One Last Reflection

Well it is with a figurative tear in my eye that I write this, my final reflective blog post. I looked back on my first blog post “we are no longer the center of the universe” wherein I concluded the internet and the ptolemic model of the universe both make us realize our place in the world is not as high as it once was. And I feel after a full semester and nearly 50 or so posts that I am now even smaller in this huge digital universe. But because of this class I also feel empowered and ready to take on my education like I never have before. Here I will reflect one last time how I met the learning outcomes for this class.

Digital Literacy: Google Voice

In order to round out my digital literacy labs i chose to do google voice. It is really neat. it takes all the voicemails from my cell phone and transcribes them into text and then sends it to me in email and text message versions. this makes it really easy for me to stay connected when i am in a meeting or something. and i dont have to ever take the time to log into my voice male or play stupid voicemail tag with others.
But it seems that the transcribing still has a little room for improvement. here is the first message ever recorded on my google voice. it is from my sister: "Hey. I hope. Brother, I am in the bookstore. Currently, I just went on that date. Bye. Milly. I guess up with them and sleep late it good, although he had a Pepper's i meani'm not a big covered fans of the reference of the last. And tell you as planned. Sorry to give you some really really this okay bye bye." you can see how this may be difficult to really get to the bottom of what the person is saying. but i think that it has a lot of potential. 

Final Project update

We are cruising. We have all of our raw footage including a video made from a prezi about the class. i have made rough edits and now i just have to do a lot of final editing. i am excited to block out a bunch of time for this because i find video editing calming and relaxing. tomorrow we are going to record maggies voice for the narration. and then lastly we are going to just provide a brief summary of the project and how it appropriately reflects the outcomes of the class itself. also there is a chance that making a five minute cut will be very difficult and so there will likely be two versions: a full version and a five minute 'attention grabber'.

Best Blogs Nominations: Too bad I have no envelope to open.

1. Historical Content: for this outcome i have nominated Parker Woody's post Evolution: On the Origin of Species as an excellent example of an effective blog post. First of all he does an excellent job of laying out the issues at hand. he summarizes a few important points from the really, really long document which makes it easy for us as consumers to take in useful info fast. but also he connects his post to a slideshow that he found which gives a good introduction to the topic also. if it weren't already good enough he improves the post by listing out other topics that he would have studied had he had more time. this gives the consumer a platform to leap from and also organizes his learning. great post.

Final Project: Teaser

Check out this teaser for the DigiCiv Documentary we are making. Let me know what you think.

Web 2.0 The machine is Us/ing us

This is a video that Dr. Zappala showed in class a while ago but when i was researching more about the subject of Web 2.0 i found it again. i thought it was a really great representation of what we are talking about here.
what i found most fascinating about the concept of Web 2.0 is that the web has become much more than just a way of "getting information".  instead the web has exploded into a user directed method of creating  information. i'll go through the six points from Jim O'Reilly's article and explain more of my thoughts:

great article on facebook profiles:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/11/24/facebook.profile.shots.netiquette/index.html?hpt=C2

The Media, Printing press, and the internet

After reading the assigned readings on media theory i thought i wanted to compare the printing press and the TV and their effects on society and culture. but my research took me elsewhere. after a little research online i found a sweet online conversation about the printing press verses the internet. The conversation reminded me much of our own class. i thought this would be an excellent opportunity to connect but then the conversation was closed without any way of adding to the conversation. but these people seem like they would be good to connect into our class. so if you figure out how to connect them in let me know!

Final Project update

So i am updating everyone real quick. we are done with the filming of all the students and the professors. we had a few problems with the rental cameras from the library but we pushed on. now my responsibility is to begin editing the raw footage to start to create a coherent storyline. Maggie and Dalton are now hard at work to create a prezi that will sum up both the structure of the class and the historical content of the class. we plan on making a screen cast video of the prezi and inserting it into the video. the gears are in motion. things are going great. i'll keep you posted.

Highways: transporting our economy

The engineering marvel of the twentieth century that i spent more time learning about was the highway system of the United States. It was a fascinating learning experience. prior to the development of the interstate artery system the united states relied most heavily on train transportation for any shipping and transportation. The roads at the start of the twentieth century were poorly made at best. the lack of proper pavement and care for the roads made transport via roads very costly, in terms of time and other resources. the article stated: "it was cheaper to ship fruit by rail from California to an urban market in the East than to deliver it by wagon from a farm 15 miles away". Economically speaking this is couldn't continue.
The united states involvement in WWI ushered rapid change in the highway system. The military transported a lot of things via trucks along roads and trashed the existing roads. as a result the standard of thickness for concrete increased.

Blog Review of "Hot Chocolate News"

I found this assignment to evaluate a classmates blog quite fun. I rarely take the time to really dive deep into a single classmates thoughts and blogs but this has proved to be a great exercise. I found that I really learned a lot about Megan as I read into her blog. And I found that overall she has done a great job of meeting the course objectives and learning outcomes.

Reflective blog post number 2

I am excited at the opportunity to once again reflect upon my experience thus far in this class. Since the last reflective blog post I feel I have really hit my stride as a student of digital literacy. Obviously I have not totally mastered all of the tools necessary but I feel like my learning algorithm has been properly adjusted so that I can get the most out of this class for the remaining few weeks. I will now report on how well I have met the three learning outcomes (namely, historical content, computing concepts and digital culture, and self-directed learning) in the duration at hand.

Einstein and the nuclear bomb

When i read about and researched the Nuclear bomb and its capabilities chills ran down my spine. i am truly in awe at the destructive power of this weapon. I would say with reasonable certainty that it is on of the top three most important scientific developments of the 20th century and maybe altered the course of civilization more than anything else from that century. but what i want to focus on for a moment, because i do not have to much time is the important role Einstein played in the development of the Nuclear bomb.

Please share your blog post excerpts!

as a means of crowd sourcing could some of you please help us out by linking us to blog posts that you think would help us to highlight your feelings towards the class. or that highlight the effectiveness of the learning outcomes of the class. a good place to start may be your last reflective blog post. thank you!

Keynes: The great debate

As an economics major i was very excited to see the topic for class tomorrow. However as a budding young economist i have not yet developed deep rooted opinions on how a national economy should be dealt with and how public policy should be taken care of. I have learned in the past however about Keynesian Economics and that John Keynes is considered the most important economic mind since Adam Smith. After reading the assigned excerpts for the day i wanted to get some opinions on said economic theories. i found two politically charged blogs that were violently against the Keynesian economics. Here's why:

Kurt Gödel: a logical thinker

Having talked about the turing machine and uncomputable problems to some extent in class i became much more interested in the beginnings of the modern computing era as we know it. one of the contributors to this movement towards computing is Kurt Godel. There were no readings assigned for him so i wanted to understand better his contribution to this time period. I found a biography describing briefly his life and his studies on logics. but this on only left me with more questions like: what did he do in the field of Logic mathematics?

Final Project update:

I booked a camera for thursday-saturday. this way we can begin filming asap. we can get some shots of class in progress and schedule a time to interview the teachers. Professors Burton and Zappala if you read this please respond with a time that would work for you either thursday afternoon or friday that we could come and interview you. if neither work then we can find another time. Teammates, lets get together in the next few days to get an overall layout of the project and set some interview questions.

Freudian psychology

I have often heard references to Freudian psychology and things like the oedipus complex and whatnot but i have never really studied freud in any detail. i was glad to have the opportunity to study in greater depth the father of so many psychological breakthroughs. Beneath is a video about one aspect of His studies that i focused on: The Id, Ego, and Superego. It is old and cheesy but explains the principle really well.

The theory of relativity and modernism

I had never really thought of Einstein as a part of the modernist period before. but when i saw his name on the list of people i was really excited. His theory of relativity is something that i have always wanted to better understand and this was an excellent opportunity for me to gain an understanding of the basics of his theories. I will show three websites that i found useful in understanding Einstein's theory of relativity, and His place within the context of modernism.

Another band using the "free" model to spread their popularity: OK Go.

Here is story from CNN on the band OK Go. I thought the most applicable statement was the following: "They're working on a new audio album, too, but given their online success that almost seems like an afterthought." Go Check it out. 

"Politics isn't touch football. It is winner take all. It always has been and always will be"

Using technology to spread the gospel

Nie Nie Dialogues on Today Show:



I found the talk by Elder Ballard especially interesting. i really like that the lord is mindful of the way things change and He uses those to further his work. I contrasted the Church's response and use of technology with that of the Catholic church and the printing press. No one in our church will be tried for heresy for trying to use technology to spread the word of God. 

Thoughts on evolution

I attended a very liberal, private school where science was the only truth and most people's religion was academia. i learned evolution as an absolute truth there. however having also been raised in such a conservative LDS background i feel caught in the crossfire between evolution and creation.

Dr. Jake Frankenstein: "it's alive!!!"

The Monster of Dr. Jake:

So i have been reading Mary Shelley's famous work, "Frankenstein". we are all somewhat familiar with the story of Frankenstein wherein after going to university, Dr. Victor Frankenstein wants to bring a creature to life and does so using spare body parts. He successfully gives life to this monster only to realize that he has created, well, a monster. the monster, in a desperate plight to be accepted, wreaks havoc and as the story progresses we see more and more of the monster in Dr. Frankenstein himself. Now you are probably asking yourself what is this strange collage? Well let me connect the dots.

Book Suggestion: The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail

In high school my very favorite thing i studied in english was Transcendentalism. i still remember the excitement i my teacher instilled in me for the likes of Thoreau, emerson, and whitman. I frequently quote emerson and thoreau. one of the best books i ever read was "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail". it is actually a short play. It is the fictional story of the night Thoreau was incarcerated for not paying a poll-tax.

And the winner is...Frankenstein

Our group has chosen to read Frankenstein by mary shelley. we looked at a couple of other books. they were mostly historical overviews or economic books. but we decided that it would be more interesting to read a novel from the romantic period. i am excited about it because i have always wanted to read Frankenstein, and the cherry on top is it will knock out a honors program requirement. who knows, maybe our 'connect' portion will be to show "Young Frankenstein".

Possible book club books

Wordsworth tweets

I watched the comedy central show "Cobert Report" the other day on which Stephen Colbert interviewed the director of the movie "The Social Network". In the interview, (which i couldn't find on youtube but if you find it watch it because it is classic) Colbert says something like: "today, social networking is our existence; I tweet therefore I am". The director, David Fisher, defends his position to not have a facebook page personally by saying: "i feel socializing on the internet is to socializing as reality TV is to reality". now there are obvious connections to this class and the historical content thereof (queue Descartes). however, here i want to connect Twitter to the great poet William Wordsworth.

China's middle class follow-up: an unfortunate side effect

Here is a quick follow up to my last post. with the rise of a middle class in china come social problems. one such is obesity is rising at startling rates in china. this PBS article tells more about it. they really do seem to be following the pattern that america set forth.

China's industrial revolution and the growing middle class

As we learned about the industrial revolution in the 18th century one of the things that stood out to me the most was the shift in economic roles of the common person and the resulting emergence of a middle class. as i have reflected more upon it i can see numerous connections with the economic 'revolution' that is happening right now in china.

Open Forum at the World Bank. Rousseau would be proud?

The world bank opened up its doors. Will the world enter?



Here is a clip from the "private sector development blog" advertising the upcoming open forum at the world bank. we talked in class earlier about openness in government and this is an excellent example of such an idea. and it includes so many ideas of the changing digital world that we have been discussing so much in class. The world bank is trying to solve some world economic problems and they are going to use the general public to help solve these problems. remember with more eyes to see the bug it will be easier to find.

Information wants to be free

After reading Professor Burton's blog post on the differences between classic capitalism and the new digital capitalism one phrase remained with me: "information wants to be free" so i followed the link to learn more. I thought at first of the philosophical implications of such a statement. of how century after century the human mind has been yearning for greater and greater knowledge and how it is our destiny to continue to build on the foundation of knowledge that was painstakingly laid by those who went before us. but the article gave me a different perspective than i was expecting. 

Midterm Reflection

If you had asked me five weeks ago what I thought of blogs I would have responded by saying something like I think they are for teenage girls or for middle aged women who need something to do while their kids are away at school for the day. However as I have taken this class my opinion on blogging and numerous other methods of communication (including facebook) have dramatically changed. After 13 or more years of conventional education I have been conditioned to see certain avenues of obtaining knowledge as taboo or off limits, specifically those on the Internet. However this class has flipped my understanding of seeking greater understanding on its head.

Digital Literacy contiued...still music

I just finished my getting my sound cloud membership up and running and afterward i posted an original song by my roommate from a couple years ago that i recorded and mixed using Garage Band. now that it is on soundcloud people can find, comment on, and download this song of ours. and i can track the number of views and downloads. i am very excited. this makes getting my personal artistic talent out there so easy. i guess you could say it makes 'connecting' very convenient.
A Friend (Ft. Jake Corkin) by 720 Media

Digital literacy: Sound Cloud

SoundCloud: The Tour from SoundCloud on Vimeo.

So i just told you all about the song i recorded on garage band. the next step in my creative process is to share it. so i checked out sound cloud which makes it really easy to download and share music via social networking all over the web.
i can receive music and dont have to go through the big hassle of waiting for downloading and all that.

The limits of geometry

The topic that i chose to study a little about in the encyclopedia was mathematics. the reason is i have always loved math and i am currently taking two economics classes that are heavy on the math, one in calculus and one in statistics. So I looked at all four of the entries under Mathematics and found the most interesting one to be about limits. Limits for those of you who dont know are used in calculus and it is defined as x+h as h approaches some defined number or line or plane. this all i knew, but what i thought was really cool was that the entry taught me that the principles of the limit are "used as principles to show rigorously that the area of a circle, is the product of its semicircumference by its radius." i have always just taken that equation for granted and never really stopped to see where it came from. but now i think: 'of course it comes by using limits, duh!'. it is cool when things you learned a long time ago and things you are learning come together like that. this was a simple epiphany that has relatively little importance however i still thought i would share it. 

Rene Descartes walks into a restaurant. The waiter asks: Will you be having the paper today, sir?. Rene Descartes replies: I think not. And disappears.

I hope you enjoyed that joke. But seriously i saw that descartes was the only one in the people to know without any papers or materials to study so i looked for some info on him. I used Dr. Burton's suggestions in his blog to use other methods of searching. there are a lot of suggestions the one i focused on today was using the google blog searcher. Here are my simple findings on Rene Descartes:

Open government

After reading the wikipedia entry on open government i was interested to learn more about one of these organizations that is fighting for governments to turn away from secrecy. So i went to Transparency International's official site. I learned a lot about this organization. Transparency international's goal is to "to create change towards a world free of corruption". It lists ways i never even thought of that corruption can sneak into the public and private sector. TI has been very successful since its formation in 1993. Among others, a significant accomplishment of TI is found in this statement from their website: "prior to 1996, the World Bank did not explicitly discuss corruption. Today, the Bank considers it the single greatest obstacle to economic and social development." but this begs the question: How are you fighting corruption?

Free Software

When professor Zappala presented the information on the free software movement i was very perplexed about the economics of the whole thing. so i found this article on written by Benjamin Hak-Fung Chiao of New York University. He sustains much of what Dr. Zappala was teaching and gave me a little more insight into the whole economic side of the story.

Remember, Remember

I was reading Chase's blog "Chasing Knowledge" and it reminded me of a wonderful mormon message that i love. It is by president Eyring and he talks about the importance of remembering and he mentions his habit of writing in his journal. we have been talking about the importance of recording and sharing information in society and culture as a whole. and i think it is crucial that we remember the importance of recording and sharing our own experiences i.e. in our journals.

What I learned from my group: Screencasting

I like my group-mate, Kristi, have never heard of Screencasting before. i went to the website she suggested, Jing, and watched the tutorial video. Screencasting allows me to show another individual online things on my computer screen. it could be images, or movies and i can share it on the web. this makes online collaboration even easier. at first i thought i wouldnt really ever use this feature, however i think that in certain study groups this could be very useful. including in this class. What i think is most interesting is Mac has had this technology for a while now. if two people both have macs one can actually take over the whole screen of the other and thereby making collaboration much easier.

Owl city and the impact of metadata

This is Owl City. it is the brainchild of Adam Young. i thought of this artist when professor burton talked to us about the importance of the invention of the MP3 format. An insomniac, Adam young started recording music in his basement to fill his nights. he downloaded them to myspace.com and became so popular online that universal records picked him up. and a couple of his songs have since been chart-toppers. this is so cool to me. that no longer do artists wait for their "big break" but can be much more proactive. they can use the progression of data and technology formats to express themselves to a large audience. and Owl city is not the only band to do this. Maybe my blog will get me a big deal with a publishing company...

Google dominating the world

i am listening to pandora.com internet radio and i am noticing that it already has my facebook linked to my pandora account and i never did that. furthermore i noticed when commenting for the first time on someone's blog i could just say use my google account for it and it knew all sorts of stuff about me. and my google account is connected to pandora, facebook, blogspot, ichat, everything. it is all becoming so uniform and connected on the web. it is really convenient. i just like seeing the progression of online tools even now after i thought things like google could not evolve anymore.

Search engines, the new frontier

So i was given the task of better understanding "searching" on the internet. and given that i do not use anything but google i found myself typing in google "search engines". the irony of searching for another search engine on google made me laugh. but i found that for basic searching google, bing, altavista, dogpile, etc. are all more or less the same. the only difference was the visuals. i personally preferred bing and google the most. however i found a delightfully fun search source: Idee Labs.

Words, words, words

So i have titled my entry words words words because i figured shakespeare fits right into the time frame we are studying in this class. and because, words are what made shakespeare famous. my sister is brand new on campus and she wrote a wonderful note on facebook that i loved. so i thought that it would be fun to use her words that she used to express herself and let her see them expressed in a different way. thanks "Dare Me" for the post on your blog. and thanks Averill for your note. who knows, you could be the next shakespeare. love you.

The biggest copyright infringement in history

I found this article online that spurred my interest in what may be the be the biggest copyright infringement in the history of the world. http://www.computersmiths.com/chineseinvention/blockprint.htm. The Gutenberg press, invented in 1450 AD, is considered by many historians to be the most important invention of world civilization.
However i would like to just point out that perhaps their should be another recipient of such a great honor.

Worlds without end

I loved reading Pico Della Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man. The reason being, I just returned from my mission and therefore I see connections to the Restored Gospel and almost everything else in the world. But Mirandola's oration made it too easy. but the ease with with his philosophy and my religious theology meshed really put my soul in a comfortable place.

We are no longer the center of the universe

After reading a little about Ptolemy's and Copernicus's contributions to our now modern view of astronomy, I thought immediately about the affect that had on the enthusiastic supporters of Aristotle's theories on the make-up of the universe. Can you imagine what is would be like to hear for the first time that we, God's creation, are not the center of it all? keep in mind that this is challenging hundreds of years of tradition and one of the greatest thinkers this earth has ever known.

But what a change that must have made to society and culture. I then thought of a more recent advancement in technology and its affect on society and culture. That advancement i am referring to is of course the internet. I stumbled upon a book called "Free Culture: how big media uses technology and the law to lock down culture..." by Lawrence Lessig. In the first few pages he makes an interesting point. It was said that the internet doesn't affect those off-line; that one could escape by just turning off one's modem. But Lessig argues that the battles of the Internet now affect the live's of those on and offline alike.