Well it was, as expected and as usual, another exciting semester. As it draws to an end, makes ya look back at it for the good times, the bad times, and the ugly... I know electronic Comm. was an interesting experience for me, and has really opened me to a lot more internet usage and at points less.
I'd have to say the most interesting thing we covered in class was second life. I had never known stuff along those lines existed, and was blown away by how many other sites like it existed. As we explored more into it and how deep it was, and how...diverse...the members were.The class aspect, it really opened my eyes to what an online community was/is. I never explored into that aspect of the internet, but now understand the validity that people make on behalf of the case of whether a virtual community was a real community. I have broadened my conception of what a community is and how diverse they are.
I also understand now my "addiction" of facebook...and know I am not alone. I still dispel the belief I am addicted, but I guess that's what groups and classes are for. Whenever we couldn't text or use facebook for a week, I saw how tough it was to just sit down and log onto a computer and the internet without just automatically signing on. I now only use it whenever procrastinating on work.
I say the best thing I brought from this was Justin.tv. I’m addicted to it and love the stupid social cams. They never do anything exciting but for some reason its fun to chat with self-proclaimed internet stars...or so I like to believe.
Well, as porky pig famously stated "Th-th-th-thats all folks!"
Friday, December 12, 2008
Monday, December 8, 2008
Justin's my man!
In the 21st century the internet has opened new avenues for individuals who casually use the internet find new ways to broaden their likes especially within entertainment. Music and movies are often very passionate interests by people, and there are numerous sites that allow them to explore and expand their knowledge with them. In class during the presentations I was intrigued by one site in particular that facilitate both of those interests, Justin. TV.
Justin TV is a site that allows people to stream live video that they create and presents a wide variety of other streaming video for users to view. It began with the founder, Justin Kan, streaming live video of his day into episodes or “pod casts” for users to watch, sort of like the movies ED TV or The Truman Show-esque real life show. It is, in my opinion, youtube on steroids. As popularity grew with the group’s project, they added a streaming chat to the video so they could communicate with the viewers and as it showed continued growth, they allowed viewers to become the creators and popularity has continues to multiply.
The site, ran by a group of friends, has a set up like youtube somewhat and has streaming live video’s ranging from movies to people playing video games, random people streaming live video of their days, I watched a video of two girls who were procrastinating painting a room, an African American who was answering peoples questions from his bedroom, and a girl sleeping. I hung out on the site with the girls “Painting” as they talked to people who were commenting on the live chat feed and it was rather amusing. There aren’t too many rules, and the moderator kept the conversations relatively clean. They shared their ideas on gay marriage, where they were going for New Years and other random stuff. After that I went to the movies aspect of the site and watched some of Transformers and Four Christmases and after that I watched some people play a couple of different video games.
Personally, it really engulfed me and my short attention span because, just like other social networking sites, the fact that it is normal people doing activities and talking about stuff I can relate to becomes more interesting and amusing than pretty much anything available at the time. This site has given the power back to the people who made the site what it is today and helps them find a community of other people with related interests. It also is a good way for people to get information out about themselves and anything they have created and are determined to share, sell, etc. This would be, in my opinion, the most diverse online community because it is based on live streaming video with people chatting.
Justin TV is a site that allows people to stream live video that they create and presents a wide variety of other streaming video for users to view. It began with the founder, Justin Kan, streaming live video of his day into episodes or “pod casts” for users to watch, sort of like the movies ED TV or The Truman Show-esque real life show. It is, in my opinion, youtube on steroids. As popularity grew with the group’s project, they added a streaming chat to the video so they could communicate with the viewers and as it showed continued growth, they allowed viewers to become the creators and popularity has continues to multiply.
The site, ran by a group of friends, has a set up like youtube somewhat and has streaming live video’s ranging from movies to people playing video games, random people streaming live video of their days, I watched a video of two girls who were procrastinating painting a room, an African American who was answering peoples questions from his bedroom, and a girl sleeping. I hung out on the site with the girls “Painting” as they talked to people who were commenting on the live chat feed and it was rather amusing. There aren’t too many rules, and the moderator kept the conversations relatively clean. They shared their ideas on gay marriage, where they were going for New Years and other random stuff. After that I went to the movies aspect of the site and watched some of Transformers and Four Christmases and after that I watched some people play a couple of different video games.
Personally, it really engulfed me and my short attention span because, just like other social networking sites, the fact that it is normal people doing activities and talking about stuff I can relate to becomes more interesting and amusing than pretty much anything available at the time. This site has given the power back to the people who made the site what it is today and helps them find a community of other people with related interests. It also is a good way for people to get information out about themselves and anything they have created and are determined to share, sell, etc. This would be, in my opinion, the most diverse online community because it is based on live streaming video with people chatting.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Facebook - beyond your weekend photo's
People use facebook to keep in touch with friends and network with other people in their social circles…But what happens whenever you get recruited by a company for a job?
Many companies these days are looking at Facebook to bring in new employees.
The Central Intelligence Agency has been doing this sine 2006. With a log in required and provides a promotional video to help explain the positions requirements. Ernest and young, a financial company, even tries to recruit potential employees through the social networking program. Sounds too good to be true huh? Well it can be whenever companies judge their wanna-be employee by his page.
Companies have begun to rate their employee’s by the content on their Facebook. According to this internet standard website, 20 percent of companies check these people’s profiles before hiring or rejecting them. Another 24 percent of companies hired their employee based on their social profile, and another 33 percent of companies said they were planning on checking their applicant’s profiles before hiring of rejecting them. Solution, clean up your page…
Since the internet has become so popular and diverse, numerous companies have begun to use it to their advantage to rate potential employee’s. This has forced many people to have made it harder for strangers or non-friends to log in to their page and view their information, lock up their profile so only friends can see their information, cleaning up their social networking profile, or even getting rid of their profile all together. Is it necessary? Since when did we have to look over our shoulder on a site intended for us to share information and memories? Even social groups within Westminster have warned their participants to only have good stuff on their profiles and to positively represent themselves and their groups. Essentially, people need to begin to limiting the people they become friends with, or not do what the sites were intended for…Share memories with people during a time where your supposed to make mistakes and push your boundaries…
Many companies these days are looking at Facebook to bring in new employees.
The Central Intelligence Agency has been doing this sine 2006. With a log in required and provides a promotional video to help explain the positions requirements. Ernest and young, a financial company, even tries to recruit potential employees through the social networking program. Sounds too good to be true huh? Well it can be whenever companies judge their wanna-be employee by his page.
Companies have begun to rate their employee’s by the content on their Facebook. According to this internet standard website, 20 percent of companies check these people’s profiles before hiring or rejecting them. Another 24 percent of companies hired their employee based on their social profile, and another 33 percent of companies said they were planning on checking their applicant’s profiles before hiring of rejecting them. Solution, clean up your page…
Since the internet has become so popular and diverse, numerous companies have begun to use it to their advantage to rate potential employee’s. This has forced many people to have made it harder for strangers or non-friends to log in to their page and view their information, lock up their profile so only friends can see their information, cleaning up their social networking profile, or even getting rid of their profile all together. Is it necessary? Since when did we have to look over our shoulder on a site intended for us to share information and memories? Even social groups within Westminster have warned their participants to only have good stuff on their profiles and to positively represent themselves and their groups. Essentially, people need to begin to limiting the people they become friends with, or not do what the sites were intended for…Share memories with people during a time where your supposed to make mistakes and push your boundaries…
Sunday, November 9, 2008
While researching for our group project I came across a lot of Content Management Systems, which helps people create web pages and other related content systems. A fellow fraternity brother of mine manages a server through one of these CMS’s. My curiosity got the best of me and I had to look into it more to try and understand it.
CMS, according to Wikipedia, is a computer application used to create, edit, manage, and publish content in a consistently organized fashion. Types of content stored on these servers include computer files image media audio and video files, electronic documents and web content. I had to find another site to get a more in-depth understanding of what these CMS’s are and how they function. I found a site dedicated to CMS which had a lot of good information of it. It stated that it allows users to manage content The site broke down a very confusing term into one much simpler definition, “A CMS is a tool that enables a variety of (centralized) technical and (de-centralized) non technical staff to create, edit, manage and finally publish (in a number of formats) a variety of content (such as text, graphics, video, documents etc), whilst being constrained by a centralized set of rules, process and workflows that ensure coherent, validated electronic content.” Essentially, it allows people of all ranges of electronic intelligence to store digital information, ranging from a family member starting and maintaining a family web site, to our campuses Novell portal and our classes page out site.
Some examples of popular CMS sites are Joomla, Drupal and PHP-Nuke. All three have detailed information about what they offer and are good examples for the numerous CMS types offered electronically. These are all great examples of how far we have come electronically. Within ten years, I went from waiting hours to not hear a busy signal, to being able to store and readily refer to content of my choosing. Though today this may not be an interest of mine, it’s good to know that one day this option may help my life.
CMS, according to Wikipedia, is a computer application used to create, edit, manage, and publish content in a consistently organized fashion. Types of content stored on these servers include computer files image media audio and video files, electronic documents and web content. I had to find another site to get a more in-depth understanding of what these CMS’s are and how they function. I found a site dedicated to CMS which had a lot of good information of it. It stated that it allows users to manage content The site broke down a very confusing term into one much simpler definition, “A CMS is a tool that enables a variety of (centralized) technical and (de-centralized) non technical staff to create, edit, manage and finally publish (in a number of formats) a variety of content (such as text, graphics, video, documents etc), whilst being constrained by a centralized set of rules, process and workflows that ensure coherent, validated electronic content.” Essentially, it allows people of all ranges of electronic intelligence to store digital information, ranging from a family member starting and maintaining a family web site, to our campuses Novell portal and our classes page out site.
Some examples of popular CMS sites are Joomla, Drupal and PHP-Nuke. All three have detailed information about what they offer and are good examples for the numerous CMS types offered electronically. These are all great examples of how far we have come electronically. Within ten years, I went from waiting hours to not hear a busy signal, to being able to store and readily refer to content of my choosing. Though today this may not be an interest of mine, it’s good to know that one day this option may help my life.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
The virtual classroom
In today’s world we have the luxury of learning in our pajamas on our couch. Classrooms have gone from a desk and a notebook to a website. Though convenient, does it really get the job done?
All students learn in different ways. Some learn quicker and easier through hearing it and writing it down. Others prefer to read and reflect on the material intended to educate. I know personally I am a better visual learner. On line classes do not always support the education system and there have been numerous tests conducted to show how students prefer to learn.
The University of Penn State has a lot of information on the matter. They boil learning types into four main ones represented by the acronym VARK. The types are Visual, such as seeing charts and graphs, Auditory, lectures, group discussions and teacher student verbal interaction, Read/write, reading and text-based, and Kinesthetic, relating material to experiences and examples. The site went on to give three examples of tests conducted to help find how people prefer to learn. In all three, the majority of subjects preferred visual and kinesthetic types as opposed to plain text. Not only did the subjects prefer the methods but the results showed that the methods were more effective in the learning process.
I am a visual/kinesthetic learner, plain reading and writing does not help me retain material. On line classrooms are a mainly text based discussion with little to no interaction with the instructor. The instructor is the most vital part of education, and with them mostly omitted from the process I couldn’t imagine how much would be retained by the student. This would prove that though convenient and easy, on line classrooms are not always the best method of learning.
All students learn in different ways. Some learn quicker and easier through hearing it and writing it down. Others prefer to read and reflect on the material intended to educate. I know personally I am a better visual learner. On line classes do not always support the education system and there have been numerous tests conducted to show how students prefer to learn.
The University of Penn State has a lot of information on the matter. They boil learning types into four main ones represented by the acronym VARK. The types are Visual, such as seeing charts and graphs, Auditory, lectures, group discussions and teacher student verbal interaction, Read/write, reading and text-based, and Kinesthetic, relating material to experiences and examples. The site went on to give three examples of tests conducted to help find how people prefer to learn. In all three, the majority of subjects preferred visual and kinesthetic types as opposed to plain text. Not only did the subjects prefer the methods but the results showed that the methods were more effective in the learning process.
I am a visual/kinesthetic learner, plain reading and writing does not help me retain material. On line classrooms are a mainly text based discussion with little to no interaction with the instructor. The instructor is the most vital part of education, and with them mostly omitted from the process I couldn’t imagine how much would be retained by the student. This would prove that though convenient and easy, on line classrooms are not always the best method of learning.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
The world may not exist but it can make money appear in your bank account
Since learning about Computer Mediate Communication styles in class I decided to do a little bit of research into their backgrounds. I searched second life and was amazed all the results that came up both from the site and 3rd parties. I even found a blog, which I found really funny that someone is blogging about the application intended for communication itself.
One article I found interesting was a piece on second life from business week. There was an interview conducted for the magazine through second life, which I found interesting because of how it relates to my major. The author of the article interviewed a Chinese teacher from Germany who owns a firm that creates homes for people to buy with the currency, Linden dollars, and has even started a real world company with real world employees. I was astounded to read that her company is worth 250,000 American dollars. Yes you read correctly, she makes money from people buying digitally created homes on digitally created land in an “imaginary” world, and has made a living from it. You may be asking yourself the same thing I thought…why? The article gives very closely related internet entrepreneurial sites formally thought of as crazy.
Ebay is quite possibly one of the world’s largest mediums to buy and sell items and goods. Myspace and Facebook are two of the most popular ways of CMC and even the most frequently visited sites on the internet. World of Warcraft has become somewhat of a cult. Even Google, a search engine, is eating up smaller useful sites to add to their electronic empire. Crazy right? Well they made people crazy rich with just a little ingenuity, some cyber elbow grease and an original idea. The world is evolving into a keyboard and a computer monitor, and those who jumped on board have made a living from it. People called Columbus crazy when he said the world wasn’t flat and they called Copernicus crazy when he stated that the earth revolves around the sun. Is it really so different? Now Ebay is worth millions of dollars and Google is one of the highest publicly traded stocks. My point is that though you may not relate to the social aspect of the applications, it doesn’t mean there aren’t other parts of it that may interest you. I know I could use the benefits from owning my own company worth a quarter of a million dollars, it would probably make retiring a bit easier and, oh I don’t know, sooner. And they do what, digitally create goods for second life. Sure beats back breaking labor and long hours for minimun wage. I think before you refer to something as crazy, look at other stuff that was considered crazy. Those who do not learn history are doomed to not monetarily benefit from the future.
One article I found interesting was a piece on second life from business week. There was an interview conducted for the magazine through second life, which I found interesting because of how it relates to my major. The author of the article interviewed a Chinese teacher from Germany who owns a firm that creates homes for people to buy with the currency, Linden dollars, and has even started a real world company with real world employees. I was astounded to read that her company is worth 250,000 American dollars. Yes you read correctly, she makes money from people buying digitally created homes on digitally created land in an “imaginary” world, and has made a living from it. You may be asking yourself the same thing I thought…why? The article gives very closely related internet entrepreneurial sites formally thought of as crazy.
Ebay is quite possibly one of the world’s largest mediums to buy and sell items and goods. Myspace and Facebook are two of the most popular ways of CMC and even the most frequently visited sites on the internet. World of Warcraft has become somewhat of a cult. Even Google, a search engine, is eating up smaller useful sites to add to their electronic empire. Crazy right? Well they made people crazy rich with just a little ingenuity, some cyber elbow grease and an original idea. The world is evolving into a keyboard and a computer monitor, and those who jumped on board have made a living from it. People called Columbus crazy when he said the world wasn’t flat and they called Copernicus crazy when he stated that the earth revolves around the sun. Is it really so different? Now Ebay is worth millions of dollars and Google is one of the highest publicly traded stocks. My point is that though you may not relate to the social aspect of the applications, it doesn’t mean there aren’t other parts of it that may interest you. I know I could use the benefits from owning my own company worth a quarter of a million dollars, it would probably make retiring a bit easier and, oh I don’t know, sooner. And they do what, digitally create goods for second life. Sure beats back breaking labor and long hours for minimun wage. I think before you refer to something as crazy, look at other stuff that was considered crazy. Those who do not learn history are doomed to not monetarily benefit from the future.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
On line communities
Communities area large part of our lives…if not the most vital and important aspect. A community as defined by the dictionary.com is “a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists”. Though communities have for a majority of history been perceived as a physical place of inhabitance, with the ever changing and expanding usages of the internet, the way communities are viewed has changed.
In the article we read for our on line class they looked into three main aspects of commuities, place, interest and communion. Interest is the most important quality to an on line community. People join the group based on their interest of the ideals of the group. Whether it is a shared hobbies, information or just overall random information these on line groups are becoming a very popular way of communication.
Since joining my Pittsburgh Steelers yahoo group I know it has become important to my love for the Steelers. Seeing other fans share my ideas such as the recent injury woes for the Steelers. With our top 2 running backs out with injury, they debated who the Steelers should get to help maintain a consist running game. This is a very important topic based on the success of the team and possibility of a playoff run.
On line communities are becoming a popular way for Computer Mediated Communication. It allows people to overcome distance and even shyness to share ideas and common interests. Computer Mediated communication is a very cheap and convenient way to achieve these goals. It has, in my opinion, improved the quality of life for many people.
In the article we read for our on line class they looked into three main aspects of commuities, place, interest and communion. Interest is the most important quality to an on line community. People join the group based on their interest of the ideals of the group. Whether it is a shared hobbies, information or just overall random information these on line groups are becoming a very popular way of communication.
Since joining my Pittsburgh Steelers yahoo group I know it has become important to my love for the Steelers. Seeing other fans share my ideas such as the recent injury woes for the Steelers. With our top 2 running backs out with injury, they debated who the Steelers should get to help maintain a consist running game. This is a very important topic based on the success of the team and possibility of a playoff run.
On line communities are becoming a popular way for Computer Mediated Communication. It allows people to overcome distance and even shyness to share ideas and common interests. Computer Mediated communication is a very cheap and convenient way to achieve these goals. It has, in my opinion, improved the quality of life for many people.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
