Weblog 10

A superorganism is combined unit of many individual parts. The definition of a superorganism is very vague and can have many different meanings. I believe that there are many superorganisms today. I believe that Facebook is definitely a superorganism because it is composed up of many individual parts; the users of Facebook in this case. These users work as individuals completing their own goals and interests. If you look at Facebook as a whole, the individuals all contribute something to the group; therefore it is a superorganism. This is not a bad thing that Facebook is a superorganism, though. It is in fact a very good thing; it can lead to many good results such as crisis mapping, flash mobs, and other fun and helpful events.

Weblog 9

An example of emergent behavior that I participated in was last week in the Dolan atrium. The professors had the students grab t-shirts with different colors, numbers, and letters on them. Next, the professors gave us simple tasks to complete: some of these tasks included following someone that is not in your FYS section, creating words with the letters on our shirts, lining up in numerical order, etc. These simple tasks led to other, more complex things being accomplished. For example, when told to follow someone not in your section, all the students eventually created a very long line of students following each other. Another example is when we were told to follow someone in our section; this led to each section forming a circle. There were many more examples of simple tasks leading to more complex tasks being accomplished. This is an example of emergence because it is a direct restatement of the definition of emergence. The definition describes simple tasks being formed into more complex tasks. This exercise was emergence from my perspective and from a global perspective. The exercise was video taped so we could see what it looks like globally. It is obviously going to look a little different from the two points of view, but it is still going to have the same outcome. Overall it was a pretty interesting experience.

Weblog 7 & 8

As we have learned over the past few weeks, there is alot of censorship going on in China. They basically censor everything. I would be surprised if there were not a lot people upset with this, especially those in China. This is ridiculous that their government censors everything. The government claims that it is for the good of society, but they are doing it to have more control over the Chinese people.
Most of this censorship started when the Internet was brought to China in the 90s. The government became very worried, because they didn't know how the people would use the Internet. Would they use it for good, and for education; or would they use it for bad things, or to overthrow the government. This caused the government to set up crazy blocks on many websites, while censoring others. There are even people employed by the Chinese government who are hired to search the Internet for unsafe sites, and/or for people not abiding by the censorship laws.
The censorship in China reminds me a lot of the book 1984, in which "Big Brother is watching you." You have to be very careful of what you say and do because Big Brother can see everything you do. In China, Big Brother is their oppressive government, which is always watching what they do online.
China's government also covers up incidents that they do not want to spread to the general public. For example, there was a fatal crash in which two trains collided with each other, killing and injuring many people. The original death toll was about 35, which then changed to about 48, and then went back down to about 38. This alerted the Chinese people of the government's attempts to cover up the collision and make it not seem as bad as it really was.
I don't think that the United States should get involved in the overseas affairs in China. I don't think that they should put forth public policy that bars overseas sales of items that will eventually be censored. The items that are sold overseas really have nothing to do with the U.S. other than profit. There is not much we can to stop the censorship, and I don't think it is our place to step in. I believe this would just cause many more issues and make both countries very hostile towards each other. The United States wouldn't take very kindly to foreign nations stepping in on our affairs, so why should we do it to other nations? They will eventually figure everything out in China; they will settle all of the disputes hopefully in a peaceful and mature way. I'm sure it will take a while but that is what needs to happen, it is not our time or place to step in on our their affairs. Besides, we are just making more profit by selling these items to them. While these items may cause the Chinese to have less freedoms on the Internet, they still have the Internet which is a step in the right direction. At least they are not part of the digital divide.
The Chinese been very effective in learning to use microblogs and other similar websites. They speak out as much as they possibly can about their government; the things they like and most importantly, the things that they dislike. This can be very risky, even though the microblogs are not censored, I'm sure the government knows about them. China has one of the most sophisticated systems for blocking and censoring Internet content. The Chinese citizens must be very careful not to say the wrong things, which could possibly end them up in prison, or with some other penalties. I believe that the microblogs are very beneficial to the Chinese people though. They can use them to gather groups of people who feel the same way about government and possibly start strikes, or protests, or even riots/ overthrow the government. This would be very hard to do, but some day it may happen. The Chinese need a new system of government and it isn't going to happen any time soon if there are not people willing to stand up for what they believe in.

Digital Story

Before this class I never really thought about the topic of social justice. So far in this course i have learned much about social justice and the digital divide. It is a pretty interesting topic. I always knew that there were people without Internet access, access to computers, limited access, or no access at all. It really struck me that this was actually a pretty big problem in our society today. I guess you could say I was a little naive about the subject. I have always seen people with computers, laptops, smart phones, etc. I don't live in a secluded suburb or small town in the country either; I am from inner city Cleveland, which is where one might expect the largest digital divide according to the reading we have read so far. The inner city tends to have more minorities than suburbs, lower class citizens than suburbs, and so on. Also the study done by Facebook showed that minorities were less likely to have a Facebook account than whites. I am certainly not ragging on the inner city, minorities, or lower class citizens. I am merely stating that the inner city would be the most likely place for a digital divide and lack of broadband access. Not many people think of the digital divide in their day to day lives. This is a worldwide issue that needs to be addressed now. Technology keeps advancing every single day. There are constantly new phones, new laptops,desktops, new gaming systems, video cameras, etc. Technology is a great thing if it used correctly. Not only that, but we need to work as a society to bring technology to all parts of the world, all societies, all people. This may not be completely possible; for example, poverty is always going to be around us no matter what we do we cannot completely end poverty; I believe that we cannot completely bridge the gap of the technological haves and have-nots. It is possible to narrow the gap between these groups though. There are many ways this can be done, many steps that can be taken, but in the end, the result would ideally be a narrowing of the gap. To narrow the gap not only means getting access to computers and broadband, but also knowing how to use the computer and Internet. This can be the trickiest part; how do you teach a whole society of technologically illiterate people to use the Internet? Would you have classes for them to attend? Would you force them to go to school to learn the basics? A lot of people can learn things on their own. The extent of their knowledge definitely would not be to as high a level as it would be if someone taught them. but playing around and figuring out things is a very important skill, if you will, to learning how to use computers. I remember when my family got its first computer at home. We had dial-up Internet connection, which was very slow, and you could not use the telephone while on the Internet. My dad taught me a lot of things about the computer, and he had never taken classes on how to use it. He read the instructions and taught himself everything he knows about the computer. I taught myself a lot of what I know about computers also. I did take a class in high school on how to use many Microsoft programs, but I taught myself most of what I know. I don't think it very hard to learn the basics of computers. For my digital story I plan to address the digital divide, the aspects of race, and some social media sites. I have already learned a lot about these so far in this class. i plan to learn a lot more through my research. I plan on describing the digital divide from a number of perspectives through many facts.

Source 1
http://www.digitaldivide.org/
This source is completely dedicated to addressing the digital divide. It explains what the digital divide is, what can be done to stop the digital divide, and their innovative ways to stop the digital divide. i plan on using this site to help produce my digital story.

Source 2
http://www.bridgethedigitaldivide.com/
This source will also be a great help to my digital story. It is another website dedicated to bridging the gap between the technological haves and have-nots. They even have a link where you can donate computers to those who are less fortunate.

Weblog 6

I do not have a very good twitter literacy level. I have never used twitter before because I don't see the point to it. I know a lot of people that use twitter. I constantly hear people talking about twitter and hash tags and followers. I can understand a little bit of what they are talking about, but i don't understand all of it. My twitter literacy level is evolving by hearing other people talk about twitter. I still don't have much interest in getting a twitter account. I don't see what is so cool about reading everything that people say all day long. Twenty first literacy skills are different from what literacy originally meant. Twenty first century literature involves literacy and how well people use the technology in front of them. It involves being informed on how to use computers, cell phones, digital devices, etc. Originally literacy meant knowing how to read and write. That definition has completely changed in the twenty first century. Someone acquires these skills by being taught and/or teaching themselves. The more that one uses an electronic device, the more familiar you become with it. There are also classes that you can take to become more familiar and efficient with these devices. Some schools teach these twenty first century literacy skills, while others do not. More schools need to start teaching these skills so there are more twenty first century literate people. The relationship between technology, participatory culture, and twenty first century literacy is that they are all related in some way. Twenty first century literacy involves technology, and technology involves participation. However, there is a digital divide that limits the participation because a lot of people don't have access to computers and broadband.

Weblog 5

Weblog 5