freedom of the blog

Today we talked about the book “Clear Blogging”, and how different types of people in society are now communicating through blogs. I think this is both good and bad. Celebrities like Mark Cuban, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and even Rosie O’ Donnell have blogs. I think they do this because they know that blogs are a great way to communicate with the public freely, and it allows them to respond to anything the tabloids or news may say about them. I think over time more celebrities will understand the power behind blogging, just like the other forms of mass media. However, I wonder about letting military personal have blogs, as we discussed today. I don’t think blogging is necessary for people that are doing classified things, even if they are done anonymously. In fact, just today we learned that Prince Harry is over fighting in Afghanistan. All of the media outlets had known this for 10 weeks, but kept it a secret for his safety. Turns out this news was broken not by the mainstream media, but by somebody’s blog! I don’t like that. I think blogs are giving too many people a voice, and allows for information that doesn’t need to be put out there. People may say that we have a right to know all information, but I don’t think so. I think things like this, and secret operations that are for the betterment of society shouldn’t be ruined by some guy with a blog.

gotta have feedback

The article “My blog: My outward brain” talks about the need we have for information and for feedback. At one point the author talks about how the more he blogs the more reward, (feedback) he receives, as people tell him or email about something he wrote. This reminds me of when high school, when Xanga was new and exciting. Everyone seemed to have one, and I remember I created one to see how much feedback I could get. The whole concept of posting your blog to Xanga was to get these things called “eprops”, which were nothing but comments from other Xanga users. There was no real reason to post if you weren’t getting eprops. So the blogs that didn’t get eprops were never really updated, while the people who got eprops a lot updated a lot. This tells me that people really want other people to read their blogs. Of course, this seems logical, because if you are posting stuff on the internet, you probably understand that people are going to read it. This always tells me that people felt a sense of social importance based on how many other people were willing to read their blogs. I’m not sure I ever learned anything knowledgeable from reading Xanga, but I learned about people’s emotions. I was almost embarrassed for other people at some of the personal stuff they would post to Xanga. I guess most people are so obsessed with feedback that they don’t care if they post something that they’ll regret later on.

blogs enhance literacy?

From what I read about “Using Blogs to Enhance Literacy”, the author makes some simple yet qualifying points. Her argument seems to be that blogging is good for learning and good for literacy. I think that a lot of her points that she brings up do make sense: blogs are easy to publish, allow people voices they wouldn’t have otherwise, and keep free speech alive. However, I wonder if perhaps blogging and other parts about Web 2.0, such as social sites and even things that connect us like text messaging, might be dumbing down the English language. In a lot of cases, especially with young people, we often type in slang, intentionally spell words wrong, use incorrect grammar and punctuation, all in the name of convenience and pop culture. I wouldn’t be surprised I there were a good number of young people out there who think the correct way to spell “you” is “u”. I think that the number one compliment you can give blogging is that it has made communication easier. No one feels the need to be correct in all of the things I mentioned, because they know people will understand whatever point they are making no matter how words are spelled or ideas expressed. So to simply say that blogging and Web 2.0 has done nothing but good things for learning would be incorrect in my opinion. I think this will only get worse, as communication progresses and blogs become even more rampant, we will see a decline in the understanding of correct grammar and proper language use.

map assignment

Here is my concept map. I chose to do it on the late night talk shows on regular TV. I think there are a lot of different choices, and there are many similiarites and few differences. I came to this conclusion after watching them and creating these ideas, and seeing how many of them share the same ideas. I don't think I will do my final project on this, but I think this is a good basic concept map idea.

I think concept maps are good to help you get started on papers/big assignments. For one of my other classes, we actually did a concept map activity earlier today. The teacher put up an idea, and we picked two people that fit that idea, and we started naming things about them that could connect. I think concept mapping is a good way to brainstorm and to show people how things go together. These ideas not only work for our web 2.0, but for all classes!

social network? hmm

Latour’s book “Reassembling the Social” (which I spoke about today), makes a lot of sense once you start understanding it. Latour argues that putting the label “social” on things is unnecessary and leads to boxing ideas in. I think that the world as a network, runs off of everything. From people to animals to technology, everything needs to be in function. It is unwise to be putting the label of social on things in an attempt to describe life as a certain way. Stuff happens, things change, it’s a natural part of the world. Describing phenomenon’s as a “social” science or some sort of social force is redundant. We are all a part of this social network, although Latour wouldn’t like us calling it a social network!
I think that the world is full of intermediates and mediators, which is something Latour might have a different opinion on. It takes mediators to push new forces through, and intermediates are the people who are pushing these through because the mediators are behind them. There are obviously powerful people and hierarchies in our world, so I think that it is natural that intermediates do exist. However, perhaps we are made mediators when we begin to push these forces because it takes everything to bring a force through. I’m sure Latour will keep discussing this with himself, and share it in his next book.

hidden power of social networks

Anne’s discussion on “Hidden Power of Social Networks” was another example of connectivity, which seems to be all we talk about. Part of her discussion was about breaking people up into groups and having us find what was similar about our blogs. It was an interesting way to look at breaking down social networks. I think that if we really wanted to, we could have found a way to group any random people in our class together and found some sort of blog similarity between us. I think her point about not being able to categorize everyone together, in terms of business employees was very valid. I think a lot of times whether it be in business, sports, or other uniform social walks of life, people are judged by standards that may not be the right way to look at everyone. For instance, in sports, just because a basketball player can score 20 points doesn’t necessarily mean he is a valuable player. He might play on a losing team and only be scoring garbage points. A winning team might have a player who scores less than that guy, but rebounds and defends and does what it takes to win. This makes him the more valuable player. The same with what she says about the business employees and how a peripheral and central employee aren’t exactly cut and dry who is better. I learned from this discussion that it is easy to make the mistake of putting people in certain categories that may or may not accurately represent who they are or what they are capable of. You must be able to interpret results accurately.

map theory

We have used concept maps as students as early as grade school. Well, at least I have and I'm sure you have as well. I remember teachers in elementary school having us make concept maps that would link all of the particular characters and themes in the different stories we read together. As a kid I remember liking these things and thinking that they were very helpful in linking information together. I know alot of kids thought they were annoying. I like the line in this reading that says "The learner must choose to learn meaningfully". If connecting a bunch of words together can help you recall parts of a novel, business plan, or whatever important information you need, then it is up to the learner to choose to learn. Concept maps provide clear, precise, direct information to the reader. I also agree that you must "possess prior knowledge". We only ever made concept maps after we were finished going over whatever it was we were making a map of. It doesnt make sense to link things together if you don't first have a general understanding of the idea.
The concept map works like the mind. One line in the reading is that the map is like our brain because of its complex connections of information. All parts of our brain must flow to process information to other parts of the body. The concept map shows you visually how the flow of information is connected and how parts of ideas are generally connected and not seperate intities.