Creating a Story that tells itself!

The past couple weeks we have been working on our final projects in class. We decided to do a project on the app called Storify. It is a web based app that lets you gather information on any topic you choose using a variety of websites. For example; Google, Facebook, Tumblr, Youtube and Twitter are among the top sites for searching the criteria. It Is very user friendly and I think it is an innovative tool to use in editing articles or even for class presentations.
  Storify, we found out through trial and error, that many users can be named "editors" and can simultaneously edit any project on any ones own personal Storify account. The fact that you can literally drag in any information found on any site is pretty awesome. On the final page it shows just a block of information, but if you are interested in learning more than you can click on the link and it opens up the entire article. I am pretty excited to present this project in class because we are going to be using Storify itself to present the project and let our classmates look at it on their computers at the same time and allows them to follow our presentation while we talk. Don't want to reveal anything else about our project so you'll have to be in class to enjoy it!

Hey your're by me, how's it going?

With social media expanding as much as it has been lately, of course they are going to make apps that help people connect where they are. iPhone's and smartphones alike have the capability to track where you are and the fun places you go to by using the GPS service on your phone. Foursquare is an app that I was recently introduced to in class this week and has been really fun to use. I have been using the "check-in" app on Facebook and have been content with it. I always thought it was missing a little something interactive to make the experience more fun for users and now foursquare allows you to become mayor of places and lets you know who is around you and also the ability to chat.

I love the idea of all of these apps that are allowing you to use the location services to meet and stay connected to people around you. The one thing that really bugs me though is the thought that there are some creepers around and are not always as genuine as we'd all hope. Many people can see where you are being checked in to or see that you are there and come find you. The right place at the right time can now be canceled out by the mere fact that they saw you on Facebook checked in or on Foursquare checked in to the Northpark mall.

Are you even listening!?

It is very hard to concentrate in a classroom that allows you to have your laptop out and even have a cell phone on the table. It's a given that you should always be listening and not texting your friends or chatting online, but students tend to veer off and get distracted when using other mediums besides the traditional lecture and note taking class. 

      I for one am a product of this technological mixture. Having my iPhone on me and my lap top open is very distracting, but I consider myself to be a great multi-tasker and being a waiter for 3 years now helps me hone in on that ability. I'm not saying I close the professor out completely because I really do listen and think about what the discussion is about. I think that people can do multiple things at a time and be successful at getting those tasks accomplished. Noted, you'll forget small specific details at times, but for the most part the broad topic or task is done. Having a good attention to detail is a very good character trait to master. The professor from the article Attention Literacy wrote, "it's that I want my students to learn that attention is a skill that must be learned, shaped, practiced; this skill must evolve if we are to evolve." Why don't teachers enforce attention a little more? why don't they try and work with the students to get them more engaged in the discussion? An article i read talks about President Obama's note on how distracting social media is in the classroom. That professor found a way to use these attention hogs as a positive tool. 

fact or fiction in these 'Edit Wars'?

     

        Wikipedia has grown to be one of the most used source of information on the web. It has credible information and hey its free! Some professors are hesitant in letting us students use this as a source in academia, but nowadays Wikipedia is the way to go. I know you can go in and edit anything you want and add your own little blurb about any given topic. So I gave it a try and was sorely mistaken by the removal of my one line of text within hours of posting it. I guess there are some editors who revise this content regularly and remove unnecessary information.
    
          One example of a vandalism gone badly and taken a little serious is the Wikipedia biography controversy where an elderly man by the name John_Seigenthaler was hoaxed on by someone editing his page and saying that he was part of the assassination plots of multiple people when in reality he was their friend. This brewed a lot of controversy and helped with the security situation that Wikipedia faces.

      Although the goal is to let anyone edit articles, controversial pages are subject to various levels of protection that restrict editing to confirmed users. Pages are often protected temporarily to thwart vandalism and so-called "edit wars." This article showed me that measures are taken to avoid misleading information. I always wondered why people were allowed to edit stuff when they themselves aren't credible enough to edit the site. apparently you can become an edit member of Wikipedia and have access to fully edit articles. I still think that the information is somewhat skewed, but "though scholarly work suggests that vandalism is generally short-lived" which eases my mind on using this site for papers and research in school.

Hitting the Escape button on print culture?



        After reading Christine Rosen's article on the book she read, I opened up to the idea that viral media is really taking over the world. She points out the fact that we now have "digital literacy," when we only used to have actually book literacy. Learning how to read is one of those traditional things that your parents are supposed to teach you how to do. Nowadays, parents themselves are being taught how to use technology from their children. For example, I had to teach my mom how to use the keyboard and how to use the mouse on a computer. (which she still has no clue how to use) Christine talks about how  "It is the busiest port of entry for popular culture and requires navigation skills different from those that helped us master print literacy." She is spot on with that comment.
         The skills necessary to be digitally literate is pretty hard to master itself. Honestly, I would not know where to begin on learning how to use a computer or an iPad if I was to learn today. I am so grateful to be alive during this multimedia revolution. Technology is exponentially advancing every year and it is scary to think that some day print media will be very rare, if not extinct. Digital literacy’s advocates increasingly speak of replacing, rather than supplementing, print literacy, Rosen paraphrases.

  In the New York Times article "Becoming screen literate," the author also takes on a whole new meaning while looking at technology. These days millions of people can alter or enhance many different medias. For example, Movie mash-ups can be created with software and have alternate endings, songs or even characters. "Hollywood mavericks like George Lucas have embraced digital technology and pioneered a more fluent way of film making." He has masted a way of manipulating images and movies to make an amazing product that no one else can come close to making. The question that stood out to me in this article was, "How can we browse a film the way we browse a book?" I really don't see how we can do that with proper literacy without actually looking at scenes and looking back at the emotions we would have missed at a one time showing.

Bottom line is that I don't think print literacy will be erased completely, but the more and more ways that technology is advanced, the quicker people will forget about reading an inconvenient paper back book.

My site is better than yours!

I always wondered how sites were categorized online. How the credible and major sites made it to the top of the google list makes you wonder what those companies do to get there. Pagerank as we discussed in class is an algorithm based system that allows for sites to be rated better than others based on visitation and clicks on certain parts of the website.
http://www.clippingimages.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/pagerank_google.jpg

Someone brought up an interesting question during class that still was in my mind. They asked how people could cheat and just visit there own sites and make frequent traffic to create a buzz for themselves. With google being the only way people research(well most people) it is a big demand to have your site be the number one hit on google search.

I started researching for another class project and thought about different ways to research that were discussed in class. Like narrowing searches with quotation marks or looking up subjects and really searching for specific answers. This helped very much in finding not only good answers, but credible ones at that.

Reflecting on the Reflected

In analyzing my most recent post, Iagree with Ms. Vance. My blogs "read off like dashed blurbs" and honestly she is right, I would not enjoy my blog at all if I was to read it either. I really haven't had any noteworthy blogs this semester and now figuring out what it takes to make a profound blog. Time is one excuse that I keep finding myself using which is a inappropriate one.

From reading Rushkoff's book this semester and learning about the blogging world, I have come to see that the way I portray myself online has not been one that shows my real personality. My blogs have not been what you would call fun to read or insightful, but that is because I never really took the time to see how a composition as small as a blog can really have an impact.

For example, In chapter 6 about Identity, I see how face-to-face communication is diminishing and you see more and more people having tons of "friends" online.It goes to show you how a once small circle of friends can now be expanded to thousands just by sharing something on your facebook or twitter. "These are the type of ‘social glue’ comments that connect people." I never thought about mass communication in the sense that we are who we choose to be online and we try and create this perfect person.

That blog example was an extensive work that blew mine out of the water. In a recent post I wrote,"We discussed in class how it can benefit you to befriend people that can later on help you in a certain aspect of your life. For instance, the examples about choosing a teacher you once had and tell a friend to take them as well." I now realize that this line was a bland and general statement with no depth or explanation with it. I mean to broaden it to show how our peers can act as a stepping stool for things we couldn't achieve without networking and finding out what is better than going out on a limb and guessing.

I have re read and noticed my mistakes from all of my previous posts (all of my posts themselves).From the last post onward I will make my blogs more creative and showcase my personality a tad bit more.  I have been enjoying the blogging the past couple weeks and really value what they help you see. I like how blogs make you expand more on a certain topic more than just talking about many topics. it gives you a chance to show your wit and intelligence in a literary way. I think I will continue to blog even after this class ends.

PowerPoint great or useless??

From presenting projects to presenting a new idea to your team at work, technology is a way that can make you look really polished and smart. Presentations have come a long way to get information to the masses much easier. PowerPoint is a tool that is slowly becoming unused in the classroom because of the dullness or distracting factors it has. During presentations in classrooms PowerPoint can be a distracting tool because people tend to stare at the screen and not actively listen to the speaker. As much as it distracts the viewers, it also is a negative when you see the speaker read off the PowerPoint. Not only does it look bad, it loses credibility in the speaker in not knowing the information.
Powerpoints aren't as bad of a tool, but only as bad as the speaker let's it become. I think if you have only certain bullets of information and good quality photos along with some credible short clips make it a great tool to get the point across. If you practice your speech and look sharp and have a great PowerPoint, you can't go wrong.

Social Connections

Social networking sites have brought people to befriend everyone. How can a person have over 2,000 friends and possibly be in constant contact with them? I find it ridiculous for some people to have random people as friends. Rushkoff discusses how biased the internet is with contact being the basic original reason of the internet. People have always relied on peer-to-peer communication and lately marketers have been jumping on the trend that they can reach out to the masses over the web. For example, on Facebook, they have countless ads on your borders and most of which are related to you personally. They track what kind of things interest you like music, places and food. We discussed in class how it can benefit you to befriend people that can later on help you in a certain aspect of your life. For instance, the examples about choosing a teacher you once had and tell a friend to take them as well. Having many friends or "acquaintances" online can help you when you least expect it. It makes you think how true friendship is going to be with the continued mass befriending. How personal can our relationships be if it is based on a quick look at a default picture?

Valentines weekend

Another valentine's day again this year. Usually this made up holiday doesn't stir up any emotions from me, but this year I happen to be in a meaningful relationship. I now know what it feel like to have someone during this holiday. Although it's dumb how much we have to spend extra on top of other occasions and gifts throughout the year. This holiday isn't really necessary though, I spend most of the time praising them and doing special things without it having to be pressure of impressing them. We have reservations at a nice steakhouse in Dallas and have great plans for the night so I am looking forward to it.
Let's see how it works out this year, hope it doesn't break my book.


Happy Valentine's day!

Snow days ehhh.. bitter sweet emotions

Ugh another snow day! Yes it's all pretty and such, but it isn't fun when you cant do anything other than stay couped up inside the house. I am a little bummed because now the Superbowl is getting less exciting because of the fact driving is going to be ridiculous. I'm supposed to be working all weekend as well and now I don't know if that will happen. Well, it is only 1 o'clock on a Friday so I think I will be enjoying my snow day as much as possible!

Road Trip!

oh man! This past weekened I took a road trip to Austin, Texas. I had orinally planned on taking a trip down south for a friends' birthday party, but didn't think I would be learning something on the way. My friend took me downtown to visit the capital (which i've never been to even though im from Dallas) and tried to some new greek cuisine downtown. It is very beautiful in Austin, very green and friendly. We only went for Saturday and Sunday, then headed back sunday night after a reluctant sunday funday in Austin. This week though, I am laying low until the weekend and hoping it doesn't get to wild in the dfw area for the Superbowl.
Very excited about the upcoming weekend for some football as well.