The was very intrigued by how diverse, yet all involving new technology the topics on the website mashable.com were. The device I chose to write about it is the ipad. The first article was about how the ipad, among many other things, advances the way in which people can play games. The example they used was a game called "plants vs. zombies". They have created up to 11 contact points for the game. The article even mentions how it could be good for kids who just cant wait their turn to play; the kids can just play together. While I think the advances in gaming on the ipad are virtually harmless, it does raise some questions for me. The first is with new technologies such as this and the wii, how long is it before we are actually just sitting with a helmet on and are actually in the game itself. Professor Greenberg has mentioned they have already created these, but how long will it be before it is on every kids Christmas list? That also brings me to the question of, does that almost make games pointless? If they are designed to be so real, why cant you just go do them outside? An example of this like on the Wii, if people are having such a good time bowling with their friends, why don't they just go bowling? I have some answers for this such as cost, and its easily accessible...so I think where its as right now is okay, but as it progresses it could just be getting ridiculous.
The second article I read was about a man who purchased an ipad and later on was attacked outside of the mall. The thief removed so much of the mans skin from his pinkie finger that it had to be amputated. This I think is an example of things we have spoken about in class about how technology is taking over. I realize that theft has always been an issue because some people are just menaces to society, but with the higher cost and more intrigue in these kinds of products than anything else the rate at which they are being stolen is very high. I can remember back to when I was in high school when I got a new pair of headphones for my birthday to replace the classic white ipod headphones, because at the time a lot of ipod were just getting ripped out of pockets and jackets and the familiar headphones were a huge target to thieves. There is no doubt in my mind that the newer and more advanced products look, the more susceptible they are to being stolen.

A direct comparison between Vannevar Bush's "As we may think" and Kevin Kelly's "The next 5,000 days of the Internet", is the references to the "machine". Bush refers to it as a "piece of furniture" which stores a collection of scattered knowledge within it. Kelly's vision of the machine, while similar to Bush's is a little more specific considering it was discussed in a time when the technology they referred to has already been invented. Kelly's reference to the machine is the most perfect machine to ever be made, constructed through the consumers; the users of technology through cell phones, computers and any other handheld devices.
Regardless of their depth in explanation, both men's ideas about this machine are very similar. The way that I interpreted the idea is that basically even though as humans we are doing exceptionally well keeping up with all the new technologies, it is eventually going to catch up with us unless we have one solid center to bring everything together so we can keep it under control and managable. An example of this, on a very small scale, it is the equivalent of having widgets on our webpages, so that all the sites we constantly visit can all be organized in one little spot.
I honestly did not see any noteable differences between the two ideas. The only point I think is worth mentioning is that Bush's ideas were predictions (which ultimatly had truth) and Kelly's ideas were based on facts from the previous 5,000 days. I think they were both right and it is only a matter of time before we create new forms of technology to put into the machine.

New Media and Education 3/30

New media and technology is changing almost everything about the way we learn, not only in everyday life but in a more structured environments like high schools and colleges. My generation of college students should consider ourselves so lucky to have the opportunities that we do due to the advances in technology. In my opinion, some of these advances are good but at the same time could be making us lazier. An example of this is a college student missing one class is not as much of a big deal as it used to be if the teacher is technologically in tune. Personally, I know almost all my teachers post the day’s work and upcoming assignments on the schools website. This is great for the average student who may have had something important to do, or fell ill. However this is a GREAT advantage for the kind of students who just don’t feel like showing up to class and can just think “whatever it will be up on Angel later”. There are also other factors to be considered for those kinds of students when it comes to their final grade, so maybe that is not the best example but I think it gets my point across.
Regardless of the little cheats the internet and other forms of technology that students are presented with today, if you used in the correct way we are more fortunate than ever. We can be plugged in 24/7, and when it comes to learning you can never learn too much. We have the ability to find out just about anything we want to know, and see just about anything we want to see. Professor Greenberg showed us photos from other parts of the world that he admitted he had only ever heard of until he was able to visit these places, as oppose to us where we can virtually visit them. The question with that is… will students become less motivated to travel and learn firsthand now that they can easily do it via Google images? My answer to that is no. If a person is motivated to travel the world and experience it, they will. The ones who sit back and just pull up pictures on the net obviously are not that ambitious. On the other hand, sometimes it is not within someone’s means to travel the world and in that sense it is a great thing that they can see and learn places they may never get to afford to go to.
The way in which we are learning is changing, but I do not think it is necessarily a bad thing. I personally like that instead of scribbling chicken scratch all over my notebook paper trying to get every word a professor is trying to say in, I can simply go to Angel after class and print out a neat and clean copy of that day’s lesson. With technology there will always be pro’s and con’s, but with education I think even if there’s different ways of learning being created, it can never be bad because never is gaining knowledge a bad thing.