In-Class Entry 10/26

Today Luis and worked together to make a short comic strip illustrating how difficult it has become for anyone to just add information to wikipedia. We both shared ideas about what we thought would make a realistic setting for someone using wikipedia. It was more successful than working alone because we could combine our different ideas to have a more creative comic. I learned that working together can help the individuals in the group become more creative with their ideas.

Blog Entry 10/25/10

The Theme of the assigned readings was information on the Internet and how it comes from a "marketplace" of people. The Chapter in the textbook talked about how the way people, especially young people get information now is different than in years past. Now people just check on popular Internet sites like wikipedia, whose articles can be written or edited by anyone. Before there was this technology people would get it from more traditional sources like Encyclopedia Britannica where the articles are written and edited by established experts in each field. The chapter then talked about way that the information available online can become higher quality.

The article/blog talked more about different technologies that bring together information through different people's knowledge.

What kinds of things do you look for when trying to determine the validity of an online source, either for a school paper or personal research? 

I was pretty surprised that Wikipedia was proven to be comparable to Encyclopedia Britannica in terms of accuracy of articles.

Reading Response for 10/19

The Reading in the text was about the recent trend of music piracy on the internet by both digital natives and digital immigrants. It brought up points about how many of today's internet users don't quite understand the legality of peer to peer downloading vs paying for downloads.
The article by Vaidhyanathan talked about how the current laws about copyright don't hold up as well now as they did when the constitution and Bill of Rights were originally written.
 The two FAQ articles just gave point by point breakdowns on how copyright and fair use work. The FAQ about fair use game several examples of ways you can use copyrighted material while still being legal.

How does downloading music for free harm the artist? What are some of the ways you justify your own illegal music downloading( for those of you that do)?

I was surprised that The Palfrey chapter analyzed the music piracy issue from both sides of the argument. I was really expecting it to preach about how downloading music illegally is wrong and how the record companies were right to sue thousands of their potential customers.

Reading Response #4

The two assigned readings commented on the various fears about the negatives that can result from data on the internet and how government regulation on the internet is a kind of gray area. The chapter in the book mentioned that there are plenty of records that companies have about people, whether those people know it or not and how sometimes these companies can give away this information to the wrong hands. The article talked about how cyber-bullying is a big problem specifically for middle school-aged students and how there are different attitudes across the country on how schools should handle this problem. The opinions of parents range from not wanting the school to do anything about cyber-bullying to the wanting the school to suspend students who are guilty of off-campus cyber-bullying.

I was very surprised to learn that there are companies that have no other purpose than to make money by gathering data about people and what I would consider spying, and selling that data.

Discussion Question: Why would the parents not want schools to disipline students for cyber-bullying?

Observation of Identity Presentation

For this assignment I chose to observe the students who hang out in the 2nd floor cafe/lobby area of  Center for the Arts building here at Towson university. I chose to observe two students who were working on an assignment for a music theory class. One of the students was asking the other one to look at his homework and give him pointers on it. The language they were using was a combination of formal language, music jargon and inside jokes with each other. It was pretty clear that these two individuals were friends as well as professional colleagues. One of the students was wearing standard college student clothing (i.e.sports team T-shirt and shorts) and the other was wearing long pants and a music fraternity shirt. Their attitude was professional yet easy going. They made an effort not to take the assignment too seriously as to ease the stress involved. The two students were looking at the same laptop. On the screen was a music writing application, and one of the two was checking for errors and giving the other advise on how to fix them.  As they were working, various friends would walk by, say hi or even ask to look at the assignment as well.

The student wearing the frat shirt and long pants sent a strong message about his seriousness about his major with just his clothing. The way he used jargon was also a strong indicator of his professionalism. Anyone who walked by could see that his identity, or at least the identity that he wanted to project, was that of a professional musician. His friend was much more laid back in comparison. His clothing projected that he was just a regular student and not yet ready to move on. However, after listening in on the comments, one could tell that he took his work very seriously. After viewing the  two individuals studying in the "CFA" one can see that the average student can very from a newbie to a master of their craft by just observing the differences in appearance, attitude and personality.

Reading Response #2

The theme of these assigned readings was warning the reader about the potential dangers digital information about you on the web. The chapter in the text used an example of a generic child and counted through all the files and copies of files were available about him and  how by the time that he was in college he would have almost no control over is "digital Dossier". The Article talked in great detail about  the dangers and risks social networking sites and how they compared to those of dating sites. The Primary difference being that on social networking sites it is much harder to fool a potential mate because of the links and connections one has to real people who can confirm or deny that anything the person says is true.

When you update your facebook page how do you filter your post so that you only put up data that you feel comfortable sharing with the web? Do you think about people viewing your page other than your accepted facebook "friends"?

I find it surprising that there isn't a bigger emphasis outside of this class on the dangers of posting information online. I never really thought about how my name can come in a Google search if  something in my Facebook profile matches the search entry.

Reading Response #1

The concept that the two assigned reading had for this class is identifying and studying the age group/demographic of "Digital Natives" or "Millennials."  The Chapter in Digital Natives talked about the different ways young peoples' identities are established, and how they change. The book made the point that in today's technological paradigm, one can easily manipulate how he/she is presented to the social world. Positively, one can recreate their image through online avatars and video game characters, often having separate personalities and identities for each. Negatively, when one posts personal information about themselves on their social networking page, they may not be entirely aware of how public or private their page may be.

The research study examined how college age students use technology (specifically personal computers) in a classroom or dorm room setting. The study showed that in a dorm setting students use their laptops for everything from searching the web and listening to music to completing their homework, whereas in a classroom setting most students tended to avoid using technology, especially for multi-tasking.

Discussion Questions: -Why were the people used in the study required to be involved in such an involved application process? Wouldn't this skew the results of the study if the information only reflects the students who had the best applications?

Like the authors of the study, I found it surprising that the majority of the students found it distracting and rude for someone to use technology in an otherwise technology free classroom. To me it seems like many students use their mobile devices during classes because they are less conspicuous than laptops. Since the study was done in 2005 I would think that since moblie devices have become more available and affordable that the students would have slightly different views about use of technology in class.