This course has been a lovely ride. I’m so glad I was able to take it before graduating, and it wouldn’t have been so enjoyable without Dr. Maha’s insights and consistent support and encouragement.
Here‘s my final reflection for the course:
Also, here’s the artefact relating to Copyright and Creative Commons:
Being part of the Soliya Compact Program was one of the requirements for the Digital literacies and intercultural learning course that I’m currently attending. However, I didn’t feel that I was doing it out of an obligation but rather I was interested in gaining this unique experience that I haven’t tried before. One of the most important skills I developed in this experience is listening skills. I was able to engage more in a type of listening that was intended to understand rather than to respond. Also, I was intimidated at first to express myself, but as time passed, it was more comfortable and easy to say what came to mind.
The Soliya Program is different from the usual communication types I normally use. For the most part, I talk with my friends overseas through Skype. When it’s a big group catch up, a lot of times we talk over each other and find trouble hearing each person at the same time. With Soliya, there’s the talk button for each person to talk and this guarantees that each person can have a chance to express themselves and be heard too. While sometimes group conversations with people can get sluggish and the video quality deteriorates because of that, I felt that the Soliya platform was especially designed for this, and any technical issues were due to individual problems with devices and connections, not due to an overall load on the system.
Other types of communications like social media groups, where the main form of communication is typing into comment boxes, are also falling flat. This is because typically you cannot see the facial expressions or initial impressions of the people you’re communicating with through typing only. In Soliya, I got the chance to talk with people as if I was seeing them face to face and know if the topic we were discussing was interesting to them or not, through how they looked. A lot of times people type out things that can be misinterpreted or misunderstood because of the phrasing and wording choice, while with seeing someone, you can clarify things more clearly, and ensure that they have received the message, the way you wanted it to be delivered.
Since a lot of the themes were based on cultural experience, I believe we didn’t side track to topics that were irrelevant or unuseful. This was good because this way, we were able to establish common grounds on a lot of topics, and everyone was involved in the conversation one way or another.
As a person who is consistently connected to the Internet and exposed to all sorts of information I learned a lot about how I communicate the information to others as well. Most of the time it is through writing, whether a blog post, or sharing the information on social media. However, this led me to think of the content I share and the kind of information I’m exposed to (that is, when I’m not searching). A lot of times if it’s a cause I’m passionate about, I follow all sorts of ways to engage people around me with that cause. I look for content, whether in the form of posts, videos etc.. that would support this cause of mine, (and I do my best to check the validity of that information too) in order to spread it. It is not always easy to seek valid information on social media, because a lot of people go on social media to share their thoughts and lots of news pages are biased, photoshopped, fake or unrealistic, one way or another. So when we were doing the weekly challenges, I stopped and made sure that whatever I was going to bring in was valid and accurate.
I also learned that I rarely engage in social media discussions unless it’s something that I have a lot of knowledge about that I feel I can add to others as well. The Soliya facilitator had us mention the topics we wanted to discuss beforehand and so we had some time to research the topics before the session. I think this was very useful to be able to come in with something to say or an insight to give, rather than spontaneously cracking open a topic that some of us might be unaware of.
There’s a lot that can be done to foster constructive communications. I think it starts with programs like Soliya, where youth from all over the world come together and have discussions and dialogues on so many levels. Preparing people for such a program is crucial too. I got the right preparation in my class before the start of the program and I think it gave me a great push on the ethics of constructive communication.
I’m not sure in what way, but it’s very important to raise awareness on the influence of social media, and how it can be used in a way that is not just jokes and games. This applies to the context of Egypt, as it is the context I am part of. People use Facebook and Twitter to share sarcastic jokes and engage in topics that not enriching and vain. So I believe it’s important to spread the culture of online discussions that are actually about useful topics, and encouraging the ethics of communication so that dialogue becomes an addition to a person’s self and knowledge base.
I’m willing to encourage people to join Soliya and to tell them that my experience in it was interesting and fruitful. At the same time, I think I’m more interested in telling others (and reminding myself) about the importance of having successful conversations on social media and how effective communication on them can contribute to a lot of human development on many levels.
Overall, the Soliya experience was new to me and I would love to repeat it again, and keep knowing people of different nationalities and backgrounds. We discussed topics like education, feminism, social and cultural celebrations, food and many more topics that were interesting to hear about. The main challenge was tech issues that myself and others faced during the sessions: some people sounded choppy, others couldn’t connect to the room right away, and this led to disturbances in the conversation sometimes. However, that is normal and expected given that we all have different circumstances and I think that didn’t affect the overall course of discussions.
Disclaimer: This will be long. Grab some popcorn and get ready to hear me go on and on.
Part 1:
I think I managed to get these scores because of this course. A lot of the things I found myself capable of doing was because of skills acquires along the way here. A lot of times, I selected comfortable rather than confident because I was aware of the concept but I don’t exactly apply it in what I do. For example copyright/creative commons. I was very happy to give myself Confident in “Create and innovate”. I felt that I’ve worked a lot with content creation, and have some solid knowledge of it. I don’t think the course teaches “Tools and technology” in detail, but I would have liked to be confident in that area, in the sense I can solve technical issues, being able to select the right tool for a specific purpose and to provide technical help on purchases and implementation.
I watched the medieval help desk skit and really had a laugh. I think it depicts the older generation’s view of technology and how sometimes they are reluctant to shift from their classic method of doing things, like saving contacts for example. I think this video says a few important things including the importance of having face to face guidance when using digital tools, but not only that. I think it’s hinting at the fact that it is not enough to provide technical guidance. The help desk guy didn’t teach how to write in the book for example, or if there’s a way to edit what has already been written. So he just taught how to use the tool in a passive manner. I think this is what happens in Egyptian schools for example in subjects related to computer, they teach the use of the computer rather than how to engage with what’s on it. And I think these two skills complement each other.
Next I watched a video about Mastodon social media app. I’m in the tech field and I didn’t get its idea, but I feel that it’s not as user friendly as Twitter, and they need to work more on enhancing user experience so that people can go to it rather than twitter. Also question: the servers are still owned by companies who can monitor traffic on them. I know its not as bad as having one big company handle all data, but still the problem persists? I don’t get how the open-source feature makes it better.
Moving on to definitions of digital literacy. I think Wikipedia‘s definition is all right. It essential entails the basics of being digitally literate. I found this on Twitter that also describes what digital literacy could be and I think it is way deeper than the Wikipedia definition. There’s this too, which is also very insightful. This is not a definition but rather the things that go through the mind of a digitally literate person. Conducting a google search, I didn’t find things that were as interesting as the things on Twitter. This article was nice because it broke it down into several aspects and explained how such defining digital literacy is not always simple. I also liked this article because it had an explanatory diagram, something which I didn’t come across a lot during my search.
My own guess for the meaning of digital skills, is the skills which make a person digitally literate. Now when I googled “digital skills”, I didn’t find a definition right away. I had to refine and write “digital skills meaning”. The one clear cut definition was in this article. It was well explained, a little flat, but good enough. This pdf also had the definition in bullet points. It was nice and I really liked seeing them them clearly specified but I felt that there’s more to the digital skills than the ones listed. I checked out a couple of other things but none provided a definition that I felt was accurate.
Searching for “digital fluency” gave better results. The first result that came out for me was this and for a “first result” I think it’s pretty good. It nicely divided different aspects of fluency and incorporated diagrams. I also really liked that there were references at the end of that page, and I actually went and checked some of them. This was a page with similar definition, but it wasn’t as elaborate.
Digital literacies, digital fluency and digital skills:
According to my understanding of these terms, digital fluency is a broad term for how well you can make use of the digital skills to be digitally literate. Example: If I can use powerpoint to create slides, then the fluency will be how well and effective I can use powerpoint, the skill would be knowing how to use it, and the literacy would be selecting the right content for the slides.
Reading the digital literacy article by POMO, I looked at some aspects to know if the site is credible or not. First, the writer of the article seems credible: she is a social media researcher, educator and speaker in Australia, her social media links are provided at the end of the page. It is however, a blog; which means it might be entirely scientific and can only reflect her views. There are no references at the end so I get the impression that there’s not much of research done on what was written.
I think the sources I got weren’t entirely academic but a lot of them referred to academic sources or even other related things. (I’d say my ones are better than the pomo website -haha)
I actually came across Dr. Maha’s article while searching for digital literacies and skills. I do agree that skills and literacies are complimentary and I like the car/driving analogy raised in the video. Might as well comment, if we were to say that the skills and literacies were interrelated and woven, then this means learning them together is a must, but I think a lot of schools/universities focus on the skills, or actually teach them both so separately, that students graduate without knowing that they are related. I believe the term fluency does a lot of tying in between these two ideas. I believe what’s written in the article confirms my understanding of the terms, and goes in line with the articles I pulled out. I found the article to be particularly interesting in the part where it talks about teaching tools progressively rather than sequentially. I think it’s important to do that, because a lot of students fail to see the purpose if the context is not meaningful. In our class, we created a class hashtag because there was real need for it, and during that we discussed how to create a hashtag and what elements a hashtag should contain. This applies with some of the courses I learn in my major, when we are asked to learn new tools to be able to work on the course project for example. I made some comments about specific parts in the article.
Doing the activity on this page I was able to pull out a few interesting pages with slightly different definitions for digital literacies and skills. This one here was well written, and had a lot of detailed explanation also about how it originated. I especially liked the first definition on the page as it was concise and to the point. The digital skills tag, had articles that I had already looked through as I was researching earlier for definitions.
Watching this video, I got some insight on the uses of digital literacy. The ones which were relevant to me including:
Knowing how to locate information, and ways in which this information is presented
knowing how to engage with information online, and how to critically think of it
to be able to communicate with people online in the right manner
to collaborate on work related assignments without having to meet in person
In response to this thread, I feel that one of the most important digital literacy aspects I’ve acquired is the awareness of what I put in and add on digital platforms. Knowing about how social media sites are moderated and how data is collected and used caused me to give a lot of thought to what I share with others. In the Egyptian context, I would say that moderation is very intense, and so being careful with what is being posted is crucial for one’s safety.
The term itself (digital literacy) is a term I’ve only recently come to know, and so the discovery process was enjoyable.
An aspect I would want to know more about or that I feel still lacking, is the ability to evaluate information sources, a lot of time I take what I read for granted and forget to assess the sources of my information. I believe, however, that this is something that could be acquired by practice. It is important given the amount of fake news on social media especially in Egypt, where almost everyone is just posting random untrue things.
I felt like the above comment responded to my thoughts. Haha ^
Moving on to the activities in this part of the module. I’ve used the 7 digital literacies diagram to add tools or examples for each:
I’d say my competencies in each of the tools I’ve suggested ranges from average to a bit above that. (Hence my mention of them). For some, I didn’t mention specifics, like digital note taking and reminder tools, so here I must say that I’m very below average. I’m very manual when it comes to keeping track of things, and studying. I wanted to mention things like WordPress and Soliya but didn’t know under which umbrella they’d fall under.
I did the iTest also to self -asses my digital literacy. The results were pretty interesting (and accurate too -I’m actually impressed)
I think I learned a lot about myself from this, and I liked the way the results are laid out but I believe there was a slight inclination for the questions towards a digital skills rather than literacies.
The other test was not as interesting, and the results were kind of generic, so I skimmed through it very briefly.
Moving on to the third part of this assignment: (yay, I’ve made it this far!)
I decided to explore two stations from the website: Blogging and online identity.
Blogging:
I think the words that relate to a blog (for me ) are conversational and regular. And I think these are sort of the typical blog features. It was interesting to know that blogs are sometimes used for academic purposes. I mean, I understand that it can be used as a form o f collaboration, assessment, but as a tool to showcase work in progress or work prior to research, this is interesting. Because I only use my blog for entertainment/courses purposes but it never occurred to me that I could use it for my thesis for example. It was also interesting to see private blogging platforms (Blackboard and Moodle), because for me a blog=public space. And so this changed my perception a little.
Within the context of Egypt, I’m not very sure if blogging is a very common skill. I think people take it in a way that a blogger would need special writing skills to blog (which isn’t exactly true)
Online identity:
One of the things I was encouraged to try is to google myself while logged in, and from another browser where I’m not logged in and no particular data is known about me yet. I did so, and the result was different! The logged in one had my Tumblr profile in the beginning and the other one had my LinkedIn at the top.
When the lesson talked about unacceptable behavior, I could only think of cases around me: a lot of people are impersonated and FB refuses to close down the fake account, I get a lot of creepy messages. I think as well learning how to deal with these things as a victim, a system should hold social media apps responsible too.
On a happy note, I did really well in the Online Identity quiz =)
Within the context of Egypt, there are many thinks that I believe a lot of people aren’t aware of. The exposure that one faces online is very real and very details, and we “accept” it on a daily basis in Terms and agreements. I know a lot of people who have been blackmailed, one way or another through things they’ve shared on social media, or messages that they exchanged.
Overall comments:
I broke down this entire assignment over a week or so. Each day I’d do and write about a certain part, and so this is one of the reasons the post is not very cohesive. I must admit it was pretty long, and towards the end, I was starting to lose interest. (Let’s hope this didn’t affect the work’s quality)
It would have been nice to have the tasks in this assignment divided over the entire semester, so as to make it feel less intense. I wasn’t able to do the last 2-3 modules in the (2nd) section because I felt that they were redundant, and that doing them wouldn’t add to what I was writing for this blog. However, I would definitely do them leisurely for the sake of exploration. I’ve also created an account on Mastodon to see how it works, maybe I’ll like it better than Twitter. I learned a lot through these activities.. About myself and about the different ways one can be digitally literate.
Reading part of Kimberlé Crenshaw’s article made me realize that there’s a word for all the stories that happen too often, and for the stories that she referred to in her text; that word being intersectionality. (My computer here has decided to underline it in red for some reason).
Anyway, according to my understanding of the article; intersectionality happens when a person belongs to more than one minority group, and when these minority groups have unrelated interests and agendas, leaving the person in a state where they are further marginalized in their community.
On a funny note, I’ve been tagged in this a tonne of times:
Meaning that having these 2 affiliations makes you a suffering person. Haha.
On a more serious note, I once got robbed on the street and went to escalate my issue to the police. On that day, I was wearing a skirt and clothes that generally gave a conservative impression. The policeman refused to take me seriously and one of the reasons for that was because to him I was alone and for some reason he kept denying what I was saying and didn’t allow me to make a case. I was very angry. I felt like if I were someone else, I would be better heard. Even though I’m not exactly a minority in Egypt, that situation made me feel like one. Being a young woman, coming in alone, wearing loose fitting clothes, and telling a story that didn’t exactly have an evidence, made the whole situation against me.
Since I was very angry, I left and decided to contact a relative who worked in the police to come and help me make a case for my stolen bag. I chose my clothing differently when I went in for the second time, and the policeman recognized me when I came in with my relative. My relative spoke on my behalf for the most part, except when I was describing the incident, where the same officer who was denying my words, asked me to clarify and was keenly interested in my story’s details. It was immediately recorded and filed. I know that having someone from within the police was added benefit for me, but what made me realize that they heard men better was that my relative didn’t actually come wearing any uniform and didn’t disclose his affiliation to the police till the very end. So it was a matter of having a man with me, and dressing differently too just to be heard out.
I think one of the best things about this experience is that I was able to pull out of my shell.
Yesterday’s meeting was easier than the first one, people seemed more comfortable with each other. There were more people this time, we were a total of 10 from Tunisia, Jordan, Italy, US, Egypt (me). At first, we were put into smaller breakout rooms to discuss the week’s challenge. I was thankfully with people who had good connections, and who also were there during the first session. The conversation flowed easily, we first talked about the courses we took at university – I was a bit out of that discussion because I think both of them were studying things like international relations and/or psychology. We then moved to discuss the challenge. Something quite funny happened when one of us (from US) was discussing her challenge: she was talking about Oprah’s Golden Globes speech and she paused to ask, do you guys know Oprah? Me and my other friend who is from Tunisia, nodded. It was a funny moment though.
After that the topic of the conversation somehow shifted to social media and its effect on us and how information is more censored/biased on FB more than Twitter.
We were then asked to move back to the main room, where everyone was and to reflect about the things we discussed in our mini group. This was nice because I got to know what everyone’s interests were, and some people were having discussions about politics and discrimination (I wanted to get into that), so it was nice to see that people have these interests because this meant that they might be brought up during discussions at some point. After the round of reflections, the floor was left open to discussion about anything we wanted. And one of us brought up the issue of education.
I honestly didn’t think I’d rant so much about a topic. But I did. I spilled every horrible thing I’ve experienced while learning, and surprisingly there was a lot of agreement. We talked about students deciding their path in life from an early age, how that is dependent on the variety of subjects offered in school, college education expenses, public and private schools, private tuitions, unqualified teachers, outdated syllabuses, lack of resources.. It was very interesting to see that everywhere in the world, these issues prevailed, and not just in ME countries. It was a very diverse discussion because every person brought out the angle that was prominent where they lived, and a lot of times there was an agreement.
Overall, it was way easier this time even though it was a larger group. The conversations flowed and the facilitator was really happy she didn’t have to intervene a lot. I think also the people in the group are very understanding and open and this is what made it an enriching talk.
Next week’s challenge:
ON IDENTITY THREAT: Look at your social media feeds or the comment section of your favorite news site and look at a topic/discussion that is currently relevant to your country or community. Try to spot 2-3 examples of cases where you think someone feels that a part of their identity is threatened. Share those with the group in the group’s stream, and also tell us why you think those are examples of an identity threat. Next, think what would be your constructive response to the person: how can you approach them with curiosity and respect (even if you don’t agree with them)?
I think I’m going to need some help with this, as I would want an example to start with..
So I just finished the first Soliya meeting and it was so nice! I must admit that I had some fears prior to this as I’m really camera shy. I was even hesitant about keeping my camera on or not during the session but decided that it would be better to leave it on.
I was online with someone else at first and we had a mini conversation before the facilitator joined us. More people started appearing and we eventually reached a total of 5 people + facilitator. We started by warming up about ourselves, our major and hobbies and what we generally do. The facilitator let the conversation flow in the beginning and we talked about jobs, part time jobs, food, places we wanted to visit and so on..
We then moved to talking about dialogue, debate and discussions and what we think makes each of them different than the other. There was a general agreement that a dialogue is more mild and accepting than a debate which usually involves people with different inclinations. Then we talked about successful dialogues, and I mentioned some of the things we had talked about earlier in class. Others brought up words that we also talked about in class like openness and not being shy. How we could contribute to making a successful dialog had people saying that they won’t make any judgments and won’t stereotype. This part of the session was generally easy and familiar, and was related to class discussion and the activity that we did a couple of days ago.
Then we did the identity activity which was also familiar (yay me), and funny enough that every time I do this, I come up with a different list. We all shared our lists and I found a lot of common points with others in the group. I noticed that the Arabs, mentioned in their identity something about the nationality or country, while non Arabs made little mention of that. 2 of us mentioned their religion, which also happened to be Muslim. I find this to be interesting because of a discussion we once had in class, about wanting to highlight certain aspects of our personality in certain contexts. Some minority groups tend to highlight what makes them a minority. And this prevailed in the session. We discussed common points and talked about how these aspects of our identity can influence how we approach subjects in general. Like I had written that I was a revolutionist, and I was asked that having said that, how would the approach to political topics be.. I honestly wasn’t sure how to respond, but I thought that having a very deep rooted belief in 2011 revolution in Egypt, influences my political thoughts to this day, and I think whenever the topic of politics in the ME or Egypt is brought up, I will continue to portray it from a revolutionary perspective.
Lastly, we reflected on the session in general and mentioned the topics we’d be interested to talk about.. Some said religion, some said the effect of media, I said culture and traditions..
Generally speaking, this was way way easier than I thought it would be. The environment is generally welcoming and the facilitator is warm. I think not everyone was able to make it, and a lot of people had tech issues, but I feel like the overall flow was smooth and interesting. The group dynamics is nice and we didn’t have a lot of awkward silences. I think two hours is a little too much though, I was fidgeting towards the end. I was hoping there would be a sort of break in the middle, but I reckon it’s like that because it’s a compact course.
Next week’s challenge is:
Think about a topic that you are passionate about – really, really passionate about or interested in! Look at your social media feeds or favorite news site: do you see anything (posts, news, videos, blogs, images, etc.) related to your passion that causes an emotional reaction in you? The reaction can be either positive or negative, making you very happy or angry.
Thinking about the Lina Mounzer article… Not sure yet though..
I listened to this podcast in the car on my way to a place, and was shook by it. The story about the Danish police was impressive. It made me think a lot about the things we create ourselves, with the labels that we use and accusations that we throw. Meeting anger and extremism with love, is challenging, because for a moment, you run the risk of being vulnerable to someone who is potentially harmful.
A similar thing happened to me once, and I remember that story because I was listening to the podcast while driving. I was driving and a car from behind bumped into me. It was partly my fault because I slowed to a stop kind of suddenly, but the driver behind me could have easily avoided it as the road wasn’t crowded.
What happened next was that she was out of her car, screaming to the top of her lungs and banging her fist on my window so hard. I was honestly shook, and scared. Haha. I gathered myself, unlocked my door and went out calmly. She was still shouting, and people were starting to stare and gather. There wasn’t a real damage to any of our cars but seeing her scream like that, I thought something else might have happened and I just didn’t know. What I decided to do that moment, was something I wouldn’t naturally do, but I decided to try anyway.
Me: Ohmygosh, I’m so sorry, are you okay? Do I call a doctor or an ambulance?
Her: *staring at me blankly*
Me: Oh God, I’m so sorry, here, *I quickly pull out my water bottle and hand it to her* have some water.
(I can swear that her facial expression relaxed)
Me again: You know, don’t worry about the car, I’ll take care of any fixes, the most important thing is that you’re okay.
Her: No, no it’s.. *she looks at her car* it’s minor actually.. no need.. Thank you though .. I’m fine..
Me: Oh no it’s okay.. If you’re not feeling well I can give you a ride..
Her: *smiles* no, no. *turns to leave while saying to herself eh el nas el tefre7 di 3al sob7* (couldn’t translate that- sorry)
I honestly was about to dance after this. I was terrified about the fact that she was so angry, and was afraid that the damage would be expensive to fix.. Also that it was partly my fault.. After hearing the podcast, I remembered this, I remembered saying sorry, like the cop said to Jamal, and I remembered that this was one of most unusual reactions ever.. In fact, the most non-complimentary behavior I’ve ever done.
The second draft version of the game has some new additions based on the helpful feedback we received about our game.
Some of the additions include:
First, moment of silence and appreciation for all the game designers out there. You people are heroes.
Here’s the link to Mine and Manar’s digital narrative game.
Few points worth mentioning:
I’ve decided to split this post into several parts so that it can be clear to me if and when I use them while implementing my game. Serious games are in my view harder to implement than regular style games because they have two main aspects: the game aspect and the information aspect. Both must be structured in a way that contribute to a seamless experience. The game I’m hoping to design is about illiteracy and illiterate people (mainly in Egypt).
The main audience for this game will be my friends in class and generally people who received a good education. The obvious reason is that people who can’t read/write won’t really benefit from the game, and also because the aim targets educated people in telling them more about the aspects of illiteracy.
The game will have a few main goals including:
I want to collect information in a variety of methods. My hope is to be able to talk with a person who is at least semi literate (meaning that they know the alphabet but can’t exactly read fluently). I’ve managed to catch some statistics from here , here and here.
There’s an interesting story/article that I read over here and here. Examples of literacy campaigns around Egypt here, here and here.
The game structure could be divided into 3 parts: the first having some scenarios that demonstrate the daily challenges that illiterate people face, from not being able to read basic signs to other things .. This could be done by presenting the gamer with unknown symbols and asking them to respond to them with in the context of the scenario(Scenarios can include, needing to read a road sign, a grocery list, price tags/product labels etc). The information presented in this section would include statistics and information about the struggles of illiterate people to go about their daily life.
The second part could be focused on the game character facing serious consequences due to their illiteracy and deciding to join a literacy class (although the gamer has the ability to choose not to). Some scenarios could come in here to demonstrate that these classes are usually full and then the information about illiteracy rates.
The third part would revolve around the fact that the illiterate person might have received some sort of assistance with reading and writing but still might not be able to fluently read things, or acknowledge information quickly. Here, information will presented to highlight the importance of reading-based education. Then towards the end, something about how the gamer can help with the issue of illiteracy in general.
It might be a challenge to have a scoring system for such a game, but feedback on the choices that the gamer is making could be provided after each choice or after the game is played til the end.
Creating sophisticated scenarios and well rounded choices will depend on the depth of my research and if I can manage to get hold of a person who can tell me their story, and I believe this is the hardest part. I also made a note to start looking for images and gifs because I know I will need to incorporate those into my prototype.
Ayah 