facebook/myspace

MySpace and facebook wow where do I start. Today in class we just went into the lab to explore both MySpace and facebook. I have accounts on both pages I was going to delete my MySpace account, but kept it because of this class. MySpace and facebook and pretty much the same exact thing people use them to keep track of long lost friends. You can meet new people play games do anything that your little heart desires. I use mine to stay in touch with a lot of friends that I made while I was in the Marine Corps and while I was in Iraq. So many people these days hate both web pages and I think it’s only because they haven’t actually tried them out. I chat with friends on both upload pics, which reminds me that you can use it as space so you don’t clog up your hard drive with tons of pictures. We were able to add the writing center on both pages and add people from our class if we wanted to. With where both pages are headed who knows what the future brings for myspace and facebook there’s really an endless amount of things that you can do with the pages. I personally prefer facebook though I must admit it is way better I think than myspace, but with myspace you can decorate your profile more.
I really cant think of anything more to write about it’s a lil hard to make a blog of 400 words. Lets see… u can poke, add, chat, email, upload, comment, message, like, ah!!!! Theres to many things to do with it. I think everyone should have a facebook, and all of the old farts pissed about it should just shut up because its not going anywhere yall just need to face facts.

health

Today we discussed: YouTube Videos “Killing Us Softly 3”; “Dove Evolution”; and “Dove Onslaught” Articles “Brazilian Obesity: The Big Girl from Ipanema” and “Health and Fitness: Snip, Suction, Stretch and Truss”.
The big girl from Ipanema wasn’t about one girl but mostly about Brazil as a whole. The whole world needs to face the fact that there is a weight problem. We need to start to watch the things that we eat. When u go to brazil it’s not all skinny girls in bikinis its more like fat girls and fried chicken. It talked about facts and statistics about becoming a fat nation.
The other article was about more health and fitness, and how people these days are no longer workout to get better bodies. They are just way too busy to get fit the right way. So they get plastic surgery done to make they look however they want to look. When you look at it you’re not really getting fit.
The video killing us softly 3 is talking about things that are killing us, and how advertising convinces us to get these deadly things. I think its funny how people always fall for advertising. The other video was about dove evolution. Is about how they take just a normal girl with no make up on and turn her into a pretty girl with using a computer, and turning her into something that someone would want to be. The last one is called dove onslaught showing a little girl, then showing fast pictures of all these models, girls working at the gym and some getting a boob job or liposuction. Then at the end it says “talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does”. Meaning if you don’t try to steer your daughter away from certain things she’s going to do this.
All in all today was a good day. It makes you take a look at all of the things going on in the world today. People are doing so much to their bodies and not worrying about the consequences. I guess that they will have to learn the hard way. I am for one against all this lypo and plastic surgery. If you want to get into shape work out eat healthy and do the right things don’t drink and smoke so often be smart

facebook wars blog 17

Today in class team one read and discussed the four articles. Colleges scan Facebook during admissions, Jury Out on Facebook’s Impact on Grades”; “Facebook Sparks Suspicion”; “Does Facebook Replace Face Time or enhance it. All of the articles were very interesting. Doing some of the things that these articles talk about could possibly start huge arguments.
The first article was about colleges scanning facebook pages during admissions. I really can say whether I am for this or against this. There are things that I think should be kept for only friends to see, but then again if u put it on facebook obviously you are proud of it and want the world to see it. When people see things on pages that are bad whether you want to admit it or not it will affect the way that people think about u. so students should be real careful about the things they post. Another option is to make it under a fake name so nosey people at college can’t see it!!!
The next article was saying whether or not facebook affects grades. I for one am getting sick and tired of these people that don’t like something trying to ruin it for everyone else. It really pisses me off. I think that it is the students self control not facebook! Come on people need to start taking responsibility for themselves, and stop blaming everything in life on the internet or whatever is popular at the time. It’s not students its old people who have a problem with new technology that is affecting peoples grades.
The next article was also about facebook. It was about jealous people getting mad about pictures and things that might be posted online. There were a few cases where fights started within relationships because of partners in securities. People need to start getting smart about the thinks they post. I don’t know if u have realized it yet but every old person in the United States has a problem with facebook. If your girlfriend of forever gets pissed and leaves your ass it’s no one’s fault but your own.
The last I hate facebook article of the day was about if facebook replaces face time, meaning that people do not spend a lot of time together anymore because any thing they have to say that just say it online. In a lot of ways that is true.

pandora or last fm

Today was a good day in class: we got to do my favorite thing, which is surf the world wide web. Our assignment was to look at Pandora and last fm. Ill tell yall now that I use Pandora a lot so ill try not to just automatically dislike the other site.
Who ever decided to come up with an idea like Pandora was a real smart person. For those of u that have no clue what Pandora or last fm is let me explain: its sort of like an online radio station, except for the fact that you can choose the music that you want to hear. All you do is go to either of the two web sites you have to register for an account. You don’t really have to get an account if you don’t want to, but its free and it makes things a lot easier if you do. You type either the name of the band or song in the search bar, and it creates a radio station for you with that music and anything similar to it for you.
Last fm was pretty much the same thing, you type what you want to hear and it creates a station for you. Now I said that I wasn’t going to automatically pick Pandora over last fm, but I have to. Both of the sites of things that I didn’t like though. I don’t really like the fact that you can’t skip to many songs, I mean why would someone try and force you to listen to something that you don’t want to hear? Also you cant skip more than seven songs an hour, and if u pass a song on accident you cant go back. When you type in a certain song to hear ya it creates the station but the specific song that you wanted to hear doesn’t come on for like an hour. Last fm I think was a pointless website. It doesn’t have as much music as Pandora does by far, and it has all of the same problems as Pandora. There is a lot of good things about the sites though, and I love to listen to them

writing center

Today was a good day. I had my second writing center experience it went well. It was a little different this time, instead of me reading the paper out loud this time the tutor did. I kind of like it when the student has to read the paper out loud because you can catch a lot of the mistakes that you might of made. Never the less it’s a good experience. When Mrs. Crawford first told us that san Antonio college requires all students writing a paper has to get there paper looked at in the writing center I was a little mad. I thought that it was stupid and a waste of time. Turns out I was wrong. The writing center is a really good thing. It helps out so much, ill never write a paper again without going there. Back to my paper, the tutor did a good job helping me on this assignment I pretty much nailed it she just had to help me with a few little things, and of course I had to add details. I was really happy when I got the tutor that I got assigned because she really knew the assignment and what Mrs. Crawford looks for. The girl mad my day when she said that my writing paper was excellent. I think next time I will defiantly get an appt in advance. The only the bad about the san Antonio college writing center is that it is always booked up, you have to get an appt like two weeks in advance. Our next writing assignment is coming up Mrs. Crawford hasn’t really told us what it about but I already have my appt ready to go. I would also like to say that I wish they would get more writing counselors so that maybe we could get an appt easier. They have plenty of computers in there and it’s the only computer lab on the whole campus that you are allowed to have food and drinks in, so it’s a real relaxed place to go and work on papers. I would recommend everyone go there even if you’re the best writer ever

commenting

Well today we went to the writing center the task was to read our classmates blogs up to this point. After looking over the entire classes’ blogs I decided just to comment on two blogs from my group. I decide to do Jesse and Stevens’s blogs.
The first one was jesses, he wrote about to of the four articles that we discussed in class. The first one was reading, writing, Iphoning. The second was e campus news. My comment was: I like your opinion. I think it is crazy where technology is at in the world today. I would rather have a laptop. Personally I don’t even like iphones; I’m more of a blackberry man myself. I also don’t see how a college can require the students to have an iphone, I’m pretty sure they already have a cell phone so why would they need to have another one. It’s just a waste of money that college students already don’t have. I also like hoe you touched on the article talking about the red, yellow, and green light. It kind of gives the students an idea where the stand and if they need to buckle down.
The second one was Stevens, he wrote about Brazilian obesity, and colleges scan facebook during admissions, I wrote: Way to go on your blogs. You were descriptive enough to where I knew exactly what you were talking about in the obesity section. I think it’s really sad when people get that way. When it comes to colleges getting to look at your facebook I think that is a big invasion of privacy. Its not right to let some stranger that you don’t even know yet go thru your stuff. I think that it isn’t there business what you do in your off time as long as you do well in school. I think it’s just another way that the college tries to use to boss you around.
I think it is a good idea to comment on other people’s blogs, it’s a great way to get insight on what the classmates think about what we do in class. I didn’t mind having my blogs commented on it’s a great way in kind of interact with our peers.

timeline

Everyday I go to my English class and I actually can say that I learned something new not many people can say that. Today we got into groups and started to work on our vlog essay assignment. I paired up with Jesse. Our assignment for that day was to create a time line of what happened in our video blog. For those of you who might not know what that means it’s easy all you do is make a time line, and in the beginning you write what happened in the first minute of the video. At the end of the time line you write what happens at the end of the video. For the middle parts all you have to do is and what happened in sequence what happens for the rest of your video. For some people this is real easy, for the other students who loved short videos it’s probably hard. My video was the perfect length so it was pretty easy.
I like the time line idea it really helps the writer get a good plan going of what he wants to write about, and where he wants everything to go. It really makes writing the paper o much easier. When I sat down to write my descriptive essay on my you tube vlog I know where everything is going to go no questions asked.
When it comes to starting to write my essays it’s like I freeze up, I’m not sure why I do that I just do. This new timeline way is the perfect way to write something so ill have no excuses on why I can’t start to write the best paper I can possibly write. I’m not to sure if the timeline method is only for video essays or not but I can promise you that I’m going to use it for every paper from here on out no matter if it’s a descriptive essay or a research paper.
Like I said before this is a great method the only thing that could probably help me more is to add more details. It is always good when writing a paper to have a lot of details so the reader gets a sense of being there with you.

my Vlog

After watching vlog after vlog I think I finally found one that I can write about. First off let me tell you what a vlog is. It’s like a blog just like this but instead of going to a website and typing it in its all done by video on you tube. I’m writing my paper about this guy from Wisconsin. Online he goes by Couver87. It talks about things that he does in his life. He seems to me like a weirdo but at the same time his vlog gives me a lot to write about. The first part of his video talks about how he went to a presidential speech. He is also very into movies… weird movies. It also talks briefly about an internship that he does.
He had never written a blog before but all of the fans he has wanted him to. I don’t know how he had so many fans, but he does. The guy has tons of videos posted online. Now back to the speech. He attended a presidential speech addressing the educational system. 75,000 people attended this event and it took three hours to get through security and two hours to get into your assigned seat. His friend was working the security at the venue and was able to escort him to the side of the stage, so he was very close to the president. I’ve never ever gotten to go to a place like that before I can only imagine how cool it would be.
He really enjoys going to the movies, he says that he is going thru a movie phase in his life. He talks about a recent movie that he has seen called earth it’s about human nature and how animals eat each other. He also like wolverine and star trek personally ive never seen any of the three and I’m pretty sure that I never will. He also like twilight the movie and the books. Once again ive never seen it.
Lastpart of the vlog he talks about his appearance. He dresses like a slog and doesn’t care about how he looks. He tries to clean up in the video but it does no good.

an anthropological introduction to you tube

Today I watched The You Tube video “An Anthropological Introduction to You Tube” Wesch talks about the popularity of You Tube. It talks about how the three guys decided to make you tube and they’re first video. He says that web links everybody mainly people. Also he communicated with somebody from Africa to put a video onto the page he was making. He is a teacher and has about 10 students. In classes they’ll talk about You Tube. Surprisingly 35+ men and women are the ones that upload videos the most. He shows “Charlie bit my finger”, which is a baby who has the coolest accent ever. Then about the song “Soulja Boy” and shows how quickly people all over the world watch these videos, and then make remixes to the videos. Also people about web cams, and when you talk you’re sizing up the context and you don’t know when you’re getting watched. Mike then talks about vlogs, which are video blogs. I noticed how people are nervous doing it for the first time. People in the videos were stuttering and did not really know what to say. You Tube has sections of most viewed, top rated, because people will try to be stars of You Tube. There are so many different types of videos on You Tube, you can look up anything and most likely they will have a video about it. Whatever you can think of, You Tube will have it. You Tube has brought the world together, people communicate and comment videos from Japan, Korea, and Africa. I know I always talk about this, but I still can’t believe how far we have come and how far the internet has come. I think it is safe to say that we would be so lost if we didn’t have the internet and you tube. I’ve always been a big fan of you tube, I’ve posted several videos on it I just wish I could remember the links. There is always something funny to watch on you tube. I love the crazy Indian videos of Romulus and Edgar. I can always rely on you tube to brighten my day.

deffernces in blog and email assignment

Reflect on the difference between Blog 3’s email and the email etiquette essay you have been writing. There are a lot of differences between the two assignments. Blog 3 was just us writing to a friend about how upset we were about a grade that we had received. It was basically us just venting there was a certain format that we had to follow. I chose to write mine to a classmate who is also in my group. I basically just threw a temper tantrum about a grade that I had received because I was mad about it. That assignment was good because it gave the class a chance to sort of practice for the email etiquette assignment
In the email etiquette assignment we had to actually use a format. We had to send an email to a teacher that we once had or even one we just made up. We had to request a grade change for a big assignment we had done. We had to go into detail we had to make it seem like we thought we did a good job and thought that we deserved a better grade. We had to then take the rough draft, and schedule a appointment with the writing center to have the paper revised. Once we were done with that we made the recommended changes, and look it over again. The blog was easier of course because we just had to write something it didn’t really matter what it was. The essay was harder because we had to actually take the time to make it as perfect as we could get it. I liked the essay assignment more though because it challenged us, and we learned ways to make things better. The class also learned the process of college writing, and how important is to follow the steps to get the best end result. The biggest thing I learned was how important it is to schedule the appointment in advance.

relecting on todays class monday

Today class went really well; we all broke down into our groups to discuss the latest writing assignment. We all took our turn to read our paper The email etiquette essay, to our fellow group members, once each member finished reading there essay the rest of the group gave them pointers on what to do to make there paper better. We discussed way to either shorten or lengthen our essays. We discussed different ways to write things to make them sound better. It was really good to hear what the other members of our groups thought about what we had written. Know we can go back thru our essays and add or take away things to make a better grade. The one thing that I learned was to listen to what everyone has to say because whether or not I liked it the might have been right. Also when you are doing something like that you can take it easy on them. No matter if you wand to make them mad you have to be honest with them, if not they could get a bad grade, and it would be your fault. I mean how you would feel if they just blew off the process, and you ended up with a bad grade. It could have been stopped if they would of only told you that you needed to change something so small. So all in all class was great I know what I need to change on my essay to get the grade that I deserve, and will make sure I do so by Friday.

reflecting on todays class friday

Today in class we read and discussed four articles: “Internet Dating 2.0” “The Dating Detectives” “Getting back into it” and “Is eHarmony Biased Against Gays?” My group read the articles and then the class asked questions about them.
The first article internet dating 2.0 was about the online dating scene. It basically tells the reader how to set up an online profile, and the process that the online dating company takes to approve you for use. They even take it so far as to do a criminal background check, and possibly are urine test to make sure you don’t have a disease. It talks about how people use the site, and what kind of things a person who tries it out might experience.
The second article The dating detectives: this article talks about a man from India. He was on an online marital site where he met a girl, they had been seeing each other on and of for awhile. The relationship was getting serious but he had no way to tell if she was being truthful so he hired a private detective, and found out that in fact she was seeing another man. It also talks about how much the people of India use private detectives these days to check up on people that they meet using online marital sites.
The third article Getting back into it talks about what its like for older people to get back into dating. After having being married, and getting divorced or losing there spouse a lot of them turn to online dating. They say that it is a lot easier for older people to date because they have been there and know what it consists of. Some even end up being with people way younger than they are.
The last article is eHarmony biased against gays? The website is not against gays, eHarmony is a website that promotes marriage, since gay marriage is illegal they why would the promote it. There are plenty of gay websites that help them find a partner.

reflecting on todays class sept 16

Today class went well; we went over our next assignment which is writing an essay on email etiquette. We have to write an essay in the form of an email. We talked about different scenarios that would require us to send an email like that. It was funny how some people would be sneaky enough to u email to try and stop a love triangle. I personally have never done that but I do think that it would be pretty funny to try. I’ve always had trouble when it came to writings assignments, but I actually think this one might be a lil easy. We just have to write an email to any teacher we want asking for reconsideration on our grade. The paper has to be three paragraphs, with six complete sentences in each paragraph an introduction and a conclusion. It needs to have a thesis. If you don’t know what that is it is a statement of purpose. The hardest part about the whole thing is just going to be how to word it. I’m just going to use Mrs. Crawford as my teacher since I haven’t been in school in so long, I’m just going to talk about how much time and effort I put into the paper the research I did and the articles I read to get my information. I think that I should get a good grade on this assignment if I do all of the things that I am supposed to do. What could go wrong right? As long as I revise it and make sure everything is perfect, there can’t be any typos, no sentence fragments, no slang or texting language. I’m sure that I can keep the reader interested that’s probably the easiest part. Well I’m off to write my essay wish me luck.

fridays disscussion

Today group four read and discussed four articles dealing with the world today. There are two that I think stuck out more than the other two.
Where phones in class are ok: in this article it talks about a guy named Tyler Auten, he dealt with an iphone in his class, this class was learning how to create iphone applications, for a new course. He ended up developing two applications, which have been downloaded 11,000 times for 99 cents each. A lot of universities are starting to develop classes like this for other kinds of phones. Classes like this are good because it gives students a new thing to learn about, and its pretty cool to be able to know how to make applications, debug them and sell them.
New iPod rules touch off heated debate: this article talks about how freshman students are required to have iphones, iPod touches, or other devices. A university in Missouri requires students have one of these devices. They use them to download lectures or to surf the web. They’re using these devices as a replacement for books. The school made a deal with apple and it gets a 10 percent discount. The school likes it because now the student can listen to lectures wherever the may be. The students might not have to fork out the extra money to buy these devices because they can include the cost in there financial aid.
Its crazy when u think about how far we have come this day and age. I cant believe that schools can offer a course on how to create phone applications. I think that the idea of making students have a device to listen to lectures via ipod is a good thing. It makes it to where students wont have an excuse for not doing what they are told. Its so convienent to be able to listen to your lecture while you are driving or working out.

wednesdays disscusion

In today’s class we read and discussed four articles dealing with things that are going on in the world. Out of the four articles these are the two that stood out to me:
Txtng: the gr8 db8, in this article they just talk “trash” about txtng. People are saying that it is a bad thing for writing, and language skills. People get so used to abbreviating words in their texting that they also do it when writing. People that can’t read nor write are also hurting themselves by using txtng language. People also feel that “texting doesn’t erode literacy it actually challenges literacy skills” I personally think that there is nothing wrong with texting, and the people that write like they are texting just aren’t paying attention to what they are writing.
Clive Thompson on the new literacy: in this article they talk about how technology may or may not be to blame for an age of illiteracy. This day and age a lot of things are done with the use of a computer. Writers are saying they think technology is killing our ability to write. Personally I don’t think it is. We do our research and write a paper, we just use a computer to type that paper. How does that change what we have written? They also talk about how people are doing a lot of socializing online with facebook, and twitter. Yes younger people are shorting they’re words but when it comes down to writing a paper it will still be done right. I mean what’s wrong with using all of this new technology, isn’t that what it’s for?
So those were just two articles that we went over. I think its funny how people are trying to use new technology and new cell phones as an excuse for a problem. If you look at facebook probably more than half of the people using it are older.

reflecting back on todays discussion

Looking back today’s class went really well. I discussed everything that we will be doing, and what to expect from this course. We went over the syllabus, talked about the different assignments we will have to do, and essays to write. I think I can safely say I’m excited about this class. I was real nervous about going back to school since I haven’t been in so long, but I think it will be ok.
We will also have to have a MySpace and a facebook for this class; I guess that’s kind of cool, I just deleted my MySpace account so I guess I will have to start a new one over again. Too bad it takes forever to setup. We will read and talk about some articles about both facebook and MySpace.
For the class we had to set up groups. In the class there are four groups, my group is group two. So far I like the group that I am in I think that we will all work well together and get a lot of things done. There are five people in our group, and we are all guys. Most of the things that we have done so far and will do the whole class are done as a group so I hope all goes well.
In this class we will have to do a lot of writing and things. I’m looking forward to that because; I’m not the best writer out there. Everyone can always use some more knowledge when I comes to writing, and learning how to do the steps better. A lot of hard work has to go into writing a good paper.
Well I’m really excited about this class and all the things that we will do. I think it’s a good class to get me back into the swing of things.

writing to a friend about an unfair grade

Dear Jesse,
I can’t believe the grade I got on that last essay what the heck was the teacher thinking. It took me forever to write the essay, do the research, and then type it out. I just don’t understand what the big deal is not even an “e” for effort, oh well I guess she doesn’t have a heart. I bet she would be mad if she did the same paper I did and got the same grade. I can’t believe how they act like the don’t even care cause it isn’t they’re grade. One of these days something like that is going to happen to them then I bet they’ll realize how it feels. Actually I’m sure they all ready do know how it feels, yet for some reason they do it anyway, it isn’t fair. I don’t know man maybe its just the military coming out in me, I’m so used to being around people who screw you over on a daily basis, and don’t really care what happens to you when I comes down to it. I guess I was just hoping now that I’m back in the real world it would be different. It’s not like I was writing a letter asking for world peace or anything, it was just a simple lil research paper on my favorite president, which I might add defiantly wasn’t done on Obama. Man if I did have to write a research paper on him I could probably talk forever about how much of a loser he is. You should hear the new things he’s doing this week.
Well I think I have vented for long enough, ah I feel so much better. Next time she asks me to write a paper she better be wearing a helmet because I’m going to blow her mind!

my writing process

When it comes to me and the way I write, I would have to say that it takes me awhile. I would put it off all the way up until the last minute. Ill go hangout with friends, bbq, wash my truck, clean house ill do anything. When I finally start to write the paper, I have to be in my room. I am easily distracted, but at the same time it can’t be completely quiet. I like to have the lights a lil low, and either my TV or my radio going. I don’t sit at a table. I lay in my bed and type away on my laptop. I usually have all my research there and I always go back and check to make sure I did everything right. I also add later on when I find something else that might be a benefit to whatever paper I am writing about. Unfortunately I also find myself up real late the night before the paper is due because I wait way to long. I double check everything and spell check a billion times before I can say that I am done with the paper because for some reason I can never not second guess my work. I’m always so tired by the time I am done that I find little mistakes I have made along the way. I’ve tried to change the way that I do my writing but for some weird reason I think I write better under pressure. So I never make it to far

How do you use technology in your world?

I use technology these days in so many ways. Whether it be through my cellular phone, the computer, or even my vehicle. I don’t think that a man can survive 2009 without it. We text message more than ever, I don’t think you can do anything without a computer. Everyone is always on facebook, myspace, twitter, or even just checking an email. In a given day I probably send 200 text messages to people in my circle of friends. My vehicle has Bluetooth so I can talk hands free through my speakers. I use my iPod probably more than anything else, I use it in my truck through my radio, I use it when I’m running or working out, or when I’m walking from class to class. We even have technology in out TVs with all these flat screen TVs and HD satellite receivers. My favorite new technology is probably the blu-ray movies I watch those all of the time, it makes everything so clear.