Compare Twitter discussion to BB discussion board to in-class discussion

Compare Twitter discussion to BB discussion

                Both of them can be used for collaborating between professors and classmates.  We can post questions, opinions, and comments on them. We can also read, visit, and leave comments on some else’s postings. The contents of both of them can be viewed online. We can search particular person’s posting by typing his or her name on the search engines of them. The contents of them can be also viewed in the chronological order.  The steps of posting and replying are easy for both of them.

                The differences of Twitter and BB discussions are followings. The BB discussion can only be accessed by the professor and the classmate in the same class. The Twitter discussion can be accessed by anybody search for it online or anybody who use Twitter.  The number of characters to post on the BB is not limited; the contents can be very long or short. The number of characters to post on the Twitter is limited to 140 which are really short. We can delete the posting on Twitter, but we can’t delete the posting in the BB discussion. We can organize the posting on the BB by date, Ascending, or descending orders by clicking the button. The order of the posting on the Twitter is organized chronological order automatically.

Compare the Twitter discussion to the in-class discussion.

                The in-class discussion can only take time during the class hour, and take place in the class room. The Twitter discussion can take time in anytime people available to use the internet, and any place people can connect their computers, cell phones to the internet.  For the in- class discussion, students can ask questions and get responds right away. For the Twitter discussion, people need to wait for the responds when people have free time to post their opinions. For the in-class discussion, students who are too shy to speak up, or feel afraid to answer wrong may feel uncomfortable, and less likely to share their opinions.  The students who are shy can post their opinion on Twitter which is much easier for them.

                 

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

What are different ways these virtual worlds can be used?

A game for kids

                Children can play games in cartoon world for fun and interacting with other players.

                Examples: Virtual Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Toontown.

Creating music mixes

                People can create music mixes in their favorite ways. The music can be rated and purchased by   others.

                Example: Coke Studios

New media entertainment

                Customize audios, videos, TV shows, and websites of entertainment.

                Example: Muse, Worlds.com,

Romance

                Online dating and romance life

                Example: Virtual Ibiza, Moove,

Building and architecture

                Build things in the virtual world

                Example: Active Worlds, Cybertown,

Medical care

                Practice the medical process in virtual world for preparing to do the process in real world.

                Example: World of War

What are the pros and cons?

Pro

                It enabled the connection between people who have the same interest; even they live in different places.

                People can have fun when they are playing games.

                People can create the more desirable world.

                People can improve their skills, such as making music, writing, creating games, designing things, and so on.

                People can feel free when they communicate online in virtual world.

Con 

              People reduce the face to face interactions.

                People like the real world less and less.

                They like themselves in the virtual world better because they get better accomplishments in the virtual world.

                They do less daily activities in the real world, and spend major of time in the virtual world.

Be specific. How do virtual worlds foster creativity?

The creativities are various. “In fact pretty much all of the virtual world itself, from building to objects to fashion, is created, distributed, and consumed by the users themselves.” (Eytan Bakshy,Brian Karre,& Lada Adamic, 2010)

3D expression of the virtual environment is created by presenting characters, clothing, building, and objects with 3-dimension.

The virtual world and games help children to enhance creative imaginations when they create their own strategies for the games.

There are many readings are about virtual life; the writers and authors use their knowledge of virtual life to create more textual contents.

Artists can utilize virtual world to show their creations instead of showing real creations to the public.

The architect can visualize their designs of building by using virtual life.

People can create or recreate music in their favorite way.

What do you think the future of virtual worlds will look like?

People spent more and more time online, the real world and the virtual world will be seamless.  Some activities will be hard to be defined whether as virtual activities or real activities. People will utilize the virtual world more for performing the activities in the real world better, such as to show the structure and change of DNA by using the 3-D expression of the virtual world in a class room. This kind activity will be very general in the future.

Citation:

Eytan Bakshy, Brian Karrer, and Lada A. Adamic,(2010),Social Influence and the Diffusion of User-Created Content . Proceedings of the 10th ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce, July 6-10, Stanford, CA. Retrieved 10/18/2010 from Baruch Newmedia

Social Networking

The ways (corporate and otherwise) that these technologies can be used.

Social networking can be used to enable connecting between people.

                The connecting can be between family, friends, classmates, co-workers, teachers, and strangers. The connecting can be sharing of knowledge, information, experiences, caring, asking questions, and so on.

Social networking site can be used in libraries.

                It helps people better utilize the resource, and make research in the libraries. For example, people can use del.icio.us to collect the resource owned by the library, bookmark, and annotate the contents. People can use e-books to read books on computer or cell phone. The e-books usually can be found in the database of the library. People can also search references, scholar resource, press, and so forth in the database of library website.

Social networking can be used by students and professor

                Students and professors can massage each other by e-mail, blog, Facebook, and so on. It helps students get helps from professor immediately when they have problems, such as homework questions, exam problem, and anything else. It also helps professor to make announcements to students immediately, such as cancellation of class, sending PowerPoint of the course, and so on. It provides “the additional layer of communication will make the richer class discussions” according to Jeff Young (2009). Jeff Young encourages students to pass notes, and links of related materials by twitter; therefore the students who are too shy to talk in class can put his or her opinion on twitter. This way is also can be done with Blogs and  Wiki.

             They can also use blog and wiki as course websites to show more information about the course, to post online homework, to encourage discussions and collaborations between students and professors.

  Social networking can be in legal investigations.

                Educational institutions can use Facebook and My space to investigate students’ behaviors. For instances, students may start drinking under age 21, gambling, fighting, and so on. They can be found through the pictures, posting texts, or videos which posted by students.

Social networking can be used for business operation.

                The company website shows the history of the company, the personnel of the company, the advertisings of new products, and the system of online purchasing, and so on. It enhances the collaboration between the company and customers. Through the information provided by the company, customer will know the company better in order to trust the company.  The company also can attract new customers when search for the company online, get customer to purchase online, view comments of customers leave on the website. Also, we can make online banking transactions through the websites of banks.  The international business companies can make deal, collaborate and sharing idea with each other online. The e-commerce and e-business are also supported by the social networking sites.

Social networking can be used to share knowledge and information.

                People can search online for the things which they don’t know, and post the things they know. Since, the basic information online is free and accessible, the sharing is enhanced. The people can be experts or non-experts, their information and knowledge are all over online, such as Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, and so forth.

Social networking can be used for political activities.

                People can elect online for their favor candidates. People can know more about government agencies by looking at their websites. People can express their opinions on political issue online. People can participate in political activities in websites. For example, the essembly website allow political interest people can engage in discussion, and take action online, and  Policosmos allow voters and candidates to elect politicians online.

The benefits of these technologies to society

                The benefits of these technologies to society can be strengthening relationships within the community, even within the world; encouraging creativities by using blog, games, and so on;  helping students to improve the academic performance by searching information online, collaborating with classmates and teachers; making information free and accessible to the whole world; encouraging political participations in the community; enabling mew form of business; assisting the disabled people to perform daily activities better; and so on.

The "dark side"

   The dark sides may be online sexual predators, cyber bullying, loss of privacy, identity theft, virus, digital divide, internet gambling, internet addiction, violation of copyright , e-waste, less face to face interacting, and  wide sharing of disinformation and misinformation.

Make sure to include your opinion of the way these technologies might evolve in the future.

                In the future, I think there will be more cheaper or free information available on the networking sites. Currently, the copyrights of certain information discourage the sharing of information, such as some news articles on the New York Times Online are not free. We can find all the publishing books on Google or other databases contain e-books. It is going to be more difficult to protect our personal information when I rely more on online activities in the future.

Citation

Jeffrey R. Young ,(2009),The Wired Campus: Professor Encourages Students to Pass Notes During Class -- via Twitter, The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 8, 2009. Retrieved on 10/08/2010 from Baruch New Media.

Check Out Social Networking Sites

Impressions of Facebook, Myspace, Friendster, and Twitter.

Facebook

The tool bar of the Facebook shows home page, my page, search for friends, and my account. I can organize my face book by those tools. My home page shows the activities of my friends, the letters from the Facebook system to me, the people recommended by Facebook who have the same friends as mine, the commercials, and the requests from friends.  Those are the things important to me, and the Facebook system makes it convenient for me to find them. I can protect my personal information by using the privacy setting. I can choose the language of the system, get help by clicking the “ help “, learn more about Facebook by clicking “about”. It is a really user friendly, and organized network media. I think the nature of facebook is to enable connection between people by showing personal experiences and stories. If I want to know somebody more, facebook is the right media for me to do so.

My space

The tool bar of MySpace includes home, mail, profile, friends, music, movies, photos, video, games, events, and more.  It has more tools than Facebook. The extra tools are good for amusement. I can upload or download my favorite music, movies, video, and games. On the tool of event, there are information about concert, sports, nightlife, shopping, impact, festival, and art. I can find the tickets there if the event requires thicket. I can choose that “I’m going” or “I want to go” for the event.  I can plan my schedule on the calendar under the tool of event.  Under the tool of More, there is more things for fun, such as TV, comedy, and so on. On the home page, I can see the activities of my friends, requests, mail, notifications, advertising, recommendations, and my visitors.  I can design or change things in MySpace by using the tool bar or “My stuff”. I can use help tool to know more about my space. The safety tips show us how to use or chat safely. The language of the system is English only. I think Myspace ecourages online friends to be friends in real world by attending the same event. Beside online collaboration, it provides more fun, such as game   or shows.

Friendster

When I sign up for this account, the system helps to design or organize it step by step. The tool bar of the Friendster shows home, profile, friends, photos, classifieds, games, and fun. The classified shows the advertisings of for sale, vehicles, personals, real estate, service, classes and community. We can search them in different countries, and different locations. The tool of fun provides apps, blogs, gift, and so on. On the home page, I can see the activity stream of all events, the people who are on Friendster, the suggestions of other networking medias, and bulletins. We can choose the language of the system, such as English, Chinese, Japanese, and more.  It also has about us and privacy links. I like the advertising part, it enables me and my friends to look and discuss about it on friendster.

Twitter

The system also helps me to set it up step by step. The tool bar of twitter shows home, profile ,find people , setting, and help.  The setting tool allows us to change the language of the system. On my home page, I can see who am I following, my followers, and which list am I on.  Also, the twitter twit button allows me to show whatever I want others to follow.  There are also My direct messages, favorites, retweets, lists of my timelines which I build myself, trending worldwide, following and RSS feed. Twitter is a wonderful tool for getting news in the world. I learnt that our Baruch college is using twitter to show the emergency news in order to allow us know the news at very first time.

Comparison

All of Facebook , MySpace, Friendster and Twitter are free and easy to sign up. They allow user to design them in favorite way, and enhance social networking between friends, family, classes, businesses and community. They are all user friendly, the “help” allows people to know how to use them better. However, each of them has at least one characteristic which outstands from others.   Facebook is all about experiences of individuals; it is the best tool for us to know others’ personalities and stories.  MySpace shows a lot more ways of amusement than others. Friendster has very comprehensive advertisings of sale, vehicles, personals, real estate, service, classes and community which others don’t have. Twitter provides most updated news of the world in highest speed compares to others.