Respost of Second Life Blog

As I stated before, I went from having one life to two lives in a matter of minutes.  If you don't remember that post, or maybe you didn't see it, you can go to my posts from October and click "from one life to two."  Anyways, over the past weeks I have thought about Second Life and these online communities that we are able to create now.  In fact, I re-downloaded it and tried it again!  It was much easier to navigate through a second time!  Did you ever think that a program would exist that would allow you to feel a sense of "community" without ever having to leave your house and computer?  I sure didn't.  Let's dig a little deeper into what a community is.

According to Andrew F Wood and Matthew J Smith, authors of Online Communication, a virtual community is "a shared understanding of interrelatedness among participants the opportunity to give and receive positive feedback to and from one another" (233).  In other words, online communities are unique compared to "real life" communities because time and space do not necessarily matter.  For example, with Second Life you are able to login when you want and log out when you want.  You can travel to different places within Second Life and be who you want to be.  Within communities there are different stages.  First, there is something called gesellschaft, which is basically that everyone, is gathered in the same place.  With Second Life everyone that is logged in has the feeling of gesellschaft, they are all on Second Life.  Where communities really start to form is when they move to gemeinschaft, which is where the group togetherness and "we-ness" comes from.  When people are on Second Life but a group of them always meets at 9pm on the Penn State Berks Island and they gather at the same place and talk those people feel the sense of belonging and "we-ness." 

Communities are a wonderful thing and to now be able to feel that online makes them even easier.  Through communities you can feel supported and welcomed.  If your community has a name, a civil language, growth and group history it will have that sense of “we-ness.”  Second Life is more than a virtual reality site where people can go when they have free time.  It a place that many can call home and can feel what they don’t feel in their real life.  Computer mediated communication allows for anonymity, which causes people to disclose more information online than they sometimes do real life.  I had a great time using Second Life and who knows, maybe one day I will have my own community on there!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!

Fall is my favorite time of year.  October is a fabulous time for people to, in some far-fetched way; act out multiphrenia by dressing up for Halloween in something they wouldn’t wear on a regular basis.  November is a month to be thankful for all of the blessings in our lives.  It is a great time to get together with family and enjoy a lovely meal.  Now that Halloween and Thanksgiving have come and gone, there is only one month left: December.  Ah, December my favorite month out of the year.  Between snow, skiing, holidays and my birthday, what more could a girl ask for!?   Speaking of let it snow, did anyone happen to be in the Kutztown University Student Union Building last Thursday at 11am?!  I saw that a bunch of students assembled from the formal dining room (room 223) all the way down to the One Card Office.  The students were sprawled out on the ground listening to “Let It Snow” as they made snow angels on the ground.  What in the world were they doing, you ask!?  A FLASH MOB!

A flash mob is when a group of people suddenly gather together in a public place and perform an unusual act for a brief time.  Once they are finished they disperse without saying a word.  In most cases, the purpose of a flash mob is for entertainment, satire or artistic expression.   Interested in watching these students enjoy their SUB winter wonderful?  You can see it on bockmedia.blogspot.com.  I thought it was a great performance.  The students’ swarmed the SUB at the exact same time, laid down on the floor in unison and pretended to make snow angels while “Let It Snow” played in the background.  On the video you can see students watching, taking pictures or stepping over the massive amount of students as they tried to get by.  I think it was a great way to express their creativity and maybe a way to let Mother Nature know we are ready for snow!  Excellent flash mob!

No phone = better life!

Did you ever think about what it would be like to not have a cell phone!?  Would you feel more at peace or disconnected; would you miss it; would it drive to nuts to not have something to look at frequently?  For me, I think it would depend on the moment.  If I was waiting on an important email for phone call then I would be a little concerned about it, but honestly not having a phone would be quite peaceful.  In fact, I find it liberating when I run to the grocery store or to the clubhouse of my apartment complex and leave my phone at home.  So how have cell phones changed the way we interact today?

A few weeks ago one of my professors brought up how different cell phones make classrooms.  In the past, a professor would walk into a room and have to quiet a class down because of all the talking students were doing.  Now, some professors encourage and beg students to talk.  Many of us spend our time looking at our phone, texting, browsing facebook or checking email.  What the heck happened?  Since when was the cell phone more important than the person in front of us?  I completely disagree with the phenomena of cell phone take over, it’s not right.  I will always believe that the person in front of me, no matter who it is, is more important.  Speaking of conversation and the person in front of us, do you ever stop and talk to a random person anymore or do you spend so much time looking at your phone while walking that you sometimes run into something?

To answer this question I did a little test.  Think about someone, the coffee lady or your neighbor, who you see every day.  How often do you stop and talk to them?  For me, it was hardly ever.  Everyone uses the excuse that they are “soooo busy.”  No, I don’t care who you are, you can find five minutes to stop and talk to that person you see day in and day out.  I did.  My neighbor, someone I see every day sometimes two to four times a day, but I have never talked to I decided to.  I was out walking my dog when I saw him standing outside and decided to strike up a conversation.  We have both lived here since August, but never stopped and talked.  He is a very nice guy who I got to know in those five minutes we spent talking.  It was nice to not have to worry about my cell phone for once; again, another liberating moment in my life.  Now, every time I see him we say hi to each other!  What one five minute conversation can do.

So in going back to my question of have cell phone changed our interaction, what do you think?  Do you think that we interact more with people or less with people?  Do you find yourself talking to someone face to face more or less than over CMC?  On facebook the other day someone had a status up that said, “Smile, it confuses people.”  Well isn’t that the truth?  Somehow it became the norm that when we see another human being walking down the street we look down!  Why not just smile and say hi?  It’s time to put down the cell phone and get back to reality!

Follow me ;)

Social media is booming, wouldn’t you say!?  On top of Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace and Blogger let’s add Twitter into the mix!  Did you know there are 175 million users on Twitter?  That is a lot of people.  I am proud to say that I am now one of them.  Twitter is a great tool for business and personal use.  In addition, I think it is a great tool for journalists.

In class on Tuesday, the topic of how to pay journalists came about.  What do you think?  Do you think traditional journalism is starting to fade out?  Do you think companies are going to be able to afford to pay journalists in the future?  What is happening to newspapers?  Is it slowly dying?  I think so.  It is a sad thing to think about, but I am scared for journalists.  From a PR standpoint, I think they are very important.  We need journalists.  I don’t know if the formal position of journalists will be around for much longer, but I do feel strongly when saying I do not think they will ever die or fade out. 

Websites like Facebook and Twitter, especially, help keep journalism alive.  For example, and to me this is sad but oh well, last night I was watching the CMAs.  It ended around 11pm and was followed by ABC news.  Normally, I do not watch ABC but since it was on I figured I might as well get my news fix in.  The first story, in fact the largest story, is about Joe Pa from Penn State.  Why?  Not only did I see it as not the MOST important news story, but I also found it ridiculous that ABC highlighted that their station was the first to post on Twitter about it.  Who honestly cares?  But again it is a great example of how Twitter is being used for journalism.  So, let’s talk about my experience with Twitter.

Last year, I thought it was pointless and I did not see the value of it.  In September, my professor told us that for our class we would all be using Twitter so I went home and created an account.  I did not use it until last week.  All I used my Twitter for was to follow different companies.  For a long time that was how I got my news was from following CNN and the Weather Channel.  Last week I decided to take a stab at the so called “tweet.”  I dabbled in it here and there but my first real news worthy tweet happened last night.  As I watched the CMA awards and witnessed Taylor Swift, I still can’t believe it; win Country Music Entertainer of the Year.  So that was my tweet.  I even tagged her in it.  I also got a great coupon email from Victoria Secret so I “tweet-ed” it too and tagged VS and posted the link to the website.  I am proud to say I am a Twitter fan.

Anyways, back to my point.  Traditional journalism is suffering a bit with the print newspaper industry fading away.  But don’t worry, with sites like Twitter journalism will never go away.  Because we have the ability to tweet on Twitter or post on facebook instantly, we are all journalists.  Now how do we get paid?

READ privacy policies

Recently I read an article on Huffingtonpost.com
about an interview TechCrunch did with Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg.  Zuckerberg claims privacy is no longer the social norm.  The topic of privacy has been quite a controversial one over the past few years.  Last December Facebook drastically changed its privacy settings so a majority of information was public.  In the interview Zuckerberg said if he had created the number one social media site today rather than five years ago, he would have made all of the settings public. How do you feel about this?  Is he right, is privacy no longer the social norm?  Rather than just scratching the surface, let's dig a little deeper.

How many of you honestly read the privacy policy of Facebook or Google or your email?  For me, up until recently, privacy was not even a thought on my mind.  Do you think it is right for the people to collect data on your as you search the internet?  What if you are searching for something personal; for example, a disease?  Is it fair that companies track when you use the internet, how you use the internet, how long you are on Facebook for, what size shoes you wear to what size deodorant you use?

For me, my answer is based on two words: Free Enterprise.  I know it is a bit of a stretch, but it kind of relates to this.  Mark Zuckerberg created a social media website where people choose to create an account and choose to put their information on it.  If you are agreeing to use the site, then you are agreeing to let the world know your information.  Not only do I want to talk about Facebook, but to hit on a bunch of the questions I asked in regard to privacy in general, all I have to say is life is not fair.  The internet kind of gives us a big brother is watching us feeling, but you are not forced to use the internet.  Just as anyone can go out there and create a business, which is essentially what the internet is too. 

Although I do feel we ultimately make our own decision, I think the statement "privacy is no longer the social norm" is a bit over the top.  I do not think this statement supports his discussion as well as it should and I think it automatically makes people deffensive.  No one wants to actually admit that they do not read the privacy policy and I think that makes them embarrassed.  Privacy and the internet is not going away, but I do think it is important for everyone to pay attention and READ privacy policies for everything they are using online, or anywhere for that matter. 

From one life to two..

Ever wonder what it would be like to live a different life?  If you were given the opportunity to be the opposite sex for a day would you seize it?  I think there have been times where I wished I could pretend to be a boy, or pretend to be older for a day to see what life is like but it was always just a thought.  Never in a million years did I think a software program would be designed that allows people to live another life.
According to the Second Life website, it is an online virtual world that was developed in 2003 to allow people to interact with each other through avatars.  Second Life allows people to participate in individual or group activities.  It also allows avatars to create and trade virtual property.  As a class assignment I was asked to make a Second Life (2L) account and browse around.  Wow, Linden Lab, an internet company, did a really great job creating 2L. So, I am sure you are wondering how was my experience, right?

First, I had to pick a name for my avatar.  I remember in class someone asking about using their first name and it was frowned down upon.  Afterall, if you were trying to create a "second life" why would you use your real name?  I had to google the proper netiquette of names for Second Life.  There were so many rules!  I just decided to go with "Kristin Partini."  I picked Kristin because it is kind of close to my name (I know, I didn't really branch out and away from my real life or "first life") and "Partini" because it was this awesome game sitting on my island as I started my account.  You're right, I probably should have thought a little more outside of the box, but it is my first time!  After making my name, which took probably 15 minutes, I had to pick an avatar.  I wanted to be a girl and I wanted to find one that looked like me.  Perfect!  The girl with black hair, sunglasses, a shopping bag, black heels, a jacket and jeans on, that definitely represents me.  Next step was to actually play or participate in Second Life!

I had a really hard time navigating and walking through Second Life.  In fact, it was so frustrating I gave up and had to come back to it the next day.  Once I kind of got the hang of walking around I found my professor, which was cool to talk to someone I knew.  While being in Second Life I was asked to join someone on an island, I figured why not!?  Bad idea, it was cannibal island!  I quickly got off and went somewhere else.  I tried going to a shopping mall but there were so many that it annoyed me.  I tried to change the clothes on my avatar, but could not figure that out either.  I left her in the standard clothes she came in. 

Overall, although my time in Second Life was short, it was very interesting.  The idea of being able to live a life in another gender it kind of a neat idea that people can actually do it!  I recommend Second Life to anyone who has not tried it just so you can say you did it!  So go on and live another life for a day!

Technology Take Over

A little over a year ago my younger brother came to me and expressed his disinterest in school.  He was not doing great in high school so after deep consideration he and my parents agreed to enroll him in Cyber School.  At the time I thought it could be a great thing for him, but I do not feel that way now.  It did not take long for him to fall behind in his class work because it was so independently driven.  I did not think of the comparison until later, but it is the same thing as taking a class online in college, which is not a decision I am thankful I never had to make.  I am very against online classes because I appreciate and value the student-professor relationship that develops face to face in a traditional classroom setting.  After a year of Cyber School my brother re-enrolled back into public school.  But what do we honestly think about the idea of learning online?

In an article published by the New York Times on Oct 8, Trip Gabriel and Matt Richtel, dig deeper into online learning (Carnegie Learning).  In the beginning of the article the two discuss how the Cognitive Tutor software program did not significantly affect test scores of students.  I do think it does have something to do with the measurement of success, maybe they have not come up with the proper way to measure the increase in learning properly.  Nevertheless, I still am not a fan of online learning.  I also get the feeling that teachers could be using as a replacement to them teaching the students, which in my mind could be a reason it is not working like schools want it to.  I think that the online learning should be used after a teacher teaches a lesson to their students; it could be a review tool.  I cannot help but ask myself why schools are paying so much money for this software if it is not even working. 

In the article it says that the full curriculum can cost nearly three times as much as a typical textbook over six years.  THREE TIMES!?  What, that is an insane amount of money to be wasting on a program that hasn’t been proven to work better than traditional teaching.  Later in the article it talks about the history of the program.  It was founded in 1998 and the founder, John R. Anderson recipient of the 2011 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science award, seems to be a credible and honorable man.  It was nice to read about a success story of a school using the Cognitive Tutor, but it does not make it seem dependable when the school stopped using the software in 2007.

I am a firm believer that students need the teacher-student face to face interaction to help them learn.  After all, at the end of the day, a computer is stupid.  A computer does not have feelings and does not know what you are trying to tell it to do.  It is merely a system that uses binary code to say if it understands what you are typing or not.  I may not have ever taken an online class, but I know I would never want to.  As I said earlier, I value the relationships I have created with my teachers and professors over the years.  I know I have been successful because of these relationships and I will continue to be successful because of them.  It has been proven that online relationships take three to four times longer to build than one in person does.  The relationship and bond you create with a professor is on a different level then the one you have with friends or family.  A professor experiences your academic and professional side and should help to shape those sides while they have you in class. 

My Very Own Web page!

I remember when I was younger and Myspace was the popular form of social media, well, it was pretty much the only form of social media.  I never knew that when I changed my background color, my pictures, my fonts and my text it was I altering the HTML of my Myspace account.  Seriously, how cool is that?  Myspace created a place for users to go and utilize HTML.  Gosh, I used to spend hours and days changing the layout of my Myspace because it was so fascinating to me. 

It is an understatement for me to say I was excited to have this assignment.  And I was always excited to know what it was I was doing to my Myspace account many years ago.  To begin my HTML web page I needed to think of what it was going to be about.  I picked something very close to me: Phi Sigma Sigma and The National Kidney Foundation.  Each year we donate time and money to support the NKF so I thought it would be a great thing to highlight in my web page.  After I chose my topic of information it was time for the fun to begin; yes, it was time to code!

Coding to me seemed relatively easy.  I used a learning guide on http://w3schools.com/html/, a website Dr. Bock provided for us, to create my hypertext markup.  For me, it was a lot of copy and pasting and then taking out what did not apply to my page and inputting what did.  For example, to create my heading I used <h1>My First Heading</h1>, took out “My First Heading” and put “Phi Sigma Sigma: We Walk To Save Lives.”  The most challenging part was adding an image.  I found it difficult to add an image from Facebook because my pictures are private; therefore, the image was not able to appear because it was not a public JPEG.  I had to save the image, open it in a web page and then copy the JPEG image file for it to work.  What I found to be most fun and interesting was adding a link.  I chose to add two links into my text paragraph.  I created a hyperlink to the Phi Sigma Sigma international homepage and to the NKF Walk homepage.  I thought it was awesome that I was able to create links within my paragraphs.

The most important parts of the hypertext was always remembering to put ‘<’ at the beginning and ‘>’ at the ending of each section.  If one of these were forgotten all the text would appear.  I thought it would be cool to make the background orange because it is the color associated with the National Kidney Foundation.  Just as I did for the other parts I copy and pasted the code from the website and changed my desired color to “orange.”  Overall, being able to use HTML was a great experience and brought back some great memories.

"Just Google It"

Earlier today I was sitting around watching a movie, The Ugly Truth, with my roommates when one of them asked how many movies Gerard Butler was in.  None of us knew.  So what do you think my first response was, “I’ll Google it?”  Of course, after all isn’t that what we always do?  It reminded me of a story I heard about Google called, Confessions of a Google Employee posted on the On the Media website.  The beginning of the video talks about what Google was like before it was a very, exactly how I used it and before it had 28,000 employees.  How could something that started out in a friend’s garage turn into a billion dollar company?  I think it is because Google is easy and convenient for its users.  If I spell something wrong, Google gives me a “did you mean…” link that helps me redirect my thought or question.  In fact, not only is Google a search engine, but you can find maps of places and even set up an email account.  Does it ever concern you that Google knows too much about you?

I truly believe I am one of only a few internet users who actually like the idea of cookies.  Cookies let me search or find information that I would not have found had my computer not remembered me looking at something similar.  In the video, author Douglas Edwards, emphasizes how Google does not read users’ emails and that if information is tracked it is only for the benefit of the user.  Although the company does not read your email, it does however state in its privacy policy that a person’s information may be used by the company.  Either way, it does not change my opinion on the internet. 

I think Google has done a great job and I support the video that Edwards created.  I think it puts a lot of users’ mind at ease knowing their email is somewhat safe.  

Everyone has a story....

It took me a long time to figure out what image best represents me.  And by a long time, I mean days.  Should I use a quote to represent me because I love quotes?  I feel like that would just be too simple and would ad to the online persona rather than my actual “real life” persona.  Where should I even begin I asked myself.  Well, I started with facebook.  I went to facebook and looked through my profile pictures trying to figure out what my online persona is.  The pictures are all of me smiling with people that I love, friends and family.  In fact, I hardly have any profile pictures of me by myself.  I almost feel like my online persona is not really who I am. 

Online, if someone were to look through my profile pictures they would think I am a very happy woman with a lot of friends who is also in a sorority and appears to love it.  All things that are pretty true, but barely scratch the surface to who I really am.  After looking through that I started to think about my daily life, things that I am involved in, meetings I attend each week, experiences that have happened in life and everything that makes me.  This is the picture I came up with:

I chose this picture because it really represents me.  I am someone who is overly busy, never has any free time, stresses about everything and is always on the go.  I like to think of myself just like this duck, on the surface I am calm, cool and collected but always paddling like hell underneath.  I also chose the white duck as oppose to a colored duck because until you get to know me I am kind of just plain and cold.  Additionally, I chose the duck that could see its reflection because I am constantly worried about how I look to others, not just physically but with my actions.  As wild as it is to reflect on my life and how busy I am, I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I think keeping busy is a good distraction from thinking about some of the things in life that I wish I had.  I would love to be in a relationship and have someone to share the good, bad and ugly with in life but that is just not the plan that God has for me right now. 

From experiencing a devastating loss to accepting the great honor of being Homecoming Queen I am someone who has been through a lot in life.  No matter what happens though I know that everything does happen for a reason.  I am very hard to figure out, which is why I think this picture is a great representation of me.  Many people don’t know how I hold myself together so well when things could be crumbling but I know it is because I have to.  I pride myself on being a great leader and someone who people look up to so I want to make sure I am always there for others.

After thinking about everything I have written, it is crazy to think that anyone could possibly understand me just from looking at my pictures online.  My online persona is just as I stated in the beginning, a women who is happy and seems to have it all, but in reality I am just like everyone else.  I am super busy, always on the go, falling apart while keeping it together, a woman of strength, a daughter, a sister to many, a friend and much more.  I guess it just goes to show you that it is impossible to know someone when you first meet them because everyone has a story.

The Media Equation

Isn’t it crazy to think about where the world was ten years ago, even five years ago?  I think back to when I was in middle school (sixth-eighth grade) and how we did not even have a computer at home.  The first time I used a personal computer was when I was in ninth grade, and even then it was just to write a paper or occasionally talk to my friends on AIM.  Speaking of AIM, what happened to it?  Isn’t it strange how things like AIM, xanga and myspace have all sort of faded away while sites like facebook, twitter and Linkein have begun to take over?  I should not even get into texting.  Why has texting replaced making a phone call and facebook messaging replaced sending an email?  What happened to immediate communication?

In the book The Media Equation, authors Reeves and Nass talk about computer mediated communication (CMC) and how it has altered our lives.  The focus of the book is how we give life to the World Wide Web.  For example, have you ever watched an episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionare and found yourself yelling the answers out in your own living room, as if the host could hear your answer?  Or maybe you were watching a scary movie and you know if that girl goes into that dark room where the killer is that she is going to die and you yell out how foolish she is because she is going to die.  These examples are the focus of this book.  It is crazy to think that we have allowed objects that are not human to become human.  In fact, now a day we name everything!  If our Betsy, our 1996 Honda Civic, makes it up that hill you praise her as if she is human.

Personally, I do not believe I can relate to a computer better than a human.  Call me old fashioned, but to me it is much more beneficial, although it make take more time, to communicate with someone face to face.   While I love computers and new media, I do find it stressful to have to keep up with so and so’s facebook status, remember to check my email constantly and check twitter all day just to make sure I am in tune with the world.  I feel like many people I know have multiphrenia.  They are so wrapped up in giving their computers and technology life that they forget who they are and often do not know what to do with themselves.  I think people would benefit from taking a step back from social media or giving non-human things human traits and realize that the more time we spend focusing on our CMC the less time we will spend engaging in mediated communication, which could potentially help a relationship.

This article made me stop and think about what is going on in the world.  I definitely believe that we, humans, invest much more into media and something that is not real.  I cannot help but think it is not very healthy for us, very interesting to think about.