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.