participatory culture – TechCommGeekMom

I’m really excited about this! I’ve been waiting to tell y’all about this, and now I can!

A few months ago, the director of NJIT‘S Master’s of Science in Professional and Technical Communication
(MSPTC) program asked me if I would be willing to do a video about my experiences as an MSPTC student and graduate, and some of the opportunities the program has afforded me. Of course, I was honored that she asked me, and I said yes! So on several particularly hot days in late June and early July, a fellow graduate from the program who works for NJIT’s communications department came down to my hometown and filmed this video.

Yes, that’s really me in the flesh. Yes, those are my own words. I was just asked to talk about certain topics, and nothing is scripted at all (well, it’s scripted from my head, but nothing was memorized). I thought I was stiff during the filming, but my–I admit I’m rather animated! Just imagine what it’s like when I’m up doing a regular presentation! LOL

You can click on the image in this post (a still from the video) or you can click on this link: http://youtu.be/NN_nHOANR7k.

Or, if you’d like me to speak in person–contact me! (See the “About TechCommGeekMom” tab above.) Hey, if I can get some more speaking gigs, that would be good, wouldn’t it?

Let me know how I did in the video! 🙂

In one of my graduate school courses, we are studying the theories and practices of social media. We’ve been looking at social media in terms of the following:

social media and the self
netizenry
participatory culture
Social media and labour: the precariat

Each student in my class was assigned to work on a multimedia project regarding one of these terms. I chose to look at participatory culture, but in a different way than how it was presented in my coursework. In the coursework, the examples given were those related to the netizen and the precariat, showing how political movements or social movements started as part of a participatory culture, and then there would be a segueway into a political action, much like how Facebook and Twitter were being used for the political revolutions in the Middle East in early 2011. For me, I decided to choose a different route, something that was truly more of a cultural change.

I see the mobile learning revolution as just that–a revolution. Interested e-learning and m-learning professionals are mobilizing through social media to bring the concept of making changes in how m-learning is presented on smartphones, e-readers and tablet computers to make learning concepts even more learner-friendly than ever before. Current thought among this group is that now is the time to take advantage of making changes in instructional design as well as formatting to use these devices to their fullest potential. So, many ideas are being shared, and the “movement” is growing.

Since I am a person who has been getting more deeply involved due to my own personal interest, I chose to use this idea for my social media class project, and demonstrate how I became part of this particular participatory culture. Below is my presentation:

http://cdn.screenr.com/public/1.7/flash/screenr.swf

(If you can’t see this presentation, you can also go here to see it.)

Hope you like it! Please comment below and let me know what you think.