Comments for Jin's EDC blog

Comment on Assignment idea by jdarling

jdarling — Fri, 03 Apr 2015 15:22:50 +0000

Hi Sian - I'm going to use Evernote for the assignment - here is the link: https://www.evernote.com/pub/jindarling/serendipity The Notebook is a series of notes navigated by using the tags; I hope this encourages a browsing behaviour. No, I haven't found the Serendipity Engine yet. I've looked at the Serend-o-matic site which was a little underwhelming. The Spotify serendipity app was really good fun, but nothing to do with literature searching, although it does demonstrate a different aspect of serendipity. I guess I need to come up with 2 or 3 objectives for the assignment. How about: explore the meaning of serendipity within the context of digital information searching; or, use technology to create a non-linear composition?

Comment on Visual Artifact by Comment: Comment on Visual Artifact by mkiseloski | Mihael's EDC blog

Comment: Comment on Visual Artifact by mkiseloski | Mihael's EDC blog — Thu, 02 Apr 2015 20:57:55 +0000

[…] Comments for Jin’s EDC blog http://edc15.education.ed.ac.uk/jdarling/2015/01/31/visual-artifact/#comment-66 via […]

Comment on Assignment idea by sbayne

sbayne — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 20:57:56 +0000

Jin – I do like the idea of doing something on serendipity – perhaps the format of the essay could even include an element of this through hyperlinks and other serendipity tricks….What would your ‘take’ on serendipity? It might be interesting to look at how apparent ‘luck’ online is actually determined by algorithmic ‘agency’ of one kind or another.

I guess you’ve looked at the Serendipity Engine stuff? http://www.theserendipityengine.com/

Comment on Should We Be Wary of Algorithms? by Katherine

Katherine — Sun, 15 Mar 2015 04:23:29 +0000

Thanks for this Jen! I think it's fascinating how they use emotional blackmail and peer pressure to make you create a profile. 'Shy' and 'private' are less criticisms in 'intraverted' cultures like you have in the UK, but as Susan Caine remarked in her TED talk (and in her book Quiet), it is quite a slur in American culture which prizes extraversion: The power of introverts.

Comment on Is digital culture as important as art or sport? #mscedc by Sabine

Sabine — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 23:05:54 +0000

Hey very interesting blog!

Comment on Should We Be Wary of Algorithms? by Jin Darling

Jin Darling — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 17:35:08 +0000

Hi Jeremy,
“what are the implications of selecting one of those options, and saying ‘yes I am this category’.”
I find the whole labelling thing really invasive; I don’t want some large organisation having this information about me. I want to control my data, and handing it over feels like I am giving them some of the control. I know this will be used recommend talks to me, but I am more than capable of finding interesting stuff for myself, indeed I like the serendipitous element of browsing randomly and following links (that’s how I found the MScDE course in the first place!). Life works well for me when I leave some things to chance.
I can’t label myself – tomorrow I may feel differently. Tomorrow I may be interested in something else entirely. The labels they suggest are too personal, if they had suggested areas of interest then I may have ticked some, or even better, suggest areas I am not interested in. I feel as if they are coercing me to give them information by using clever psychological tricks, suggesting I am shy or that I want to know how much / little influence I have with others.

Comment on Should We Be Wary of Algorithms? by Jeremy Knox

Jeremy Knox — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 14:56:48 +0000

Really interesting example here Jin, and brilliant to link this directly to the Slavin TED Talk.

One of the things you highlight here is the kind of trade that is happening with our personal data on the web. The ‘Share this talk and track your influence’ caption seems to acknowledge that this isn’t about something underhanded – we know that we’re giving away our personal data to algorithms, so the incentive is that we get something back to compensate. The more you give away, the more you supposedly gain from the loss – in this case the gain seems to be viewing how much attention you’ve gained from sharing the video.

The ‘I am…’ screenshot is fascinating isn’t it? I wonder if you could say more here in terms of the ‘you loop’ idea. While that is quite a long list, what are the implications of selecting one of those options, and saying ‘yes I am this category’. Is it just about what information it might feedback in the future, or also something more about our own identity formation?

So, is the solution to ‘resist’? That seems to imply that we get nothing in return, or at least that what we get in return is not as valuable as what we give away. I wonder if resistance could be interpreted as selfish in any way? For example, if these algorithms potentially improve information retrieval for ‘society’, then our non-participation would limit (at least the diversity) of what these systems could achieve with more data?

Comment on Should We Be Wary of Algorithms? by Week 9: learning analytics and calculating academics | MSc in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 10:51:38 +0000

[…] to Netflix, Clare’s tiki-toki timeline gave a terrific sense of her wider social media ecology, Jin applied these ideas to TED, while Nick’s play in Audible incisively raised some of these ideas in relation to the formation […]

Comment on Reply to Sian’s comment by sbayne

sbayne — Tue, 03 Mar 2015 21:08:03 +0000

That does seem odd Jin – I just ran a search in a couple of Coursera MOOCs I am in, and found a similarly patchy picture in terms of search return. I agree that if this was a glitch – let alone a deliberate strategy – it would have a very odd communicative effect within the MOOC. Emoticons can be so crucial in establishing meaning and nuance. Thanks for following up – let me know if you get any more insights from a follow up post to the MOOC – I’d be interested to hear.

Comment on Mini Ethnography Part 1 by jdarling

jdarling — Tue, 03 Mar 2015 20:46:18 +0000

I have replied here http://edc15.education.ed.ac.uk/jdarling/?p=563