REVISED: Putting Down the Phone for a Pick-Up Jam

Our class blog assignment for this week was to put down our cell phones and actually connect with a complete stranger. At first, I did not quite know what I should do for this assignment, but the way this story played out is incredible.

Ironically, my put-down the phone anecdote begins with me picking up my cell phone! I was driving home from a friend's house on Sunday evening and listening to Radio 104.5. An announcement came onto the radio that prompted listeners to text the station. The first 20 to respond would receive passes to the Radio 104.5 Studio Session with the band named Mona. I texted in, figuring “why not?” and I won!

After arriving at the studio for Clear Channel Philadelphia and waiting for a while, we were directed back through the inner workings of the studio. We watched the two guitarists from Mona as they had an awesome acoustic performance. The video isn't up yet, but when it is it will be available here.

After Mona performed their 3 songs, all of the audience was given a Mona promotional poster. The band all sat at a table and signed everyone's poster before having their picture taken. My picture with Mona and my friend Mike can be found here, once it is uploaded.

You may ask, “Where is the connection with a stranger?” Well, after meeting with the band, we went out a doorway. There, one of the Radio 104.5 DJs, Wendy, was giving directions on how to exit the building. I approached her and asked, “Is there any possibility of a tour of the studio?”

To this, she responded with a hesitant, “Well...”

My signed poster

“I only ask because I'm an Electronic Media Major at Kutztown University,” I elaborated. She gave me a surprised look and then said that she knew Kutztown well. She then gave me her e-mail and offered me a tour at some point. She also mentioned that Clear Channel offers internships, which are a program requirement for Kutztown's Electronic Media degree.

Overall, I am incredibly pleased with the results of this assignment. I was able to connect with a complete stranger who works at a popular radio station. It is interesting that my story began by using computer mediated communication (CMC) via SMS and also that the follow-up is via e-mail, another form of CMC. Even so, without physically standing in front of Wendy, it would not have been possible for me to get a tour of the station.

From the perspective of theory, Goffman's ideas about dramaturgy apply most easily to my story. When I met with Wendy, I sought to present myself in a professional manner and control her impression of me as someone who should receive a tour. Even so, I was also in my back stage because I had come prepared to see a concert and I therefore wore jeans and a t-shirt. I also tried to compensate for this fact by holding myself upright and shaking Wendy's hand.

Retrospective: When I went to the studio tour, unlike the studio session, I dressed myself professionally and had more control over my front stage presentation since I was prepared to look the part of an attentive undergraduate student looking for an internship. I decided not to bring a camera or post pictures here in an effort to maintain my front stage, rather than exposing my camera-happy side.

Performers in Front of an Audience

To begin, the flash mob was a blast! While, I wasn't able to actually participate in laying down in the middle of the SUB, I was taking photographs instead. This gave me a unique vantage point to not only understand what it was like for the people or performers in the flash mob, but also to see the reactions of passersby and the reception of the performance.

As a thespian (read “theatre nerd”), flash mobs have always interested me because of the performance aspect. In high school, I was taught that all you need for theater is an actor and an audience. After taking speech 120, Oral Interpretation, I broadened my perspective to performance, specifically what makes a performance exactly that. In much the same way as theatre, for performance you need performers and an audience.

When, in this course, we briefly touched on performance studies, I took note that performance is not commercially reproducible. So how do these concepts of performance apply to the flash mob?

When everyone laid on the floor of the SUB, they were consciously performing for an audience. In this case the audience was just people who were passing through the SUB or sitting within the lobby. Our performance was one time only and it only took place for two minutes, so it was not reproducible in its original form (even though anybody could take pictures or record video).

The most interesting part of the flash mob, to me, was the reaction of the “audience” in the SUB. While some people just bustled through imagining that nothing was out of the ordinary (in spite of the sea of arms and legs swinging through the invisible snow), most people in the SUB stood and gawked. This reaction seems pretty normal, since it's quite a rarity for a group of 40 people to make snow angels on the floor of the lobby.

While our flash mob was a performance, new media played a pivotal role in organizing to make it possible. While everyone in the class had already met face to face in the classroom, I noticed many people using cell phones to text friends and I'm sure many participants went on facebook before hand to see if any of their friends could make it. Personally, I used new media to postpone the cycling club meeting that I was supposed to hold that day. I e-mailed all of the members to tell them of the change. In this way we all used new media's lack of geographic information to contact people who were not face to face with us and get them to come to the flash mob (or not go to the cycling meeting).

In summary, I'd say that our flash mob was a success. We got a group of people together to do something different that the campus population does not see often. I certainly believe that the people who passed through will remember this for some time to come and I know that I will always remember that time that we did a flash mob for a college course.

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Putting Down the Phone for a Pick-Up Jam

Our class blog assignment for this week was to put down our cell phones and actually connect with a complete stranger. At first, I did not quite know what I should do for this assignment, but the way this story played out is incredible.

Ironically, my put-down the phone anecdote begins with me picking up my cell phone! I was driving home from a friend's house on Sunday evening and listening to Radio 104.5. An announcement came onto the radio that prompted listeners to text the station. The first 20 to respond would receive passes to the Radio 104.5 Studio Session with the band named Mona. I texted in, figuring “why not?” and I won!

After arriving at the studio for Clear Channel Philadelphia and waiting for a while, we were directed back through the inner workings of the studio. We watched the two guitarists from Mona as they had an awesome acoustic performance. The video isn't up yet, but when it is it will be available here.

After Mona performed their 3 songs, all of the audience was given a Mona promotional poster. The band all sat at a table and signed everyone's poster before having their picture taken. My picture with Mona and my friend Mike can be found here, once it is uploaded.

You may ask, “Where is the connection with a stranger?” Well, after meeting with the band, we went out a doorway. There, one of the Radio 104.5 DJs, Wendy, was giving directions on how to exit the building. I approached her and asked, “Is there any possibility of a tour of the studio?”

To this, she responded with a hesitant, “Well...”

My signed poster

“I only ask because I'm an Electronic Media Major at Kutztown University,” I elaborated. She gave me a surprised look and then explained that she was a Kutztown Alum! She then gave me her e-mail and offered me a tour at some point. She also mentioned that Clear Channel offers internships, which are a program requirement for Kutztown's Electronic Media degree.

Overall, I am incredibly pleased with the results of this assignment. I was able to connect with a complete stranger who works at a popular radio station. It is interesting that my story began by using computer mediated communication (CMC) via SMS and also that the follow-up is via e-mail, another form of CMC. Even so, without physically standing in front of Wendy, it would not have been possible for me to get a tour of the station.

Stay tuned to my blog for more about the studio tour! Hopefully I will be allowed to post pictures to the Blog of Charles Hanlon :) Wendy's blog can be found here.

(448 words)

My Favorites Bar

When, at the beginning of the semester, I discovered that we would have to sign up for a Twitter account, I couldn't help but let out a groan. Frankly, I thought that Twitter was a pointless, shortened version of Facebook for the middle aged.

However, my experience proved anything but. I enjoyed working with Twitter from the start-up page all the way through. I found it a lot more user friendly than Facebook was when I first started using it.

The premise of Twitter is simple: you have 140 characters to say something, anything. While I originally equated this with Facebook's status feature, I can see that it has a lot more potential than that. While Facebook statuses are generally about what a given person is doing, Twitter is more about headlines of what is going on or trending anywhere.

This idea has repercussions both good and bad. From a positive end, it allows thousands of "followers" instantly receive a message to help keep them informed. This is a great way to help encourage community.

However, when you only have 140 characters to say what you want to say, it makes it difficult to explain complex situations or ideas. Thus, it leads to the polarization of ideas. Even so, the inclusion of links helps to mitigate this effect.

At the end of it all, unlike Second Life, I think I will continue using my Twitter account because I find it a useful tool to give me the "highlights" of what is going on in the world. For better or worse, Twitter has been added to my favorites bar.

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Where's the Funeral?

If privacy is dead as Mark Zuckerberg claims, I would like to know where the funeral is taking place. Generally, I tend to agree with the author of this article, which questions Zuckerberg's reasoning for making Facebook more public.

The article points out a complete 180 degree turn in Facebook's stance on privacy. Where Facebook was originally defaulted to private now the pages to which users subscribe and view is public information. That means that anyone can see that my favorite band is Death Cab for Cutie or that I go to Kutztown University and intend to graduate in 2014.

Why should this bother you?

Over the weekend, I caught a preview of a news report about insurance companies that are using Facebook to snoop on policy holders. Needless to say, this fit the genre of news quite well as it was timely and in the public's interest. These days, stories about the loss of privacy on the internet are a dime a dozen. From the worker who is fired to the student who did not get into their dream college, we are constantly faced with the idea that we have no privacy on the web.

However, if media and news outlets can attract viewers with stories similar to the one about snooping insurance companies, this must mean that this is an issue that concerns people. In fact, most of my friends consider some of the new privacy controls on Facebook to be a boon because they can control who sees their information, in spite of Facebook's stance on the privacy of pages and subscribers.

In closing, I would have to say that I agree with Marshall Kirkpatrick, the author of the Zuckerberg article. I think that Zuckerberg's comments were not factually based but were rather a business move on the part of Facebook to sell personal information to companies (that is the number one commodity of the internet isn't it?). As for privacy on the web, it may be on life support, but I don't think it's out just yet.

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Old Brain, New Media

Our assignment this week was to visit our professor on Second Life and then to blog about the experience. In the past, I have delved into online communities and self-created avatars with my use of RuneScape in high school. Second Life took that experience to a completely new level.

To summarize, my experience consisted of logging in and typing Penn State Island into the “places” search tool. From there I transported myself there and waited for my professor to show up, since I was early. In that time, I moved around a little bit and explored my surroundings.

Moving in Second Life is similar to playing a video game, except that you can control whether you wish to walk, run, or fly. Walking and running are just as they sound. However, flying was the coolest feature, since you could see a lot of your surroundings without having to be too patient.

From there I met with my professor. We briefly chatted about Second Life and what it was like to be on it. I thought it was humorous how our avatars typed in mid-air when we were typing a response. To be honest, I didn't quite like using the microphone. I thought it was too close since in reality I was laying in bed after a Sunday nap. This idea sounds a bit like telepresence, where the things we watch and see appear real to us and we respond in real ways.

I have entitled this blog entry “Old Brain, New Media,” primarily because in the usage of avatars we, the users, still continue to follow traditional social norms. I noticed that, when talking with Dr. Bock, it was comfortable to stand at a normal distance from her, even though in the game it really didn't matter if I stood 10 feet away, or even 100 feet away.

The interactivity of Second Life allowed me to feel like I was really in another realm that I could manipulate and control. I could change my camera angle or how I look. I could make my avatar run away, sit, or jump. The combination of interactivity and the appearance of the graphic interface made my experience with Second Life hyperreal.

While I don't think I plan on continuing my use of Second Life any time soon, it was certainly an experience that I will remember in my everyday use of the internet. Many websites are trying to get creative in how they draw viewers in, and each day we move closer to a Second Life type of browsing. I think it will be interesting to see how the internet develops in the future and whether we are truly moving towards an internet made up of avatars and virtual realms.

(459 words)

Using a Hammer to Insert a Screw

Our assignment this week was to read this article about the unimpressive impact of software in the classroom. The article provided an interesting viewpoint on how the use of classroom software for math and reading study made no impact on test scores.

The article cites a study by the US Department of Education which compared test scores from classrooms using technology and those who were not. The USDE found no statistical difference between the classrooms using software and those that teach math traditionally.

I think the software might not be making a difference for several reasons. The first of which is that they are measuring results with standardized test scores. The impact of classroom technology goes beyond test scores. The test scores measure the amount of learning, but they cannot measure whether students are less frustrated because they can work at their own pace or whether students become better users of technology through the software.

Another reason that I think that the software might not be making a difference is that there may simply be design flaws in the programming. A friend of mine had to use an online math program to do her math homework. Every time she would get a question wrong she would have to do three more questions. If she got one of those questions wrong, another three questions were added. In the end, she was never able to complete her homework because there were so many problems for her to complete. While she may have understood the concept, the program failed to allow her to succeed.

Even with the USDE study's dubious results, I believe that technology should be used in the classroom. While technology may or may not have an impact on test scores and rote learning, I believe that classrooms that harness technology can be more effective. By its nature, technology is interactive and stores a lot of information. Traditionally it was the teacher's job to be interactive and store a lot of information. If technology is used in the classroom then the role of a teacher shifts from being the lecturer to assisting students in research and self-study, which is more rewarding for the student and gives the teacher more time with each student to individually help them succeed.

Expanding this idea into college, should college be a completely online experience? The answer is no. College is about much more than just classroom lecture and individual study. Student activities, clubs, and teams serve an important role in the way that college students grow. In the workplace, knowledge is only the bare minimum. Workers need to be good leaders and followers as well as socially minded with their coworkers (in other words the worker gets along with coworkers). Without these skills which are developed in college, workers would not be as productive and businesses would not excel.

In closing, I want to remind everyone that technology is only a tool. If you try to use a hammer to insert a screw, bad things will happen. Therefore, we need to constantly be evaluating for what we use technology and for what we do not use it.

(522 words)

Learn to Write Another Language

Learning another language is generally hard. However, you begin to speak it as soon as you enter the classroom and look at the first page. This describes my experience with HTML (hyper text markup langauge) to a 't'.

While I have never worked with HTML before, I found the experience vaguely reminiscent of my first few french classes, where we covered “bonjour” and “je m'appelle”. These simple phrases were new to us and we couldn't help but awkwardly use them.

In the same respect, the opening and closing tags in an html document were also foreign to me. I used them awkwardly since I really don't completely understand the nuances of their meaning.

Going back to french class, we always had awareness that we had only just scratched the surface and that to learn french fluently would take a lot of time and practice. I believe that HTML is the same way. If I were to give it the time and practice, I could do some pretty cool things with it.

While I have about one day's worth of html coding experience under my belt, professional web designers who design pages like blogger have years and years of experience. Also, in my defense, for this project we had to work with the raw html code, whereas most professional designers these days use an editor to make the experience more visual. Even so, an editor is only an intermediate program between the designer and the code.

In short, the HTML code is like the force in the Star Wars movies. It is everywhere around us, it guides everything and everyone, and only jedi designers can tap into its true potential.
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My Page

Charles' Retro Web Page

Does anybody remember GeoCities and the crappy webpages it created? Well, this webpage here resembles it a whole lot!

Here's another paragraph. This one has a random link to my blog.

I posted a video above. Why? Because it's an awesome video!

Happy Birthday Google!

Today, September 27, 2011 is Google's self proclaimed birthday! While according to this article by MSNBC, Google officially filed for incorporation on September 4th and purchased the domain on September 15th. Even so, today is when google has been celebrating their anniversary ever since.

While I was originally going to name this blog something along the lines of "Google v. Privacy," I decided that the timeliness of google's birthday could not be ignored. What better way to celebrate than talk about the future of the pseudo-nation state company?

In the August 12th edition of NPR's "On The Media," the people at WNYC delved into some of the impact that google has on our lives. Google is now officially a verb and that's only symbolic of what the search engine has done in the last decade and three years.

However, during the broadcast, several of the people interviewed, including Nate Anderson of Ars Technica, described how the environment at google is one of engineers who create technology simply because it is cool.

This integration of new technology has led to many frivolous lawsuits, including the class action suit against google's street view cars that were grabbing information off unsecured wi-fi networks. In my opinion, if you don't want it seen, secure your wifi!

But the broadcast delves even further into google's "techie culture" as it describes Germany's response to  google street view as well as the power of google maps. While I would love to go into more detail about these, the bulk of it can be summarized like this: google wanted to do something cool with technology and people thought it was cool, but they also weren't comfortable with it.

Finally, this brings me to google's future. While in the past, and even currently, google has had a "techie culture," google has to realize its power over just about everything. "Cool for the sake of cool" just is not going to work anymore.

I believe that for the future google needs to have a separate division that deals with privacy and legality issues (if such a division does not already exist). As evidenced in both our discussions in class as well as the broadcast of "On The Media," google has incredible power to do good or even great things. However, as google moves into its teenage years, google also has the power to undemocratically do terrible things that could make life difficult for millions, if not billions of people.

In short, google can't take its power lightly. Happy 13th Birthday, Global Search Engine!

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The link to the August 12 broadcast of "On The Media" can be found here.

Technology is the Force!

Above is a photo representing me. After much deliberation, I finally decided that a photo of Luke Skywalker would be apt.

You may wonder, “Why Luke?” Certainly, Charlie Hanlon is not the chosen one and I do not seek to bring balance to the mysterious force that controls everything. Nor do I sport that wonderful haircut reminiscent of the 80's. Instead, I chose an image that could symbolically represent my online persona.

I decided that my online persona is dichotomous (or split into two): the light side and the dark side.

On the light side of the force, I use the internet to represent my professional and educationally minded self. This side of me censors everything I write and post onto the web that has my name, image, or school accounts/email. I carefully evaluate what I say to certify that what I post does not reflect poorly on my employer, school, or personal brand (as meager as it may be!).

Generally this requires me to omit certain details about illegal activities, trivial matters, as well as my personal emotions. My light side is both stoic and heroically positive.

The best “real life” example of my light side would be to compare it to the manner I put on when I am at work. As a bicycle mechanic, I spend a certain amount of my time dealing with customers and trying to make sure that our company and our bike shop meets their needs.

When dealing with customers I am never negative about what the customer does. I always seek to provide the customer with the knowledge to make an informed decision. If I don't know information that a customer needs, I find someone who will be able to provide it. I never trash talk a customer or any of my fellow employees. My light side internet use involves the same.

However, as wonderful and beneficial as my light side is, I also harbor a dark side to my internet personality. Unfortunately, since I like to keep my dark side private I will not be able to elaborate much. Suffice it to say that my dark side encompasses my more personal and anonymous internet use.

Just as Luke Skywalker, I find myself striking a balance to the force. I bring together both the dark and light side of my personality in real life. Some times I lean more towards the light or the dark (i.e. when at work), but together it is the reconciliation of light and dark that makes me who I am.

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Oh My God! I'm in love with my computer...

Do you equate computer usage with real life? Do you react politely to your computer and expect it to react politely to you? Do you get emotionally saddened when your computer dies and you have to replace it?

In The Media Equation by Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass, the authors assert that this is indeed the case; we, as humans, treat media like reality. I agree with Reeves and Nass, in particular with their reasoning about how and why we react to media. While consciously we are aware that media are not real, our subconscious mind (which has developed for almost 200,000 years) recognizes that media (TV, Computer, Internet, Smartphone, etc) as real. The authors go on to say how this aided human survival, however, in their words, it's an “old brain” involved with “new media.”

In June of 2010, my parents rewarded me for my hard work at school with a laptop for college. However, it's not just any laptop, it's a MacBook Pro. My computer (on which I am currently composing) and I have shared a lot of experiences throughout my college life. The thought of possibly losing my computer is horrifying to me because of this. While I still have a backup of all of my files on an external hard drive, I believe that losing this computer would be emotionally scarring, akin to that of losing a pet. In this way, I suppose I anthropomorphize my computer, even though Reeves and Nass say that we don't anthropomorphize.

However, in spite of my conclusion that most of what Reeves and Nass assert is true, I do find some of their findings a little bit hard to swallow. They claim that a computer needs to have quantity in what it says in order to be polite and to have the most understanding with the user. However, I would find a menu composed of paragraphs, rather than single words, the most annoying thing on the face of the planet. Maybe this is only because of my personal connection with my computer, but I consider the interaction between myself and my computer to be similar to two technicians who can speak briefly in highly technical language and still understand each other.

In summation, I believe that Reeves and Nass' assertion proves true (for the most part).


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