Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual reality is a computer generated representation of the world or in other words, reality. It can be used in many different ways including games, sightseeing, and also medical training. Speaking of medical training, hospitals enforce virtual training to better prepare nurses in real life scenarios. This is extremely important because we are talking about life or death of a patient. If nurses aren't trained well enough, they might not know what to do when the unexpected happens which then, they are forced to hit the panic button. For example, in the article "Avatar II: The Hospital", Simon says that “Dozens of hospitals, medical schools and health foundations have staked out space in the online community Second Life, where participants can build their own virtual clinics and stage just about any training drill they can imagine” This shows you the benefits of what virtual reality can have on reality itself and it is getting utilized more and more to this day. Virtual reality could benefit many other careers and jobs to improve its employees and workers.

On the contrary, virtual reality do has its disadvantages. Some of the generated virtual models are not fully compatible or representational of the real world. It is also time consuming to spend countless hours just trying to get the feel of a virtual world. One example is having a virtual classroom. In the article, "The Advantages and Disadvantages of the Virtual Classroom and
the Role of the Teacher", they write that "The lack of face-to-face interactions with other peers and the instructor can be a disadvantage for the students and professors." This is true to a sense that you almost never get to see your professor and vice versa. Everything is done virtually. From my experience, I learn more in a classroom setting because you are there in reality sitting in a classroom while the professor is lecturing.

Virtual worlds foster creativity by having the creators brainstorm any idea that comes up to their heads and use it as part of the virtual reality. This brings out their creative mindset into the picture. In other words, virtual reality can be anything, anyone, or anywhere. I have a feeling virtual reality in the future will be so high tech, that you almost would not tell the difference between what is virtual and what is real. That is how far technology has come and it will continue to be more advanced in the future.

Citations:

1) "Avatar II: The Hospital" by Stephanie Simon, The Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2010

2) "The Advantages and Disadvantages of the Virtual Classroom and
the Role of the Teacher" by Guy Posey, Thomas Burgess, Marcus Eason, Yawna Jones,
virtual classroom.pdf

Social Networking Sites

I have visited four of the most popular social media sites that are out there today which includes the likes of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

I use Facebook on a daily basis whether it is trying to catch up on the news on your news feed or chatting with friends through messenger. I like how Facebook lets you connect or add friends with basically anyone from around the world who also has an account. This goes to show you how far new media has come. I believe that Facebook holds the most users out of all the social media sites. You are able to post statuses, add your friends, uploads photos or videos, and also like certain posts or pages in which you are interested in.

I have been using Twitter for almost two years now and I am loving it. You can place tweets out that are available for the world to see. Following other users is also a nice feature that they have where you are able to gather updates from the users you follow including their thoughts and opinions on different issues. Hash-tagging is a key component of Twitter because that is how tweets are found and you can basically come up with anything related to that tweet.

LinkedIn is the professional site of Facebook. It has many different purposes. You can create a profile of yourself to image your resume as an alternative including adding your education, work experience, and skills. Your profile would expose yourself to thousands of employers looking to find the right candidate for their vacant positions. It is also more of a networking tool where you can interact with many different professionals whom are also in your career path.

Lastly, YouTube is the staple of homemade videos that get uploaded on a daily basis. It has many different content ranging from sports to music to comedy, etc. I have been loyal fan of YouTube since it first came out in 2006 and I haven't looked back. You are able to subscribe to many different channels out there which notifies you when the person subscribed to you has uploaded a new video. Videos can also be liked or disliked, and commented on. I surf YouTube on my spare time more than any other social media site.

Blog about Twitter

Twitter can be similar to BlackBoard discussions, in terms of how one looks at it. Twitter is a site where one can express their thoughts out to the world by placing tweets. This is very similar to a blog, but the tweets on twitter are shorter compared to a blog. BlackBoard discussions on the other hand, is like a forum where you can discuss several topics or threads with your classmates in the class. It is more of like a back and forth kind of thing where one person creates a topic and another person responds or give their own thoughts about it. Twitter has a similar process where one can like, reply, or retweet another person's tweet if you wanted to spread awareness of a tweet or thought. An in-class discussion is different to an extent where you are basically tweeting, but its a face to face interaction with your professor or classmates. You are not behind a computer screen, but the whole purpose is to let your thoughts out to the public. I personally prefer Twitter discussions over everything else because you have more freedom on what you want to be heard about especially over the Internet where it could go from a simple tweet to a tweet that is viral and is all over the news.

Social Networking

Technologies in social media can be used in many different aspects including impacting the social and business world. It gives us a better way of connecting and communicating with friends, family, and just people around the world in general. Social media can be used as a recruiting tool for companies to hire new employees based on one's experience and qualifications. All of this can be seen through a popular and growing website called LinkedIn. In the article, "Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting," Crawford-Hentz uses LinkedIn to recruit for high quality candidates through a click of a mouse. Professionals can market themselves through this site as a resume alternative including having your work experience, skills, and qualifications all in one profile. On a more serious side of social media, it has been used to fight against dangerous driving in New Delhi, according to the article, "In India, Using Facebook to Catch Scofflaw Drivers." Police in New Delhi are using Facebook to catch traffic violators by having other drivers take photos of videos of the unsuspected drivers and posting it on the Facebook page. These are just some of the ways social media technology can benefit society as a whole. 

Speaking of benefits, social media has a surplus of advantages including its accessibility and connectivity. It is now the core of society today with sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. These sites offer one purpose and that is to connect with anyone around the world while sharing your thoughts online. For businesses, social media is a vital part to a business. It helps create awareness of your brand to the millions of people online browsing through social media and the internet in general. Most companies today have their own Facebook page and it helps in the long run. Although it seems like social media technology can only be advantageous to society, it does have its own cons or a "dark side" to it. Most of it has to do with the privacy of a user because your profile exposes your personal information to millions of other users on the same site, let alone the internet.  Another is cyberbullying. This is the most harmful way social media can be used on any individual including tarnishing one's reputation. An example of a site that condones this is called JuicyCampus. Anonymous users can post attacks on classmates and other students that can be embarrassing, racial, or just false rumors about other people. Sites like these can negatively impact society and its views on social media technology as a whole. 

I think technologies explained above will continue to evolve in the future, if they have not yet already. Since everything is accessed digitally around the internet now, I feel like social media utilized to its full potential. This would help further face to face interactions between friends, family, or just anyone whom you connect on social media. This would retain its purpose which is the connect and interact with different people. 

Citations: 

1) Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting by Frank Langfitt, NPR, March 16, 2008. 

2) "In India, Using Facebook to Catch Scofflaw Drivers" By Heather Timmons, NY Times, August 1, 2010,

3) "They're Back, and They're Bad: Campus-Gossip Web Sites," by Jeffrey R. Young, The Chronicle for Higher Education, Sept 4, 2009, p. A20+

Blogs vs. Wikis

Blogs are basically an online diary where you can share your personal stories, thoughts, and experiences. These stories are frequently updated by the blogger to be shared to the public. For example, in the article "Wal-Mart Tastemakers Write Unfiltered Blog," Walmart turned to blogging for relief when retailer's public relations began to mount. Their blog highlighted the good deeds of working at Walmart including first hand experiences from its employees. Blogging is beneficial to not just the public, but to corporations as well.
Wikis on the other hand, are not only worked on by one person, but with several whom collaboratively contribute to the project. Anyone can edit the material and it is mostly used for team or group assignments. An example of this would be Google Documents where you can share your document with team members who can all edit and make changes to it. In the article, "More on How to Build Your Own Wikipedia," there are rules for deploying wikis. They include editing, setting standards, and rules for uploading text or photos. This allows for continuous collaboration among whoever has access to the wiki.

Convergence plays an influential role in today's world especially with technology getting more advanced. There are tons of networks and outlets out there that pave way for easier accessibility and interactions for the users. Lots of information are stored through these types of mediums especially the Internet.

Blogs can be used for collaboration just like wikis. There are bound to be people who share the same interests as you. They could comment on your blogs to show interest or give their advice and thoughts on the situation and vice versa.

I am not sure if this wiki has been done yet or not, but it would be cool to see fantasy football enthusiasts come together and work on a wiki which encourages people to start players who are on their fantasy team for that week. The public would be able to list the pros and cons of a player including their matchup, injuries, ratings etc. I am a huge fantasy football fan myself and I would love to see that happen because it would be beneficial to me.

Citations:

1) Wal-Mart Tastemakers Write a Blunt and Unfiltered Blog, NY Times, march 3, 2008, p. C1

2) Wiki While You Work; The technology popularized by Wikipedia can help companies gather and manage their own collective knowledge. Here's how to get started by Margaret Locher. CIO, May 1, 2008. Vol. 21, Iss. 14

Topic: Blogs vs. Wikis

My research topic includes what I am doing right now; blogging. I am going to compare and contrast the differences and similarities between blogs and wikis. I have never started my own blog or contributed towards a wiki. This will be something new and interesting for me to do research on.  I do know that blogs contain personal stories and thoughts on anything that a blogger would like to share and wikis are sites that let users add or delete content on. I will also be doing more research on how they impact each other or if they are good complements to one another. It would also be good to see what kind of impact they have on users and new media as a whole.