Creativity and New Media

So for mine and my cousins birthday we had planned an event to have dinner with our mutual friends and instead of sending invitation cards and waiting for people to RSVP us through email we decided use Facebook for help. So we created a new private event for our birthday and invited our friends and it was so easy because they could simply inform us through the event page if they could make it to the event or not and this way it was fast and creative as well. We were able to use polls to ask people for good restaurants we could eat at and also got people's input on the theme of the dinner. So this is where creativity played a huge role for us.

HW Creativity

In todays world new media and the internet have definitely fostered creativity in many different forms. It fosters creativity because it has given a platform to people to connect with others by sharing their opinions, ideas and thoughts. They are able to give insight and some suggestions to companies and other through the new media platform. In the article Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers talks about how they would keep track of things people did commonly and frequently on Twitter and then make that into special features for more people to utilize. It also talked about how Lego allowed their customers to custom make their own products using the online software. This definitely shows us how new media has been able to connect not only people to people, but even companies to customers, where customers can give ideas and suggestions on how a company can improve their service or product. There are many companies nowadays that use new media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram to connect with their customers for feedback and any improvements or ew things they would want to see which helps foster creativity because maybe someone might suggest a great idea which no one else at the company could have ever imagined.  Citation:  1.) Miller, Claire Cain. "Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers." The New York Times. The New York Times, 25 Oct. 2009. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

There are many ways virtual worlds can be used. Gaming online, training programs for military and even for astronauts. Also it can be used for teaching, communication and even be used by businesses for their profits. There are many pros and cons of virtual reality. Some advantages are that you can play games which can be fun and you can do things in them which you wouldn't be able to in real life. Another advantage is teaching military people and training them before sending them out to the actual dangerous places and this way you can prepare them without having to put their life in danger. Additional pros are for medical training because that way students learn about surgery without actually putting a patients life in danger. These are just some of many pros of virtual worlds. There are cons of virtual worlds as well which negatively impact many people. Some cons of virtual worlds are that they require a lot of time to make and it needs lots of financial backup to create which can be costly. Then there is lag time which can create problems as well and due to that all the students for example might not be on the same page while doing a virtual surgery which can create communication problems. Also we have to realize all the technology that is created day by day and it will definitely have problems and then we also have problems with hacking and stuff which can cause many problems as well. 

"Avatar II: The Hospital" talks about how they use virtual world to help with medical training and clinical skills to help teach students. This shows how amazing virtual worlds can be for training people in the medical field without having to put any life in danger. With this you save lots of money because you can train many students at the same time. Another article called, "No Budget, No Boundaries: It's the Real You", talks about how if someone can't afford to buy a very expensive care like a Bentley in real life than they can have the experience through virtual world which is amazing. So people who can't afford certain things they can experience them in virtual world by saving so much money as well.

Virtual worlds foster creativity because they allow people to build things which they can't in real life and they can also do it faster through this. With this you can make creative models and designs without having to build them and you can see how you actually want certain things and that can help you with more improved ideas. I think in the future it will be a very big thing and something that will be more in demand. I think that in the future people will use virtual worlds to teach all students in classes and have them experience what it really is like in the world of their career. 

Citations: 

1. Simon, Stephanie. "Avatar II: The Hospital." The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, 13 Apr. 2010. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.

2. Ferla, Ruth La. "No Budget, No Boundaries: It’s the Real You." The New York Times. The New York Times, 21 Oct. 2009. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.

Blog about Twitter

Twitter discussions, Blackboard discussions and in-class discussions are similar yet very different too. One of the biggest difference is the limit of 140 characters in your Twitter posts whereas the others don't have. Also with Twitter you can use hashtags which allow a conversation to keep going and not get lost and that way people can easily see whats going on. With Twitter you can retweet people's tweets on your page and share it with others for discussions and you can simply just reply to a tweet using hashtag so people know what you are replying to. Blackboard discussions are different because here you can posts much longer posts and there is no limit of characters used. Also with Blackboard discussions they are private and limited for only people who are in your class unlike Tweets which are public. Another thing is that Blackboard everyones thoughts and discussions are in the same place for everyone to see. In-class discussions are different because they can go on forever since people will just get new ideas and then you go from one topic to another and this usually doesn't happen with the others in my opinion. Also in-class discussions I feel people are more involved in because when you speak with a person face-to-face it's more engaging compared to tweets and posts. Not only can you hear what the person has to say, but you can also see their emotions and facial expressions which can give us more insight on the person's opinion or thoughts whereas you can't tell anything like that through a simple post.

Blog: Social networking sites

Today almost everyone has an account with some of the most popular social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. I personally use all four and so do many of my friends. They all are a way of connecting with people, but still used very differently and have different purposes. While using these four social media platforms I have realized that they have some interesting differences. Like Facebook i think is mainly used for people to make posts about almost anything and share their personal thoughts or stories through long posts. It is a way of keeping in touch with family and friends from all over the world and share your stuff with them. Twitter is a little different because it's for people to share quick thoughts or simple and short sentences. It can also be used to spread news about something. Twitter is where people post something quick and fast that they just want to share with friends and it can be for fun or serious issues. Instagram is something that is used to share mostly pictures with friends and family. The main purpose and reason it is different from Facebook is because it is where people posts pictures and they share special moments they were able to capture in a camera with friends and family. Here you can also edit your pictures and filter them unlike Facebook. Snapchat is sort of like Instagram, but it's more like a live platform for people to share their moments. People can send pictures and videos which they can limit the time they can be viewed until they disappear from the persons phone. Not only that, but you can share your moments right away with friends and family rather than waiting and posting later like you would do on Instagram. So these are the main differences according to me about these four social media sites. They all have one purpose which is to connect people yet in very different and unique ways.

Blog Social Networking

Social media has become a great part of everyone's life, from students to parents and even in the work places. When we think of social media we think of Facebook, twitter and many more which are for personal uses, but can also be used as a professional platform as well for companies. Today social media has allowed people to connect with other people around the world and share information with each other without even having to interact in person face to face. Companies can use social media to interview people overseas or even have a meeting with other professionals around the world which saves them time and money as well. They can use social media to also promote their products or engage people and basically technology can help information to be exchanged with someone miles away. We think that there are only benefits of technology, but we aren't well aware of the negative impact it has had on our lives as well. Technology has decreased the amount of face to face interactions, people will chose to be on their phone looking at their newsfeed rather than talking about their day at work with their family. People will choose to text with each other rather than making a conversation which is a very bad impact of technology on society. This had also impacted privacy of users. The stuff posted can be accessed by many people and it can violate someone's privacy. I feel like the more technology dependent we will become the worse it will get. I feel like more and more technology will be available to replace human interactions not just at work, but even else where.

Just like in the article, "Facebook Privacy is so Confusing Even the Zuckerberg Family Photo Isn't Private", they talk about how Randi's family photo with her family was shared publicly by a subscriber of someone else tagged in the photo which showed the picture on someone else's newsfeed. This is a privacy matter which is very important, as you can see a photo of someone's was shared publicly without their consent and it was accessible to by many people. So technology poses many problems and concerns related to privacy of not just people, but even in the workplace where we have confidential information.

In the article, "Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting", we see how technology helps people find the best of employees who are well qualified for positions. LinkedIn allows you recruiters to view profiles of people working in top companies and it also allows people to see your education, your skills and basically your resume which helps them to recruit people for better positions instead of just posting it on a website and finding people without knowing about their skills and stuff. So there are benefits of technology and disadvantages as well.

Cites:
1. "Facebook Privacy is so Confusing Even the Zuckerberg Family Photo Isn't Private" by Rebecca Greenfield

2. "Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting" by Frank Langfitt

BLOG: Blog v Wiki

Blog is a new media tool which is used for personal opinions and it's used for people to just share their thoughts about anything with everyone whereas a Wiki is more of a collaborative platform where many people can add or edit stuff. A Wiki allows people to share information with others about almost anything and it is more of a information based new media unlike Blogs which are mainly for personal thoughts almost like a personal journal.

In todays world its very important for us to be able to share information with other people and Wiki and Blogs help us with that. Through this people can collaborate by adding information and editing it which helps everyone. Gardiner Morse states that "Thousands of organizations use wiki to aggregate the knowledge of their far-flung employees, creating a place for them to electronically converge and collaborate on everything from planning meetings and documenting best practices to brainstorming about new products and processes", this shows us how Wiki has become such a successful new media communication for companies to be able to easily communicate and give their insight through posts rather than in person which might be harder for some people. This allows things to speed up incase someone isn't able to show up to work and stuff as well. 

Blogs can be a very useful tool and could lead to very serious issues. Just like in the article by Michael Wilson, it shows how blogs of a few people helped to catch drug dealers. It is amazing how some people just had blogged about something happening just randomly without really realizing how dangerous things were going. Had these people not blogged about the weird and unusual things happening maybe the drug raid would have never happened. So this just goes to show us how strong a blog can be used appropriately.

Citations:

1.) Morse, Gardiner. "Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales on making the most of company wikis." Harvard Business Review. April 2008. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.

2.) Wilson, Michael. "Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid." The New York Times. The New York Times, 25 June 2008. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.