Week 16- 12/6 and 12/8

Last Week of Classes!!

During our last week of class, we played around with a program called scratch. Scratch is a free program that allows the user to create animations. Learning to use it was really easy and fun. Everything is set up very organized so it is not hard at all to make an animation and is very user-friendly. We also finished up our websites and the animations we were working on the week before.

It is really hard to believe that I am almost done with my first semester of college. I really enjoyed being in Dissecting the Internet. I loved learning about the different topics and the discussions were always interesting.

Week 15- 11/29 and 12/1

I found this weeks classes very fun! We learned the basics of creating a website using xhtml and then applied them to our own webpages.  xhtml is the language that tells the webpage how to display the information. We learned how to change the colors, display a picture, add a link, and create tables. We also learned how to create animations which were a lot of fun to do. I made an animation of a person dancing. When I have more time, I would like to improve my animation, include face expressions, and make it more interesting. My brother, who is going to University of Pittsburgh, also had to create webpages for one of his classes. They used a similar program. He showed me all the different things he did with his site. I found it very interesting that there is so much variety people can do with websites by only knowing simple codes.

Week 14- 11/22

For the week of Nov. 22, we only had one class because of Thanksgiving Break!! During this class Michael Barry gave his perspectives on how the different branches and departments of government view and act in terms of cyberspace. Michael Barry served in the Marine Corps Reserve and is currently an analyst for Irregular Warfare. He also oversaw the implementation of the National Military Strategy for Cyberspace Operations. The perspectives that he gave us were formed from his own observations. The different perspectives and viewpoints were interesting, but also really confusing to follow.

Week 13- 11/15 and 11/17

This week we continued with our discussions about how the internet is used for social change. It is very interesting understand the connection between different topics. My topic was about how the internet is used in health care. It is fascinating all the different ways that the health care industry is using the internet. One of the things the article I read mentioned was the Visible Human Project created by the National Library of Medicine. It is a 3D representation of anatomically normal male and female that allows viewers to see MRIs and cryosectioned images of the whole body. Many medical centers now have their monitored bed forms online with real- time information so the doctors can see the information without having to physically be in the room. These programs act as a notification system for critical events. The health care professionals are utilizing these programs as well as many other aspects of the internet to improve patient care and knowledge. Another interesting topic discussed was the Suitcase project which would set up a shadow internet anywhere including repressive countries where the government shuts down communication in times of crisis.

Week 12- 11/8 and 11/10

We started off the week by talking about cloud computing and how Dr. Wilkes uses it in his bee keeping. We watched a really interesting video of a swarm of Dr. Wilkes bees. I would not want to be near them. On thursday, we started discussing the topics that we had to research. One of the topics we talked about were how hate groups use the internet. There is actually a website where you can see the different hate groups and their location in the U.S. This site also allows you to see how many hate groups are in each state. During this conversation we watched a video interview of the wife of the pastor of Westboro Baptist Church and Anonymous which was quite ridiculous. Another thing we talked about was the role of the internet in overthrowing the government in Egypt and Tunisia. People were able to organize and plan on the internet. It is amazing the number of ways the internet is used throughout the world today.

Week 11- 11/1 and 11/3

This week in Dissecting the Internet we studied crowd sourcing by playing games. On tuesday, we watched a TED talk and clips from another show about Luis van Ahn, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, who uses crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing is using millions of people to solve large scale problems. For example, he created CAPTCHAs and reCAPTCHAs which are security tests to make sure that the response is by a human, but they also dual function as a way to help digitize books. Instead of wasting 10 seconds on typing a random code, people are now also being productive because they are helping solve a problem that the computer can't solve and that would take a few people hundreds of years to do. Luis van Ahn also created the ESP game which a fun game that also helps to label Google images. His newest project is called Duolingo which is a free site that teaches the user a language and also helps to translate the web into different languages. For thursday, we had to come up with our own crowdsourcing game that we would be able to play in class without a computer. My group came up with the idea of doing a human knot where everyone had to help to get the knot untangled and back in a circle. The other games were a lot of fun to play as well. In all the games, we had to use everyone's help to solve a problem.

Week 10- 10/25 and 10/27

On tuesday, we had a guest speaker from easyfish marketing which is a company that helps market others on the internet. His job is to get his costumer's companies to be one of the first three that show up when you type keywords into google. During that class, we also talked alot about QR Codes. QR codes or quick reference codes are... like below:

Companies can use them for special promotions, discounts, messages, or as a link to their website. They are starting to appear everywhere. The problem with these though is that a person can only see the message if they have a smart phone with the QR code app so they are the only ones who can get these discounts or messages. I feel like they are also a way of getting more people to buy smart phones. 

Week 9- 10/18 and 10/20

This week we started our book presentations. The class split into groups to read and present on six different books dealing with the internet, technology, and our brain today. On tuesday, The Dumbest Generation was presented followed by The Overflowing Brain. On thursday, the two groups who presented were Distracted and Against the Machine. I was in the group that read and presented on The Dumbest Generation. This book had a very negative attitude toward the younger generation and technology, but didn't offer any solutions. This is part of the reason that it sparked much debate and discussion during class. All the groups had great presentations and were able to get the class to participate in discussions. Most of the books sounded like they were very interesting to read.

Week 8- 10/11

This week was special because we had a guest speaker come into our class and talk about different types of codes and ciphers. I also liked learning about codes when I was younger. My friends and I would write letters and notes to each other using codes. The two types of ciphers that we learned about were substitution ciphers  and transposition ciphers. Substitution ciphers are based on the shifting the alphabet a certain amount. Transposition ciphers are based on mixing up the letters in the message such as anagrams. Throughout the class, we wrote and decoded messages to our partners. It was a very fun class to have right before fall break.

Week 7- 10/4 and 10/6

Week 7 was a week full of debates and discussions. On tuesday (10/4), we compared 4chan which has complete anonymity to Facebook which leans more toward complete transparency. Mark Zuckerburg believes that there should be complete transparency on the web and that anonymity is bad.  On thursday (10/6), we had a debate about Facebook and whether is good or bad. Some people were assigned to a debate group and others were assigned to either look up the privacy policy or understand the differences between google plus and Facebook. I was in the later group so even though I wasn't taking part in the main part of the debate, we were the audience, got to ask both sides questions, and then vote at the end. The group that ended up winning the debate was the "Facebook is Bad" group. I can see both sides of the arguments because it is a huge distraction, but it is also a great way to be able to communicate with friends in different countries.

Week 6- 9/27 and 9/29

Last week, we discussed Privacy and Anonymity. In order to fully understand this concept, our assignment was to research one other person in the class and find out everything we could about them using different sources on the internet. I found so much information about my partner; part of that is because his name is very uncommon. Finding information about people on the web somewhat depends on how common their name is: the more common the name, the harder it is find information and vice versa. I was able to find out his immediate family, activities he was involved in in high school, what high school he went to, his dad's political, astrological sign, and religious views, and many other facts. There was even a few sites that included a picture of his house from a street view, gave his full address, and telephone number. It is a bit scary when you truly see how much of your information is out there for anyone to see.

Jessica

Week 5- 9/20 and 9/22

Our class had a guest speaker on tuesday: Ray from Ray's weather! He talked to us about the book "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall. Because the class is about the internet, he told us how the internet and technology can be related to running and exercise. He showed us different sites on the computer that can keep track of how many calories you intake, the amount of exercise a person gets, and how many calories you are burning doing different activities. He also showed us what is the latest technologies for running were; they can keep track of a lot of information. 

On thursday, we had a discussion about RescueTime which is a program that keeps track of how you use the computer and rates the productivity of your time. We had to use this program for one week and the general response to it was negative. Most of the class agreed that it was not a good indication of our productivity for different reasons. In my case, most of the time that I spend on the computer is not on my laptop, but one of the library's computer because I need to use a program for one of my classes that I don't have on my laptop. Also, most of the time, the homework that I have for my classes is not on the computer. I use the computer for entertainment purposes most of the time.

Jessica

Week 4- 9/13

On tuesday, we discussed an article that we had to read for class. It was a really interesting article and could be viewed as opposite of the movie that we watched last week. The article was written by a professor at Duke, and the one year all the freshman received free ipods. The goal was to figure out ways to incorporate them into the class room and come up with different apps to apply it to the class. The article also talked about attention blindness which is when you focus completely on one task and then you miss out on everything else. The article mentioned how multitasking was a good tool for the 21st century.
On thursday, class was canceled because convocation was in the morning.

Jessica <3

Week 3- 9/6 and 9/8

This past week we watched a movie called "Digital Nation" which was all about how technology is influencing us today. The next class we debated the usefulness of multitasking which was talked about in the movie. I really like this topic and find it interesting to hear what others have to say about it too. 

There were many topics covered in the movie: some of which I found interesting and completely shocking. One of the topics that completely shocked me was about a business that conducted everything through a virtual world. The people who work there just sit behind a computer all day and watch a screen to conduct their business. They have characters that look like them and hold meetings in this virtual world. I think that is absolutely ridiculous. I don't think this is the way business should be done. And I can't image looking at a screen for that long. I mean yes I am a college student that is always on my laptop, but I need to take breaks frequently because staring at the screen for a while hurts my eyes. Business should be done face-to-face and phone conferences are good when companies have customers in other parts of the world. I feel that real human interaction is key though not just on a virtual world. It doesn't seem right when there is an office building that is completely deserted or when people are at an office, but talk to each other via virtual world rather than face-to-face.

One of the other interesting things that the movie mentioned was that South Korea has internet cafe's where the entire floor is just rows and rows of computers. This is a good idea if people use it for a little if they don't have access to a computer or game systems, but people will go to these places, sit, and play video games for hours or days on end. This has become a health problem because people who are so focused in the game do not eat and drink properly. I think the video also said that some people may have actually died from playing to much. I personally think this is really sad; do these people not have anything else that they can be doing. I play video games sometimes, but not obsessively. I can normally find much better things to do than play computer and video games 24/7. I also think that gaming this much affects relationships with other people. People aren't focused on real relationships with real people when they are that addicted to gaming. Relationships with real people are very important and necessary. These relationships are no existent when a person is only focus on video games.  

Another topic it covered was multitasking which also happened to be the topic we debated and discussed in class on thursday. There was a study done that showed how people's mind actually processes things  slower while multitasking no matter how good someone thinks they are at multitasking. I multitask all the time. I always have a billion things running around my head at one time and am trying to do many other things at the same time. I tell myself that I am good at multitasking, but I also know it just gets me really distracted. Even now, I have my phone out, Facebook open, am working on sketching some shoe design ideas, have some other windows open, have a different project for art out that I am finishing, and am thinking about many other things not related to any of the things I just mentioned. I am not good at focusing on one thing at a time even though I know I get more done that way.  I think that multitasking is a skill that everybody uses in the world today, and with certain phones now, people can be talking to someone on the phone and be surfing the web and sending a text message at the same time. With our minds going a million different directions it is nearly impossible to give full attention to a task at hand. 

The discussion and debate we had in class was really good. It was interesting to see how different people viewed technology and hear other students experiences with technology, being distracted, and multitasking.

Jessica

Week Two- 8/30 and 9/1

The second week of class was just as interesting as the first week. On tuesday, we were introduced to networking. This was a really fun class because we learned how computers share information while having fun, playing games, and learning magic tricks. We played a game which I think was called the "Orange game" (but I'm not really sure) :-) We played this game in groups of 5 or 6. Every person (except one) started with two colored pins that matched a colored paper they had in front of them (the other person started with one pin and a colored paper that matched it). Then we switched the pins with other people so that we had two different colors none of which matched the colored paper in front of us. The main idea was to end up with the same colored pins as the paper in front of us. The player with one hand free is the only one who can take a pin from someone but it has to be someone to their left or right. It may sound complicated as I try to explain but once we started playing it made so much more sense. The group I was in won both times that we played- the first time we played in a circle and the second time we were in a straight line which makes it a little more challenging. During tuesday's class, we also learned how to do a magic trick involving binary numbers :-) so now I can amaze my family at my wonderful skill!

On Thursday, we had a class in the library learning how to search the school's databases for scholarly articles. This class wasn't as much fun as Tuesday's class, but we did learn a lot how to find good sources and information.

Jessica

Week One

I started my college classes this past week and so far, I have enjoyed them. My professors all seem really nice and the classes, themselves,  are very interesting. I am creating this blog for my Honors Seminar class, Dissecting the Internet.

When I was picking my classes, I wasn't sure how much I would like this class because I don't know much about computers and I didn't think it would be interesting. However, after the first class, my view changed completely. The class was very interesting and a lot of fun. The professors are really cool, funny, and have tons of interesting stories to share such as stories about farm life and shooting guns. 

Even though I only had two classes so far, I have learned so much from them that I didn't know before. I learned that our cell phones actually send out "pings" to cell towers of our location which means that if they wanted to track us they could. That could be good or bad depending on how you look at it. The most interesting and confusing thing I learned was the binary system and hexadecimal system. Computers have an entirely different way of communicating than we do and they just use two numbers (0 and 1) to do it.

As far as suggestion for improvement goes, I like how the class is run. The iclicker quizzes put a twist on normal pencil and paper quizzes, and the material that we are learning is very interesting. I think it would be interesting to have a class discussion on the implications of the computer and internet.

Jessica