Classmate's research presentation

Svetlana's research presentation about second life, webkinz and the future of virtual world on education.
Svetlana presents the impact of virtual worlds on today’s early education to the higher. First she descries what is second life and webkins are and than shows some examples of how they being implemented for different teaching methods. She gives examples of institutes that using these virtual world and the advantages of doing so She enters into these virtual worlds and presents the way it works in a very informative clear way. Also, by doing so she fills the presentation with a lot of explanatory beautiful graphics that you cannot miss:-)

My Term Research Project

My Term Research Project gives information about networking sites for pets as petsplaces.com from different perspectives: social, commerce, and informative. Social perspective by using online groups, blogs and events where members can share. Satisfies the commerce perspective by giving the ability to advertise and market products and services on these sites. Also giving useful information to the pets owners community by communicating and collaborating online.

The Next New Thing

Convergence of d iphone (since already it has the ability to communicate and collaborate) and digital signature form (like the ups guys have). Once it will accept our signature, we can run almost a full business from the iphone (including but not only to paying bills (checks), wire transfer, and other forms which requires a real signature). To secure that we’ll have a password and the ability to record our signature.

Old v. New

We can distinguish “new media” from “old” media by calling old media-communication delivery systems, which are analog, static, independent, passive, obsolete, and passive.
Examples: newspapers, magazines, radio, television, books. What you get in a book, for example, is the writer point of view and settings, which are not changeable.
In the other hand to the “new” media we can call-computer mediated communication and collaboration, which are digital, dynamic and can be changed. Examples: blogs, e-books, e-zines, pod casts, flicker, etc. where digital information like blogs can non-stop be changed and modified by almost everybody.
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1116771

Advice to Baruch College

If I would be hired by Baruch College to use new media to improve the College, I would suggest building an interactive course study (like wiki). Where students and professors can actively participate and post their course material, knowledge, and experiences. It would create a better study environment where all can add to that.
Professors can add their tutorial videos (good when u missed a class), practice exercises could be added, and student concerns and suggestions.
Students who are not participating in that class could view the material and might find it interesting to take the class as well.
Also, can add a link suggests what other classes students like me take.

Effect of New Media on Society

If we blamed the old media for alienating us from social networking, we can now say the opposite about the rise of new media; we are collaborating back again and on a larger scale (world wide). In the days of television and newspaper, we could stay at home without interacting with the outside world, while today we are not only watching or reading, we can also respond and interact with the other side (blogging, chatting, sharing ideas, photos, and videos) all online. Political, economical, and social views are shared and open to all in the free world to a smallest village.

We also rely more on today’s media in the social sense (ex: facebook) or in business (ex: company’s wikis). We rely on up-to-date emails and information sharing so we can get things done faster and more accurately.
More than that, today’s children are growing up online and this is their main viewpoint, which emphasizes the importance of the new media.

Checking Out Some Social Networking Sites

“A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services.”(wiki)
Some Social Networking Sites:
1. Facebook- Facebook is a social networking website where users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves.
Very broad with a lot of users and gimmicks; fun wall, pokes, and games. I find that most of my friends like this site better than the others.
2. MySpace is a popular social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos for teenagers and adults internationally.
I find it more artists oriented; helps new bands to get recognition, new independent theatre performance, exhibitions, and more events.
3. Friendster is based on the circle of friends and web of friends’ techniques for networking individuals in virtual communities.
I find it a smaller version of Facebook.
4. LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site mainly used for professional networking. Where it can help find jobs, also recruiters using this site to find perspective employees since you can upload your profile, resume, and recommendation letters.
Sources:
http://www.friendster.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/
http://www.facebook.com/
http://www.myspace.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_service
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySpace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkedIn