As a final reflection for the course, I thought I would integrate one of the most fun tools that I have used in the course which is GIF creation followed by a written reflection. This course really stood out for me especially among my other core courses. I really enjoyed the experience and I would further explain it in the following reflection.

If I was asked what I learned through out the course, I would say a lot of skills and techniques but there are also a lot of things that I learned related to my understanding of the digital world and my attitude towards it. Regarding my social activity online, a lot of things were really informative in terms of understanding online communities and this is something that I really noticed especially in Soliya. I think the idea of having a social life on the digital world was never on my mind But after sharing a lot of ideas on word press and in Soliya meeting, I recognize the importance of it as it allows you to open up and to receive different views upon your opinion. This something that I really touched on in my Soliya reflection. Academically speaking, There are many new terms and vocab that I was subjected to especially in regards to topics like Surveillance capitalism and othering and these terms helped me become more aware of the issues and how can we take actions in regards to their issues. As for the assignment itself, I found many of them helpful to use in my future as an Architect and one of them was the creation of the empathy digital game. In architecture, we are always required to create scenarios for whomever going to use the building and the assignment helped me create these different scenarios that is based on the difference of the players’ personality. After feedback on the game, I realized that theses scenarios can only be strong if they have large number of variation and based on scientific research and this is something that I wish I can include in my designs in architecture to make it more inclusive and adaptive. Finally after connecting the course work, I fell like the most useful something I learned about myself is how creating reflections that helps me a lot in terms of absorbing experiences/ assignments and also to revisit subjects in an easy manner.

If I were to share my work with others, the first thing that comes to my mind is my digital literacy assignment. This is because it mainly show the essence of the course which is the different tools that you will be exposed to and also understanding how to reflect on any process. Another assignment that I would show is the Digital Literacy Campus Conversation assignment as I find the digital profile generation really good in showing the importance of the course in trying to make as well-rounded people in the digital world. Finally, I would show the digital game blog as it helps show the different content and creations we are exposed to in the course.

If I were to change anything in the course, It would be integrating the idea of the tinkering path as a more permanent element in the course. I fell that it would be fun to have a weekly small task that doesn’t require much effort but still gives you an basic understanding of a different tool. The reason why I find this useful is because sometimes you have an idea but you don’t know the tool to create it so you just give up but if your have a basic understanding of various tools when you need one of them, you would use it and learn more about it. Another thing that I would change is the distribution of the topics mainly because I sometimes forget about the earlier topics which are involved with othering and empathy. However, I think the game tie them to the end part of the semester but I also feel that it would be fun to kind of have a final topic connecting them with other topics that we learned such as the digital privacy and so on.

I think the type of person that should take this course is a person who aspire to mix between his career life and the digital world while also wanting to learn about the ethical values that he must consider in his digital presence.

I really appreciate the idea of having different choices that was offered in the course especially in the digital literacy pathway as I felt it catered for our different interest in the class. Also there isn’t really that many restriction in the way we present our ideas like in the digital game and even in this reflection which I find really liberating and allows for creativity. Also the choices that were given to us before class discussion were very useful in terms of making the class-discussion more interesting as we talked about the various choices that was offered.

Overall, I really enjoyed the course and the different aspects of it from learning about digital tools to learning about empathy and consideration fro others. However, what I most grateful for is Dr. Maha and my colleges for making the class fun and informative to be in.

References:

https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/salma18.art.blog/84

https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/salma18.art.blog/62

https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/salma18.art.blog/57

https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/salma18.art.blog/24

Honestly, at the beginning of the course, I didn’t really know that we would be learning various tools as I thought the course would be more of a theoretical course about the digital world like similar core courses I have took before. However, I really appreciate the hands-on experiences that we got from the different tools as the range of the tools’ uses was very wide.

One of the tools that I have never actually dealt with before the course is the Annotation tool offered by Hypothesis. I don’t regularly deal with literature tool in my architecture major so it was definitely something new. The stages of creating it was confusing at first but then everything was so easy especially because the platforms has a chrome extension. Normally when we read articles we are required to reflect on them or use them for research which is very beneficial but sometimes it requires a lot of time and it can seem distanced from the article itself. Therefore, I find the annotation tool very useful as it allows you to select the specific phrases that you want to highlight and comment on them. I find this really useful in terms of connecting your thoughts directly to the article which makes me more appreciative of the article itself rather than being focused on my own opinion. Another way that we integrated the annotation tool was by commenting on our colleges comments and because every comment was linked to a phrase, it was really easy to understand the context behind each opinion and have a better understanding of what the other person think. In comparison with other tools of reflection on articles like word Press, I find this tool really useful because it allows you to see the different opinions which helps in inspiration and triggering different thoughts related to the article.

The second tool that I was able to enhance my skills in was Google Slides because I only use it for group presentations. When I first saw the video tutorial on how to create a game using on google slides, I was amazed by the possibility of linking different slides to each other.I usually prefer the regular power point presentation because it has a lot more tools and different function to create a graphically good presentation But something that I have learned is that the online google slides have these extra function that aides the concept of it being an online platform. However, Linking the slides was a little bit confusing when I increased the scenario of my game, So I would love if they added like a table or a spreadsheet that allows you to easily link slides. Another thing that attracted my attention to this tool was when the slides explaining the pathways assignment was done by it. This opened my eyes into using the google slides to make my presentation more interactive, As I have this architecture course that deals with theoretical aspects and we create presentation every week but the issue is that most of the time they aren’t interactive or engaging enough so I think I can use such tool and techniques to add engagement to the presentation.

The third tool that was so fun to deal with the Assignment bank platform, as I found the idea really interesting. The website itself was a bit confusing and their were a lot of issues because when I wanted a random assignment it gives my the same assignment which was a bit disappointment. Another issue was that there were a lot of assignment that didn’t really make sense and the explanation of them was very unclear. I think issues like that can be solved using monitors but the idea itself was very nice. It mainly allowed me to learn simple skills but it is those simple skills that can allow creativity to take place. I also learned that you can create assignments which is really nice to use if I want to do a any social experiment to test people capability regarding an task or a skill which will be very useful in other core course as it is different than doing regular surveys.

Word press was a tool that we dealt with for the beginning of the semester and I didn’t know what it would offer more than just submitting the assignment on blackboard. However, through the semester I learned different elements that was useful especially because the course talk about the digital world. For starter, I learned that it is really helpful in terms of communication between the student and the instructor; for example, in the digital game it was really good in the interaction and feedback I had with my Dr.. Also the platform itself is really well designed as there were a lot of really good features such as the saving draft of the blogs.

Finally the Slack tool, I used the tool before in one of my course but we use it differently as it was mainly a place where we would submit our assignments in. In this class, it was really fun to use it in an more informal way and I was happy to learn the idea of channels. However, sometimes that channels would be confusing because it can be distracting, so I still don’t know if it is a good tool for organizing different parts of the course or just an unneeded feature. Usually in my other course, we would create a whatsapp group with our instructors and teaching assistants which do the same thing as slack. However, I think what makes slack different is that combine the whole class in one workspace which makes it easier and faster to connect with anyone in the class but a drawback that I felt was that it isn’t in my second nature to check it regularly like gmail or whatsapp. I think if google added a feature like this it would be very good as it is always a good idea to connect all your communication tools in one app or one platform.

As an overall reflection on the tools, I think someone of them were really useful as this is the first time that I used them like word press and the annotation tool. I had the realization that something that I lack is the combination with literature and the digital world as I often use the graphical aspect of the digital world only. Another thing is I realized is my enjoyment of the idea of community in the digital world and interaction that can happen as a result of well designed tools. For example; the idea of comments in the Hypothesis platform or Word press in General. I also developed different set of skills in the digital world context as I mentioned earlier; However, the attitude that I generally took away from the experience is the idea of sharing. A lot of these platforms are based on sharing your thoughts and I find this is something that I should always but in mind when dealing with these tools. As a result, I got to learn how to balance between sharing my opinion and be more aware that this opinion can be viewed by anyone.

I felt during the whole movie that there was this message that all we need to stand up for what is happening in regards to invasion of privacy which I found really interesting because I always considered, even throughout my other reflection regarding the topic, is that the issue we have regarding the privacy and data can be always solved through strict regulation that guides the companies and platforms’ algorithms. However, the movie got me thinking that what if the ones that have the authority of creating these rules are not interested about the subject enough. I felt that all the key things in the movie was there to direct the reader into questioning two main things which are our willingness to share online data and the actions we don’t take against anyone who invade our privacy. This idea of it being a movie also was logical because by creating a movie, it will have press and this press will catch the media attention which is one of the strongest ways to get people to talk about subject.

The idea of creating an online persona that is almost an digital version of you is something that is extremely highlighted in the movie especially when the main case of Cambridge Analytica was presented. The research company presented people with personality questioner via Facebook which allowed them to create data that helps them campaign for Trump based on the predictable patterns they get from the online personas. This is extremely dangerous in so many ways as in this case it helped in a political way which means that the data cannot be used only for the marketing strategies but can also be used in political and even worse ways.

I think that the movie helps us start taking about fundamental elements in regard to Surveillance capitalism and under this word lies a lot of questions that we are still not sure of its answers. It also helps raise the idea of how these platforms like Facebook become something that we cannot live without and how we should start looking at them as public platforms with rules to follow which rely align with some of the discussion that we had in class. Something that I will really think about is how to communicate in positive way to reach these rules and regulations that can help confine the algorithms generated by the companies and platforms. 

Reflection on each exercise followed by a final reflection on the whole experience

I choose to follow the twisting path because I felt that it would be interesting to mix between readings, analyzing and doing fun exercises. So I finished 4 tinkering pah assignment and one theoretical assignment. I will be analyzing each one of them and concluding with a final analysis including connection between the assignments and a reflection on the whole experience.

1. Tinkering Path one: GIF of Tarzan fight scene ( Animated GIF Assignment)

Assignment description: Make a GIF out of your favorite scene in a movie and tell why you did that scene.

From the moment I saw the option for a GIF assignment, I was sure that I will pick it because I find it very satisfying to create one . I have done a GIF before for my design courses but it was not the same way as this one which was more about telling a story through a set of frames. the movie scene/ story I wanted to tell was one of the scenes in the movie “The Legend of Tarzan”. The backstory behind the GIF was that Tarzan was having a fight after a long battle with the a strong leader of one of tribes in Africa. The reason of this battle was because the leaders’ son was killed by Tarzan years ago when Tarzan saw him killing an ape ( the ape that was a mother figure for Tarzan). The fight then continues until Tarzan and the leader talk about it in an emotional scene where the leaders said ” he was just a boy” (referring to his son when he killed the ape) and we can see the regret and sadness in both of their eyes when such phrase came out. Going back to the idea of the GIF, I was interested by two main aspects in the creation process a conceptual one and a technical one. The GIF tools only allows you to select few frames to tell your story which made me very selective when choosing the screen shots from the movie scene as I focused on the expressions that was delivered by the actors. As for the technical side, I used online sources to learn how to create the GIF using PS and then to create spacing between the frames. Overall, the experience was really helpful in understanding the composition of such type of GIF and I also learned that there are online websites that you can upload your photos in and it automatically create the GIF which I’m looking forward to use it in the future.

2.Tinkering Path two: Elon Musk Mini-Docmentary ( Video Assignment)

Assignment description: Create a mini-documentary about someone who is fascinating.

This assignment was very fun especially when I watched the product ; however, it took a longer time than I anticipated. I was excited by the idea of a short documentaries as I like documentaries a lot. I started thinking about which person should I choose and which parts of their lives do I want to highlight as the assignment stated that the video should be between 2-3 minutes. I choose to create the video on Elon Musk and I choose to highlight three main elements in his life which are the struggles he faced, the success he reached, his logic and thoughts that can help us follow such great example of hard work. I started gathering different video clips that help me deliver my message which was basically going through old and new videos of him. Then I started combining them together using IMovie. The editing part required me to adjust the sound played and which parts do I want to come first and vise versa. The experience was definitely enjoyable as it includes a lot of different aspects from coming out with a concept, gathering clips and editing. I learned a lot about the smoothness of the video after I finished it as I kept going back to edit some stuff that I found unfitting. Video editing is one of the strongest ways of creating content; however, it may feel difficult than the other ways of content creation but through out the years I found that technology and new apps makes it way easier than it used to be. IMovie is one of the examples of easy video editing which is something that I’m very pleased by.

3.Tinkering Path three: Covid-19 poster ( Visual Assignment)

Assignment description:Color splash is a technique to emphasize details- you remove all color from a photo, and then restore original color to a single object.

This assignment was relatively easy for me as I’m familiar with PS and the technical aspect of it was not as hard as the rest, so I wanted to challenge myself a bit more by creating a message of the life we live in today using this color splash technique. I first thought of the idea of how we are all focused on one thing only in these days which is Covid-19 and this aligned really well with the idea of color splash and focusing on one color only. The message that I want to deliver is that even though Covid-19 is a horrible experience for all of us and many people are suffering from it, maybe we should sometimes focus on the positives that surround us and let go of any anger towards Covid-19 . I think this is something that is really hard to achieve but trying can help us be distracted a little bit. The process of choosing the photo was very fun and I was really happy with the results because of how good the picture is which makes me grateful for the content we have on the digital world. This assignment made me realize that the editing of a photo for a strong message have to be based on both a good photo and a use of skill like PS to achieve a good result.

4.Tinkering Path four: I am Malala Book cover ( Visual Assignment)

Assignment description:Create a book cover that captures the essence of the story through the use of minimalist design/iconography.

This assignment was somehow similar to the previous one as it is also a poster that is used as a cover for a book. I wanted to do a symbolic figure of an iconic person such as Malala and I wanted to include the essence of her story through the art work itself. Firstly, I searched about the original cover and I took her silhouette as an iconic figure in itself, I then downloaded the image and started editing and drawing on it to achieve the rough texture in the silhouette to reflect the rough journey Malala has gone through. I then wanted to integrate her beautiful messages of equality so I placed smooth flowers instead of her face to represent the idea of our pasts doesn’t define us but our thoughts and souls are the ones that do define us. This exercise was also helpful in combining between the conceptual approach and the technical aspects in creating a cover of book which I’m not experienced with and it was really fun to do so.

5.Theory Path one: Spotlight(Rethinking digital ads Reflection)

As a reflection to the article, I believe that the article contain many key points and suggestion that are directed towards the idea of the value of data. I remember years ago when I was in school, there was this topic that we discussed about the power of data but at the time I was relatively young and I couldn’t really grasp the concept quite well. However, now I believe that the data is almost as important as necessities in our lives which I found very clear in the article especially at the end where they compared the food we eat with the data we choose or choose not to share. The reason why I believe in the power of it is because the idea of Algorithm which is discussed in the article as tool which predicts the users activity and interest based on statistical correlations and this all because of the idea of AI. We have always said that the AI would never reach the human pure intelligence and creativity but what has always been scary about it is the idea of its capacity of collecting data and predication that no human can do. So what if this power was combined in a negative way with the human power. This is were the idea of ” obsession with measuring results” comes as mentioned in the article, the digital ads are becoming more than the idea of money spent on prints and quality of ads but more about data collection. If we think from their point of view, we would find that data collection is the short cut for reaching a user that is interested in your product like why bother creating a huge expensive ad that a few interested people might see while you can just selectively pick people ( who are interested) to view it. Now this is why I always have a conflict in my thoughts about the issue because I try to think from their point of view and I find it kind of logical because there is not enough regulation regarding the issue. I believe in rules and regulation more than anything because the define anything and restrict and I find the article really good in showing the idea of regulation when it first proposed the idea of “Surveillance capitalism” and the organization of ranking digital rights. What I learned from the article is that the communication and decision making are the key to set these regulation which will help us reach disclosure regarding the subject. Another aspect that caught my attention in article was the idea of legally compelling the companies with secrecy of our data like we do with doctors and lawyers. However, I wish the article would have dived more in what are the parameters that we will use to reach these decisions and regulation. It feel that the clarity is one of the most important aspect regarding the data and companies or apps should not lie about what data they collect and people should be clear with themselves that anything they post online might be taken by these companies until we reach full clear regulation and rules. In summary, I think that vagueness is the main issue and I feel like we should stop blaming companies but rather start regulating them so then we would know who is really breaking the law and who isn’t.

Collective Reflection:

I’m really glad I did the twisting path because of the variety of choices I had. The assignments of the Tinkering path were driven towards the creative use of the digital world which helped in opening my eyes towards how to mix between tools, online data and messages I want to deliver. However, their was something I noticed when I reflected on the process is that I tend to use the tools that I’ m most comfortable with instead of trying to find new ways of doing the tasks which would have made it much more interesting. I think this is something that I always have to keep in my mind because the digital world is always in constant development, so it is important to keep updated to work is a smarter way when approaching a task . As for the Theory path, it was similar to what we did earlier in the course ( analyzing articles and reflecting on them) but it was helpful in terms of comparing it with the tinkering path and the article itself was very rich. The main difference between the path ways is the idea of producing date/ideas and receiving them; However, the main link is the idea of reflection in regarding to the digital world and what it offers to use from tools to information and ideas and this we should always be grateful for.

References:

Tarzan Gif:“AnimatedGIF Assignments.” Assignment Bank, assignments.ds106.us/assignments/gif-for-a-reason/.

“The Legend Of Tarzan – Bmonga Vs Tarzan Fight Scene.” Youtube, 14 May 2017, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek8_iiEIpfE.

Elon Musk Mini-Documentary: “Elon Musk: Work Twice as Hard as Others.” Youtube, 9 Aug. 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtaxU6DZvLs.

“Elon Musk CRYING While Seeing Falcon Heavy Launch ! |MUST WATCH|.” Youtube, 11 Feb. 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0MOVDTndB4.

“Elon Musk Biography.” Biography, 4 Apr. 2018, http://www.biography.com/business-figure/elon-musk.

“2012: SpaceX: Elon Musk’s Race to Space.” Youtube, 10 Dec. 2018, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23GzpbNUyI4.

“Talking Tech with Elon Musk!” Youtube, 17 Aug. 2018, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MevKTPN4ozw.

“Video Assignments.” Assignment Bank, assignments.ds106.us/assignments/mini-documentary/.

“Watch Elon Musk Announce the Tesla Cybertruck in 14 Minutes.” Youtube, 21 Nov. 2019, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=464puoD09dM.

Corona virus Poster: unsplash.com/photos/1xT5Yz2Am0M.

“Visual Assignments.” Assignment Bank, assignments.ds106.us/assignments/splash-the-color/.

I am Malala cover: “Design Assignments .” Assignment Bank, assignments.ds106.us/assignments/minimalist-book-covers/.

Spotlight(Rethinking digital ads Reflection):“Spotlight: Rethinking Digital Ads.” Internet Health Report, Apr. 2019, internethealthreport.org/2019/rethinking-digital-ads/.

The topic of Information Equity is definitely something that I am not subjected to very often and this allowed me to highlight some of the important aspects of it in the article. The idea of connecting both the personal agency and social capital as fundamental aspects of information Equality was very informative. As the information helps us create our future and decisions which makes my think about how the information equity must be present in individuals lives early on. According to the article social capital plays an important role in creating a network with groups of people that may be beneficial to you and your journey. I think this aspect can be very useful when you reach out to people for connection or help;however, a negative side to it is the idea of negative social climbing where individuals use the information to use other individuals for their own gain. Another important aspect of information equity is the quality of the information itself. This means that more supervision is needed on the information that is passed around especially information related to laws. This aspect is really important in a context like an Egyptian context, a lot of information sources that we have in Egypt is not entirely reliable and the fact that most people aren’t aware of its lack of reliability is what makes it dangerous. This was shown vividly in the latest corona virus related news and information, as people believed what they saw right away without really digging into whether it is true or not. Another thing that I think Egypt lack in terms of information equity is the idea of law awareness, the general information on law among individuals is extremely law and this is due to the uncertainty in the real application of some aspects the law. This is really dangerous because a lot of people are needing this knowledge to obtain their rights.

Citation:

“Chapter 6 – Information Equity.” Libraries, open.lib.umn.edu/designequity/chapter/chapter-6-information-equity/.

I will start of by saying that I started off the Soliya experience without any former experience  in online communication based platforms. I understood that Soliya was a part of my course; however, when we started signing in for our accounts and desired meeting times, it was all new to me. I remember that our course instructor told us before you started the sessions, that this year might be a suitable year for us to do activities like Soliya because of the corona virus and the online direction that all institutions had taken. This was one of the reasons that made me more interested as I thought that the online group will have something in common to talk about. I feared entering the session because I really didn’t know how the flow of the topics was going to be and whether there would be misunderstandings between the cultures or silent pauses because we don’t really know each other before we start the sessions. Throughout the journey, I was surprised by a lot of things not only about Soliya but also about online communication.

One of the things that I find really unique in Soliya is the fact that you are clueless of who are you going to communicate with and the idea of a facilitator. The idea of randomly generating groups from different parts of the world with no restriction, allowed my group to be diverse which meets the goal of Soliya. As I mentioned earlier the corona virus allowed me and my group to have a huge common part of our lives which made the topics a lot richer. Linking that with how the group was diverse, the group allowed me to understand the situation of a common global issue from very different perspectives and also how different countries deal with it differently. As for the idea of assigning the groups a facilitator, I find it really successful because it allows the conversation to meet with many important aspects like: allowing everyone to talk, prevent silent pauses, help us generate ideas, gives us topics to talk about and guide us through the process. Moreover, the facilitator doesn’t only allow the conversation to run smoothly but he tries to not impose his ideas on the topics we discuss which is the key difference between a facilitator and an instructor.

The experience also allowed me to reflect on myself in terms how I use a platform like Soilya and how do I engage in the digital world. At the beginning when I joined the site, I was surprised by the strength of the community. I was always familiar or even close to communities formed in the digital world because they have a certain common interest, but I have never entered a community that does the opposite ( people enter the community for the sake of communication which then allows them to find common interests). If I allowed myself to think about how I consume social media, I would find out that I always communicate to my close friend group but rarely communicate with my other friends that I don’t have anything in common with them anymore. I believe that the idea of common interest is one of the main aspects of creating a “safe zone in communication” and it is always hard to break free from this safe zone. So this is something that affect my engagement in the digital world and I guess platforms like Soliya, helps you break free from your safe zones.

The idea of online communication was becoming more clear to me when I attended two online conference (related to my course) and started comparing them to Soliya. The first conference I attended was composed of a number of instructors that brought there students into a conversation discussing “The wellbeing during Covid 19”. Even though the group was larger than Soliya’s, there were many times where I felt really included. I think this is due to the fact that the instructors are familiar with each other and this allowed them to be more free and to crack jokes in the discussion. This made me realize that the mood of the online communication need to be more free and less controlled which is something that I struggled with when using the mic tool in Soliya. The fact that people couldn’t freely have spontaneous responses but rather wait for their turn, made the conversation sometimes feel systematic. However, regarding the idea of familiarity in Soliya, the second session was a lot more natural because we were familiar with each other and it was a lot more interesting and engaging than the first one and made the conversations more rich. As for the second conference that I attended, it was composed of a group with a large larger number of individuals but it was more of an informative conference where instructors share their thoughts on the idea of “caring for students”. Even though, the number of the group didn’t allow verbal communication, the use of other tools like: group chat and annotations was making the conference a lot more inclusive. In my Soilya sessions, we used the group chat a lot when we wanted to comment on a topic that someone was discussing verbally. This allowed us to have a more natural flow in the conversations. Another element that we used in Soliya which made the sessions more inclusive, is the breakout rooms that allowed the presence of more intimacy in the topic discussions.  

I have always believed that we as humans appreciate the face-to-face interactions more than online communication; however, I have realized over the years and after these sessions, that the online communication can help support this face-to-face interactions when we direct it towards a positive direction like: cross-cultural understanding, creating communities, building up social skills, overcoming social anxiety. However, This positive direction must be supported by the right tools, innovative ideas and individual engagement. What I mean by tool is to include technical tools the ensure inclusiveness in the discussion like: the breakout rooms, chat boxes and annotation. As for the innovative ideas, there is always rooms to make things better and I think these ideas should come from people that are using the platform. This why I think the continuous feedback that Soliya offers is very successful. Lastly, I think the people are the ones who actually control the successfulness of the conversation. I got really lucky with my group as I felt that we all are generally looking forward to learn from the other; however, I know that some of my colleagues, in other groups, didn’t really enjoy the experience because of their groups. I think that when it comes stimulating excitement in people, awareness of the direction of the online communication is needed. Also creating a user friendly site and tools that make sure to balance between not overwhelming the user and allow them to be excited to start their online journey.

Main Idea:

The idea of the game is to present a story-line of a character to the player and allow the players to control the character’s life. The main aim of the game is to allow the character to follow his passion despite the challenges and the pressure of the society he might face. The reason why this game can be useful is because it can help us reflect on our daily decision and take actions when we fell that we are drifting away from our passion and interests. 

The methodology of the game starts by letting the player choose which stage to edit in the character life ( 10 years old, 16 years old, 35 years old and 70 years old). Each age stage has its own set of challenges that follows these keywords: desires, money, career, future and risk. The player then either win or lose the game and when the player win the game, he achieves a mini game ( which reflect the joyfulness feel we have when we follow our passion).

Game Link:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NHkdgdMAM0RIdGTMwa2yH5Q0QJcCh-9_-nyzDMyLl90/edit?usp=sharing

Reflection regarding the process:

When I took feedback from my instructor and my colleges there was a common comment about how the game was short and seems disconnected . I think this happened due to the fact that I divided the game into 4 pathways for each age stage, but because I wanted the players to choose which age to go through, I didn’t want to remove this option. However, I then connected it with adding the option of continuing from one stage to the other (meaning if you won in stage one you can continue to stage 2). Another thing that affected the length of the game was the narrative itself which made me realize that I have to take a step back and focus on the main narrative of every age stage and try to connect between those narrative. I tried to have different sub-narrative throughout the game and then I re-did the paths and added the thought process of the narrative at the end as a reference.

If I had more time in the game, I would definitely add more scenarios that capture scientific data because it was really hard to find good sources with scientific analysis and data regarding an topic such as passion. I would have done more surveys and interviews myself to have a better and an un-biased opinion regarding the topic and it would have been also more useful than the online data because all the data that I found were based on people from different cultures. I really think that culture plays a huge role in the idea of following passion especially in Egypt.

The process was definitely challenging and informative for various reasons as each process helped in learning a different aspect from picking a concept to finding resources to building a narrative and make the game engaging visually and content wise. Choosing a concept was hard because I felt that game need to be specific because with specific games comes a specific goal and this is something that I found really interesting when I was reflecting on other games before designing the game. As for finding resources, I learned that if you cannot find enough resources, it is always a good idea to do surveys yourself. I did two interviews at the beginning for the research but after going through the design of the game, I figured out that a survey would have aided me more. Regarding the narrative, I felt that it is the fundamental aspect in any game meaning that if you have a good narrative the game would just build itself. As I mentioned before, I struggled a little bit in the narrative but after trails, I am satisfied with the results and building a narrative is something that will be easier with practice. Finally, the engagement part of the game was really important for me because I felt that a game doesn’t go without an engagement aspect. This is when I came up with the idea of a mini-game that can act like a challenge so that the users become more eager to finish the game. Overall, the experience was very different than any other assignment and I learned a lot about the technicalities of creating a game using digital tool and also about how to create a narrative and a story to your game.

References:

“EIGHTY-FOUR PERCENT OF YOUNG PEOPLE NOT PURSUING THEIR PASSIONS.” What Next , 11 Aug. 2016, www.whatcareerlive.co.uk/advice/eightyfour-percent-of-young-people-not-pursuing-their-passions.

Hess, Abigail. “Stanford Researchers: ‘Follow Your Passion’ Advice Could Make You Less Successful.” CNBC, 26 June 2018, www.cnbc.com/2018/06/22/stanford-researchers-following-your-passion-makes-you-less-successful.html.

https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/salma18.art.blog/50

https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/salma18.art.blog/54

The idea of the game was to allow the users to intervene in the character’s life to later on reflect on his/her own life. We often feel that we can’t control the life we live in and this is not necessarily the case. The society can pressure us for following specific patterns but at the end of the day, the individual is the one who can shape his reality. 

The game allows the user to choose from different stages in the character life to emphasize on the idea of age and how we can always believe that it is never too late and to also guide the next generations into an easier life. The games then includes several choices that allow the character to either fulfill his passion needs or not.

Game Link:https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NHkdgdMAM0RIdGTMwa2yH5Q0QJcCh-9_-nyzDMyLl90/edit?usp=sharing

After playing the 2 games (Spent and Syrian refugee) in class and having a discussion about them and then continuing to play 4 other games ( Orphans by heart, Street-sweepers, Liyla and Project Honduras), I felt that there are some variables that resonate with me in terms of how much I enjoyed and benefited from the game. These variables are mainly the end goal of the game and engagement level. I found that the clearer the end goal of the game is the more I fell engaged and submerged in the game and this affect how I resonate with the topic and how much do I understand the situation or emphasize with it. To elaborate more, I will discuss these variables in each game to help my reach a reflection at the end of how can a game engage the audience.

1^st: Spent ( Game about emphasizing with poverty)

I found that playing a winning or losing game was really beneficial in making me more interested in the situation and actually pause before I answer the questions. The game was mainly directed towards saving the money and it was really engaging to the point in which at the end of the game I was worried about the few dollars and huge loans I have ; even though, I won the game. However, when we discussed the game in class, someone mentioned that it would be more realistic if there was a stress meter or indication of the character’s mental health. I think this really would have put few more dimensions in the game and helps us empathize more as our mental health completely affect our productivity.

2^nd: Syrian Refugee ( a Syrian refugee trying to escape)

The game was different in terms of its sense of adventure and the way it is illustrated. I find that how it is displayed really made me more directed towards taking the risks and exploring. It was also giving a lot of space for imagination as it is narrated like a story. However, I found later on after playing the game Liyla ( that I will discuss below), that perhaps this sense of adventure was not the most realistic as the goal was more about emphasizing with the decisions that refugee have to make in order to survive.

3^rd: Lilya ( about the survival of the Palestinian people)

The idea of involving a game play was really good and really supports the goal of survival. The game was displayed in a way that reflects the reality in terms of colors, character design and events. this games was one of the best games for me in terms of empathizing with the characters as it felt like a journey of survival. Also the addition of details like having a slow pace game to reflected the slowly painful reality, the reflection at the end with informative data on the situation really made it feel real. There was also this part where the child asked her father to play with other kids and then this later on led to her death. I think this part was really successful as it showed how hard simple decisions could be for them.

4^th :Orphans by heart ( about daily life of orphans)

This game is the part where I felt the importance of having an end goal as there was not something to reach at the end so it was more of an informative game. I find the informative part was successful when it keeps comparing between your life and the character’s life like when the game started comparing different aspects from my life like career, school and feeling I go through to the orphans. However, the game was missing the engagement element as the answers I give did not really change the response which unconsciously makes me less thoughtful about my answers.

5^th: Street Sweeper ( about emphasizing with street sweepers)

I found it really engaging when the games gives you background about the character like this game because it makes you more aware of the responsibilities of the character. I think this game also challenged my understanding of how to empathize with a character. This is because some decisions I feel like I can never guess what I would do if I were in their shoes so I felt that empathizing with them does not necessary means that I can fully understand them or feel exactly what they feel but it is more about  understanding that they are trying to do their best in the situation they face because at the end of the day no one really knows the right way of doing things.

6^th: Project Honduras ( about climate change)

This game made me question how to make sure that your end goal is connected through the game as I felt that even thought it was informative of what the climate change can cause, it felt more directed towards how to mange natural disaster and how to prioritize decisions. This made me forget climate change when playing the game and then remembering it only at the end.

To conclude, I found that the game that I enjoyed the most was Liyla as it combine between the fun of playing a game and reflecting the true situation. After playing these set of games, I felt that there are a lot of ways of obtaining that either through graphics, display or the narrative of the story. Another thing that I find really challenging is how to make the audience connect and relate to the character and I think this is achieved by including human values and feelings.

References:

Liyla, http://www.liyla.org/.

Moussa, Pansee. Orphan By Heart, docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd2GxAw6iPKAjaqVt8UhjNiSEaAY-ZN40MuoDZHr8KK7l7mYA/viewform.

Project Honduras, www.trocaire.org/education/project-honduras.

Spent . playspent.org/.

Street-Sweeper, docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScDnVBWYxmSI_xiYIqdEJcLIWupYrTh3MZW2nrOUP9gRZUCPA/formResponse.

“Syrian Journey: Choose Your Own Escape Route.” BBC News , 1 Apr. 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32057601.

Is our education ready for it in Egypt?

Due to the spread of the coronavirus, there are many talks about converting courses in the Egyptian schools and universities into online based courses. However, the issue is the fear that we aren’t ready for it in Egypt in terms of equipment and skills. The meme above shows how the internet network in Egypt can be an issue while using online lectures ,as the networks in Egypt are often very bad and the customer service is not the best too. This is important to note, as we have to focus our efforts into becoming more strong in areas that might affect our education in a world where the internet network is becoming a basic need. The issue isn’t just about this but also about the skills of both the instructors and students with the online lecturing based websites. This is why we need to have more tutoring session on online lecturing. In the meantime, lets hope that the virus doesn’t spread in Egypt to the point in which we have to convert to online based courses.