bit bent

Week 9 tasks

A, the oldest digital native I know is possibly my Dad. He has always been in and around new technologies and has grown up with the changing times and the changing machines. Each time he has mastered them and is now fluent in almost all forms of current technology. As I have said in earlier blogs a native could be defined by our curiosity to learn about new technologies, not necessarily how we have grown up in and around them. In this case my Granddad has shown lots of curiosity and is attempting to learn how to use his laptop so surely this makes him somewhat a digital native?

 

B, The youngest digital immigrant would technically have to be someone who has just been born. As technically, a native is someone who has grown up with technology or shows an interest in technology. A newborn baby has done none of these, so is still technically an immigrant. They will eventually after a few years become a digital native as they grow into the digital world around them.

 

C, I think the education system could be the biggest threat to the digital native/immigrant theory. If the educators do not realise that digital natives are learning in different ways to what that of immigrants are then the whole digital native community could fall. If the education system does not gather speed and conform to the way that children and teenagers learn, digital nativism could change, or at least slow down. This could create huge drawbacks for the future of our economy. We have now established ourselves as a technological culture and if the education system does not establish itself as one also, we could end up at a stand still, and allow other countries to leap ahead of us in technologic terms. This could be a catastrophe for us as a nation, as it could lead to things such as alliances not being formed with other countries because of the inability to protect ourselves from digital warfare and other things almost as extreme as these. The digital natives of this day and age are vital to the future of this country as they will be the ones pushing the boundaries and making things possible for the next generations.

Week 9 blog

Should education stretch a person? This is a tough question, but to answer it should be relatively simple. The answer is in short: Yes. Any form of education should stretch and expand ones mind to allow for new ideas to embed themselves into our brains. Education allows people to know things they didn’t know before, therefore stretching how far their knowledge can reach. It obligates people to elongate their horizons and realise new ideas. Education should make people think and reach the boundaries of what that person is capable of, and then go beyond them. Education should not be easy, it should be a challenge, and it should stretch what is actually possible. Everyone is still learning, and everyone is being stretched to his or her limits everyday in the cause of learning something new.

 Personal preference in education provides many potential problems for people. For example, if children were left to their personal preferences at an early age, most kids would just want to do P.E, Metalwork or cooking classes rather than learn the basics of English, Maths and Science. If it were left down to kids then the education system would be in tatters with millions of children coming out of school illiterate because they have not been taught how to read because they didn’t want to learn. That is why the education system is like it is today, with all the bases covered to provide the broadest base of knowledge to springboard children into doing well in later life.

            Another way in which personal preference and culture could cause potential problems for people in the field of education is that of language. Some peoples’ preference is to learn in a foreign language. This may hamper their chances of being successful in this country later on in life. It is very difficult to get a job if you do not speak the native language. It is also difficult to be taught in a foreign language, as the teacher will have to be multi-lingual to him/herself be able to get on in life also. This creates more and more problems, so personal preference may have to be sacrificed in order to get on better in later life.

 The semantic web is an extension of what we currently use as the World Wide Web. It is a form of information sharing that is understandable by computers as well as humans. It will eventually speed up things like search engines and make them more user friendly. By allowing the computer to understand the input and information it will be able to perform the more boring tasks like transferring, sorting, and sharing much of this information allowing the user to do more enjoyable things.

            Web 3.0 is a ‘back ended’ upgrade to the basic Internet service that is in place now. Its attempts are to combine user friendliness and smart technology in one complete package. It is suggested that web 3.0 will be able to recognise natural sentences and process them as a whole, rather than constructing its own meanings out of key words within that sentence. It will be able to read millions of texts at once and process which ones will be most relevant to you. This will possibly be the downfall of things such as Google, which relies on its key word platform to give out answers based on the words you enter.

Week 8 blog

Digital Immigration is based on two key elements. These are digital natives and digital immigrants.

 Digital natives are those of us who have grown up in the digital world; those of us lucky enough to have access to the Internet, or ‘Sky’ television. It is a world of free reign and random intrusion, much like hypertext. For example, we can pick which channel we want to pick out of the 900 or so available to us on ‘Sky’, not flick through every single one until we find something we like. I say ‘we’ as I am included in this very system. We are now natives in our digital surroundings, with each of us knowing how to use a mobile phone, or a laptop.

 This is in stark contrast to digital immigrants, who are those who have not been born into a digital age, but have in later life, adopted it to be their own. These have however become a very powerful agent for propriety on the Internet. Dubbed as ‘the silver surfers’ they have become one of the leading forces in many markets across the Internet. For example, Amazon.com, relies on its ‘silver surfers’ to gain as much money as it does. It is safe to assume that most digital immigrants are of the older generation and will therefore be in safe jobs with a steady income, therefore able to spend disposable cash on things they may like such as CD’s. The idea of buying CD’s to a digital native could be seen as quite old hat. [Not to me, I can’t get enough of the buggers! Probably the reason I have no money!] But to many of my native friends have never bought a CD and have downloaded every song they own, or got it from me! So in a question to who cares about digital immigration, most major companies have now accommodated for this market.

 Websites that involve digital immigration:

 http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

 This is part of an academic piece by Prensky. It shows how in the education field the idea of digital immigration can be used to influence and educate students on terms that they understand more. It says a lot about computer games and how these are very influential in terms of education. It raises the debate of whether digital immigrants adopt native ways in education. He rationalises that it will be beneficial to the native student to be taught in such a way that they will understand, for example in the medium of a game or graphic.

 http://www.mrstacey.org.uk/teaching/?p=157

 This also focuses on a teaching point of view. It however denounces the idea of digital natives and immigrants being solely dependant on age. He states that the amount of technology and our curiosity towards this technology more shows if we are digital natives or immigrants. If we strive to learn new things about a technology then we are more likely to be digital natives than immigrants.

 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/digitalnatives/

 This focuses solely on digital natives. It gives a scenario of a girl scout in America, using the Internet to sell cookies to the local public. This has however been banned as it goes against the traditional methods of door- to- door sales. This however links to the 1^st websites argument. This girls’ digital native ways are being forced out by the older digital immigrant girl-guide leaders. If a girl guide is savvy enough to employ the Internet as a tool for sales, then this should be applauded. It shows good entrepreneurship and good skills for thinking outside of the box, which are good things in terms of development in young girls.

 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/digitalnatives/2008/09/24/internet-draws-masses-for-silence-dance-experiment/

 This article investigates the new idea of ‘flash mobs’, made possible through the Internet. They imply that this is helped by the digital natives all being online and talking about it to their other native friends. It gains popularity and following through all the natives mooting. This allows natives to show off their skills with technology. Firstly by finding out about it by surfing the web, then telling everyone about it through an online medium such as a blog or facebook. Then, when they are there, it is up to their Ipods’ or portable music devices to give them the audio stimulus to start dancing, whilst filming the whole event on a mobile phone or video camera. 4 or 5 different technologies for just one event: a digital natives dream.

 http://borndigitalbook.com/about.php

 This is a blurb from a book written all about digital natives called ‘Born Digital, Understanding the first generation of digital natives’. It states that the society will change due to technology and the use of it to digital natives. It claims that even things such as family life will be different in the future because of the influx in our lives. They claim that digital immigrants see natives as very narrow-minded in their view of certain things. This could be quite a narrow-minded assumption in turn. It is impossible to say what everyone is like, and especially about digital natives who could be seen to be the most broad-minded thinkers in the technological field. These are the future of our world and have been gifted the opportunity to shape what the future will be like. So if narrow-mindedness is a feature of digital natives, then we are all in for a rocky road in the not too distant future.

Week 7 blog

In China an innovative method of education is used. This is through television. It was introduced in the 60’s, as there were many parts of the country that couldn’t get to a school. This introduced new methods of learning to a nation that was in desperate need of education. After the ‘cultural revolution’ in 1976 in China there was a great need for education at a University standard to keep the country moving forward and to bring it up to a par and then further than that of Western cultures. This need was paired together with the system of education that had been in place before that. The television. This brought about the ‘Central Radio and Television University of Beijing’. This was the first university in the world that focussed solely on the education of its students via the medium of radio and television. It allowed people who could not reach a university to gain the education they might not have got if it were not available and gave more people the opportunity to prove their worth to the well oiled Chinese machine.

 Zambia University also offered a similar service. They gave students the opportunity to study from distance. It was modelled on the Australian methods, whereby students learnt via radio. However, from research I found that the broadcasts were only made in English and French, so if you did not speak either of these languages you weren’t in the best shape to learn from them. This however got much resistance from traditionalists, who claimed that it wasn’t beneficial and did not deserve a place in their curriculum. However from a study conducted on the Australian method, which is what Zambian methods were based on remember, this form of long distance learning was shown to be more intense.

Another interesting University I have found that provides long distance learning via the Internet is the University of Massachusetts, in the United States of America. This University, as of last year, offers e-learning facilities to China. Last year, there were officially only 68 universities in the whole of China that offered online services. UMass [uni of Massachusetts] has become one of these, and has been up and running for a few months now. This is quite an interesting development, as a non-Chinese source can now feed information to pupils from China. It could say something about how the online learning systems in China actually are still, even though it is forcing itself to be one of the most technologically gifted nations in the world. 

Week 2 blog

One website that uses interactivity as its main source of information input is www.koptalk.com. This is a totally interactive site that allows for people who are signed up to express opinions and to share their views with other people about Liverpool Football Club. This is usually in the form of posts in threads that follow on from each other. There are various roles people play on this site. The creator of the site, ‘Dunk’, creates most of the threads for people to comment on. He is in charge of the site and mediates what is allowed to be said. The rest of us just post our thoughts and look for people to comment back. We try to engage in lots of conversations about many different things. There are certain people who have major links with the club who can give us, the fans, certain inside information around transfers, finances or player habits for example.

 There is also a new form of interactivity on this site. It is called a ‘shout box’. This is available for all members to interact in a more colloquial chat situation.

 This interactivity with the website allows us to change the direction or face of the site with our input. It allows us to see what we want to see and read what we want to read. This is what in Lister’s book is called ‘registrational interactivity’. Whereby a certain amount of personal detail has to be included before the opportunity for interactivity can occur. This is very typical of bulletin boards, which is essentially what koptalk is.

 Hypertext is very much a part of this website. There are links everywhere to different sites and to access different parts of the very same site. For example in a normal thread, anyone can post a link to an outside website, or even embed a video into the thread. This normally happens the day after match days, where the goals [if any] are posted online in the form of a video.

 This use of hypertext is used everywhere on the Internet. As ‘surfers’ of the net now, we have come to know that websites are not linear. They do not read like a book, but more like a multi channel domain. You can pick and choose which link you want to click on and, Internet providing, you will get there. You do not need to go through 30 odd pages before you get to something you like.

 There are also adverts seeping into almost every site on the net now. These are also a form of hypertext, as you can then go onto those particular sites and branch out on a tangent from the original source.

CofP's... come again?

I was a little confused by this reading. However after reading Emma's blog on the subject, I realized I could relate this theory to exactly the same aspect of my life! Same profession and therefore same situation. I will try not to copy her too much and make some different points but will base my ideas on the same subject. [Sorry Emma to copy you a bit lol]

CofP's stand for Communities of Practice. These are basically shared experiences of a group. They are shared practices and passions that are always being strived towards improvement. As I have already stated I personally interacted with one of these CofP's, and was rather successful at it if I do say so myself! 

When I worked in a restaurant I both worked 'out front' as my manager used to call it, and in the kitchens. Each of these had its own benefits. I am now a pretty good cook thanks to my time in the kitchens, ask Pete and Frank, hopefully they will agree with me! lol. And waitering has also taught me a few skills, one being speed of writing which has helped me in lectures with note taking, and also a mild amount of organisation [ish]. If you think I might be bad now, you should've seen me before! Trust me, I've improved! 

But anyway. Working as a waiter.  When working in my restaurant, the Haywain, a part of the Beefeater chain [the 3rd best in the country I will have you know, I feel a certain part of that is down to my skills], there are lots of other waitresses working at the same time. I seem to be the only waiter there, which is a good thing for me, as it gives me a different appeal for the paying tippers, sorry customers [trade habit]. Everyone there is sharing the same experiences of serving food and drink to customers/ tippers. This results in a constant adaption of personality to appeal to the customer, and a constant need to learn new ways in which to handle people when both happy and irate. 

When in a restaurant, there are lots of different jobs to be done, from waitering, cooking to the person on the door, or 'door whore' as we like to call them. However, all these aspects need to work in perfect harmony for all the cogs to turn in the restaurant machine. 

Wenger states three main aspects in CofP's. These are the domain, the community and practice. 

Much like my group member I will also assess the domain first. It is possibly the easiest of the 3 to lay down, covers all of the other ideas, and one that I find the most interesting. There are 2 main domains under the restaurant roof. 'Out front' and in the kitchens. Firstly waiting on. Every single member of the team puts in a bit of input when training up a new member of staff. I have had this experience first hand. I listened to every member of staff to gain tips on how to be a better waiter. One thing I learned is that a shared experience is a vital lesson when it comes to waiting on. If one of the more experienced waitresses gives you a tip, you bloody well follow it 'cos its bound to save you time, effort, or make you more money. These are the three main things waiting staff try to do by the way. On busy shifts, or for large tables with lots of plates to go out to, we would also work together by helping each other out by taking some of the plates out, or taking orders etc. When we all worked as a team we found that we worked better. This is also a major part of working in a kitchen. Each person on the team, a team of 5 or 6 in the case of our restaurant, had to know what each other was doing and the timings that each member of the team was working by. When we communicate with each other we found that the timings of dishes came out perfectly, and tables got all their meals on time and everything was hunky-dorey. Also we didn't get shouted at as much by management or the waitresses which is always a plus!

Wengers second CofP idea was that of 'community'. I have briefly covered this topic when talking about domains. This idea relates to the relationships formed when in a work situation. It all links back to shared experiences. As I have already mentioned this helps the team to work in more efficient manor as experience equals knowledge. If a certain customer comes in all the time, the team will learn how to react when around that person. We have a little old lady come in every other day. Kitty her name is. And every time she comes in she has a small glass of red wine and a single whisky. Through experience we have now all learnt that this is what she wants. So without even asking for it now, it'll be on her table within a few minutes. Although we all fight to be the person not taking it out to her because she can talk for England, and on a busy shift it's not the best thing to be talking to someone for more than a minute or two.

The 3rd theory that Wenger puts forward is that of Practice. For me this was getting the food out on time, both in the kitchen and waiting on. That was the main priority, and would ensure the good tipping, which for me was rather important! It also involved the personal skills that are required to speak to paying customers, and all the time with a little clock in the back of your head saying 'don't spend too long talking to these guys 'cos you'll probably be missing out, and messing something else up!'  This is a shared experience that i have with all other waiters and waitresses throughout the world, let alone in my restaurant. 

Thanks Emma you helped me to understand this one loads. Big RINCY for you! lol xXx

Analysis of a website

For this weeks task we have been set the grueling challenge of critically analyzing a website of our choice, among other things. 

The website I have chosen to analyse is http://www.liverpoolfc.tv. This website is very close to my heart and I feel it has a lot of interesting points to look at when assessing it critically.

This is the official website for the club and as such has been specifically designed by people employed by the club. This in itself could be seen as quite an interesting point. If the club has made a website for itself, the content must show the clubs thoughts and ideologies.

It is a very fan based site, that gives out a lot of information to do with absolutely everything to do with the club, from the clubs evidential money crisis to the latest news regarding the under 16's team. This shows that openness from the club is high. This allows a degree of trust which I will address a little later on. It is a free site so allows for anyone to look at it if they so wish. If you are a Liverpool fan, this is the first place you will go for information about your club. This however brings up a slight sociodeterministic viewpoint. Does this site exist because it has to, with Liverpool being a big club and to maintain its technological reputation as being at the front of the online class. Or does this site exist because of the need for it from the fans, and the need for a constant update of information for people like me. I know I sit on this side of the fence. That and facebook are the first two websites I check when I switch my computer on! And I'm sure I'm not the only one to admit that.

This therefore creates an online community to go onto its sister forum site www.koptalk.com. This allows for fans to vent about anything they may have seen on the site and to interact with other fans about their point of views also. 

There is also an idea of censorship on this site. In many cases there is no need for the information to be censored. Most football information is suitable for all ages, even if it is as disturbing as a Liverpool loss! The only censorship on information, is that of internal affairs going on within the club. For example, there is no real information on the internal power struggle going on within the club, only the rumours that are circulating round on other websites, such as Koptalk.com. There is a censorship on this information to protect the club from many things. Possibly embarrassment at the shambolic way our club is being run, or to prevent the clubs reputation to be tarnished. [Sorry I've turned this into my own rant that I should be plotting on Koptalk.com.]

There is only a slight copyright issue when looking at liverpoolfc.tv. At the bottom of the page, there is extracts from other sources such as the BBC, The Liverpool Echo, Sky Sports, Setanta etc. The quotations taken from the sources have to all have copyright to be allowed to be put on the liverpool website. This therefore means that most of the information supplied on this website is produced by the liverpoolfc.tv team. Things such as first team information, and the status updates on the building of the new stadium, for example, all come from Liverpool themselves, so no copyright issues will be incurred. 

The idea that everything has come straight from Liverpool Football Club again brings up the idea of trust. The fact that everything is straight from the horses mouth as it were, with no middle man involved really, could be seen as a very trustworthy thing. If you are told something directly then you are more likely to believe it. This website has the same feeling about it. Another way this website builds up a trust with the customers is the very helpful tech support service. I have had a few problems with my account to this website [the same account I use to get into Koptalk] and the creator of the site has emailed me personally to get everything sorted out, which I found very good. This is just a personal trust thing I have built up with the website that not everyone will have incurred but I thought it was a relevant one.

Overall I feel this website is a very effective one. It is extremely informative with up to date news involving the club. It is very interactive, and allows the people passionate enough to pay, rant on its sister site. However I may be slightly biased toward the success of the site due to my affiliation with the club, so if anyone would want to disagree with my findings on the site as a whole, then feel free to comment.

C.Johnson, (1945) 'You'll Never Walk Alone', Carousel, Rodgers And Hammerstein.

[this is the origins of the famous Liverpool Football Club song 'You'll Never Walk Alone' ironically clad in the harvard referencing style]

week 5 tasks part deux

Blogging and bloggers: real you or pseudo?

There has long been a debate, since the forming of these online conversations, on if the person typing is really the real person, or the person that they want to be? 

The idea of a pseudo character being formed when in a serious conversation is quite unnerving. However, as always in any academic subject, there is always 2 sides of a coin. The character that is produced could either be seen as good or bad, in effect. It could be a good portrayal of the author, showing all their good points and very little of the bad ones or visa versa. 

The only real answer comes from within, but I thought I'd just throw it out there. Maybe comment your views on the subject?

I looked at a cooking blog called Orangette.  [http://orangette.blogspot.com/] I chose this as cooking is a big passion of mine, and has been for quite some time. Especially the eating part! As you may be able to tell lol [the first step is admitting it eh?] It is one of the most popular cooking blogs around at the moment and is updated weekly. It was started in July 2004 by Molly Weizenberg. This blog illustrates her recipes, much like traditional recipes, but then furthers this with her experiences of these recipes, stories to go along with them. Her reccomendations for good dinner parties, and her ideals for which wines go with which meats etc. Her knowledge of food really shines through, and after reading some of the older blogs, you can really tell how much she has created her own persona through her online self. 

This blog is, however, more like a diary than a proper forum style blog. If you have any queries on her cooking or recipes she has an e-mail address on the site that you can use rather than clogging up the structure of the blog with posts.

I thought this was a really interesting weblog, mainly because it relates to my interests, but just the way she opens herself up through the medium of food. It really shows her passion for it. You can see, even without the photos, or actually meeting her, what kind of person she really is.

[Oh, and I will most definately be up to date by next week. Or at least that is the plan anyway lol]

Week 5 tasks

Hi guys, first of all an apology for the lack of activity on my blog. I will catch up with all of the tasks I have missed over the next week or so. Again, apologies.

Blogging and its origins:

A blog is a relatively new form of communication comprising of a mainly internet only interaction. There are many uses for this technology. One primary one is to share views, facts and opinions to others. The basis of a blog is that whatever you write on this, anyone in the world will be able to see it also. For example, with this blog. [not that there is much of it yet!] But if anyone wished to, they would be able to see what I am writing now. 

The term 'blog' was coined by a mixture of John Barger and Peter Merholz. Barger came up with the expression 'weblog' and was later taken into its shorter, now more recognisable form of 'blog'.  This interactive domain is a direct chronological cousin of the bulletin board systems, and the online diaries used initially in the 1990's.  In 1993, blogging as we know it today was born. Dr. Glen Barry founded his blog around the forest protection, and is still running today. We are almost directly following in his technological footsteps by using this form of communication to aid our education. He also used his as a form of documenting his project for a PHd. 

Development of the 'blog':

From this people were then able to upload video responses to their lives. They were able to transfer visual data of what their day consisted of, or how to do something via blogs. I believe Jamie Oliver makes a video blog every now and again, posting videos of how to make certain recipes in real time. This is obviously a major step for blogs. To be able to see what people are doing in real time. If blogs could be updated instantaneously, we may be able to see what someone is doing 24/7. almost as if wearing a web-cam all the time.

In the next blog:

I will be looking at a few specific blogs to look at how the author has used the technology to express and represent themselves. I will also be looking at how the respondents acknowledge these views and present themselves also.

Task 1- email parts a+b

Here goes, the first task is now officially underway...

Lister... apparently a very knowledgeable man. Apparently not that knowledgeable because he has spoilt my day by me having to read his work. Not a very knowledgeable thing to do. But anyway, we'll put that aside for another day and crack on with this.

Part A:
According to Lister, email is a 'computer- mediated communication'. It is a form of communication that is competely dependant on the computer, and the internet that allows it to flow accross wires as thin as a human hair for thousands of miles in a fraction of a second. Its uses allow for one person to connect with another in an almost instant conversation. It has allowed businesses to function more smoothly and family members to stay in contact, no matter where they are on earth. There are obviously some limitations to this form. For example, you have to have a computer to start off with. You also have to have an internet connection. These are things now found in most homes, but there is still areas of the globe without connection to this.

The old media of letter writing has been replaced by this new technologic phenomenon. The actual writing of it is still there but instead of the hand written facet of it, it has now been replaced by typing, the putting it in an envelope has been reduced to the pages of time, the writing the address has been replaced by typing not the address of where the person lives but an alternate address, a new shiny address in cyberspace. A personal haven in the vast information highway that is the internet. A little piece that they call home. The going to the post box, getting a stamp, and posting it has been replaced with the simple push of a button.

Part B:
On a personal note, I use emails to send larger documents, such as photos or hyperlinks to other websites to family members and friends. I very rarely use it for people other than them.