Advice to Baruch College

I really think Baruch College should use new media help improve lecture in the big lecture halls. If you sit far away, it is really hard to see the professor’s face. There should be screens in the big lecture rooms so that everyone can see the professor. If you can not see the professor's face, there will be no interaction between the student and the professor. Therefore, screens are a must in big lecture halls! Baruch should also use new media to help improve the escalators and elevators. People should be shown and reminded how to stand on an escalator and in an elevator to make things run faster and smoothly. Maybe the elevators won’t break every other hour if a mob of students come at once with their heavy book bags. Baruch needs a better online service for books. Books are very expensive and if Baruch improved its service by having online access to books for our classes, I think that would save the students A LOT of money.

About My Term Research Paper

It such a relief to say that I am finally finished writing my research paper. The topic of my research paper was social networking sites and its effect on children. The best part about researching for my paper was that I did not have to close my Facebook page. I read Facebook the terms and agreement page for the first ever as I was writing this paper and it really surprised me. There are so many specific rules Facebook has in order to protect the user’s safety.  I chose this topic because I have a very strong opinion about children below the age of thirteen having a Facebook account. I wanted to do more research on how many children actually use the social networking sites. When I was researching I found that there is no specific number because it is very hard to verify the ages of every social networking account user. I think my paper contributes to the field of “new media” exploring the negative effects it has on children. After writing this paper, I have one thing to say: PROTECT your children from these addicting sites! Save the innocence of young children please.

Creativity

As you can see from the previous blog, Virtual worlds foster creativity. I put my personal touches to the avatar. When I was exploring the virtual world in Second Life, I noticed the different avatars. Everyone put their own different touches to how they want their avatar to look like. Another way new media fosters creativity is through mashups.  Mashups are defined in our class notes as “digital data is in digital form (bits).”  Mashups can be manipulated easily and the streams of bits are independent of their “natural representation.” In Brooks Barnes article (Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But why?), YouTube users are posting mashups of snippets from several Disney cartoons.  Brooks states “the postings (called mash-ups) are made by editing together snippets of animated movies and TV shows.” Youtube users are showing their creativity by making their own versions. Some users have turned famous Disney cartoon characters into rap stars. If you want to take a peek at their creations click on the link below:  “Soulja Boy Pooh”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=316BF17k5d8

Creativity and New Media

I had a lot of trouble thinking of what I can create using new media. After speaking with the Professor, and asking her for some advice. I decided to create an avatar because I have made youtube videos before but have never created an avatar. This assignment was not so easy, I can easily say that this assignment was the hardest assignment of the semester.

Here are a few pictures of my avatars:

My avatar walking around:

My avatar on a boat:

 I first began by downloading Second Life and then making an account. I had a lot of trouble downloading it because the new version of Second Life was not compatible with my Macbook. After finally getting the program to work, I started creating my avatar. There are so many customizing tools you can use to make your avatar. I could change the face around; add hair, makeup, lipstick, etc… I could also change the avatars clothes. The coolest feature was when you can make your avatars fly. I had a lot of fun using that button.  You can also teleport your avatar to different places.

After using Second Life, I understand why people become addicted to virtual worlds. It took me a while to create my avatar because changing every feature of the avatar is tedious work. I had to focus on every detail on the face and the body and also I was new to Second Life and was working very slowly. I think I won’t ever use Second Life ever again because I rather spend my time doing something fun outside then sit in front of a computer all day.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

According to google.com, a virtual world is a “genre of online community that often takes the form of a computer-based simulated environment.” Users can interact with each other and use and create objects. Virtual worlds allow users to be creative and create any type of fantasy world they want to be in. Virtual worlds are a representation of reality and are simpler than the real world.  

Virtual world have many benefits.  Virtual worlds are much more creative, and very personal. They can be used for business purposes and users can virtually meet each other if they are very distant from each other. Virtual worlds are also very good for training purposes. Usually to save labor costs, companies have training videos, where new employees can be trained in a virtual classroom. This makes the learning process very easy. Also, through virtual worlds you can go to places that you have never seen before. One time I saw my brother play some video game on his PS3 (I forgot the name), the character was walking on foot through the streets of Manhattan. I thought it was really cool because everything was so detailed, it was unbelievable! Dave Itzkoff writes in his article, “I’ve been in that Club, Just not in Real Life,” about real life examples of people who have visited the lower east side through virtual worlds. I think that is why virtual worlds are so cool; you can visit places you have never seen before!!

There are also several disadvantages to virtual worlds. Virtual worlds can become addicting and they can take over your life because they are very time consuming.  You might lose your friends and family because you have minimal face to face interaction Virtual world users can do illegal things and make the avatars do improper things. In Saki Knafo’s article, “In room 100, It’s Sid & Nancy all over again,” the user tried to kill somebody.  Another disadvantage of virtual worlds is that computer savvy people will find it very hard to navigate a virtual world.

Virtual worlds are eye openers. People get to see things they have never seen before. Virtual worlds are going to be the most popular upcoming Social Networking sites in the future. They will be a very competitive field of creativity.  People will be competing with each other to make the best and most “real” looking virtual worlds. People will be perfecting their ideas on how they can improve their virtual world. I think virtual worlds in the future will become even more REAL looking. I think that is crazy because we might not know the difference between virtual worlds and the real world if everything starts becoming more “real” like.

Social Networking Sites

FACEBOOK:

I have been using Facebook since senior year of high school. I love Facebook because it is the fastest way to stay in contact with my friends and family. Not only can I load photo albums and comment on my friends walls. Facebook has so many applications that you can take advantage of if you’re bored. I am addicted to the Tower block game on Facebook. I love it! The newsfeed keeps me updated on what my friends are thinking and usually what they are up to. Most college students have Facebook, but now even younger kids have an account.

MYSPACE:

I used to have MySpace back in junior high school. It was my addiction before Facebook. On my MySpace you can personalize your background and adjust the color of the font, etc... It is very different from Facebook because you have to add special codes to customize your page. MySpace is very slow compared to Facebook, and you cannot comment on other peoples comments like we can on Facebook.

LINKEDIN:

Although I have LinkedIn, I am not so active on it. This social networking site is more for professional networking. You can search for jobs, recruiters, and other contacts. My employer added me on LinkedIn and suggested that I should be more active on it to “network.” I have not become accustomed to this site because it still is too complicated for me.

TWITTER:

I created a twitter account when it started to get popular. I was not too fond of it because all you do on twitter is update your status every second of the day. There are other fancy tricks you can do on twitter, like adding tags, but I find twitter a waste of time. You can also customize your profile, add a picture, and follow people.

Twitter and Blackboard Discussions

I have never liked the idea of twitter. Facebook was enough to keep me busy but people who have twitter, are always TWEETING. You can tweet about anything. The big difference in tweeting and blackboard discussions is the character limit. You can write so much on twitter statuses as compared to long discussion on blackboard discussion boxes. You can write one word or a couple of words at a time when you tweet. Usually, most students do not go back to old discussions, but on twitter you can comment on older tweets.. Blackboard discussions on the other hand are helpful among classmates and the professor. Twitters are helpful in the fact that you can add tags and search for topics that interest you, (you cannot do that on blackboard). Another difference between twitter and blackboard discussion is that twitter is faster. You do not have to go through the hassle of logging in you blackboard, then look for your class, and then clicking on discussions. Overall, twitter is a faster and creative way of interaction among people. Call me old school, but at the end of the day, Twitter is not my thing.