Puzzled People With Pictures
In the third week when we began to use Del.ic.ious, I felt very confused because I did not really understand how to navigate around it, because I did not know what the site was fully capable of. I understood the concept of a bookmark but I did not know how it was such a broad social benefit to many individuals and organizations. Open thinking like this type allows for people to understand that they don’t have to do it all by themselves anymore. Zelenka mentions, “You can now be more a composer than creator from scratch. You can find inspiration, ideas, words, photos on the web—and then use them to create something of personal or social value [giving credit as appropriate]” (Connect pg. 32).
How do you give credit, and how do you know when it is appropriate? Before reading Bound By Law last week, I only had a tiny idea of what copyright meant, and the only reason I knew anything was because of Krista’s guidance through Flickr, when I was instructed to tag photos related to the 35w bridge collapse. I had recently just learned what attribution was. I was dumbstruck when I found out in Bound By Law that when you create something you own it seventy years after your death. What a horrible web of misguiding rules, but it seems to have gotten easier for me to recognize what the different types of copyrights mean and how to utilize them from the “fair use” policy. I guess the only problems that I have run into in Flickr are searching ideas. Not every person thinks of a picture the same way or describes it in the same manner so when you type in what you think is the description for a certain idea, you are only getting a limited amount of pictures based on your descriptive words.
Comments
I felt the same way about deli.cio.us at first too: What's this thing for? Having used the Internet almost exclusively to do research for this class, I now fully appreciate the value of deli.cio.us and promote it every chance I get. Prior to this class, I was copying and pasting every URL to a Word document which was exactly what the creator of deli.cio.us was doing. That cumbersome process is what motivated him to create a service to save links. Thanks for reminding us of Zelenka's comments about composing. That is a very accurate description of my work process in researching and writing about the bridge collapse. sometimes it feels like everything's already been said though and it's hard to compose something that is original. Not sure what that "means" ... I don't think that's new to this era or the Internet. All new ideas are associated with and derived from previous ones. I guess the difference now is that we all have access to so many more ideas on through the Internet.
Posted by: Sara | April 5, 2008 09:43 AM
Hey Hilary, good meeting you 4/1! Good point: "Not every person thinks of a picture the same way or describes it in the same manner so when you type in what you think is the description for a certain idea, you are only getting a limited amount of pictures based on your descriptive words." That is so true, hence that's when bursty searching should come into play and when serendipity is so important. When you were describing the third week when we were beginning to use del.icio.us and how it was confusing at first . . . that's how I totally feel sometimes when I start learning new applications. Nevertheless, the more we use it, the more better and acquainted we get and then we become experts! Yay! :)
Posted by: Hoang-Uyen N. | April 5, 2008 10:14 PM
I liked your connection to Del.icio.us. I sort of felt the same way. While I try to incorporate as many Web 2.0 applications as possible into my life I find that each time I do I am hesitant. I personally feel like I was more drawn to Flickr than Del.icio.us at first because I saw far more applications of it for me personally. I think we face a major problem with all of these new tools. How do we keep up?! I like how this class helps us sort through and make slow progress but I feel that everyday hundreds more pop up and all I can do it wait to see which ones are the most applicable. It can be slightly overwhelming.
Posted by: Stephanie V | April 6, 2008 08:40 AM