Let me start out by saying this, This blog assignment was entirely impossible. For this blog, as a class we were instructed to go a day without technology. Tragic. This meant, no internet surfing, no checking email, no facebook, no twitter, no cell phone, no computer, no TV, no iPad, no iPod, no Pinterest, no Netflix, nothing we did could involve a communication technology. We were then asked to reflect on our day and talk about what we did instead of use our technology. We were told that it was okay if we slipped up, just try and recover. I reccomend that people try this, it will open your eyes on just how dependent we are upon technology in our every day lives. I started this assignment yesterday afternoon, and I feel as though I have been through enough pain and torture for one day so this is me reflecting on my experience.
Normally, my day ends with me watching Netflix, and checking my email to see if there are any pressing issues that can't wait until morning. For me this was really difficult to avoid. Netflix, is a diehard habit, I seriously use it to watch an episode of something before I go to sleep everynight. Without Netflix, I slept an extra hour last night, which was very convenient and well needed I must say. Also, I didn't check my email. This was difficult because I had assignment due today that required me to email some of my group members. I tried to resist, but eventually slipped up and checked my email. I didn't want to be that one group member that isolates themselves from the rest, not cool. After that, I got my self back together and put away all my technology for the night read a little bit of a magazine and went to sleep.
In the morning, I have a ritual. Wake up, check facebook, shower, check twitter, get ready, check email, go to work. It's the same every morning and it's sad. I say this because breaking that morning ritual left me with spare time to eat breakfast, which I don't normally have, and it left me feeling disconnected. Checking facebook means knowing what is going on during the day, what people are doing, who I can make plans with later. I feel as though my generation relies so heavily on that, that we don't really know how to get in contact with people other than using Facebook. There was a time like 3 years ago, where I deactivated my facebook for 5 months. I had no social networking contact with the rest of the world. I was fine, it was actually really nice because you didn't have people posting stupid stuff for you to read and you didn't have people all up in your business if you posted something. It was nice to be without it, because it meant I wasn't being bombarded with other peoples lives constantly. Now without it, I feel like it is a severe bump in my day. I have family that I keep in contact with, and friends who I don't get to see everyday, but I get to message them on Facebook and have a converstation with them through that communication outlet.
Another thing I do in the morning is check Twitter. I'm not a big TV watcher, so I don't really know whats going on in the world through that communication outlet. However, I do follow things like CNN and USA Today on twitter, who are constantly posting what is going on in the world and even in local communities. I feel like without using Twitter today I missed out on some news, a few good jokes from Funny or Die, and some inspirational quotes to ponder during the day. In the scope of things, to me Twitter isn't as big of deal as Facebook. Essentialy, I realized it is something that I have to look at and kill time when I have time to burn. Yes, today it was inconvenient that I didn't have access to it, but overall I think I could survive without it.
The computer...no. I can honestly sit here and type to you that my day as a college student and an employee is damn near impossible without a computer. These days, all assignments are required to be typed and a large portion of them are required to be turned in using the internet (just like this one). Without a computer, I am unable to look at my assignments, check grades, do homework, turn in assignments, check email. There are a whole slew of things that I need to do to be successful on my computer. Without it, life proves to be very difficult. However, I will say (that except for work where I had to use a computer) that I didn't slip up on using. In my spare time I didn't reach for my computer as much as I reached for my phone then reminded myself that I couldn't use it. I think it's because what while I need my computer, it is not as portable and convenient as using my cell phone.
Today being at work proved to be entirely difficult. At work we have to use computers to do our job. On top of that, my boss decided that today was a great day for me to do research on a project and to explore the internet with my iPad. I thought this was ridiculous, but did it anyway because I have to work to actually get paid. This was my slip up for the day, being at work. Doing this made me realize that my job, is impossible without a computer. We can't do anything without them. On top of that, we are constantly finding better ways to improve our business through researching on the internet. If we didn't have these technologies we wouldn't be able to function as a company. I think this is really important to realize because a lot of people take for granted just how easy having a computer makes your life. I honestly can't imagine a time before we had computers and what we did instead.
Overall, I will say that truly disconnecting from technology for a day is a stretch, and very difficult to do in this day and age. Without it I found myself sleeping or reading a magazine but there were a couple of times where I reached for my phone but knew I could not look at or do anything in terms of using it. This blog experiment has however made me realize that we often times take technology for granted because it is so readily available. There is so much more stuff I am capable of doing when I have access to these things as opposed to when I don't. I felt like I was lagging, that I wasn't on top of my game, and honestly disconnected because I couldn't reply to my friends text messages and I couldn't pick up the phone when it was ringing. Also, I realized that not having this technology can cause people to worry. What I mean by that is, they may grow concerned because they don't hear a response back from you. People can start to grow very worrysome when they aren't responded to almost immediatly these days and technology has made us this way.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
technology and the world we live in today.
For this weeks blog, we were assigned to watch a couple of video's and share our thoughts on them. In order to have a full understanding of the content in this blog, I feel it is necessary to include the links to those videos to share them with the rest of the viewers. Honestly, I had no idea about this technology until after watching this video, and from the looks of it, it's sort of groundbreaking.
So, this link takes you to a video of Pattie Maes exploring the concept of a technology called Sixth Sense. There are a great amount of components that go into explaining this technology. Pattie Maes explains it much better than I could, but to summarize the product, it is a basically a mobile computer that allows you to check a great variety of things that would have other taken you more than a few minutes to do at a computer. It is a device that is to be worn around your neck that contains a camera, projector and a mirror. You then color code your fingers, tape is used in the video, but you can also use a colorful nail polish and you use your fingers as a guide for what you want to do. In this video they showed Mistry (the one who does all the work on this device) using his fingers to make the "picture" and the device snaps a picture of what is in the boundaries of his fingers.
This second link takes you to a video of Pranav Mistry, the person who works directly with the technology and expands and improves on its capabilities. In this video he talks basically about the same things as the previous video, just explains them how he see's it. All in all it is an impressive technology that allows users to instantly do something that they want to do or look up. It makes cell phones seem less than what they are, which isn't an easy task. To sum up my thoughts on the videos here, I honestly think that this technology is remarkable. I think it just goes to show how advanced our world is and just how easy technology has made everything. It is hard to think about what life like was before we had technologies like this to aid us with our everyday life.
With that being said, there are a few questions I would like to address when it comes to this technological blog.
Are we tuning out the physical world?
- In all honesty, I think we are. I think this because, from my experience my generation is engulfed in their technology. It is a rarity to go somewhere where someone doesn't have their cell phone sitting on the table right next to them. I carry my cell phone on me at all times. Partly because I am paranoid that if I don't have it, someone has stolen it or is going to steal it and the other part of me doesn't want to miss anything. Without that technology with me at all times I feel like I may miss an important phone call or text message and that isn't something that I would want to do. So yes, I do think we are tuning out the physical world because the virtual world seems to be more amusing to us.
Are we moving closer and closer to living digitally?
- Sadly, I think we are and I think the sixth sense technology as show earlier in this blog shows us that exactly. We are slowly bur surely starting to rely on the digital world for everything. To run our business, to connect with our friends, to tell us where to go, to tell us what to believe, to advertise to us, I think that in a way we already live digitally. I say this because there are some people who spend their lives in a digital world. They create a world that they would rather live in to escape from the one that they are stuck having to deal with. I think that the sixth sense technology is great in a lot of ways but at the same time I think it takes away a personality and takes away being able to think for ourselves. If we can't think for ourselves, our decisions can't be that rational. I mean, how rational can a digital device really be? I think that these devices are made with a bias, based on who creates them and for all we know we could be living the live they want us to because we rely on their technology. Overall, I don't think technology is a bad thing, I just think we need to be really careful about it or else we are going to lose a sense of self, not to mention a culture because we will all be computerized.
What are the benefits and drawbacks of living in a digital world?
- Benefits, everything is easier. For a lot of reasons living in a digital world makes things easier, it makes your problems more solvable, you never have a question about anything, and everything you would ever need is presented in front of you. The drawbacks is a totally different story. I personally feel that the drawbacks to living in a digital world outweigh the benefits of it. I feel like if we lived in a completely digital world we wouldn't be able to think for ourselves, we would lose that sense of personalization, we wouldn't know how to communicate or hold a conversation and we wouldn't know how to react to a lot of things because we wouldn't be challenged to do them. I feel like there are some aspects of a digital world that would greatly help us in our day to day life but overall you would not get my vote to live in a completely digital world, we would be like robots.
To sum up everything in this post, the sixth sense technology is amazing. It is innovative and something that would make our lives less complicated, no doubt about it. However, I think that living in a digital world would prove more challenging than beneficial and we wouldn't know how to interact with one and other because we spend most of our time interacting with a computer. I would say that everyday we are moving more and more towards living in a digital world and we need to remember to step away from the computer and act like a human being, not a robot.
So, this link takes you to a video of Pattie Maes exploring the concept of a technology called Sixth Sense. There are a great amount of components that go into explaining this technology. Pattie Maes explains it much better than I could, but to summarize the product, it is a basically a mobile computer that allows you to check a great variety of things that would have other taken you more than a few minutes to do at a computer. It is a device that is to be worn around your neck that contains a camera, projector and a mirror. You then color code your fingers, tape is used in the video, but you can also use a colorful nail polish and you use your fingers as a guide for what you want to do. In this video they showed Mistry (the one who does all the work on this device) using his fingers to make the "picture" and the device snaps a picture of what is in the boundaries of his fingers.
This second link takes you to a video of Pranav Mistry, the person who works directly with the technology and expands and improves on its capabilities. In this video he talks basically about the same things as the previous video, just explains them how he see's it. All in all it is an impressive technology that allows users to instantly do something that they want to do or look up. It makes cell phones seem less than what they are, which isn't an easy task. To sum up my thoughts on the videos here, I honestly think that this technology is remarkable. I think it just goes to show how advanced our world is and just how easy technology has made everything. It is hard to think about what life like was before we had technologies like this to aid us with our everyday life.
With that being said, there are a few questions I would like to address when it comes to this technological blog.
Are we tuning out the physical world?
- In all honesty, I think we are. I think this because, from my experience my generation is engulfed in their technology. It is a rarity to go somewhere where someone doesn't have their cell phone sitting on the table right next to them. I carry my cell phone on me at all times. Partly because I am paranoid that if I don't have it, someone has stolen it or is going to steal it and the other part of me doesn't want to miss anything. Without that technology with me at all times I feel like I may miss an important phone call or text message and that isn't something that I would want to do. So yes, I do think we are tuning out the physical world because the virtual world seems to be more amusing to us.
Are we moving closer and closer to living digitally?
- Sadly, I think we are and I think the sixth sense technology as show earlier in this blog shows us that exactly. We are slowly bur surely starting to rely on the digital world for everything. To run our business, to connect with our friends, to tell us where to go, to tell us what to believe, to advertise to us, I think that in a way we already live digitally. I say this because there are some people who spend their lives in a digital world. They create a world that they would rather live in to escape from the one that they are stuck having to deal with. I think that the sixth sense technology is great in a lot of ways but at the same time I think it takes away a personality and takes away being able to think for ourselves. If we can't think for ourselves, our decisions can't be that rational. I mean, how rational can a digital device really be? I think that these devices are made with a bias, based on who creates them and for all we know we could be living the live they want us to because we rely on their technology. Overall, I don't think technology is a bad thing, I just think we need to be really careful about it or else we are going to lose a sense of self, not to mention a culture because we will all be computerized.
What are the benefits and drawbacks of living in a digital world?
- Benefits, everything is easier. For a lot of reasons living in a digital world makes things easier, it makes your problems more solvable, you never have a question about anything, and everything you would ever need is presented in front of you. The drawbacks is a totally different story. I personally feel that the drawbacks to living in a digital world outweigh the benefits of it. I feel like if we lived in a completely digital world we wouldn't be able to think for ourselves, we would lose that sense of personalization, we wouldn't know how to communicate or hold a conversation and we wouldn't know how to react to a lot of things because we wouldn't be challenged to do them. I feel like there are some aspects of a digital world that would greatly help us in our day to day life but overall you would not get my vote to live in a completely digital world, we would be like robots.
To sum up everything in this post, the sixth sense technology is amazing. It is innovative and something that would make our lives less complicated, no doubt about it. However, I think that living in a digital world would prove more challenging than beneficial and we wouldn't know how to interact with one and other because we spend most of our time interacting with a computer. I would say that everyday we are moving more and more towards living in a digital world and we need to remember to step away from the computer and act like a human being, not a robot.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Week 6: Building a (Free) Website.
Online website builders = awesome. I find these things to be particularly useful because it allows you to put your idea for a website out there for free, and these cites make it super easy to do so. The only one I have in depth experience with is www.weebly.com. I find it to be the easiest, because it is self explanatory and they offer a variety of different options when it comes to designing your website. I haven't had direct experience with these other websites, but I have seen some pages made with them and they turned out spectacular as well.
- www.wix.com
- www.webstarts.com
- www.moonfruit.com
This is a quick video that shows you how to use the basics of weebly, but be warned that weebly has been updated since this video was made, therefor making it look a little different in the video than the website actually looks today.
The nice thing about all these websites is that you can pretty much see what you are going to get from looking at the homepage. A lot of them offer video tutorials on their homepage to try and persuade you to use their templates and publish with them. This is an example of one of those videos, this is how weebly does it:
As of now I have built 3 websites (2 with groups, and one "fan site") on weebly, and found them to turn out very nicely and easy to use by viewers. These are the websites that I have worked on with groups
- www.thenuntilnow.weebly.com This one I worked on in my Media Literacy Class and it was used to inform audiences of the role models young girls are faced with everyday. This was the first weebly I made and what I liked about it was the easiness in putting it together. What I mean by that is that I was able to work with two other group members on this website and we never had a problem working on it at the exact same time with different computers. Also, it was entirely easy to add pictures and align them with text. Another nice thing about weebly that we were able to find out through building this website is that we were able to add picture slideshows and picture collages to make it more interesting for the viewer to look at.
The second group website that I have worked on with a group is: www.wwu21plus.weebly.com. This is a website that I worked on for this class and it's directed mainly at students of Western Washington University who are 21 and older looking for something fun to do downtown. With this website we have more variety than what's in the last website I listed. For this website we broke it down into different subjects like happy hour, bars in b-ham, safety and a calendar of monthly events. Some elements were more difficult than others, but overall we were able to put something together that was eye catching and informative for students all at the same time. It also introduces them to different places they may not have heard of before.
Overall, I think that these website builders are great for building a website because they are easy to use and provide you with most if not all of the tools you need to get your ideas out there. They make it so you can easily add pictures, slideshows, and videos through drag and drop. You can also add custom html's and put text and pictures next to each other without hassle. It is also important to know that these websites can also be used to host a website if you like, you can drop the .weebly or .wix or .whatever and make it your very own website, but know that once you do this they are no longer free.
- www.wix.com
- www.webstarts.com
- www.moonfruit.com
This is a quick video that shows you how to use the basics of weebly, but be warned that weebly has been updated since this video was made, therefor making it look a little different in the video than the website actually looks today.
The nice thing about all these websites is that you can pretty much see what you are going to get from looking at the homepage. A lot of them offer video tutorials on their homepage to try and persuade you to use their templates and publish with them. This is an example of one of those videos, this is how weebly does it:
As of now I have built 3 websites (2 with groups, and one "fan site") on weebly, and found them to turn out very nicely and easy to use by viewers. These are the websites that I have worked on with groups
- www.thenuntilnow.weebly.com This one I worked on in my Media Literacy Class and it was used to inform audiences of the role models young girls are faced with everyday. This was the first weebly I made and what I liked about it was the easiness in putting it together. What I mean by that is that I was able to work with two other group members on this website and we never had a problem working on it at the exact same time with different computers. Also, it was entirely easy to add pictures and align them with text. Another nice thing about weebly that we were able to find out through building this website is that we were able to add picture slideshows and picture collages to make it more interesting for the viewer to look at.
The second group website that I have worked on with a group is: www.wwu21plus.weebly.com. This is a website that I worked on for this class and it's directed mainly at students of Western Washington University who are 21 and older looking for something fun to do downtown. With this website we have more variety than what's in the last website I listed. For this website we broke it down into different subjects like happy hour, bars in b-ham, safety and a calendar of monthly events. Some elements were more difficult than others, but overall we were able to put something together that was eye catching and informative for students all at the same time. It also introduces them to different places they may not have heard of before.
Overall, I think that these website builders are great for building a website because they are easy to use and provide you with most if not all of the tools you need to get your ideas out there. They make it so you can easily add pictures, slideshows, and videos through drag and drop. You can also add custom html's and put text and pictures next to each other without hassle. It is also important to know that these websites can also be used to host a website if you like, you can drop the .weebly or .wix or .whatever and make it your very own website, but know that once you do this they are no longer free.
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