Google Earth, Second Life and Prezi

Today in our last class of the semester we discussed some innovative technological sites online that can be helpful and entertaining.

The first site we discussed was Google Earth. On Google Earth, you can type in any location or address on the Earth and you will be able to see exactly what it looks like. It is a good way to show people what your house or neighborhood looks like, as well as showing people where you have traveled. You can show them what it looks like and the exact location for it. I have used it before and think it is a great way to show someone who has never been to New York City what it looks like.

The next site we talked about was Second Life, which is a virtual world where people can create avatars for themselves. They can start businesses and buy things. However, you do have to pay money to do this. I am not a huge fan of Second Life just because I think it is very unsafe. You never know who the other person really is. They have sites like this just for kids, but how do you know if your child is really interacting with another child on it? You don't, and therefore I think it is scary that complete adult strangers can be talking and interacting with children. If using these sites, I would be extremely cautious especially with children who may be using it.

The last site we talked about is Prezi, which I cannot wait to use. Typical power points tend to become very boring, especially when you have to use them a great deal for work. Prezi can make power points more entertaining by the graphics and tools it uses. I would highly recommend using this site for presentations. It is going to be a great tool in my line of work, Public Relations, whenever I need to make power points.

Here is a video on how Prezi works:

The Gator Nation and Online Degrees

This week in our class we talked about what defines a gator student and when do people become a part of the gator nation. Some students said they became part when they received their acceptance letters, others said they became a part when they stepped on to the campus and some said the moment they were born they had been raised by their parents to be gator fans. Our teacher asked us whether interactive on-campus students were more apart of the gator nation than online students. Some believe being on the campus and interacting with other people at the school helps them get a better feel for the gator nation. While others believe even though they are online students they still become just as apart of the gator nation as any other student.

Online degrees can be tricky and deceiving which is why when pursing an online degree it is very important to be aware of the school's prestige. The University of Florida has a great online program that is well recognized. However, other web sites and online schools may be diploma mills, which are sites that send you a diploma in return for money. This would hurt your integrity and be a waste of money because you would not be really earning the degree.

This video shows how a dog received his college degree by his owner sending in a fake resume and paying $499.



It is really just up to you to caution yourself as to which school you choose when pursuing an online degree. In my major, Public Relations, having a diploma from a fake school without really earning a degree would greatly hurt your chances of succeeding in the business.

Virtual Learning

This week in class we discussed a 7th grade girl's PLE (personal learning environment). On this site, she was able to link different websites to her PLE. It was very helpful in the fact that she was able to do an entire school project on there with the tool of bookmarking different sites on her PLE. She had separated rows of school sites and personal sites. She discussed how this type of learning environment was very useful and a fun way of learning for her. She also said this was one of the ways she learned how to navigate the Web.

What she did not tell her audience that i noticed was that she had some sites on her page that in my opinion are inappropriate for a seventh grader. She had the site FML and Facebook. FML has some explicit information that seventh graders should not be exposed to. Facebook is not a dangerous or explicit site, but if used in the wrong way can be. She is very young to be interacting with people over the web that she may or may not know, and probably should be monitored as to who is contacting her.

Therefore, this type of learning system, the PLE, can be very useful if closely monitored by a responsible adult and not abused by the child.
Here is the video in which the student explains her PLE. You can decide for yourself whether you think her bookmarked sites are appropriate or not and whether or not this is a safe and effective learning environment.



Here is another video that explains PLE's:



PLE could help teachers in the way they teach, but I do not think it would greatly help me in my major, Public Relations, unless I used it for my own personal use or to help a client.

Open Source Software and Cloud Computing

This week in our class we discussed the importance again of cloud computing, but also how cloud computing can be used to access open source software programs. Some free of charge, such as GIMP and Google Docs. GIMP is a free program you can download off the Internet, and it is basically a downscaled version of Photoshop. It is very helpful for an amateur or beginner in the program. It can do all the basics of photoshop, and you can receive the same results for free. I have used it in internships, which needed me to alter or enhance photos, without having to buy the thousand dollar program. I would definitely recommend it to anyone as a great test run or starter to Photoshop.

I also have really enjoyed using Google Docs whenever I have a project or document that I need to share with a group of people. It saves me emailing it to everyone as an attachment and then having them email me back with their changes because they can write right in the document. It also saves me the problems of any formatting issues or problems because everyone can view it exactly as I wrote it.

I have used both of these open source software programs in PR whenever I need to edit a picture and share documents with a group of people. I will continue to use them whenever needed, and I am sure they will be very helpful in my future work place.

This video explains in a simple way what Google Docs are, how they work and how to use them:

Concept Map

To see it better just double click on the image.

Concept maps are a great way to convey and show your ideas in a clean and professional way. You can make them as complex or as simple as you would like, as well as choosing a color combination of your choice.
I chose to us the bubbl.us website to create my concept map.

My map shows the different types of mass media and the tools they can each use to reach their publics. I chose YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google Docs and Blogs. All of which are very useful and new technologies to social network.

My major Public Relations could use each of these tools to reach their public and promote the companies they are representing.

Cloud Computing

We recently learned in our class about a tool called cloud computing. It is a cheaper more useful tool for small businesses to use as a resource for their Web portions of their businesses. It basically provides virtual servers over the Internet so that businesses don't have to buy all the expensive hardware and servers. It is a way to increase capacity or add capabilities instantly without paying large expenses and spending time and work, like investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software.

There many different types of cloud computing, but in the end the main advantage is it saves a great deal of time, energy, space and expense. While at the same time providing more servers to small businesses for users to access their Web Site and interact on the internet site of their choice.

Cloud computing is an extremely useful tool for any PR firm to broadcast their abilities and interact with the public, as well as represent the company they are working for. Without large servers, they will not be able to reach each and every public that they would like to interact with. It also saves a PR firm money by not having to purchase and store the actual servers.

This video explains cloud computing and gives some useful information about it, as well as offering their services to use in the work place.

Social Networking

This week in our class we talked about social networking and about the positives and negatives of it. I have found that the upcoming generations and even our society today has become extremely dependent on social networking tools, whether they use them for business, entertainment or information.

There positives of social networking is the fact the they connect people and provide people with access to each other. However, the down side is people have begun to lose actual real life social skills.

I found this video on YouTube, which really explains how often and how dependent our society has become on social networking tools.



The use of these tools is extremely helpful because we can use them to access information immediately. However, it can become a problem to where we do not even interact with each other in person anymore.

In my major, Public Relations, social networking is a huge part of it and extremely useful. Social networking is what PR is all about. You network with people and organizations to see what they think about a product or you network with people to let them know about upcoming events. Social networking sites, such as Facebook have become critical in the role of PR, as well as many other tools. I personally am a fan of social networking because it allows you to connect with people you would not normally have been able to connect with.

Audio Media and Creating Sound Files

Last week our class learned about Visual Media as a way to help relay information to people in our area of work, whether it be teaching students or giving presentations to higher executives. However, this week we have learned the importance of audio media as well.

This week I learned how to use GarageBand on my MAC computer, an application I had never used. I had no idea what it was for nor did I know how to use it. However, it is an extremely useful tool, and it is easy enough that children could even use it. You can upload your own sounds or use the Magic GarageBand, which already has sounds on there that you can play with. I am not blessed with musical talents, therefore I played around on Magic GarageBand.

I made a jazz song and changed around a few of the instruments to make it sound the way I wanted it. I wanted to upload it for this post, but for some reason both the sites imeem and filefront would not let me upload it from Garage Band. However, this would be a great teaching tool for children, and it would be extremely useful for musicians or anyone in the music industry.

I think it would be useful for my major, Public Relations, because I could use it to add music to my presentations. I could also use it to teach children about musical instruments if I ever had the opportunity.

Here is a video tutorial on how to use GarageBand if you ever need help:

Digital Storytelling

Digital Storytelling is a great new way to teach people today. Children and many other people will pay more attention to what you are trying to teach them if they are entertained. They will respond better if you can convey to them your point through a five minute video rather than reading aloud a play that takes days and 200 pages to read.

People have begun telling their stories and ideas through the internet, power points and video sites. With these tools, it is much easier to visualize and grasp the concept. You can give examples or show pictures to help get the point across.

This video shows how storytelling has transformed with the help of digital storytelling.



Web 2.0 has also added many applications to the concept of digital storytelling. The key to digital storytelling is finding the best tool through which your audience will receive the information.

Web 2.0

As time moves on, our technology has rapidly become more and more advanced. Many people don't even know they are using Web 2.0. However blogging sites, Facebook Applications, Internet Radio, Hulu and many other applications are all a part of Web 2.0.

We have used this technology to educate, communicate, entertain and much, much more. Technology is constantly growing and learning to adapt to these changes is a great advantage for our society. However, we still need to be cautious towards it as well. This video shows how much our technology has changed, and it also shows Web 2.0.



There is a list of all the Web 2.0 applications online. You can test some of them out. I know I have found some very useful ones to use in my everyday life. I feel if I didn't have them, I would not be as connected with the world.

Photoshop

I have never had much experience with Adobe Photoshop, until I began this class, and I have already learned so much about it just from completing one assignment using it. It just always seemed so complicated to me, but I have found the more you use it the better you get at it.

Photoshop is extremely complicated because there are so many things you can do with it. However, it is an extremely useful tool especially in the media today.

I have found many video tutorials on YouTube that teach you how to do several different things using Photoshop. This video I thought was interesting and manipulated the picture in a very creative way.



There are a multitude of specific tutorials for Photoshop online, depending on what you would like to do with a picture.

Visual Literacy

Today our country is extremely obsessed with the way we look. We have to fit a certain image, and if not then we are not considered beautiful. Well, what if the image our social media of our country is portraying to us is fake?

Girls and women not only in our country, but all over the world have become obsessed with the way they look. Many more women are getting plastic surgery, and many young girls by the age of 16 want plastic surgery! Girls have started becoming obsessed with the way they look at such an early age, and this trend has begun to become very unhealthy.

Dove has begun a Beauty Campaign to show that everyone is beautiful. They are trying to redesign the way beauty is portrayed. In this video, it gives the statistics and low self-esteem of women and girls about themselves.



It is a very scary fact that girls ages 8-12 have such low self- esteem and want to change their bodies. This could be the problem behind eating disorders, depression and many other health issues.
Something needs to be changed in social media for the future betterment of our society.

Even YouTube has Copyright Issues

After watching many videos people have put on YouTube, many of them have had copyright issues. Today in class we were shown a Disney copyright video that someone had made using different animated Disney movies. The video educated us on some main copyright rules and issues through the use of the Disney movie clips.

After looking around on YouTube, I found that even YouTube has had issues with copyright rules and with people uploading videos that they stole. YouTube recently deleted about 30,000 videos and many user accounts off their Web site as a result of this.
In this video from YouTube, a man explains how stealing copyrighted media from anyone, no matter who it is, is wrong.



In the video, he plays the good guy, a lawyer, and the devil's advocate, a thief. He also plays the angry people who made the original works that people have stolen. He is trying to convey everyone's thoughts on the matter of copyright through this video. He debates the ethics and rights we have as Americans concerning copyright. He shows how stealing from someone is against the law and strongly discourages it.

Puppy!

Creative Commons licensing

Creative Commons licensing allows you to claim the rights to your tangible idea, but it also allows you to give permission to other people to expand, add or make changes to your idea. You can put whatever restrictions you would like on your idea to let other people know what they can or cannot do with it. It eliminates the intermediary person between the inventor of the idea and those who would like to use it or make changes.

To learn more about Creative Commons watch this video:



Ethics and copyright are a large part of Public Relations, my current area of study. As PR agents we constantly work promoting companies and their product to the public and then get the publics feed back on it. It is extremely important that the product we are representing is copyrighted or else someone could steal the idea. If they decide to use Creative Commons instead of Copyright, there needs to be specific guidelines to what the public can and cannot use about the company's product.

It is also very important in Public Relations to have ethics because without them we can gain neither the clients nor the publics trust in us as a PR firm, and therefore we would loose business entirely. It was very important to protect our clients product, as well as let the public know what they can and cannot do with the product.