Eporfolio #3

Artifact #8
http://tsg332.blogspot.com/2011/03/artifact-8.html
Thursday, March 31, 2011

Artifact #9
http://tsg332.blogspot.com/2011/04/artifact-9.html
Thursday, April 7, 2011

Artifact #10
http://tsg332.blogspot.com/2011/04/artifact-10.html
Thursday, April 14, 2011

Artifact #10

Out There in the Dark, All Alone
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/movies/the-24-hour-movie-and-digital-technology.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

The article Out There in the Dark, All Alone is describing how different it is in watching movies now days. It starts off by telling how much of a change in the number of people that actually go to the movie theaters now. The author describes a conversation that they had with a reader about how they numbers cant really be looked at as being the same because of how the people use to go the same movie over and over back in the day and now you can see it once in the movies and multiple times at your house. Then it talks about how the way we watch movies are completely different because of all of the new ways we can watch them because of the advancement of technology. Back in the day you would have to go to the movie theaters to see a movie and now you can stream it through your computer or even your phone. Next, it describes how watching a movie use to be social thing and something that you do with many other people which is different now because many people watch them by them selves. Also, watching a movie was something that showed new worlds to a large group of people. The author said that watching movies could have also lost its lust because you can do it anywhere and whenever you would choose to do so. Even though technology has made the picture of movies better, it may have changed the way that people look at them.
I agree that the way people watch movies has changed dramatically because of the advancement of technology and how it has changed our society. I think that most movie watchers do it in the warmth of their own home, and I don’t think that it has hurt the way we look at them, but it has changed it in a way. In our society now days we want everything right now and at our finger tips, which is why most movies are able to be downloaded or streamed though our computers or phones. More people are not going to the theaters because it is becoming more and more expensive, and with how the economy is going now days, every penny you can save the better. In my own life experience I only have gone to the theater a small number of times, and the most time when I went was when I was younger, because all of my friends would go. Now, we watch movies at someone’s house because it is much more convenient and affordable. I do not believe that the movie is becoming less important or special, it is only becoming easier to watch, which has positive and negative effects. I don’t see it going back to how it was back in the 40s because of the technology advances that we have had in the last few decades. This will probably be the demise of movie theaters, but I think that it will take a very long time because no matter what, people will want to watch movies because of the excitement that it gives them.

Artifact #9

This artifact comes out of the New York Times, which makes me feel like it has to be about something that is truthful and more professional that I am use to. It is called the Spirit of Sharing, and is out of the Museum section of the paper. It is about the websites that the museums are using and how they have grown rapidly by how they are used and what exactly is on them. It starts off by telling a little bit about Shelly Bernstein, who works at the Brooklyn Museum, because she is a major part of why that museum is able to be so electronically based. She looks to see how the museum is looked at by many sites on the web. It says that a few years ago all of the museums websites were very boring and just gave out the basic information, but now they are interactive and make the people that visit the site feel more involved with what goes on with the museum because they are able to give feed back. With these new things that the websites are doing make them more popular, a large number of people go to these websites because they are not able to go see the real thing, which is good for many people around the world. The article also points out that some of the things that are popular right now might not be in a few years, and an example was Twitter, which they call a fad. Also, with the new Facebook pages that the museums have they can interact with the followers more, and one example of this is the Date Night for Valentines Days that they set up. They believe that because of all of the followers and the likes they get, all of this new technologies are great for the museums
I think that using social networking sites for any business is a good idea these days because there is a large number of people that use them and could potentially have interests in those businesses, so I don’t see how it could be a bad idea for museums to do this as well. This will most likely get more people to come to the museums, which is the ultimate goal for them. Also, making a website look good and be interactive is crucial these days. A lot of the younger generation do not want to look at anything boring, and if they see that a website is boring they would most likely thing that the actual place is boring also. All of this is really about just trying to connect and interact with the largest amount of people that they can, because this will help with business. To survive these days, you must be involved with technology in some shape or form because that is what our society bases everything on. Sooner or later you will be able to see anything in the world that you want to on a website of some sort, and this could be considered a good or a bad thing, but it seems unstoppable at this point so you must learn to live with it and embrace it.

Artifact #8

I was the one who actually picked out this artifact because I found it very interesting, and thought that many people probably use some of the things talked about in sometime of their life. The article is about how many people are using the internet or applications on their smartphones to diagnose or treat their health problems now days. The statistics that they show are crazy with their size. They say that eighty percent of people search for health info online, fifty-seven percent of people go online with their medical problems, and there are more than six-thousand health and medicine applications. The main website that they talk about is WebMD which is a very popular medical site that the users can get answers of their medical questions. They also say that most of these sites are used for doctors to learn some things also. It lets the patients and the doctors interact with one another, which will probably help the medical field in the future. They then talk about the mobile apps that anyone can download to their phones. You can get tips for exercise and diets, and with your mental health. Most of these apps are for people that are in between visits are just have questions. One downside that is you do have to pay a small few for these apps, but they only will run you $1.99 to $4.99. Another thing that they talk about is places that people can go to talk to other patients with the same illness as them selves. All of these things are going to help the medical field in years to come.
I really thought this article was interesting because I know a lot of people that use these websites and apps for their medical questions all the time. I believe that this will become more and more popular because it is very fast and the users can get their questions answered anywhere that they want with their mobile devices. If you can find and be sure that the websites or apps are completely correct because of the doctors that are behind them, and I think that this will only get easier because of the way people now days research. I also think that the medical field will grow and get better with these because it lets the doctors get some feedback on the practices and drugs that they use. I think that this is the best way for medical devices and practices to get better because the doctors get the information straight from the source, and the patients will most likely be very honest with the results that they get. Also, I think that this will help patients because they wont always have to pay for the medical attention that they think that they need. A lot of people have a problem with thinking that they need to see a doctor when they really don’t need to, and these app or websites will probably make the people handle their issues by them selves sometimes. I truly believe that these websites and apps will help in the future in some way.

Eportforlio #2

Artifact #4
Friday, February 25, 2011
http://tsg332.blogspot.com/2011/02/artifact-4.html

Artifact #5
Thursday, March 3, 2011
http://tsg332.blogspot.com/2011/03/artifact-5.html

Artifact #6
Thursday, March 10, 2011
http://tsg332.blogspot.com/2011/03/artifact-6.html

Artifact #7
Friday, March 18, 2011
http://tsg332.blogspot.com/2011/03/artifact-7.html

Artifact #7

This article is something really has to deal with me and my peers because we are all college students. Its about they way teachers are using the newer technologies to catch their students red handed while cheating. It explains the trend in cheating when it said that in the mid 1900’s it was only twenty percent of students that admitted to cheating to fifty percent in 2002, which is a major increase. It did say that this number has come down some because of these advances in the ability to catch the students that try and cheat. Then it goes on telling us what the ways of catching the cheaters are, whether it is making the testing rooms more cheat resistant to running papers through software that can check it for plagiarism. The way they said the way to make the testing rooms harder to cheat in is not letting the students bring in anything like a bottle of water to any electronically devices in the testing room, because of the numerous ways that students have figured out how to cheat. It also talks about the cheat catching computers and software, and what the way that these work is that they take the paper that the student turns in and checks it with a very large database to see if it has any similarities to any other paper that is out there. Then, it talks about the way they can make online classes more cheating resistant by locking down the computers while testing, or having the teacher use a web cam to watch the student to make sure there is no cheating going on. Lastly, the writer explains how they feel about the article that they were writing about.
I feel like this is a very good article for myself to read because it has to deal with me and the people around me. The fifty percent of students that admitted to cheating in 2002 is remarkable to me and I’m sure that not every student that has cheated admitted to it, so that number could even be higher which blows my mind. This means that it is almost a normal thing for a student to cheat, which makes me understand why all the teachers have to go over their policy of cheating on the first day of schools and why everyone makes such a huge deal about it. I also feel that if you are in school to be expanding your knowledge and trying to learn, there is no reason for you to cheat, so I am on the teachers and schools side when they want to crack down on cheaters. I would just hope that the tactics that they use, like the software, works how it should so that if they do find a problem with a paper or something that the student turned in it is legit cheating and not a mistake. That would be all I would ask, is to be careful to what you use because I am sure that it would be easy to write something “like” another essay that someone has written in the past because there are so many papers out there about everything and anything. All in all, I learned some new things about cheating in schools, and I know I will be more careful as I go along my path of education.

Artifact #6

This video started out with a few guys talking and then a guy screaming which got my attention at first, even if it wasn’t the main part of the video.  I did think that this was a very interesting video, it was about this forum on the TED website that is completely anonymous and the information goes away after a while which is why the posters can and do say anything want. Also, since the forum renews itself all the time there is always a new conversation on it. On this forum there are over seven million monthly visitors, seven hundred thousand posts per day, and there are forty-eight individual boards now. It started with only one board and was made because the maker found a Japanese website with this format. He made it for the use of his friends and it spread into a very popular site for large number of anonymous visitors. The speaker also talks about some of the problems of the internet because you are always allowed to say whatever you want but it is crossing the line sometimes when you think that you can do whatever you want.  His example about this is was when a guy had made a video of his self abusing his cat and had put it on youtube, and many people had a major problem with this so they investigated the video. Within a day they knew his name, and within two days he was arrested. This is also a big topic about his website because the forum is completely anonymous which is a good thing and a bad thing he says.  
The first thing that this video made me think about is how such a widely popular website was started by a little thing as it did. Facebook was the same way and it is one of the most popular sites today. This goes to show you that if you have an idea and put it to use, anything can come from it.  The second thing that it made me think of was the issue of being anonymous on the internet and how it can be great and very bad at the same time.  I believe that you are allowed to say whatever you choose to because of the first amendment but you should be held responsible for what you say, and when you are on a site that is completely anonymous there will be very crude and ridiculous things said because there is no way for anyone to know that you are the one who said it. One good thing about being anonymous is that the ideas and thoughts of people could be pure because they don’t have to worry about anyone making fun of them or judging them in anyway. This most likely makes the most interesting conversations of any forum but it could be very ignorant in some cases. It is the right of anyone to go to these sites if they choose to and that is one thing that makes having some rights great. All in all I think that being anonymous can be a good or a bad thing, it just depends on how you use it.

Artifact #5

The podcast, Thank sex for making the Internet Hot, was very interesting to me because it pretty much told me what I already knew which was the pornography is a huge part of the internet but gave me some background information on how it became that way. First off, dropping out of college is crazy, especially if you are wanting to go into the pornography industry, even if it did work for this one guy. He was correct when he said this is where the money is at, but you have to make sure that your product, whatever that may be, is good enough that a very large number of people buy it or you won't be successful at all. I did learn that the porn industry has pioneered many advances like safety in buying things on the internet and video quality which I think is surprising and are glad that they did. These two advances made the internet so much better, and I'm sure that a lot of web sites are very glad also. Sites like Ebay must be very thankful because now people are less scared to buy things off them because it is safer. Also, any site that has video streaming benefited from them because of the higher video quality which everyone is happy about because no one likes to watch a blurry video. As much as pornography is a bad thing for most people, for obvious reasons, I can now say that it has made the internet a “better place” in some ways even if that is a hard thing for anyone to say.

Artifact #4

In the Uncanny Droid there is a robot that at first and most likely second glance looks just like a real human being. It moves just like the man at the computer in every way. The creepiest thing that I noticed that It did was move it's eyes very fast just like the man. This was scary to me because that is a very fine motor skill to be able to pull off, which means that this robot was very advanced. I did not know that we have came this far in robotics. We know can make a robot look just like a real person and move almost the exact same. The only reason that I saw that it wasn't a real girl was the way it moved and everything, and there was no expressions on its face which made it look different. One day there will be a robot that you will be unable to tell if it is a human or a robot and I think that that day is coming soon.
In the second video it was a man showing us how to use a pencil sharpener, which I found very funny. This is a how-to video for a very simple task, and a pencil sharpener is barely even concidered “technology” anymore because it is so basic. I believe that this shows how society is though, I mean several decades ago if someone would have shown you a pencil sharpener you would have been astounded but now you do not even give it a second look. As technology advances the old technology becomes less important and less interesting. This is something that will happen no matter what, and has always happened.

E-portfolio #1

Tuesday, February 1, 2011- Unit 3 and 4 Summary
http://tsg332.blogspot.com/2011/02/unit-3-and-4-summary.html

Thursday, February 3, 2011 - Artifact #1
http://tsg332.blogspot.com/2011/02/artifact-1.html

Friday, February 11, 2011 - Artifact #2
http://tsg332.blogspot.com/2011/02/artifact-2.html

Thursday, February 17, 2011- Artifact #3
http://tsg332.blogspot.com/2011/02/artifact-3.html

Artifact #3

Nick Carr is the author of "The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains," talks about how the internet is changing how we think and go throughout our day. He says that it is becoming a hard task to just sit down and read a book because of all the distractions and other things that we could be doing. With these distractions it comes with the change int the way we focus on everything. We are starting to get a shorter attention span and we choose to multi-task more than ever. In every day tasks we just don't stay focused on that one thing, we have multipule things going on like a simple thing as checking our email, many people have music playing, logged on to Facebook, and texting all at the same time. Today, there are just so many dpistractions and other opprotunities that it is hard to do one thing at a time now, we have become people that have to be doing something from the time we wake up till we fall back asleep. In so many ways the internet is changing us, and most people have very different views on this topic. I believe that it has helped us as well as harmed us in some ways and I think that Nick Carr's views and ideas are very interesting and have some information to back it up, and with this said I hope that the Internet is not ruining our brains.

Artifact #2

In this video William Powers talks about his Hamlet's Blackberry on his book tour. One thing that I thought was the main idea of his book and talk was that he believes that technology is great for our society but we do get wrapped up in it sometimes. He believes that you need some time off-line and away from all of our technology that we use every single day. His own family turns off the internet on weekends, he thinks that this time is good for them. A reason that he thinks that it is good to get away from technology is because we, as a society, are becoming to dependent on our technological devices. Some people don't even know how to read a map because they use GPS's to get around now days. Also, we are turning into people that want everything right now which isn't always a good thing. An example of this is using paper to communicate, like letters, it is obsolete because it takes a while to get to the other person. Now days, even email is becoming to slow for us, we use instant messaging and texting more than ever because you can get a immediate response. This is also a reason that technology is evolving, which isn't a bad thing also. I agree with Mr. Powers about needing time away from online interaction because a lot of people are getting to caught up in it and it's taking away from our way of thinking and doing thing, but it is also very helpful and makes our world a better place.

Artifact 1

   The "Internet Surpasses Television" article says that the number one way for eighteen to twenty-nine year olds to view new is to use the internet and no longer the television. I would believe this to be true because there are so many people of these ages that spend most of their time on the internet, and you very seldem see someone of these ages sitting down watching the news. These numbers are also are becoming similar in the older population. I believe this is true because it is much easier to look the news up on a website rather than sitting in front of the tv waiting for the new to come on, and you do not know when the news that you want to see will come on exactly. I also think that these numbers will go up and up as the years past because everyone is wanting to know things now and not have to wait.    Thise article aslo talks about Twitter, Facebook, and internet television. Of course, how you could talk about the change in technology and not talk about these. These have became so widly popular that it is harder to find someone without a Twitter or a Facebook than someone with one. The internet television is also becoming popular because it is another way to make things happen right now, if you want to watch something certain you can just type it in and it will come right up.
   This article is almost common sense these days because everyone knows how much the internet is chaning out society in many ways. I also know that it will keep getting more and more advanced which will make more and more people relient on it. We as a society are becoming very consumed by it, which could be good or bad, but it is how it is and will be for years to come.

Unit 3 and 4 Summary

Unit 3

·         The communicative technology has grown rapidly, since the first telegraph.

o   This is important because of the speed that we can communicate with now.

·         Any new technology that came out use to be for just the wealthy, and it has become necessary for all to get through the day.

o   This technology became easier to use and to get, this makes it almost something that you have to have instead of wanting to have.

o   Invisible technology describes this because as people get so use to it in their everyday lives and they don’t even think about how it helps them, they barley even see it, like it is invisible.

·         Many people have different views on technology.

o   One view is that we as a society are using computers to enhance our daily lives and making our futures brighter.

o   The other view is that we are becoming too dependent on technology and all that it does for us.

o   Also, some people believe that some technology is not always progressive because a new product is not always better than one before.

·         There are different assumptions of technological determinism, which is the relationship between technology and human communication. These are reductionistic, monistic, neutralizing, and technological imperative.

·         Most people think that technology is shaped by society and their needs and technology can shape society because of what it does for them.

Unit 4

·         There are a lot of issues that people have with CMC 

o   CMC is sometimes associated with declines in communication with family members and the number of real friends that people have.

o   CMC restricts the quality of communication that is had because of the restraints of the internet.

o   CMC has negative effects on offline communication and relationships because people don’t get the social presence that they once did, which makes their ability to pick up on nonverbal cues that go on in everyday conversation.

o   It is also look at as being a cold and unfriendly way to communicate.

§  These issues are argued because people don’t think that you can know how a person would act in a social situation or how they act during CMC because each person is different.

·         The communication Imperative is what a human is born with to communicate and is driven to maximize our communication satisfaction and interaction.

o   Some people think that CMC and other technology is preventing us from fulfilling this.

·         CMC also changes with the variables like the time spent talking online with a certain person, any previous interaction with the other person, if there is a chance of future interaction or not, liking having CMC or not, reading time-related messages, and using emotions.

o   This changes the way the people interact with one another with CMC.

·         Impression management is a huge part of communication because it is what we do most of the time.

o   This is when we make impressions of other people and try and influence their impressions of us.

o   This is more important in real-life conversation because you can see how the other person acts and talks.