This week’s tutorial task is to figure out which question you’re doing for the research assignment and then to make a start on it. Easy.
My essay will focus on the first question which is Marc Prensky's "Emerging online life of the digital native" and David Weinberger's "A New World" both present different views of contemporary internet users. In light of your own experiences with new technologies do you think they are accurate portrayals? Discuss why or why not with specific examples.
I’ve found an online copy of Prensky’s work and ordered the book by Weinberger so have to wait for that to get to Mt Gravatt. Next thing to do is to read both of them and then I can start researching.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Week 9: Lecture
This week’s lecture brought with it some strangeness thanks to Jason Nelson but I have to say this by far has been the best lecture yet. He really should have had some more lectures because he made this weeks topics of CyberUtopia very interesting.
As Jason tried to tell us about the dot com crash he started to reminisce about his first kiss with a lovely Sandra who no longer is lovely because she looks strange. What does Sandra have to do with anything you’re probably asking yourself? Well Sandra was worth 2 million dollars in December of 1999 and then in February she was only worth 500 dollars. Quite a large difference wouldn’t you say? This happened due to the fact that companies didn’t know how to use the Internet in a constructive way so companies were pumping money into the net but then no money was being pumped out meaning that investments crashed. The result? The dot com crash.
After Jason reminded us about Sandra a few mores times and got upset that a girl sitting in front of me left the lecture we moved onto the wonderful and very strange world of networking sites. Now I only say they are strange because the ones that we looked at were. For all of you out there who fantasies about being an elf and living in an elf town you now can! Welcome to Elftown or if you’ve always wanted to teach others how to be a psychic vampire because you are one you can join the world of Vampire Rave. It makes me wonder though. If we think that sites such as Elftown or Vampire Rave are strange would people who join these sites think that Facebook or MySpace as weird?
The lecture finished with Jason showing us some of his work. Take a look at Secret Technology. Very interesting site.
A big thank you to Jason for not only teaching me something but also making this the best lecture.
As Jason tried to tell us about the dot com crash he started to reminisce about his first kiss with a lovely Sandra who no longer is lovely because she looks strange. What does Sandra have to do with anything you’re probably asking yourself? Well Sandra was worth 2 million dollars in December of 1999 and then in February she was only worth 500 dollars. Quite a large difference wouldn’t you say? This happened due to the fact that companies didn’t know how to use the Internet in a constructive way so companies were pumping money into the net but then no money was being pumped out meaning that investments crashed. The result? The dot com crash.
After Jason reminded us about Sandra a few mores times and got upset that a girl sitting in front of me left the lecture we moved onto the wonderful and very strange world of networking sites. Now I only say they are strange because the ones that we looked at were. For all of you out there who fantasies about being an elf and living in an elf town you now can! Welcome to Elftown or if you’ve always wanted to teach others how to be a psychic vampire because you are one you can join the world of Vampire Rave. It makes me wonder though. If we think that sites such as Elftown or Vampire Rave are strange would people who join these sites think that Facebook or MySpace as weird?
The lecture finished with Jason showing us some of his work. Take a look at Secret Technology. Very interesting site.
A big thank you to Jason for not only teaching me something but also making this the best lecture.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Tute Week 8
This tutorial starts off with an overview of the lecture since we didn't have an actual one. Daniel brings up some interesting points about how there are no movies, which don’t contain some sort of warfare. When was the last time you watched a movie with no guns or explosions of some kind? I know I can’t recall one. So after some more interesting points we move onto this week’s tutorial task.
They are listed below:
Sign an e-petition
I’ve done this before a few times. One was joining Sunrise’s Earth Hour petition and the others I don’t remember. This doesn’t mean the causes weren’t worth signing and remembering it just means that my memory is bad.
Respond to a professional blogger at a major news site.
Done this as well. I usually leave some comment on News.com on stories that I find interesting.
What is Barak Obama up to today?
He is telling the world to stop whinging about America. "Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world, cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone," Mr Obama said. Read the article here
Find out who your local, state and federal representatives are.
State: Chris Bombolas
They are listed below:
Sign an e-petition
I’ve done this before a few times. One was joining Sunrise’s Earth Hour petition and the others I don’t remember. This doesn’t mean the causes weren’t worth signing and remembering it just means that my memory is bad.
Respond to a professional blogger at a major news site.
Done this as well. I usually leave some comment on News.com on stories that I find interesting.
What is Barak Obama up to today?
He is telling the world to stop whinging about America. "Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world, cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone," Mr Obama said. Read the article here
Find out who your local, state and federal representatives are.
State: Chris Bombolas
Week 8: Lecture
No lecture this week! That means I don’t have to do a blog right? Wrong! We got the lovely lecture notes posted onto the Learning @ Griffith site and had to come to our own conclusions about things from there. That’s fine enough because we had to do the same thing thanks to the Ekka holidays. However what I don’t like is the fact that this week’s topic is CyberPolitics and eDemocracy. I don’t like having to think about Politics and Democracy as it is and just because it’s to do with the online world doesn’t make this topic any less interesting.
Reading the lectures notes is quite an effort until I get to the section about Cyberpunk Themes. The first section discusses technology and mythology. This section raises some important points the main one which got me thinking was technological advancement comes at a price, as can be seen in the human cost of the industrial revolution and in the environmental problems that have arisen with industrial development this century. This is very true. We’ve learnt from being humans that something always comes as cost.
An earlier question raised was whether we would care if machines took over? I think we would. Machines do play a larger part in our lives and in society but if machines took over what would humans do? Do we stop living our lives and just wait to die? I know I don’t want that. Machines should be created to help make life easier but I don’t want things to get so easy that I don’t need to do anything because a machine is there doing it for me.
Reading the lectures notes is quite an effort until I get to the section about Cyberpunk Themes. The first section discusses technology and mythology. This section raises some important points the main one which got me thinking was technological advancement comes at a price, as can be seen in the human cost of the industrial revolution and in the environmental problems that have arisen with industrial development this century. This is very true. We’ve learnt from being humans that something always comes as cost.
An earlier question raised was whether we would care if machines took over? I think we would. Machines do play a larger part in our lives and in society but if machines took over what would humans do? Do we stop living our lives and just wait to die? I know I don’t want that. Machines should be created to help make life easier but I don’t want things to get so easy that I don’t need to do anything because a machine is there doing it for me.
Another Week Another Video
It's now week 7 and this weeks tutorial task is do another video like we did last week only this time we need to make it longer (3 minutes all up), it needs to be done with video we've shot as well as pictures and our own audio. I'm sure you can tell I hate it already. I think I lack the creativity that most people have but in saying this I did do it.
The video is meant to tell a story and it does...in a strange way. It's dedicated to my friend Sarsha who turned 19 a few weeks ago. Hope you like it.
The video is meant to tell a story and it does...in a strange way. It's dedicated to my friend Sarsha who turned 19 a few weeks ago. Hope you like it.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Week 7: Lecture
I did not attend this week’s lecture as I was sick. I’m sure my presence was missed. Reading over the lecture notes it seemed like a good and interesting topic that I missed. Topic discussed in this lecture was creative commons and open source software.
Creative commons is a non-for profit organisation, which works on the basis of “some rights reserved” instead of “all rights reserved”. Using this systems means that creators of a program can choose licensing options for their programs such as non-commercial, no derivatives and ShareAlike. This means that others are still allowed to use your program and modify it but with only some restrictions instead of having all the normal restrictions which are usually placed on people.
The next topic being discussed was open source software. I love open source software. I bought my new Mac this year for around $1600 and on top of that I also bought Microsoft Office for it for $200 not realising that there are awesome programs such as OpenOffice that you can get for FREE instead of wasting your money. You can say I’m a little bit peeved that this class wasn’t held at the beginning of the year. I guess I’ve learnt my lesson now. Out of the other programs that were mentioned in the lecture slides such as Firefox, Linux, VLC I’d only heard of Firefox, which I’ve actually been using for a few years now. I prefer it to Internet Explorer and even Safari. Don’t know why but just seems a lot easier to use then the other two.
There was a homework challenge to download an open source software program and use it for 10 days. I downloaded GIMP but have no idea how to use it. I will also download OpenOffice and see how I go with that. Like I already mentioned I already have Firefox and love it so I guess I’ve kind of completed the challenge already even if I did cheat a little. Keep an eye out to see how I go with GIMP.
Creative commons is a non-for profit organisation, which works on the basis of “some rights reserved” instead of “all rights reserved”. Using this systems means that creators of a program can choose licensing options for their programs such as non-commercial, no derivatives and ShareAlike. This means that others are still allowed to use your program and modify it but with only some restrictions instead of having all the normal restrictions which are usually placed on people.
The next topic being discussed was open source software. I love open source software. I bought my new Mac this year for around $1600 and on top of that I also bought Microsoft Office for it for $200 not realising that there are awesome programs such as OpenOffice that you can get for FREE instead of wasting your money. You can say I’m a little bit peeved that this class wasn’t held at the beginning of the year. I guess I’ve learnt my lesson now. Out of the other programs that were mentioned in the lecture slides such as Firefox, Linux, VLC I’d only heard of Firefox, which I’ve actually been using for a few years now. I prefer it to Internet Explorer and even Safari. Don’t know why but just seems a lot easier to use then the other two.
There was a homework challenge to download an open source software program and use it for 10 days. I downloaded GIMP but have no idea how to use it. I will also download OpenOffice and see how I go with that. Like I already mentioned I already have Firefox and love it so I guess I’ve kind of completed the challenge already even if I did cheat a little. Keep an eye out to see how I go with GIMP.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Tute Video Time
This weeks tute began with us receiving our marks for our blog. A high distinction (88%) was something I was definitely not expecting from my blogs but I have to say I was very happy and excited to have received such a great mark even though I still don’t understand how that happened.
Here is the feedback I received on my blog: A fabulous blog, even if the matte pink background is gaudy as hell. The vivacity of the entries is truly wondrous, and the inclusion of links, media, and emphasis is very tactful. This is the sort of standard a professional blog needs; the style alone is easy to navigate and stands out in a reader's mind as something like "I'm going to read 'Adult Subjects again today".
I would like to say thank you to Daniel for calling my layout “gaudy” so now I have changed it because I don’t like to be tasteless. Hopefully this layout is better (although I still like the pink).
This weeks tutorial task although fun and creative was a pain. Mostly because being creative requires me to think. As a Uni student this is a bad thing to admit. I decided to go back to my heritage and show you guys where I am from. I was born in Bosnia & Herzegovina in 1989. Due to the war that started there my family moved to Germany and then 11 years ago we moved to Australia. The video contains photo’s taken by my friend Mike who went to Bosnia for a few weeks half way through this year. Big thank you to him for letting me use his pictures. Hope you enjoy it.
Here is the feedback I received on my blog: A fabulous blog, even if the matte pink background is gaudy as hell. The vivacity of the entries is truly wondrous, and the inclusion of links, media, and emphasis is very tactful. This is the sort of standard a professional blog needs; the style alone is easy to navigate and stands out in a reader's mind as something like "I'm going to read 'Adult Subjects again today".
I would like to say thank you to Daniel for calling my layout “gaudy” so now I have changed it because I don’t like to be tasteless. Hopefully this layout is better (although I still like the pink).
This weeks tutorial task although fun and creative was a pain. Mostly because being creative requires me to think. As a Uni student this is a bad thing to admit. I decided to go back to my heritage and show you guys where I am from. I was born in Bosnia & Herzegovina in 1989. Due to the war that started there my family moved to Germany and then 11 years ago we moved to Australia. The video contains photo’s taken by my friend Mike who went to Bosnia for a few weeks half way through this year. Big thank you to him for letting me use his pictures. Hope you enjoy it.
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