New Media class goes interactive

The concept of interactivity in New Media was clearly observed during a media class for a course coded MES 414 and titled ‘New Media’, when a student made a wonderful distant presentation from as far as Nairobi to a class in Moi University, Eldoret.

Irene Chemtai coordinating the phone presentation

Jalang’o John Njoga is a fourth year media student whose good luck seems to surpass the rest of his classmates. As an undergraduate student, Jalang’o has already established ‘nationwide’ connections in the media industry. He has worked for such organizations as The Nairobian and The Standard Media Group, where he is currently attached.

Despite being already entitled to a reasonable salary, the Luo boy is still looking for marks from Moi University’s main campus. He skips 100% of lectures but when it comes to assignments, CATs and exams, he is always under pressure to score 100% in each. His fellow group members are always keen to alert him whenever his contribution is required in any of his group assignments. They do so at a little fee, I suspect.

However, Dr. Omanga, the course lecturer has a different style. He awards marks to students according to one’s performance in oral presentations. This came as a blow to the student-practitioner, whose group members made their presentation in his absence and therefore missed a single individual mark despite his commendable contribution in the write-up. He therefore held negotiations with Omanga and was finally given a topic for a solo presentation.

Due to job commitments, Jalang’o chose a distant presentation over travelling to Moi. He was allowed to use Skype platform to make his presentation on Thursday 7^th August 2014. Skype is a video calling service that enables two distant parties to actively interact with each other over the internet. In addition to the traditional textual chats and voice calls, the service adds the visual concept, making the conversation appear more real than mediated.

Jalang’o had liaised with one Irene Chemtai, a classmate, to coordinate the exercise and see that it succeeds. To the best of her knowledge, the lady made every effort required of her but finally the system failed her. A quick solution was therefore found – a switch from Skype to a normal telephone call.

With enough airtime in the lecturer’s smart phone, the class was connected to the presenter, who explained to them his findings of the topic he had been assigned to research on. A sound-boosting system was assembled in front of the class to ensure that everyone hears loudly and clearly. Still, Chemtai had to supervise the electronics despite her little knowledge of their operations.

The presentation commenced, went on and ended successfully and when it was time for questions, comments and reactions, most of the class members logged onto their phone WhatsApp group and posted their reactions on it. Jalang’o was therefore able to receive numerous comments from which he selected a few to react to. However, some members were simply posting jokes but they, too, contributed to the concept of interactivity though through out-of-topic participation.

MUSO Election: Who was declared chair?

On Friday 22nd August 2014, the Moi University Students Organization (MUSO) conducted its election exercise, to determine the 11 members who would form the 28th Students Governing Council.

As usual, the most sensitive post was that of chairperson, which attracted a total of seven candidates. Out of these, two appeared to be the most popular especially towards the end of the campaign period. They were endorsed by their respective tribal coalitions, Geofrey Omondi from CORD and Robert Bwalei of Jubilee, a true reflection of national politics.

After the exercise and therefore tallying process, Omondi, a Luo, reaped a total of 2,214 votes, 251 ahead of the second-placed Bwalei from the Kalenjin community. But who, exactly, did the returning officer declare as the new MUSO chairperson?

Find out here

Profile 3: Oquier or Okeya?

Group 5 went on stage, for the final presentation. As usual, they began with some introductions. Brian Mala set the ball rolling, with his name and registration number and the rest followed. Dr. Omanga, the lecturer, was keen to note down their details for the purpose of mark awarding.

Then it was time for a one-time aspirant for the docket of Director of Catering in last year's students election, Miss Cadrix Okeya.

CADRIX: (In a Jamaican accent) My name is Cadrix 'Oquier'
KATANA: (Surprised) Cadrix O...?
CADRIX: Cadrix Oquier
A better section of the class burst out laughing!

For all that time, the lecturer seemed not to be disturbed. He was busy writing down the lady's second name in a way that seemed correct, at least to himself.

Then suddenly, an idea came into Cadrix's mind. She realized that we were in a serious forum, looking for marks. It dawned to her that the accent she had employed in pronouncing especially her second name might mislead Omanga during awarding of marks. She therefore found it necessary to clearly re-state her name:
CADRIX: (In her native Luo accent and with a faster tempo) I am Cadrix OKEYAAA!!!

The failing electoral commission

A politician is never politically neutral. Moi University ignored this fact during the formation of students electoral commission a few weeks ago, for the forthcoming students election scheduled for tomorrow, Friday.

The commission is made up of 90% politicians and political activists, selected through a 'democratic' process and mandated to organize and oversee tomorrow's election. As predicted, most of the members failed to assume political neutrality and ended up revealing their support for certain aspirants.

As the voting day approached, a clear division was formed, with candidates forming tribal coalitions, prominently the CORD and Jubilee. Surprisingly, some members of the electoral commission also appeared to take sides of their choice. They, too, became divided!

Today, some hours before the election exercise, the situation reached its peak during the final campaign gathering held outside the students centre. One 'drunk' supporter from a certain language group messed up everything when he/she threw a stone at an influential aspirant on stage, sparking off war between two tribes we know.

The gathering ended pre-maturely, with the two groups going into a serious battle along the academic highway. The electoral commissioners who were in control of the programming were left to stare at each other's eyes, as if trying to admit their failure.

As a result, several students got injured and were rushed to the campus dispensary for treatment. Where the stones came from is still a mystery because the battle took place along a tar marked road, with some beautiful green grass and flowers on each side.

Until now, tension is still high and what will happen tomorrow after the election results get announced is also unknown. With these political commissioners in charge, do we still expect a free and fair election tomorrow?

Readers' reactions, writers' dilemma

It is said that a writer remains blind to how his/her readers react to the text until they finally respond. I agree. The diversity of audience surely makes it hard to at least make a guess regarding the same. After all, different people consume similar pieces of information for different purposes – some to get informed, for leisure, to criticize – just to mention a few.

However, I have personally come to realize that there are a few ‘funny’ responses that one ought to be prepared for, especially while writing for such a vibrant forum as ‘Moi University Press Club, The Third Eye’. If you want to believe this, take some time, go through some of the comments made for stories posted in this fan page. Trust me; you might not stop laughing, at least for a while! You will come across comments that you least expected. That is what I normally do sometimes when I am depressed.

As I write this piece, I constantly refer back to its beginning, just to confirm that it is still a short one. Some comrades seem not to be in love with long text pieces. They have no time for them, whether or not they have something else to do. “I can’t read all this…” “This is too long…” “Can someone summarize this for me…?” are some of the complaints that I want to avoid now. So trust me, this won’t be ‘too long’ for you.

Allow me to restate one or two replies for a news story that I came across sometimes back. Someone, after reading the online post, just said, “e.t.c” Another one wrote, “Blah blah blah!” I did not really understand what they meant until I asked one of them, who said, “Ok, I read the story and understood it. I simply had nothing serious to say about it, I just wanted to submit a comment.”

Well, I promised you that I was going to keep this one short. For that matter, let me disregard all the other paragraphs that I am yet to type, so that I can sum up with the question of, ‘What exactly do readers want?’

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