Gurminder's Blog

Hey everyone, for this assignment I decided to create an avatar of myself. This is a great way to bring out the creativity in an individual. They can either make something close to what they look like or be creative and create a completely new character with wild hair and pink eyes! I created this avatar avatar using a website I found on the internet. Below is the final product.

New Media is a very popular concept today. We are surrounded by it most places we go as it is gradually accelerating in growth. New Media refers to digital media that involves mass communication such as the internet (computer, phones, etc.). Creativity is a big topic that you see with new media. A great example can be seen through the social networking platform “YouTube”. This allows users to share content that they create themselves, whether it’s an educational video, a comedy video, or a video simply about their lifestyle. These can be all seen as forms of self-creativity. Another example can be seen by New York Times article “Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why?” written by Brooks Barnes. Barnes discusses how Disney is tolerating “rap-parody” videos of its characters created by content creators. One of the spokesman from Nickelodeon even noted how the editing of one of the videos was really good. This all goes to show how New Media fosters creativity and is a bre...

Virtual worlds which are essentially online communities that allow us to interact with one another is a concept that came with this new technology era and is continually progressing as technology advances as well. These virtual worlds can be used for a wide variety of uses such as educational purposes or even entertainment/gaming purposes. An example can be trainings, such as military exercises. On the gaming side, an example can be seen in Dave Itzkoff’s article “I’ve Been in That Club, Just Not in Real Life”. Itzkoff talks about the massive amount of time he spent “hanging out” and doing activities such as going to a club in a virtual word from his computer. This is where some will say these virtual worlds have a con which is it may cause an individual to become anti-social. Spending too much time “hanging out” in a virtual world can hinder one’s ability to develop proper social and communicating skill for the real world as their face-to-face interactions decrease. On the other hand...

Discussions can be considered a very resourceful tool for individuals to share their views and thoughts on a certain topic. Although the general purpose of a discussion will stay consistent across most platforms, there may be several factors that distinguish them.  A discussion on Twitter limits users to share short messages one at a time. These short messages can play a role in limiting/hindering the message an individual is trying to get across. In addition, the up-side of Twitter is that it’s more of a “relaxed” environment as opposed to something like Blackboard. Blackboard discussions tend to have a bit more professionalism in the writing style and allows users to post longer messages. Personally, I feel an in-person discussion is most effective and best as it allows individual to have that face-to-face interaction. If the purpose is to have a large audience and involve as many people as you can in the discussion, I feel Twitter is best for that purpose as features such as th...

In today’s date, we are presented with numerous social networking sites. Today I choose to compare and write about Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. All are very popular social networking sites that many use. After using all of them for quite some time, I concluded that Facebook and LinkedIn are quite similar in terms of their layout and interface. The one thing that distinguishes them is the main/intended purpose they are used for. Facebook is generally used to share thoughts, comments, and pictures, helping people, friends and families all around the globe stay connected. On the other hand, LinkedIn is quite similar except it is used with the intentions of keeping people connected on a professional basis. YouTube is a platform that allows people from all over the globe to upload and share videos sharing their content. This personally is my favorite as I use this the most as I personally like the idea of sharing content through the form of video. Out of the four social network...

Technology is a key component in our everyday lives. Wherever we go we are faced with technology and its impacts. Technology can be very useful and help us with our everyday lives. LinkedIn can serve as a great example. This social networking platform has made it more convenient for individuals to connect with one another on a more professional basis. In addition, this platform has also made the jobs of recruiters easier as they now have a platform to search through for candidates. According to the article “Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting” by Frank Langfitt, recruiters now can search through a wide variety of individuals based on a certain skill or keyword. “But what really makes LinkedIn helpful is that it allows users to share their online Rolodexes. “Shally Steckerl used to hunt talent for Microsoft and is a leader in online recruiting. With LinkedIn, he can find people faster using a vastly increased network of contacts” (Langfitt 1). This example shown from Ste...

Blogs and Wikis are great ways to get a message across or simply to be informative. Wikis are more commonly known to be used as an informative source. According to Wikipedia, “a wiki is a website on which users collaboratively modify content and structure directly from the web browser.” (Wiki n.d) In my opinion, this is a great way for people to get together and share their knowledge. It works out well because if one person doesn’t know something or is missing some information, another person can add it and share their knowledge. Blogs can be considered as more of an “open environment.” As seen in the NY Times article, “Wal-Mart Tastemakers Write Unfiltered Blogs” one of the Wal-Mart employees, a Microsoft rep openly blogs like he’s writing in his diary. He casually blogs things such as “My life has not changed dramatically – well, for that matter, it hasn’t changed at all.” (Barbaro 1) This goes to show how people can be so open when it comes to blogs as opposed to wikis. Blog...