Assignment 10

I have never posted a video on Youtube but I have posted videos using the posted items application on facebook, most of which came from other sites using their share function As for the statistics in the article, I was not surprised by the number of students who watch, send, or posted links to online videos. The reason being is that I, along with all my friends, have watched and referenced to videos seen online. Compare that to my family, most have never even heard of youtube, its popularity must come from younger adults becauses plus the fact most older its not stemming from older people. I selected this video link because I find the series, which got its start on youtube, really funny videos and its not just another relinked from another site onto youtube. As for alternative video search places I usually end up using yahoo or google video search engine options. What I believe makes Youtube a Web 2.0 application are: its accessibility, the freedom to post whatever you find interesting thus allowing you to share it, anyone can leave a comment on a video, you can subscribe to a author of a video and follow what they are posting, and users decided what videos make it on the homepage.

The video post link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2eH3vYbdGo

Assignment 9

The main similarities between the two websites are their encyclopedia like design and the ability of users to edit content. That is where the similarities end though. The difference are profound. Where wikpedia is composed by anyone, scholarpedia is composed of authors and professionals only. When editing, wikipedia authors have little control over it. Scholarpedia though the author must approve all edits. Also user interface was much better on wikipedia. Articles are simple to find which was unlike scholarpedia where article searching was a pain, I could not even find a good article on basic scientific concept like evolution. Wikipedia barely contains redirects to other sites while scholarpedia contained frequent links to Amazon.com, almost to the point where I question if it was just created by Amazon for advertising. Another difference is that most articles were full text on wikipedia and were exactly on topic while many articles on scholarpedia where just a sample of the text or search engine results that many times linked to the authors products. Finally the variety of articles on wikipedia have a mixture of scholarly and common interest while schlorpedia is what I consider just a very small fraction of scholarly information. As for use, I have used wikipedia many times trying to get background information on subjects or when I was just surfing the web. As for scholarpedia I used for the first time today and plan to never use it again due to the lack of information and its horrible user interface.

There are several concepts I find interesting. The first one is that wiki allows anyone to edit or contribute to a web page. The second concept is that answers/solutions have the opportunity to be easily created by a collaboration of professional ideas instead of each individually, which could have biases and errors.

I think based on the ease of misinformation that can be created on a wiki, its use for research should be limited to basic background research and should never be actually used to write a paper. As for projects, I think it could be used to organize and construct projects when parties involved have trouble meeting face to face.

Assignment 8

The tool I tried was the Google Docs online collaboration tool. The major advantage of this tool is how it makes it easy to sharing a document with multiple people, who in turn can download and edit the documents with out the mess. An example of how people were using this tool was for a group project for school. Everyone sent their specific section of the project for peer review. Then everyone peer reviewed the other group members sections. Once that was complete they pasted the project together and gave it a final review before completing it.
As for me, I have never used web tools like Google Docs or Zoho before this Web 2.0 assignment so I have no purpose or opinion of it. If I would use this tool though, I have several ideas. One would be the example mentioned before for group projects or labs. I could also use it as an Internet storage site for my school documents. I could also use it to do web based projects such as news letters or to collaborate data for research purposes with the help of other people.

Assignment 7

Using the criteria in Adam Bennington article, the podcast done by Oertelt was well done. First off the podcast was associated with a school and the speaker had first hand accounts of the events being described. Thus making him very reputable on the subject. Also the podcast clearly accompanied a credible web site and the host was clearly identified on the site and podcast. The podcast also used citation from the book An Unbroken Chain with straight readings from it. In addition the host can be contacted and the show was released on a regular basis. The podcast was also easy to access and the audio quality was excellent. Finally the podcast was easy to acquire from the website as well as a few podcast searching engines.

Of the three podcast directories provided I found that podcastalley.com was the easiest to use and had the podcasts I actually listen too. All had basic same search tools but this website had the search results I was looking for.

Currently none of my professors at SCSU use podcasts in their classes but I do have friends that do and they find that they are average.

Podcast link: http://www.collegeuniv.com/html/Downloads-req-getit-lid-260.html

Assignment #6

I can think of several ways one could use these tools for school or home. By using website, such as Digg, you can filter news to only subjects that you need to research or find interesting. Also the ability to see how others voted on an story can aid in seeing if a news article is worth your time. Mainly due to the fact it is unlikely an article poor in information or style will be voted for positively. In addition the ability to leave and read comments opens the doors to new research ideas or opinions by seeing the other side of the issue stated by another user.
Since there is a limited use of news articles, in my opinion, in college level work and reading is mostly being a leisure activity. I would consider theses tools for the most part a productivity detractor and more of an entertainment tool. Especially at work, since most work places discourage you from doing leisure activities during them. I should add though that my uses of these sites are limited. In fact I have never read a story as a result of seeing it on one of these sites.
When compared to other social sharing sites like Del.icio.us , I think they are both equal and should actually take pointers from each other. On the side of Del.icio.us they should implement the ability of users to rate the tags on their accuracy, and have those results influence the tags themselves. On the side of sites like Digg, they should implement a tagging system for easy searching of specific subjects and expand uses to more then news sharing.

My recommended site.
http://digg.com/football/Mistakes_cost_Vikings_in_high_scoring_loss_to_Bears

Assignment # 5

The tags that were assigned originally to the photo were: SCSU, library, millercenter, holocaust, genocideeducation, and darfur. The tags I recommended were most of the original ones plus: Miller Center, Genocide Education, savedarfur.org, and 2nd Floor West. The reason I recommended the first two tags was due to the originals being one long word. So breaking them into two words was both grammatically correct and made searches for them easier because most people searching for Miller Center will type 'Miller Center' not 'Millercenter'. I added the savedarfur.org tag because the site is easily read in the photograph and deserved recognition. As for the 2nd West Floor tag, adding that helped made the location of the photograph more known. So anyone willing to visit the place now knows more precisely were it is.

I used the photo hosting service photobucket once four years ago. From what I remember photobucket was not very user friendly and downloading photographs then placing them in a blog was very frustrating. If I remember right it did not even work so I quit using it after the first time. So compared to Flickr, which was easy to upload onto a blog, photobucket is a much more inferior photo hosting service.

I have uploaded images onto my Facebook account. When compared to Flickr both are easy to operate and user friendly. The only advantages I can give to Flickr are: the ability to tag photographs more than by who was in them and better sharing features. Also Facebook seems to have an all private or public design, Flickr is more custom.

Considering that you have complete control over who can and can not see your photos. I have no concerns for public photo sharing on Flickr. So I believe this service of making photographs public is a generally good experience.

Assignment # 4

I can see social bookmarking as both a tool for my research and an easy way to create bookmarks. It can be tool for research with one key feature. The ability to share and explore others tags. So now instead of just having to run a search on Yahoo or Google on my own. I just need to go to a social bookmarking site and click on tags that pertain to my research without filtering through the results on a search engine. Also I can see what other people are using as alternative topics for research which might aid me in finding new web sites for information. Finally, I see it as an easy way to create bookmarks. Now instead of searching all my bookmarks on a list, all I have to do is click on a tag. The best thing is that I can be on a friend's computer and show them a cool websites I found.

I plan on using this technology during school life as an early and late phase of research tool. During an early phase, where I browse many websites for information, this tool can tag and bookmark sites. Then when I'm ready to write the paper, usually two to three weeks later, I can click on the tag and visit the exact website I need for the particular section of the paper. Which is a time saver because after two to three weeks it gets hard to remember which sites contained what information. In my personal life I only could see it as a good and quick way to show a friends a cool or funny video without having to remember a URL.

Along with sharing sites with others that I find entertaining or educational and being a time saver. Other benefits as stated in The 7 Things You Need to Know About Social Bookmarking article about social bookmarking are: its ability to express different perspectives on information contained on websites, it ability to create online communities, the ability to gain knowledge from others perspective, and being able see how others link several smaller topics together into one major topic.

Assignment # 3

There are several things I like about RSS. First off, they are excellent ways to keep up on website updates. I usually end up forgetting to check one or two sites I regularly visit, and having tools like this ensures one does not miss anything. This tool also helps simply sites with many news articles posted daily. These readers place articles in a list like fashion making articles once lost it the sea of news more easy to discover. Finally these tools are fairly simple to use. Most RSS can be added with a button click. Then copy and paste of the URL into bloglines add feature.

I could actually see myself using RSS technology for my personal life having already placed several web sites I regularly visit on bloglines. How I plan to use this technology is mostly as a filtering tool on large new sites. This should prevent scrolling through news articles of little interest in order to find the ones I want. I also plan to use it as a time saving tool on sites that only update once every several months. Now with this tool I only have to visit the site once an update has been added instead on weekly searches.

The easiest tool for finding feeds was visiting my favorite web sites and looking for the orange RSS icon. The ease came from not having to search a database of information and simply just visiting the sites I care to have feeds sent to me about. Then posting the RSS feed link URL in bloglines.

Assignment # 2

I would say my knowledge in Web 2.0 tools is average for my demographic. Using "If the Shoe Fits" article as way of organizing my knowledge of Web 2.0 tools I would say I'm very knowledgeable in publishing platform tools having creating a blog of my own and several podcasts for SCSU. My familiarity with social networking tools are also excellent having spent time on and creating content for sites like Facebook and Youtube. I also have much experience in democratized content networks, for I have used Wikipedia almost weekly since my introduction to it several years ago. As for Virtual networking platforms, edited social news platforms, and content distribution sites I have barely used or heard of them until I read the description of them on the site. So my knowledge about them and their use is poor. Finally I have been aware of information aggregators since high school. When finding news relevant information for a particular paper topic was useful.

When talking about Web 2.0, most are referring to the change in Internet trends from limited linking, posting, and content editing on web pages among a limited amount of people. To where web pages at times almost entirely depend on people to post, share, link, and comment on information . I believe technology defines Web 2.0 because ever since the invention of the Internet or even media people have wanted to be able to manipulate what they see and be able to share it. Before the advent of the technology though, it required specialized knowledge and considerable amounts of time in order to do so. Now with new technology, this process is much easier allowing anyone with the desire to create, share, and edit information the ability to do so.

I believe Web 2.0 is not a radical departure from the ways we interact with each other. It just an easier way of doing so. Before Web 2.0 one could still share photos, it just required someone to take their photo album to a friend's house. Another example is that people were still able to comment or share news with others before Web 2.0. It just required someone with a willing ear instead of just logging to a site like dig. I do believe though Web 2.0 is a radical departure from Web 1.0 information. With Web 2.0 information is potentially less reliable with anyone able to post. For example hidden motives to articles are harder to spot. Instead of only well known institutions and people able to post information on Web 1.0. Now anyone can making it nearly impossible to detect.

Assignment Number 1

Since I have created a blog on another site I have had previous experience creating a blog. When comparing that process to this process one, I found the steps required to create an account on blogger.com frustrating. To even create a blog account I had to make a Gmail account, which I found odd because most site do not require a specific e-mail service account, and I had to edit my internet security options in order to log in. Which at my other blog site did not require. Besides that the set up and composing of a blog post were simple. I have discoverd though that blogger.com has much nicer publishing template with many features similar to Microsoft Word and easy photo/video embeding.