December 2021 – Digital writing

Reflection on creating a podcast and the design sprint in the course: Design thinking and Maker culture

The course Design Thinking and Maker Culture has introduced a lot of new concept to me. Firstly, the course introduced me to new theories such as design ethnography and digital making. Digital making is something I am very interested in, as it has been one of the main reasons to enrol in the studies in the first place. Aside from introducing me to new theories, the course also introduced me to new practical instalments. For the first time, I experienced a small course on 3D printing, hosted by the library of the UM. This was very interesting to see, since I have learned a lot of theories about 3D printing and I see it used all the time in museums and at my job. In the news, I also hear a lot about the possible uses of 3D printing. However, I had yet to see 3D printing happening with my own eyes. I am very happy that this course has given me the possibility to learn more about 3D printing. The same goes for the creation of the Podcast for the course. Prior to this course, I had listened to podcasts, but never attempted to make one of my own. I found it very interesting to learn about basic audio editing and mixing sounds. Aside from learning new theories in this course, I really feel like I have learned something practical thanks to the skills lessons. The making of the podcast was also very much fun to do for me and my group.
Prior to recording and editing the podcast, my group and I engaged in a mini-design sprint to come up with an idea to talk about during the podcast. I had also never engaged in a design sprint before. I found the structure of the design sprint very nice, and it worked really well for our group. We thought of an entire app (and created a mockup) to help with the housing crisis in Maastricht, especially focusing on international students. In the podcast, we talk more about the project behind this app. Stay tuned for the podcast, I will be uploading it as soon as we are done mixing and editing it.

Reflection on text analysis as thought in the course: Machines of Knowledge

In the Machines of Knowledge course, I have learned a great deal about three very important technologies. These theories are post-colonial theory, feminist theory and theory about public spheres. Thanks to these theories, I have gained a deeper understanding about many haps and mishaps in our modern-day society. To engage with the theories in a practical way, the course invited us to conduct our own text analysis with the help of digital analysis programmes. In my case, the analysis was about gender norms in men and the display of their feelings, and how this is interpreted and seen by society. Since men are often stereotyped like they need to be ‘manly’; that is, they should not cry or display emotions of any kind, for that matter. Interestingly, this principle does not apply to gay or queer men, as they are often portrayed to be overly emotional and sensitive. This is simultaneously seen as ‘not manly’, which implies that queer men are not ‘real men’. That point of view is obviously outdated and should be changed.
Through text analysis, I investigated the change and discourse of this problem. Text analysis was not something I had done before already. The course introduced me to new software to use, such as Voyant tools and text cleaner. My tutor spent a lot of time teaching us how to use the software. I found this quite a hard task. Especially cleaning the text did not seem to work as easy as it should. However, after many tries and some frustration, it worked out in the end. Voyant created clear graphs of all sorts and shapes to analyse the new-found data. Even though I did not realise it immediately at the time, this is really when the hard part starts. I found it quite the challenge to make sense of the graphs that Voyant created with my data! But, with some help of the tutor and some imaginative interpretation skills, I think the results really show new insights for the topic. I will share the new insights in another blogpost when I have added the finishing touch. I hope you have fun reading it! Until next time…