Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson

* From what you've read (read first), is Popular culture (games, tv, film) just a method to "sophisticatedly deliver stupidity" (paraphrasing George Will)

After the Johnson reading I feel much better about many of what I previously deemed as my guilty pleasures. I do watch a number of reality shows on a regular basis such as Survivor, Top Chef, Project Runway, and The Secret Millionaire (new!) to name a few. I believe I have watched at least one episode of almost every reality show that has hit the airs. I thought it was sad that I was the go to gal of my group of friends to catch up on missed episodes, find out the premise of a new show on air, or get the full story from some comment that was made on the morning radio show or perhaps some posting on TMZ. However, not only I am the go to gal on all things reality, I am also a huge fan of Lost and Heroes. I really enjoy following the multi-layer of threads from episode to epsiode and season to season trying to decode the mysteries of the island or origin of their super powers for that matter.I have even been known to read the blogs and add my comments after certain pinnacle shows.

Working in the world of academia, I was not proud of the fact that I devoted so much time to what the public (as I knew) it deemed as utter nonsense. But I must say, I now have shed a few layers of shame as Johnson asserts its not the content that matters, but what is important is the problem solving skills and cognitive workout one receives. I felt many of the points Johnson made regarding the gaming world were extremely insightful. Although I wouldn't consider myself an avid gamer today, I was a Nintendo player as a child Super Mario Brothers and Zelda were the games of my day :) The probing & telescoping skills described by Johnson very closely resembled my gaming experience. Wandering though the forest in the Zelda game aimlessly firing at random bushes hoping to find a new weapon or door to a hidden room. As I probed along in the game I finally began to understand the game a bit more realizing there were various weapons one can retrieve, and a number of "bosses" to destroy which fits Johnson's "telescoping" technique. But I must say I never did master it, only experiencing minimal success with the game.

This probing and telescoping represents a method of participatory thinking and with a built in reward system that creates mass appeal, it seems like a win win situation. Unfortunately, with critics like George Will it is easy to take aim at targets of mass appeal focusing on simply the content and not the real skills and collateral learning that are intrinsically involved with the gaming world. Johnson also translates this interactive complexity to the world of television, but on a much smaller level. Many of todays most popular shows are built on multilayer structures where viewers must connect messages or plots from previous shows or season to the present in order to understand the big picture. In some multi layered structures, the knowledge drawn upon may be from outside the show perhaps a current event, movie, or some other pop culture tidbit.

Unlike some shows of the past like, I Love Lucy, where the viewer would sit back and watch, this new multi layered structure is allowing for more viewer participation. After the last episode of Lost I ran to the message boards to see what other fans may have grasped from the show, and get their thoughts on the nail bitting ending :) I myself am dying to know what exactly happened to the island, how can an island disappear?? As you may have gathered by now, I could write pages on the topic but I digress to the following point made by Johnson which nicely addresses George Will's sentiments. If Will believes that pop culture"sophisticatedly delivers stupidity" in regards to the content then lets examine the content of a basic math word problem.

Joshua has 22 socks in his drawer. Twelve of the socks are white. The rest are
green. How many pairs of green socks does Joshua have?

Would George Will feel a math problem "sophisticatedly delivers stupidity" as well? It is clear the content of this math problem is not intellectually stimulating nor does it convey a greater message of good. Aren't the skills necessary in solving this math problem what's most important?

Ning

• What advantages/limitations do you see with using a Ning?
• How could you use a Ning in a work environment?

Well a clear advantage to using Ning is the price is right, its free:) Unfortunately, there are limitations involving the storage space and bandwidth with the free service. However, you can chose to pay for more storage & bandwidth, but there is a maximum capacity. Once this maximum capacity is reached you will need to move your network to a hosting service that provides unlimited bandwidth and storage which is no easy task.

As I began learning more about Ning I realized some in the world of education are utilizing its service as a platform for online learning. Ning provides you with the ability to easily create a web page, social network, and blog for classmates, friends, work colleagues or any other type of community so I am not surprised it has become a tool in education.

Check out some of the uses in Ning in education I found on the web:

Using Ning in Education
General Information on he potentials for Ning in education
Ning in Education

Boyd Reading

• What information/lessons should libraries take away from the Boyd reading

The Boyd readings provide great insight to the user population of both facebook and myspace. Boyd attributes many of the differences in user population to social status. Boyd's observations show that many individuals from lower socioeconomic class prefer myspace over facebook. However, Boyd does not reference "socio-economic class" as a division in income, but rather adopts sociologists, Nalani Kotamraju's argument that "class divisions in the United States has more to do with lifestyle and social stratification than income. " This concept in itself is quite interesting, providing a new perspective of the term which may have implications for the library world. Perhaps the differences in social class which traditionally affect the access to information could be researched from this perspective. Rather than attributing these differences to income, the differences in lifestyle and social stratification could be studied further.

There are many differences among the two social networking platforms, and it is my opinion that individuals choose one service over another due to the structure, features, and niche market that it may serve. Boyd discusses the emergence of various social networking sites such as six degrees, friendster, Orkut, myspace and facebook among others. It seems that members tend to migrate from one service to another based on performance, cost, accessibility and flexibility. Boyd's readings nicely highlights many of these differences which could prove to be very useful to the librarian looking to reach the teenage population. Librarians should also take note of how quickly one SNS can rise in popularity and should stayed informed of the newest SNS hits.

Myspace Screen Cast - Adding an Application to your profile

The following screen cast will show you how to add an application to your myspace profile using the application gallery. Since recently upgrading to the myspace 2.0 interface I have just begun adapting to the new design. Due to the learning curve I have provided quite a basic demo, but I hope it is still enjoyable none the less.


Adding an App to your myspace profile:

Getting Stuck on Facebook & Myspace

What makes services like MySpace or Facebook "sticky"?

An easier question might be, what doesn't make a social networking site (SNS) like MySpace and Facebook sticky? As stated in one of the class screencasts;it combines various different aspects of the social software world such as the blog, microblog, rss feeds, media enhancements with picture/video embedding, as well as various ways to customize the profile and interface of your site. Not only does it combine all of these great tools, many social networking sites are also very user friendly, allowing even a novice user to create a web page, post a blog, add pictures or video, and customize the look within minutes. With all these fabulous tools so readily available, who wouldn't want to spend time dabbling in various unique ways to represent yourself or business?

A member can also just as easily get lost in browsing the profiles of friends or perhaps those of other members. Whether it be checking out the photos on a friend's profile or perhaps searching for potential new friends with similar interests, SNS sites provide numerous methods for interactions via posts, comments, email, and instant messaging services, although not all SNS's provide all of these features.

Personally I have a profile on both myspace and facebook. I do check the sites on a regular basis, mostly the profiles of my closest friends in everyday life. I like to view any new photos they may have posted as well as read any new blogs or tweets. However, I find it very easy to lose track of time finding yourself spending more time perusing the site than you had initially planned. Considering my friends are fairly active users with frequent updates, I found it very easy to get stuck in the "sticky" web of SNS :)

Scils598f08 Youtube Videos

I really enjoyed viewing everyone's videos, and I must say we do have quite a creative group! I have included a quick description of some of my favorites below.


Lauren's entertainment video featuring pictures from Costa Rica was great. I loved the beautiful pictures and thought her selection of music was fabulous. You can view her video here.

Heather's video featuring strong characters for strong girls was also very nicely done. It also sends a great message to young girls and reaches them using both music and a media in which they could easily relate. To view her video please click here.

Finally, I found Gabrielle's entertainment video to be outstanding :) She was very creative and thoughtful with her graphics and choice of music. It was very very entertaining. You can check out her video below or by clicking here.

Easter Eggs

Let me begin with a quick definition provided by whatis.com:

An Easter egg is an unexpected surprise, perhaps a message, an image, or a sound, hidden in a Web site or in an application program.

You can also check out wikipedia's more lengthy definition here.

Years ago when I used to teach software application programs, I would usually end the class with an easter eggs hunt. Unfortunately, many of the fun easter eggs once found in the Microsoft programs are no longer available in the more recent verisons. As per wikipedia, "Microsoft formally stopped including Easter eggs in its programs as part of its Trustworthy Computing Initiative in 2002."

I have provided a screen capture of two easter eggs as well as a quick blurb about each egg and the steps to locate each below.

The Kitchen Sink - Mozilla Firefox

Type "about kitchensink" in the address bar of any version of Mozilla Firefox and hit enter.

If you have trouble locating "the sink" click here to view it.

You can also view my screen cast here.



The Flight Simulator - Google Earth

If you don't currently have Google Earth installed on your computer, click here for the free download.

Launch Google Earth
Hit Ctrl+Alt+A to activate the simulator

To view a complete list of shortcut keys to utilize while flying click here.

You can also view my screen cast here.

Happy Flying :)