Wikis - From week 3 Scarpbook

Are wikis an effective means of communication? Why or why not? Why does it matter?

By looking at this question, the first thing I did is to identify the term “Effective”. According to the Longman-Dictionary of Contemporary English (http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/effective ), the word “effective” generally means “successful, and working in the way that was intended”. It is hard for me to answer this question, because I am in a pros-and-cons situation. It depends on the role we are playing while using this service, from academic point of view, or non-academically. The term “effective” act differently.

As a non-academic user of wikis, fast and easy may consider as effective. Wikis is fast because whenever you type in question, the first site that comes up with the most solutions will always from wikis. Its wording is simple, information are well-defined according by the use of different subjects. Just like the word “effectiveness”, in wikis you get different meanings such as from mathematics perspective, as well as from medicine, management’s perspective and etc. but back to the Longman-Dictionary of Contemporary English, it just simply tells you that, the word “effectiveness” is a noun, which is not enough information for us to know. Secondly, Wikis is now a universal service, because it offers in different languages. While there is no language restriction, more and more people are benefited from Wikis. The use of Wikis will also save lots of time, which we will consider as effective. People may even make friends by contributing the site together. This is good because we can expand the social network while working on wikis.

But on the other hand, from a student perspective, wikis are not the kind of academic resources we can use as references. Since people around the world have equal opportunity to contribute or edit the articles. They may edit based on personal opinion, or from what they have heard from others, therefore no sources can be found. Some people may not edit the material seriously and provide the fake information on it and audiences will never get a chance to notice about if the information is real or not.

In conclusion, I think there will not be an exact answer for this question.

The digital divide - From week 2 Scarpbook

I think we should worry about the digital divide. Firstly, we all know that now a day the improvement of technology is no way to stop. Marvin says in his article “New electric media were sources of endless fascination and fear, and provided constant fodder for social experimentation.” By the time you read the newspaper, new technologies are coming out every years, every months or even every weeks, they are very frequently. Access to digital and information technology are the assets to catch up with the society. As a student in Canada, I become more relying on my laptop for daily social, online shopping and more convenient services. In school, professors are using PowerPoint, just like this course (ISTB01), we are told to complete weekly assignments on the internet service called Blog. It would be a nightmare if I do not have such a basic knowledge. Secondary, according to the ITU Digital Access Index (2003) from the lecture slide, one can see that particular countries have a very low internet usage rate, for example the bottom 5 are Guinea Bissau, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger with the lowest access rate over 178 countries around the world. It is not difficult to find some of the commons in these countries. Lowest GDP per capita and lowest literacy rates are the two commons from there. With technology, people can easily access to websites globally, fills their brain with useful information and open one’s eyes. All they need to learn before hand are internet safety, how to access and basic literacy. The main idea is to get improvement using the internet advantages. Internet may also provide the opportunity to trade with countries around the world as well. Why we should worry about the digital divide? It is because it seems countries are going towards the extreme ends.

Communication - From week 1 Scarpbook

How did my grandparents communicate?

Back to the old day, China was a pretty undeveloped country. No internet, no telephone and no any other convenience communication tools that we are having today. They had telegrams at that period of time, but only used for military purpose only. My grandpa told me that, during the war period, the only way for him to communicate outside of the force, was by writing letters. But letters were not easy to send out; they must first read by superior before sending out. And when my grandma wrote back, the same process was applied. Communication at that time was no privacy. The other problem for writing letter was that it took too long to travel from my grandpa’s place to grandma’s place and the proofread by superior slowdown the process even more. So keeping a good relationship during that time was not that easy.

How could Web 3.0 change my life?

I think web 3.0 would make my life even more dependent to the word “digital”. Web 3.0 will act like my personal assistant. It knows all of my interests and needs, and provide me with the best solutions. But web 3.0 will not only works when I am sitting in front of the computer, as professor mentioned in the lecture, it will be part of my daily life assistant as well, for example it can detect what kind of food is missing in my refrigerator, and order it for me from supermarket. That is so convenience, since I have less housework that need to care about, so I can fully enjoy my free time. And because web 3.0 can take care most of my personal stuffs, it gives me more time and chances to get involves with the society, like meeting friends and relatives. But things will never be so perfect. What about if this web 3.0 is “sick”? In other word, since it is a digital product, it should be by chance has some kinds of crash or disable during the time, and since I am so depend on it, I may just be crazy at that time. Therefore, Yes Web 3.0 does provide lots of benefits in daily life, but no matter what, please do not be a slave for it. =]

How would being a "digital native" affect my answer to this question?

Compare to the past, technology is now slowly becoming one of the basic needs for our daily life. and since we have so much experiences working with technology, we can now easily choose the best and the right technology product for ourselves. Web 3.0 will not only be a new tool for us to use for daily life, but also part of our life.

My First Post!

Hi everyone, This is Ellen from IST class.

Setting up a blog is FUN!

And I hope all of you will enjoy your IST class!

Good Luck! =]