Our Class Wiki - So Far

In the class wiki, I have worked on a page entitled "Home." It is a page that describes who I am and what I do. I also describe a few things about my life. To make my information more attractive to the reader, I researched videos, songs, and pictures to tie them into the paragraph I created. For example, I wrote which company I worked for, then I attached a link to the company's website so the reader can see what the company does. I also wrote which song was my favorite, and attached a link to the video of this sing. After that, I posted pictures of everything I described in my paragraph just to enhance my writing with images and make the reader a little more interested to read what I am all about.

My Term Research Project

In my final Term Research Project, I spoke about the advantages and disadvantages of open source software and how it made it better for peace, democracy, and the economy as being a new media technology. Open source programs give users flexibility, convenience, and affordability for services they need. It has helped democracy in delivering a better government at a faster pace using many open source programs such as Do-it-yourself Federal IT Bailout Report, Forge.mil, and Cooperative Research and Development Agreement. Open source has also provided cost efficiency for many people around the world such as low acquisition and maintenance costs, little or no licensing costs, and cost efficiency access from vendor look-in. It also gives the right to modify and upgrade software to suit peoples' needs and customization of software and release improvements for redistribution. All these advantages have made it better for peace as it made people integrate with eachother and work together to create data that can benefit many people in all parts of the world. Although open source software can be very helpful, there are also risks of intellectual property infringement, which can violate copyright, patent, and trademark rights. All in all, open source software has made a huge positive impact on today's society and has opened a world to new media that has never taken place years ago.

The Next New Thing

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to sit on your bed with your laptop, the web cam on, and watching your teacher, teaching live from the screen?What if at the same time your teacher can see you as well as twenty or more other students from their webcams, all around the world? Would it be possible? I think this is the next new thing waiting to happen with New Media. With a virtual classroom, a student can be taught from a teacher from any part of the world. A teacher can also interact with students as well. Students can ask questions while the teacher is teaching and still foster an interactive classroom while sitting in the comfort of their own home.

Advise to Baruch College

Some suggestions I would make to enhance the Baruch College experience are using blogs, having online chatting available for students and advisors, and a web contribution site (wiki). With Baruch having a blog, it will bring both teachers and students together to allow them to express their opinions, views, and ideas in a professional way. It can be on the Baruch Homepage so anyone can view what thoughts the Baruch Community has on certain issues. Having an online chat between students and advisors would be extremely helpful to many. With tthis feature, students can chat with advisors instead of waiting on line, calling and not getting through, or making appointments to see them. Students can be able to ask questions to advisors and work with them online which can be convenient for both advisors and students. A web contribution site can allow students to show their greatest work for all to see on the Baruch website. Being a wiki site, students can contribute any form of art, writing, videos or photos of anything depicting the Baruch College community. Having to be a wiki site, students can modify and change the site so the same thing wouldn't have to be on all the time.

Old vs. New

There are many several ways we can distinguish new media from old media. First we can see if any technique has digital changed how something was done. An example would be reading newspapers, instead of physically holding printed newspapers and reading them, you can easily read them online. Another way to distinguish new media from old media is to see if such media affects a majority of the current population and has never been created, if so, then it would be considered new media. Thirdly, you should ask has the media provided any convenience of how a task can be done now, that it was done before? For example, instead of getting photos developed, it has been more convenient with digital photography today as you are able to print at home and upload it on your computer. New media are digital ways that have changed society and that has not existed years ago. These are all ways in which it can be distinguished in today's society.

Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

There are many ways the virtual world can be used for corporations to help them improve their business performance. With virtual worlds, companies can create avatars to replicate their associates and have people talk to them about their issues. Companies can also create a virtual world demonstrating what the business is actually like. For example, a clothing store can have a virtual store with similar items that users can try on and see how they look in it. Real estate companies can also have virtual houses replicating those that are in the market and users can use their avatars and walk through the houses or apartments to have a feel of what it is like being in a desired home. Companies can also use virtual worlds to communicate with their customers and have avatars sit and chat with them about any inquiries they might have. The benefits a virtual world brings to society is that people can be in a comfort zone and see what companies have to offer to them, while sitting and relaxing at home, instead of physically getting up and making time to meet associates to get business done. there can be a "dark side" in which companies can deal with their users and take such conversations with them seriously, when there can be some users who just feel like roaming any virtual world and wasting an associate's time online. This can also open the door to many false purchases as users might think these virtual worlds are simply just virtual, but in reality you can pay for something to have for real. These technologies can evolve in the future because instead of seeing products to buy from a company, companies can make virtual worlds so people can feel what it is like to have the product apart of their life and how they can make use of it by testing it out in their virtual world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2jY4UkPbAc

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/nyregion/thecity/03virt.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/01/ST2008040103032.html

http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/24/61/08.html

Social Networking

There are many ways social networking sites can be used by both corporations and organizations to help enhance business throughout companies. Corporations can use blogs or wikis to have online based file sharing programs to make it easier to work on projects or assignments from any location. It also makes it easier for files to be saved on online accounts rather than on hardware because hardware can simply crash or get damaged. Blogs can also help companies build themselves and be better since it can help them find their faults through the feedback they get from employees as well as customers. With this technology, society can communicate directly with companies and give their thoughts and ideas. However, there can be a "dark-side" to social networking. There can be users who post fake messages and try to cause corruption since they have the advantage of anonymity. Anyone can lie about information on these sites and be whoever they want to be. In my opinion, social networking sites would be a great source for corporations in the future. As everything is evolving online and becoming web-based, having blogs and wikis will make it a lot more convenient for consumers to be more aware of what businesses and corporations have to offer.

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/oct2007/gb20071030_537362.htm

http://www.cio.com/article/336818/More_on_How_to_Build_Your_Own_Wikipedia