in college but not as frequently because I didn't have a lot of money to buy new games and there was a sort of fading of interest too.

3. How do you feel when playing your favorite game? When you are winning? Losing?
D: Games for me are pretty mindless, I don't really get emotional. There's a small bit of gratitude and disappointment when I'm playing but I don't notice it too much.  I actually think I'm emotional watching movies. I'm not super invested in the game, but enough invested that I think it's worthwhile to play. Like, if you're going to watch TV anyway you might as well play a video game and be more engaged than just observing.

4. Do you ever think about other things you could be doing while gaming? Does it help you relieve stress, organize your thoughts, ect.? Do you ever experience the opposite (more stressed, more chaotic)?
D: I can definitely see how some people are but I'm not invested enough in the game to feel that emotional pull. It does chill me out sometimes though. Some people take it really seriously, probably because they really like it and it's a good escape, an alternate reality.

5. Is the plot of the game an important aspect to you? Does the story-line matter to you as a gamer?
D: Call of Duty has a really complex story. It helps give me reason to be playing, keeps it addictive because you're working toward a goal and you want to reach it. Only trouble is, like with Skyrim, that game is too long, too complex maybe, and I get burnt out and it's not really fun anymore.

6. Have you ever been in a situation where gaming has helped your everyday life? 
D: Games are nice because you can be isolated in your room but still sort of be socializing. The ultimate laziness- you can be kicking it with your friends in your boxers without having them see. I haven't ever really felt like games have really helped me, but I've never thought about it before. I think they do help you socialize though because you're interacting with people in an intimately removed way... talking and using a simulated character to portray your actions. Kinda cool.

7. Will you encourage your children to play the kinds of video games you play?
D: Ehh, no. They games I play are violent. I won't encourage it but I won't restrict it. I'll definitely stick to the guidelines, the rating system of ages on the games. I didn't start playing "kill games" until I was 12 or 13 which are rated T for thirteen and up. I would let my kids play those when they're old enough.

8. The company Leap Frog makes "educational" video games for kids ages 3+. Do you think there is an age where it's 'too early' for a child to play a video game? -->  ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pov3VnPk_BY )
D: No, I think they are really an educational tool. The educational games I've played like the school sponsored ones we would play in class were pretty entertaining and helped me focus with my ADHD. I think the games that are meant for these kids are great, but they need to be intermixed. Like if you're helping teach your kid to read, it shouldn't be all of one or the other.

9. If you could give one reason to encourage others to play video games, what would it be? Any negative reason you can think of? 
D: Video games can be addicting. Play in moderation. Too much is too much, and just right is optimal- when you're not thinking about the game outside of playing it.



Notes on the videos:

McGonigal-

3 billion hours a week of gameplay for the future survival of humankind
Idea of constant feedback- collaborative online environments (satisfaction of virtual world)
Evolving to be a more collaborative and hearty species (10,000 hours 'theory of success' virtuoso)
What exactly are gamer's getting good at? -- McGonigal argues Urgent Optimism (desire to act immediately combined with the hope that you can be sucessful)
Social relationships (playing games with others makes us like them better)
Blistful Productivity (happier working hard, optimized as human beings)
Epic Meaning (awe-inspiring missions)
Trying to make the real world work more like a game -- Herotitus (famine in the kingdom of Lydia)-- trying to escape real world
gamer's as a real world resource

Priebatsch-
"This world is social, the next world is gaming"

Thompson 6-10

There's so much to talk about in these chapters from Clive Thompson's book, Smarter Than You Think. Thompson moves sequentially from examples of progressive collaboration to the benefits of incorporating multimedia and technology in schools, an effect called 'ambient awareness', to the collective unification of the world via the internet. Thompson very clearly is advocating heavily for the incorporation of multi-media and cites many examples of positive change due to technological interaction. Though I agree, mostly, with his points I can't help but desire a concession to the 'other side'. Plenty of groups advocate heavily against advancements in technology and there is a particularly large movement to dissuade the incorporation of technology in school environments. Not to mention the significant implications that technology as a whole has for the environment and both human social and physical health. ( check some opinions on that out here: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/26295-is-modern-technology-killing-us ) I think by choosing to not encompass the entirety of the situation, I think Thompson weakened his argument. How would he dispute these arguments? Since technology is fairly 'new' and ever-changing, is it safe/fair to say the benefits out way the negative effects when we aren't fully sure of what those may be, 100%, yet?

I pulled out a lot of quotes while reading, but I wanted to share a few and the questions that they sparked me to ask: 

"When you gaze with wild surmise upon the Pacific of strangeness online, you confront the astonishing diversity of human passion"(153). 

- Thompson talks here about how the online community allows us to foster "strangeness" in the sense that we have more freedom to express obscurity and find acceptance. In a way, the internet allows us to have a world without boarders and an environment that is malleable. With increased connectivity and collaboration, our sense of place is infinitely larger. What sort of environmental implications does this disconnection with our tangible place create?

"But a strongly worded opinion-- the core of an op-ed-- is not subject to consensus. This is why collective thinking online also tends to fail when it attempts an aesthetic creation"(159). 

- How interesting to think that creativity tends to be opinion-based and therefore nearly impossible to collaborate for efficiency.   

"They assign videos to be watched at home, then have the students do the homework in class, flipping their instruction inside out"(177). 

- I'm struck by how much sense this system makes. Though, I see the same sort of loop holes that we see with our current system: kids would still go home, and blow off the videos, then come to class unprepared and need to play catch-up. I see the connection to multi-media here with the flexibility of the video assignments, but I'm not sure this holds enough weight-- what if the children don't have computer access? Some of these solutions seem to really play into a certain demographic... rich, anglo-saxon suburban families... 

"How much should you credit someone else if you use a bit of their code? Or a 'sprite' from their game? What constitutes a contribution so creative that you can put your name on a remix" (194)?

- Brings me back to the conversation in class about plagiarism, and Johnson-Eilola's astonishment at the editors request that he cite even a single word used. The lines are finite, and becoming more and more blurred as we continue into untouched territory and collaborative words. I don't even know how to begin thinking about code and how the citation or ownership would work for something that appears systematic in my mind. 

"His hypothesis is that language, one of our signal intellectual gifts, evolved precisely to allow us to socially 'groom' one another, in the way that primates groom one another physically"(222). 

"Actually, one of the best ways to grasp how political change happens is to study how it doesn't"(251).