December 8, 2009
Response to final projects… to be continued
Final project
I made a power point on how to find fake websites and how to be safe while browsing the web. Click on the link to see my power point presentation. Fake websites
Hope this power point presentation will be satisfying.
December 3, 2009
New Technology Remixx!!!
Here is my power point on my version of new technology and how i use it. Hope you’ll enjoy! 
REMIX ON NEW TECHNOLOGY
November 12, 2009
Me, Myself and I continued…
-what format did you use?
-What kind of content do I have and use?
-How did you decide?
-How did the technology shape your decisions?
I chose to use the Windows movie maker to make my video. When I started playing with the movie maker it seem very simple and easy to use. I am not tech savy so I was fairly relieved to find that even I could make it work. Making the movie about myself was relatively easy, until I went to go publish it as a movie. Everything went wrong. I couldnt publish my movie or save it! I had to redo it three times!
On my movie I just have pictures of my friends, family and me. I also have some classical music playing in the backround and slides explaining the pictures.
I love pictures!! There is no other way to describe myself in my opinion. I chose to make a slide show instead of a video because I dont feel comfortable talking about myself. Plus pictures say a thousand words right?
Technology has made my life stressful these past few days, working on this project on a computer that cant handle it has be super fun.
October 27, 2009
Revision on my previous essay “Personal use of Technology narrative”
My very favorite piece of technology is my cell phone. I love having the ability to talk to my friends and family anytime I please. My family and I travel a lot, so it is important to me to be able to talk to these people regularly. Cell phones give you the ability to stay connected around the world. When my family and I went to Europe this summer with my Mom, Sister, best friend Casey and her mom, we found ourselves at a not so clean or friendly hotel in Dublin, Ireland. Mrs. Morris’s cell phone got us a new cleaner and safer hotel in Cork, Ireland. My family and I are not big party people or drinkers. Dublin is the drinking capital of Ireland. We arrived around midnight and we were extremely exhausted from all the traveling we had done that day on taxis, trains, buses and ferry’s. As we got out of our taxi we were shocked to see about ten different people stumbling around drunker than a skunk! Let’s just say that we were all extremely grateful that Mrs. Morris had her cell phone with the internet and world-wide calling plan.
The first time I got a cell phone was about half way through my sophomore year. Crazy! All of my friends have had cell phone since the sixth grade. I couldn’t wait to get one, but on the other hand I really didn’t see how I would ever use one or need one. The magical moment finally arrived; my dad took me to get my very own cell phone. I received the standard Verizon cell phone with bonus texting ability. Texting it seemed to me to be completely useless and a waste of time, silly really. That is until I discovered the thrill and ease of texting my friends anywhere and anytime I wanted! It was as if a whole new world had opened up to me, I felt as though I was finally in.
Texting is my absolute favorite thing on my cell phone. I would have almost no use for it, if I didn’t have texting. Being able to text everyone I know is really useful. Instead of calling someone or having to wait to call someone, you can just talk to them through texting. Texting is more discreet and private than a phone conversation. Don’t get me wrong when I say that I think texting is about the same or almost better than talking. A personal phone conversation and being able to hear their voice is so much better than texting, because you are able to hear the emotion of the person you’re talking with. You can hear the emotions in their voice and tell how their feeling just by listening to them.
Camera phones are superbly awesome. It is completely awesome that I can send my pictures to whom ever I want. When my dad and I are on our annual road trips I can send pictures of where we are and what were doing to my little sister and mom. That way they can also see what were experiencing. It helps capture my favorite moments and I can have them and be reminded of them everywhere I go. How groovy is that?
Cell phones are useful in many other ways. For instance a cell phone can keep important dates for you and later on remind you about them. They can wake you up with the built in alarm clock. Cell phones can also cruise the internet and play your music. Cellular devices are today’s mini computers with the ability to call one another.
Ipod’s are another important piece of technology in my everyday life. I use my iPod every single day. I wake up and turn my iPod on to help wake me up and energize me for the day ahead. I also use it while I’m doing homework to listen to some Etta James or Big Band to help me concentrate. It also helps me fall asleep when my mind needs to relax and listen to some soothing tones to calm my overactive brain. The magnificent iPod is my escape when imp stuck in the car for 14 hours with only my dad on our annual road trips. It saves me from his Prairie Home Companion and the Rolling stones. I can only take them for so long. Being able to bring all of my music with me where ever I go is magnificently wonderful. Instead of lugging around my gigantic cd case full of cds and my portable cd player I have a small and compact music library at my finger tips. Carrying around all those bulky cds and cd player is a hassle and it is awkward. You are continuously worrying about scratching one of your cds and worrying if you brought enough batteries. Ipod’s are simple and compact.
Music has become easier and easier to buy. You can purchase any music you want for the comfort of your own home. iTunes and Rhapsody and other music engines are places where you can purchase music, movies, television shows, music videos, and audio books and download it in a reasonable amount of time.
Last but certainly not least is the extremely powerful and imaginative device called the computer. The computer was developed during the 1940’s through 1945. The first computer was as large as a big room and consumed so much power. Power equaled to several hundred modern computers. Like we read earlier this year, the ability to even come close to using a computer took months of planning and a high security level pass to even go near one for just an hour. Today we have computers in practically everything we own. From jet fighters to iPod to kids toys. Computers are everywhere. Children’s toys have computer chips in them to either make them talk or run around. There are even little kid computers. Technology has really stepped up in the last few decades. We now have the leisurely ability to talk face to face with people around the world via webcams. Simple computers can now fit into wristwatches and are powered by a watch battery. There are so many different ways you can use a computer. Computers can help you find and buy airline tickets, buy clothes, stay connected with friends and family members. Filling out job applications has got to be the worlds most boring task. All the questions are the same and you fill hundreds of them out, multiple times. The worst application I have filled out thus far has to be the application for Michael’s. It took me over an hour to answer all of those soul sucking questions. It would be awesome if I never had to answer a question about my character with either, strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree or strongly disagree ever again. Then again filling out applications online saves you gas money and time that you spend driving to all the different businesses to pick-up and drop off your applications.
The computer and the internet also helped me find my amazing truck. My parents have always told me that if I ever wanted a car of my own, id have to pay for it myself. That is until graduation rolled around. They surprised me by telling me they would help me buy a car. You could just imagine my thrill and excitement. I have always wanted an old Ford pick-up truck. At first I found a yellow 1970 F-100 for about $600, but when I called the owner he lowered the price to $400. It was too good to be true! The next day I bought it, drove it to the car wash and spent two hours washing and vacuuming it out. When I took my beloved truck home I spent a further three more hours cleaning it out and scrubbing it down. Long story short, this truck that I had fallen in love with, is completely useless and no longer runs. A few months and endless searching later my dad found a white 1971 F-100 and surprised me with it later that evening. Turns out he had spent hours looking on Craig’s List to help me find my perfect truck. He succeeded majorly! I love my truck way more than the last one, and my new one is in mint condition.
The internet is the most valuable piece of technology there is. The only way to access it is through a computer type device. Staying connected is an important thing in my life, whether it’s through emails to my grandparents or chatting on face book it is all fun to me. I first started really using the computer around sixth grade just for random projects and such. My freshman year was really when I had my eyes opened. It was during computer class when I realized just how much you could do and accomplish with a computer. That was when I really, really started using the computer. I am still terrible at computer related things but I will admit it has made some aspects of my life much easier. Staying in-touch with my grandparents through email has been wonderful. Being able to ask my professors questions about the lecture or homework assignments is extremely helpful.
Computers are also used as sources of entertainment. YouTube and addictinggames.com are very entertaining. Facebook, MySpace and other chat room things are very good time killers. You could spend hours on anyone of those and not even realize it. You can find anything and everything on the computer. It is a great tool that should not be abused.
Technology certainly makes my life much easier and much more pleasant at times. I am blessed to live in this technologically advanced era in time. I can not wait to see what is in store for my future, should be simply amazing.
October 20, 2009
“Little Brother”
At first I thought this story was going to be a waste of my time. As I started to read, dreading the experience, I realized that this story would go by faster than I had originally imagined. It kept my attention through the entire story. A fact which surprized me the most.
What I found the most interesting about this book is that the main character, Marcus, was planning to lead a resistance against the United States, and homeland security. I found that to be quite a big dream and not the best one at that. Home land security is there to keep us safe from more terrorist attacks. Resisting against them and making their life harder, just makes our lives harder as well. Granted what they did to Marcus was not too nice. If I were Marcus I would have been paranoid also. I would go crazy if I knew that someone was watching my every move and monitoring my every action. I think its important that we as Americans should be granted our freedoms, and not have it taken away just because of the current world situation.
Another thing I find extremely interesting is all the technology that Marcus and his friends have! Are those things real? Is there really a device that gathers all the information about the person that you just “accidently” bumped into? How on earth did he figure all of these crazy things out? Marcus and his friends are only 17.
The scene that exemplifies my amazement with Marcus’s technology is after he is released from being interrogated and decides to start a resistance. He and his friend decide to mix up peoples travel information. He has some sort of device that can tell you who this person is and what he has currently in his pockets. Just by “accidently” bumping into him, he has all that information and can scramble it with others to confuse the authorities.
October 8, 2009
Personal use of technology (Rough Draft)
My very favorite piece of technology is my cell phone. I love having the ability to talk to my friends and family anytime I please. My family and I travel a lot, so it is important to me to be able to talk to these people regularly. Cell phones give you the ability to stay connected around the world. When my family and I went to Europe this summer having our cell phones really saved us from less than pleasant situations. It also helped us find some really neat things to go do.
A cell phone can sometimes save your life. Not too long ago a girl was taking a shower when these burglars broke into her house. Luckily she had taken her cell phone with her into the bathroom, so she locked the door and called the cops. They were arrested and sent to prison. Cell phones can have the extreme opposite effect. Being attached to your cell phone all the time has some serious side effects. Countless people have died from totaling their car from texting and driving.
A while ago I had received this email about a boy who was electrocuted while he was sleeping. He had his cell phone plugged into the wall and had fallen asleep with the phone on his bed still connected to the wall. His parents found him the next morning dead, with burned hands and a charred bed. Another recent story was about this girl who was so addicted to Twittering that she was going to twitter in the shower, but when she went to plug in her computer, with wet hands, to the wall socket she was electrocuted. Her father found her later dead and with burned hands. These of course are the tragic cases, but too much texting is not a good idea, especially while driving. Cell phones are useful in many other ways. For instance a cell phone can keep important dates for you and later on remind you about them. They can wake you up with the built in alarm clock. Cell phones can also cruise the internet and play your music. Cellular devices are today’s mini computers with the ability to call one another.
Ipod’s are another important piece of technology in my everyday life. I use my iPod every single day. I wake up and turn my iPod on to help wake me up and energize me for the day ahead. I also use it while I’m doing homework to listen to some Etta James or Big Band to help me concentrate. It also helps me fall asleep when my mind needs to relax and listen to some soothing tones to calm my overactive brain. The magnificent iPod is my escape when I’m stuck in the car for 14 hours with only my dad on our annual road trips. It saves me from his Prairie Home Companion and the Rolling stones. I can only take them for so long. Being able to bring all of my music with me where ever I go is magnificently wonderful. Instead of lugging around my gigantic cd case full of cds and my portable cd player I have a small and compact music library at my finger tips. Carrying around all those bulky cds and cd player is a hassle and it is awkward. You are continuously worrying about scratching one of your cds and worrying if you brought enough batteries. Ipod’s are simple and compact. Music has become easier and easier to buy. You can purchase any music you want for the comfort of your own home. Itunes and Rhapsody and other music engines are places where you can purchase music, movies, television shows, music videos, and audio books and download it in a reasonable amount of time.
Digital cameras are the wave of the future. Back in the day cameras captured the wonders of the world, everyday hard working people and the beginnings of America. Without cameras we would not be able to capture these special and historical moments. We as a people would not be the same without our cameras and pictures. America would not have the meaningful pictures of beginning America, WWI, WWII and 9/11 to look back on. Now days we have digital cameras. A digital camera is a camera that can take video or still photographs digitally by recording the images via an electronic image censor. Digital allows a person to take as many photographs as they please without having to buy hundreds of dollars worth of film. It allows for more candid shorts, goofy moments and mistakes than a traditional film camera. With the technology now days you can hook up your camera to your computer and print them out or Photoshop them. When you’re done with that then you can either hook the camera up to the television or computer for a fun slide show of all your pictures and short movies.
Television is another major piece of technology. Having the ability to watch a thousand plus channels at the click of a button. When television first came out it only had three channels. Those three were all news and such. You had to get up and change the channel and work with the satellite antenna to get the next station. These days you don’t even have to move your lazy self off the couch to re-adjust the antenna or change one of the three channels. The government can guarantee that the public will get their news via television or radio. Everybody everywhere always has one or the other on. We as Americans spend more time watching television than anything else we do. If someone to observe our planet they would think we worshiped the television and that it was our god. To me that is absolutely ridiculous, we could be doing other much more productive things with our wasted time. Television has the power to go interactive and it has the ability to go online and display your pictures and record the shows you want to watch later on. The television is a powerful message giver, like I said everyone watches the television.
Last but certainly not least is the extremely powerful and imaginative device called the computer. The computer was developed during the 1940’s through 1945. The first computer was as large as a big room and consumed so much power. Power equaled to several hundred modern computers. Like we read earlier this year, the ability to even come close to using a computer took months of planning and a high security level pass to even go near one for just an hour. Today we have computers in practically everything we own. From jet fighters to iPod to kids toys. Computers are everywhere. Children’s toys have computer chips in them to either make them talk or run around. There are even little kid computers. Technology has really stepped up in the last few decades. We now have the leisurely ability to talk face to face with people around the world via webcams. During the 80’s it was the coolest thing in the world to have a wristwatch with a calculator on the front. Simple computers can now fit into wristwatches and are powered by a watch battery.
There are so many different ways you can use a computer. Computers can help you find and buy airline tickets, buy clothes, stay connected with friends and family members. The computer has helped me fill out and apply for job applications. It has helped me find my truck by looking on Craig’s list. The internet is the most valuable piece of technology there is. The only way to access it is through a computer type device. Staying connected is an important thing in my life, whether it’s through emails to my grandparents or chatting on face book it is all fun to me. I first started really using the computer around sixth grade just for random projects and such. My freshman year was really when I had my eyes opened. It was during computer class when I realized just how much you could do and accomplish with a computer. That was when I really, really started using the computer. I am still terrible at computer related things but I will admit it has made some aspects of my life much easier. Staying in-touch with my grandparents through email has been wonderful. Being able to ask my professors questions about the lecture or homework assignments is extremely helpful.
Computers are also used as sources of entertainment. Youtube and addictinggames.com are very entertaining. Facebook, myspace and other chat room things are very good time killers. You could spend hours on anyone of those and not even realize it. You can find anything and everything on the computer. It is a great tool that should not be abused.
Technology certainly makes my life much easier and much more pleasant at times. I am blessed to live in this technologically advanced era in time. I can not wait to see what is in store for my future and my kids future, should be simply amazing.
October 6, 2009
Games and Education
I think games are useful and destructive. Educational games are beneficial, of course, other games are also useful for creating memory skills and hand-eye coordination. Even learning team work. Destructive games are ones that teach violence and stealing are an ok thing. Degrading women and using language are also taught as an ok thing. Even though some of these more violent games have adult content and are rated for adult use, kids and younger people are still playing these games and learning that these things are ok. Its ok to treat women like objects. Its ok to steal things and use violence to obtain what you want. All things have a good and bad side, its up to you to decide if good outweighs the bad or visa versa.
The impact and function of games:
Games are merely a form of entertainment and should be played in moderation. Some games are highly addicting, everyone just wants five more minutes to beat that level or gather all the tokens. At som point or another everyone gets addicted to playing and trying to win games. Games in moderation are key to not becoming a couch potato.
