Crawford Blog Post #8

In “The Machine Stops”, EM Forester portrays that the people in the future relied on the Machine to do everything for them. They used it every day for communication, sleeping, reading, etc. People were thrown out when they realized what was going on and knew that the Machine was not perfect and that the people should not trust and rely on it quite so much. He is communicating to the audience that the constant increase in technology could lead to the harm of humans and Earth. In the first episode of Terra Nova, the condition of Earth is practically unlivable. The technology is really advanced and scientists were able to discover ways to make the unlivable conditions livable. It is implied in the TV show that there had been so much pollution from technology that the air on Earth was no longer breathable by humans and therefore they had to create oxygen masks for everyone to wear when they were outside.

The two productions both portray how technology can harm the future by representing the rough shape of the Earth many years from now. In “The Machine Stops”, though, the people only relied on the Machine to live in the terrible conditions. In Terra Nova, the people used technology to their advantage to make the Earth livable. I believe that both of the productions were made not only for entertainment, but also to inform the public that the continuation of the growth of technology could result in the harm of our planet.

I have mixed feelings about both of the visions portrayed. I feel that they are both over exaggerated but act as a wakeup call to the people in the audience. Both of the productions are dystopian. I imagine the future not very different from how it is now, just modified and updated to the new technologies. I think people will just adapt to their surroundings as they change.

Crawford Creative Proposal

My group’s topic is about relationships and how they might be in the future. I feel as though relationships in the future will be more computerized. I do not necessarily agree with this, but this is what I see society progressing toward. I would like to draw a comic depicting social networks in the future and the impact they have on peoples’ relationships whether they are just friendships or romantic in their nature. The only materials I will need are pencils, paper, and my own artistic ability. My plan is to draw out the comic to come up with generic ideas and the storyline and then draw it again in full detail.

Crawford - Blog Post #7

Online privacy is a complicated and in depth issue. Many people have different definitions of what is and is not appropriate to share with the general public. We also need to be cautious what information we share with friends and people we know, or think we know. I believe that people should be cautious to share information that could possibly get them into trouble. Situations like that can include being the victim of online stalking; future employers denying you a job because of information they found online about you, among others.

I have a Facebook profile and I post certain information on it that could not come back to harm me in any way in the future. Also, my privacy settings are set up so most people cannot see most information about me. I never post addresses, locations, or schedules. The information I do have available to the public is simply superfluous interest in things such as movies and music. I have gone through all of my privacy settings, viewed my profile as the general public, and I made sure that I was comfortable with anyone viewing the information I had available.

I searched for myself through Google and found absolutely nothing about myself. I added my high school to the search for myself and still came up with nothing about me. I suppose that means I keep the information I put on the Internet to a minimum and the information I do put on there is kept secure for the most part.

In Class Writing #9

The audience is people who may be looking for a job because the author talks about how employers view social networking profiles of the applicants for the job they are offering. She is responding in the article to the fact that a percentage of employers are using social networking sites to determine whether or not an applicant will get the job.  She uses the results from a survey and quotes from three different attorney to support the fact that using the sites for this purpose is bad. The author uses ethos in the article by giving it credibility. She does so by using the attorneys’ quotes and reports from Financial Week and New York Daily News. I could use this article as a source for a paper because it uses several different sources that are credible.

In Class Writing #8

Individual

1.  Harry Potter books

2. Twilight Saga

3. Star Wars

4. Mona Lisa

5. Glee

Group

1.     Harry Potter

2.     Twilight

3.     Party Rock Anthem – LMFAO

4.     Star Wars

5.     Mona Lisa

Citations

1. Rowling, Joanne K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. N.p.: Scholastic
Press, n.d. Print.

2. Meyer, Stephenie. Twilight . N.p.: Little, Brown and Co., 2005. Print.

3.  LMFAO - Party Rock Anthem Ft. Lauren Bennett, GoonRock - YouTube. Perf. Redfoo and Sky Blu. YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Youtube, 8 Mar. 2011. Web. 26 Oct. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ6zr6kCPj8>.

4. "StarWars.com | The Movies." StarWars.com | Home. Lucusfilm Ltd., 2011. Web. 26 Oct. 2011. <http://www.starwars.com/explore/the-movies/>.

5. Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

In Class Writing #7

In the video, Glenn Beck was comparing video games to real life.  He talked about soldiers had to train 75 years ago to shoot more easily by shooting paper targets because shooting humans does not come naturally. He was saying that a new video game called Grand Theft Auto was available for kids to play and it was really inappropriate and supposedly entertaining.

In the video game, Grand Theft Auto, Beck argued that killing people was really not entertaining. Back in WWI, soldiers had to train to be able to shoot other people more easily. So he questioned why the video game was considered entertaining because the soldiers were uncomfortable shooting other people and people kill other people in the video game like it’s not important at all. He used an example from the game where the character you play in the game could beat women to death and cut cops in half with chainsaws.

Glenn Beck talks about how violent video games are now. He uses the new video game, Grand Theft Auto, as his source and takes scenes and parts of the game and uses them as examples. He basically argues that the video game is bad. He doesn’t really back it up with sources either. He just uses examples from a single video game.

In Class Writing #6

I have barely any experience with downloading music online. I do know, though, that many people do not pay for their music. They download it illegally through certain websites and they know back ways around paying for it. I read an article recently and a few people commented on it and gave the specifics of how expensive it is for a band to release a song. So much time and money goes into just one song. Some people believe that music should just be free, but others believe it should just be like it is. It’s not like the music is expensive if you know the right place to get it. Most of the songs’ profit has a percentage that goes straight to the band, which can be a considerable amount, but only if people buy their songs.

The article I read was entitled, “The Age of Music Piracy is over”. The point the author was trying to make was that so many people nowadays illegally download music and basically, it’s free. This in turn is basically changing the way the music industry is working.

Crawford - Blog Post #6

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B-SJq8J1k-t_NjBlZWNlNzAtZDFhZi00ZWJkLTgwMzktZWYxYTRiOGM3MmU4&hl=en_US

I chose to make a fake Facebook profile for Simba from the movie, The Lion King. The whole profile was basically made just to be funny.

Crawford - In Class Writing #5

Almost all of the posts are in Korean so I can’t read them. But, that tells me she is Korean. A lot of her friends post on her wall just to see how she’s doing and to catch up. In her information section, I can tell that she goes to Virginia Tech and where she went to high school, but she does not have a whole lot about herself on there which in most cases is a good thing.

The advertisements are trying to sell something and most of the time it’s shoes that is in the ads. In them, there are usually pictures of interesting-looking shoes that would grab a person’s attention. There are ads for ticket giveaways and ads about TV shows as well. Under the ads, there is usually a caption that points out one or more of your friends that like that specific page to persuade you to like it as well. My guess is all of the shoe advertisements showed up on her page because she may shop for shoes online or look at them. But sometimes, people accidently click on an ad, which adds the product the ad is selling to the supposed interests that the person using the computer has built up over time. So she may or may not actually have an interest in shoes.

Crawford - Blog Post #5

The article includes that Christine Rosen is the senior editor of The New Atlantis and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center meaning that she is credible and has had a decent amount of experience in writing. The only problem is that the article is from 2007 so it is not quite up to date so some of the topics she talks about, such as MySpace, are not necessarily true now although it most likely was then. She includes all of the aspects for an analysis for that date in time. A lot of the facts about MySpace and Facebook are true except that Facebook has become the main source of social networking. As the article has become more out of date, so has MySpace. In the article, Rosen talks about how social networking in general affects how we act outside in the physical world. For example, most people don’t consider a relationship “official” until it has been changed on Facebook. It could also affect how long relationships last especially for couples that are constantly in and out of a relationship with each other. It is so easy to just change their status the moment it happens because they could not just tell everyone who cares themselves.

For the most part I agree with Rosen’s point in the article about how social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, whether they be old or brand new, impact our decisions both on and outside of the Internet. They affect the way we think and act as well as how we react with each other and talk.

Crawford - Blog Post #4

http://www.visiblemeasures.com/search?query=legacy+-+levi
 

There is very limited text during this collage of video clips, but the enticing background vocals tie the scenes together smoothly.  The narrator’s voice draws the attention of someone so if a person was just passing by and heard the voice, he or she would turn their attention to the deep, soothing voice from the commercial and watch it to the end.  The voice is not annoying or silly which would draw in a different type of audience, such as people who enjoy the funnier commercials rather than the more serious ones, but this specific voice would draw in more than one type of person.  It is made to appeal to a wider range of viewers - not just teenagers or just adults, but both.  The images in the ad show a diverse group of young adults doing things they enjoy and actually experiencing their world. A man is shown standing in a large crowd of people with a look on his face as if he has just realized he is not living his life to the fullest and that he may be one person in a hundred right then, but he can stand out and find himself.  Other clips show people swimming together, playing music, playing in leaves in the fall, and even riding a boat made from an upside-down table – basically people enjoying their lives however they feel like it.  The advertisement encourages us to go out and live our lives our way, to be ourselves, and to see the beauty in and enjoy the world around us.   

The narrator stirs viewers’ emotions and makes us feel empowered to know who we really are and to be unafraid to show it which is the use of pathos.  The statement “The gods wait to delight in you” tells the viewers that we have our own unique qualities that make us who we are and that we should not try to hide those qualities but instead flaunt them.  The whole video in general just give a feeling of escape.

The audience for this advertisement would most appeal to young adults, but it can appeal to a wider range than that but it most likely does not include children and elderly people. The advertisement assumes that the audience knows what it is like to get bored going through their daily routines. With the advertisement being a video, that helps it appeal to the audience they had planned on trying to capture the attention of because that age range of people includes the people most likely to see the ad.

These videos of real life experiences give the impression that the people come from different cultures, environments, and both urban and rural settings and therefore can appeal to a much larger group of viewers.  Since they are wearing Levi’s while living these everyday adventures, it appears to imply that the jeans are available and affordable to people everywhere.  Other implications are that Levi’s Jeans are durable, versatile, sexy, comfortable, and thus allow us to do anything we want.  The people in the video are participating in activities that require jeans that are all of these things and that would make us as viewers want the product.

In Class Writing Number 4 - Crawford

There are pictures of the campus that make you feel like the campus is as beautiful as it is so it is as if you are there. There are 3 pictures that are rotating through that highlight certain aspects of the college such as impact, innovation, and achievement and that there’s a wide array of There are also pictures of people working together on some sort of landscaping project, which shows teamwork. The two main colors are maroon and orange but there are neutral colors to balance them out. The pictures on the sides of the webpage make it interesting and it draws you in and pictures in the middle capture your attention so that you will read more about specific students that are having an impact on campus. At the top of the page, there is the symbol on the left that ties in how old the campus is which all of the new technology that is used now. In the upper right corner, the ribbon represents the hardships that the campus endured. Overall, the website shows how great the college really is.  

Crawford - Blog Post #3

I typed my name into Google and the first website was a Facebook profile of a girl with the same name as me, but not me. The second was the Facebook profile of another girl with half of my name and the third was a website called Linkedin that is used to build a professional profile for yourself for business. I was with my mom when I searched me in Google so I just asked her to look me up as well. Her first result was the same as my first result. The second result she got was the same as my third result which was the Linkedin website. The third person she found just happened to be an actress with my name. I thought that was pretty cool.

Unfortunately, the filter bubble did not do a very good job at finding me, even though I use Facebook on a daily basis and I am obviously logging in as myself. It probably does exist in its own creepy kind of way, but it can only work well to an extent. The information it gave me when I typed in my name was irrelevant really. The first two choices it gave me were similar in being two different people on Facebook, but the third really has nothing to do either. It was just a list of names of people who have created professional profiles of themselves, all having similar names to mine. The websites my mom got were similar to mine but yet still irrelevant.

Personalized search engines have both advantages and disadvantages. It just really depends on what it is someone is searching for and for what purpose. If a persuasive essay were to be written, the filter bubble could persuade whoever is writing it to be biased because it would be more difficult to find the information from the other side of the argument. It the purpose were just because someone was bored, then he or she is more likely to find what he or she wants to see. It’s all a matter of opinion.

In Class Writing Number 3 - Crawford

There is a man speaking to a woman and they both have on the same uniform. They appear to be on their lunch break. The “V” in the background could represent “Victory”. A man-size job in the text pointed out that woman did not typically have the job.

The purpose would be to point out that women are stronger than they appear and are capable of doing a man’s job.  I believe this because in the picture, they both seem dirty and

The audience could be for both men and women. For men, it could be saying that women are now working the same jobs as men and they are rising up in society and deserve more respect. If they didn’t have a job and had to fight in the war, they have woman back home to work in manufacturing companies. For women, it could be thought of as an encouragement to them to go out and get a job and that they are just as good as men are at them.

The author uses Ethos by the tone of the text and Pathos by speaking in a friendly tone through the text on the advertisement.

Crawford - Blog Post #2

First of all, I’d like to point out that the SOL’s were not intended at first to be so vital for a student to pass a class. Their original purpose was to measure how well the students had learned the material the teachers taught them throughout the school year. They are updated every year so they are up-to-date for the most part. If it were up to me, I would not remove them completely, but change their purpose back to the way it was when they were first used. I feel like they would be much more useful that way. With the constant changing of technology, schools should incorporate the newer digital and analog technologies in the way they teach to better prepare the students for their future. In Virginia Heffernan’s article she speaks about a specific woman named Cathy Davidson who stated that the better question about today’s education was whether the way of learning of students now is current enough to prepare them for the ever-changing future. I feel as though the way of learning needs to change rather than what they are learning.

As for the Internet, Nicholas Carr stated that first it became easier to use the more you used it and was convenient when he needed to research for the articles he wrote, but later in his article he claimed that search engines such as Google were making us stupid although they are as convenient as they are. I completely disagree with the search engines making us not so smart. I believe that they actually help us grow smarter because that is what people are dependent on in this day and age. For example, a student might have a question about his or her homework that cannot be easily answered because he or she is not at school or a library. That student could simply go on Google and search for the answer and move on with his or her homework. The Internet is fast, easy to use, and convenient.

Crawford - Blog Post #1

In kindergarten, I took my first technology class. We didn’t really learn much about typing or anything, but mostly played this one supposedly educational game every day that we had class. I didn’t use a computer for any other purpose until sixth grade when I was required to take a keyboarding class. Because I was probably the slowest typist in the class, I always fell behind in classwork. Eventually, I caught up and became a rather fast typist. That same year everyone was required to take a technology class as well where I learned the useful skills of writing a check, fixing a leaky faucet, and building a stick-bridge. Learning to write a check was fairly useful, but I forgot how to do it by the time I actually had to write a check. It will always be nice to know how to fix a leaky faucet in case one day I need to. I’m not sure when I will ever use the stick-bridge skill. I guess that one was just for my entertainment. Two years later, I had to take yet another keyboarding class. I definitely did not have any trouble that time because I had used a computer more so typing came much easier to me. Using a computer is a piece of cake nowadays after the many years of using it more and more frequently.

When I was reading the digital literacy example by Tiffany, she said she does not define a person by what they do with technology. I agree with her. For example, a guy might like a girl a lot but is way too shy to tell her in person. So he decided to tell her in a text. When he did this, he came across braver than he actually is and generally just came across as a whole different person. Because of situations like this, technology can change a person. He or she can appear completely different from who he or she actually is. I could not possibly judge someone just by the way they talk to me in a text. For the most part, I do not rely on technology to make my decisions. In class, it was stated that technology defines us. I do not believe that statement is correct.

I can sum up that for a person to be digitally literate, he or she should have a basic knowledge of how to use technology. Most digitally literate people will have grown up with it, but not all have. My dad is actually a network administrator and my mom works in the electrical and computer engineering department. They both know more about computers than I do. I ask them questions all of the time. My grandpa taught a technology class for many years including the one I took and my grandma does not struggle with technology either. Some people just understand it better than others. There are many more older people that did not grow up with technology like I have that are more of a digital native than I am. 

In Class Writing Number 2 - Crawford

            You know you really should join Facebook! It’s so hard to keep you up to date on things when you don’t always have your phone with you. Plus you have limited texting so sometimes you don’t respond. Facebook is free and won’t cost you money like texting does, especially when you go over the limit. It gets pricy. Plus, you can post things that you want to say whenever you want and however many times you want.

            Have you ever thought of joining Facebook? I highly recommend it. You can be friends with your students on there and create a group to add them to. Because almost every student has one, you will be able to keep everyone up to date. If a student has a question, they can post it on the group page and you can easily answer it. It’s fast, easy, and convenient.

            Don’t you think it would be awesome to have these pictures we take with each other somewhere where people can see them? They are so funny! We could have a whole album entitled Best Cousins Ever! I think it’s about time for you to get a Facebook. That way, you can put up all of these pictures since they are all on your camera and you can tag both of us in them! Even my mom has a Facebook. I think this means it is a really good idea to join!

In Class Writing Number 1 - Crawford

I used to use an alarm clock to wake up in the morning, but now I use my cellphone as an alarm. My laptop is is used in some way for all of my homework assignments. I typically use the Internet, the TV, or my cellphone to check the news as well.

Technology is a continually developing source that seems to have become essential to peoples' daily lives.

It is much easier to write using technology because it's faster and easier to correct mistakes. Most people do not realize it at first but they rely on technology. It can be used to help you do just about anything.

Someone who is digital has grown up with or learned how to use the many types of technology. An analog device might be something like a pencil or pen.

A digital native might be someone who has grown up with technology and knows how to use it. Typically, a digital native is the person that a digital immigrant uses to seek help when it comes to understanding technology.

A digital immigrant might be someone who has not grown up with technology and doesn't
understand the functions of the different technological devices.