Our Class Wiki-So Far

I plan to contribute to our class by showing the various ways people use new media in entertainment. Many music artists use social networks such as Myspace in order to promote their works. Also these music artists and entertainers have twitter pages in order for them to be close to the fans and receive advice. I will contribute to the class wiki by providing the links to the accounts of many popular athletes and entertainer's social networking pages.

The Next Best Thing

As new media becomes more and more popular, new media ideas will only increase. If I had to create the next best thing for new media, it would be an E-Reader just for college student text books. I would also add a feature in so you can communicate with your professor from the E-Reader and also communicate with classmates. This would be a great idea for students who don't like to carry around heavy textbooks. All they need to do is open the book on their E-Reader. If this invention came to pass, communication would increase amongst the course members. This E-Reader could be a product of Blackboard, and would easily allow Blackboard communication on the go.

My Term Paper

The topic of my paper was on if social networking is better than the real thing. I chose this topic because I found it interesting and debatable. It really wasn't hard researching this topic because of the constant advancements in new media.

To get my sources I searched online databases to find scholarly articles where I can learn something from. It was fairly successful in this and it really helped me to get my ideas flowing to write this paper. This paper contributes to new media because if you agree with my topic, then you are for the advancement of new media.

Privacy & Confidentiality

New media has become a big part in the lives of our generation, and will continue to do so. As new media becomes more and more popular, the issue of privacy and confidentiality comes up. Many people refuse to be involved with social networks due to this privacy issue. Although this may be a big issue, many sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace implemented privacy settings, where you are allowed to choose who is allowed to view your information.

People need to always use new media with a slight caution. They need to make sure what they're posting is appropriate for everyone who can view your post. Many times you hear about how companies can now search the internet and bring up basically anything you posted online. This can affect if you get a job or not. Although I don't believe that everything a person posts tells what type of person they are, it is not a smart idea to handle new media without caution.

Advice to Baruch College

If I was hired by Baruch College to use new media to improve the college, I would implement some great ideas. I would push an idea to get a social networking site similar to Facebook, where students can interact with other students taking the same courses. The social networking site would be linked to Esims so the schedule would automatically put you in a group with all your classmates. This idea would also be good because I would implement a feature where you can talk to guidance counselors through an online chat. This would be useful because many times students do not have the time to physically go see a counselor so this gives them the opportunity to do it right at home or at a place of their choosing. There will also be another feature where students can discuss to trade courses with each other since there is always a limited amount of seating in each course. If I were to receive a job like this I believe I would make positive changes in the college.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds, to me, is a really fascinating subject. They can be used in different manners, such as for business, games or just communicating with other people. Many businesses use virtual worlds because it helps push productivity. Being that a lot of companies have employees all around the world, virtual worlds helps them work together even though their not in the same location. "Technology could help engage a generation of workers who grew up playing games with 3-D graphics"(IBM Learning Programs Get a "Second Life", Ed Frauenheim). On the business side, virtual worlds can be seen positive because it is very cost effective and easy to hold meetings. Although this leads open to the chance misunderstanding certain information, it allows people to be more creative because they might feel more open in a virtual world than they would feel in reality. Also another distraction might be the moral conduct your company usually has might not be represented in the virtual world. For an example, someone may have an avatar that is not appropriate.

Virtual worlds in general pushes for greater creativity. For an example, in the article "Toys with a Second Life" by Brian Hindo, the creators of Webkinz allows people to alter their toys so they would be unique from the rest. You can also look at virtual worlds in the sense of video games such as The Sims. Many people play The Sims for hours on hand, simulating their characters life. Many people life their dream lives through their characters and really gives them something to cope with their reality.

I believe that as the years go by, technology will only get even better. Soon we will probably won't even have regular video game consoles as we have now. My take on it is that we will soon play our games through virtual reality.

Twitter Discussion

I really liked the twitter discussion experience because it felt free, like an open conversation. I think a twitter discussion is different from a blackboard discussion board and in-class discussion because with twitter I feel that it's more freedom to express your feelings. With twitter it doesn't really feel like a class setting.