Last week at the Celsa, Bob, my English teacher, asked us to contribute to Wikipedia, the free web-based collaborative encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Firstly, I had to find something to write about. And that wasn't easy because there was already something written on Wikipedia for every single subject I wanted to write an article about.
I finally decided to write about Guilherme Marconi, a brasilian artist I like, who is not yet on the free encyclopedia. I easily created an account and I wrote a short text without difficulties. But unfortunately, like some of my wormates, I posted a text in English on the French wiki and my contribution has been deleted without explanation... I worked for nothing.
I didn't know that Wikipedia was so controlled. The free encyclopedia imposes its rules and I think that it's the only way to become more reliable. Indeed, how can I trust an encyclopedia if anybody can post anything without control ? If your article doesn't perfectly satisfy requirements...well... it will just be deleted.
Internet is a jungle of good things and bad things. Here are several rules that you should respect if you want to survive on the I-land.
- Be present on the web and create new content as often as possible. Don't be afraid to innovate !
- Protect yourself ! Install an anti-virus software, it's the main defence against online problems.
- Share your videos, photos, music, articles and interact with everybody. - Illustrate your articles if you want them to be read by Bob.
- Master the internet slang and learn how to use such stupid expressions as "BWL" "ROFL", "LOL", "IRL", "IMHO", "BFN"...
- Understand how to search and you will find what you're looking for in this great database.
- Create a network and be connected to many people, using all the micro-blogging tools and social media networking like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and so on. Enter the web 2.0 !
- Control your image, protect your privacy and stay aware of the Internet's risks. Don't post any link which could harm your own image in the future. Let your private life stay private.
- Stay up-to-date and be ready to experiment new things. Break your habits and learn how to use some of the new tools which appear everyday on the land of the New.
- Remember that the web is transparent. Tracing an IP address is actually pretty straightforward. You cannot do whatever you want and you cannot say anything thinking that the web is totally anonymous.
- Get a real life sometimes...
I have to admit that, if I'm very interested in technology and media transformation of our time (especially when it comes to the future of books), I don't think that the existing ebooks can compete with the traditionnal book which remains, in my opinion, a quasi-perfect technology.
Notwithstanding, strides are made and some devices offer a good reading experience. The brand new Nook designed by Barnes & Noble calls itself the planet's "most advanced e-book reader." Measuring 7.7- x 4.9- x 0.5-inches and weighing 11.2 ounces, the device includes a top e-ink display from Vizplex and a color touchscreen (3.5-inches) below for an easy navigation. Of course, it supports highlighting passages, bookmarking and making notes.
One day you think that you know everything about the Internet (am I a media student or not?!) and the day after you discover the extent of your ignorance. I will deal in this post with several things that I recently learnt about the web.
I am a little ashamed of myself but I have to admit that until a few weeks ago, I didn’t know precisely how to use RSS feeds. Thanks to RSS (translated as "Really Simple Syndication"), it becomes possible to distribute up-to-date content (blog entries, audio and video, news headlines...) from one website to many other websites around the world. And it works great !
Here is a short explanation of RSS working principle by the great website www.commoncraft.com
I have always tought that the famous social networking and micro-blogging service Twitter was useless and over-hyped. Though, our english teacher Bob forced us to sign up for an account. I had no choice : I had to figure out how to tweet and re-tweet correctly. So I took this opportunity to really understand what this tool was about. It's quite simple. All the webnauts know its working principle. Twitter users send and read short messages limited to 140 characters or fewer. That's the SMS of the web 2.0. Tweets are displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers (his followers).
Then, little by little, I realized how a simple micro-blogging service like Twitter can be used for educational activities. It enables real-time interaction between learners who use it to announce projects, to promote their blogs, to ask their instructor for directions, advices and so on or to discuss their ideas with the others while engaged in classroom activities. To me, this kind of digital tools can change classroom dynamics.
I am student in a communication school and e-class is a new experience for me.
Do you need to take courses that your local school doesn't offer? I recently learnt that you can sign up for classes at accredited learning institutions like the Virtual High School for instance, and take courses across a wide range of topics. What about learning online?
To me, the Internet provides a lot of advantages like for example its ability to facilitate research, providing access to many archival materials, databases and so on. It helps to spread knowledge, it challenges the idea of personal intellectual property and encourages collaborative learning and interactivity between learners. The instructor can submit assignments with emails and he can receive immediate responses.
Though, each week in Celsa’s English classes, we encounter several difficulties (a monitor which doesn’t work, a shitty connection…). I think we have to be prepared for frequent problems with the technology. Moreover, internet sites and softwares change so rapidly that we always have to refresh our skills. E-learning is more time consuming than traditional teaching and the loss of human contact is still one of its greatest challenges.
But still, it's probably the first step for a society in which education is accessible to everyone and that is why we have to figure out what is the best we can do to optimize the conditions for the teacher, and the learner. Incorporating internet technology into the structure of the course today is a necessity, especially in the fields of communication and the faculty should bring the fruits of internet use into the classroom. We also have to think about how these technologies can enable the class to do something new, or something old in a better way. What can be improved?
