First day of presentations

Lorena:

China- Communication crisis seems like a great topic, In particular your focus on technological censorship and China’s human rights issues. What really caught my attention was the censorship photo of the little girl being executed and the fact that would not show up on a chinese web server. If you think about westernized censorship, we have a lot more roaming space BUT America itself still has strict censorship regulations, more so than European nations. From what I’ve read this has to do with the vast majority of the country being Christian. Going back to the China issue, it’s no secret that the Chinese government has a sort of Gung-ho attitude with certain issues, which I say, would be from over population and improper economical statues. These above reasons could be why the Chinese government try to hold information back from people on the web. Here is a quick list of things that are very common in Chinese society today and some issues that may impact the governments decisions. (http://chinaview.wordpress.com/10-things-to-know-about-china/
I think if you explain why the Chinese Government harbors its people from its own history or issues, your paper would be as powerful as that execution picture in class. Great job.

Sheila:

Just like I mentioned in class, I think going with the Club-Penguin site as your main topic would help explain your example of genderless sites, which after time, take on gender identities. Here is a good article about the identity’s and the worries about CP from the Chicago Tribune http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0703080167mar08,0,7203137.story
You could even talk about features as simple as, what color you can make your Penguin Avatar or the accessories you choose to dress your penguin in. Obviously the makers of the game made items in the game that people would connect genders with. For example, a girl would pick a pink scarf and generally a guy wouldn’t. I would think that because the sites or games are made by males or females they naturally have to have some gender aspects in them. You could even talk about movies, say for instance the new Pixar flick, Dragons. The Boy Dragons generally have more of an erratic movement and a boyish voice , where as the girls look almost identically the same BUT given a little eyeliner and more of a gentile movement.
Hope that helps, good stuff SHEESHEE

Maurice:

I find this topic super interesting. In particular,( like I said in class) the issue of the weather and how the grower obtains the information in the quickest way possible. This is essential information for me when I receive crop samples from various grower groups around the US. Dealing with recoveries of Pesticide residue I extract from certain crops, we are able to tell if the crops have been over or under stimulated with various weather conditions. Depending on the certain type of crop, this can play a major role in our recoveries of protective pesticide percentages. If the grower has inadequate information dealing with weather conditions they could potential harm their crops and loose safe pesticide protection. This ultimately creates bacteria and viruses, or in the recent USEPA Washington Apple project I worked on, cause Fire blight, which is a destructive bacteria that kills blossoms, shoots, limbs, and, sometimes, entire trees. With the advancements in technology most of the small grower groups, from what I’ve seen over the last 3 years, have been given the gift of smart phones and are ultimately on target with weather predictions, as much as the big corporations. Like you said in your presentation, “ cell phones cut out the middle man”. I think you have a great paper idea to support that statement.
Plus, your Maurice and you know a ton of stuff.
Hopefully that helped.

Here is a recent article from Yakima that will defiantly help you.
This software allows farmers who use mobile devices equipped with a Web browser to access weather data from the network while in the field.
http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2010/03/03/the-ifarm-weather-alerts-sent-to-farmers-cell-phones


Corrinda:

Since we're kind of doing the same paper I like your topic already. We talked in class about Marc Prensky’s book, “Don’t Bother Me Mom, I’m Learning” and the good stuff in the book. I’m pretty deep into the book and really like his idea of children being “Digital Natives”. He says the kids of today are programmed differently and need game based learning to move forward. I notice you talked about what style of games confront children with learning opportunities, and I think you can make that message stronger if you first talk about how parents (Which Prensky calls “Digital Immigrants”) should talk about games with there kids and learn the languages of a new age. The example in class of the matching game is perfect, we learn something by just pressing the button. The very first thing we learn in that game is that we need to hit two squares to reveal the items. We learn no matter what. Here is an article I’m pulling ideas from in a recent Wired.com interview with James Gee.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.05/view.html
I think your paper will come together really well when you tie together the facts. One point I would make is that the teachers must acquire new gaming and technology savvy to teach properly. Because kids are growing up In a technology frenzied culture they will easily sniff out an old style learning lesson and be unenthusiastic.

Good luck


Cynthia:

The topic of how the Internet sways politics is a very interesting one. With the recent election of Obama, we had mass amounts of voters that were provoked from online propaganda. The fact that Obama is the first black president in our history, it was no secret that it was going to stir up the cyber-culture, sending it on a whirled wind adventure. Just like anything that goes “Viral” on the Internet mass attention is usually given to it. In our last blog assignment I talked about how social networking sites are being utilized by modern news stations, In a nut shell, this is what Obama did. And it was Brilliant. He utilized the Internet and its social tools; in return supporters loved the fact that he was doing that. And who uses the Internet the most? Our younger generation. It had such and impact on the people because they felt like they had a closer connection in such a big event. I think linking the cultural statues of the people around the time of the elections to, how the internet helped people spread their opinion, through self journalism, will lead to a great paper

Good luck, Here is an article on some of the ways Obama Utilized the internet for votes.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/how-obamas-internet-campaign-changed-politics/