Learning Apps

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Week #11

Title: This post will be commenting on the news video from http://www.cbs.com called “Learning Apps” by CBS news.

Comments: This video was pretty neat. It does a really nice job of keeping the message objective. I expected it to have the anti-technology spin that most media provides for their audience. However, that wasn’t the case. It seems to me that these learning apps are working well, and I definitely expect to see more of it in the future. However, the issue of children spending too much time on the technology is a serious issue that needs to be tailored and controlled by the parents who are providing their children with this technology. Like the expert said, the technology itself is neither good nor bad. It’s how the technology is used which determines its effect on the people who use it, and the image it will have in the media. All important things to keep in mind as a student of new media.

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Cyber Bullying

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Week #11

Title: This post will be commenting on an article found on http://www.nytimes.com called “Where Anonymity Breeds Contempt” by Julie Zhuo.

Comments: While the threat of cyber bullying is legitimate, the seriousness of it was blown slightly out of proportion from this article. While indeed there are cases of these dreadful incidents occurring, the actual odds of these events occurring is a fact that is left out of this article. This seems to be another article aimed to scare worried mothers who are looking for reasons to take away Facebook accounts from their children out of fear of trolling. Like I mentioned above, the threat of bullying is very real. I just don’t think that the majority of bullying cases end in such traumatizing conclusions. All this article seems to do is frighten scared parents. However, this is an issue that needs to be dealt with in some manner in future years. Keeping this in mind, us new media students need to decide what counts as excessive bullying, and what does not. Until this occurs, progress will be slow and painful. 

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Steps Towards Healing Through Avatars

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Week #11

Title: This post will be commenting on the article found on http://www.nytimes.com called “In Cybertherapy, Avatars Assist with Healing” by Benedict Carey

Comments: This subject made me feel a little better about the future of technology. This technology seems to be a great example of the good and moral use of new technology that is hitting the market. I was very surprised to find that there was no difference in improvement between those who had live therapy and those who had video therapy. This is a good sign that the technology has a lot of potential for helping people through their problems in a much more controlled environment, which would benefit not only the subject, but the therapist who is using this technology to help out their patient. My prediction is we’re going to see a lot more of this technology in the future, and not just in this limited field of psychology, but in many, many different fields across the world. As a student of new media, I plan to keep my eyes on these up and coming technologies, because I do not believe this is the one and only application of this technology.

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Sumerian Tablets

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Week #11

Title: This post will be commenting on the article found on http://www.nytimes.com called “An Exhibition That Gets to the (Square) Root of Things” by Nicholas Wade

Comments: This article was just plain cool. To think that a technology so old such as cuneiform tablets have outlasted thousands of other cultures and their media technologies is really interesting. The math portion of the article wasn’t as interesting to me, but the medium of the tablet was what I found most interesting. It makes you wonder if the media and technologies that we depend on now for transferring data will be around in one hundred years. Will scientists find DVD’s of the Boondock Saints in a thousand years? As a student of new media, this is an event that should be paid attention to. One aspect of new technology we are going to have to pay attention to is the lifespan of the data that we’ll be saving, and whether we want that data to be alive for that long or not.

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