Here's My Presentation

I know the video's kind of big so here's the link on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gftd7wasj7w

Facebook Podcast

Hello Folks!

Below is the link to view my podcast about Facebook. In this podcast, I address these questions:

Does technology shape us or do we the self and society determine the shape of our technology? What is the role of social media? Are we making healthy decisions about the use of technology?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFl4HsbD9VU

Facebook Tech, The Self & The Berklee Student

Here's Madvan's final project video questioning Berklee students in regards to their personal usage of facebook.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO88jiM8Dm8

Back around to the beginning

As we come into the home stretch of the semester, we circle back around to the beginning, to ask again the questions with which we started, hopefully with some new answers, and hopefully with even more questions. After one of our early discussions, I took some photos of the whiteboard, and here they are.

Here's something to think about....

I just stumbled across this link and found it pretty interesting.

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/11/19/buyer-s-guide-33-things-you-don-t-need-if-you-have-an-iphone/#continued

Everybody Dance Now!

We have been doing experiments with being in class in person and meeting in Second Life. One day, a student was sitting in class but her avatar was dancing in our class space in Second Life. As she stopped her avatar dancing, she muttered, "If I could dance in class, I would!"

I started thinking about this and haven't stopped. Why not dance in class? What would be the differences between dancing in SL and dancing in our classroom? (We are musicians and artists, remember, so this is not as strange to us as it might be to others!) So we have been. Twice now, half the class has been only in SL and the other half in the classroom, with me and one other person in both the virtual and physical class spaces. And we have been dancing! I am going to invite my students to talk about that experience first, and then I will chime in. But in the meantime, consider getting up . . . . putting on some music . . . . and dance!

Technological Advancements are to Social Displacements?

I think there is definitely something to be said about the discussion (in chapter 6) on the comparison between the pioneering of the new world and the exploration of the "land" of the web and discovering new uses for it, and uses for us on it. Also the talk about displacing the native people/displacing the use for person to person interaction made me think a lot about where our society is headed. It is my hope that we can find a medium and that many of the sci-fi movies about tech. taking over will not turn out completely true. Our society is shifting technologically. Though many are not wealthy enough to be able to afford an iPhone, many are able to afford somewhat older but still useful forms of similar tech. This is something I think is very important. The link between people, I think, has and is going to become much more critical in work environments and also in many social circles.