Blog #4 - Reflecting on today's discussion, groups, upcoming assignments

Well, on Friday we reviewed our upcoming assignments and how to download all the information we need. During the upcoming semester, we will be looking at YouTube videos. The first one we will look at is by Mike Wesch. It’s a very interesting video because Wesch talks about how YouTube got its start. He doesn’t just mention how YouTube was created, which is interesting by itself, but he also talks about how it became so popular. We’ll also look at another short video by Wesch. It is about how technology has changed the way we do things. Mike Wesch isn’t the only person’s videos we’ll be watching though. We’re going to see a video about MySpace and Facebook, and a couple of videos about media and self image, including a discussion about how commercials affect us.

We will also create a MySpace and Facebook page this semester. Eventually, we’ll write an essay about MySpace and Facebook, identifying their similarities or differences. Another thing we are going to do this semester is look at Internet dating. We’ll read some articles about Internet dating, and hopefully we’ll get to look at some Internet dating commercials and consider how the media works here in this situation to help people define who they are (at least mentally). Something else we are going to look at is how the Internet is used in other ways, like downloading music, listening to music (like public radio), and rating people (like rateyourprofessors.com). If people don’t already know about these things, I think they should. The more you know about the Internet, the better off you will be overall. It’s important to use your tools to get the best out of your educational experience, or your life experience for that matter.

Most of the reading we will be doing will come from the Internet. All the articles will come from Time Magazine (online), or some other similar online journals. We will be using our books, but only to look at specific functions, specific lessons we need to make sure we know.I hope the teams are going well. I have already seen how some teams might need to tighten up a little bit. It looks like they aren’t totally together, but hopefully their leaders will help the members start communicating and working together better. It looks to me like most everyone is getting their blogs up and running pretty smoothly. It also looks like everybody is beginning to enjoy their class. I think we have a great couple of classes, and we’ll have a great semester