week 9

a) The oldest digital native I know would have to be my uncle who is 49 (or something like that). He is very computer literate and for as long as I have known been using it. He has set up our family website tracing our family tree and invited many distant family members to join and also has set up many businesses online.

b) The youngest digital immigrant I know is my 13 year old cousin who has just moved here from a small town in Egypt. They did not even have a computer, let alone the internet there and he is finding it very difficult to incorporate the whole concept of the internet into his life.

c) My friend most threatens the notion of digital immigrant/native as he is very computer literate and is quick to find anything on the net however he likes to send mail through post and print off files that would be fine left on the computer which would suggest that he has an 'accent'. He holds characteristics of both a digital native and a digital immigrant.

d) The neo-luddite would have difficulty getting to uni in the first place as he would have to either walk or find a horse and carriage as he is scared of the mechanical beasts known as cars and trains. firstly at uni he have trouble enrolling without his enrollment timetable which you get online. In addition finding out his timetable at uni would be difficult as without being able to log in to his uni account he would have to go to student support. When he gets to his lesson and people form groups, he has no mobile number or email address to exchange with anyone so he exchanges address so that he can visit his group member without warning (which they won't be too impressed with). When assessment are due although he excells in exams he gets marked down for handwriting his essays and only using books as references without online journals which are more recently updated. In failing his first couple essays he is dishearted and realises that uni will be impossible for him without making some drastic changes.

e) A technophile in 2020 will have serious health issues due to lack of excercise due to the fact that every aspect of his life will involve sitting infront of his computer screen. With access to everything needed online he will be satisfied with never leaving his chair. The only excercise he will get is walking from his bed to the shower and the shower to his computer chair in the morning followed by the walk back from his computer to his bed. Every aspect of his life will revolve around the net including people delivering his food and work.

Web 3.0

Aswell as the semantic web, web 3.0 suggests all things to do with making the internet easier to use and access. This would include user identity, such as remembering users and having a single passwords for all applications associated with the net, and the access of the internet from anywhere. We are already seeing the latter come into circulation with internet access available in sky, games consoles and mobile phones. Rather than finding the differences between the semantic web and web 3.0 i see the semantic web being a feature of web 3.0 which is the total advancement of the internet as a whole.

The Semantic Web

The semantic web is an extension of the web which involes computers being able to understand information over the internet in order to aid people in achieving their requests. Rather than relying on human interferance, the semantic web makes it possible for machines to find exactly what we are looking for without us having to scan read loads of websites ourselves. This would make researching on the internet much easier as instead of typing in out queries into google then having to scan through the results, we would just have to type what we want and the internet would find it for us.

The Problem with education when its made too easy.

Education is made to teach children skills which would be vital to and greatly benefit them later in life. If unchallenged, these key skills needed would be forgotten or not considered important. If everyone could pass exams with A grades easily, rather than being a great achievment, it would be considered the ordinary and with the same qualifications as everyone else it would be hard to distinguish people from one anohter. Over the years GCSEs have been getting easier and eaier in order to try and get the biggest amount of good grades from schools however no one seemed too bothered about how this would effect the children, The headmaster of a private school in manchester said, 'The view within is that the new GCSEs will present even less of a challenge to the more able candidates than at present'. This implies that these GCSEs are encouraging some children not to work hard as they can get the best grades with a minimum effort. 'Manchester grammar school is to drop the government's GCSEs in all subjects apart from art and replace them with the International GCSE (IGCSE), an alternative more similar to the traditional O-levels.', This shows us that the people at This school have acknowleged there is a problem and are trying to re introduce harder, more challenging exams. Also the fact that failed exams and essays can easily be retaken again and again which questions the structure of the school system as how can these qualifications be taken seriously if they are easily obtainable by everyone. It is a backwards society we live in that tackles the problem of low grades, not by increasing the levels of education or by introducing new learning methods, but by making exams easier to pass.

Quotes taken from Guardian Article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/mar/04/private-schools-gcses-manchester-grammarschool

Should education 'stretch' a person?

I think by 'Stretch' you mean should someone be challenged to use their full ability. I think education should stretch you as if you don't prepare for the worst when you are young then you would never be able to cope with problems later in life. By stretching children, we encourage them to perform to the best of there ability, whether at school, work or even in hobbies otherwise we would be a society filled with people not acheiving their full potential in life.

Disagreements

Article 1: I feel that this is far too brief and rather than approuch the subject of effects caused by over use of facebook, it talks about why they use it.

Article 2: I feel that this was a very well written article and dealt with a wide variety of issues with the topic however, it was not indepth enough as just as they started to crack the suface of a subject they moved on to the next.

Article 3: I liked this article more than the others as i feel it dealt with the topic I was researching. However like the previous article, it was trying to deal with too much and consequently ended up having a little bit about a vast variety of topics.

Digital Divide

The Digital Divide refers to the usage of technological resourses within a society (such as the internet) and the unequal divide in the people who have access to them.

a) This issue of digital immigrants and natives only affects those who have access to the internet within a society as others who cannot affors the privilage of the internet have no access to the digital world. Therefore even though someone can be born and grow up in the digital age, without easy access to the vital resources, they would not be considered a digital native. So although the majority of people within our society have some, if not limited, access to this technology, those without lack the same opportunities as the rest of us and as they don't, their children won't and this cycle continues widening the digital divide.

b) Like within our society, the whole world has a digital divide except on a much greater scale.

This image is from the United Nations Global Development Goals Indicators.

The numbers are a bit blurry but the darker the colour, the more computers there are in that certain area. As you can see here, the digital divide is huge and is evenly spread throughout as there are just as many places with little amounts of computers as there are with lots. Africa has less computers now than the western world did 10 years ago. This suggests that as we, as a world, progress and become more reliant on technology, some places in the world seem to be regressing due to the lack of advancment.

Abstract 3

Firstly this journal talks about the use of new media by young people and places in which the most use is recorded. It includes discussion of how the world of media is changing and how these changes have affected children at home and their parents aswell. It fully explores many types of media everything that new media brings including issues of gender issues and inequality, media for entertainment and media for education purposes.

Abstract 2

Focusing on the countries Flanders, Germany and Sweden, The authors try to address the issue of new media within the lives of young people. Whether or not these new mediums will replace older one of simply just fit in with the rest. Whereas, not surprisingly, televistion governs the lives of many children within these countries, Sweden is more advanced in the terms of use and availability. Also mentioned is how the young combine many different mediums in everday life and it is compared to the differences in the amounts of mediums used individually.

Wenger and Prensky

Wenger and Prensky both have similar views on education and learning by using the internet. Wengers notion of communities of practise states that people can progress and learn together within an online community where as Prensky feels that the new age student heavily relies on the internet and new technology in thier process of learning therefore these two theories are connected.

Prensky argues that digital natives have a whole new way of learning and understanding due to the introduction of new technology. In referring to digital natives, Prensky says, '...we can say with certainty that their thinking patterns have changed', he continues on to say, 'Digital Natives are used to recieving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task. They prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite'. This demonstrates that he believes that this new generation basically live their lives in the web.

Wenger says ' Communities of practise are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor', which suggests that Prensky's 'digital natives' are involved in a global community of practise without knowing so, being the entire world wide web as a source of information for all.

As you can see, Wenger and Prenskys theories relate to eachother as digital natives way of learning described by Prensky suggests that they are involed in many communities of practise, whether being web forums, blogs and it could be argued that this advancement of the use of the internet can classify the internet as a whole as a massive community of practise.

Abstract 1

This article talks about facebook and the way in which young people activly use it. Orenstein talks about the difference in the way older people use facebook, such as a way to re animate the past and indulges in questioning the importance of younger peoples use of it. It suggests that as these young people cannot possibly be re living their past because there too young to have a past, they used facebook and other soical networking sites to live in the present.

Academic Articles

1. Orenstein, P (2009), 'Growing up on Facebook' pg 11

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=114&sid=689bc47e-beb3-4c23-9da4-3beda1691804%40sessionmgr107&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=afh&AN=36913535 [accessed 27/03/09]

2. Krotz, F et al (1998), 'Patterns of Old and New Media Use among Young People in Flanders, Germany and Sweden'

http://ejc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/13/4/479 [accessed 27/03/09]

3. Livingstone, S, Bovill, M (2000), 'Young People, New Media' pg 1-54

http://www.mediacultureonline.de/fileadmin/bibliothek/livingstone_young_people/livingstone_young_people.pdf [accessed 27/03/09]

Website Five Criticism

This Website was also written in december 2007 and is just over a year old. This and website two have the best layouts of all of the websites i have looked at as they are written in pdf form and look like academic pieces of work. What i found interesting about this is that it talks about the binary oppositions involed between digital immigrants and digital natives and in doing so discovers that all of these examples seem to criticise the role of the teacher. Like the previous website, and as it seems all works published around this time, rather than agree with Prenskys original theories on digital immigration, this challenges them. Thie main topic taken up by this website is to discuss the relationship of the teacher abnd student and re-establish authority of the teacher.

As i have said before, this has a very good layout as it is written like a report. There are many references at the bottom which strongly demonstrates that this is a reliable source and shows that much research has taken place in the making of it.

Website Four Criticism

This website contains a blog that was written in december 2007 which makes it just over a year old. Unlike the previous websites, this one is fairly up to date and as it is a blog, is updated regularly and allows comments. Like the counter argument in the last website i looked at, The author of this one constantly questions the concepts and defenitions of digital immigrants brought forward by Prensky. He describes Prenskys descriptions of immigrants as 'outdated'. He suggests that 'Surely, we should recognize what digital immigrants bring with them from the old world which is still valuable in the new, rather than simply focus on their lacks and inadequacies'. This implies that Prensky uses the word 'immigrant' in order to draw from all the negative stereotypes and connotations it brings.

This is a very good source of information as most of what is said is incisive to the matter at hand. It also has a picture of the author which makes it clear that he is quite old and in Prenskys eyes would have been seen as a digital immigrant however from using blogs and the content of his post we can see that he is very computer literate. Aswell as his argument, the fact that he himself is using blogs for his academic discussion challenges Prenskys model of a digital immigrant.

Website Three Criticism

This website is 6 years old which, like the previous website, shows that it is out of date. The author of this is very much reliant on the work of Marc Prensky and uses referrences to him throughout. The author focuses on the gap between the generations of digital immigrants and natives. The counter argument on this website is quite interesting and unlike the previous paragraphs draw from the authors own opinions and experiances. This helps illustrate the points made in a profound way.

In criticising Prensky, the author states that 'Prensky's description of the Digital Native culture is the generalization that all of today's students fit the stereotype of the kid glued to the computer or the television 20 hours a day. A typical classroom is much more diverse, with students coming from a range of backgrounds'. This suggests that defining digital immigrants and natives is more complex than just the generation a certain person is from. He states that just because the technology for advancement is out it doesn't mean that it is easily obtainable by everyone.

The couter argument in this peice is very well thought out and includes some good points but the author uses too much quotes from Prensky and paraphrases his work which implies that very little thought was put in to the rest.

Website Two Criticism

Dated in 2001, this was the most out dated website i have looked at on digital immigration however, it is also the most informative and many people have referred back to this. In this, the author describes and makes clear the distinction between digital immigrants and digital natives with examples of their differences in behaviour. He also touches on the matter of digital immigrants teaching digital natives and the contrast between the different learning methods used between these two generations. He explains 'our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language ( that of a pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language'. This implies that not only do we (digital natives) learn in a different way than digital immigrants but also that we are being taught about something that we are arguably better at than our teachers. The author of this also talks about 'accents' in reference to tendancies held by those who have adopted technology into their lives. This is also good at demonstrating how digital immigrants are reluctant to accept this new digital age.

Although this is a very indepth report on digital immigrants and has some good theories, it is all mainly opinion as the author was one of the first to talk about the subject. Therefore due to lack of any real resources or references it can not be taken with much authority and academically can be considered not very reliable.

Website One Criticism

First of all the website is dated july 2006, which means that is 3 years old. This implies that it is fairly old and out of date as in terms of technology, people have input almost everyday on the matter of digital immigration. It is good at naming a couple of theorists on the subject with quotes from those with authority and is written in the form of a blog which suggests that the author himself is a digital native however these quotes make up alot of the post which implies that very little input from the actual author was included. It also has links to the urban dictionary for definitions of key words such as digital immigrant and digital native. Aswell as this it has a link to an article on the times online about digital immigration which is very informative.

As a website stood alone it would not be very helpful to use to learn about digital immigration because of the lack of vast information on the website but in using links to other resources on the web, it is quite useful and a good place to start if interested about digital immigration.

Digital Immigration Websites

http://www.blogscholar.com/content/view/72/2/ - Website One

http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf - Website Two

http://www.wisc.edu/depd/html/TSarticles/Digital%20Natives.htm - Website Three

http://henryjenkins.org/2007/12/reconsidering_digital_immigran.html - Website Four

http://www.malts.ed.ac.uk/staff/sian/natives_final.pdf - Website Five

Afica E-Learning

The introduction of E-Learning in africa seems to be and effective way for children to get education in times of need where alternative ways of teaching would be a risk to the children. Lusaka and Mazabuka in Zambia had to keep schools closed due to a cholera outbreak which suggests that children would just have to go without an education for an uncalculated amount of time until the threat was under control. This could effect their future prospects as the government failed to incorporate alternative means of education and without vital information, exams taken by the children would be harder as their would be gaps in their knowlede of the subjects.

Due to the fact that at the beginning of every raining season Zambia suffers outbreaks of Cholera, the government needs to form some kind of alternative education otherwise the children would suffer from closed schools every year which would drastically effect their education. Taonga Market is a broadcast programme for lower school grades on the radio which play for about 2 hours everyday. This is a good start but the government needs to also focus on the higher grades as they have important examminations and also need these kinds of resources. Proferssor Thomson Sinkala (Chairperson of Zambia e-learning) has suggested that the advancment of technological resources and e-learning could greatly benefit Zambia and help the progression of Zambian children through the education system. He also said that the children would not have to miss their lessons as they could have access to them at the internet cafe or from personal internet connections however, these ICT resources would not be available to all children in Zambia which just strenghens the idea that something need to be done as children cannot get a proper education due to disease.

E-Learning is a good idea but it is pointless to talk about it in places of the world where technology seems to be insufficient. Firstly people must tackle the lack of technological advancement in these countries allowing more resources to become available to them. The rapid advancement of technology in the western world could greatly help support places like Zambia as we discard computers that have become obsolete due to newer models being released, these would help Zambian communities to incorporate e-learning and the internet.

Digital Immigration

Digital Immigration is the when people, who did not grow up using technology, adopt it into their lives and have certain tendencies which demonstrate their pre-digital nature of doing things. Marc Prensky has developed the term 'accents' to describe this way of hanging on to the past. Prensky describes this as 'turning to the internet for information second rather than first, or reading the manual for a program rather than assuming that the program itself will teach us to use it'. This is a concern as people teching internet courses are struggling as they are teaching students who have grown up using technology such as computers and the internet and are fluent in it. These students are referred to as 'Digital Natives'. This suggests that digital immigrants possibly know less about the subject they are teaching than the actual students being taught.

Wenger and tasks

As Wenger states, everyone is involved in communities of practice in everyday life, whether this includes people we rely on for help, or help them ourselves, work or uni colleagues or at home. I myself have been involved in many CofPs. Including my basketball team and work colleagues. I will use my uni friends whom i study and share ideas with for my example of Wengers model. As my University colleagues and I are all students on the same or similar courses and we share interests in the same field we hold a joint enterprise therefore it is easy for us to discuss our theories and problems with the subject at hand. Also when we discuss our ideas we are not forced to do so, and it is not structured where there is a specific time to meet and talk, convosation just happens when we feel the urge to engage one another as a mutual engagement. We have a shared repertoire as over time we have developed similar study routines and thought processes about our chosen subjects.

There are many online communities but many of them are just that, however some include people with similar goals who report to the community on there progress and techniques on how to do so which, because of their joint enterprise, makes them CofPs. It could be argued that users of http://www.myspace.com/ would be classified as a CofP as many musicans and music artists reside there and upload their new songs. Aswell as this they also comment on other peoples songs and together they all slowly progress their musical ability in order to achieve their goal of making it in the music industry.

When Wenger refers to an 'Organizational Unit' he states that unilke organizational units, CofPs are informal and a way of progression whereas organizational units and just a kind of directory service within businesses to define certain areas or departments people work in, and what they have contributed to it.

The New Media Culture forums is a form of a CofP. As we all wish to progress and get good grades in the unit. Within our CofP us students are the nembies to the community where the lecturers (Alison and Dave) are the experianced members with the authority. We all share joint enterprise, a mutual engagement and a shared repertoir as we are studying the subject of mew media and reporting on our findings, we are bound together by the course MCC and because of this we share the same routines and tendencies.

Blogs

Before blogs, there were many other forms of digital communities being used by people online. The early 90's saw an introduction to blogging in the form of personal diaries where people used the internet to document events and make accounts of their lives. Blogs in general have come along way and are developing with the internet. Whereas originally text was the primary form of communication, now people have employed pictures, music and and even videos. Blogging has grown from personal blogging and now there are many different types of blogs including blogs used internally within a company for business purposes. Question blogging is when people write a certain question they want answered and people reply on the thread to try and solve there problems. This is apparent for example on the yahoo answers web page. Occasionally people post offensive comments however some websites monitor the blogs and make it easy for users to report misuse of the blogs. Blogs are a place where people can express themselves and their opinions without repercussions. They are good for expressing opinions on political and social issues, in particular touchy issues which are rarely discussed publically.

Website Analysis - TVGuide.co.uk

The TV Guide website is an online tv guide which lets the users know what programmes will be scheduled for television, including digital tv and Sky. The site is well structed and simple to use. The Channels are listed on the left and the time accross the top and they meet in the middle where it tells us which program will be on. On the side people can click on certain genres of television according to their interest and what they want to watch, this helps narrow down the shows so it will be easier to choose what to watch. It also has a changing banner which features certain recommended programmes which will be playing on the day. Aswell as telling the user what will be on tv, it also tells you about each program with a small synopsis. This same page of the synopsis also includes viewers reviews of the show and each programme has a user rating out of 10 to persuade the viewers whether to watch or not. tvguide.co.uk also allows you to watch certain shows online and others available to buy on itunes all easily with the click of a button. As most people who will be using the internet will watch television at one time or another the website, as it lets people know what will be on without hassle, will appeal to most people. This is an advantage as instead of being about a certain topic, such as sports or news, the wide variety of programmes on television means that people from all aspects of life could use this website to their advantage and more people will have reason to use the site. As I have spoken about before, the concept of interactivity makes the internet revolutionary and this website contains interactivity as it allows user to watch online, comment on programmes and rate them. This suggests that not only can you use this site for your self, you can also help other people in deciding whether or not to watch by recommending programmes.

Online Communities

An online community is a group of people who mainly communicate online, whether by email or social networking sites. Unlike real communities, online communities are less interactive and understanding of the other people within the community can never be as indepth as from actually meeting someone however, people can form communities with people they could not normally, for example they can be people from every continent in one community which, whithout the internet would be virtually impossible. Due to the fact of not being able to see of hear eachover people have come up with 'numerous abbreaviations (LOL, BTW, etc.) and emoticons (:-)(= smile) developed as specialised language to communicate in conditions of bandwich scarcity' (Lister et al). This demonstrates that people have to expain whether they are laughing and also facial expressions which gives the impression that it would be hard to understand people with just text and people can be easily misunderstood online. I can understand social communities using the internet as an aid to help them communicate quicker but I think an online community itself with no interaction in real life, misunderstandings and easy loss of contact is pointless and will not last as long as real communities and groups of people.

Money Saving Expert Forum

The Money Saving Expert website is a site where Martin Lewis, A journalist, who helps the public save money on almost everything. This website is highly helpful to anyone trying to cut down on bills or save money in any way. In the Forums people can get a chance to ask him questions to which he will reply and also discuss with other people any way they themselves have saved money on things. People also tend to discuss there probems or shortcomings pleading for help from Martin Lewis which tells us that people have laid their trust in him and believe that he can help them escape debt. The topic of debt is one of the highest discuss topics of the forum with over a million posts. People are very helpful to one another on the site and there is little conflict between users. There is a large variety of users as there are many topics about different things. In posts about saving on mortgages, mainly home owners will view the post whereas lots of other people would comment on saving on holidays. Although there are no moderators in the forum, there are signs telling people that if they spot something offensive to email them and it will be removed.

Web Forums

Web Forums are online site where people from all around the world can discuss certain issues and opinions. Here people can express themselves with no chance of reprocussions as it would be extremely hard to track someone down by there internet identity alone. Although there are moderators who can ban certain users from forums for there behaviour, there is nothing stopping them from being able to simple create another account and continue. Due to this, Forums can somwtimes get out of hand as people discriminate against each other, This implies that people are more real over the internet than in real life as in real life there are rules and regulation people must abide by but on the internet they can get away with saying how they truly feel about things.

'YouTube' - The Role of the Users

YouTube is a website where anyone can post videos of whatever they like to the world (within reason) and get responses. Just in the name of the website we can see that it is all about personalisation, its not His or HerTube but YOUTube, this enforces the fact that anyone can post videos in relation to their interests wherther being humour, sport, music etc. The interactive nature of YouTube 'draw upon the popular discourse of neo-liberalism which treats the user as, above all, a consumer' (Lister et al). Neo-Liberalism's aim is to give the consumer all different kinds of choice from the market, this suggests that rather than being a passive user, the people who use YouTube are more involved and can post or comment on any topic they find fit and also in different ways such as, aswell as text comments YouTube also allows the users to comment and respond with videos of their own which they can link to others. The users of YouTube contribute substantially to the website which demonstartes that without the users the site would not exist.

Interactivity - The Internet

Interactivity is a defining term for new media and distinguishes it from older forms of media. Where as other forms of media such as gaming has some interactivity as they control the game, the internet has brought whole new levels. Whereas instead of just controlling certain characters in a game, people can share their views and anything else they want with litterally the world and get feedback. Not only does the internet have its own interactivity but it also enhances that of other mediums such as sky television (which allows viewers to shop online) and also gaming (online multiplayer gaming) by making them able to access the internet. This suggests that the internet and its resources are growing rapidly and soon everything will be available to be controlled online.

web 2.0

Web 2.0 summarises the suggestion of the creation of interconnectivity and interactivity on the web which means the advancement of the internet and web design in the fields of creativity and communictions. This concept sparked off the explosion of soical networking sites (Myspace, Facebook), video sharing sites (Youtube) and even blogs. This suggests that this advancement from Web 1.0. Terry Flew has described this shift as a 'move from personal websites to blogs and blog site aggregation, from publishing to participation, from web content as the outcome of large up-front investment to an ongoing and interactive process, and from content management systems to links besed on tagging'. Flew explains here that the phenomenon of Web 2.0 describes the move from inactivity to active users of the web.

daniels laziness

05057890@students.lincoln.ac.uk, 06035595@students.lincoln.ac.uk, 06068135@students.lincoln.ac.uk, almoore@lincoln.ac.uk, boonym@hotmail.com, dsouth_ldn@hotmail.com, jasonhalawa@hotmail.co.uk

Ulysses

The most useless novel ever written!! It stretches the natural courses of the day in the most ridiculous fashion. Don't read it!! yepyep