The next new thing

Almost evrything one could think of is out or is in the process of being made. However, one thing I would like to see is the car driving on it's own. I actually once heard, a very long time ago, that new cars are coming out in which one just puts the address in the navigation and the car drives on its own. The car must follow all the traffic regulations, should be programmed to stop at red lights, brake when needed to and get a person to their destination safely. It would be great because children wouldn't have to rely on their parents to drive them places and if the cars are programmed properly, it would decrease the number of accidents on the road.
The way new media is progressing, I am sure something like this is already being worked upon and will be seen in couple of years.

Wiki So Far

For wiki, I haven't posted anything yet but have been researching new media in education. While other fields are progressing quickly, technology in education hasn't changed at that same pace. What I want to focus on and really believe is a great way to bring new media in educational field is the Kindle. Kindle is a device that has all the books in one device which gives reader the convenience to read whenever/wherever they want without carrying heavy textbooks around. But there are several issues with kindles and why some colleges are against it. The biggest issue is that it is not designed for disabled people. It does have a feature to read the books aloud to people who are not able to read but there is no voice navigation to take them from the menu page to the actual book.
However, this is a feature that is present in Ipad. Ipad has books (just like kindle), features for disabled and word application. Therefore, it would be a better idea to provide Ipad because that will make up for the textbooks and the notebooks. A student will tetxbooks, essays and all their notes in one device. Ipad is fairly new so it will take some time to figure out if there are any issues with it.
In the wiki, I will be focusing on how new media (Ipad and Kindle) can be used in education.

Advice

One of the most important thing that Baruch College, and all other colleges, need to work on is the use of texbooks for students. Colleges are very expensive and specially Baruch, being in the city, adds many expenses such as food, commuting, etc. Besides all these expenses, almost all classes require students to buy texbooks. Everyone knows how expensive textbooks can be and once the semester is over, if you are lucky, you get half the money back or they just end up in the waste.
Since, students pay for the classes and all sorts of technology fees, Baruch should provide students with Kindles. At the beginning of each semester, every student can borrow a kindle from the library refrence desk and connect their kindles to the internet. As they sign up for the classes, automatically the textbooks for their classes will appear in their kindle. This will save trees, cut down student's expenses and promote a better learning experience for students as they can read while on the train and have access to all their texbooks in one device, at all times.

Privacy

New Media has been used in many ways to increase interaction amongst individual around the world. However, with this advantage comes a major concern in regards to the privacy and confidentiality of an indivudual. Social Networking sites can help people stay in touch with their family and friends but besides them, without knowing, they are also interacting with strangers. They are not physically talking to people they don't know, but they might be disclosing their personal information to them. For example, there have been many cases of kidnapping and robbery using twitter because people are constantly updating their status (where they are, what they are doing and where they are going) and it makes it very easy for a stalker to follow / keep an eye on them.
Also, with new technolgies and sofwtares, people can place a tracking or recording device on other people's cellphones. There are many softwares out there that can be installed in a individual's cellphone without him/her knowing. A stalker can listen to all the conversations, read text messages and even listen to the person when the phone is not in use. It can be a really scary thing because you have no privacy and there is no way of telling that you are being tracked.
New Media has brought us several advtages but it has also raise many issues of privacy and confidentiality.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

There are many ways these virtual worlds can be used and among them, the most important one is going to the virtual office. Since recession has begun, people are trying to cut their costs in everything and are trying to save every penny. When it comes to businesses, one of the most costly and time consuming thing is traveling for conferences and meetings. Virtual community Second Life is creating a new tool that allows businesses to have virtual meetings on their own computer networks.
“The company's Enterprise tool will let employees' avatars -- animated alter egos -- meet in virtual worlds from the privacy of a company's own network, rather than the public networks used in standard Second Life. That extra security could encourage more companies to take up the technology.” (Going to the Virtual Office in Second Life) This can be proven as a very helpful technique to increase communication amongst companies all around the world, without having to traveling.

Virtual World can be used as a source of entertainment (clubs, bars), toys, hotels and to invite cyber vixens to shop at boutiques, leaf through fashion magazines, or attend runway shows. IT is like a second life where one can feel like they are in the moment without them physically being there. They can visit places that they want without having to worry about expenses and time. It can actually lead to one living a perfect life, something they have always dreamt of. Even though, this Virtual World gives people a lot of freedom in terms of visiting places, constructing their world; in order to prevent any privacy issues, laws must be passed to restrict one’s second life.

Social Networking

The main purpose of the social networking sites is to increase communication amongst individuals. Sites vary in the extent to which they are differentiated based on the new communication tools they have to offer. Cell Phones, blogging, photo and video sharing are all new technology that play a major role in the number of users interacting using these social networking sites. These days, people are able to update their status, change their picture and write / comment on other people’s wall just by using their cell phone (Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship). It is a lot cheaper and convenient to communicate using these sites rather than calling someone at the other end of the world.

As time progresses, we are realizing that these new technologies, along with convenience, are bringing several disadvantages. If one is not careful, social Networking sites can be very dangerous. For example: it is very easy to track someone down just by following their status, checking their profile and looking at the upcoming events they will be attending. Therefore, one may not realize that if they are too involved with these sites and are always posting what they are doing when, they can cause serious harm to themselves.

Check out Social Networking Sites

All these social networking sites share a common purpose and that is to increase interaction amongst individuals. (Well that was the original purpose of these sites). Now days, these sites have become very complicated and more of a “time-pass” thing than serving the actual purpose of communication. The four sites that I have personally used in the past are Facebook, Myspace, Friendster and Xanga.

Facebook is a social networking site where people from all over the world interact with each other in many different ways. They share personal and professional information by chatting, writing information on individual's wall or share pictures/videos. It is an excellent way to find any old friend/relative since it has become so popular and almost everyone is on this social networking site. The advantage of Facebook is that one meets people based on the company they work at or the college they have attended.

On the other hand, Myspace is also another social networking site but not as popular as Facebook. It is very famous amongst high school children and this could be because, unlike Facebook, it has funky layouts and there is absolutely no privacy or restrictions as to who can view your profile and pictures.

Xanga is a blog entry social networking site where people write blogs at their convenience and all other friends and relatives share and comment views on it. It is a nice way to express your feelings in front of the public and everyone give their feedback on it. It is very different from Facebook and myspace, but it serves the same purpose of increasing interaction amongst individuals.

Friendster is very similar to Facebook but the only thing that Friendster lacked was its lack of privacy. I personally has Friendster for 6 months and after hearing a couple of cases of people using others’ pictures in wrong ways, I immediately de-activated my account. Also, one advantage that Facebook has above all is the importance of finding people based on one’s network.