2/28/14 My Digital Life

Digital communication is essential in the world of today.  Of course, digital communication is the sharing of information digitally through technology.  Something with so much influence must have a substantial risk of danger.  Many people don't know that what they do on the internet can dramatically impact them.  It's on the web, right?  It's just a computer.  This isn't so.  Not only on the internet can you be in danger, but also when using digital devices in the real world.  Texting is a great example of this in action.  Though the majority of people don't text while they're driving, it's still a major issue causing numerous car crashes every year.  Many people think that it will just take a moment to respond to a text.  Though this may be true, that fact doesn't take away from the danger of doing it while driving.  When texting and driving, your brain can only focus fifty percent on each.  This does not result in doing a good job at either.  This can quickly and easily result in disaster.  The best thing to do is put your phone out of reach, turn it off, or ask someone in your family or a friend driving with you to text for you.  You are also in potential danger online.  Whatever you upload or send can never be deleted.  At least, it's so extremely unlikely that it is almost impossible to get rid of it.  People save photos, share videos, send texts, repost audio files, and reblog things all of the time.  If any of your friends or family are ever in trouble on the internet, you should talk to them about it immediately.  You should also inform an adult, preferably the victim's parents, so that they can offer any assistance they can to help fix the problem.  Let's say somebody sends an inappropriate, revealing picture to a close ¨friend¨.  The ¨friend¨ might send it to some of his or her friends who could send it to their friends.  Eventually the picture could be spread out across hundreds of people.  Everyone digitally communicating must be careful with what they send and receive on their digital devices.  Many things can very quickly get out of hand.  I found a video called A Brief History of Communication at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDkxsNmKDGk&scrlybrkr=5ba99451 that, like the name alludes to, illustrates communication from the beginning to the communication of today.  It explains how people first shared information through speech with each other.  Later they write it down, sharing the information with others.  Then a man communicates through a telephone to a person that broadcasts it on the radio.  A baby and grandmother here it over the radio.  A couple sees it on their television.  A man prints out a fax of it.  Another man sees it on his computer and calls a friend to tell him or her amidst a world full of technology where everybody is connected.  I agree with binjder, the person who posted the video, ¨Live life unmuted¨.

2/21/14 My Digital Literacy

Computers are becoming more and more important as time goes on.  All computers are made up of three parts.  There is the hard drive, RAM, and the processor.  The hard drive stores all the things you need for later.  RAM, or random access memory, makes some information quick and easy to access.  The processor is always completing tasks and making things work together.  In the past, computers were solitary workers that worked alone in homes and businesses.  Though in today's modern world, the internet allows us to use our computers in the cloud.  Cloud computing secures and backs up your information at other locations.  It enables your work to be accessible through the web.  The cloud companies have nearly unlimited storage and resources so that the user can continue to add to it without worry.  The information is backed up at numerous locations promising protection.  The user only pays for what they use.  The user can also use new kinds of services that live in the cloud that are available on the web.  Email, word processing, and photo sharing can all be used in the cloud.  Cloud computing is efficient for businesses as well as people like you and me.  stored in the cloud, are always backed up, and accessible from any internet connection.  I think that computers will improve at an extremely fast rate.  Think of how long it took for Apple and Microsoft to become what they are today.  Apple was established on April 1, 1976.  Microsoft was established on April 4, 1975.  In about thirty-nine years, computers have evolved from the Altair 8800 in 1975 to the 2014 iMac.  I think that in the next five years, more computers will have slightly curved screens.  Game systems will be faster and be able to hold more information.  I think that in the next ten years, computers will be able to run much faster, charge much faster, and hold more information.  In the next fifteen years, I think that computers will be even smoother, thinner, durable, faster, lighter, and be much more versatile performing tasks nearly unimaginable today.  Just like last week, I found a wonderful TED Talks video that explains cloud computing at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeOb0rKrt7A.  A long, long time ago, people could only share information through speaking and drawing.  The only way to share that knowledge was by showing or telling somebody in person. Eventually writing came about making information more easily accessible.  When computers were created, it made information from around the world accessible from your lap or table.  Though this is all nice and good, the information is still somewhat trapped.  Cloud computing bundles up a whole bunch of information and makes it instantly available in software service packages.  As Juan De Fuca said in his TED Talk, cloud computing is ¨a canvas for using and sharing knowledge that was previously unavailable¨.  Computers have come a long way in the past thirty-nine years, and cloud computing makes information all the more abundant and accessible. o:-)

2/12/14 My Digital Literacy

Digital literacy is the ability to use technology to navigate, evaluate, and create information.  It touches almost everyone in the world today.  Though digital literacy is very beneficial, it started off very quickly causing many to fall behind.  Most fields require its workers to be some what digitally literate.  Technology is also important when communicating with family and friends.  Digital literacy is helpful in daily life for personal enjoyment and managing events with others.  I want to learn how to use electronics more effectively, efficiently, and safely.  I would like to easily choose and know how to use the best format available when wanting to record information digitally.  Digital literacy is a very important skill set.  In today's world, it would be quite difficult to live without having at least some digital literacy.  So much revolves around it, and more and more is becoming that way as time goes on.  There are digital natives and immigrants.  A digital native is someone born into the digital age.  This does not mean that he or she is automatically digitally literate.  They still have to learn everything in order to become a digital citizen, or a person who utilizes information technology aiding them in engaging in politics and society.  Somebody that adopts technology later in life is a digital immigrant.  Digital natives are hindered in their education due to the fact that teachers today are almost all digital immigrants.  Studies show that technology has changed the way students process, read, and perceive information.  Luckily at Peninsula Catholic, we all use Google Chrome for much of our academic work.  This helps us to gradually grow our digital literacy as we progress through our classes.  This blog that you are reading right now is a product of this progressive learning environment.  Digital literacy has proved most successful in producing successful, lucrative economies in countries around the world.  I found a Ted Talks on digital literacy at the website http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8yQPoTcZ78&scrlybrkr=e1737340.  I like how in this video, Doug Beshar compares it with learning to play a musical instrument.  It takes a while for gestures to get engrained.  It takes practice.  He also mentions memes.  They are ideas, behaviours, or styles that spread in a culture.  They have been around for more than one hundred years.  There is a picture from 1905 of a cat in a dress sitting in a chair with text below that reads, ¨What's delaying my dinner.¨  His point is that when people have ideas, they use tools to communicate it.  In the digital world of today, it is much easier to communicate information.  Mr. Belshar says that there are eight essential elements of digital literacies.  They are the cognitive, constructive, communicative, civic, critical, creative, confident, and cultural with the remix at the center.  Real digital citizens utilize these elements to communicate their remix on information they want to share.  Digital literacy is very important.  I am looking forward to learning how to be more digitally literate in my life.