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Get to be used to reading E-BOOKS in My Life

                      I was used to reading paperback books, but the emerging of e-books made a change for me. Nowadays, so many books are turned into e-book version so that we can read them on all kinds of screens instead of on paper. For most of my courses on university, I chose to get e-book version of textbook from Amazon.com, CourseSmart.com, and other ways through the Internet. If I'm lucky enough, I'm able to find free e-book version of textbook or other books that I need right the way. It's pretty convenient.   Some people say publishing industry are facing a revolution of e-books and is likely to be replaced by digital publishing industry. I would say yes, but it will happen in the near future but not right now. Print books are still the main form in the book publishing industry. However, e-books do have great potential due to its features of convenience, environmental friendly ,  and spontaneity.

Social Media Tool Increases Group Effects

Human beings are always social animals. It is what makes human beings distinctive and distinguished from other creatures. Clay Shirky starts with this idea in the Chapter 1 of his book Here Comes Everybody. So called that human beings are social animals means people can't live without participating in different of groups at current social circumstances. What really influence human being's social life in terms of groups is group effects. Group effects usually indicates the outcomes from the ways of how people communicate and interact (connect, cooperate, and share) with one another. With the help of new social media technologies, such as cell phones, e-mails, and the World Wide Web, the group effort that leading to group effects is optimized and become better and easier to achieve than before.
             

 However, why those new technologies have such a positive effects? Shieky believes "When we change the way we communicate, we change society." This is a very important idea throughout his book. Cell phones. E-mails, instant messages, and the World Wide Web, all these new social media technologies largely optimize the way people communicate and interact with each other within different groups. Shieky used the example of Microsoft to discuss that social media technologies decrease the costs of management and make the process of coordination much easier than that through traditional ways. In other words, people are easier to form new groups and communicate with eath other through the use of new social media technologies, while the difficulties of coordination fall. Group's function that achieving its goals become more effective, so that the group effects are increased.

I also find an example in my life that is a manifestation of increasing group effects due to the new social technologies. I have experienced the difference of how college students communicate with their professors between Chinese universities and American universities. When I was studying in my Chinese university 2 years ago. I generally use traditional ways of communication to engage in the education process with my professor. For instances, I turned in written paper for every assignments; neither other students nor me used e-mail as communication tool to interact to professors and faculties; And I have to complish paper test for every course. The only thing I could recall in terms of social media tools were instant massages and social networking site for personal communication. But, there was a totally different story after I came to study here Ball State University. I used several new technologies to communicate and interact with teachers and professors for the purpose of education. So far, I've been kind of familiar with Facebook, Twitter, and I have been able to use e-mails, Inqusit, and Blackboard effectively. I find its much easier, much more frequent and flexible for me to communicate and interact with my teachers and professors.
          
       

Critically, new technologies won't directly or necessarily increase the group effects. Conservative people may also choose not to use them, and people who haven't been educated may not use them effectively. Also, the complexity of coordination is still exist. But, the good thing is "the new tools enable alternate strategies for keeping that complexity under control." The new social media technologies at least provide us a good to optimize the way we communicate and interact, which gives us a chance to build a better society.    

Everybody Edit and Everybody Benefit

 

     
         I think Wikipedia is a space where everyone who know something to participate. But both ordinary citizens and professional have their own responsibilities. Ordinary citizens can feel free to participate and edit. And professionals should provide some advices and some kinds of review to let information more accurate. So that, everybody can benefit from wikipedia when he or she want to know something quickly. 

HTML Placement Element---Color Blocks

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Orange

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Technological Literacy and Education

         

             Inspired by the video that Chad showed us in the class. Most of the people in the video mentioned that technology especially computers is a important tool for people to work with. The main function of computer and related technology is gathering information quickly and effectively.


             Lots of technologies have been applied to educational field. Depends on my personal experience in high school and college, technologies have been widely used in both developed and developing countries.In spite of the level that how much the technologies are applied to is different between different countries, it's beneficial to at least have computers and projectors in my classrooms both in China and in United States. I can feel the teaching and learning process become more effective. During the developing of technology applied to educational process, the way how teachers and students interact with each other is also changing. A good thing that I've found is we students won't be bothered by time when we want to communicate with teachers, and the whole learning process is more convenient as well.

           Well, long story to be short, thanks for technology!

Selfe, C and 21th Century Technological Literacy

             There are always synonyms or near-synonyms in our languages, including English. For this course that teaching digital literacy, Selfe's technological literacy is a synonyms to digital literacy.

             Here, Selfe gives a definition about technological literacy: "Technological literacy---meaning computer skills and the ability to use computers and other technology to improve learning , productivity, and performance." 
      
          In additional to this definition, Selfe states that "technological literacy has become as fundamental to person's ability to navigate through society as traditional skills like reading, writing, and arithmetic..."

       I actually agree with this opinion. The ability to adapt and better use the new technology coming  around us is as important as those traditional abilities such as reading, writing, and thinking that originally leading  us know who we are and what we are doing.
           In terms of literacy, Selfe holds a opinion that "literacy's changing agenda". In this point of view, Selfe consider technology combines with literacy is what we are going to deal with in order to complete our daily work nowadays.


          Based on this theory, Selfe expended it into the literacy education area, Which is what we are actually doing in the university today---using technology to writing, listening, watching, and communicating with each other. 

The Internet Does Make People Smarter

               Living in the age of Internet, our generation has more accesses to all kinds of information. With the help of new technology, people are enjoying the great benefit from being connected together and sharing interesting things. In order to keep up with the paces of the development of our society, it’s very important to adapt to the new digital environment and to learn how to utilize the new technology efficiently. 

               For our generation who were born after the emerging of the Internet, cell phones, digital cameras, and social media, it’s not a hard thing to be accustomed to these new technology. However, for the older generation who have grown up from the world of newspaper, black and white TVs, and paper letters, most of them think that the Internet and related new technology make people dumb because there is throwaway culture that too much dumb stuff with low quality on the Internet, and people relay too much on the technology. 

              But, I still believe that the existence and rapid development of the Internet is because it’s reasonable and rational. The Internet gives us chance to reach a great number of resources that let us being literate. At this point, Clay Shirky’s viewpoint in his article “Does the Internet Make You Smarter?” reinforce my belief and confidence to the Internet. In his article, Shirky is a Internet advocate who critically think of the positive effects of the Internet. 

               I’m inspired by Shirky’s comparison between the development of print press in 16th century with the current development of the Internet. Many people that are pessimistic to what the Internet has brought to the society actually don’t recognize what’s the new and positive changes. Shirky said that it’s absolute correct that printing press brought choas to European’s religious culture and church’s intellectual life, but what followed is people built “ new norms around newly abundant and contemporary literature.” In fact, according to Shirky, “all of these innovations were created during the collapse of the scribal system, and all had the effect of increasing, rather than decreasing, the intellectual range and output of society.” It’s a reason why the Internet is well exist because the Internet has a increasing effect to our society. We are creating new digital culture that information flow has more freedom to be accessed and shared. 

               The Internet dose make us smarter. A huge network connect billions of people together and also links numerous intellectual resources of people together into a fair platform. Then, people not only have the equal right to benefit from that platform, but also contribute their effort to enrich that form. I agree with Shirky’s “cognitive surplus” opinion. According to Shirky, the “linking together” by the digital media “in turn lets us tap our cognitive surplus”, and “our cognitive surplus is so enormous that diverting even a tiny fraction of time from consumption to participation can create enormous positive effects.” Shirly used a example of Wikipedia to prove that Just the combination of old scientific idea of peer review and the Internet can create the most important English reference work in this world. 

              Now, it makes sense that Wikipedia lets the Internet become a big free bookstore of encyclopedia, and it works for everybody to find and create educational resources on it. So, what do you think you will be after reading several pages of encyclopedia once people just search a unknown word on the Internet? Smarter or dumb? 

Definition of Digital Literacy

              Digital Literacy is the ability to use digital technology, communication tools or networks to locate, evaluate, use and create information; the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers; and a person’s ability to perform tasks effectively in a digital environment... Literacy includes the ability to read and interpret media, to reproduce data and images through digital manipulation, and to evaluate and apply new knowledge gained from digital environments.