All Posts By

Saikat

Oct 21
0

Managing Chronic Disease

By | Serious Game Design | No Comments

This week we had to invent a persuasive card game (one that uses either hard fun, easy fun, serious fun or people fun). We had to briefly describe the game including AUDIENCE and SERIOUS GOALS. Here is my response:

Managing Chronic Disease (Manchrod)

Fun: Serious fun

Serious Goals: Persuading people to better manage chronic health conditions. In chronic diseases, that are spread across many years, the challenge is not just information but taking preventive measures at regular intervals, to check it. People get bored and tend to overlook measures. This game would serve as a reminder and a persuasive agent for better healthcare.

Players: Children or adults with chronic diseases such as Diabetes I, Diabetes II, Obesity, Hypertension. People without these conditions can play it too to understand the complexities of the disease and thus prevent themselves from getting into it. Two or more players are needed to play the game.

Cards: There are four types of cards.

  • Diabetes I, Diabetes II, Obesity, Hypertension

Each series has 13 cards marked from 1-13. These numbers speak about the severity of the disease. Stage 13 is the last stage where the disease is unmanageable. Each card depending on the stage of the disease would carry a message that deals with precaution, motivation or preventive measures. One 52 card deck for two players, two decks for three or four people are required (people should have enough cards).

Game: This game is a variation of Rummy. It has eleven rounds. The first dealer is chosen at random and the turn to deal passes to the left after each round. In the first round three cards are dealt to each player, in the second round four cards are dealt and so on until the eleventh and last round in which thirteen cards each are dealt. The remainder of the cards are placed face down on the table to form a stock pile. The top card of the stock will be flipped facing up and put beside the stock pile to start the discard pile.

Goal of the Game: The goal of the game is to form all the cards in your hand into combinations. There are two types of valid combinations: A set or group of three or more cards of the same rank, such as Diabetes5-Hypertension5-Obesity5; A run or sequence of three or more cards in the same suit, such as Diabetes 4- Hypertension 5- Obesity 6

Wild Cards: In each round there is a wild card. It is the card equal to the number of cards dealt on that round. Wild cards can be used in place of any other card in making a group or sequence.

The Game play: The player to dealer’s left begins, and players take turns clockwise around the table. A turn consists of drawing one card – either the top card of the face down stock or the top card of the discard pile – and then discarding one card face up on top of the discard pile. Only the top card of the discard pile can be taken.

Going Out: You can go out at your turn to play if, after drawing the top card of the stock or the top discard, you are able to arrange all the cards in your hand except one into separate sets, and then discard a card. In this case, when discarding, you announce that you are out. Each of the other players is allowed one more turn. When the turn to play comes back to you the round is over and the scores are calculated.

Scoring: At the end of the round, each player arranges as much as possible of their hand into sets and runs. Any cards that are not included in a set or run are counted as penalty points against the holder. The scores are accumulated from round to round, and whoever has the lowest score at the end of the eleventh round is the winner.

Twist: At the end of each round, the losers can ask the winner about the message displayed on the cards of his sequence. For e.g. if the winner got a sequence of Diabetes5-Hypertension5-Obesity5. The opponent can ask about the message displayed on Hypertension5. Suppose the message displayed on that card was ???Avoid Red Meat??? and the winner is not able to recollect it then 5 points will be added to his score of that round. The crux of the game is not just winning it but taking the message home. The players should realize that one disease condition is easier to control than multiple. Thus a combination of Diabetes5-Hypertension5-Obesity5 will add more points to your score as compared to Diabetes6- Diabetes7- Diabetes8. Different combination points will be written on the back of the pack as twist rules.

Oct 14
0

Serve Well !!

By | Serious Game Design | No Comments

This week we had to invent a serious university micro-game for health or corporate training, playable in 30 seconds to 5 minutes (max.). Our target audience should be some specific group at MSU, a specific subset of students, faculty, maintenance workers, administrators, parents of freshmen, etc. Here is my response:

Serve well!

Human resource in the University campus for various food outlets are students who work part time . These students are actually too busy in their own academic schedules and being part time they do not have much commitment to the work. They work to earn their monthly expenses, which is critical to their survival. Presently the training given to these workers are in the form of videos that they have to watch (which they generally sleep through). My game will allow these part time workers to learn the tricks of the trade by playing an interactive digital game.

Audience: Part time restaurant worker in Food Court (International Center) namely, Subway, Villa Pizza, Panda Express.

Serious Goals: Teach Food workers to serve clients at respective stores during peak Lunch Hours.

Gameplay: It is a web based flash game. Actions are restricted to point and click, drag and drop. Your goal is to earn maximum satisfaction points. You begin by creating your avatar. This is your first day at work. It is Lunchtime and there is a huge queue outside the shop. Time is very critical. No Client wants to wait for more than 2- 3 minutes. Your job is to prepare the lunch for the client within the stipulated time with best satisfaction scores. You have to listen the order carefully. Whether it is a meal to-go or if they want to eat it there. Once you get the order , carefully prepare the Lunch as per the specification. While doing so your hands needs to be clean and gloves need to be proper. You lose points whenever there is a hygiene violation. While preparing food, you need to make sure that you replenish the different items as and when they are over. If the client has to wait an extra minute for your callousness of refilling, you will lose points and the satisfaction score given by the client will be less. You also have to take care of the garbage bin that fills up during the process otherwise there will be flies and cockroaches in the shop. This will heavily mar your score. You have to make sure that you maintain hygiene standards while you shift between your tasks in hand. If you touch the food after you have handled trash, you lose points. You must make sure that your hands are washed before you touch food items. All these tasks are to be done without making the customer wait. Once you deliver the order, you will get marks based on the satisfaction scores that the customer gives and hygiene blunders that you might have committed in the process.

Theories: Simulation and situated learning is the main backbone of the game. Fish tank and sandbox is incorporated in the game. The number of parameters that the worker has to deal with in this game are far less. No adverse consequences for making mistakes. You just lose points, but in real life you might lose a job. Repeated action helps in cognitive processing of the information.

Assessment: The effectiveness can be measured once the worker is in the real life situation. An experiment can be conducted where a participatory group is assessed against a control group. We can measure the effectiveness of workers who played this game verses workers who went through video tutorials. Results would help us know if the game was effective.

Oct 07
0

Finding Shrimps

By | Serious Game Design | No Comments

This week we had to make use of a brainstorm technique of mixing and matching. We had to select a few of the serious goals from a game already presented in class. Then we had to invent a game that addressed those goals, and used some of the magic of the board game we choose to analyze. We had the freedom to make it an electronic game, so that you had the benefits of things computers and programming can do. Here is my response:

Game Title: Finding Shrimps

Serious Goals: Teaching the importance of community and shared resources. Building on the concept of Real Lives where you face challenges and thus you make difficult, high-stake choices that lead to your success, or failure. This also takes the serious goals of Wolfquest and teaches about Sea Ecology and how the fisherman are effecting the balance of it. You get a peek of a fisherman’s life, his community and also deal with larger problems of global warming and pollution of sea.

Story: You are a Fisherman in a small fishing community in Bombay. You have very few resources to yourself and it is a question of your survival against large fishing trailers and fishing companies with the state of the art technologies. You have a daily fixed quota of fuel which allows you to go only 5 miles into the sea to fish. You do not have GPS or Satellite phones. But you have hundreds of years of knowledge of the sea that is possessed by your community only and it is your duty to now grow your community by making correct decisions.

Player objective: The objective of the player is to grow as a community. So the objective of the game(LUDO) has been changed a little. Now your objective is not to finish the game by reaching “Home”. Instead, you would like to reach the center of the board by traversing the whole distance so that your community grows. Each time you reach “Home” you add one more person to the community and thus add to the growth.

Description: This is a combination of real-time strategy game on a board. The basic structure of LUDO is retained. There are four players with 4 pawns each to begin with. They can team up or play as 4 individuals. There is some addition to the props. There will be an addition of a stack of cards that you pick up when you step on the respective room. There will be additional objects like Extra fuel, Satellite phone, GPS, Range of boats from semi-specialized to super-specialized trailers. The game progresses by rolling a dice and is turn based.

Goals and Gameplay: The crux of the game is to realize the dramatic arc. They need to realize that “Unity is Strength”. You can only compete with stronger opponents when you are united and act as a group. In a city, people come together to share some basic amenities and resources. When you carpool, you not only save money but you are saving the environment too. Similar concept of carpooling and city life has been incorporated to make people realize that you can grow as a community by sharing resources and in turn help the planet.

The game mechanics are designed in a fashion so that you are stronger when you move in a group. Mechanics of chinese checker has been fused in LUDO. Now you can kill a person by either stepping on the pawn or by jumping over. When your pawn is moving in isolation, it is easier to jump over but when a group is moving together , you will need to get a higher number on your dice to jump over and the probability of higher number is less. You can only jump over weaker opponents and not stronger opponents. For e.g., a player with a small boat cannot jump over a Catamaran or Fishing trailer. So when he crosses over stronger opponents, he gets to buy extra equipment that would add to his resources. On landing on designated stops, you get to flip cards and can either be rewarded with shrimps, tools or be penalized in the form of loss of equipment or pawns. So not just strategy but fate comes into play too, similar to the lives of fishermen. You can strategize but the sea might have a Tsunami planned for you (concept from Real Lives).

Through all these uncertainties, you have to grow as a community. More pawns added to your community will make you stronger and you grow as a community like in the case of Rise of Nations and thereby suppress other communities (i.e fishing trailers). The game does not have a definite end. At any point of time the player with largest community and equipment wins.

Visibility: The game is completely visible except fate, reward, penalty cards. This allows for equal opportunity for all players to win the game and a balancing act takes place.

Board game OR Digital: I would like this to be a board game as well as a flash based game. But there are some disadvantages of both and each media can compliment other. The board game is tangible but the back-story in print form might not gel well with the game. The flash game can have a good focus on back-story but the tangibility of the game would be compromised. So ideally I would like a digital board game, something like Microsoft Surface.

Sep 30
0

Ludo

By | Serious Game Design | No Comments

This week we had to choose a board game at home in which we had to clearly identify the objects and their properties. (Strategy board games often have objects with properties that are easy to identify). We also had to make a list of all of the objects and their properties in our game

Objects and Properties: My game is called Ludo. It is played by four players who can choose to team up as 2 a side or can play individually. Each player has four pawns of similar color. Apart from the pawns, the board with the path marked towards home is other object. Everyone is at the same level of hierarchy. You can rest on the way to home on designated stops owned by you or your team which are marked by four different colors (Red, Yellow, Blue, and Green). You are safe only in your zone or designated spots. Your goal is to get all your pawns to home before your opponents.

Behaviors: How many steps you move depends on the rolling of dice. You get out of your compartment (ghetto) when you roll a six on the dice. Rolling six gives you maximum reward of getting out of your ghetto, to getting a chance of rolling the dice again and thus pacing towards home. Each of these pawns move only in a forward direction. You can rest on star spots which are of the same color as your pawns. On these spots, you are safe from harm and nobody can kill you. On rest of the path to HOME, you can be killed if the opponent steps on you. You will then have to begin a fresh journey from your ghetto. On your way, you can choose to protect yourself and your team member and at the same time kill the opponents pawns and send them back to maximize your chance of winning.

Relationships: Relationships are defined by color and position. You can team up with diagonally opposite color. All the pawns have same value and power, so it is important to save the whole team and not just your pawns. When playing singly, everyone apart from your pawns are your enemy. So you have to kill others to have more time for yourself to make it home.

Visibility: Completely visible game. Everything is on the board but the only thing that is not visible might be pacts that you establish with your opponent.

Serious Warp: The game can be very easily converted into a corporate game. There could be two teams in the same domain (lets say Coke and Pepsi). Your game is to march ahead to home earlier than your opponent. You can do so by either marching ahead very fast or by killing and inflicting injuries on your opponent, which will slow them down. Everything that you do is visible and thus will have serious repercussion on your business too. So I would change the killing part in this game. You have to compete but you cannot stab your opponent. So there would be a symbiotic relationship between the two and still both of you grow. (However by this move I am not sure how much of the fun component will be left in the game).

Sep 23
0

Conquering Mt. Everest

By | Serious Game Design | No Comments

This week we had to invent a game to teach about composting and recycling. “It can be for adults, kids, or corporations. Your game should incorporate story and characters. Refer to concepts discussed in Chapter 4 of Game Design Workshop such as character, story, and dramatic arc.” Here is my response.

It is a Mountaineering and Hiking game. It is both a single and multiple player game. It can be played on a PC or a gaming console.

Target audience: Children and Environment conscious NGOs

Character: First person character. You model your own character in Poser, which either resembles you or has special characteristics. The trick here is to balance your Body Mass Index with the goal that you want to achieve. If you are too heavy, you can have high strength but will have less agility and vice versa. Depending on the mix and match of the characteristics available, you have to figure out the best body suitable for mountain climbing. Or you can choose to play as yourself, by putting in your own height, weight and characteristics.

Story and Game play: The play begins in the base camp of Mount Everest. There are two teams that begin hiking together. But the opposite team will take a lead and your team will follow them. As you are climbing the mountain, you will be faced by the boulders and other obstacles that the previous team drops on you. The goal is to save yourself from the obstacles so that you are safe and continue to hike and defeat the other team. The opponent team keeps dumping rubbish that you need to collect. If you collect recyclable materials, you gain points. But collecting rubbish will add to your weight and would slow you down. But when you dump the recyclable items in the correct dustbins which are placed all along your journey, you gain points. These points will give you strength and you can climb faster and defeat the opponent team. Every time you drop a recyclable material, little information about how you are saving the earth will be provided along with the recycling process. If you choose to ignore the rubbish, your uphill journey would become more difficult. The number of trees on which you could throw your rope around would become less as they will be dying due to the pollution and lack of nourishment. When you are climbing through snow, the snow would melt due to the pollution. Thus steep slopes without ice/snow would become very difficult for a climber. You will have to recycle enough waste before the snow begins to harden. Every time you collect and deposit composite material at the base of the trees, you get points and the trees become stronger. So you can jump from one tree to another and have a larger leap. The stronger the tree, the larger would be your leap. By the time you conquer Mount Everest, you not only know about recyclable products and processes but you are also exposed to the larger goals, i.e, hazards of environmental pollution, global warming and how it is affecting the ecology.

Dramatic Arc : In the story you begin as a simple climber, but soon become a super hero as you are leading a team who is set to change the world’s problem of pollution and lack of resources. In other words, you are saving the world. Because other people are expecting a lot out of you, you would want to maintain your image (fighting for a cause). You would soon realize the hazards of littering and subconsciously you become aware of your own actions in the daily world. You realize that just climbing the mountain is not the solution. Realizing that you can stop pollution only when you can climb ahead of the opponent team and stop them from littering. Realizing that stopping people from littering and at the same time recycling not just the materials used by you but others as well is the solution. After all you live in an ecosystem that gets effected, even if you are not the one who is polluting the atmosphere. So it is a collective responsibility to keep the atmosphere clean by recycling non degradable products.

Sep 16
0

Need For Speed Analysis

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This week we had to revisit your favorite game from last week’s blog and analyze that game on the basis of the formal elements Fullerton describes in Game Design Workshop (book).

Players: The game has a single player mode and multiple player modes. Single player would compete against the challenges offered by the game. He would also compete against time. In the multi-player mode there is one more dimension of Human Intervention added. This adds to more complexity and more challenges as the players need not think in the same manner as the computer thinks.

Player Objectives: The player’s goal is to win the race by not just defeating the opponents but also by maintaining good condition of the car. He has to keep in mind that there are no major accidents and the condition of the car is maintained. Damage to the car results in deduction of points. He also has to save himself from being busted by the police and should not kill people on road. In the Knockout mode he has to make sure that he never comes last in the race or the game would end there. Similarly in a Tournament mode the objective is to have a better average performance.

Rules: The primary rule is to have the least damage to the car while racing. Better car condition will let you unlock levels. You should not meet with accidents and kill people. Killing people might have heavy penalty and you will be behind bars. The whole race is kind of a secret event and thus you have to keep safe distance from the police. Certain cars can move at only a particular speed. The maneuvering and controls vary with different cars. There is Nitro boost and there is a limit to it.

Resources: Cars, money, map are the resources. Better timing and handling results in points. Nitro boost and secret shortcuts that are embedded in the map will speed you up.

Conflict: In order to get a better car and be able to race in a different location you have to win the races with the available resources. The better you are at saving your car from damage, the lesser money you pay for its maintenance. The money saved will let you buy a better, powerful car and will let you buy accessories for the car which might be particularly important for that track. You might be winning a race but lots of damages to the car will actually not help you get more points and you cannot unlock the higher level. Even if you unlock the next level, you still will be competing with an old car in a new level, and thus will have a bleaker chance of winning in that level. So the essence is not just winning the race but to drive properly and still win.

Boundaries: The race track is the boundary in itself. You cannot actually go anywhere apart from this. You cannot actually race in a wrong way as the game prompts you constantly. As the goal is to move from the starting point to the ending point, there is not much room for exploring. Some locations allow you to detour a little on the landscape but that will slow you down and the main objective is to finish the race in least time. The tracks are bordered by buildings, trees, and water bodies. As soon as you move to a different surface, you experience a change in speed. You can surely choose to explore and find a shortcut on a map.

Outcomes: There are two outcomes of the game. You either win a race or lose it. Though winning is the ultimate goal and is absolute, losing has different levels and varieties. You can either be the last of the lot or you can be somewhere in between, may be 2nd or 3rd. Though you are not first, you can defeat other opponents. You can have the best lap time in the game and still lose. Till the time you keep defeating someone, you keep progressing and there are different degrees of winning and losing which makes the game more interesting.

Change 1: Make the game a team effort. You win the race when all the team members win it against the opponent. This will result in collective effort. Strong racers would have to help the weaker ones to come up to their skill level. Only when all the drivers in the team are at a similar skill level, your team will win. This will result in off the game interaction and how they need to collaborate to win the race.

Change 2: Give them unlimited Nitro Boosters. When people get unlimited resources they tend to oversee other problems. The players will now race harder and land up in more accidents and lose more points and effectively will not gain much from the change. This change will allow them to realize that ends can be achieved only when you make optimum use of the resources available to you.

Sep 09
0

Favorite electronic game

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This simple assignment begins the process. For this week, we had to blog about our favorite electronic game, using the following structure below.

My Favorite Game: It is not my favorite game but this is what comes to my mind when I think of PC games. I have not played much PC games as I have been very active outdoors (played all sorts of games that could be imagined) and liked playing in the field, much more than just playing indoors. However I have played Need for Speed during my Engineering and that too because of peer pressure. That is when I realized that games on computers can be as or more interesting than outdoor games. I have played Need for Speed Underground and seem to like it more than some of the other games that I have played online and on PC.

Platform: Mac or PC or game console.

Description: Need For Speed is a racing game. You begin by choosing a car. You have a lot of options and you can compare the cars under different categories from horsepower to cost peak speed, ease of maneuvering etc. You can also choose cars of different companies. Sometimes you need to have enough money to choose a car, which you need to earn by winning the game with other cars.

After you have chosen a car, you can choose a track. The tracks are from different locations and have different levels of difficulty. Once a track is fixed, you get to choose the number of opponents. You can play against the computer or multiple players can play it on LAN. You can choose to increase the difficulty of the game by adding or reducing traffic on the road. Once the race begins, you are marked on your driving abilities. Correct drifts and drags will give you more points. More points will allow you to buy parts for the car. Maximum points are earned when you win the race. You can choose to play the game as a Single race, Knockout or Tournament. Different modes will have different rules and different levels of difficulty. The realistic graphics and motions give you a feel of a real race.

Player Objective: Your aim is to complete all levels by winning all the races. With every level, the difficulty of the race increases and thus you master them by honing your driving skills. You can choose to spice up each race with more added challenges and rules. Especially when you play it on LAN, you can frame your own rules which the game might not be having. Final goal is to defeat others and win the race in the least amount of time. You can actually just race against time and still improve your driving skills.

Challenge: The challenges are many. You not only race against opponents but also against time (analogy from real life). You race under various conditions. Sometimes wet roads and at other times the slope and curve of the road proposes challenge. Just getting the most powerful car will not solve the problem. Which car is suited under what condition and mix and match of these features would actually let you win a race.

Forms of Fun: The act of winning, achieving is in itself fun. Racing in simulated environment that matches the real world makes it more enjoyable. Competition and challenges along with analytical ability to choose a correct car for correct situation is challenging. Visual perception and matching your speed along with the banking of the roads is also fun. Finally learning from the mistakes and continually improving to defeat opponents is my definition of fun.

Get Serious: The game can be tactfully changed by introducing engineering mechanics and highway planning into it. To begin with we can educate the drivers about the banking of roads. At what speed you need to travel so as to prevent the toppling of cars at the curves. The angle of elevation can be explained through this. “Toppling effect” could be taught. The concept of speed and distance could be introduced wherein the racers not just make visual perceptions but can calculate the speed that they need to maintain at a particular situation. Management and Ecommerce skills (something similar to decision making on Ebay and other E com Sites ) can be inbuilt into it while choosing cars so that they make informed decisions. On a later level even concepts of  liquid propulsion and internal combustion within an engine can be introduced. Even jet propulsion and higher level automobile engineering can be taught if we can achieve a balance between fun and learning.

May 15
0

Virtual Friends: All real Friends are my facebook friends but all facebook friends are not my real friends.

By | Mind Media and Learning | No Comments

What is a friend? Some one with whom you share your lunch box? Someone who agrees to whatever you say? Someone with whom you go to Guitar Class? Someone who does your homework? Or someone who shares his Physics Practical Lab book results with you?

Well if yes then Gaurav is my best friend even though his mother cooks lunch for only him. My neighbor whom I consider to be a loser agrees to whatever I say. Subhojit and I went to Guitar class and loved same kind of music but never talked apart from class hours. My mother helped with my home work whenever I was stuck but I would copy the class topper’s Physics homework because he was the best but he was not my best buddy. He shares it with me because he feels that he might need my help in Chemistry or Math.

There are different levels of dependencies that you have in life and you know who can provide a solution. There are problems and there are solutions. And these solution providers who are not necessarily related by blood, we choose to call them friends. But the degree of friendship varies and I strongly feel that the virtual (online) world has not been able to depict these degrees of differences in a correct manner.

I have a close group of friends with whom I grew up and they are spread all across the globe in the present day scenario. But they are always by my side, through my thick and thin and would any day quit their job and join my startup if I asked them to do so. I don’t intend to make any more additions to this list.

My online friendship pretends to map my real life friendship but I think it is nowhere close . I have all these people in my list on whom I depend in different degrees but they all come out to be on the same level. My best buddies though present in my list but I end up calling them more than leaving scraps. Walther and co. says, we use Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends, make new connections, learn about someone new, or glean information about prospective employees. I would agree that I use facebook to stay in touch with friends and family especially when I am geographically distant. Sharing of photographs made possible with this media adds a whole new dimension to the relationship which cannot be done on phone. My family is interested in catching up with all the new places I visit in US. I do make new connections based on my network, but they are people I generally know and are seldom unknown. Sometimes I agree to being friends with people from my Alma Mater whom I don’t know. I have also appreciated mentoring request from my juniors in my college. But when I require to find out about someone, I would rather seek opinions from my friends in my list than looking into the other guy’s profile. If I were to make an employment decision, I would seriously not rely on Facebook but LinkedIn will be my choice. I believe that people have different roles and different personalities and I would not like to merge these boundaries by creating one single impression. There are different tools to do different things. I would surely not use a spoon to fry my eggs.

Apr 29
0

Facebook: Exploring Cultural differences in the Use of Social Networks

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When I asked my American friend Amy Ampuja who was on a world tour on how she finds Poland different from India, this is what she wrote to me, “The air is a lot cleaner so I can breathe freely and not feel the effects of Indian cities. Been thinking more, people can be more independent in the West because things run smoothly and efficiently, you don’t really need people to help you. Whereas in India, everyone helps each other, or there is someone doing something for someone. The way to survive is very different in each place. I am not saying that one is better than the other, they are what they are. Everyone here is just into doing their own thing, on a path, in their own world. In India, everyone is integrated and thinks about each other and is dependent. Two different worlds and I can appreciate how to adjust and notice how my behavior and thoughts change with the environment.”

Since then I have been thinking. Are the ends same but means different? Well it is true for life but is it true for our Social Networks? If that is true than one platform should not fit all shoes. I had heard of Facebook when I was in India but never ever thought of creating my own account. However as soon as I came to USA, I was introduced to Facebook right at my orientation where I was told to join the OISS group in Facebook. Like before I turned a deaf ear to it till the time my course work needed me to create a Facebook account.

One more Social Network

I had ignored requests from friends to join Facebook. Why one more Social Network(SN)? Now that I don’t have any invitation I had to go to the homepage and sign up. I hate long registration forms. However, l was saved this time and just needed to put in my email address. Once my registration process is complete it fetches all the contacts from my email list and sends them an invitation to connect to my network. So how does this make a difference? My friends from other networking site namely Orkut are replicated in Facebook. Why do I need to replicate them? Is it another way of saving your contact address as a backup? Once someone has seen my photos, he will have to tolerate my photos on his other wall as well? Well, the whole approach that I can look into cultures by joining the SN from their country seems to be misplaced. It seems that my SN is same, only the servers are located at different countries. Does that let me figure out cultural differences? Well we will explore and figure out. At the beginning it was frustrating. There was so much of confusion. I would add contacts that are already in my other list. This was not novel. Nothing new happened for some time, only the repetition of activities in 2 of my networks I followed. But soon I realized that my Facebook had all the friends and contacts I made in the US. There is a huge bunch of Indians and internationals whom I befriended during orientation and my stay of a semester in the US. A pattern different from the other network soon began to evolve. The ABDs (American born Desis ) would upload a lot more photographs and their status updates changed at regular intervals. Soon I got to know what all was happening in the campus. I also added some of my American friends from the courses I was attending. I also happened to be spending a lot of time in the Confucius Institute and made some good Chinese friends there. Soon I was on their Facebook and now it seems that my SN had variety.

Getting to know a new system

Was it only me who had a preference for Orkut? So I did a little study and figured out that most of the social network startup in India are losing out to Orkut. While reasons could vary from one startup to the other, it is really important to understand why Indians use social networks. As per Nielsen’s research,

  • 82 % want to keep in touch with people they know
  • 58 % join a social networking site to reconnect with old acquaintances they have lost touch with
  • 53 % sign up to make friends
  • 43 % cite professional networking as a reason

The 53% who want to make friends are part of dating gang members, but the rest of the stat is important to understand. What is it that Indians do not use a social network for? The answer is “Hanging out”. Unlike the US youngsters who spend a good amount of time on Facebook, Myspace, hanging around and “expressing themselves”, Indians aren’t the usual hangout kind, and instead use SN for a defined purpose. Now, this obviously goes against several SN startups mantra (who want Indians to express themselves by uploading cool pics/videos and more) and a clear reason why few of them have folded (like jhoom.in) and others are almost on the verge of failing.

 

Indians prefer Orkut to Facebook

ComScore Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, released a report on the top social networking sites in India, finding that visit to the site category increased 51% from the previous year to more than 19 million visitors in December 2008. The study also found that global social networking brands continued to gain prominence in India during the year, with Orkut, Facebook, hi5, LinkedIn and MySpace each witnessing significant increases in visitation.

Orkut tops list of social networking sites in India. Orkut reigned as the most visited social networking site in December 2008 with more than 12.8 million visitors, an increase of 81% from the previous year. Orkut’s audience was three times the size of its nearest competitor in the category. Facebook.com captured the 2nd position with 4 million visitors, up 150% versus year ago, followed by local social networking site Bharatstudent.com with 3.3 million visitors (up 88%) and hi5.com with 2 million visitors (up 182%).

Exploring Cultural Influences on Self Expression

Ever wondered why few networks are a super success while others (packed with better features) struggle to even catch an eye? Joshua of Social Design shares his interesting insights on human behavior. He says most of these behavioral aspects can be applied to building a great community. Because life in not deterministic, we cannot always predict human behavior. Take a look at successful social networks like Orkut and Facebook – at their core lies the basic social structure that empowers people to connect to each other and share their life. But there is still a difference in the way it is used. Culture plays a very important role in the way we socialize.

India has a hierarchical society. I have never questioned my elders or teachers. Even when I know a thing is wrong I never protest. I simply let the matter die. It is ok to express but it is derogatory to shout. Being humble is a virtue and being a rebel is a vice. Simple living and high thinking is what the society wants. Showing off wealth or power is not really appreciated. We have been a closed economy for long because of some of these factors. And though we don’t want all these factors to affect our sociability it plays a part in most of the decision making. Also, the earlier Facebook controversy of news feeds and mini feeds reinforces the fact that humans are not at all rational (and group behavior is very different from individual behavior).

Why I prefer Orkut ?

Google owns Orkut. Is the brand selling it? Well I joined Orkut when Google did not own it. I will go where my friends are and most of my friends are software developers and I trust their word. That is how I joined it. Twice as many software developers in India use Orkut as MySpace or Facebook. It is very important as these developers mainly represent the growing middle class and their recommendation is a very big factor in joining SN in India. Orkut has become so popular with developers in both India and Brazil that they have recently released new domains specific to these countries.

My transition from Orkut to Facebook

There are lots of Social Networks in India. While most of these sites believe in CAP model (i.e. Copy And Paste) from the West, especially Orkut and Faxcebook, none of them has been as popular as Orkut. Even before Google bought it, Orkut was popular in India. Of the little that I know of Social Networks, here is what I think makes Orkut so popular.

Ease of use:

Orkut UI is probably the simplest UI I have ever seen. In fact the UI conforms to the basic mantra of usability, i.e. don’t make me think, at the same time a look at Facebook will leave you a little confused and you need to figure out the feature that you were looking for (too many features). Facebook wants me to blog, share pictures, write on the wall, socialize, add friends, add events and of course win iPods. It is too overwhelming for me. I like simplicity as compared to clutter. Traditionally plane simple interface of Google homepage is more appealing to me than yahoo’s homepage. This need for simplicity or white space became more obvious as time passed by. It might be a factor that I am too used to Orkut and thus it is difficult for me to adapt to Facebook. But as I was trying my level best to figure out Facebook, it came out with a new design change. I hate changes. I think I am growing old and thus getting used to new things becomes difficult. Feeds from 300 friends populate my wall faster than Reuters. I would really not like to have updates from all my friends. I would like to prioritize my friends and seek information about a few. I tried tweaking its privacy settings but it is not of much use. I thought that friends you request are almost the same as getting an invitation to add a friend. This news feed thing made me realize that friends that you seek are closer to you than the ones that others seek. Now I have realized that I value friends I have sought more than the friend requests I have accepted.

Orkut substitutes Writing Emails:

What was missing in the online world? There was email and groups. There was text messaging on the mobile phone. But why do I use Orkut so extensively? I, like many other users, use the scraps feature, the most (in fact that’s the only feature I use). And why do I scrap? Because it substitutes writing an email. Is writing an email so tough? Well if you are lazy like me you would know the answer. But being lazy is not always the case. Most of the time you don’t have much to talk about. Writing an email for that seems inappropriate. What have u had for lunch seems appropriate for a scrap but not for an email. I would write emails when I have substantial things to talk about. There is a whole bunch of communications that comes between formal and informal communications and scraps take care of all. Breaking the ice is so much easier and is just a scrap away. Just because most of the SN don’t differentiate between friend and just an acquaintance, its one size fits all solutions. The bottom line is that the Orkut scrap breaks the communication barrier/ hiccups associated with sending emails to not-so-close-friends (and get away with answering questions like “how should I start this email/conversation?”). Yes I realized that if cost of entering or leaving a platform is insignificant, it becomes acceptable. But the communication is personal and private to a degree. It is a communication between two persons which if others are willing and the owner allows, can see. To a third person it opens up a small window of what is going on in his/her life.

On the other hand Facebook has a wall. It feels like I am doing graffiti on a wall, which I consider as expression, or rebelling. Yes I want to express but to a certain person and not to the whole world. There is a difference in communicating to a group and to an individual. The need for this difference has been completely ignored and a community communication has taken a predominance only for profit motives. I am sure it provides more information for others to catch up, but I really don’t need it. This is a reason why I never write on a wall. I am a passive onlooker on Facebook. I am an introvert and would like to remain so. I learnt that the design of the system greatly influences my actions. On the one hand the affordability of the system helps me reach out to friends and on the other hand, too much of self-expression capability pushes me to my shell. I think I need something in between these options.

Gossips:

Gossips are something that we all love. I would like to catch up on the latest movies and gossip with friends who share the same passion. Orkut is a place, which allows you to quench your thirst. I have explored my friend’s scrapbooks to see who’s writing what. Haven’t you explored your friend’s friends list? Orkut provides a great platform to get a glimpse of a friend’s life. And that’s why it’s so sticky (one keeps checking who visited their profile, what’s happening with their friends/crushes etc.) you can bitch about a friend that he or she cannot know about until and unless s/he takes an effort to check the scrapbook of the concerned friend. So the whole class can be a part of a mischief, still the concerned party can be unaware of what is going on. These little things spice up your online presence. On the other hand in Facebook it is either public or private. There are no shades of grey in between black and white. India being such a diverse country filled with all sorts of people cannot simply do without these shades. At least I can’t do without them. I realized that I am not like the Italian designer who is content with his black and white designs. I love colors, sometimes bright reds and at other times shooting blue. I want a rainbow and not an overcast sky. So I am still waiting for Facebook to provide me with the rainbow, till then I will play with Orkut.

Blocked Access:

Many IT companies in India have blocked the access to internet email sites/Yahoo/GMail/ Hotmail etc. and that’s one of the reasons why Orkut is heavily used. Most of the SN sites are also blocked. But the Google search engine cannot be blocked, as it is very useful in searching codes and stuff that is required for work. This window does not allow for effective closure of Google services as there are loop holes that can be explored. In fact this is one of the most important reasons for Orkut to be so popular in India as it is a Google product. Again as explained earlier, if you want to send an email to your friend, the only available alternative is to scrap your friends. Facebook is unfortunate to be blocked. So am I talking about culture? Well though this has nothing to do with culture per say but it surely has to do with work culture. I realized that it is not just choice that determines a market. Sometimes just availability can be a force that addicts you and you keep using it. I have become addicted with this phenomenon and I will take time to become loyal to another brand.

Who visited my site?:

Difference between you approaching someone and vice versa, Orkut has a feature, which lists the recent visitors to your profile. This generates a viral effect for your site. Though you might not be interested in dating, but the fact that the other person has visited your site gives you an indication that s/he is interested in you for what ever may be the reason. This is a kind of an icebreaker and gives you something to talk about. This has the seed of social networking; you reach out to strangers and get to know them. The platform is a great tool for introverts to practice a little bit of socialising. Facebook on the other hand does not allow you to visit profiles that are not on your list. You can see your friend’s friends but the profile information is not visible. Neither does it have an icebreaker. I think it is meant for extroverts only. My usage of Facebook proved to me that I am an introvert and find it easier to mingle with fewer people who first show interest in me . I have been unsuccessful in being outwardly and have hardly requested friends throughout the time. I have only accepted friend requests. Facebook does a remarkable job of showing you people you might know. But it is not a good reason for me to add them to my list. I need to know if they are interested in knowing me better but there is no clue in this direction.

Scraps as assets:

As a child I used to collect WWE cards. Nowadays children collect Pokemon cards. They exchange these cards for benefits and flaunt them in front of their friends. The more the cards the more popular you are with your friends. Something similar to stamp collecting. Girls in the dorms make arrangements to receive calls as a proof of their popularity. Similar things happen with Scraps too. These are assets. It shows how popular you are with friends. People like to flaunt them and is far more cost effective than making calls. I don’t delete my scraps. Sometimes my friends would come and write “Here goes your 3000th Scrap”. The whole activity is like contributing to popularity. If Orkut were economics, Scraps would have become money. It is amazing how human mind attaches importance to things and makes it valuable. Philanthropy is so much easy with stuff that is free. Yet in the real world we stock pile natural resources and create a scarcity so that there is a market for our goods. Can Social Networking teach us something in this direction?

Profile Information:

Orkut by default allows all the profile information to a person visible to general public. Of late it has been influenced by Facebook and implemented stricter privacy settings. However there is a major difference in the way profile information is laid out to the public. When I visit a profile page on Orkut, I get to see a profile picture of the person along with his personal, professional and social information that he has filled. This gives me some sort of an idea if I would like to be friends with the person or not. While going through the personal information, you may find common connections and send him/her a friend request. This is good for the platform and also for the users. On the other hand, Facebook allows me to see only a tiny thumbnail image of a person with his/her name and mutual connection. This is too less of an information to extend friendship. There may be more than one Saikat Mandal and he might be using an avatar as a profile picture. This gives me very less clue, if I want to find out if he is my long lost high school friend. My surveys with friends revealed that Indians want to get complete information prior to becoming friends. On the other hand, my survey involving Chinese students revealed that it was normal for them to befriend someone and then if s/he is not the concerned person, you can delete him/her. This behavior of deleting is not taken in good spirit in India.

Profile Information, Trust in the Social Networks:

It is very important to establish a kind of trust before you can start with some sort o business in SN. I need to know the person before I can add him or her to my list. Facebook scores very low in this case for me. It allows me very less information to decide if I want to add him/her to my list. I can at the max. see other friends who are in his list but that is not good a reason to add someone to my list. However if someone sends me a request, I can see a little more information than the previous case. I am able to see his friends and a little bit of information that he might want to share with me like email id and groups sometimes. As explained earlier, the information is inadequate for me to decide. Yes most of the time I get invitations from known people and it is not difficult to identify them. But then the media is not playing any significant role here. Whereas on Orkut , I can see the profile information that the user has filled up. I get an idea of the person, I get to see his circle of friends, I get to know about his personal, professional and social life. Even the physical characteristics like hair color and eye color is visible. I get to see the schools and colleges he has attended. At the same time I can confirm whether the information he has filled in is true or not. I first go and check if he has friends in the list from the institutes he has attended. Pretty simple tests to figure out the truth or lets put it like a litmus test. Again most of the time he or she will join the communities of the institutes. Once all information is verified, I would then reflect on the character traits of the person and if I like it I will accept the friendship request. On the other hand, Facebook allows too less of information to make a proper judgment. Well one may argue that you can add and then if you don’t like the person then you can delete the person. There are two aspects to this; one being that once I add someone to my profile, s/he gains access to my friend’s profiles. I am not just putting myself to risk but also my friends. Secondly, there is a difference in the degree of insult. One insult is that you don’t allow your guest to enter your house. Second insult is, you allow the guest to enter the house and then throw him out of the house. In my culture guest is a God. Such treatment to a guest is totally unacceptable. I know I am taking the matter to a different level but these cues work at the back of the mind for people being brought up in such atmospheres. Though on the top it seems like a small difference in the feature but in a cultural context it is a huge issue. My learning from this is that features needs to be rooted in the culture and should not be simply left at the whims of technology experts.

Gender differences in profile pictures:

Most Indian males on Orkut have profile pictures. Some of them have avatars but the use of an avatar is not that extensive. Avatars generally have religious connotations in Hindu culture and thus people avoid it to be on the safer side. People put their own pictures and try to depict themselves in a true spirit. On the contrary Chinese males (as the survey depicts) use a lot of Manga characters as avatars. These differences are rooted in the culture. Manga comics is popular in Japan, China and Korea. A careful study of the comics reveal that the characters have large expressive eyes. This population that has relatively less expressive eyes try to make up for this deficit and thus this popularity. They rarely use their real names. Indian women on Orkut hardly have their own pictures to begin with. They will start with an avatar or an abstract picture when they begin using it. This is because they fear misuse of their pictures online. Gradually as their confidence grows, they will start putting real pictures of themselves. But this phase of putting a real picture may take a time span of 1-3 years and one unforeseen event would send them to hiding again. They also use cartoons or faces of children to represent themselves. Another popular culture is to display pictures of Bollywood heroines, which they identify with. They also use group photographs where they cannot be identified easily. The purdah system that was and is practiced in many parts of India has carried itself to the SN as well.

On the other hand more girls are switching to facebook because of its security features. Girls feel more protected against unruly behaviors on facebook as compared to Orkut. A large female base is switching to facebook and thus in turn bringing in more boys, naturally. If a market research firm was to do a research, it would say that cultural differences create a niche and sometimes huge markets. But SN sites, to be successful, should truly let people express by considering all these factors. Cultural differences should be taken into considered if anything has to be popular in Asia.

Serendipity Moments:

I had numerous serendipity moments with Orkut. I was able to connect to many of my classmates whom I had lost track of. I had no idea of their whereabouts, but thanks to Orkut, I am now well connected with these folks. And these serendipitous moments take Orkut to the next level in user satisfaction. A great product, apart from fulfilling the basic needs should also throws up “Aha” moments. And that’s what I feel when I see a scrap/add request from my school friends. Facebook on the other hand will search its database and throw relative matches of friends. Not always these matches are correct. I would like to search for friends myself rather than be at the mercy of the software to give a desired matche. It is not that I cannot find friends on Facebook, but it is far more tedious than finding someone on Orkut.

Communities:

As Amy explained and I realized that Indians like to live as a group. Individual identities are either not there or very subdued. Orkut is a great place to create communities and interact. The importance is cleverly depicted right in the top header. Everything that a community needs has been integrated into it. It has different topics and polls that the members can contribute to. Huge number of teenagers and school students use this platform to express themselves. One similar act happened in a school called Bombay Scottish in Mumbai. This is one of the most influential schools of the city whose pupils are sons and daughters of politicians, film stars and business tycoons. I am really intrigued at how media changes behaviors. Give a person a gun and he will shoot. That is what happened with SN at Bombay Scottish. With the availability of this platform, people who were so not used to expressing themselves began so in a never before imagined way. The school students from 8th grade started slandering the name of the principal and put up pictures of him. The principal somehow figured out what was going on and complained to the police. Google was urged to remove the community but with no success. India does not have proper cyber security laws. So many students were suspended. Google’s servers are not located in India, which keeps it out of the jurisdiction of Indian laws. This gives rise to a very pressing problem of cyber insecurity. After the Mumbai 26/11 attacks, Indian laws are pushing for servers to be located in India and also Indian mail ids needs to have “.in” added to the email ids. So what do we call this globalization or localization? On the one hand we are talking about a global identity whereas for some or the other cause, there is a need to be identified. Where do we seek a balance?

However due to the whole incident the students of this school were forced to find another platform to express themselves. Thanks to Facebook there was a readymade platform waiting for them. The whole school shifted to this platform. These students being very influential also bring in a viral effect and others schools that see them as role models soon followed them to Facebook. Whatever may be the cause, at least for this incident I have my niece and nephew on Facebook, some family on the network.

Difference between friends and family:

Well the other day I was having a discussion with one of my friends about private entrepreneurship. Lots of business ideas were discussed and somehow we shifted to the topic: When do you know that your product or industry is successful? We came to a conclusion when the word begins to be used as a verb; you know that it is successful. When you say “Google out” something, Facebook me or tweet me, you know that your product is successful. Similarly you will have friends in social network sites, however when there is family on SN, you know that the product is being used as a verb. You stay in touch with family by coming home every night, or ringing up frequently in case of a dispersed family. However if your family is communicating with you within the time from office to home, you know that your social relationship has taken a different dimension. You are never short of words when you are with your own people. So if the internet companies want their stickiness to increase, they should stop trying to get friends chatting on a topic. Instead look into how you can make people interact within a family. Rest of it will automatically fall in place.

Recommendation System:

Everything in India works on recommendation. Google search engine is replaced by word of mouth. Like Google there are thousands of people you can turn to get an advice in case of a need may it be the best place to buy medicine to the best Doctor to consult. Here the results are not dependent on how popular the link/result is in terms of page views. Here what matters is who is the closest to you. Even if the suggestion by your closest friend might not be very credible still you would go ahead with his/her suggestion, as you trust them more than anybody else. Here SN plays a very big role. Facebook in particular scores way higher than Orkut in getting suggestion from people. One Status update asking a question will have 200 of your friends suggesting you on a topic. It is now for you to do an analysis and take the best decision. In this case the best answer matters and not the best friend. Orkut on the other hand is for personal communication and does not have a wall where you can shout. However you can send multiple scraps to all your friends by using applications, but still it is not as effective as putting up an information on a pin up board. The pin up board is missing in Orkut.

What Did I learn: One site fits all doesn’t fit

The Web has absolutely improved the world. With a few minutes effort, you can get almost anything… from almost anywhere. The opportunities are endless. But is it the case with Social Networks? Companies can now attract customers from almost anywhere at any time. With a solid, usable site, the world is their customer base, right? Maybe. Organizations struggle with globalization-localization issues. Can one site fit all? Can parts of the design be standardized? Which parts need to be localized?

In India Orkut and Facebook are doing very good. While companies like Facebook struggle to conquer market share in China and to create viable business models everywhere. However Chinese clones of Facebook have built lucrative cash machines literally earning billions of dollars a year. Unfortunately, adopting Chinese methods have not helped American social networks due to both cultural differences in user behavior and industry practices. So the need of the hour is to learn about the User in a better manner. The designs needs to be human-centered and not just technology driven. It would help to know what the user eats, drinks and sleeps. What are his idiosyncrasies? What are the cultural differences? Especially for sites like Facebook needs do do better ethnographic studies to find out the shuttle differences in the cultures of the markets they are trying to target. Instead of following twitter , Mark Zuckerberg should follow the Culture Trends to do better in these markets.

On the personal front I have realized that I have not changed much. I am still an introvert and have never posted any status message. I have not even posted on anybody’s wall. I am a passive onlooker. I am a kind of a parasite who entertains himself by looking through activities of others. I absorb all information that comes my way and form my own personal impressions, which I share with no one. What a waste of resources. But I have realized that I hate people who very frequently update status messages. I feel that they are shouting for attention. I don’t want to be friends with them and have switched off their feeds. The platform allowed me to get in touch with a lot of friends by giving friend suggestions. A lot of lost school friends got back in touch. I really don’t know if these connections helped me know the opposite person in a better fashion. Or do I want to know him/her better? Is it a liability or burden? Am I sharing my intimate moments with them? No not at all. They are not a source of emotional support, nor do I connect with them much. I am just weaving a mesh of weak connections.

I realized that the differences observed in my study were not always cultural differences but also feature and technology differences. Cultural difference is a very loose word and what I perceive of it, as culture might not be the same for another person from the region. These are loosely connected terms but of course they have an effect on the way we approach our problems.

I realized that I am traveling on two boats at the same time. Technology is allowing me to virtually live or stay in touch with my life in India whereas my daily activities take place in America. Does that make my world a better place to live? No not exactly. I am happy to know that I know about my folks but at the same time the sense of loss is constantly there. “Out of Sight is Out of Mind”. Now that is not possible. I am intrigued by the power that technology brings along. I am like some sort of God sitting up above in the heaven and still can peep into the world of concerned people all across the globe. But the same technology does not allow me to socialize with my neighbor. I am here in a foreign land and foreign culture, which is an opportunity for me to learn the other side of the world. Instead I am spending time being in touch with my part of the world. I am living in my own Ghetto in a globalized world. I am not making any real friends but running after virtual friends and trying to catch up with my past. I really don’t know if Social Networks are adding to my progress but I surely know that it helps me procrastinate.

Apr 26
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Nature, Design, Inspiration and the Bigger Picture

By | Nature and Design of Compelling Experiences | No Comments

Artists and designers have always taken inspiration from nature. It had never occurred to me that Teachers could also take inspiration from nature and not just nature but from artists and these compelling experiences that these artists create. When the course began I had no idea that we would draw these bridges and today as we stand at the ending, it is amazing to find these connections . Our task has just begun and it has opened a window for me to look at things in a different light and extract things that makes teaching a compelling experience.

The foundation was set by the Photography module. It stressed the importance of composition and proportion. How simple rules of placing an object makes a difference. Contrary to general belief, not always things that are at the center, at your face will be compelling. How focus and depth matters and where and when to focus. These bridges when drawn for a subject matter and a lesson plan brings in a huge change to it. How color happens to bring in emotion, how the direction of light not only illuminates an object but also speaks about the time of the day and so many other emotions. This module taught me that “God is in Details”. Only when you break apart a thing, you are able to view it in greater detail and our job as a teacher is to bring in order to this chaotic world of understanding. Only when we view a plant cell under an electronic microscope, we are able to see that it is so much similar to the structure of the Universe. These connections have allowed me to bridge the gap between the micro and the macro.

Then we moved to Architecture and started seeing the implication of proportions put to real world. Something like applied knowledge being different from pure science. Another dimension of volume came into picture and how it affects our mood and behavior. How color from nature is applied on artificial surfaces to make us still feel being close to nature. How units and modular designs make a design universal and barrier free. As teachers too we need to follow standards so that someone else can understand it and then carry the knowledge further. Barrier free concept needs to be applied to teaching as well so that no child is left behind. More than one way of representing information is so very important and I came to better know of these by going through the course. How light can become a tool to drive a design. How it can draw people. Similarly we need to show the light at the end of the tunnel to our students for them to cross the tunnel. In interior design we learnt how a couch is much more comfortable than a wooden chair and thus we should strive to make our teaching like a couch and not just like a chair which was passed to us from the previous generation.

The Film module taught me the concept of motion. How a film is a journey between two perfect still pictures became clearer in this module. A film not just has the compelling experiences of a still photograph but it also has a forward motion to it. This brings in another dimension, something similar to architecture. How different goals can be achieved by juxtaposing two frames on top of one another at the same time a complete different experience is achieved by placing them side by side. I became more aware of narration and its styles. The difference between continuous and discrete narration became clear and how it could be used to achieve various goals. Similarly as teachers we should look into this flow and try to teach lessons in a fashion that the narration becomes clear and not just blindly follow the sequence of the syllabus.

Music module stressed the importance of repetition and hook. A simple information when put in a rhythm becomes easy to remember. Similarly the Fashion module talks about change. The need to know your own body and your own strengths. Then decide and choose things that suit you. Students should become more aware of their own strengths. Then they should adopt a learning style that achieves the goal that they intend to complete. The whole course has given me a different lens to look through. It has allowed me to frame my problems through different parameters and not just the ones that I was looking till now. It has taught me that a teacher is like a photographer, artist, who needs to look at things through a lens and then make a composition that is most compelling for the particular experience.