Monday, July 18, 2011
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Traditional Textbooks vs. Hypertext
I think this may work for lower levels of education such as grammar schools and junior high schools, but once a student gets to high school and most definitely in college, it seems they prefer the original paper based textbooks, at least for studying on their own. In many of my classes here at Fordham, whenever a textbook company offers an online edition of their textbook, it seems only a few students in the class opt to use this version of the textbook even though it is cheaper. It seems that many students still prefer to study out of a physical paper textbook, even if it costs a bit more money.
Digital Divide
http://www.digitaldivide.net/
Lost in Cyberspace
Interactive Media
The Differences Between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0
Web 1.0 | Web 2.0 | |
---|---|---|
DoubleClick | --> | Google AdSense |
Ofoto | --> | Flickr |
Akamai | --> | BitTorrent |
mp3.com | --> | Napster |
Britannica Online | --> | Wikipedia |
personal websites | --> | blogging |
evite | --> | upcoming.org and EVDB |
domain name speculation | --> | search engine optimization |
page views | --> | cost per click |
screen scraping | --> | web services |
publishing | --> | participation |
content management systems | --> | wikis |
directories (taxonomy) | --> | tagging ("folksonomy") |
stickiness | --> | syndication |
The Future is Now
Cellular phone technology has come along way from the “box” nokia phones that were originally produced for the masses. In this video google goggles is presented and shows us how users can access ever more technology by just taking a picture of an image.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhgfz0zPmH4&feature=related
Attn: Advertising
user generated content
Interactive Internet
Life without the Internet
Googling Information
You’re unpacking the groceries when Sally walks in and starts tapping you on the arm.
SALLY: Maryland State bird.
YOU: What about it?
SALLY: Let me try: quote, state bird, unquote, Maryland.
YOU: Are you OK?
SALLY (to herself): Did I spell it wrong?
YOU: Spell what wrong?
SALLY: M-A-R-Y-L-A-N-D.
YOU: That spells Maryland.
SALLY: State bird.
YOU: (Pause)
SALLY: (Pause)
YOU: Sweetie, the Maryland state bird is an Oriole. It’s a black bird with an orange belly. Are you OK?
Emailing friends
This is where the video starts to look real old-timey. Sally sits down at a desk and gazes out the window while using a pehn to make swirly shapes on a piece of payper.(Forgive me if I’m misspelling anything. Some of these words are so out of date, spell check doesn’t even recognize them.) Since she’s still quite young, we see you proofreading her lehtir before she seals it up into a larger folded piece of payper known as an ennvilowp. Sally puts a stahmpe on the lehtir and males it with great satisfaction. Cut to the next day when Sally angrily approaches her friend Christine.
SALLY: Where were you yesterday?
CHRISTINE: When?
SALLY: Yesterday, after class.
CHRISTINE: I had ballet.
SALLY: Didn’t you get my message?
CHRISTINE: No.
SALLY: Really?
CHRISTINE: Yeah. What message?
SALLY: I asked you if you wanted to hang out.
CHRISTINE: Oh, no, I didn’t get it.
SALLY: Hm, the maleman must have a virus.
CHRISTINE: That sucks. He should run Live Update.
Classroom 2.0
Google Wave is the latest craze in open source, real time, cross platform development online. Since we spoke about it in class I've seen interest generated around it mainly by education institutions who are looking at Google Wave as a new kind of classroom forum or community. With the addition of a few extensions or plugins it would eliminate many areas of criticism concerning online classes. Team building skills and social skills could be cultivated using this type of cross platform communication which could not be in a typical online class. It will be able to replace wikis, be able to playback the information for those who missed it in real time, allow collaborative, simultaneous group work, teacher involvment in all waves, and ability to publish (embed) completed projects to other sites. There has been so much buzz around Google Wave revolutionizing education that some are calling this next step in learning "Classroom 2.0"
I found that online I cannot find a single article bashing Google Wave in regards to education anywhere. However, I haven't heard any of my peers support Google Wave at all. I think that the beta version is pretty awful, as was the beta version of Gmail. Once Google gets it's feedback I'm sure they'll figure out a way to have us addicted to it like we are with Gmail, Facebook, and Twitter.
Internet shift
With information for papers, tests, and exams becoming more and more accessible for students, it is an easy way for them to turn. The Internet is the newest of mediums that has had a profound affect on all people of all ages, and I think most on the college age students. Personal voices, as Paglia says, can dominate the Internet. As we see with our own blog, we are writing for the Internet, for each other, and for our lovely ONE outstanding follower (and maybe others?). And as Paglia states, we do use "more voices and shifts of tone" than we would in other places, especially here. Here we can be both silly and serious. We can have some fun and remain reserved to what we are reporting in our blog posts. But, as she says, if we were writing for the Wall Street Journal, we would definitely be much more reserved and serious about our reporting. Salon gave Camille a place to use her many voices, and this blog has done that for us!
Monday, December 21, 2009
Surrogates
Digital Get Down
Also, from the album No Strings Attached by *NSYNC - Digital Get Down:
From 2000 - talks about a relationship with technological communication as it's foundation. Enjoy the throwback to middle school!
Online Pornography and Protecting Youths on the Cyber Playground
Parents often use parental codes and blocks that restrict their children from certain websites but with each new technology invented there is only a matter of time until there is a way to get around it, or "hack" it.
Now with spam on MySpace that involves sex advertisements, a child doesn't necessarily have to be looking for porn, it can find them. I think more efforts to block spam should taken because it is easy to influence a young mind, and with all of the negativity online, the children may find more bad things to do on the internet than good.
Obsessing Over the Social Landscape
In a recent New York Times article, renowned analysts from Columbia and MIT, commented on a study that proved facebook was literally taking over student's lives and creating a physical blockade of procrastination. I know what you're thinking--"duh!"--but, do we really take this seriously? According to the article, a few students did and deactivated their facebook accounts to allow themselves to focus more on their studies and non-mediated relationships.
There is commentary on the "new" facebook and the live-feed that it features: "'You’re getting a feed of everything everyone is doing and saying,' Ms. Simmons, an educator and the author, said. 'You’re literally watching the social landscape on the screen, and if you’re obsessed with your position in that landscape, it’s very hard to look away.'"
In Communication and Cyberspace, it is noted that cyberspace may feel real and take on similar traits of real life, personal interactions, but is in fact lacking the crucial component of non-linearity.
"Cyberspace consists not only of material things like people and their artifacts (computers, modems, telephone lines, etc.); it also has two major nonmaterial components: relationships among individuals, and the cybercultural contents of their heads--the sense of belonging to cyberspace, and relational, and cognitive--constitute not only cyberspace itself, but what is often called "culture" more generally (Communication and Cyberspace, "Who Shall Control Cyberspace?" Beniger, p. 61)."
With relation to facebook, when do we draw the line between cyberspace and reality when cyberspace begins to encompass reality, translate into reality and inhibit reality? Facebook may exist only in cyberspace, but that is not where it is solely present. However, there are instances that will stay on facebook and most likely never be discussed in real-life, for instance your high score on “Farmville,” but there are more such instances that will translate off of facebook. For example, lets say you comment on someone’s ending of a “relationship” with someone else on facebook; you probably know that person and will discuss it with them off of facebook.
Facebook is indeed a social landscape and includes yourself and 100’s of your “friends” (or so that is apparent to you) and has the ability to make you obsessed with your position on that landscape. In fact, to make sure I was productive in writing this entry, I signed myself out of the usually-always-open facebook.
As an interesting caveat, here is a look at the top facebook trends of 2009:
This provides us with insight of how there are trends that are important specifically in the realm of facebook , for example “Facebook Applications,” and there are also trends which translate off of facebook and into mainstream, non-linear society, like “Swine Flu.”
The Art of Writing Online
Online Education vs. Traditional: The Real Difference
Post for 11/10/09: Hypertext
Post for 11/3/09: Online Learning
Post for 10/27/09: Virtual Benefits
Post for 10/20/09: Cyberspace
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Cyberpunks
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
another backstreet boy fad?
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Alice in Cyberland
"2009 In Auto Tune"
The "Napster"ization of Electronic Books
Will Books Be Napsterized?
Cellphone Apps Challenge the Rise of E-Readers
These two articles, along with many others recently published with the New York Times, describe the complications that may arise with electronic books, from piracy with the Kindle and online books, as well as the difference in using e-books on the Kindle or the iPhone.
Thankfully, they suspect that with the holiday season coming, hopefully *fingers crossed* the Kindle will be a big present this season and will boost the revenue of the device. They are also currently developing an e-book reader for the Blackberry so the application can be used with purchased electronic books so you can read on-the-go. We see everything technology wise becoming more and more accessible for the average moving person so that no matter where you are, you have access to things with your iPhone, Blackberry, or even cell-phone!
Connected but Lonely
Tech
Is Twitter making us more selfish?
Can't Get No Satisfaction
In this class, we’ve talked about the constant changing of new technologies. As I reflected upon what technology I am truly satisfied with, I kept naming things in my head, and then realizing that they could be better. First, I thought of my computer. I completely depend on my computer for just about all of my classes. I type up all my notes, have essays and word documents, excel spreadsheets, powerpoint presentations, emails; everything I need to continue being a successful student. However, there are always ways that these applications can be improved. How? Not exactly sure. But I know that Microsoft Office continues to be re-developed, so therefore something can be changed to make it better for me.
I then thought to the Internet. Yes, I am satisfied with the internet. Oh no, wait. It can always be faster. There can always be more information. There can always be a way that it’s accessed easier and faster. And the same goes for my cell phone. I have the internet at my fingertips, all my important contacts with the click of a button, texts, calls, and BBMs, as well as a world of applications. What more could I want? The answer is more. There are always ways that it can be faster, that it can be better.
And I know that I’m not the only one to feel this way. I’ve read posts on this blog about how our generation becomes impatient if a website doesn’t load in under 3 seconds. But have we just become spoiled and lazy as our impatience grows with faster technology? Does that even make any sense, that as technology becomes more readily available to us, we become even more skeptical of how great it is and our impatience grows? Is this how we’re going to define our culture, in terms of how we view our cyber culture?
the rise and fall of mankind
-a.s.
Web 2.0 Summit
We can see that we no longer just use the web, the web uses us to create content and generate action. Social networking is just the beginning. Facebook began as a fairly passive application in which one could view friends profiles, but it becomes increasingly more interactive and collaboration.
Google also began as merely a search engine, but has developed into email and so much more. It's latest development is GoogleWave, which I have to admit I haven't totally figured out yet. It seems to allow people to communicate, collaborate, and create documents in real time through cyberspace. Collaboration is key what will be next?
This is a long video taken from the summit called "What Do Teens Want?". It's interesting to see perspective from our age group at the summit. I don't expect you to watch the whole 30+ minutes, but you might find a few snippets interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLblEHTnLPQ&feature=player_embedded
web 2.0
Monday, December 7, 2009
Social Media According To Wikipedia
And! what better place to find the true definition than Wikipedia: the social media information outlet. The Wiki article describes social media as encouraging "the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers."
MySpace, Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, Digg, Neopets, Last.fm, YouTube, Blogger, etc. etc. etc. all encourage the individual to create the content. No longer is there one-directional communication . Newspapers, TV, radio, and other forms of mass media have been supplanted by these new formats which are all led by an aggregate of the public.
MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking sites encourage communication between people. Wikipedia gives people who are experts in their field the ability to edit articles. Twitter gives people the ability to hear quick bytes of news and information. YouTube lets individuals post their videos for widespread viewing. And Neopets combines the toy that young kids love with the internet in a fascinating (and personally for me, unbelievably odd) way.
The question is: is this the way media should be? Should face-to-face interaction be supplanted by communication over the internet? Should in depth newspaper articles be overcome by instantaneous Twitter feeds? Should Wikipedia articles, which can be edited by many people, overcome the classic encyclopedia entry? Should YouTube and quick videos change the way people watch anything? It is a question that many people should be wondering with the advent of this Web 2.0 era. The internet certainly makes things easier... but is that a good thing?