Classroom goes on Twitter

I found some interesting article questioning can social media such as Twitter be used in educational activities. At the beginning of the text it is shortly presented what Twitter is and what microblogging means. That the authors explain how microblogging works in Twitter. What is really interesting for us is the next chapter of the article where the authors explain the potential uses of the Twitter in educational purpose. Here are shortly mentioned some of them:

 - classroom community

 - exploring collaborative writing

 - reader response

 - collaboration

 - project management

 - a tool for assessing opinion

 - reference of research

 - creating a learning experience

 - exploring the language and more.

Below author mention some of the good and bad sites of the Twitter uses for educational purpose. Here are some of them:

Advantages of Twitter	Disadvantages of Twitter
-          engaging education -          very useful for achieving information -          connecting people -          change classroom dynamic -          posting lectures online -          can be used for research purpose -          provide age appropriate environment and more	-          it a time consuming task -          msg is visible only for people in your network -          can be rude -          can be addictive -          privacy -          distraction of students from the ideas in explored in classroom and more

So article gives the reader some basic points or information from where he or she can further search and seek what new technologies such as Twitter can bring to the educational field.

Link to article: http://www.morsmal.org/documents/members/admin/Can-we-use-Twitter-for-educational-activities.pdf

Wikileaks after Assange?

Just like the author of the blog WikiLeaks, Assange and the Age of Transparency said:

»Despite the arrest of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange the publication of once secret documents is continuing around the world and shows no signs of stopping. Governments, corporations and other institutions are coming under increasing pressure to make their information more available and technology is making it easier to obtain and share it.«

And it’s thought what he said, WikiLeaks is still working. While I was searching for the freshest data of this topic I ran into news available via this link: http://wikileaks.ch/gitmo/. It is news 1 mount old and it is saying about the revelation of the secret documents of Guantanamo prisoners. Like the author says:

“In thousands of pages of documents dating from 2002 to 2008 and never seen before by members of the public or the media, the cases of the majority of the prisoners held at Guantánamo -- 758 out of 779 in total -- are described in detail in memoranda from JTF-GTMO, the Joint Task Force at Guantánamo Bay, to US Southern Command in Miami, Florida.”

In this news there is many information about the relieved dates and meanings of them and instruction how to read them. The reader have fully information to get to know this documents that government preferred as secret. So there is the question is arrest of Assange changed anything?

Links:

http://wikileaks.ch/gitmo/

http://blogs.abc.net.au/canberra/2011/05/wikileaks-assange-and-the-age-of-transparency.html

Not only Sony`s PlayStation Network but also Sony Online Entertainment

One of the leading web site in Slovene www.24ur.si today published surprising news about another hacker action –stilling the information about 25 million users of computer games web portal Sony Online Entertainment. This action was found out on Monday in the surveys of previous hacker attecks on the Sony`s Playstation. Like they say, this attack was done before the attack on the Playstation on 16 and 17<sup>th</sup> April. This portal was immediately removed from the web. Becouse there were stolen users account, heckers gain personal datas about users such as email address, date of birth, passwords, telephone numbers and probably some information about users bank accounts, theirs full names and adressess and more. Like they say heckers could`t gain the identification nubmers of users credit cards but still they managed to still datas of bank cards of 10700 users form Austria, Germany, Spain and Netherland. Tiana Rodriguez said that for now there are no evidence about using stolen information for illicit proceeds. Like datas show heckers stole in both action of 100 million users of Sony`s web services.

 

Source: http://24ur.com/novice/crna-kronika/po-playstationu-se-sony-online-entertainment.html

 

Really new or really old media?!

Martin Cooper making call

Walking down the street you can watch people how they rush each in his own direction and world. Most of them are talking...But not with each other but with someone on the other site of the wire. Mobile phone in certainly one of the technological invention that has entranced the world. Almost everybody have it - old people, young people, children, business people, country people and more...But how this all started?....Almost 40 years ago Martin Cooper was walking down the streets of  New York and making calls with the first prototype of mobile phone, first he intended to the development Manager of the competitive company Bell Labs. Since then, the mobile phone slowly struggling into the lives of the general masses and became right hand for the individuals, but today we can say is already an indispensable part of our everyday lives. So what is mobile phone new or old media? Sure beginnings of mobile phone goes almost 40 years ago, but we can not say that the latest version of Nokia or other is an old media. Mobile phone is a great example of combining conceptions of an old and new media, a great example of thinking wider and outside the box of certain perspectives and finally a great example that human component and perception and ways of using some media is important factor that media theory should not taken for granted.

Link to article: http://24ur.com/novice/it/pred-38-leti-opravljen-prvi-klic-z-mobilnim-telefonom.html
 

Sina Weibo coming through...

 Facebook, Twitter, Hi5, MySpace and much more...

Here is one interesting video about new Chinese development of social network. This is Microblog Sina Weibo which lets users embed pictures, post comments and easily communicate. As the contribution says is more than Chinas Twitter...Lets have a look....


Link: http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2011/04/01/ns.stout.sina.weibo.explainer.cnn

Source: CNN.com

Internet freedom of choice? An example of Chinese

How much are we free on the Internet, and what limitations may afflict us, we can look at the case of China, where the information transmitted over the Internet are being monitored and censored by theirs authorities ... How are new media being used and presented in theirs culture... Case of a Google...

Internet users in China since late January are complaining that they have difficulties in accessing e-mail accounts they have open in Gmail. They have problems with sending messages when they are logged in,  problems are observed also in the service for instant messaging. Moreover, problems are also appeared in the operation of so-called proxy servers that allow users to virtually anonymous web browsing, which can circumvent Chinese Internet censorship system. As they say at Google, the problems with Gmail were carefully examined to ensure that on their side, there is no technical reason for the problems of access. They stated that a blockade is by the government, which is designed in a way that at first glance looks that the problem is in Gmail.

For more details see this link: http://24ur.com/novice/it/kitajska-blokira-gmail.html

Internet Explorer 9

Last week I was driving home on the bus, when I saw the news about the new version of Internet Explorer. Has a new version come quite accidentally, or is in any sense related to the fact that the leading Web browser today is Mozilla Firefox? As I read the article on the website rtvslo.si the main asset of the new browser are attached web sites and protection against tracking. Like they say the new browser is faster, more friendly and more transparent, but it also includes many improvements in privacy, security and compatibility with modern web standards. The new version has a feature that also exploits the full capacity of computer hardware (the promotion of text, video and graphics to ensure that the pages feature the same capacity as conventional desktop applications for Windows). Internet Explorer 9 also has control of transfers, which is combined with SmartScreen technology to protect against malicious software. Also it has a built in browser so called Tracking protection which gives the users more control over how their information is exchanged between different Web pages. 


Can we say the new, versatile and functional web browser?

For more information about the article see the following link: http://www.rtvslo.si/znanost-in-tehnologija/microsoft-izdal-internet-explorer-9/253293

Virtual I

When we talk about new media and their placement in the society as a whole we should ask our selves what is the placement of media in one's life. When individum participate in let say the virtual environment he or she must provide some information about them selves. Why is this important? Because the nature of the virtual environment is such, that no physical or other signs that marks individual in physical world are seen. Because of that individuals who enter in the virtual world are forces to create imagine of them selves for the other participates. And here is the main question – how does the individum provide information of him self to others? In the link below is one of the many articles which are dealing with this issue.

Trammell, Kaye D. 2004. Examining the New Influencers: A Self-Presentation Study of a A-List Blogs. Accessible via: http://www.kayesweetser.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/trammell-keshelashvili-2006-self-presentation-on-blogs.pdf (13. March 2011).

New media - what is changed?

When we talk about new media, we first need to define what new media is. Some authors declaim that new media is any new digital technology, others oppose by saying that media as it is, is not new because it must always be understood in a term of a historical context. It is necessary to be aware that new media allows writing history, while the history of those who bears a large share of responsibility in the present. Thirds are saying that media can not be associated with the term digital becouse digital does not necessarily means new. But now new meida uderstood as we wish is present, and we should ask our selves what has been changed about new media during the the time of theirs existence.

Article which I would like to talk about is comparing the position of new media in the 1999 and the present thinking of the new media. Today new media are included in all the spheres of everyday life. Variety of media technologies, forms, and content, often lumped together under the single (and misleadingly homogenizing) rubric of ‘the internet’, have become a commonplace part of work, education, leisure, culture, and politics. New media is today understood not as something that is here for use but as a part of us. The ubiquity of new media

has resulted in their being taken for granted. Like author says one of the consequences of new media mainstream status is that users expatiations are more expansive and more routine. But new media is not used just in those fields but are more and more often being used in a form of interpersonal communication and interaction. Author further emphasizes the need to track changes and understand new media, not just in ICT but in terms of something everyday, even in media studies themselves. Like he says:

            “As new media become embedded and indispensable throughout society,

            culture, and the economy, perhaps the biggest challenge to new media

            studies will be the need to shift away from thinking of ICTs as

            extraordinary, and to accept and study them as normal or ‘banal’” ( Lievrouw 2004).

References

Lievrouw, A. Leah. 2004. Whats changed about new media? Introduction to the fifth anniversary issue of new media & society. Accessible via: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/swiss/archive/Lievrouw.pdf  (5. March 2011).

introductory words

At the beginning I would like to say a few things about my expectations about this course and my backgrounds of this topics:

1. academic and professional background and personal learning objectives with regard to this seminar

 I study social informatic, so during my study I was informed of new technologies and their impact on the

individual's everyday life and society as a whole.

 

2. experiences with digital communication environments and online learning tools such as: social network sites, peer-to-peer communication, collaborative tools, digital libraries, online literature resources, and social science databases

During my study I had to look for literature resources out of libraries in online enviroments, surch for datas in various databases, use social network sites for research purposes, etc.

3.  tentative ideas for the paper to be completed by the end of the seminar.

 I am interested in the impact of new technologies in various fields, such as education or the creation of an individual's online self-presentation in the web (social network sites).