Ways 2 Interface was...

Ways 2 interface was a transdisciplinary research project, study log and personal journal I oversaw from 2014 to 2016.

I had planned to carry it over and expand it within the research focus of a traditional master’s degree in Creative Technologies and Enterprise, which I had originally signed up to undertake at the end of 2014.

Ways 2 Interface picked up where the research concerns of my BA (Hons) theoretical dissertation, Ways of Being: The Spectator and the Spectacle, had left off.

Hence the name of Ways 2 Interface, a.k.a. Phase 2.

Ways 2 Interface reconsidered the study of the content and the consumer in relation to a wider spectrum of knowledge and holistic considerations.

The fundamental focus of the project was the idea of an interfacing process – the introspective and expressive capacity inherent to us all – that we have always interwoven throughout our day-to-day existences and that we continue to do so at a formidably greater capacity in our contemporary digital realities.

By examining the habits and manifestations of our cognitive, corporeal, cultural and connected ways to interface, Ways 2 Interface aimed to build a unified understanding of this interfacing process.

Ultimately, I decided against undertaking a traditional master’s degree and instead opted to build my own master's degree which I went on to call my MTA Portfolio.

As my MTA Portfolio grew, the drive to pursue a research project to suit the requirements of a traditional master’s degree became less relevant and Ways 2 Interface transitioned away from being a research project in its own right.

It then morphed into a study log for my MTA Portfolio and then became a more general personal journal of mass communications and media studies 2.0.

With all its focuses, Ways 2 Interface accompanied and influences the construction of my MTA concentration in Multimedia Studies and Creative Technologies.

I stopped updating Ways 2 Interface in 2016.

I have since published all the unfinished and unpublished posts I originally wrote back in 2014 and 2015 in conjunction with presenting Ways 2 Interface as a component of my Creative Technologies Sandbox (which is one of the final projects for my MTA Portfolio).

I have also re-posted most of the content of Ways 2 Interface on my MTA Portfolio blog.

When Ways 2 Interface became a Study Log and Personal Journal

The focus of the Ways 2 Interface blog naturally shifted as my time and attention gradually moved more towards the building of my MTA Portfolio.

For me, I had a deep and keen interest in researching how we interface with reality (I still do now) but it all boiled down to being able to perform legitimate research to explore those concepts.

In my mind, legitimate research requires the backing of a fully accredited master’s degree which I didn’t have and wasn’t likely to have anytime soon because I elected to construct my own master’s degree.

Therefore, if I was not going to pursue a fully accredited degree, preparing the research for one was largely a waste of my time, which was already being eaten up with the task of building my own master’s degree from scratch.

For a time, Ways 2 Interface served much the same role as ibuiltmyown.education, it held the identity and progress of my MTA Portfolio (or Postgraduate 2.0 Studies, as it was then known).

Ways 2 Interface studies progress page

The studies page is no longer present as a page on the Ways 2 Interface blog, but I have re-posted it as a blog post.

I also used Ways 2 Interface to blog about the MOOCs I was studying (something I have not really done on ibuiltmyown.education as I implemented its blog after I had completed the majority of the study component).

Parallel to this, and partly because many of the MOOCs I was studying delved into this, I was continuing to dabble with post about my interest in mass communications and media studies.

So, in addition to it being my study log, I also increasing viewed Ways 2 Interface as being the wider media focused blog space to cover anything that Something to do with Film could not cover because of its film-centric focus.

But eventually even its more general media focus fizzled out.

In hindsight, I wish I had kept Ways 2 Interface going a bit longer because I could have used the blog to document the further development of my MTA Portfolio and the building of ibuiltmyown.education and then handed over the duties when ibuiltmyown.education.

I’ve properly tied up the blog now that I have written up this component page as part of my Creative Technologies Sandbox.

But will I ever pick up the research I started first in my Ways of Being dissertation and then in my Ways 2 Interface blog?

Possibly.

It all really depends if I ever do get around to studying a fully accredited master’s degree.