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Geotagging - Creative Media Compositions 

I created a map that shows my favourite eating spots in Toronto, (Clearly I enjoy eating at Don Mills since all the tags are in that one area). I think this is a great way to show people that are not from Toronto, around. 

I never considered geotagging until it was introduced to us in class. Now that I looked into it, and experienced creating my own map, I find it a great way to share where you travel to with people around the world. Even though it might be a safety and privacy concern, if you share it with the right people in your Google circle, it can work in a positive way. Another form of geotagging would be when you sign into places through facebook. It shows your location and lists the place where you’re visiting. A lot of other social media platforms such as instagram, twitter, and Flickr use location services to allow people to tag where they are in photos & tweets. This provides others to view their content, and see where they’re located. 

URL Link to My Map: <iframe src="https://mapsengine.google.com/map/embed?mid=zcTnP2Ryo2t0.kgVm_5j7qHDI" width="640" height="480"></iframe>

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Creative Commons - Creative Media Compositions

I related creative commons to my 5 shot movie because it allows people to use my content in an legal way. However it all depends on the certain copy rights that you want. For my 5 shot video I am going to put under the CC BY-NC-ND license, only because it is considered to be a personal video, and I don’t think I would want anyone to use it for their own personal purposes. If it was a tutorial video, than I would apply it to “Attribution-NoDerivs CC BY-ND” licence which will allow anyone to copy and redistribute any media aspects in any medium for any purpose. However, each license has its own terms that people cannot break.

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Bricolage - Creative Media Compositions 

Bricolage is a way of constructing certain materials and things that are available in order to create a form of art. Whether it may be a painting that is created by different materials, or certain instruments that you create sound with. I find most bricolage pieces come for DIY projects that are found all over the internet. It’s a great way to use objects instead of putting them into to waste. An example of one time my mom doing bricolage would be on women’s day, all the ladies in my household received tulips. We had a situation where we ran out of vases, so my mother decided to put them into glass jars that were used for pickled olives.

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Intertextuality - Creative Media Compositions 

Intertextuality is a common attribute in media today. Referring to the definition from dictionary.com - it is a network of expectations and conventions by which the text is defined. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/intertextuality). It is not only used in literature but it’s more common through media such as shows and television. Examples above such as the Simpsons are known for using intertextuality often by mimicking visual aspects from other movies, or films, into their own context. Same thing goes for music videos, many artists use inspirational aspects from movies, which in this case is Alice in Wonderland, to incorporate a similar theme.

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Remixing & Mashups - Creative Media Compositions

Remixing & Mashups: Although I don’t create actual mixes with sounds, I found that I use a lot of remixing techniques when recording videos by applying different sound effects to them. In this past semester I had to create a radio ad which made me apply certain sound effects together in order to create a realistic radio ad commercial. 

Link to Video: https://vimeo.com/81619393

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Folksonomy - Creative Media Compositions

Folksonomy: is a way of organizing your data into different tags. Data includes photos, videos, online sites, music, and any other media related content. There are a lot of social platforms that organize data into certain tags. For example tumblr, twitter, instagram all have certain tags that you can search for that are either in a form of hashtags, or keywords. Personally I enjoy using Flickr because you can create your own tags that will allow you to organize your photos. I am using folksonomy when I am posting things on my digital portfolio that’s on tumblr. I post pictures and reflections with certain tags that is relevant to the content thats being posted.

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SkyWalk Toronto - Group 2

SkyWalk Toronto consists of a group of young people who are trying to make a way around Toronto, faster & safer. In this case, we thought of building sky walks from different buildings with security so that people can walk inside, instead of the cold. We created a social media campaign as well that includes a twitter page and a website.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SkyWalkTO

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Genderitis - Group #1

Me and my group members wanted to raise awareness of the certain gender stereotypes that revolve in our society today. We created a social media campaign with the hashtag : #BreakTheMold, also created a Facebook, twitter, and personal site that explained our organization. We incorporated a video that shows us asking questions to each gender about the opposite stereotypes. Also our website includes links to our posts, and gender confessions that people have wrote to us. All links will be below. 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GenderStigma 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GenderStigmas?fref=ts

Website URL: https://genderitis.wordpress.com

Video: https://genderitis.wordpress.com/2015/03/23/genderitis-presents-gender-stereotypes/

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#CreativeCommons #5Shots

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Invisible Technology

Invisible technology is everywhere. Whether it would be a desk, a chair, to stairs, or to even a pair of glasses. Each piece of invisible technology is significant to our world today. Most of us don’t realize the simple technologies that we use everyday because we’re used to them. Chairs, desks, stairs, kitchen utensils have been around us since decades ago. Not most people are aware about invisible technologies only because we have been using them on a regular basis. Same thing goes to the younger kids in our generation, the iPhone might almost be considered an invisible technology to them, because kids are growing up with knowing about the technology and being constantly surrounded by it. As crazy at that sounds that is only the truth. Some inventions even revolve around invisible technologies, which makes them much more significant then we can imagine. Invisible technology does play a big role in our lives today, it is what allows us to be doing the “regular”, day to day things we do. So many things evolve from invisible technologies that have provided people to live easier lives. For example chairs have been transformed into wheelchairs that could provide people with injuries/disabilities a way around. Simple things like the fork, were elaborated into other kitchen utensils that we use today; for example the ice cream scooper and can opener are all products that were recreated from invisible technologies. I personally believe that we should appreciate invisible technologies and become more aware about the existence and importance of them. Often times we take it all for granted, meanwhile a chair for someone who lives in Africa without a roof over their heads, could be the greatest invention yet.

Aside from all of those invisible technologies, one that I have completely disregarded was the fork. It was created over years in the 4th Century between the Greek and Roman Empires. Most cooking utensils now would be valued very much back then, because it showed a level of status. At times we don’t consider it a piece of technology because it’s something that we use every day. I can’t imagine the struggle people had when forks weren’t even invented. Obviously they used other tools like sharp pieces of wood that would help them grab food. However in the stone ages, they all ate with their hands. Forks are a very common aspect in our society, since we became so accustomed to them we don't realize that they are considered to be technologies. A fork is a steady based tool that we use when we eat, mix food, or sometimes used to be re-created into certain bricolage art pieces. Invisible technology continues to impact my life because I use it everyday. I became accustomed to using it without noticing the significance of it. Since Generation Y is becoming so technologically advanced, we should know that just because something doesn’t have technological features to it, doesn’t mean no technology was used in creating it.

Source: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/10/history-spoons-forks-knives/ 

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Wiki Play

Before I entered Mark’s class, I had no idea what Wiki Play was. I never heard of it, nor did I know anyone that used it. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure what purpose it had for the class until I started using it more. I found that it helped us as a class to communicate our ideas and opinions to each other. It also was a way to get help from our peers by addressing any questions we had about any assignments or group projects. It allowed us to get familiar with the class by letting us create different discussions based on our interests. As well, the course itself, has a major focus on technology today, so by us using new platforms of communication it’s makes us understand different aspects of technology culture today. So many social platforms are developing to meet people’s different needs. For example, Instagram is a visual way of communicating with people worldwide. Twitter is more short, but yet clear “tweets” that allow people to say whatever is on their mind. Facebook elaborates both of those aspects and is created to communicate with people from all over the world. However, what I found with Wiki is that its more of a organized social platform. Meaning the structure of it is simple enough to create a discussion, and add certain pages that will organize the members of the wiki to see and elaborate on. My contribution to the Wiki consisted of commenting on discussion topics that other members of the group would post. Some discussions were talking about our thoughts and opinions on particular assignments that we were struggling on. Others were just topics of interest, one I remember particularly commenting on was in regards to summer jobs. I also posted a couple of discussions myself that talked about technology today. I found an interesting interview with the comedian Louis C.K and it spoke about our technology culture, and how the generation Y takes a lot of things for granted, especially advanced technology. I thought it would be perfect for a discussion because he pin-pointed at certain situations that we can all familiarize with. Another discussion that I posted had to do with me seeking for help on the assignments 1-4. By posting questions it helped get more perspective from other peers based on what they wrote in their reflections. Which brings me to my next point, Wiki does allow us to ask whatever questions we need and not feel uncomfortable about them. Usually in other courses we have to rely on the teacher to reply to our questions in regards to assignments or exams. Although with Wiki, you have the whole class to ask, and most of the time you will get multiple replies at once in a short period of time. By having everyone as a member of the wiki, we’re automatically able to communicate with whoever we need, instead of trying to email them through Gryph mail, which barely ever works. Another benefit of the Wiki is that if you missed class, you can always post a quick discussion question and ask your peers what have you missed that has been covered in the course. In addition, the professor always posts updates, outlines, and further material that we may have missed in the class. As much as CourseLink has its similar aspects, it is not as personal and interactive as WikiSpaces is. CourseLink is for the strict purpose to view lecture slides, see your grades, and find course related material. However, WikiSpaces allows us to interact, share our interests, and opinions with one another.

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March 17, 2015 - Positive Self Talk

Today’s class was quite interesting. Mark made us put all the tables and chairs aside and stand in a circle. It didn’t seem anything new to me, because in other classes Mark did encourage us to learn in a different way. I believe he is trying to break us from our traditional learning norms by conditioning us to learn in a more experimental way. He made us actually apply techniques on how to improve change in our lives, instead of us having to read through powerpoint slides. I appreciate that because me, personally, I learn better by experimental learning. By applying those techniques and reflecting on them, it helps me understand the concept of improving change in my life. We spoke about positive self-talk and how it helps you improve in anything that you desire. I found it really helpful and important because it helps you to stay positive, and willing to adapt to different changes in your life. When we were doing the shoulder exercise I could tell it got easier when Mark was stating words that went with our movement. The words had me thinking about my shoulders, and I could actually focus more on what I was trying to do, and that was to relax. Prior to that, it was more difficult because I had a lot of things going on in my mind. I couldn’t really clear my mind unless I starting focusing on the positive self-talk. I’ve dealt with anxiety my whole life, so positive self-talk is extremely important in managing your anxiety level. It play’s a big role in living a healthy, positive lifestyle.