An overview of Transient Spaces
This semester has absolutely flown by, I cannot believe we only have five months left before graduating! For the purposes of looking back and evaluating things, I thought I would write a blog about Transient Spaces.
The course has covered a number of issues surrounding new technology and the move from real space and time communication to what some might call ‘transient spaces’; online worlds where geographical location no longer matters and time differences have been reduced. This online world changes our lives, the way we communicate, the way business operates and the way we access information. No longer do we go to the library to find information, we ‘google it’. It is a significant step in the world when a brand name becomes a verb. Similar to ‘hoover it’ in the UK.
In the lectures each week we have learned about the issues and consequences surrounding networked media, and this has allowed us to become more inventive about developing innovative media in our own professional practice. The use of these blogs allow us to develop our online personality for both our professional and personal lives and also connects us all together as a class. Wha’t I have enjoyed most is recieving comments from people I haven’t even met, but may have searched for my blog or one of my tags. For example, I wrote a blog about my love hate relationship with ebay and another user wrote:
“Hi Elizabeth,
You’re exctly right about the setup of the Ebay website! So busy and frustrating! I was making a similar point about Amazon, but I’m not sure if their layout is a conscious effort to stimulate buyer-panic, or if it’s just what I think of as bad, old, American web design… I can’t understand why they don’t tidy these sites up, apart from the notion that they rake in the profits just as they are. D’you reckon you’d use the sites more (or spend more money) if they were cleaner?”
The most visited blog I have written is actually the task we did for our thesis subject on quantitative research. This was also the most searched term on my blog, showing that online users are looking for informative and thoughtful blogs as well as personal blogs from people we know. Many users use blogs as references (even though this is not widely accepted as an academic resource).
Specifically we have learnt to make a website, or rather, an online documentary. Overall more time was needed in learning the techniques and skills of all programs that we used. I have however, developed my network search skills and online literacy, as well as what makes a good website, which is vital in the predominantly online world of communications in the 21st century.
It has been great learning how to use Dreamweaver and the technical aspects that go into making all of the websites that we use to often. It is also important to understand the basics of coding, in case we ever need to fix a problem with a website.
So all in all I think Transient Spaces has been an informative course that will assist us in future careers no matter what we are trying to get in to.
