TED Description

Kayla Sorbara gives a talk examining the effectiveness of webcams and how they are contributing to our social world. Using personal stories and examples, she discusses how webcams allow people to communicate and keep in contact even when they are on opposite sides of the world.

Final Project: Ted Talk

For our final, we are going to be giving a five minute TED talk. I am still not 100% sure what I am going to do yet but I think I am going to talk about how the webcam and programs like Skype are helping people to communicate with each other and how they are changing communications practices.

People usually stay in touch via phone, cell phone, chats, texts, emails, and social networking sites. While some of the aforementioned practices allow people to communicate in real time it is only the webcam that allows for both real time conversation and visualization. It is as if two people are standing in a room together having a conversation when in reality they could be on two different sides of the world.

In my speech I will talk about the benefits of the webcam, how it is different from the way people currently communicate, and how it could possibly be used it the future.

Communications Case Study

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Communications Case Study

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Case-Study: Twitter

Above is my case study on social media. Topic of choice: Twitter.
For those of you that don't know, Twitter is a social media website that allows for constant status updates written in 140 characters or less.
Some of the social objects on the website include: Tweets, Profiles, Videos, Lists, Followers, Trending Topics, Status Updates, Links, Pictures, Replies, Direct Messages, Favorites, Settings.
The relational practices include: creating, linking, following, building, messaging, doing, tagging, sharing, directing, trending, updating, searching, connecting, finding, requesting, adding.


Users make knowledge and meaning by providing constant status updates written in 140 characters or less. The micro-blog allows users to keep their followers informed about what they are doing as well as staying informed with what friends, celebrities, and businesses are doing. It provides news relevant to each particular person's life. Twitter users are then able to share information with each other. Some people get their news from Twitter. Trending topics is a great way to find out what people are tweeting about and have some common knowledge with other users. People can follow different businesses or people in a particular business can use twitter for career related information. Friends/followers can also direct tweets to each other creating a short micro-blogging conversations. People can post links in their tweet, introducing people to new websites or directing people to funny videos or informative web-pages. People can also put up pictures and videos.
I was able to determine this because Twitter users give and receive knowledge to each other through their status updates. The information means something because if somebody was not interested, they would just not follow a particular person or business.


Users attribute value through their interaction with social objects on the site by simply using the site. If a person did not attribute any value to the site, then the person would simply not use twitter. Staying informed about what friends or other people are doing also has sentimental value to people. The direct messages allow friends to have small conversations through tweets. Twitter allows for news that is relevant to each individual person. It is personal news, so that also adds value.


I think the site is successful at bringing people together. Friends can now constantly know what others are up to and it allows for mini-conversations in which you direct a tweet @ somebody. It is how some people get their news and it allows for people to have something in common by sharing the trending topics.

Jyri Engestrom and Social Media

In class on Friday, we watched a video of Jyri Engestrom talking about social objects and social media. He works for google and is unbelievably smart, he even came up with his own social media called Jaiku.

At one point in his talk he says that people are going to want a constant media that they are always connected to. I agree with him. I believe that social media has become such a big part of our lives that people won't know what to do with themselves without it. While admittedly, I am a lazy facebook user (I have one but don't really write on anyones wall or anything) I still check it everyday in the hopes of getting a friend request or seeing if anyone has posted something on my wall. So even if you do not use social media all the time, it is still there and you are most likely a part of it in some way.

Even if people don't realize it, social media plays a part in all of our lives with websites such as Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, and Twitter.

Social Media/Objects in Our Lives

In class we have started talking about social media in our lives. Social media does play a role in my life. The dominating websites are facebook and youtube.

The object of facebook is to keep in touch with friends and family. It is also status updates and chats. There are many different applications to take quizzes, play games, etc. You can post comments, videos, and sounds on each others walls.

The objective of youtube is to share videos. People can share videos with each other, post comments, and rate the videos.

Not About Love

Here is our project!! Finally finished. YAY!!!

We presented our own interpretation of a Fiona Apple song. The lyrics are spoken and the story is told through pictures.

Hope you like it : )

Group Project

Today, my digital video group was finally able to meet to discuss our project. We met for about 2 hours and brainstormed ideas. We were able to come up with a plan to complete the video. We will be telling a story based on a song.

Once we decided on a specific song, we went through the lyrics stanza by stanza and came up with different ideas to represent the images presented in the song. The song is very poetic.

Now it is a matter of gathering the images for the project. That may prove to be more time consuming or difficult than we originally thought, but now that we have a specific plan it should be easier to get things done.

Finding Your Inner Passion

In class we are now reading Michael Ondaatje's The Conversations. It is written in the style of an interview between Ondaatje and film editor, Walter Murch. I like the informal style of the book which makes it easy and fun to read. The reader can get a concept of what Murch is really thinking and some random trivia about certain movies that one might not now.

Before reading this book, I had no idea how much behind the scenes work went in to making a movie. It is fascinating how a movie all comes together in the editing room.

I could tell that Murch is very passionate about what he does for a living. One thing that really struck me was when he said, "As I've gone through life, I've found that your chances for happiness are increased if you wind up doing something that is a reflection of what you loved most when you were somewhere between nine and eleven years old."

Murch's quote reminds me of how my dad always tells me to do what I love and then I will never have to work another day in my life. To do something that you love and enjoy will help to make you happy and will make you better at the job too, because you enjoy what you are doing. When you are eleven or twelve you can find something that you are passionate about and enjoy it without worrying about how it's going to pay the bills.

Maybe more people should start searching for their inner child and finding their true passion. The world might be a happier place.

A critique of my own

As part of a homework assignment I was asked to critique my own blog and test it for usability. I am no expert or professional blogger and I do know that there are things I can improve on my blog. Here is what I came up with:

Use of Media:

I have not yet provided images and other media on my blog. I will start doing that as soon as I figure out how. There are no links or videos either.

Scan-ability:

There are parts of my blog that are scannable however, most of the blogs are presented as intimidating chunks. Long entries are portioned out but I need to make them much more defined and clear. I can use subtitles or images to help space out the long entries.

Design:

I think the overall design works for the site. The consecutive, colorful dots give the page a design and brighten it up.

The font is clear and readable and the black color of the font against a very light background makes it easy to read.

I believe the use of color is complimentary as opposed to distracting. The colors are pale and not bold so they seem to be almost transparent and blend into the background while still being noticed.

The blog does not seem to have too much background noise, the dot design is subtle.

Based on the length of some of the entries, some of the posts probably do contain needless words and superfluous sentences.

I think the site navigation is obvious. It is easy to find where a person can post a comment or different posts that someone may be interested in reading.

There is no tagline to my blog, so I guess there is no way it can be descriptive or engaging. I guess I should put one in. hahaha!

I think I can make the blog concept more clear. Not everyone coming across the site will know completely what the blog is about.

Considering that I am new to blogging, my site is probably more amateurish than professional. However, I believe my organization is good and I will get better as time goes on.

Webby Winner

In viewing the webby winner for best aesethitc, I now understand why it is so important for a website to have such great visual appeal. It makes the site more interesting and people will want to see what else is on the site. I found it amazing that the Saab website was actually able to include every aspect of aesthetic appeal, including "individual."
I think what made the website so entertaining was the fact that it was so visually appealing. It was amusing to watch the chairs shift and the plates be added to the table when the site wanted you to opt how many people would be sitting at your table.
It may seem like a shallow notion, but in the web world, looks really do matter.

Education prevailing over Creativity

In class today we watched two videos with Ken Robinson and Elizabeth Gilbert talking about creativity. Ken Robinson suggested that we are "educated out of creativity and as I write this blog I have to laugh. Here's why:

Ken Robinson is right in saying that as we get older in the school system the less emphasis is placed on creativity and the arts. Throughout my entire academic career my education has been pretty structured. There was always Math, Science, Language Arts, and History. In elementary school there was a daily class focusing on some type of creative activity, usually music or art. In middle school there was only an art class of which took place for only one semester and you had to sign up to be in it the year before. Then in high school a person was lucky if they could get into a creative class such as art, and still that only counted as an elective, not a requirement at all.

But what I realized as I sat down to write this blog is that there really is a lack of creativity the further you get in the school systems. Starting a blog was hard for me because it was a different way of writing. I am still not sure if I have it right. Especially true in my English classes, I have been trained to write a specific way, very structured and orderly and having no personality to the papers. If you've written one research paper you have written them all. One thing that has always bothered me about my English classes (more so in high school than college) is that the teacher's never assigned any creative assignments. I feel like I was only ever trained to write literary analysis for the rest of my life and now when I do get a creative writing assignment or something of that sort, I am at a loss.

Also, when schools are on a tight budget or they need to get rid of a certain program, usually the first thing they get rid of is the art or music program. Just another testament to the straight-laced classes taking precedence over their creative counterparts.

I also really liked the part in Elizabeth Gilbert's speech about a person having a genius and not being one. I think it goes to show that anybody can get inspired and be creative. I think sometimes people just give up on their own creative endeavors because they believe they will fail or are not creative in the first place. It allows people to have their own stroke of creative genius and I think more people should allow their genius to inspire and help them create.

Blogs

Once again, I am new to blogging and do not follow any blogs. However, I went on Time's top blogs list and /Film was one blog that caught my attention. I love watching movies and I think that the blog will keep my attention and be very interesting.

Another blog that I found was collegejolt.com. It is written by college students for college students. It is a blog that I think I will be able to relate to.

Will the internet take over?

Hi all,

I am writing in response to the videos that we watched in class today, The Future of Communication and Epic 2015. Both were about the internet and how it has evolved in the past and what will become of it in the future. Personally, I feel that some of the predictions were possible and a little scary.

I think Epic 2015 was more believable than The Future of Communication. It was not as extreme in its predictions. The virtual worlds that The Future of Communication talked about were a terrifying concept. I'm not gonna lie, the thought of living my life through a computer freaks me out a bit. You don't live your life, you have a virtual avatar live it for you. With that, there will be no reality. If reality is being replicated, then everybody is living a virtual reality and not truly experiencing life.

While The Future of Communication video was farfetched, Epic 2015 was more believable. Both videos predict that Amazon and Google will become the dominant, powerhouse businesses and it seems that this may be the case. Anyone looking for any type of information can find what they are looking for by typing it into Google's search box. It is now a word that people use in casual conversation. The typical response to a question when someone doesn't know the answer is now "Google it." Or if somebody is looking to buy something that is hard to find in stores Amazon sells everything from books to garden hoses. Although, it is somewhat scary to think that it would be just those two business that pretty much run everything.

I did agree with Epic 2015 when it said that the New York Times would become a newsletter for the elite and elderly. Many older people like to hold a newspaper in their hands in order to find out the news. Some do not know how to work computers or do not enjoy reading the news on a computer screen. The computer is how most young people get their news. It is faster and more efficient and most printed newspapers to have websites where people can get their news for free. And who doesn't love free stuff? It seems that nowadays many newspapers are struggling and classic journalism will soon die out. It would make sense that the New York Times is the only one left in print for the elderly and elite.

So will the videos be right? Will their predictions come true? I guess we will have to wait and see.

Intro Post

Hi everyone,
I'm Kayla Sorbara. I am a junior English major with a double minor in Italian and communications. I am new to blogging and am excited to learn about all the different media in class. I love watching movies and was excited to see the film editing book on our text book list. That is probably why about.com declared me a "very visual learner."
My intended audience for this blog is everyone in the class as well as those random people that happen to come across it.