GCC Task 3 - Digital art

Photos to digital art
When we talk about generative art and as collage part of it, I have a good example of art that designer does  who I work with.

Business card

She is originally a fashion designer and always had art in her life, she can draw really well by her hand - with pencil and paper and design webpages. She knows graphical art, but also can write html and css behind designed webpage. But I would like to bring out what she can do with computer and how she draws pictures of photos with people on them. She designed business cards for our company Social Fox Media, based on the photos each employee chose.
On the right is an example of the business card she made for me. There picture is drawn with the computer and based on the photo that I chose. The drawn picture makes the business card simple, correct and at the same time different from any other. Our idea was that often you can't remember the person who gave you a business card - especially when it's made on a big event, where you meet tons of new people. It's good to have something reminding of who you met and from that we thought of adding a picture, as Liis, the designer, has already done drawings from photos in the past, this kind of business card seemed to be the best idea.

The original picture

The photo on the left is the original photo that was used to draw the picture on my business card. I really like the idea of the business card and how it turned out. When I look at all the business cards we now have they are all similar and form a full suite, but at the same time each card has it's own feeling and personality with the touch by the same hand that drew the pictures.





Digital poetry
Another concept that I liked to investigate after reading the articles was digital poetry. As I also have an IPhone, I wanted to see what can be done with an IPhone and poetry. Especially wether I could start writing poetry with the help of my IPhone and also publish it with different ways by the same device.
I found many different applications about poetry and concentrated on those that are available for free. I can start with the application RhymeNow Free Edition by Purple Room. This application helps to write poems where I want to rhyme words - the simple one would be to rhyme each last word inside the poetry. I took the first word that I saw looking around in the room  - garage (from a sticker on my table by www.garage48.org) and started to write rhyme based on this. This is what came out:

Art is made in the garage
designer draws a collage
and needs a massage
while making a sabotage

I don't really write poems usually, so the syllables are not concise  - or actually poetry is always personal, so I could say, this was the real way I planned to write the poem. But the same application helped me to really easily find words to rhyme. A technical tool made writing a poetry easier, not my own mind. I wrote these 4 lines based on the rhymed words not based on the thoughts I would have started when someone have told me I have to write about garage itself. Now I just took the rhyming words and mixed them together.

Another application Poem Flow teaches to read poems, based on a certain poem. I am wondering if behind this application is automatically written script that divides the lines, or with each poem a real person has to divide the lines, so they appear the way they do. The reading application separates the written lines in smaller ones, so the reader will know when to make stops and how long ones, so the most important aspect of the poem comes out. I don't really know if it is a real tool to play around with  - all who learn from this application will start to read the same way, or probably the personal touch still remains that is so important when reading poems.

Any classic poem can be presented in different ways. Lord Byron was an English poet who wrote romantic poems. One of his poems is presented in many different ways when you look for it in youtube. A song that is sang by a woman with real touch and sensitivity.

Or another video is recorded by a male voice reading the poem by his own way and in the background the same night picture is shown that draws away to lose the statical feeling.

There was many other videos with the same words, both with music and without, from professional readers and by people who just like the poem and want to share their touch with it. As youtube is not only about listening, but also about picture and moving picture, each person can put together different aspects although the starting point might be the same.

Taks 1 GCC - basic concepts of multimedia

This post is written for Generative Content Creation based on chapter 10 from A Companion to Digital Humanities written by Rockwell and Mactavich and inteactive website "Multimedia From Wagner to Virtual Reality"

With multimedia one thing is sure - it doesn't have a short correct one definition. There are many details "multimedia" has to have, but there are too many and different ones can be shown in different multimedia tools. For example multimedia games can be free but also cost a lot and demand latest technological tools to be playable. Multimedia art can have human as part of its' interaction to be able to show its' interactivity and use different media channels.
Rockwell and Mactavich take multimedia as their main research field, they try to define what it is. They use different previous theories and figure out what is missing from these theories. They propose their own one but leave doors open to further investigation based on development of new technology.
For Rockwell and Mactavich it's important to look at the history of media to see when and where "multimedia" made its first steps. Manovich in his book "The Language fo New Media" doesn't directly investigate what multimedia is, but from his interpretation it seems he takes also early movies as part of direct multimedia. On the other hand Mactavich and Rockwell don't agree with it. For them taking pictures and mixing them together into moving pictures - movie, is not enough to have multimedia.

Developing multimedia uses "interaction" a lot, but it's also important to understand and define what is interaction and interactivity. We probably all agree it's needed to have some level of participation from human while human-computer interaction is happening - but how much? And is one sided from human- to computer interaction enough or should there come back communication form the computer as well.

Rockwell and Mactavich have built up their article logically and in a simple way to convince reader and guide the reader through the path of logical conclusion for multimedia. Their article together with Multimedia from Wagner to Virtual Reality gives a truthful historical overview of multimedia. The webpage with it's pictures and links gives access to further information and understanding. Its part of multimedia itself.

Multimedia article by Rockwell and Mactavich is written in 2004, as it's 2010 currently I would say that 6 years is a long time in this field where technology is part of theory. When Rocwell and Mactavich talk about types of multimedia, the list would be longer today including education, advertisement, entertainment or even engineering (Wikipedia). It shows how different media is more common in different fields so that we can talk about multimedia in there.

In the end of the article Rockwell and Mactavich ask what are the Academic issues we could research about Multimedia. They propose Best Practices in Multimedia production, Game criticism and Interactivity, Theories and histories of Multimedia. I would also add an important concept - how multimedia with its' interaction changes the perception of surroundings for people and how it interacts or changes the communication with other people or groups. The social network webpages that are so popular now, also carry media with itself, whether its made by the one who shares it or not - it can be video music, letter with pictures, online games and many other things. I would be interested how much it gives to a person - even if the reality feeling stays, you know what happens in virtual world and what in "real world", but you still can get real emotions out of the communication with other people or probably even computer. As multimedia is developing together with technology, and more and more communication and interaction ways are open for people it would be quite interesting to research the basic needs human have and how they are fulfilled within changing environments.

For conclusion, the  articles from Mactavich and Rockwell, the interactive webpage and book by Manovich were good material to get more familiar with the concept of multimedia. Although we use the word multimedia often we don't so much think of where it comes from or what it is. Therefore it's good to take some time off and read the history and theories over it. It raises further questions, where does it go from here or what else is possible.



References:

A Companion to Digital Humanities, ed. Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, John Unsworth. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.  http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/  Chapter 10: Multimedia Geoffrey Rockwell and Andrew Mactavish
Multimedia From Wagner to Virtual Reality
The Language of New Media (1999), Lev Manovich
Multimedia, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia

Task 13 NIE - redesigning activities

I work behind the computer like more and more people do. So when I finish my workday, I would like to  rest from computer screen, especially because of my eyes, to take a brake for them - but it's not that easy. For example I would like to read something - I have tons of books inside my computer. And I don't want to read them because i don't want to look at the screen while reading them. There are E-readers in the world with totally different technology form computer screens and IPads, I don't have one yet and in Estonia it's not that easy to buy one either and buying one online would mean I can't touch it before.
I was total "book-believer" before. When someone told me that it's possible to get the same feeling reading from E-reader as from rea book  I said "oh yeah, right, you can believe that, but still, the smell, the page turning, the feeling of the paper". And then I held one e-reader, I have to admit, that it was totally ok - totally different form usual screen mostly closer to real book feeling and it didn't cause the pressure for the eye as screens do.
I would also enjoy more books or articles in audio format. There are many programs that can read text but it's often robotic, when a real person has taped a story it's different and you can get firsthand emotion from it.
It has become really common to sit behind computer screens and few think what it actually does to our body. When looking around on the streets we can see young people are already bent backs and problems with their eyes. While more and more activities and interactions are done with computer mediation, next important steps has to be do talk loud what it does to our bodies. I would really like to hear that some big computer companies come out with "special computer, designed to reduce your back pain". I don't know how it would actually work - there are common guidelines for offices how to use screens and what extra keyboards employees should have - but I don't see it's enough.

Task 12 NIE - Tool or Medium

According to some views, people who have born after 1980 are from different generation as they have grown up with the connection of technology, it is comfortable and natural for them. There is much smaller difference between our parents and grandparents than there is between us and our parents. It doesn't matter that our parents or grandparents can't use the technology today, but it makes them basically visitors in this world, who don't grasp the whole picture.
I really liked the way how Feenberg explained different theories and how he made introduction to it form historical point of view. With his logical explanations and text flow, it was quite obvious that as the last thing he will explain and persuade the reader with his critical overview. At least it happened to me.
The other article by Rückriem was really difficult to read, he does have really important points from psychology and cognition, but his way of explanations is not so well grabbed by a person who is not so much into this research field.
Feenberg compares technological development with economy - we couldn't have thought 100 years ago that economy could be run with democratic ways - but we do see it today. He thinks that same happens with technology. And I agree with him  - especially from the point of view our next generations will be. They won't know the time there was no cellphone or a computer in hand immediately. But I don't think that we could say technology runs us, but we still will have means to hold control on these things.
I am also concerned of the world - where does it go, do we really need God's help like Heidegger said. We have run really far with the technological sprint - yes it's sprint when we compare it with the long history we had before, and what we have achieved and ruined within so short time through 20th century. But at the same time, it is a really short time, and we should make too strong conclusions based on only 100 years of our history. THe next generations borned in the world of technology, they will experience these things differently from us.
I would even say that the generation born after 1990 is different from the ones before - those born before can still remember the time when there wasn't cellphones, or even common landline phones at every home, so they can compare the things inside their head, they really felt it and have their own experiences. The young ones, born after 1990, they can learn the history but they don't have their own perceptions and real experiences with these things. Although I feel sorry for them and happy for myself - I can remember the time when most of the technological tools we have today weren't common and I can handle all the technological things really well, I also hope that my fear of younger generation going to waste, is not what is going to happen. But they will find their own way - all the generations always have found.

Task 11 NIE - the list of components

Describe interactive systems.

"users” perception of seeing opportunities to create their own human to human interactions with personal media.

Some missing components
The list of interactive systems contains many components and the question is whether something is missing. I would first say, that "purpose", it's important to talk about the purpose while actors are using interactive system and ask why they are doing this. For me one related thing with purpose is that tasks have to be "understandable". Actors have to relate tasks with the purpose of what they are doing and where is the way going to - even if the purpose is not explained detailly, every step/task has to answer some questions and get actors closer to their purpose - even if the purpose actually changes on the way.
As it's important to measure the quality of participants tasks, it's also important to explain the exact "requirements" that is closely connected with the overall rules of the interactive system.

Irrelevant components?
I would say that it's hard to define what would be irrelevant, the idea and theory behind this list came from somewhere, and all the components where listed to fill the whole system. And it depends on where do I look from.
I would take "location" as one irrelevant component or replace it with "internet" as the location is not important in geographical point of view, but the requirements that the location gives are - it has to have internet connection and a computer that allows to use software that is necessary.

For my better understanding I made a mindmap of the list and tried to define what bigger groups I could make form the components that were originally listed.  And I grouped it this way:
Purpose - Methodology - Participants - Time - Tools - Interrelatedness.
In a little longer sentence it would be translated as:
Firs tit's important to define the overall purpose of the interactive system and define the methodology used for it, before we can connect methodology and time we have to know who are the participants and what access to what tools they might have. Interrelatedness does connect different participants and also defines their roles that is already subcomponent in these groups.

Activity theory and the list of components
I starte this post with idea to add "purpose" as one of the components to the list in question. And I feel that if the purpose would be listed it would be much better to explain it also through activity theory, then we could know who or what I should list as subjects or objects.
From the list I can understand that "rules" are definitely the part that are well thought through and can be listed to activity theory, as project manager was also listed, I would assume that I can also list the division o labour, and the community behind it and main activities.

As activity theory is pretty dynamic it basically allows to fit any list into the theory - it just depends on who we list as subject and how we write down the object and outcome from that. It's like learning to ask same question in different ways and fitting it into the theory and we get the explanation that was needed.

Task 10 NIE - Activity theory in real

Visualizing the activity theory is the best way to draw similar views for 2 courses to compare them. I take Engestrom triangle as the source for my analysis, and build New Interactive Environment course and PLENK on this one.

PLENK2010

PLENK2010 visualization according Activity theory

Subjects: Participants 
Object: According the homepage of PLENK2010 The purpose of this course will be to clarify and substantiate, from the context of this new research, the concepts of personal learning environments and networks. Course facilitators and participants will analyze the research literature and evaluate it against their own experience with the intent of developing a comprehensive understanding of personal learning environments and networks.
Rules: Signing up, course activities, privacy policy
Instruments: live sessions, course content, wiki, personal learning environment, daily newsletter, RSS feed, SM tools - Twitter, blogs, Moodle, Delicious, other possible SM tools according the flow and need in the course.
Community: guest speakers, students, teachers, 
Effort: students, 


New interactive environments

New Interactive Environments visualized
according Activity theory

Subjects are students who participate in this course.

Object  is the curriculum of New Interactive Environment. It says: Participants acquire conceptual knowledge and procedural skills on how to analyse, represent, and (re-)instrumentalise human activities and activity systems with networked tools and services. 

Rules are the tasks, and deadlines that are listed by the teachers. But also the means how to fill the tasks are aprt of rules here - for example that tasks has to be done for certain deadline by certain ways - in blogs.

Instruments (artefacts) - there are several instrumenrs used in this course. Several are software tools that students use to do their homework and fill tasks - both online and offline tools. One of the most important instrument is the blog where students show their tasks and the course blog where new tasks are being published.
NIE wiki

Community in this NIE course can be taken as small group of people who participate in this course, but I would also consider it in a broader way, as community that affects the learned subject is much bigger. I would also take the whole IMKE department and Tallinn University in this community. As tasks are published through blogs then anonymous blogosphere is also part of the community in here.

Effort - students are the ones who fill the tasks in here. But we should't forget teachers who come up with tasks as well. Students couldn't do their tasks if someone wouldn't list them.


Comparison of NIE and PLENK2010 courses according Activity theory


Both of the courses are online courses, it makes them quite similar from Activity theory perspective as well. 
Both courses use several social media and digital media tools as part of the course and tasks are being shown by menas of these tools. Students are subjects and community in both courses and teachers are the ones who give tasks
Both courses are also similar by overall way of course building, not all tasks or deadlines are given before the course, but considering the flow and ways how course goes new tasks and deadlines are given.

As I understand the students in PLENK2010 course are not necessarily students from thabasca University and the University of Prince Edward Island but can be anyone who are interested, this is the main difference with NIE as students in NIE are  Tallinn University students who chose to take the course and get graded for what they do in NIE.

In PLENK2010 there are also guest lecturers and everybody are expected to listen to them. 

Also tools like Twitter and blogsa re expected to be used not only to fill the tasks, but to talk about the thoughts that participatns come up with and tag them with #PLENK2010


Students/participants are important in both courses, they are subjects, they are the ones who use all the tools, they are the ones who are "labor" for the course, and at the same time influence the course overall doings through communication and thoughts.

Task 9 NIE - Activity theory

I will try to explain what Activity theory is for me. I could list some definitions from researchers, psychologists or AI analysts, but I think it would be much more useful to try to explain it in my own words, after I have read several articles and used Google search to find out more where and how Activity theory is used.

Reaching the goal by Activity theory. Leontjev

Historically activity theory started in the beginning of 20th century in Russia. Today one of the most important activity theory centers is in Helsinki. A lot of different researches come from there. Most of them are from IT fields, where human action and computer (mediated) actions are analysed.

While Pavlov explained a lot of animal behavior through instincts, then it couldn't explain everything. Võgotsky and Leontjev took pavlov's instincts based theory further and it started activity theory. The idea is, animals and people do things because we plan and know we need or have to to get something else - for example fulfill our needs. When we talk about only humans then activity theory is based on knowingly doing things, taking and handling the reality, which has also been called activity.

In psychology Activity theory is important in learning theories. This is what it's taken to IT fields as well - it's important to understand how people learn, to be able to make some AI learn from it's activities. By activity theory learning is done through the actions that form a system and make sensible organizational base. Later we can use learned things to decide what to do, or act in a certain way. Activity theory is continuos, everything can change based on new experience and actions that are done.


* this overview is written based on different articles, wikipedia and definitions.

Task 8 - from personal media to influencing masses

For long media channels have filtered news and information for audience, so that audience gets what the media channel decides is important to share and forward. As now one person can influence and have audience by himself, professional media channels are challenged to know more and explain why some news are shared and others are not. At the same time these media channels get quick feedback that either praises them for shared information or blames for leaving something behind.

Before the communication was one-sided, people got what they wanted. This week I heard a American talking about his high school time in the beginning of 80's when they also had only 3 TV channels to choose from compared to hundreds they have now. All these TV channels have to compete of having bigger audiences. And if during 80's a channel could easily have 80 million people watching a show, then today it's already good if they have 1 million, the drop has been enormous. At the same time, all these channels get feedback from their audience and have to rely on it. Even more and more they are using real-live shows. It's cheap, but from the other side its direct communication of the audience. The audience is who decides what is going to happen and participants are among the same audience.

This we already know that privately held blogs might grow even bigger than official media channels or newspapers online versions. These people who manage their personal blogs usually are not professional journalists. They just care about a topic so much that they want to talk about it, and if there is enough readers, who read it and share it, comment blog posts and it's searchable through search engines - it will get into masses.

Lüders wrote in his article "Internet works within all of society's social systems, increasing levels of self-reflection." There is nothing new in her statement. Internet is generally cheap, it can be used with cheaper technical tools and it's accessible by most society classes.

For me talking about the possibilities that Internet provides usually seems even totally common thing. So it has changed the way we communicate or perceive information. Mass media is not the the same mass media we knew 20 years ago. I am more interested in how people use these new ways they have and if and how it has changed a person or groups? I think people more and more understand how much influence they might have. There has always been the desire to influence, but now people have the tools they didn't have before. We already have some really good examples of how Internet has helped to start non-violent revolution (through Facebook in Latin-America). It wasn't done deliberately, but it happened, because so many people with same thoughts saw the outcall and new they were not alone with their thoughts and it gave them safety feeling.

So I am thinking what more is there to come, how much individuals knowlingly use the mediums and tools they now have?

Task 7 - interactivity, from my point of view

Interactive webpage

When I talk about interactive webpage, then I mean a webpage where user can contribute for example in writing something that other users can read and give their opinions or thoughts on. Simplest is probably an internet forum where somene can start a thread and others will continue to discuss about the topic they are interested and have information on.

But often a question is asked “how to make a website more interactive?”. 

Then people don’t really mean only technical possibilities but also the overall feeling - usability and accessibility are also part of discussion now. 
For me interaction is basically communication where all parties can give their input. Therefore TV series aren’t but for example TV shows where watchers can vote for singers they like the most, already is. 

Interactive for all

The two articles we read for Task 5 and Task 6 made me think that interactivity is not the same concept for all the people but it depends on the research field for example and from one's perspective and feeling.

I am interested in groups - from the research field side. I like to think how roups are formed online for example, if the same human groups and “interaction” can give a person what is comparable from a reallife experience. IN these group discussions interaction an communication is also important. And from here I could try to define what interaction is for me and how it differs from communication.

Inter should mean between someone and action, doing something. Putting these things together means that there are different sides who are doing something that influences both sides. Communication is probably part of interaction, althought it might ssometimes seem like a broader term. While communication is for example the email that we send to a friend, then interaction is “sending email, reading the email, thinking of replying to it or not replying”. All this is interaction it contains different parts and all details are important. Having a discussion about dogs is communication but also interaction, the overall bubble around saying words, looking in the eyes, being ready for answering and being influenced by the other side for wanting, needing or being told to participate.

Dance interactive

While I was looking for information, some interesting articles or pages that would talk about interactivity I came across Dance Interactive. It's a page that selles 6 different videos for teaching the exact movement of dance motions. 

The reason why I found it was I started to think how much dancing is interactive.  Of course it is! It's built on communication, feeling, answering actions and getting the "touch" that makes to want to continue. 

Technical tools help to give dancing videos something different, so that it's not only about people who dance, but the show itself is based on the movement of actor. 

WII game is one of the best examples of interactiv dancing with technical support.

Interactivity is subjective term. There is no correct answer that would fit for everyone. 

Task 6 - More about "Interactivity"

This post is based on the article "Interactivity: a concept explication" by Spiro Kiousis.

In overall Kiousis seems to have taken investigation fo interactivity really seriously. I liked his way of Although it might also be affected by his abstract where he says that in his view interactivity has both media and psychological factor.

Like a correct metaanalysis, Kiousis gives an overview of previous articles and definitions about interactivity. He also uses several thoughts and theory from Jensens article that we read for task 5. His way of working and analysis is really interesting, for later understanding he explains visually and puts together 3 dimensions: technology, communication and user perception. Later in the article he builds his theory on the same graphic.


Kousis finds it important to consider both computer mediated and non-computer mediated communication. It seems to him that several researchers consider too much on technological tools that are used for communication and that help to fill the criteria that they have set for "interactivity".
In article conclusion it's said that interactivity could be defined as the degree to which a communication technology can create a mediated environment in which participants can communicate (one-to-one, one-to-many, and many- to-many) both synchronously and asynchronously and participate in reciprocal message exchanges (third-order dependency). 

I find it interesting that Kiousis also explains user perception because it's really subjective and not easy to measure. But I agree it's important and while the article started with searching the definition mostly form psychological and media point of view those who actually take part in action are important.
As the graphical picture above already gives all the important terms of Kiousis definition, I will not start to name them once more.


Like said above, Kiuosis tries to build together one stronger theory that would fit several previous definitions under it. For me it seems a logical way, often researchers look at the things too narrowly and a metaanalysis helps to take most important details and sew them together into a big picture.



References: 
Kiousis, S. (2002) "Interactivity: a concept explication", New Media & Society, 4(3): 355–383.

Task 5 - Interactivity, finding the true definition?!

This post is based on the article "‘Interactivity’ Tracking a New Concept in Media and Communication Studies" by Jens F. Jensen.
Jensen's article is long explaining article, giving an overview of the background of "Interactivity" definitions. I am always a critical person, so I ask - why he wrote that he will also give a new possibility to define the term - when all he did for me seems like he put the different theories together. And he has now a lot more information than those researchers he citates. But as he didn't still use any social network examples I started to think when was the article written - 1998 it seems. It's more than 10 years ago!


Like he says "Interactivity" comes from the word "Interaction" which means different things depending on what is one's background in scientific field. It was the most important thing for me in this article - I started to truly think how I take the word and term "interaction" really self-explanatory, and have never thought about how physics or neuroscientists see it, or if they even use it. 


The 3-dimensional model that Jensen gives at the end fits well in the world we know today. I would also say that other researchers who had their theories also thought them really well depending on the information they had, especially Heeter in 1989, this really surprised me. Although in her table she also used media tools, she also explained the change of interaction and communication channels that will change. And there wasn't even Internet yet!


Jensen takes into consideration 3 different variables that help to understand the depth of interaction and interactivity

• Conversational interactivity
• Registrational interactivity
• Selective interactivity

Interactivity cube - 
not Jensen's but the one meant for 
children to play and understand 
the meaning of different sides connecting 
and influencing others.

Before I haven't read some newer versions of scientifically trying to prove the meaning or theory of "interactivity" the one Jensen gives with his conclusion, seems to be working one.

The picture on the right is a toy for baby's. It's name is "Interactivity cube". I think it shows really well, how different sides influence each other and are connected. And I know that children growing up today, will have the touch of it much more than we did on 80's. With different tools (I mena internet tools, tv tools, all kinds of technological wonders) we, the people, will be able to find more and more needs that we didn't know we even had.

Task3 NIE - comparison of study plans

Last week I wrote how I made plans for my semester and chose the subjects to register in. This week I took a look on other students ways to plan their semester.

I chose some of the students I personally know and some randomly, so that I could hopefully see different things.

Jakob
Valeria
Maarja
Ottavio
Maris S

All of their schedules and especially descriptions of making their study plans are really different. Starting from Jakob, who has designed a really cool and enjoyable visual overview of his studyplan and how different elements were drawn from each other.
Two students (Maarja and Maris) have said that they needed to plan their studies in Estonia while actually being abroad most of the semester, this gives them different perspective of choosing the subjects and preferring online courses to those that have seminars for example every week and it would be compulsory to take part of them.
Maris seems to be different from the others also because she is not studying IMKE and she just needed to take 2 courses, but needed online ones so she could be in Prague while taking them. This certainly narrowed her choice making.
In overall I think that as we have all been studying in different universities, at least for 3 years now (I guess some of the first course IMKE master students might suit in this) it's not so much planning or problematic to register and plan the semester.

It would be nice if all of us would be really structurized and have strong plans of their subjects and views of what they want. But it's reality that most of the students first choose the subjects they really want and then also concentrate on the curriculum to make sure that they would fulfill all the requirements.
While writing Task 2 I started to think that would it be actually useful to teach students on how to plan their semester. Yes, we are all grown-ups and should know how to handle our duties, but what if there are really easy and creative ways to be able to handle all the school things and also remember homework. But many students form IMKE also have to consider often work duties that might come first eve if their interests would prefer some IMKE courses.

Google seems to be the tool center that everybody use. It's no surprise, as it allows to have many needed things in the same place (although the power that Google has is enormous - but this is already different subject :P).

Conclusion
My main critic looking at these plans, is that they are all made after all the registering and semester planning has been done. I am sure that most of the students started to think now how they would have handed better their semester study plans while actually doing it.
I really liked two visuals from Jakob and Valeria, they really do say much more than words. But at the same time Maarja has written really detailed overview, that could probably taken as an example how a student should handle his studies.

Task 2 NIE - How I should schedule my semester

This is my third year doing IMKE which means that I have to concentrate on getting the necessary amount of credit points – but also covering all needed modules in certain amount.

I had to consider what courses are availabe and complementary for me depending on IMKE 2008 curriculum.

Because last 3 years I have been working for a company in a position where it was really hard to do real timescheduling – many quick things came in several times a day and it was my responsibility to cover them. I am not really good at timescheduling anymore. I do those things that are burning already, and at the last minute.

Overall I use different tools to remember things I have to do.

Google tools – Google Calendar (it's good that IMKE schedule is also in Google calendar now, that allowed to copy it to my own calendar). All together I have 5 different calendars – personal, IMKE, work, team, to-do. I have managed to come up with my own system how to keep track of them.

With several calendars I use reminders with SMS and Email. For example with IMKE and personal calendar.

Google Bookmarks. I have also used other bookmarking tools before. Althought with most of them synchronizing can be done easily, I have still lost important bookmarks when changing computers. And I have had to do it several times this year for example. Therefore I planned now in September to keep at least all IMKE related bookmarks in Google Bookmarks.

Google mail. As I use Google calendar and some reminders, then Google mail is the central place that brings everything together.

As a phone I use Iphone and also it's calendar tht has been syncronized with iCal that again has been syncronized with Google calendar as well.

At the same time I am also kind of old-school and sometimes I need to see things in real, with handwritten in my real bookcalendar. I also tend to remember things much better that I write down with my hand. Otherwise I tend to forget tasks or even forget to check onine what tasks I needed to do – and doing those that I do remember currently.

I created a mindmap of how I scheduled my things for this semester. I have to be honest to say that I am taking week by week and know the basic things I have to manage every month, to be able to get as many needed subjects as possible.

OSM HM nr 5 - Wesnoth community

Wesnoth as a game and idea built together by different people all around the world has a strong community. The biggest and strongest part of it is the forum - it contains answers and ideas to many questions and gives a lot of support.
I can see that many members are active and often online - even the chat is handled well. Although the chat wasn't so easy to find.

Simple campaign
The forum provided information but also a really useful tool that our team used - Simple Campaign, with just one scenario, but it had explanations on the wiki pages as well.
Our team tried to find a real tutorial. Although the Simple Campaign that I mentioned above, provides us much help, it didn't answer many questions we had that seemed to be really basic.
There is a webpage Building campaign tutorial, but it has only firs step and second ones like First scenario and First custom unit have no date or guidelines.

If a new person goes to Wensoth page and finds the Create link he/she doens't get information on how to start the development, what are the first steps to actually understand how Wensoth works. I think this Create page should have simple and easy links to tutorials to get more people starting to understand the basis of Wesnoth and get familiar with it, without immediately starting bigger things.

I liked to work with Wensoth code and trying to understand how things work. But in several cases I couldn't find solutions of the ideas I had. Because it was a schoolwork I couldn't forget about it, but I had to continue research together with all the members in our team. But I would have really wanted to get a game creation tutorial, that would have helped me a lot to in the beginning.

Community of Wesnoth
Based on the information that I just wrote about the understanding in forums and not being able to find simple information to get me hooked to play the game or jump in to development I would say the community needs to get itself more open.
I am sure that "old members" don't have any difficulties finding the information they want and need. But today Wesnoth should also think about what to give to "newbies", those that don't have much patience to spend days on trying to figure out how the game goes. It's all about sharing information and building the environment that would create interest in visitors.
So between new developments of new version and scenarios of the Wesnoth game, a small team could spend some time on finishing the tutorials and thinking about making the feeling of the community more open and flexible.

Bugs on the page
This is not so much about the community itself but how frustrating it can be when Forum SEARCH doesn't work. And it happened so many times. We had to use "backdoor" in many occasions, insert searches to Wesnoth forums through Google help.
In this webpage where forum itself provides the most and best answers to questions visitors or users can have, search engine must work, and not provide error notice "try later".

OSM HM n 4 - It companies using Open Source as a part of their business

Many IT-companies use open source and free software in their everyday work. for example Open Source Streaming Servers, Firewall Builders to many different games.

1. Copyleft Solutions is a compay that provides support to uphold the supremacy of the open source software. They have various packages tailored to suit various kinds of IT needs in today's businesses. The company is situated in Pakistan ;)
This companies main issue seems to be giving support with open source software used by others - by phone and email.
According to their list, their highly trained engineers give quick support and find solutions with all these Open source:
Database servers - Linux, Sun Microsystems.
Fax servers - Joomla, Drupal,

2. Joomla - is a award winnign content management system which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications.
Their slogan is: ... because open source matters
Joomla Project is a community-based project with contributors from all over the world working in many different capacities.
There are 2 working groups: Production and Community. These groups utilize the wealth of knowledge our community provides. Each of these groups focuses on a specific aspect of Joomla essential to the project's growth and development.
To handle the production there is Leadership Team who governs the production and Board of Directors of OpenSource Matters.
They use GNU General Public License copyright.
Joomla webpage gives a short list of both their Vision and Key Values, but also about their mission with just one sentence.

In Leadership Team they have 14 people from different sides in the world.

3. SQL-Ledger is a double entry accounting/ERO system. Accounting data is stored in a SQL database server, for the display any text or GUI browser can be used. The ntire system is linked through a chart of accounts.
... so basically it's a accounting software from simpole accounting tools to handling POS devices and backups.
SQL-Ledger is developed under GNU General Public License.
Although the company works with open source and provides software under GNU GPL license, they are not so open for developing. They do have a forum, but it seems more for people who use the software itself, not so much for discussing developments.


***
I can see on our company how much information can be found with the help of Google. Until now I have not thought about under which license some parts of our webpage code is developed or server administration handled.
The fact is that with the help of accessing so much knowledge by different people through Internet all licensing becomes more and more difficult. Therefore I agree with a person that I citated in my last post - weak and no copyleft cases become more in common. The World is changing. As before people wanted to claim something as their own - it's no needed to get access to more information and get solutions quickly, everything can't be developed from the scratch. But if one wants to use other developments easily and freely with no issues of copyright legal issues, then this person also has to give out things on his own.

OSM HM nr 3 - Different copyleft cases from none to strong.

Copyleft comes from the idea of copyright. When the last phrase refers to the rights that a perosn has over something he/she has "invented" then copyleft is about giving the right to modify the work of someone else in order that the same is allowed for others as well.
Bit it's not so easy with copyleft, there are different levels in it. Sometimes some parts of the work can be modified an sometimes all.

1. Weak copyleft case is for example Mozilla Public License. With weak copyleft license person can make modifications to the work code and add additional settings to the code. But the person should not use parts of the code and only link to the original licensed code.
The most important thing in weak copyleft is that source code copied or changed under the MPL must stay under the MPL (Wikipedia, 2010)
With weak copyleft strong copyleft can't be used, as these criterias doesn't fit the main license rules.
Mozilla Public license is defined at Mozilla nonprofit organization page. Some examples of the softwares under MPL 1.1 license are: Bugzilla, Tinderbox, Bonsai.
Bugzilla is a server software designed to help manage software development. The soft itself helps to find bugs in developed software and handle server issues. At the same time the Bugzilla itself is developed by international volunteers who want to participate in making the version better and better to contribute their needs.
Weak copyleft

2. Strong copyleft case - GPL and GNU General Public License.
With strong copyleft license a person can incorporate code from projects licensed under the permissive license, or strong copyleft license under which software is licensed. It basically means that by using some code parts from GPL code, perosn ahs to agree and disribute hes/her own work under the same GPL license.
While using strong copyleft it's unlikely that someone else will use your code as a source of their work. Strong copyleft might end up in several legal issues.
A comment at 451 CAOS Theory, On the fall and rise of the GNU GPL syas that the strong copyleft is probably on the fall and weak one is on the rise. Especially because week copyleft gives a choice


3. No copyleft case - X11 license, Apache license and the BSD licenses.
This means that someone's work can be sued without the need to give something back to the community. No copyleft is supported by those who would like to become free from the legal restrictions and enjoy and use development made by different communities and people. With no copyleft one doesn't have to worry about any legal issues.
No copyleft should make it quicker and easier to use best solutions for everyone's work. At the same time it allows to distribute the outcome free or commercially. But the creators of original software creators still have to be credited ;)



Sources:
1. Copyleft law Tracking and analysying the key legal developments of the Internet Age. Licensing 101 for open source projects - Pick a license, part II.
2. Mozilla Public Linense Version 1.1 , 25. March
3. Wikipedia. Mozilla Public License , 26. march 2010
4. 451 CAOS Theory, On the fall and rise of the GNU GPL, 25. March 2010

OSM HM nr 2 - Playing an Open Source game

Wesnoth is an open source game. Everyone who want to participate in development can do this. There are different levels - either people can aprticipate in writing the source code, the basic system for the Wensoth games, or participate in writing and developing scenarios for different stories either short or long ones.
I have played some similar strategic games like Wesnoth before, and as I am not familiar with the ideology background of wesnoth or other commerce games similar, I can't make conclusions based on that.
These are the main points that I would like to share about Wesnoth:

Dying all the time
As I said, I am not a fan of these games, so I ended up dying with even playing the easier versions. Usually the game was over during first scenario already. So I could try out the Wesnoth itself so much, when couple of hours played I didn't end up getting to second level. Yes, its bad to actually admit it, but I am really bad at this game.
But it went a lot better when I started to look inside the game codes myself and after I had tested several things on "Simple campaign" - a 1-scenario test version game that I got from Wesnoth forums. - everything was a lot better, i really could get the feeling of how to decide things and make my turns.
I guess my biggest mistake in just playing the game at first was that I didn't think of actually recruiting new units :P So it's not imaginable that the game was finished quickly.

Getting the information
Every scenario started with the goal what I have to do to win the game itself. I don't remember what game I was playing, but when at some point the game was over with sentence "You have been defeated", I really didn't understand why. My teamleader was alive, that was the intention of the game - I didn't end up using all the moves I had, but my character in the game was still dead.
It would have been really good to get the notice why the game was over and what I did wrong, not only write so platonic message with no information in it.


Ambiguity
Wesnoth games are developed by real fans of these games - and it shows. I guess this is why it was hard for me to try to start liking the game, as at first the feeling of actually making something myself together with teammembers wasn't part of the case.
I totally understand now why Wesnoth is liked and how the community behind it functions. Although I am most likely continuing developing Wesnoth games or participating in the game forums, for several days my evenings were full of reading information about Wesnoth, getting information what code parts to use to be able to make the scenario we had decided.

It's interesting that if users of Wesnoth have some idea what they want their characters to do in the game or want to change the source code and change some default expectations, it all can be done.


So anyway, when me and the team got hands on on the game code, for me the game became much more interesting :)

Wesnoth game Icky

The blue team has developed a game called Icky - I downloaded the game on Monday 22nd March.
I have difficulties i opening the game as I get error message "Unknown scenario: "1stseen"
I have tried 2 game versions: stable 1.6.5 and 1.7 but they don't work.
So I will dig in with their code to find out what they had :)
As our red team developed the game for stable version 1.6.5 I will try to modify the game for this one.
I can manage to make pictures work, that I also didn't see at first - the game itself doesn't still play, but it at least has campaign image in the campaign list now as I changed the directory folders in Main.cfg file.

I can see from scenarios that Blue team has really tried to think about different actions inside the came and make characters play and interact with each other. Several different events are thought about and all of them always have also messages with them.

Their main characters are custom ones - known characters from animations Scratchy and Icky. Other characters seem to be used form default, so that the story runs well. In some scenarios Elves are the ones who help them when their own men are lost. Scenarios are interesting to read, I would really like to actually try the game out when it would work in my computer :P

They have also used Debug messages in their code. We also tried to find out the simplest tools for debugging, but didn't get needed information out from them while developing.
Code is really easy to follow as they have added enough comments to describe what next acction is doing or what they would like to add extra.

OSM HM nr 1 - open Source vs Free software

First, I want to say, that I have never really analysed before the real difference between Open Source and free software. Practical and selfish as I am, I have both used free software and open source software. I have thought about how these softs actually are developed, but I haven't really gotten to research that.

Free software methodology was the first one - those who are with it are the ones who participated in creating new understanding of what and how can be done - that proprietary software is not the only solutions and it often might not be the best solution, especially for average internet/computer user.

Freedom is what Free Software developers want to talk about. Although they keep quiet about it often, because it doesn't fit good with companies (big companies that could use free software as well). For them the word "free" alone works a lot better than mentioning any ideology behind development. It's still needed that those who use free software would start to understand more about the message behind it. But this "free software" name causes trouble. "The open source guys" think that open is much better word and phrase and helps to conquer the corporated world much better.

It seems that Free software is not only about single programs but about making a bigger system work together, that is often rerrred as Linux - although Linux is also program and part of the bigger system GNU. Open source is not so much about making a big system with smaller parts, but the overall programs and the idea that the more people get access to source code, the quicker bugs can be repaired and best solutions will come.

Open source is managed the way that every person who wants to participate should have access. Free software searches for the best developers who will start to work with needed details in the programs or the programs itself. With open source it's easier for people to start getting knowledge about programming and the software itself with smaller steps test and learn from one's experiences. Bot ideologies still get a lot of information and interaction from irc chats and forums where developers even from different sides around the world can discuss about best solutions and give advice and ask questions.

In overall, there is a difference between these 2 parties that deserve a lot of credit for the things that the do. But an average internet/computer user doesn't get the difference. The products from Open Source and Free Software guys are the same for an average internet user - especially if they are both free (open source doesn't have to be, but usually still is). But this average internet user can also be fooled really easily by these big corporates that make them feel like only their programs are the ones needed. These corporations have the needed money for marketing and creating "norms" - things that seem normal and accepted by society.