so much of what we’ve read about so far is old, semi-unfamiliar technology and interfaces that seem hard to picture because they’ve been displaced by so many other fancier, newer applications. but MOOs are a thing I actually have used and remember– some online classes at Texas Tech still use them, or at least they did in 2012. they were fun. chatroom-esque. handy transcripts of entire class periods.

would a MOO still seem like “a brave new world” to students today? One like Daisley describes here?  “when one first encounters the world of computer conferencing, it is a brave new unknown world where language is the only available tool for separating the murky waters from the seemingly stable land” (113). I don’t know if chatrooms are a thing kids these days are into, or if they would feel like a murky, unfamiliar communicational landscape. twitter and facebook and all the mobile social media do have a very, very different vibe to them, so maybe a chatroom would seem different enough.

reading all of these pieces made me wonder if it’s specifically something in the newness of these platforms that makes them welcome/encourage such play for students (or anyone learning to work within them for the first time). is it because newness and lack of previous associations make it easier for students to just jump in? I’m not sure. there is probably more to it than that.

I’m seeing so many connections between this class and Thomas’s posthumanism class. I love when that happens, and I’m glad I happen to be taking both classes. Kolko touches on the implications of blurry internet-based collaborations in a way that make me think about posthumanism: “If there is one common theme in cyberspace scholarship, particularly that which is grounded in synchronous CMC, it is that notions of a boundaried and consistent self dissolve” (177). in digital spaces, it is very, very easy to be multiple, to code-switch and take on a range of identities.

Daisley also makes some interesting (and optimistic-ish) observations about selfhood and community: “if individuals use CMC as a tool for social interaction through language, a breakdown of boundaries between the individual-subjective self and the social-communal self will be the result. Everyone, it is presumed, will have the opportunity to be heard; everyone will have a voice” (112). is that so? maybe. there is possibly still hope for this. I love what Daisley asks about why we enjoy playing with words and concepts in debate-style contexts so much– “Is it the “winning” of a rhetorical point that produces a feeling of pleasure? Or is it– as the first example intimates–simply the feeling of connectedness, the “interacting with your fellow students”?” (112). that’s a question I want to keep coming back to.