Caroline Rushton – E-Learning and Digital Cultures.
Lifestream Evaluation
As part of the e-learning and digital cultures module I and my fellow course mates were given the task of maintaining a lifestream. So, what is a lifestream? It is an aggregation of multiple digital sources relating to pre-determined topic areas we have engaged with during the entirety of the course. When setting up my lifestream I took into consideration those applications over the web I would normally use on a day to day basis. I did not want to sign myself up to use each and every feed available as I did not feel this would be a true representation of me online. I chose to use twitter, you tube, library thing and delicious. These posts were all dynamic elements to my lifestream whereas my weekly and sometimes more regular blog postings were static.
On reflection, initially I was some what dubious of the merits of a lifestream, and found myself constantly concerned about feeding things into my Lifestream to keep it going, it was not a natural process for me in the beginning. As each of the weeks went by and we began to explore different topics I found the lifestream an invaluable space to store all useful links and information I found over the web which I wanted to share with my colleagues, or take a look at myself at a later date. Adding metadata to the links was also a productive task as I could review each bit of information quickly and effectively to see what it contained. While constructing my lifestream I was always concerned about how the content would be perceived by my course mates. I am aware that some content in applications such as blogs can be seen as mundane and some what self indulgent and didn’t want to bore anyone with the content I chose. I attempted to combat this by including only course related information, this is one of the reasons I chose not to include facebook feeds in my lifestream. As mentioned previously I chose to use tumblr and delicious to feed links such as websites, quotes and journal articles in to my lifestream, I used you tube and library thing to display videos and books relating to the course themes and used blog postings for my weekly summaries, more in-depth course reflections and to exhibit my artefact and ethnography.
When considering my learning process I approached the task with caution, finding out more information about lifestreaming, observing what my peers were doing and then putting my findings into practice. The diagram below by Hughes (1992) et al is a good representation of my interaction.
(Hughes, C. Toohey, S. & Hatherley, S. 1992)
My lifestream certainly became more purposeful to me as the weeks progressed. I became more focused in what I was feeding into it. The real clarity came for me in week ten, with Sian Bayne’s core reading, “Academetron, automaton, phantom: uncanny digital pedagogies”. I embrace the concept of having a physical presence, and the notion of leaving a virtual footprint. I felt that Sian’s comment,
“In more visual environments, our avatars-represent a re-embodiment within the terms of the digital, we scatter our bodies across the web where they gain a kind of independence as nodes for commentary, connection and appropriation by others into new networks and new configurations”
summed up the reasoning behind our lifestreaming perfectly. I hope that I will continue to maintain my lifestream after this course as I can now certainly identify with its educational benefits.
Bibliography
Hughes, C. Toohey, S. & Hatherley, S. (1992) “Developing Learning Centred Trainers & Tutors”. Studies in continuing education. Vol 14, no.1, pp. 14-27
Bayne, S. “Academetron, automaton, phantom: uncanny digital pedagogies”. London Review of Education.
