Blog #23

Today we actually went into the computer lab, instead of getting with a team member, to create a thesis and draft plan of my essay. This was unusual because we normally start out our papers with a team member. When I first started to write the paper on my own, I was a little skeptic. I ended up creating a simple introduction. The time I had to myself to create the draft was great though. I prefer to create the paper by myself. It was easier for me to get my ideas flowing through my head. Listening to Pandora was also a plus. I enjoy to listen to music while I am writing because, it helps me to concentrate and focus on what I am doing at the time. This was an overall great experience and I hope that we continue to go to the computer lab. I think it also helped out most of the class because many people were actually working on their papers. Instead of being at home having to work on the paper. Since everybody knows it is such a drag having to do homework. I saw students who always like to turn in their assignments late with great progress on their papers. Overall it was a great for the class to have the time to write the essay while in school.

Blog #22

The article I would like to summarize is "How safe is MySpace" by Hilary Hylton. This article is about how underage age teens are abusing MySpace and lying about the age or randomly finding a guy to hook up with. An example of this is a nineteen year old guy named Pete was arrested for having sex with a fourteen year old girl. The girl bumped her age up a year and Pete posed as a high school senior. Pete is now suing MySpace and seeking thirty million dollars in damages. Another example is a sixteen year old honor student in Michigan flew as far to Jordan before her parents realized she was planning to rendezvous with and marry a West Bank man she had met on MySpace. Parents are now wondering what kind of liaisons their kids are forging online. Law inforcement agencies and elected officials are now stepping up their efforts to get teen laden networking sites to improve their safety measures. But is this enough and who is to blame the parents, MySpace, or the actual users of these networking sites? I think that all of them are to blame. Parents should be able and have talks with their kids more often and explain to them the dangers of these sites, and if they have a computer at home make sure you lock up the computer with passwords and such. Of course you are not going to be around your kid twenty four hours a day. As for networking sites they should find new programs which allow to check if they are that actual person and verify the age of the users. As for Pete suing MySpace for thirty million dollars, does he deserve the money? No. He lied to that girl the same way he had been lied to. He deserves to go to jail for thirty million years for all I care.
The next article I would like to summarize is called "MySpace Launches a Free Music Revolution" by Josh Quittner. This article talks about how MySpace is allowing users to instantly gain access to a vast library of songs. While other sites such as Rhapsody allow you all the songs you want, but for $12.99 a month. MySpace music is free and has linked deal with four major label, plus the five million artists who already have pages on the site. I am pretty sure that Rhapsody or iTunes is not happy with MySpace music, and will most definitely try to get MySpace to stop letting listeners listen to music for free. So are Rhapsody and iTunes days numbered? Who knows only time can tell.

Blog #21

Today in class, we watched a video and had a discussion about it. The name of the video is called Danah Boyd Handheld Learning Conference 2008. This video talks about how education is bringing in new technology and using the technology in todays education system. Many teachers around the world are using facebook, myspace, and blogging into their classrooms and using this for assignments. Many people around the world are asking should we use technology in our classrooms? These people believe that we do not need technology in the classroom. We have done without it in our classrooms before why do we need technology in our classrooms now? Danah not talks about how technology is useful in our classrooms, but also how people are using these networking sites for personal use. People nowadays are using myspace or facebook as a metaphorical owning of a personal space. Teenagers today like to separate themselves from their parents or guardians to provide a space for which they can be themselves or independently show their view of the world in these technological spaces we have. Technology has grown and it is good that teachers are using these new technologies into the curriculum. Technology nowadays is part of everyday life and culture. People use these sites just to be social. Dana stated that most young teenage males use these sites to see how many hot girls they can befriend. The Older group tend to try to use these sites to get more publicity to get people to vote, buy, or get viewers attention. In general these sites are friendship driven. For example she states that people like to keep in touch with friends, gossip, flirting, joking around. She did a study and asked kids "why do you get on these sites so much?" Most of the kids reported that their parents would not let them out the house. It is funny because most of the parents were asking why their kids did not get out of the house. Teenagers are using these sites for a place to hang out. More and more kids are using these sites because their parents keep them busy and they have no time to go socialize in the outside world so they use the technology they have at hand in order to keep up with their peers. Most people as they grow up get a different perspective in life and look back to what they wrote ten years back and might find it embarrassing. She also states that you need to be careful what you wrote because in the future it might come and bite you in the rear.

Blog #20

Today in class we discussed our upcoming essay assignment. The essay assignment is a comparison or contrast essay. It is about MySpace and Facebook. We printed out our essay assignment itinerary and the teacher discussed specifically what she wanted. The essay is supposed to have very specific examples, five through six paragraphs, and specifically stated that this is a comparison or contrast. She then made us create a webbing to see with what we could come up with. Then as a class we all brought our ideas together and came up with plenty of ideas so that we can have ideas to what we want to write in our essay. This was a great experience for me because I have never had a MySpace or Facebook so really do not know everything about the programs although I have explored them. This helped me to get some great ideas for what I want to write. They both have a lot of similarities ,but at the same time are both very different. These are two great programs which have tremendous impact on people. I do not know why, but anyways today really helped me to see things which I did not realize MySpace and Facebook could do. I still need to explore both sites a little more and I am anxious to see if I will be using these programs in the future.

Blog #19

Don't really know what to talk about. Finally have a free blog to write about and I got nothing. An interesting thing happened today though. I was going to work off of wetmore and stahl road. They had construction going on the railroad tracks and had the road blocked off. I noticed people going through so I decided to go through. Then all of a sudden I notice out of the corner of my eye a construction worker running towards a gold lexus. At first I thought that he was going to talk to one of his friends, but ends up nailing this guy with his fists. I pull over jump out of my truck and try to see why the hell this guy is beating the heck out of this guy. I get closer and the construction worker backs off the guy and starts heading toward his truck. I start talking to the construction worker and he starts yelling at me. I tell him to chill the blank out and he flips and starts heading for his truck. I go to the lexus to see if the guy is all right in the truck. He starts to yell at the construction worker saying he is going to sue them. As the guy in the lexus is talking I can tell that he is drunk and I could smell the liquor odor from his mouth.The construction worker starts to head back as if he is going to attack the guy again. I tell the construction worker to get back in the truck or I am going to call the cops. Although I was not because I was just trying to scare him away. The construction worker gets back in his truck and starts to drive off. As he is driving off he starts threatening me telling me he is going to beat me up if I call the cops. I tell him to get the hell out of the truck so that he could try to fight a sober person. He hurries on down the road but as he is leaving I grab a rock off the road and throw it at his truck. Bam! I end up hitting his back window and shattering it. He drove off and never came back. I go back to the guy in the lexus to check his face and hand him napkins from my truck. I tell his drunk but to get in his car and go home. The point of this story is do not drive drunk and do not threaten me because I will strike back.

blog #18

"Killing Us Softly 3" is about how advertisements are every. Did you know that an average American will watch three years of watching television and will see an average of 3000 ads per day. Advertisement is everywhere. Everyone in America feels personally exempt from advertisement. Most people would say that they tune them out or just do not pay any attention to them at all, but these are the people who are wearing gap tee shirts. Advertisement is the foundation of mass media, and the purpose of mass media is to sell products. Advertisements about women have always been about how they look. They try to make women feel that they are not pretty and that they need to spend money in order to look beautiful. Most women in ads have no blemishes, lines, wrinkles, scars. Women body continue to be dismembered in advertising. They try to use a particular part of the women body to sell the actual product. The most common body part is the breast. One in five women have an eating disorder in order to look good. Advertisement is a powerful force that that keeps women trapped in very rigid roles. This video explains how women are being viewed in today's advertisement industry and how they should be. Well advertisements are wrong and I think most women are beautiful the way they are.
"Dove Evolution" shows us a woman sitting down. She has no makeup on and her hair has not been done. You can see from her throat and up. She is a young woman white complexion, highlighted hair, and she is just staring into the video camera.They start with her hair and start putting on makeup. They finally finish putting on makeup and finish her hair. They then start to take pictures of the woman. Then the next thing you know they are using Photoshop and start to raise her head to make her neck longer. Start to make her face smaller and raise her eyebrows. Then they show her advertisement on an ad and show people walking by it.
"Dove Onslaught" shows shows a little girl with red hair. Then all of a sudden you see all these different types of advertisement showing young women. You then see and hear these women talking about products and how they probably make you more beautiful. You then see a woman on a scale and her belly gets bigger then smaller this goes on for a short while. Then more scenes pop up but this time it shows women getting plastic surgery. At the end of the film it show little girls as if they are walking to school. Then the little girl with the red hair pops up again and in the background there is a message stating "Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does."
In summary These videos show the true world of beauty advertising to see what really happens behind the scenes. Which is really disturbing to me.

Blog #17

Today in class we discussed articles about facebook. I am supposed to summarize the articles and tell you what the articles are about. The first article we discussed is called "Colleges Scan Faceboook During Admissions." Students should be careful to what kind of posts you put online. About a quarter of colleges and universities surveyed by the National Association for College Admissions Counseling are checking students facebook page before extending admission or for scholarships. Which means a simple photo might cost a student admission into the school. College officials and social networking specialists said reviewing college applicants is becoming commonplace into higher education, but a rude comment or questionable picture will not remove a student from consideration. "I believe most colleges will do whatever it takes to recruit the right type of student to their respective institution," said Mark D. Weinstein, dean of enrollment and marketing at Grace College in Winona Lake, Ind. Although college institutions are not able to deny college admissions to students with a facebook. On the other hand it is okay for employers in the United States to decide if they want to hire you based on what you have posted on facebook. In my opinion I think it is fine that colleges and universities are checking students facebook pages because if they make a bad decision on who they admission into the college the consequence can be bad for the school. The next article I would like to summarize is called "Does Facebook Replace Face Time or Enhance it?" by Lisa Davis. This article talks about how people are using facebook as there social life. An example of this is this person Jenny. Lisa has tried to call Jenny ,but Jenny has not returned her call for roughly a year. Although Jenny has poked her, sent her a christmas gift, and a poinsetta. Of course she did this all virtually thanks to facebook. Jenny has three children and rarely finds time for visits, phone calls or even e-mail, the full-time mom in upstate New York regularly updates her status on Facebook. After 24 years, our friendship is now relegated to the online world, filtered through Facebook. More and more people are using facebook as their social life instead of having to actually talk to the person on the phone or in person. They call this the facebook recluse sydrome. Why? Many people today are very busy these days and do not have time to talk to their peers. In my opinion, I think that it is horrible that people do this nowadays because the best way to be social is to go out in the world and actually go engage in the world, but if your busy and that is the only way then go for it. Only if that is the only option they have.