My presentation is an attempt to map my own personal “information ecology.” It is broken into sections with my most general and largest ecologies at the outset, and, as we move in, more specific and smaller ecologies at the inset. Let’s look at each section and discuss why I chose its particular placement in my presentation, how it pertains to me as a writer, and how the sections tie into the texts we’ve read over the course of this semester.
Google MyMap aka The Real Deal with Bill McNeil: (I'm hoping someone out there catches this Newsradio reference!) I thought after four years at this fine institution that I knew this campus like the back of my hand (hey, where’d that scar come from?), but as I sat with a pencil and paper, I realized that drawing
As I created the Google MyMap version of my Rowan map, I realized that many of my proportions were off in my drawing. Furthermore, when I got to look at a real map with road names and paths, it began to trigger my memory of things that I missed or totally forgot about in my hand drawing.
It’s Time To Facebook The Music: This also fits on the outer most circle. This Nexus representation of my Facebook friends is a good way to show who I’m connected with in the online world (and in some cases, the outside world as well), and how my social circles are broken up. This gives you the first glimpse into who I am as a student and as a person.
I feel as though this is another map within a map. I labeled each of the clusters, mainly because I was rather surprised that my friends were broken up into relatively neat groups. With the labels intact, this simple graph becomes a window into my social circles. We clearly see that I’ve kept in touch with a lot of my friends from high school (my graduating class was 110, so we were all relatively friendly), and that I still am in contact with my Wushu circle (Wushu is a Chinese martial art that I competed in. I was a member of the 2005-2007 USA Wushu team, and some of these Facebook friends are former teammates, while others are fellow athletes from my Wushu school based in
My Tweetin’ Timeline: Marching Into Good Numbers: I had never used Twitter before January. In fact, I’d only heard the name mentioned a few times, and really didn’t know anything about it. But it quickly became apparent that this tool was going to be a key element to the class. I placed this in the second circle because this was the beginning of narrowing my ecology. This connected me to my classmates both in and outside the classroom, and allowed me to make contact with other people utilizing the tool.
This brings me to an interesting point about Twitter. I often refer to it using the metaphor, “it is a tool,” which, according to Nardi and O’Day’s book Information Ecologies, can “channel and limit our thinking, as well as bring in useful associations from other contexts.” (pp. 25) I have learned throughout this semester that metaphors can be a great tool for us to better comprehend a concept, but they can also hinder us if we do not challenge them. I feel that by challenging my initial definitions of Twitter, I have now given it the room it needs to evolve and grow to become an integral and multifaceted piece of my information ecology.
Let Me Tell You ‘Bout My Best Friend…According To My Statistics, That Would Be Dr. Wolff: This is where things become even more specific; these charts show which people inside the twittersphere are my “best friends.” I have 123 followers and am following 117, but this gives us a glimpse of the top 6 “friends” on my list.
You Tweetin’ At Me?: Again, we see a narrower view of “me”; now we are glimpsing into which of my Twitter followers I am most in contact with, as well as which interface I use most often to post tweets. Here you can see that I have done most of my Twittering from the web, but my Twitterlicious usage is rapidly catching up. If you compare my chart from last month to this current one, you will see that my web usage has stayed fairly stagnant, but my Twitterlicious usage has drastically increased. You now have a good idea about how I’m going about posting tweets.
The Twitter Power Hour: More narrowing of my ecology, as we see information that is breaking down how many tweets I average per day, how many per hour, and even which hours of which days I tweet the most. This is a demonstration of not only that I am using this specific networking tool, but exactly how I am using it as well.
Even more specific is the breakdown of my tweets by day, and time of each day. For those who know me, you’ll begin to notice that on nights I have to be in bed relatively early to be up for the 6am shift at work the next day, I don’t do much Twittering past 8:00. (Those nights are Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday.) If you don’t know me, you’ll still notice this pattern and be able to infer that there is some reason for this consistency.
The Bird is the Worlde: We have now reached the most specific and detailed view of me as a writer. These Wordles show my most frequently used words in my blog posts, and my tweets. From this, we can now find which words I am most likely to use, and furthermore we are able to organize them into some form of an order (which are the most used, which are moderately used, which are hardly used, etc.)
We now see a very clear map of who I am as a writer, and each of these sections is another piece of my map. You know where I go to school, which areas of my school matter most to me, and which I am most familiar with. You know who my friends are and which ones are connected to which, you know that I Twitter, but even more important, you now know when I Twitter, what I’m using most often to tweet, to whom I Twitter to most often, and which words I am most likely to use in a tweet and blog post.
This presentation was my attempt at somehow mapping my mind as a writer. I was actually quite surprised at how each one of these rings flowed perfectly into the next, with each subsequent ring revealing slightly more than the one that preceded it.
In the end, I think that an Information Ecology is whatever we want it to be. For me, this Prezi is a great representation of my information ecology. It shows my location, my social circles, my most active days and times, and even the words that I use most often to express myself. “Mapping our minds” is not about accuracy or perfection, but rather about revelation and distributing information about ourselves in a unique way. And when all is said and done, I believe I have succeeded in this task, and I feel confident to stand at the center of my ecology and say, “I am here.”
