Week 16

This week was the very last week of class. Im not really sure that im ready for the semester to be over but I guess it's time to start getting ready for exams. After our animations on paint last week, playing with scratch felt super hi-tech.... too bad scratch is animation for little kids. Either way it was an enjoyable way to spend the last week of the semester with all my seminar buddies. I hope everyone has a great break and I'll see you all in a month

Week 15

This week in Dissecting the Internet was really entertaining. We learned how to create our own simple webpages using a model from Dr. Parks. In addition to creating a webpage, we created animations using paint. It was really funny to see what everyone came up with and I hope I have some reason to use these newly learned skills sometime in the future. Overall I think these activities were a very good way to wrap up a semester full of fun.

Week 14

This week we only had one class because of thanksgiving break. Unfortunately I was not able to attend class this week and I'm dissapointed that I missed our guest speaker. Cyber crime and security definitely sounds like something I would have been interested in hearing. Going home this week was very relaxing but im glad to be back in the mountains. It's crazy to think that we only have a few more weeks left in this semester.

Week 13

This week in dissecting the internet we were each assigned a topic about the internet to research and share. I was supposed to research how the internet affects religion. I wasn't surprised that the internet was widely used for religious purposes but it did surprise me that alot of the people who used the internet to practice their own religion also have looked into other religions. I think it is a benefit to society for people to be informed about other people's religious and cultural differences. Hearing about other peoples topics also informed me of a few other ways the internet can be used.

Week 12

The lesson on tuesday about cloud computing taught by Dr. Wilkes made alot of sense with the example of his bee web site. It is mind blowing how much technology has changed the way services can be provided in the even the last decade. The video of the bee swarm the Dr. Wilkes made was wild. I don't care how much you pay me, I would never be willing to get in the middle of that swarm yet his kids were frolicking around fearlessly. I guess they're used to it.

Week 11

The crowdsourcing activities we did this week were fascinating. It is crazy to think that we were helping building the information on the internet just by playing mindless little games. The guy from Duke seemed full of great ideas. Who would have thought that you could learn a language for free while translating web pages from english to another language? I feel like I really understandthe concept of crowdsourcing now that we have discussed it thoroughly.

Week 10

This week we heard from Dr. Wilkes' friend who had his own internet marketing company. It doesn't surprise me that he is doing as well as he is, as so many people use the internet to browse goods and services. The importance of advertising for online companies is extreme because of the number of competitors out there. If a company shows up a couple pages down on a google search, they lose business to companies on the first page.

Week 9

This week we had 4 groups present on the books they read for their book reports. The book "The Dumbest Generation" had alot of statistics suggesting that our generation is lacking in intelligence compared to past generations but offered no real solutions. I think that that kind of defeats the purpose of writing a whole book about a problem if a solution is never offered. Im looking forward to the next presentation as well as our guest speaker next week.

Week 8

This week we had a guest speaker who showed us some very cool ways of encrypting messages. While it was relatively easy to decode as long as we had the key our partner used, I can imagine that it would be very difficult without. The same encryption techniques we learned were used in the civil war and others but at the time a lack of technology probably made even today's somewhat simple codes very difficult to break.

I really enjoyed the speakers presentation and it was quite an entertaining class. I hope that we continue to cover interesting topics like we have the past several weeks.

Week 7

This week we talked about 4chan in class. Although the idea of complete anonymitity is appealing, I can't say that I would ever use this site. I am a user of social networking sites because I like to be able to be in touch with all my friends no matter where they are. I dont normally update status' often but I use the chat feauture frequently. Posting useless information online where tons of people I dont know can anonymously make fun of it is not something I feel is a productive use of my time, although it could possibly be entertaining.

Week 6

This week in dissecting the internet we read "Blown to Bits, Chapter 2" and it was shocking to see how little privacy we actually have. Everything that we post online is trackable as well as everything we have bought, and the sites we have visited. Its really strange to think that someone could find out everything about me just by knowing my name.

The activity we did as homework was proof that you can find so much out about a person with so little information by using the internet. My partner was able to pull up a google view of my house after searching for my name online. Thats a little bit scary to think about.

Week 5

I thought that the speaker had a lot of experience with running and it was interesting to hear his opinions on the physical fitness technology of the 21st century. I feel kind of bad because I know that he can out run me and he is more than twice my age!

Week 4

This week we discussed the video "Digital Nation" and shared our thoughts on the rising use of technology and the attention blindness video with the gorilla. I thought it was very interesting that some pople counted correctly but missed the gorilla but others saw the gorilla but counted incorrectly. Personally, I was able to count the correct number of throws and I still saw the gorilla. Christopher Mcdougals story from Convocation was shocking. I cant believe that someone was able to survive such a long fall out of a tree by staying calm and thinking through the best way to react.

Week 3

This week we watched a video call Digital Nation. This video showed the rising popularity of technology all over the world and the problems we may face because of it. Korean children are a great example of the problems online gaming can pose. I think it is a little scary that someone would be so into a video game that they could go days without eating. Another thing that scared me was the program "Second Life". I know I would personally be dissapointed if I got a new job that required me to sit at home and virtually communicate instead of traditional face to face encounters.

Week 2

The second week of dissecting the internet was an interesting one. We learned a "magic trick" and played with bowling pins, it was definatly the most entertaining class I've had so far. The second day of class we learned how to take advantage of the library researchers avaliable. I have already used the databases we were showed to do research in another class so it was definatly a good use of time.

Week 1

Im going to go ahead and start off this blog by saying I have no idea what im doing. I never have really been much of a computer person and this is my first attempt at blogging. I took Dissecting the Internet because it sounded like a good change in topic from many high school classes. So far I am very happy with my class selection. I have already been able to expand my knowledge of how the internet actually works and it has only been two classes. I also have enjoyed the atmosphere of our class compared to some of my other classes. Im looking forward to continuing to explore the workings of the the world wide web. As of now I cannot think of any suggestions for the class.