Final post...:-)

Hello everyone!

Today is going to be my final post on this blog...

Monday,we uploaded with Mette the last pictures that were missing on our pages while Leda and Khristina were trying to set up a conclusion. By the end of the class, as a group, we made a list of what was missing or had to be added/formated on the WIki page. On thursday, after handing in our essays, I met Mette in the university library and we went throught the entire Virtual4 wiki project together. We added the missing pictures in the bibliography, some links and most important of all, we wrote the conclusion.

I remember our group had a pretty slow start as we couldn't decide on an exact topic for our project. The Internet is now part of our daily life; it is part of a large picture, therefore it was difficult to focus on a specific subject that without digressing into too many areas. After consideration, our group agreed to mainly focus on a particular social networking site (Facebook) and how it relates to the idea of "community" and "identity". Each week, after doing more reading and research, new ideas popped up in the group and were added.
Regarding the actual design of the project - I first didn't like the "look" of our Wiki at all... I found it too simplistic in terms of design compared to last year's projects Nigel showed us in class. Now, after adding pictures/links/boxes, I am really satisfied with the look and content. This feeling of satisfaction appeared last week, when we realized that adding simply a table or picture on a page could significantly change the esthetical aspect of it. Small changes made incredible differences.
In terms of group work, as I wrote in my previous post, it was a good experience in terms of working with people you don't really now. Except with Mette, I never worked with Leda and Khristina and despite some general misunderstandings at some point of the project, we really tried to produce a piece of work reflecting everyone's points of view and research. I think we handled our differences pretty well and used them to see issues in our subject from various view points.

It was interesting to see how theorists such as Howard Rheingold that we explored in this module, have also been studies in our thursday class with Chris Sam. Both classes helped me get a better understanding of modern online communities. I was writing an essay about Cyberpunk literature and how themes strongly embedded in that literary current - such as Utopia/Dystopia; community; technology disrupting the social order of things - could be related to our contemporary society. Because of the Internet's greater accessibility and use, one may argue if an online community such as Second Life is not a modern human constructed Utopia? We have seen in our group project that new technologies are disturbing our traditional/face-to-face communication. With a group of young people such as the Fluokids (first postings), who cannot spend a single minute without checking their emails/blogs or MySpace profiles, one might wonder if they are not living two parallel lives. Is Second Life really a Utopia as one can entirely reconstruct its physical appearance and personality? Is it a mean of escape from reality? Can one have a Second life account and not isolate himself from the "real world"? Is the Internet creating a new space parallel to our "real"/traditional world? All these questions are part of debate emerging from today's developments in communication and information technologies.

I just reread chronologically my postings and I am really surprised by the length (but also the content) of each of them. I first wrote short sentences/paragraphs and progressively it became much longer, personal and reflective. When we first started blogging - or as soon as we set up the blog in class!!! - it was for me the scariest process in the world!
Now, to be honest, I would love to set up a personal blog besides by Facebook account. Why? I think a non academic blog is much personal then an account on a social networking site. It is also much easier to set up and post pictures and videos! I remember when my best friend in Paris set up a personal blog during her two months world trip with her father. I though it was great! as I could follow her journey online with loads of pictures, comments, and personal reflections on what she is seeing around. She travelled to India straight after Japan and found it really hard to cope with the reality on the poverty around her. This blog gave her the opportunity to express her deepest emotions - and later she told me - to "survive" to the changes she was experimenting during her short world trip.
I think for me, this blog gave me the possibility to dig deeper in the subject as it was not only about our Wiki project, but also about general issues raised in class in relation to terms such as "community", "identity" or "groups", etc. One of the reasons why I would consider keeping a blog in the future it that it permits to be critical/reflective of yourself and obtain a broader picture of a subject you are analyzing.