Advice to Baruch College

In this age of new media, educational institutions have been completely changing how they operate. Baruch College certainly has been implementing new media in their operations, but not to its full potential.

I think that Baruch could offer more online classes. Through new media online classes have been a major success. An argument against online classes is that it takes away from classroom interaction between classmates and professors. However, if the college could utilize a blog-like system, students can have discussions with eachother and the professor. Also, something that hasn't really been implemented into current online classes is the use of virtual reality. If professors can deliver their lectures through virtual reality, students can listen through the lecture at any time and place. In a college like Baruch where majority of students are also working, online classes are extremely valuable by making their class schedules as flexible as possible.

Another way Baruch College could utilize new media is to have a profile for professors upon selecting their classes for your schedule. I believe if professors' ratings could be seen along with other information on the course, it will give them more incentive to teach the course to the best of their ability. Other colleges already implement this system and this could be extremely useful to students.

Creativity and New Media

New media definitely fosters and influences my creativity. My favorite social media app right now is Snapchat. Snapchat has a function called a "geo-tag", which basically is a unique graphic that you can include on your picture or video showing you where you are. I find all these geo-tags very interesting and am always checking for new geo-tags when I am in a new area. I've included some of my own "snap stories" to show some examples of geo-tags.



As you can see each geo-tag is unique and it's extremely fun to travel to new places to include in your snapchats. The creativity part comes in when Snapchat earlier this year allowed for anyone to create their own geo-tags. After a small payment you can send Snapchat a graphic and it will be able to be used in a certain location for a certain amount of time. My organization, Delta Sigma Pi, utilized this function to welcome the freshmen and welcome everyone else back from the summer break.



Without this function of Snapchat, I wouldn't have even thought to care about geo-tags, but it was extremely gratifying to see our custom geo-tag on the app.

Creativity

Raw creativity certainly comes from the human mind and not from technology. But from what we've seen technology can foster creativity within us. New media allows us to explore our talents and interests in a way unseen in the past. As Isaac Bell writes in his piece, Creators, Audiences, and New Media: Creativity in an Interactive Environment, you can see that new media exposes people to a whole new dynamic when exploring their creativity. People can easily share their work through new media and get immediate feedback with no extra cost. Stars such as Justin Bieber was able to become an internet sensation when he first uploaded his creativity and talents on to Youtube. With the opportunities and possibilities that new media offers, it definitely allows people to explore their creativity more.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual reality has taken huge strides in recent times. Technology has been pushing itself to provide us with a way to escape reality and jump into a virtual world.

Virtual technology can be used in many ways. The first and most obvious would be using it to escape reality and jump into a fantasy world. This could be through a video game. Also as shown in the academic article by Lisa Dawley and Chris Dede "Situated Learning in Virtual Worlds and Immersive Simulations". They say that situated learning can be utilized by immersing students in virtual situations of real world experiences. This can help in any classroom be it an online webinar or a complex digital simulation allowing medical students to operate on a fictional body. You can also be somewhere you're not. In Dave Itzkoff's article, "I've Been in that Club, Just not in Real Life", he describes how he was able to enjoy the music and entertainment of a band through virtual reality when the physical place was too crowded.

Some pros of virtual reality are the obvious ones such as enjoying things from the comfort of your home, same amount of access to experiences wherever you are in the world, and just overall convenience. If a student is sick and unable to make it to class, if he can utilize virtual reality technology, he won't have to leave his bed to sit through the lecture. Cons can be a huge problem if people abuse this. People can use virtual reality for nefarious activities. They may use it for criminal intentions. It can also divert people from human contact. When you can go anywhere in the world through virtual reality, why would you ever leave your house?

Virtual realities can foster creativity by exposing people to things they would never have been through its technology. Also due to the fact that virtual reality is still something that's new in technology people would be motivated to utilize it in new and different ways.

I think that if virtual reality evolves, it can have a very normal application in our lives. As a student I suspect that virtual reality would cause universities and colleges to administer a considerable more amount of online classes.

Blog about Twitter

Twitter is a great social networking site utilized to facilitate conversations on current events.

The difference between Twitter and a blackboard discussion would probably be that Twitter facilitates a way larger variety of conversations. Blackboard has a limit to what the course is specific to and what the professor wants the students to discuss, but there are conversations on Twitter, with the whole world, about all things happening.

Twitter discusses things in real-time. This is probably the biggest difference between Twitter and an in-class discussion. You're also not limited to a set number of opinions which is the professor and students of the class. Anyone is free to jump into the loop or choose to just spectate.

Social Networking Sites

As we all know, different social networking sites have different uses, but all are used to keep us all connected with one another.

Facebook is more for daily use. It keeps us well connected with our own social circles and gives us updates on our specific interests. Facebook can be invasive at times where they have the most problems with privacy and the like. Some people also criticize their own Facebook friends for sharing, at times, useless aspects of their lives. However, Facebook is a great way to stay connected with these annoying friends and gives us a way to updated on aspects with just a click of a button.

Twitter has been the subject of many "controversial tweets". The important aspect of Twitter is that you can be a part of the current conversation of the modern world. This is something you can do on Facebook, but due to the fact that you're only allowed 140 characters per post on Twitter, it really is a conversation more than a presentation of information.

Snapchat is great and is my personal favorite of social networking sites. You send pictures and short videos to people which disappear after a set time and is never found again. You basically use pictures and videos to communicate with people. There's also an option to upload a post onto your "story", which lasts for 24 hours before deleting itself. If you do want to save a post, there is a save option, which then saves the post into your "moments" folder on the app. You can choose which friends to view their story and you don't have to worry about privacy issues as the pictures and videos delete after viewing.

Instagram is a great way to share your life through pictures and videos, similar to Snapchat. The one difference I would definitely say is that Snapchat is more casual whereas people put in a whole lot more effort into their Instagram posts. Instagram gives you a chance to show off about your life and make it as beautiful and interesting as possible. This is because Instagram posts don't get deleted and stay with you. The aim is to get as much likes and followers as possible.

Social Net'g

Social networking plays a huge role in today's global connectivity. Social networking technologies connects people in many ways. If you're traveling to a new place, like I am this week to a new town (Santa Barbara, CA), social networking can notify your friends about your adventures and also receive suggestions on where to eat and where to visit. Social networking is also used to see and listen to other people's advice and opinions. If a user had a bad experience shopping at a particular store, they will more than likely post and share their experience and can help people stay away from the store. In the same way it can bring more people to the store if there was a positive review. Another big thing about social networking, especially now more than ever, is exposing people to controversial issues and exposing unjust actions through posts, pictures, or videos.

Corporates have been trying to utilize social networking. This is especially prevalent in their recruiting strategies, which is the focus for my term project. Employers are finding that through social networking sites, they are exposed to a more wide variety of candidates. As Frank Langfitt describes in his article " Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting", an online social networking platform such as LinkedIn can help an employer find a candidate who isn't even necessarily applying for the position. These social networking sites allows people to be aware of more position openings but also allows employers to reach out to potential candidates on their own.

There is definitely a dark side to social networking. There have been many issues of cyber bullying as well as privacy controversies. Social networking opens up a platform for people to communicate with each other, but like every good thing, some people can turn it into a weapon for inflicting pain. Through social networking, bullies have a way easier time to inflict hurt on their victims. Social networking also has issues on privacy. Even Mark Zuckerberg's family, creator of Facebook, have complications regarding their privacy on the site as seen in this Wire story, "Facebook Privacy Is So Confusing Even The Zuckerberg Family Photo Isn't Private".

I think that social networking has the potential to completely connect us. I think that it can potentially replace all other forms of news. People can get real time reactions on events such as the recent presidential debates. If there is a disaster on the other side of the world, people will be able to learn about it through social networking. It is a huge part of the news in today's times, but social networking has the capacity to completely replace the news in the future.