I have never really been interested in books or print literacy, but I have always held interest in network literature. My previous experience with online literature and blogging initially led me to believe that I was in fact network literate, something that Adrian Miles, author of Network Literacy: The New Path to Knowledge and Blogs in Media Education: A Beginning, says is being able to ‘participate as a peer within the emerging knowledge networks that are now the product of the internet’. I quickly realised that I was in fact not network literate as I was only producing content, not interacting, commenting and actively contributing in the online community in which I belong. My understanding of such online interaction is that you must not only ‘write with an awareness that we are writing in the presence of other texts’ as George Landow, author of Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalisation believes, but as I have learnt, you must also contribute and interact with the other texts which are also encompassed in the wider online community. When realising that I had somewhat of a ‘block’ preventing me from being network literate, I expressed such issues and began contributing to and commenting on other posts written by peers. I also placed an emphasis on ensuring that I respected and referenced these ‘other texts’ (Landow, 2006) by turning my blog into a hypertext by linking to relative media and literacy, therefore providing my audience with the means to create their own adventure by following such links, as I explored in my week 4 blog.
I wanted to use this blogging opportunity to also challenge myself in the application of my learnings by writing from the perspective of my dog. By linking my audience to a dog-related Facebook group in my first dog blog post, in addition to adding pictures and links to other dog related blogs, I was able to complete the image of Felix for my users through this hypertext. In doing so, I am able to give my users context to my topic of discussion. Landow describes this as allowing the users to “fall in through the living-room ceiling rather than entering through the front door.”, placing them right in the middle of the story, allowing them to be surrounded by relevant content and have the chance to create their own beginning, middle and end of a hypertextual adventure, whilst also introducing them to material that may also grasp their interest.
Whilst I have blogged before, and have no trouble with writing content as I complete it as a part time job outside of my university degree, I sometimes have doubts as to whether I had lost my love for blogging. But by allowing myself to confidently interact with the work of my peers, this passion was reignited. Whilst I am not a professional blogger, and by no means completely network literate, I am working on building my skills and knowledge of the subject. As far as my blogging is concerned, in the words of Miles…“successful blogging is not something that happens in one class or even a week- just as successful writing usually takes years to develop”. I am willing to commit to such improvement.
REFERENCES
Landow, G. (2006). Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. pp 69-71, 77-85, 107-124
Miles, A. (2006) Blogs in Media Education: A Beginning. Screen Education, No. 43, 66-69.
Miles, A. (2007) Network Literacy: The New Path to Knowledge. Screen Education, No. 45. pp 24-30
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