Traditional Textbooks vs. Hypertext

Chapter 17 in "Communication and Cyberspace" talks about traditional textbooks in classrooms versus the use of hypertext based textbooks. The text talks about Traditional textbooks being for more individual study and as not really promoting an interactive classroom. Whereas hypertext textbooks are more interactive, students can click on text or graphics to lead them to other pages to learn more about a topic, which may hold a students interest more.
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

The "digital divide" is an extremely important issue in today's world. As America becomes more and more of a completely "digital society," those who do not have access to the internet are getting left behind. As the text mentions in chapter 10, some of the main demographics in which the digital divide exists are Income level, Race, Age, Education level, and Household type; and most of the time, Income level and education level are intertwined. If you have not gotten much education, you will usually have a lower income and therefore may not be able to afford to have a computer, nor know how to use one of your lack of exposure to computers. This issue has caused a lot of controversy in the last few years, some believing it is more of a problem, and some believing it is not a problem at all. But there is a website dedicated to educating people on the issue of the digital divide and to finding ways to conquer it.

http://www.digitaldivide.net/

Lost in Cyberspace

With the emerging technologies and social networks that allow people to go from site to site with the help from hypertext, many people find themselves becoming addicted to the technology. Yes, I will admit, I have found myself trying to do homework and getting stuck going from facebook page to facebook page, but it can get out of control for some people because the internet is open 24-hours, 7-days a week, to anyone accessible. There are so many people on the internet at the same time, that people get caught up and lose track of their own realities in this virtual one. I researched about the cultural geography of cyberspace and found stories of parents getting so involved in the virtual world, that they forget to pick up their children or a spouse. Now it is a little out of control to fall completely out of reality and into a virtual world, but in an episode of South Park called "Make Love, Not Warcraft," they poke fun at the idea of children getting so involved in the game that they never leave their rooms. I couldn't find the actual episode, because of copyright, so here is a different version.

Interactive Media

The idea of Interactive Media revolves around a medium that allows its participants to communicate with each other actively through two-way communication. In its relation to "New Media" a form of this would be Skype or IChat. These medias are groundbreaking into today's society because they allow people to speak to each other even if they are miles apart. I am an avid user of Skype because it enables me to chat with my friends across the country. Without this, we would only be able to communication through text and most of the time it is hard to decipher their emotion and sarcasm.

Along with Interactive Media comes Interactive Advertising. Some advertisers will show a commercial but cut out the end of it and post a saying "Go to this website to see how this ends", to get their audience to access their website. Most of the time it doesn't work because I suppose American's are too lazy to get up from watching television to see what actually happens, but that's just my opinion. haha.

Here is a pretty cool image I found that used Interactive Advertising to catch the attention of their audience for Star Wars.

The Differences Between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0

While I was browsing the Internet, I found this distinction between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 on O'Reilly.com. It's funny to see that our generation may know the applications on both of these lists but the generation following us would probably know only the right column.

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

The android phone and Google goggles

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

In one of Robby’s posts, he posted his thoughts on the way advertising has been developing in order to “catch” and hold the audiences attention. As I do agree with his comments that these advertisers only have a few seconds to get their message across and have the audience intrigued by what they are saying, it should be noted that it is not necessary for this to happen, there are numerous tricks that advertisers use to get people attention. As he stated, advertisers only have a few seconds to get their message across and hope that people get interested in the subject. However I believe that the main way to get people interested in their advertising is in repetition and not instant gratification. Most people find that when a commercial is played over and over again that they become more intrigued then just seeing a commercial once and saying that was cool and moving on. When a commercial is played repeatedly people tend to memorize the information, which leads them to further research the subject and potential buy the product. So it is not necessary to “catch” people’s attention but to get them to learn the information, which will hopefully get them to buy the product.

user generated content

The book talks about how web sites and multimedia cd-roms are completely one-dimensional in that communication from these sources can only be displayed in certain order even if the user has free range. What is meant by this is that news outlets can display a certain piece of information that a user can read but to that extent only. Same with multimedia cd-roms such as Microsoft Encarta can display information to a user on basically any subject but can do no more than that. However I would have to disagree with this statement due to the fact that in today’s world information can be commented on from just about anything as well as be changed at any users discretion. It should be noted that at the time this book was written, digital media was at its infancy and commenting on news feeds was not yet available. However websites such as Wikipedia allow for users to add comments and change information on particular sites and allow users to either agree or disagree with this change. Take a recent example of the late death of Brittney Murphy, within only minutes of her death being released to the media outlets, her Wikipedia page had already been updated by a user about her death and also commented about the proposed cause of death. This right here shows that web sites are completly multi-dimesional in that information can be changed, commented on, and even debated by numerous rumors at the instant information is displayed. This just goes to show that the evolution of the web sites has come along way from web 1.0 to web 2.0.

Interactive Internet

Rushkoff states in chapter 21 that the World Wide Web only allows for “interactive-style” activity, which would mean an information only,static type of internet. However with the rise of Web 2.0 and internet sites such as facebook and youtube, this statement can be clearly seen as false. With the ability for people all over the web to instantly change information on their own personal blog as well as get instant feedback from other users turns this idea of “interactive style” on its head. Another innovation the web has done is the collaboration of many websites all in one general location. Take for instance google maps or any other map based website. Google maps allows for users to not only find their way around a busy city by seeing a visual guideline, but they can also see traffic conditions being reported by not only news outlets but also from people on the road via their phones. Google maps also allow for a 360 degree view of a street and actually allows the user to “walk” down the road and look for particular shops along the route. If the user was able to find their store they need only to click on that store and all its information would be brought to them instantly via the stores personal site. This only proves that the world wide web was come along way from an “interactive-style” format where everything was static and only information searched for was brought to them, instead today all the information is brought to them at their fingertips.

Life without the Internet

While searching about the effect the Internet has had on the concept of time I came across a funny story on The Morning News site about a little girl named Sally and how to do modern day tasks the way people would before the Internet. I copied the funnier parts out of it here...enjoy!

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

Looking back to November 9th, I found myself reading Camille Paglia's chapter called "Dispatches from the New Frontier: Writing for the Internet" and was completely fascinated by her realizations about the Internet and her work with Salon. The statistics given by Paglia in her chapter do not even compare to those of college students today, but it is still true that "the Internet has cause a tremendous cultural shift whose most profound impact has been on young people." She states that college students spend 2 to 5 hours a night on the Internet. (I think this could be potentially more today).
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!

Surrogates

The term 'virtual reality' takes on a whole new meaning in the 2009 movie Surrogates. In the movie humans live in isolation while only communicating with their fellow man through robots that serve as social surrogates and are better-looking versions of their human counterparts. Humans sit in "stem chairs" and use the "power of their mind" to control these human-like robots with the durability of a machine. You can be who you want to be and live your life without limitations. I haven't seen the movie but from what I can gather, this wonderful lifestyle doesn't quite work out in the end. However, we can wonder if this type of technology will be developed in the future - and if so - if this really happens, does that mean: virtual reality = reality?

WoW Freakout / Internet Relationships

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

I decided to combine two topics previously discussed on the blog, those being pornography online and protecting youths on the cyber playground. Pornography is so easily accessed that it can even by auto-completed in the search box on Google's homepage. For parents it is probably a scary feeling to know that their child can find pornography just as easily as they can find answers to their homework online. This easily accessbile pornography can lead to corrput attitudes toward sex in children. They may now see sex as a recreational activity rather than an intimate/serious act.

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

"There are approximately 350 million facebook users who spend nearly 10 billion minutes there a day checking in with friends, writing on people’s electronic walls, clicking through photos and generally keeping pace with the drift of their social world ("To Deal With Obsession, Some Defriend Facebook," NYTimes)."

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

The journalist in me has been trained over the years to write new in a very specific way: the inverted triangle. The most important facts come first, and the less important information comes later to fill out the story. However, online, this writing style is too blocky and unattractive. To remedy this, there have been many proposed models for journalists when it comes to writing online. This model is the one with which I am the most familiar:

In this model, several "mini-stories" make up the greater piece of writing. This allows the writer to keep the readers' interest in an online environment.

Online Education vs. Traditional: The Real Difference

The best, most attractive aspect of online education is that learning online allows students to explore which methods of teaching work the best for them. For example, some students learn better through lecture, others through powerpoint presentations, still others through some combination of the two. By exploring the material at each student's own pace, the optimal amount of learning will ultimately take place. To explore this idea further, check out this article.

Post for 11/10/09: Hypertext

When using the internet it is impossible to avoid being subject to hypertext. At its most basic definition, hypertext is an internet tool that provides users easy access to information related to a specific subject. It is text that is not linear, which enables a user to click on the text and be taken to a new part of cyberspace. In other words, it links the user to whatever the author creates. For instance, a web page may include hypertext for other websites, making it easy for everyday people to navigate the web easily.