This text is serving the dual purpose of being my last blog posting and my analysis for the class. Maybe in the next 8 hours a miracle of comprehension will occur and I will see significant results on the coding side. But first I have to complete the Reflective Essay.


Design and Production Analysis of Assignment Tracker iPhone Application

Assignment Tracker is the result of a class assignment. This application was designed to easily track classes, communicate with faculty, record assignments by due date, prompt the student about assignments prior to their due date and anticipate class grade based upon assignment scores. Future expansion options are numerous including push features from faculty, mapping functions, proximity awareness to other class members, course related cost calculations and project time analysis. The basic version developed during a summer class session is useful but significantly less than envisioned. Included in the following analysis are details about the original vision, suggestions and the forces that shaped the project.

Part 1 - Analysis
Introduction:
The concept of reading/writing for mobile devices is intriguing but simultaneously intimidating. As a writer, not a programmer, the task of designing and implementing an iPhone Application was a daunting undertaking. Constructing the application involved many steps prior to and in addition to the actual coding and compilation of the program. The four primary tasks were 1) analysis, 2) design, 3) production, and 4) evaluation.
These four tasks represent the organization of this analysis, with a fifth section, Resources included at the end. The first section chronicles the project; starting from a wide-open assignment description, essentially a blank slate, to selection of a grade tracking and assignment scheduling application. The next section describes designing the platform, the human interface, visualizing the displays, configuring data storage, and enabling calendar integration protocols. An overview of how I became familiar with iPhone programming techniques and standards and the actual coding of the application is discussed in the third section and the remainder of this report details the evaluation of the project including the requisite directions for sustaining and/or replication

Background:
Media is a very broad term in the twenty-first century. Technical communicators are expected to be familiar with all types of media. Many technical communications courses focus on the various types of print and a growing number consider web pages, blogs and other electronic media; but this is one of the very few classes primarily concerned with handheld and other mobile communication devices.

Early in the course we examined mobile applications that were useful, eye-catching, interesting, provocative, popular and otherwise note worthy. After looking at numerous applications consideration was given towards what characteristics constitute a great mobile application. Neal Goldstein writes in iPhone Application Development for Dummies (2009) “when it comes to creating a great iPhone application: Create a compelling user experience [and] Exploit the platform.” Goldstein elaborates, “A compelling user experience enables users to do what they need to do with a minimum of fuss and bother… meeting the expectations of the user based on the context … in which they are using the application.” Regarding exploiting the platform, Goldstein points out that “The iPhone has the capability to be an extension of the user, seamlessly integrated into his or her everyday life, and able to accomplish a singly focused task, or step in a series of tasks, in real time, based on where he or she is.”

The assignment was to “Complete a reading/writing for mobile devices project. Suggested options: an iPhone App, a page designed to be read on a mobile device, audio and/or video-rich page for class or work...” With the performance objective defined as “Manage projects through iterative design. Measurement: successful planning and development of a mobile device rhetoric project.”

Having just purchased an iPhone, I committed myself to an iPhone application before realizing the complexity of such a project. During one of the class sessions, it was pointed out that several very young students had successfully developed and marketed iPhone applications, including one nine year old who is fluent in many programming languages who has written several apps (http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-266264.html). This intensified my resolve to complete this project even though I had no modern programming experience.

In reality, one of the other options would have been a better fit for my skills, but education is intended to stretch the individual outside of the normal comfort zone, so the iPhone Application was an acceptable choice.

For several weeks, the class discussed options and ideas relating to potential projects. Elaborate, cutting edge projects that would revolutionize the way the world views mobile devices were out of the question. Simple, useful reading/writing projects were preferred. All the ideas I came up with were too grandiose to even diagram the workflow. I was urged to think simpler.

We were also encouraged to discuss ideas with potential end-users, do some informal needs assessment interviews or otherwise research the intended market. I conducted several discussions with disorganized students who always carried their phone, but no longer carried date books or planners. They were frequently conferring with each other to determine when upcoming assignments were due and the specific requirements associated with each project. This is how Assignment Tracker was born. It was school related, met a need, accomplished a single focused task in real time and would be readily accessible at any time.

Part 2 – Design
Having progressed from a blank slate to an idea I now struggled to codify this concept into a finished iPhone application in less than two months. The first step in the design procedure would normally be to ascertain the need and define specific desired outcomes. A needs assessment matrix but is defined below.

Needs Assessment Matrix

Since this was a shortened summer session, a single student interview, an inspection of printed assignment calendars at a local bookstore and a brief survey of available web based similar templates was conducted to determine need and basic document design.

After determining the need, the second design step was to identify the specific goal of this project. I knew it needed to be a mobile application, wanted some element of locality awareness, and needed to be easy to operate. Part of the class discussion had included intuitive operation successful applications by the web generation users.

Elements of the program that were defined at this early stage included:
• School and Semester Information
• Course Information
• Instructor Contact Information
• Class Meeting Information
• Assignment Information
• Assignment Progress and Resources
• Grade


Semester information was included to automatically set beginning and end class dates for the individual courses. But once it was included it became obvious that a method of archiving previous semesters and/or identifying the current active semester was required. Additionally, since some summer sessions are Summer I, others Summer II and others overlap both sessions, some flexibility needed to be incorporated in the design that allowed default date entry and individual customization.

Course information was standard in all the models examined and while my initial thought was all that was needed would be course number and description, allowing flexibility so that this application could be utilized by middle and high school students as well as college students required some additional fields and less reliance upon course number.

Instructor contact information was a simple and convenient way to exploit the mobile device’s unique capabilities. Being able to save this information to a contacts file with a one touch phone dialer or e-mailer was seen as desirable. Having a photo or website link was also beneficial.

Class meeting information was another broadly defined category. I wanted to be able to locate classroom and determine route to get there from current location, using either direct pedestrian or predefined bus route paths using the large Texas Tech University campus as my model. A student attending an institution with a non-contiguous campus would derive additional benefits from this mapping feature. Entering freshmen are frequently the least familiar with the layout of the campus and most likely to have classes in various buildings around the campus. Online classes may meet at a specific website or telephone number, so adaptability to handle more than a physical location was also required. Not only the access address, but also the password or conference number or connection instructions should be able to be saved in this field as well.

It was easily foreseeable to want to add classmate information, textbook, lab, or other related information to this )or a separate) field. Having a student advisor in the class, I was reminded of the fact that some classes are retaken or affect grade point average differently and these special factors would also be convenient to add into this area and one recommendation was to include a cost basis associated with the class, each of which are excellent points but deviate from Goldstein’s ideal of a single focused task.

Assignment information is the crux of the program and needed to be readily adaptable to a variety of uses. Reading assignments, graded assignments, participation requirements, quizzes, papers, projects and other potential assignments all needed to be considered in defining the parameters for this data element. Additionally, each assignment needed to correlate to either a course or semester. Questions immediately started surfacing about how to handle general calendar items like add/drop deadlines and Spring Break dates – whether they should be replicated automatically within each course or a single listing under semester, non-course specific entries. Would the student sort all assignments chronologically or view each course data individually? How would this data synchronize to an iCalender or Outlook calendar? Would this information be shareable between users, downloadable, application specific or otherwise exportable?

I also envisioned prompts, timelines, planning tools and notes within each assignment. Whether it was an automated email two hours before class reminding the student to remember to bring x to class or a weekly prompt to update status on a larger research project; I wanted the application to handle generation of numerous levels of easily programmable (and default) prompts. Grades are only one level of feedback, so I also wanted the system to be able to record simple or complex status categories of completed, blogged, discussed, submitted, or grade received. Sometimes the same broad assignment category has several components, consideration was given to whether each component should be a separate assignment (if so, then assignment needs to be replicable to facilitate multiple entries with minor changes) or be capable of subdivisions. A special category was also considered since the course I am currently taking had the requirement of “Tweeting” daily. How would this be tracked? Graphical chart of tweets including details as to number that included specific hashtags? Hyperlink to a feed that contains external data? Or just an “in progress” status designation that does not get bogged down in the details? Throughout this design process I was constantly striving to balance usability with the single focused task direction.

Assignment resources were also a concern. Links to references and works in progress should be available to exploit the iPhone’s ability to remotely connect to those links. But the vast variety of formats those links could reference could prove to be counterproductive to the application. Why spend time downloading a document you can’t view? What use is a website that is not optimized for mobile viewing? Are these essential or deviations from the single focused task?

The grade seems relatively straightforward, but my intention was to detail the weighted average for the course. Therefore, I wanted to be able to set each assignment up as a percentage of the final grade and upon the receipt of each grade, be able to enter that in the course grade computation matrix to compute minimum score required on remaining assignments to achieve specific course grade or anticipated grade based upon continued level of performance.

After listing these and other options, a priority list of essential characteristics was developed. At a minimum, the application would have a course description, and assignment description. Assignment status, due date and grade received would also be available. Anything further would be evaluated on a cost benefit basis but not considered necessary for this initial application.


As I approached the project estimation step I attempted to visualize the time requirements to learn enough Objective C programming language, construct the workflow, develop the displays and complete the application. Working with minimal information, I realized very quickly that the learning curve associated with programming a quality application before the end of the semester was going to be difficult. I will enumerate many of the steps taken in the production section, but some of the design and production steps overlap significantly and occurred concurrently. Also, please see the resources section for details on some of the books and links utilized in both designing and producing the project.

The next step in developing this application was defining the data fields and dependencies. I detailed this in my blog entry from July 19, 2009 (http://arthurpare.blogspot.com/2009/07/iphone-application-update.html). I constructed a simple Excel table listing all variables and data strings that I could foresee using in this application and listed the functions that would be executed upon each one. This helped me narrow down the list of functions required, the workflow organization and further define the scope of the project. The more standard format is to flowchart these dependencies, but I was not fully aware of that at the time. An additional feature of this spreadsheet (currently available at http://www.box.net/shared/static/oq7sanfh91.xls) is that the next six sheets (or tabs of the spreadsheet) represent different views referred to in the first page.

Now that I had a basic vision of how I wanted the final version interface to appear, I utilized the awesome power of OmniGraffel templates and built realistic looking screenshots of my anticipated iPhone application. See July 26th, 2009 blog entry (http://arthurpare.blogspot.com/2009/07/omnigraffel-application-images.html).


The first image depicts a dial picker (UIPickerView). After this image was built, I decided that a more efficient method would be to build an array NSMutableArray *semester; and NSMutableArray *courses; which would create a split dial picker and allow the user to select the semester and course on a single view.

The second view showed detail concerning the course.

Ideally, when the instructor name was entered, it would search the contacts file and automatically insert the e-mail address and phone number. When the e-mail is selected it would open the default mail program and begin composing an e-mail message to the instructor. Selecting the phone would automatically dial that number.

The coding for this is relatively simple, inserting the string name where the phone number is in the following:

NS URL *url = [[NSURL alloc]
InitWithString: @”806-742-1234”];
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL: url];

I found it interesting that a telephone number is treated as a URL by the iPhone and that if the URL began with tel: it launched the phone application. This is another instance of Apple simplifying code in iPhone development.

The third view was one of my favorites. When course location was selected, an image of the building would appear with building name and room number.

By selecting the image or building name the GPS was activated, pulled the coordinates for that classroom and asked whether you wanted to map your route via bus or as a pedestrian.

The pedestrian route would be simple enough to implement using the Application calls, but coding the bus routes would involve integration with external websites, directional information and time constraints and may be quite difficult to implement. More importantly, it would have to be configured separately for each institution. A generic ‘one-size fits all’ solution would not currently be possible.

I searched TTU’s Facility Planning and Construction website and did not find a link with the coordinates for each building on campus, but I have been told that it already exists and could be integrated into the application. Slightly more difficult would be finding and/or entering the coordinates for each room. I do not think the current GPS can differentiate elevations, so there may still be limitations to this functionality.

The next image shows the basic assignment and grade weights for a course.

Initially, these weights will have to total 100%, but it is quite possible to compute based upon relative weights. This would be extremely helpful in a class where the final was optional or could be used to replace any other test score or where extra credit points are built into the grading system. Back to the issue of this being a focused application performing a single dedicated task, while these abilities may be helpful in specific situations, entering the initial grade matrix to take advantage of that processing capability might prove to be much more difficult for the user than the resulting benefit warrants.

The last image represents a picker array being used to determine an assignment due date. One surprising characteristic of using these preordained protocols is that they are not very flexible in size. The picker selectors especially are very large and cumbersome. This picker did not include year. With course tied to semester, that may not be a significant issue, but whether year is selected or intuitively added to the record, it is necessary to integrate these assignments into an external calendar application like outlook or iCalendar.

Not only did these OmniGraffel images look realistic, they forced me to use standardized navigation controls in determining the data entry interface with my application. One of the innovative features of iPhone applications is that they are all built using standardized protocols so all apps have a certain familiarity and comfort level. The user is instantly comfortable with navigating the app and the developer can invoke prewritten and tested protocols utilizing an open library of features. Each book I used welcomed the readers to replicate and incorporate the code presented in their projects. The collaborative effect of all the developers working together makes iPhone application development possible even for those of us who are not trained as programmers.

Part 3 – Production
Following a period of analysis and design, armed with a complete list of strings, variables and function descriptions, register ranges and realistic target views of the planned project application, I started on the production in earnest.

Always seeking the shortcut, let me rephrase that, desiring to most efficiently allocate my rapidly diminishing available time before the project due date I examined every conceivable alternative. A promising opportunity presented itself when I found a functioning Mac program that essentially did everything I wanted. This program was open source collaborative software available from SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/assign-calc/). All I would need to do was optimize this program to display on an iPhone instead of a Mac computer screen.

I looked at the various releases, the notes, the code, the comments, and the bug reporters and was elated. This group had already worked through all the really difficult parts of this program (Note to self – they were programmers. It took them three years to make this level of progress). After two weeks of frustrating work with nothing positive to show for it, I decided that changing the syntax of a program written in Cocoa but using the AppKit.framework, WebKit.framework and Foundation.framework are similar enough to a project written in UIKit.framework and Foundation.framekit but without extensive knowledge of each function call they were beyond my expertise to reconcile. The AppKit.framework did not utilize a ViewController. I still believe that the NeXT Interface Builder files (NIBS) from that program should be able to convert to UIKit integration if I could find the elusive translational key. The structure is very similar and that is the single most important section. The Info.plist files also appeared to be very close, the Mac version had an entry for ‘Principal class’ and the iPhone version had a checkbox for ‘LSRequiresIPhoneOS,’ but the other ten elements were identical.

So I started with what knowledge I had gained (See Resources section), which included several tutorial projects that obtained similar results to what I wanted, but I could not start with an elaborate very similar program and just change the field labels (trust me, I tried, it does not work that way).

I followed the examples from the books I had purchased. Initial coding steps were very positive. I created a screen with course name and description that looked similar to my model. But the point is, I created a screen. This was not variable user entered text. Next step was creating a split field or table with description on one side and text on the other. I am finally beginning to understand @property and forKey: syntax.

The project at this point has not progressed much further. I can input Course information and the application holds it. It has identified the course as the key to affiliate assignment information and save accordingly. But the two screens do not communicate with each other properly yet.

Obviously, production has not yet been completed. The project is viable and I intend to continue working on it over the next few months. When it is no longer being considered for a grade, I will feel comfortable in seeking assistance from several skilled programmers I am acquainted with and utilize their expertise in completing this application. I will also be able to work through the books I have purchased at a leisurely rate, actually absorbing the information rather than rapidly scanning for pertinent clues.

Part 4 – Evaluation
As is, the application is not usable. Therefore, it cannot be evaluated for efficiency, simplicity, vulnerabilities, limitations or flexibility. In lieu of actual results, I am including parameters for measuring certain features to be utilized when the application is completed. None of the class readings detailed any definitive measurement criteria and a general online search did not reveal any specific context for evaluating an iPhone application.

A general sense of usability could be obtained by evaluating the following:

Administrative Elements – Is subscription required? Licensing? Is code original, Creative Commons, Public Domain, properly attributed?

Aesthetics – Logo selection, opening splash, default screen, colors, general layout. Is the overall affect effective? Is anything distracting? Are elements grouped into properly sized data screens or is there excessive scrolling required?

Architectural Support – Are activate, archive, cancel, configure, delete, edit, preferences, progress bars, rotation, save, undo, sort and other underlying features properly coded and appropriately accessible?

Customization/Integration – Is program compatible as advertised? i.e. in this case does it synchronize with Outlook and iCalendars? Can data be archieved and/or exported through CSV or other compatible format?

Dialogue Design – Are all human-phone and computer mediated communications appropriately designed. Consider elements such as information and visual perception, object recognition, object localization, perceiving motion, color perception, touch recognition, two finger, pinch and expansion touches, etc.

Disabilities – Is there anything that could be done to assist users with visual, auditory or tactile disabilities to assist in the operation of this application?

Help Files – If any assistance is needed, are their local or online help files readily accessible? Is help context sensitive or generically presented. Search, Index or plain text? Is there a ‘Report a bug’ or contact address?

Information Design – Are data entry screens and outputs embodied in a way that is appropriate for the target market? i.e. In this case is the format appropriate for high school students, college students and graduate students?

Information Perception – Is there anything that could be interpreted as discriminatory? Look for any implied bias, distracting elements, etc.

Information Processing – Are application results consistent with expectations? Any obvious errors in sort routines or presentation of data?

Interactive Elements – Are labels properly descriptive and field entry parameters flexible enough to meet most needs? Should some fields auto populate by default? Is text size legible, convenient, scalable? Are all necessary fields included? Are some fields superfluous? Is overall interface intuitive? Are all finger selectable items sized properly? (a minimum of 44x44 target is recommended for iPhones).

Learnability – Is application intuitive, standardized, and/or easily understood? Is any non-conventional nomenclature or interface utilized? Would additional instructions be beneficial or would a rework of the process be more advantageous?

Linked Elements – Do maps, contacts, help, bus routes, class schedules and locations and any other applicable data connect properly? If location or institution specific data needs to be configured is that interface intuitive or properly documented?

Operation – Are there memory leaks? Does program hang at certain transitions? Do data entry screens and called applications (keyboard, number pad, e-mail, telephone, browser, GPS) function as expected? Do they appear and disappear in a convenient manner. Do they obscure view of fields being input?

Orientation – Does screen automatically react to rotating the phone? Are screens identical or are they optimized for portrait and landscape views?

Personality – Considering the cognitive and perceptual abilities of all potential users, cultural backgrounds and traditions and potential differences in perspective, personality and preferences on the use of the application – (catch all category) is there any concern or suggestion for improvement?

Purpose – Does application meet single focused purpose definition? Are there too many options? Is it too difficult to use for benefit received? Is it enjoyable or beneficial? What motivates user to utilize application?

Search – After data is entered, is it obvious and convenient to search data by different criteria? (i.e. Date due, course, semester, and priority)

Static Elements – Are labels descriptive? Are navigation controls intuitive? Is application purpose obvious?

Part 5 – Resources

Goldstein, Neal. iPhone Application Development for Dummies. Hoboken, NJ, Wiley Publishing Inc., 2009.

Mark, Dave and LaMarche Jeff. Beginning iPhone Development, Exploring the iPhone SDK, A complete Course in iPhone and iPod touch Programming. New York, NY, apress, 2009.

Zdziarski, Jonathan. iPhone SDK Application Development (includes an Objective-C Mini-Primer). Sebastopol, CA, O’Reilly Media, Inc., 2009.

--- Personal Details about Resources Above ---

When I first enrolled at the iPhone Developer Center – Apple Development Connection (developer.apple.com/iphone/) I was impressed by the number of videos, help files, code libraries, tutorials and other resources. I thought that would be sufficient to complete the first release of the project.

After working several of the tutorials, I decided I needed a more tangible text based instruction method and spent some time at the local bookstore comparing the few titles available in this area. I purchased the O’Reilly Media book by Jonathan Zdziarski.

This is a great book, about 365 pages and I could absorb it fairly well in about a year’s time. First three chapters were fine and then the author kicks it into gear and assumes you understand the basics. The subtitle is “Building Applications for the AppStore,” which should have implied a higher level of intricacy to the programming language than I was ready for at this point.

Next, I ordered the apress book by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche from an online source. This 538 page book had wonderful examples and moved at a more understandable pace, until I hit chapter 7, Tab Views and Pickers. The next three chapters were entitled Introduction to Table Views, Navigation Controllers and Table Views, and Application Settings and User Defaults. If I had spent more time on those four chapters, I would have been better able to complete this project on schedule.

Third, I decided to purchase the For Dummies book by Neal Goldstein. I would highly recommend this as the first book for any non-programmer trying to understand iPhone SDK. I learned more through doing the exercises in the first three chapters than I had actually digested in the other two books.

One of the differences in the presentation that Goldstein makes is that he begins with a simple application, comparable to “Hello World” but continues to build on that same application throughout the first few chapters, which results in a viable application. Repetition of creating a new application every chapter may have its positive side, but I benefitted from seeing how the most basic application is enhanced and he guides you through logical steps like increasing font size, changing colors, changing row height, and speaks candidly about mistakes he made and encourages you to make a change, then tells you other ways to accomplish the same change. This book is much more verbose, 386 pages only covers what the initial five chapters of either other book covered, but for my money it was the better investment.

This will have to wait for Version 2

I guess the only locality feature I really had in my application was the mapping the shortest route to the appropriate building.

I am afraid however, that due to time constraints, this section will be omitted.

I am attaching a prototype view. It may be easy enough to link with the website that maps the campus and bus routes, but the free version of application developer won't let me get into all the GPS controls (and I really don't have enough time to figure out) so .... here's an image - but it won't be in this version.

Arthur

OmniGraffel Application Images

This is what I am trying to get iPhone simulator to produce and track.

Simply select semester, then course.

Enter data.

Enter assignments.

Integrate calendar with existing.

I love using Omnigraffel, which I had not used before. These "screenshots" look great.

Next post will have actual iPhone Simulator images... but I can already tell I need to simplify even further to make it work.

Positive Step Forward - iPhone Programming

Again, any programmers who read this don't need to laugh... but this was a significant step forward for me.

When you invoke a text or number field, the keyboard and number pads automatically appear and let you enter text. Included on that keyboard is a button labeled done.

I thought it was because I was pulling these pre-written elements from the Library that the keyboard never disappeared after I pressed done. So I was running this section, entering data, then switching to another screen and entering data....

Finally today I realized that besides releasing all the elements, all the views, all the memory steps - you also have to release the keyboard and interaction requests.

- (IBAction) textFieldDoneEditing: (id)sender
{
[sender resignFirstResponder];
}

is the code I was given to tell the keyboard (FirstResponder in previous command) to release control. This can also be invoked on numeric keypads and screens that do not include a "Done" button with "(IBAction)backgroundClick: (id)sender" being included in the header to define a giant button that includes all the background that can then be tapped just like the "Done" button.

This did not solve all my problems (by far) but it did allow me to enter text in two consecutive fields on the same data entry screen (whereas before I was having to manually step to the next field).

iPhone Application Update

This will be very short.

I am not a programmer, I don't do things quite the way programmer's do things.

But I do know that I have to define all my variables. layout my screen displays, define all my functions, etc.

Therefore, to optimize my code - I described all my screens and fields and functions in the Excel Spreadsheet that can be downloaded from the following link:

http://www.box.net/shared/static/oq7sanfh91.xls

The Master tab details all the functions and the detailed intent of each keystroke in this application.

The additional six tabs are very rudimentary images of the iphone screens (no fancy templates here!)

Unbelievable how long this took! It better really help with the code specifics. Julie sounds like she is making significant progress - so I bow and applaud you...

Arthur

Short example

Goal of this project is a simple application to help track assignments and grades within a course.

Two screens worked out on desktop, need to convert to mobile view for effectiveness.

Screenshot 1 - Course description:




Screenshot 2 - Assignments, Due Dates, Progress, Weights and Earned Grades:


I need to be able to view each assignment in its own screen for clarity, and a landscape only view of the aggregate. I need input as to how the cumulative grade should display...
Not at all (as in example), to date, to date with anticipated, received only, other.

There will also be a screen (maybe in release 2) that shows semester average and cumulative GPA and of course the direct import of schedules from online registration.... Release 3 could have instructor Push capabilities to send assignments to mobile devices within proximity and for releasing and updating grades to those assignments.


In an interview with a prospective user, the assignment tracking became more important than the grade element. Especially with the example above, which I showed, that does not have a series of test scores or grades through the semester, just keeping track of the assignments is important.

Room, location and time was less important to my prospect, but I pictured integrating with some of the other discussed projects - where GPS could even route you to correct building if properly mapped.

At least its a start. I'll supply more questions and answers from interview later.

Arthur

Born Digital

RE: Born Digital; Understanding The First Generation of Digital Natives by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser used as a text for 5376… I won’t go into a great amount of detail, but I would like to make a comment or two from each chapter. This is more a “Note to Self” to keep the content familiar than a critical review… But as always I have a few questions I would like to discuss.

Introduction – Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants and Settlers. I want to see myself as a Settler, way too old to be Born Digital, but I hope a step ahead of some of the other immigrants.
Page 9 designated the “purpose of this book is to separate what we need to worry about from what’s not so scary, what we ought to resist from what we ought to embrace.” Authors met that purpose, discussed many things they worried about and drew attention to issues. Whether that worry will ever result in a positive outcome or societal change is unknown at this point.

Basic diagram – Digital Native at center with concentric circles of influence going out. Friends and Family; Teachers, Coaches and Mentors; Trusted Companies and Software Providers; State and Law Enforcement. With the exception of a few lines, book concerned with how each influences and “protects” the digital native rather than the two-way communication and effect each has on the other.

Identities – You know, like, either these guys, like could have selected better quotes or like, they edited them you know to sound more day-to-day off the cuff rather than legitimate insight into the minds of this generation.

First introduces concept of blurred lines between public and private, on-line and real, which is discussed throughout book. Main worry is about convincing Digital Natives to develop the “digital literacy skills to control their identities” rather than considering why Digital Natives are not so controlling of their identities.

Dossiers – Continues theme of losing control rather than having an expanded presence. Assumes that there is something inherently wrong with information being readily available. Does not discuss any of the positive sides to transparency.

I do believe that what others post about you, tag in photos, make unsubstantiated claims, involve by association – may have unwanted repercussions, but there will be a “consider the source” effect (discussed somewhat in Quality chapter).

Privacy – A primary concern for the authors (they are both parents) but that ongoing theme of the blurring of public and private appears inevitable. Don’t wrest for control, find an absolute limit and defend that ground with resolve. Establish an effective means of removing untrue information.

Everybody needs to be more careful - a good example this week in the news was an Elk Grove California elementary school teacher who sent her 24 students home with a memories of the year DVD, that inadvertently included a six second video clip of her having sex on a couch. Is that a privacy issue or pure stupidity on her part?

Be careful what you make available, and remember public and private are constantly shifting. Records stored on an on-line off-site backup may become public domain without your consent. A discarded hard drive can still be read. An e-mail or Facebook post is never totally recalled or deleted.

Non disclosure and Privacy contracts are almost worthless if they include a right to modify.

Safety – Page 90 “Asking the children to help [remove malware] might achieve two things: a cleaner computer, and the start to a positive conversation about what’s going on online.”

Cyber-Bullying, Hacking, Trolls – these will always be around on-line. How you react to them, minimize exposure and prosecute are excellent questions.

Creators – Page 112 “Contributions that fall somewhere on the spectrum between the mundane and the magnificent.” Redefining derivative works, control the shaping of culture, the making of “meaning” (Page 125). Adds to existing means, does not replace. Requires media literacy.
Pirates – Napster – P2P – Grogster – Kazaa – Morpheus – sharing vs Campus Wide Agreements and collective ownership/purchase. Big issues no where near resolved.

DRM – says not popular … boo hoo too bad so sad… And of course those can always be hacked, but that becomes an intentional (prosecutable) act rather than an inadvertent sharing.
Copyright law is about to have major overhaul. Nearly no way around it.

Quality – One of the most important points and still not fully developed by authors If you don’t read and check the sources – it doesn’t matter if you are looking it up in Wikipedia or the New England Journal of Medicine (or something else with good reputation). Each contains good stuff and outdated or incorrect information.

Don’t believe a single source (or three million separate articles that infer they believed the single source). This is common sense, and if common sense is the digital literacy and critical thinking the authors speak of then I am all in favor of it – but connect with Privacy, Safety, Creators and Pirates already discussed…. If anybody can create and nobody is looking out for you – why would you believe it without questioning?

Overload - I love the TV Bing commercials. When will writers separate internet users from gamers? The obsessive nature of gamers is not an appropriate comparison to most internet using youth. This is addressed as a “problem” but may not really be a problem. Lots of questions….

Aggressors – Ties in with Safety and Overload already discussed, and Activists yet to come.

Again – please separate gaming from all technology. There must be an answer that does not involve surrendering rights to free speech.

Innovators – Good stuff – one of my favorite chapters, but still some negativity (Page 224) “Digital Natives are causing disruption…” and (Page 225) “The age of gerontocracy is over.” I take the democritization of creativity as a gain and the fact that firms want to monetize their enthusiasm as a positive step forward – not as a negative “watch your back because they are out to get you.”

Learners – Education and technology. Page 246 – “In every field, there are aspects of the curriculum that should be taught without screens or Net connections.” That’s a line that I would like to discuss with specific examples and research. Seems a bit to vague at this point.

VERY important point on page 250 (they are obviously not involved in a technical communication program) “Our schools have invested a lot of money installing new technologies. But no one has ever offered to teach either of us how to apply those technologies in our teaching.” Maybe this goes back to our class discussion where Digital Natives don’t need (want) instructions or invitations – they just take hold and figure it out.

Humor maybe, or an inconsistency, after lamenting the digital dossiers and all the information that exists and can’t be deleted, page 252 discussing libraries says, “The works of Digital Natives, and of everyone else living in the digital age, may well be less likely to be preserved than the writings of ninth-century monks on sturdy parchment.” Does a tangible artifact need to exist for a work to be preserved? Authors are not thinking like a Digital Native… Nobody could justify the printing of all the billions of pages of electronic content and storing it for perpetuity? Has anyone really considered that a “loss?”

Activists – Discussed last week in class. Big question… Vicarious incidental involvement or massive passionate devotion to activist philosophies? Yes, involvement can be widespread – but is that good for the cause?

Interesting reading. I'll post something about my anticipated iPhone Application interview on Monday.

The Perfect iPhone App

Well, it will not be perfect, because there is not enough time to fully develop the app in the time frame of the course, especially getting off to the slow start that I have had. So how about a solid iPhone App. A solid app is quite possible, learn the fundamentals, piece together the code, work on the interface, tweak it a little and voila, a solid app that is useful to me and hopefully a few others.

So let’s start with inspiration – what would make a good application… I listed some of my needs through the course of a day. I drive multiple vehicles, work a full time job and am self employed, so tracking business mileage is a concern. I still use the old pen and Adams brand Vehicle Mileage Logs. An app that is with me each time I fuel, drive, park that is easily downloaded to Quickbooks/Turbotax instead of transferring my chicken scratches to an Excel table would be helpful… but if I would spend a few dollars there are already several available with pretty high reviews.

Next thought, I am at TTUHSC and helping someone track a PO and its myriad of payments over the last year, I refer them to the Weblink Document Imaging server, they download exactly what they need to resolve the question. An interface to hit those millions of images would be relatively easy to coordinate with the existing API calls … but then there is the secondary level of security to get past, the good old eRaider log in. Okay, I already have shim worked out that we can bypass that security, always logging in using my username and password regardless of what computer I am starting from, just by using a special access… but I don’t think audit services would be too thrilled with that kind of backdoor access being used by even one or two people, much less the many that might try out this application… I check the active connections and there are currently 323 people logged into TTUHSC document Imaging, only 24 of them from desktop connections, and the remaining 299 from the web service. Of those, how many would actually want to work while walking down the hallway to their next stop… okay there may only be about 10 people who would really appreciate this application, but it would still be a good one to work up at a later time. Information Technology tells me that an iPhone compatible eRaider protocol is just a few months away from reality. Until then I will continue to use the iPhone Remote Desktop and hit that way.

Thought number three – hopefully all the Mac Users (PC version also recently released) out there are familiar with a great application from Objective Development called Little Snitch, the reverse firewall program. This monitors exactly what information is being broadcast from your computer. A firewall regulates what comes in, this regulates what goes out. Much more information is being sent than most people realize – so wouldn’t a Little Snitch for the iPhone be a great idea? I could see whether any of these apps had initiated tracking features, who was watching my Safari searches, whether any of the networks I attached to were logging data, etc. I started talking to one of my employees, who has already coded several iPhone apps and asked about feasibility of such a program. He offered to write it for me, anticipated several months with cooperation from Objective Development and at least a year without cooperation (working on it sporadically). If it would take him that long, the possibility of me completing the task is minuscule.

Back to the drawing board – I’m talking with my son at lunch last Saturday and I mention this project. How about something to accompany what Rich Rice was talking about in working with dissertations; tracking reading lists, due dates, project milestones, things like that? What would be a logical ancillary application for pedagogy of some sort in the general field of English? The sage advice of the youngster echoed through the nearly empty upstairs dining room at Spanky’s, “Think simpler, think student apps.” Makes sense, how specific do I want to be?

Parts of speech identifier, sample sentence, highlight each word, select part of speech from dropdown menu… can’t be too tough. Eventually expand so that they can copy/paste in their own more complex sentences, how do you tell if they selected the correct element? What kind of matrix would be required to do that… h’mmm still doable, but how interesting would that be? Gears spinning a little faster, thinking within a more doable scope. I’m no longer planning on being featured app on Lifehack, just something that a teacher would say, ‘This might help’ to a student. What about just a simple algebraic grade calculator? I have x assignments at even weight, already completed four of them, what’s my average? Let’s change the weighting… include due dates and nice descriptions and maybe room for relevant notes regarding each assignment. This could be a good application. Started doing a little research – did not want to look at what was already out there because I assume it already exists, but until I work out some of my basic elements, I don’t want to be influenced by somebody else’s product.

More later … but at least I think I have a project that I can build by myself! I may sound like a third grader – but I know some of my limitations. Bigger and better things will come in the future, but for now I just need to get one app under my belt, figure out how things work, become registered and devote enough time to this project to complete it to my expectations.

The Rhodesian Stranger, Sections and Reprise

The final chapter is an obviously humorous rendition (parody?) on Plato's Phaedrus, where Socrates demonstrates the superiority of rhetorical thinking/speaking skills over the written speech.

The stranger makes use of yet another meaning of the pod - in this case the seed pod - for planting, harvesting and consuming these pods which represented speech.

I am not in full agreement with the Stranger's inference that everything written is diluted to the general public and was therefore trivial and unimportant (although I would use the same argument when discussing political correctness in writing), while the spoken word was directed to the immediate audience and therefore more specific, meaningful and important. This was an enjoyable dialogue and an ideal way for a philosopher to interject a myriad of questions in his reader's minds.

Regarding the sections of the book, iPod and Philosophy; iCon of an ePoch, Object, Thought, Image, Community and Action - it was only after I had begun reading the book that I realized how well thought out these divisions were. The iPod is multifaceted and thoughts about it, philosophy regarding it, action possible with it and results expected of it cover a broad spectrum and generate additional questions in retrospect.

Object began with the familiar archival device, its appearance and obvious use. Thought progressed to ancillary uses, creative approaches, and reasoning and objectivity towards the users of the device which led to Image with the whiteness article and Hickey's article which relates well with the Born Digital book (with the exception that Born Digital differentiates between the generation and the population specifically because of the worldwide differences and inequities of opportunity).

Community and Action dealt with larger realms of expression, interactivity and purpose, each section builds on the other and presents some unique views concerning the iPod specifically and technology in general.

Eighteenth Chapter … Marc Lombardo, "Is the Podcast a Public Sphere Institution?"

This chapter ends with "If the podcast can limit its fragmentary and isolative aspects and continue to resist its integration into the corporate media structure, it may provide a valuable resource for the creation of a socially-transformative public sphere" (page 228).

This seems counter intuitive to the reason I see podcasts as being successful. Poscasts must remain fragmentary and isolative to avoid being too broad based and too corporate/advertising media controlled to be effective.

Another point (page 223), "While the increased connectivity of these devices seems a logical next step, it may well compromise the personal aspect of the iPod that attracted people in the first place and that served as the basis for the podcast's mode of reception." Wow - caught me off balance there - I really had assumed throughout the whole book that the increased connectivity of the iPhone was just a natural extension of the iPod and everyone appreciated it. Lombardo actually lays the foundations for a good point here however, in that the untraceable, disconnectedness of listening/viewing a podcast may be one of its most important characteristics. Maybe not in the USA today, but possibly in China, Iran or even the Philippines this may matter much more than I would have presumed before reading this chapter.

Seventeenth Chapter … Regina Arnold, “Podcrastination”

Hey – I liked this one. Not only was the title unique and appropriate, but the article had citations and structure and the uninhibited nature of Regina Arnold’s writing was refreshing. She called Neil Postman a grumpy man and Theodor Adorno a known sourpuss (she would probably be equally unflattering in her analysis of some of my cynical postings).

We are enslaved, “we are tools of our tools,” and there is a depersonalization that has become evident through use of mobile devices. Arnold defines Podcrastination as “the voluntary suspension of one’s engagement with reality.” Even though we reason that by time shifting tasks by using automated processes, we have attained a certain degree of freedom, we are actually ever more enslaved because we have become dependent upon that time shifting to make it through the day.

I had not considered the etymology of the term ‘podcast’ as she describes it, to a specific group, like a pod of whales, rather than to the world at large, a broadcast. I would really enjoy the opportunity to discuss her vision of the podcast that can provide a platform for a more participatory culture. She discusses text messaging and smart mobs but is convinced that the automatically downloadable aspect of the podcast is superior. Apparently this was written before the real emergence of Twitter, which takes the convenience and accessibility of a simple text message and combines it with the directed auto-downloading features touted by Arnold.

Arnold saw iTunesU as a potential overthrower of the social order, but it has had less of an impact than was predicted and she says that there is evidence that we will never use the “conventional consciousness industry” for any enlightening purpose but I think that is starting to emerge. A follow up article or interview would be interesting.

Sixteenth Chapter … Librivox Volunteers, “Quantitative and Qualitative Change”

Very interesting transcript of an on-air interview, beginning with the “free-as-in-speech” metaphor verses the “free-as-in-beer” concept. I have an interest in the intellectual property debate and Wittkower’s position that copyright rules create an artificial monopoly and are based upon outdated technology makes sense.

Competition has improved technology and the method of communication and publishing is so different today from what it was say two hundred years ago that the same rules no longer apply. It no longer takes a massive amount of labor and substantial capital to produce mass quantities of printed material. The average Westerner (nice that Wittkower differentiates from the average worker) can publish an original work in a matter of seconds and mass distribute around the globe equally fast with no significant additional capital for each subsequent transmission. Once she has purchased the original communications device and connected to a transmission protocol service purchasing dies, paper, typesetting, ink, transportation and related printing costs are optional.
The question seems to be that since her losses are smaller than they would have been had she spent a year’s productivity preparing the document for print only to have the market seized by larger printer who could undercut the price and duplicate the content without paying her anything, have her rights been infringed upon less?

Regarding the “semi-commitment” attitude that lowers the bar for entry into things that interest you, it has positive and negative points. I assume everybody has heard the one about the chicken and the hog who were discussing honoring the farmer with a quality breakfast … the chicken thought she was making a major contribution by providing the eggs until she realized what the hog had to do to provide bacon. There is a place for both ham and eggs. This article is a few minutes and ding, it is off and published. The author who dedicates years of extensive research and hones each and every phrase to perfection should be awarded more substantial rights -but how can the works be differentiated and is it ever "right" to have a sliding scale of justice? Who decides using what criteria?

The conversation shifts to Robert D. Putnam’s “Bowling Alone” book and the decrease in involvement with social and non-political organizations and its effect upon neighborhoods. Technology has provided a personal isolationism and a general movement away from a dictated culture. The ensuing discussion of consumerism, illegal art, commercial gain, ownership and public domain was interesting but non-conclusive. Ownership, privacy, community, action and justice ask complex questions and there are no simple answers, especially in a capitalistic based society that values individual thought, labor and at least pays lip service to protecting individual rights.

Fifteenth Chapter … Matthew Dewey, “The Shins Really Will Change Your Life”

This article is reminiscent of the Blobject article in Chapter Two in that it states that “in the iPod there has been a perfect mix or harmony of function and design” (page 181). The John Dewey quote under the iAsthetics heading was intriguing; the experiences which result in a “consummation and not a cessation” are so much more fulfilling and meaningful. They can produce new understanding and direction as Mathew Dewey mentions.

How this results in, or is opposed to John Dewey’s (confusing having an author quote someone more famous with same last name – makes you wonder if they are related?) Participatory Democracy is obtuse reasoning. Interesting points but the aesthetic experience, legal ramifications and “new” were somewhat convoluted and difficult for me to follow.

“The beauty of an iPhone is ….” Would make an interesting piece, similar to Preston Wilcox’s “White Is …” mentioned in Chapter Nine, how many possibilities could be envisioned (and how out of date would it be by the time it was printed?)

Fourteenth Chapter … Ruud Kaulingfreks and Samantha Warren, “Mobile Clubbing: iPod, Solitude, and Community”

This chapter reminded me of Richard Brautigan and his ‘there is nothing worse than being alone except wishing you were’ philosophy (may be too old for any of the readers of this blog) expanding to the “Being in common has nothing to do with communion” (page 176) and Jean-Luc Nancy’s inoperative communities where we combine solitude with some vague sense of passive community.

I have trouble associating with the “shared purpose” of the entertainment only/personal expression/rebellious nature form of expression mobile clubbing concept, but the flashmob and social justice gatherings are of more interest to me, but they go significantly beyond the iPod and into other personal communication devices.

Thirteenth Chapter … Joseph C. Pitt, “Don’t Talk To Me”

“The spontaneity of the social has disappeared and the silence of the anthropoid now rules.” If only it were true! Is this supposed to be some sort of ‘Planet of the Apes’ type comparison? Maybe a year ago (but probably not) iPod had decreased aural communication, but with the arrival of the multitude of web accessible handheld devices the explosive increase in the number of communications in Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites is “deafening.” The amount of noise and useless chatter can overwhelm the “important” messages (define as what matters to me rather than what matters to you). Seriously, few people care what Actress A ate for lunch or where Personality B is driving at this moment, but we may see governments change when people gather here or there or get censored messages past the authorities to be broadcast to a vast audience.

Do iPod users as a whole avoid eye contact, ignore social etiquette, and become more animalistic just because they have a secondary sound source strapped to their ears? I have not seen any scientific evidence on that, personal experience says the students who work in our department have retained some semblance of civility. They acknowledge my presence when I enter the room, remove earbuds when spoken to, and communicate quite freely between themselves, frequently with only one bud in and one open.

“The iPod itself is a piece of technology. As a piece of technology it’s neither right nor wrong, good nor bad” (Page 162). Can its use have consequences? Of course. Can you create a haven that extends your quality of life? Perhaps. Can you use it to enhance your relationship with others (usually more distant)? Perhaps. Could it be used to teach courtesy and respect? Doubtful, but not impossible.

The point about diminishing social skills to the point of being detrimental to job seekers seemed a bit melodramatic to me. Possible, yes – an interesting chapter but not a well written objective academic piece by any stretch.

Twelfth Chapter … Donald L. Turner, “Listening with the Other; Listening to the Other”

If several of the other articles were a little too excited in favor of the iPod, this article helped balance the effect by being almost paranoid of the “awesome and dangerous powers of that little machine.” Emanuelis Levinas quote of Blaise Pascal in describing the “beginning of immorality as the self’s declaration of possession” page 149 is even more effective following Dumitrica’s “The iPod is about me, about my experiences, my time management, my preferences” from the previous chapter.

Several people in this class joined in previous discussions on Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” and it was interesting to see how her adamant claims are gently absorbed into iPod culture. The iPod may simply be a means of expediting obtaining knowledge about a person, an encapsulated version (oversimplification?) of the complex forces and experiences that have shaped the unique individual which can now only be expressed through a mechanical cyborg model.

The Martin Heidegger quote on scientific observation “it takes care not to see in order to understand what it sees … but only in order to see” is ambivalent beyond human expectations. Can a human not be touched by what he sees? Not try to think beyond the visual? Not question beyond the observable? I appreciate his view on the river (page 150) but calculative thinking is symbiotically tied to meditative thinking (referenced by Condella in Chapter 8) and part of what separates the human inquisitive nature from what we consider lower life forms.

Eleventh Chapter … Delia Dumitrica, “You Are Your iPod!”

This chapter opens with the question, “Ever wonder what the person next to you is listening to on their iPod?” and unfortunately, the only thoughts I had were the few times I have been next to someone for a length of time who insisted on singing along with the music only he could hear. However, since I enjoy reading Foucault and about his thoughts, the rest of the article was pleasant. Our identity is always under construction, constantly changing, being acted upon by numerous forces. How do we construct our selves? Were does the self fit in reality? What level of agency do we possess and how much are we (pre)determined by external forces?

When we consider the iPod to be a technology of the self, it is suddenly much more interesting to me than a music archival system. Could an iPod actual assist a person in leading an exemplary life? If the iPod or iPhone records and identifies the self, a diary style interrogation of the soul, a sharable but presumably private expression of likes, dislikes, thoughts and motives, then the playlist of that persons life may show which culture they have bought into. Are all the songs mainstream top 40 commercially created artists or is there an independent streak of defiant, protesting the issue de jour awareness content? Is there a model self? Whose propaganda would the model self’s iPod contain?

Dumitrica states on page 136-137 “These devices talk about what we deem as important…” Personification that I appreciate; this is how some have found their voice. But the voice Dumitrica offers is very self centered: “The iPod is about me, about my experiences, my time management, my preferences. It separates me from the social world in which my body is present. It signifies a state of being to this world: I am present, but I am with myself. No intrusions, please!”

The technological tool she describes utilizes a dividing practice, much more a separator than a unifier. The discussion about separating the unfit until cured was almost chilling and the closing comments on becoming a work of art was entirely too brief to be effective. Getting joy out of showing Dad your calendar is not my standard definition of art.

Tenth Chapter … Andrew Hickey, “iCon of a Generation”

“We live in an era in which the image assumes ever more currency and the real increasingly follows behind” (page 115). iDentity and the iPod as a marker of social context., the new definition of youth, coolness and affluence are all interesting thoughts. I don’t know if any of these things define the user/owner/customizer of the iPod or are just clues and examples about how she chooses to interact with technology.

Youthfulness is more than a simple age demarcation (page 126) is becoming increasingly obvious to me. But it is also not 100% separated from chronological age either.

Hickey does mention agency and that not everybody is a product of mass consumerism. Some can and do re-appropriate cultural trends and demands and look beyond the implied images and make thoughtful decisions. But his primary emphasis is on the iPod “telling us” who we are.

Ninth Chapter … Jon Austin, “The Unbeatable Whiteness of the iPod”

Okay, when I heard part of the discussion about this chapter (again before I received my copy) I was questioning whether this was being expressed humorously or as a significant race issue. Reading through the chapter I am still somewhat perplexed by how far to take the thought.

Appearance – yes, some of the first iPods were that pristine white, my iPhone is white (but it is protected within a black leather case). But subsequent versions, especially of the Shuffle were every color imaginable.

Users – the developers and initial purchasers of iPods may have been primarily of Caucasian descent, but when I look around for those infamous white cords, I see a diversity of ethnic, social, religious and financial backgrounds. Much like my take on commodification and reification from Chapter 4, some of these perspectives are more difficult for me to see being immersed within this specific primarily white, very capitalistic, geographically isolated population. Is there really “an unthinking assumption of superiority claimed by and ascribed to the white West”? (page 103). Is there an implied connection between goodness and morality – or was the color selection a marketing decision and advertising campaign selected with minimal consideration of epitomizing or degrading any racial or ethnic population (Wolfenstein’s “epidermal fetishism” or racism page 110)? Whoever developed and marketed the first “skins” may not have been as neutral in their attitude, but without researching that extensively, I don’t believe Apple was involved directly – more likely Griffin or an independent, but in my isolated white world, I pictured skins as the tiger and zebra striped wraps I noticed; not as an ethnic jab.

I did like some of the word selections Austin employed, cognoscenti, simultaneous consumption, lifestyle transfusion apparatus, imaginative geographies, politics of representation, etc.

One thought regarding the final subtitle, Playlisting the iPod: White Soul – since I was not familiar with any of the titles Austin mentioned, I wanted to mention that since the original iPods that did not show album covers, videos or anything other than audio and text which may have helped expand the audience and acceptance for a whole generation. I appreciated the music of several individuals and groups that had clever or catchy names for their tracks that I would never have listened to had I seen their cover art or their pictures. I am prejudiced when it comes to excessive tattoos or piercings or inflammatory graphics and being ignorant of the artist’s appearance and background I listened with an accepting attitude to the actual music and judged it according to those standards, not preconceived appearance based expectations.

Eigth Chapter … Craig A. Condella, “iPod Therefore iAm”

Wow… a soundtrack for our lives leading to the most question of our time – how we handle technology. Tying in with the last chapter and the specific applicability for specific periods of quiet, meditative thought as well as calculative thought and the seeming impossibility of finding enough time and adding the constant availability of iPod type devices was presented well. Shower thinking – in the quiet solitude was good enough for a whole series of commercials, so when Condella quotes Heidegger and arrives at a definition of the shower as one of the few places where we find ourselves alone and with our own thoughts and therefore that is precisely where what little meditative thought we engage in occurs makes sense.

Remoteness and homelessness – not as a sign of poverty but as a result of a specific type of wealth – is an interesting perspective. Having devices that bring the familiar to wherever we are, and customizing the familiar so specifically that nobody else’s environment is quite the same as yours does produce a specific type of isolation or homelessness that is rapidly escalating in prevalence. What is still lacking is a communal homeland, a specific camaraderie that transcends location that does not isolate one from locality but seeks to familiarize the traveler/nomad/technologist with other location based individuals with a similar basis for belonging.

Then, like the yoga pre-session meditation, the technological tool could become the focus of building community, not isolation. The GPS based applications of iPhone that can locate people or places may rapidly change this concept as the general public becomes more aware and more willing to adopt their offerings.

Seventh Chapter … Daniel Sturgis, “Today’s Cheaters, Tomorrow’s Visionaries”

This is another good discussion around the iPod (and iPhone and other future devices by inference) as an important educational instrument. The comparison between traditional and asynchronous podcast style classes seemed somewhat dated, now that synchronous online class options are so much more prevalent.

The points about auditory learning styles and combination learning styles are quite relevant however. Sometimes the full immersion new alternatives do actually seem to interfere with the potential of the mentioned “theater of the mind” capacity. A focus on the audio only has a magical appeal that incorporates imagination in a way that video or dimensional immersion does not allow. Last semester we explored Second Life pedagogy and while it has its place, it demonstrated that pure text, pure audio and other combinations have their specific place as well. The incremental benefit of listening to podcasts in addition to written text seems quite positive.

The most significant portion of this chapter in my opinion was the differentiation between memorization and education on how to utilize technology to access information. Pg 82 – “To free learning from memory is also to free it from a focus on self reliance – the value of knowing it yourself.” Collaborative efforts and information filtering appear to be much more important in the future than memorization. We may be on the brink of systematically redefining the ultimate goals of learning.

Sixth Chapter … Scott F. Parker, “Philosophy by iPod”

Great chapter. Opening couple of pages about benefits of iPod in foreign country while using treadmill but the balance is a very well written discussion about the benefits of Philosophipod and the democratization of media and the (nearly) universal access to philosophy. Whether or not this universal access is a threat to academia or a desired outgrowth remains to be seen. Parker brings up great topics of authority, interactivity, version control, objectivity, etc.

Fifth Chapter by Librivox Volunteers, “Philosophy Audiobooks?”

Quoting from the back cover of the book, Dylan E. Wittkower has recorded numerous texts that can be downloaded from LibriVox.org.

Visiting the site, you can subscribe to D.E. Wittkower, ed.. "On the Popular Judgment: That may be Right in Theory, but does not Hold Good in the Praxis" by Immanuel Kant in a “Chapter a day” iTunes format, download a single zip file of his recitation of the entire work, or listen to individual chapter mp3’s with 64kbps or 128kbps download options.

Scott F. Parker and I may be the exceptions to the rule, but my iPod has very few music tracks. I have several audio books, many sermons and studies and dramatized readings and other audio files. I am not an avid music listener; therefore my world does not revolve around an iPod playlist.

I also hope many additional titles, including textbooks and philosophy books become readily available through programs such as LibriVox.org and while I really appreciate Wittkower’s perfect enunciation and careful reading of the Kant text – I feel compelled to mention that his recitation is boring. Some of the other readers I sampled from this site were much more lively and nearly as clear. Back to chapter two – there has to be some coming together of aesthetics and efficiency for optimal results.

Fourth Chapter … Peter D. Schaefer, “Alive and Clicking”

Relates back to Rehn’s first chapter. Page 42 “… there’s a fine line between personalization and personification.”

Commodification is not inherently evil or oppressive. Easy for me to say that from this side of the capitalist economic rift, but I do believe it. The whole issue of reification or thingification is intriguing. “Marx uses the term “reification” to refer to the way that the market tends to make us reduce people and workers to mere labor-power, while, at the same time, we begin to see human, life-like qualities in manufactured products.” Page 45, but as Schaefer makes clear (Page 50) “The modern world is a reified world and we can imagine no other.”

I will revisit some of the dehumanizing aspects of commodity production at a later time. Not an easy, comfortable point to casually toss around.

Third Chapter … Andrew Wells Garnar, “Don’t Delete These Memories: The iPod and Materiality”

Garnar states his credentials on page 31. “The sheer number of CDs serves to make clear I take my music seriously.” Okay, then if ownership, possession and unrealistic quantities are your criteria for level of involvement – why am I not surprised that you are writing about materiality and that your whole self-image equates to economic materialistic control. Not an unbiased observer.

His slant on iPods powerful effect on establishing non-linearalness in the thought process was well written. The tactile, ownership, physical manipulation, categorizing and obsessive behavior was wasted on me. Every object has its stack. Every stack has its opportunity to someday be looked at seriously and then discarded or restacked. My wife makes me rent an office a few blocks from the house because she cannot handle my level of organization, or lack thereof. The right amount of space is crucial to a healthy relationship… as is the plurality of media (trying to segue my digression back on topic).

I did appreciate “the tendency to place the lower-case letter “I” in front of a word to indicate a move away from “the real world” to something virtual, electronic, digital, based in information or how-ever-else-you-want-to-describe-it.” I wish he had taken one step further and discussed the obvious self-centeredness involved with this virtual world and away from the communal based ‘real world.’

Second Chapter … Francis Raven, “The Moment of the Blobject Has Passed”

Not having received my book until after the second class, I was at a loss for most of the conversation about Blobjects. I missed out on the significance of the conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed this chapter. Again – pre-book arrival – I mentioned in a Tweet same article Joshua referenced, http://rooreynolds.com/2008/04/24/blogjects-and-tweetjects/ that discussed Blobjects and Blogjects. I was thinking strictly on a productive communication device, The text pulled me back towards the multifaceted aesthetics and design versus functionality and efficiency concept.

Lifestyle embodied within and reflected by products. Blobjects represent the best of both worlds mentality. Starting on page 23 Raven observes “The design phases of Beauty and Truth echo deeper currents in society. The philosophical poles of idealism and realism can be said to be the hidden forces behind the tides of Beauty and Truth.” If the iPod represents that penultimate balance between decoration and function, introduced shortly after 9/11, establishing itself as a new icon of all encompassing minimalism, then we don’t have to compromise between (possibly even differentiate between?) truth and beauty.

On to the First Chapter… Alf Rehn, “Wittgenstein’s iPod, or, The Familiar among Us.”

Familiarity, familiarization, family relatedness, beyond intuitive to the point of synchronization of thought to the point where the absurd is so natural and logical that it is accepted without question (back to Odysseus). Safari 4.0 has a Top Site display, Cover Flow and other new browser options are totally alien and impossible in the physical world but seem perfectly natural in a digital environment.

Two quotes on pages 9 and 10 caught my attention: “… ready-made familiarity seems to make the world more distant and unimportant… we have created ways of looking at the world within which the iPod stands as a symbol through which we can understand things. Many things.”

These introduce the section on self and agency. Who is doing the training? Do you load things into your iPod so that it learns your style and what you like or does it recommend related songs to make you more general, predictable, normalitive so that in what you perceive as unique and customized you are actually finely analyzed and controlled? Page 13 “… it questions exactly who is getting familiar with whom. “

iPod and Philosophy

My initial thoughts while reading selections from iPod And Philosophy; iCon of an ePoch edited by D. E. Wittkower ran every possible direction. An organized study on lifestyle, thought process, belonging, racism, community, identity, change and motivation all centered around a consumable intangible mass produced object.

But many of the readings were well done; they affirmed the viability of the product to give value, meaning and identity to life – at least as a method of archiving, expressing or analyzing those emotionally laden terms.

The title of the introduction caught my fancy much better than the title of the book did. “What do we hear when we listen to our iPods” subtly speaks past the obvious; what we hear and discern is much more than the audible relaying of digital tracks saved to another electronic medium. I had not considered an iPod as a method of creating, building or defining a relationship in any plausible way so the discussion of how an iProduct can condition its owner (caregiver, human partner, imprinter, or other term may end up applying by the time I finish the reading based upon first two articles) in a manner that both limits exposure and enables common ground was intriguing.

Page xiii was the analogy with Odysseus and the question:

Which are we? Are we Odysseus, who hears the voice of the other, distant, disconnected from action, unable to go meet them, but aware of the compulsion to do so? Or do we silence the other, in order that we are able to move forward, to act, and to participate in our day-to-day re-creation of our society through our mere consumption?

Wittkower then offers insight into his response, and assumes the reader automatically agrees when he states, “How can we bridge the gap? How can we become Odysseus unbound?

My reaction to that was an emphatic ‘Why would we want to become Odysseus unbound?’ Those who heard the Sirens and were allowed to act went raving mad. Their sound created a self-destructive obsessive and illogical pattern of behavior that would not be desirable in the least!