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March 2, 2008

Technologies and the Furture of Writing

Filed under: Uncategorized — moerne @ 4:39 am

When first introduced to this module as part of Introduction to the Writing Arts, I must say that I was concerned that I may have selected the wrong duel major to go along with my elementary education major.  I was not expecting blogging, reading complex articles that were full of technological terms, or creating an information ecology.  I thought, “How does this relate to the writing arts”?

After a few of the readings, some blogging and class discussions, I started to feel more comfortable and opened myself up to understanding the concept of writing spaces.  Understanding some of the technology and applying the use of the technology, through Netvibes and Diigo, I am beginning to understand the impact evolving technologies have on written texts.   

From this module, I can now have information come to me, instead of me going to the information.  Setting up the RSS Feeds on Netvibes was significant in my understanding of how to pull this module together to make sense to me.  I’m so excited about what I have learned in this module that I’m sharing what I know with my daughter who is now interested in blogging and creating a Netvibes page. 

 Although there was a lot of information conveyed in this module, I am able to utilize what I have learned and apply it to my other courses, such as Educational Technology, Teaching in Learning Communities and Human Exceptionalities.  When creating my Netvibes page, I had these courses in mind and searched for particular feeds relating to those areas. 

 It’s been a great experience and I plan on continuing to utilize the technologies that I’ve learned.

YouTube vs. Boob Tube

Filed under: Uncategorized — moerne @ 4:03 am

I absolutely love YouTube!   When I go to view something on YouTube, I end up spending endless hours poking around watching crazy ass people doing some crazy ass stuff……all for my entertainment. 

It’s just amazing when you think about all the hits certain videos get in such a short time period.  For example, Numa, Numa has had over 9 million hits.  YouTube is providing the public with a new kind of entertainment.  From watching a chubby boy singing some Romanian pop song, a guy doing a dance parody, sensational news events, to a sleeping kitten (27 seconds in length), which was viewed over 2 million times in a period of two weeks, YouTube is a big part of the technological social hub and paving the way for all types of new literacy.   

This technological social hub is something the traditional media elite are struggling with.   Because of this sharing and making of content, between people like you and me, the media elite are losing their influence on what they think we as an audience should be watching.   Advertisers can no longer count on Hollywood alone.

March 1, 2008

My Thoughts on Facebook

Filed under: Uncategorized — moerne @ 11:50 pm

After reading the article, “How Mark Zuckerberg Turned Facebook Into the Web’s Hottest Platform”, I was astonished to find that the fastest-growing users of Facebook are over the age 35.  I truly thought this site was primarily for the twenty-somethings where they could display pictures of themselves in possibly compromising positions.  I was wrong.

I was intrigued by Zuckerberg’s “social graph” concept in which making new friends and acquientances weren’t the primary goal, but to map out connections between existing friends similar to a word-of-mouth search engine.  Facebook users would be getting information from people they know and trust instead of major media outlets.  For users of Facebook, the new service didn’t seem like a means of easing communications; it appeared as though Facebbook was manipulating and spreading their information without permission.  Although Zuckerberg posted an open apology for this, it is reminiscent of what Vaidhyanathan discussed in, “Naked in Nonopticon”. 

With news feeds in place, Facebook became a model social hub where users could connect with one another for various causes, share music and video interests, and potentially an online identity for recruiters.  Even though this social hub sounds ideal, it still makes me weary of privacy issues. 

I am not a Facebook participant and, although I like the idea of a social hub, for me there seems to be too much personal exposure.  If I subscribe to a certain news feed, do I want that feed attached to me as an individual?  It could be something that I might be interested in following for a short time, just of casual interest, not representative of which I am.  That’s the part of the social hub that concerns me most. 

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