This assignment began by completing the unit 12 review sheet. Following this, I continued to work on my term project, and had to write up a document that explained the work I have done so far in total, including a screenshot that documents my progress. Finally, I had to turn in my review sheet and term project update document in to canvas through an assignment link.
Per usual, the review sheet was cumulative, so I first filled out the pages for units one through eleven, and then began to tackle unit twelve. For unit 12, it first asked me to identify the five factors in the Big Five Factor Personality theory, to which I listed extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness/openness to experience.
Next, it asked me to explain what “proportion of variance accounted for” means and describe how little of the variance in Internet activities is accounted for by personality factors. I explained that regular variance is essentially how much people differ on a dependent variable, such as how much someone uses Facebook. Then, you can try to predict a dependent variable value based on an independent variable value. So, building off of my other example, this could be like using a person’s extraversion score to try to predict how often they use Facebook. So, moving into what “proportion of variance explained” means, you can compare your predicted dependent variable value to the actual dependent variable value, and see how close they are to one another. The closer these two numbers are to one another, the greater the proportion of variance explained. For example, if the extraversion scores led to a perfect prediction of Facebook use scores, all of the variance would be explained by that variable.
According to the tables from assignment 2, most Big Five Personality factors do not explain much of the variance in variables related to internet use. Out of the five factors, extraversion was the only one that somewhat regularly explained a substantial amount of the variance in internet use. It can be noted that physical, verbal, vicarious, and overall sadism can explain a solid chunk of enjoyment in trolling, and that factors such as age and gender can sometimes explain a slim to moderate proportion of internet use. However, these are not Big Five Personality factors, which only explain a very minor amount of the variance in internet activities.
Finally, it asked me list four famous selfies made prior to the Internet. My first example was that in 1839, a young Philadelphian, Robert Cornelius, took what is considered one of the very first portraits. This was the same year that photography was invented. Second, in 1914, teenage Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of Tsar Nicholas the Second, took a selfie using a mirror. Third, in 1966, British musician and Beatles member George Harrison took a selfie in front of the Taj Mahal, with a fish-eye lens. Fourth, in 1966, U.S. astronaut Buzz Aldran, the second person to ever walk on the moon, took a selfie during one of his famed space walks.
Moving on to the term project update, I reiterated that my term project is to create daily journals in which I itemize the course content and provide my detailed reflections, which I do through the medium of a blog, through the Word Press Website.
Explaining the work I have done so far on the project, to date I have made 70 blog posts. There is a blog post for every single assignment of this course that we have completed. For many weeks when I started the term project, I had to make multiple blog posts a day to try to catch up to the more current units. However, now I make one post daily, because I am caught up to our current unit. In each post, I explain what steps we had to complete, what I learned from the readings, videos and activities, and then how I felt about the assignment as a whole.
At the bottom of the document, I made sure to include a screenshot of a list of the recent blog posts I have made, and mentioned that I continue to spend more than 2 hours per unit working on my blog posts, surpassing the recommended amount.
Reflecting on this assignment, as usual, the review sheet was helpful in reminding me of information from previous units. As I go about my busy life and focus on the current week, I often do not get to think back to previous material, but this sheet allows me to do just that. The more I interact with it, the more I remember the information from the course, which is a plus. Filling out the page from the current unit is also helpful because it is fresh in my memory, and allows me to apply what I have learned in the past few days.
Additionally, the term project document was very standard. Since it always just asks for the “work I have done so far”, I essentially always describe the same things, about what the project is, how it works, and things along those lines. However, it always does remind me of the massive amount of overall work I have put into it overall, which is nice. 70 blog posts is a lot, especially when you take a solid chunk of time on each one!
That is really all I can say about this assignment, since it really does not change much from unit to unit. Not that it is a bad thing, there is just nothing much else to “reflect” on.
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