Podcast: Fast Forward

The second podcast I listened to this week for our assignment was the latest episode of Flash Forward, titled “The Witch Who CameFrom Mars.” This podcast generally takes some kind of situation and discusses it as how and why it may happen in the future. The show does seasons of episodes and the hostess (Rose) takes a break in between. This particular episode was special in that it was the last of the second season of episodes. (Eveleth, 2016)

It took a couple tries, but in order to produce this episode, she took all of the scenes (41) she’s had on the show, as well as large parts of scripts from the original Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The War of the Worlds and had them put into an AI. This AI is programmed to write short stories basically out of the information you give it – the 5-minute result was voice acted by people and included into the episode. (Eveleth, 2016)

It was quite interesting that the AI actually put something together that most of the time made sense – for a far out story that is. She had a few guest clips and they dissected and discussed how this story may have come to be and why things happened the way they did, from scientific and mathematical information as it may relate in the future. (Eveleth, 2016)

Rose takes suggestions from the public on future scenarios to discuss, and throws in fun references for listeners to catch during the show. Those who find them have a chance to win some goodies!

I hadn’t heard of this podcast prior to this assignment, but this episode interested me enough that I may check out a number of the past episodes. I’ll definitely be adding this one to my list of shows to track, and look forward to seeing what happens in November when season three begins!

Eveleth, R. (2016). Flash Forward | Every week a new future. Retrieved from http://www.flashforwardpod.com/

Eveleth, R. (2016). Episode 20: The Witch Who Came From Mars. Retrieved from http://www.flashforwardpod.com/2016/09/05/episode-20-something-martian-witch-way-comes/

Podcast: No Better Than Average

One of three podcasts I chose to talk about for this week is called No Better Than Average.  I chose this podcast as it is right up my ally -nerdy. It is just a couple of guys discussing technology, television & movies, video games and their families, among other geekery.

In the most recent episode I listened to, they had been discussing the controversy about drugs being used in the Olympics. They discussed an interesting theory that in this year’s Olympics the United States only won so many medals because they must be using a drug that is currently undetectable by the testing methods used on the participants. They had a guest on the show who covers medical topics as they relate to sports, who disagreed with this theory. (Jacob & Jeff, 2016)

The episode still had some geekery included, as they discussed Virtual Reality (VR) video games. There’s been a rise in the publicity of such games since more VR devices have been being released. As always, they also briefly touch on what they are fond of at the time. Technology-wise that week were specific earphones and an iOS ad blocker. (Jacob & Jeff, 2016)

If you’re looking for an all around geekery related recorded cast that’s fun and more on the casual side, give this one a shot!

Jacob, & Jeff. (2016). No Better Than Average -. Retrieved from http://nobettershow.com/

Children and Television

The “Did You Know 2.0” video offered the statistic that at least 20,000 hours of television had been watched by people by the age of 21. Within the shifthappens wiki, a topic on Sesame Street had been brought up by the user drewman152. He mentioned that the studio was letting go of 25% of their staff who were not main characters. Later he goes on to state, “Maybe this will give parents an incentive to spend more time with their kids and not rely soley on television programs for educational assistance.” (drewman152, 200) This was not something I thought about often, but I can see how the hours of television we watch as children growing up can look from the outside. (XPLANE, 2007)

As with anything, moderation is going to play an important role moving forward in this type of discussion. Are educational programs bad simply because they are on the television, tablet, phone, etc.? Not necessarily. While they do eliminate the experience of interaction between people, they are still learning when watching the right programs. It is when smaller children are spending more time and watching inappropriate programming for their age that issues may arise. Kids Health warns that watching over 4 hours a day, violent acts on programs, and risky behaviours are the most concerning watching behaviour seen among children and should be avoided.  (KidsHealth, 2016)

Drewman152. (200). Shifthappens – World Education by International Collaboration. Retrieved from http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/share/view/2001131

KidsHealth. (2016). How TV Affects Your Child. Retrieved from http://kidshealth.org/en/parents/tv-affects-child.html 

XPLANE. (2007). Did You Know 2.0. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

Studying Abroad

Another contributing shifthappens Wiki member made an interesting argument about studying abroad. Jdmarrs was currently studying in Sweden and commented on how much he had learned about the cultures of the world from a foreign perspective. Normally just receiving an education in your home country, you get that one perspective and that is it. I agree with their suggestion that if more people were able to study abroad temporarily, it would allow for better international relations, compassion and a plethora of educational benefits both during and following their experiences. (Jdmarrs, 2007)

The "Did You Know 2.0" video suggests that the United States has one of the lowest graduation percentages behind the countries of India and China. All of the graduates in India graduate speaking English.  (XPLANE, 2007)

Have you ever had to take a foreign language at an institute of higher education? I know I have had the opportunity, but it is considered an elective, which is easily completed taking another course. In high school a foreign language was pretty much mandatory, but we could only choose from French or Spanish. I did go to a private school, but I know some of the public schools in the area had a few more to choose from. I know that colleges and universities offer much more of a variety, but I don't think many people take them for reasons beyond it being a choice in that section of their requirements. Perhaps schools should be altering their curriculum a bit to create a more positive path to taking these courses as a start. They of course won't give the same feel and experience as actually studying in those countries, but they would at least fair better with the above concern by taking a foreign language. It can only help the individual to be able to speak more than their native language in my opinion. Other countries have excelled here - why should we be lazy and fall behind?

jdmarrs. (2007). Shifthappens – World Education by International Collaboration. Retrieved from http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/share/view/2001131

XPLANE. (2007). Did You Know 2.0. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

Technology in the Classroom

The video “Did You Know 2.0” touches on a number of interesting facts. One of these are that children are being given technology sooner in life. The example shown was that of the One Laptop per Child Project.  For my first discussion post this week, I have used the shifthappens wiki to search for a related topic. I came across a post where a teacher was asking what other educators were doing to help children be successful growing up in the 21^st century. She mentioned that she was one of the teachers using Moodle in her class. At her institution, this program is voluntary. (XPLANE, 2007; Jennifer_Kolb, 2007)

I saw one response that mentioned focusing on social media. Personally, I think it is a bit scary to think about young children engaging on the social media sites of today, but I can see how it could be useful, if heavily moderated. Individuals and companies across the world use this method of engaging (a big factor in web 2.0) each day. I wasn’t able to look more into the course provided on Moodle, but there was one in socially networked learning. It claims to offer help as far as teaching and learning through the use of social media in classrooms. Perhaps this is an example of how she could visit this topic further. (Jennifer_Kolb, 2007)

Another person made a good point on the argument of technology’s side, mentioning that as long as students are taking the time to learn the material, it shouldn’t matter what way they are doing so. I can see backing this statement up as well. Personally, I am not very keen on classroom settings and learn better in a comfortable and solitary environment. This is a huge reason why online learning has been successful for me. I don’t have the hang up of classroom anxiety, the pressure of needing to make it to class on a specific day or time, and I have many more materials to help my learning process on the internet. (Jennifer_Kolb, 2007)

Overall, I think that learning along with using technology will only be of benefit to children growing up – it’s the way the world is heading non-stop. The challenge is how to not make it such a huge part of their lives, where they are missing out on social interaction and life experiences.

Sources:

Jennifer_Kolb. (2007). Shifthappens - Preparation of students for the future? Retrieved August 31, 2016, from http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/share/view/1658333?replyId=2000827

XPLANE. (2007). Did You Know 2.0. Retrieved August 31, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

Flickr - Web 2.0 Photo Creations

The first part of our assignment this week was to create three photos relating to concepts of Web 2.0. Following their creation, we then had to use Flickr and add them, along with appropriate tags. Then we were to determine how many other photos were using those same tags and describe our experience using the site. My breakdown for each image is below:

Web2.0 had 80,656, but many of the images I saw did not pertain to the topic, as I would have thought. There were photos of just people’s names, nature, baby and pet photography, and random colour swatches. Personally I feel that this tag could have thousands – hundreds of thousands of related photos, but it seems to be inflated.

PrinciplesofWeb2.0 only had my photo with the tag

Oreilly had 47,669 results that were tagged. Many of those photos again were not similar to what my tag intended. There were a handful that were relevant from conference talks, however.

My second photo also used the tag Web2.0 (80,656 tagged photos)

Social Media had 267,424 photos with the tag, and a lot of what I scrolled through seemed to be relevant, but again, I would say in the manner I meant the tag to be used – the number was inflated with photos that wouldn’t have been relevant.

Networking showed 2,550,953 photos with the tag, and had similar results to the above.

My third photo used the tags Web2.0 (80,656 tagged photos), Tagging, WebTagging, and WebTags.

The Tagging tag produced 10,324,992 results, WebTagging, returned 2 results, and WebTags had 270 related photos.

Again, the tags with a high number seems to be inflated to me. Upon further inspection, I noticed that some of the photos didn’t actually have the words as tags. Instead, they were being returned in the search because of the use of the tag in their description.

I created my Flickr account back in 2005 and only used it briefly – I preferred Photobucket. It wasn’t a site I was completely unfamiliar with, so I did not have any issues uploading to my profile and tagging the photos. A feature they did not have previously, was the various copywrite options, which I liked this time around. 

Short Discussion on the Dumbness of Crowds

For this week's forum topic in class, we were given the article "The Dumbness of Crowds" to discuss.

After reading the article for the forum post discussion this week, I can’t say that I am entirely on one side or the other. I do support collaboration efforts, especially since I have come to use so many of them, and find them to be successful in their purpose. On the other hand, I also can see the author’s point of view and agree that not all collaboration works work well.

A big part of creating a type of art, whether it be music, drawing, writing, etc., is the backbone of expression. Can more than one person create some kind of work together and have it be successful? Sure! I bet they could, but more often than not, these types of works are normally completed by single people. Artists of any medium use self expression daily to produce these types of things and 100% collaboration will never be reached in my opinion.

Bringing the discussion back to software programs, which we discussed last week: I still believe that these can be done well with collaborative efforts. While I do agree that sometimes part of the exciting new ideas tend to be left out or stretched out, there is still so much more that people can weigh in on through coding for example. While one person’s new idea may take rise, the efforts of multiple people working on that idea will help bring it to life much quicker than if that person were to do it on their own.

I think the phrase “the dumbness of crowds” goes well beyond us discussing Web 2.0 as well. We are usually forced to collaborate in our daily lives, especially when it comes to our jobs. We either work as a team, or don’t and face the consequences. Of course, if you are in certain positions, this won’t be the case, but it will be for the majority. We are asked to be able to work efficiently alone and to be able to be part of a team. Sometimes this goes a lot easier than others. When there is tension or mixed feelings about how things should proceed, there will be those to take a firm stance, and those that sit back and stay quiet, never letting their opinions be heard.

The article was definitely an interesting read and was about two sides I would have not really given much thought to before. I enjoyed that there were so many additional links to other blogs and resources with articles on the same for future reading.

Source:

Sierra, K. (2007). Creating Passionate Users. Retrieved August 24, 2016, from http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/01/the_dumbness_of.html