Week 9- Tutorial Task

part 1 
Essay Plan


The question that I chose for my essay is: 
       -Does the extensive use of computer/video games have an adverse impact on the health of young people.   What are the most recent papers? Clarify what both sides of the argument claim and only then offer your reasoned opinion based on facts.

http://www.techaddiction.ca/video_game_addiction_pictures.html

          
I chose this topic for my essay because it really sound appealing to me and this is a major topic in the world today. Kids of all ages play play video games of all sorts, and the health effects of the video games are always in debate. Some may say that video games have no health effect of the kids for the reasoning that it is all a non-fictional. However others argue that manner video games do effect a child's health both mentally and physiologically. There are many scholars that have argued from each side and there are numerous resources and scholarly articles that back up each opinion. I will look into this writing and write about each standpoint in my essay. After that I will then draw my own conclusion based upon the research that I have come across.     




part 2 
Political Participation Via the Internet


This week we were given the task to look into and participate in some different aspects of politics that exist online today. Here are some of the questions and tasks....


1. Sign an e-petition
      After a little searching I came across a petition that calls for an immediate change in the Family Law Amendment. Currently this amendment is making its way through parliament, however in many people's mind it is taking way too long. This petition calls for immediate change therefore no more innocent children can be abused without the proper punishments for his or her abuser. 


   If you too would like to sign the petition here is the link-  
    http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/urgent-change-for-our-children/sign.html


2. Respond to a professional blogger at a major news site.
    For this one I decided comment on an article about how an Australian was part of a Ponzi scheme that stole over $400 million  from online poker players, worldwide on FultTiltPoker.com.  This article caught my eye because I played online poker back in the US and while I was most personally affected, it did affect because this let to all poker sites to be frozen and closed down. I personally didn't have a lot of money in it, but my account was frozen none the less. Check the article out for yourself....
http://www.news.com.au/business/website-gambled-on-ponzi-scheme/story-e6frfm1i-1226143105717


3. What is Barak Obama up to today?
   From what it seems Mr. Obama has been busy as usual in the past week and will be in the upcoming week. The current topic and issue at hand has to do with the United Nations and whether to except Palestinian as a state or not. In this upcoming week he will meet with both Palestinian President Mahmound Abbas and some Israeli leaders as well. 

                                                 Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who has vowed to go to the United Nations to ask 

                                                    that Palestine be recognised as a state Photo: AP

   Reference: "Barack Obama to Meet Palestinian and Israeli Leaders over UN Bid." The Telegraph. 21 Sept. 2011. Web. 21 Sept. 2011 <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/8778072/Barack-Obama-to-meet-Palestinian-and-Israeli-leaders-over-UN-bid.html>.


4.What are the Australian Government's plans to censor the internet (the so-called "Clean Feed")?
   Within the next year the Australia internet providers will begin to "filter" what people can see and what they cannot. In theory ISP providers will block internet data such as child pornography from it users. The Government has yet to put this on paper and sign in because they keep changing the language of it, however Telstra and Optus, the two largest ISP providers in Australia, has volunteered to begin to filter the internet content made available to its user my this time next year. 


Reference: Foo, Fran. "Telstra and Optus to Start 'clean Feed' to Block Child Pornography Web Pages."The Australian. 10 Aug. 2010. Web. 21 Sept. 2011. <http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/telstra-and-optus-to-start-clean-feed-to-block-child-pornography-web-pages/story-e6frgakx-1225903166489>.


5.When will the NBN get to your place? What are the benefits? 
  There is no exact date to when the National Broadband Network will be up and running in the Gold Coast. The Government has announced that a majority of the major cities in Australia will get the NBN within the next eight years. According to the Gold Coast City Council some of the benefits of the new service is- 

• connect 90 per cent of all Australian homes, schools and workplaces with broadband services, with speeds of up to 100 megabits per second - 100 times faster than those currently used by many households and businesses
• connect all other premises in Australia with next generation wireless and satellite technologies that will deliver broadband speeds of 12 megabits per second
• directly support up to 25,000 local jobs every year, on average, over the eight (8) year life of the project

Reference: "Broadening Broadband - Connecting Your Place." Gold Coast City Council 22 Mar. 2011. http://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/t_standard.aspx?pid=4026 

6 .Find out who your local, state and federal representatives are.

   The Mayor of the Gold Coast is: Mayor Cr. Ron Clarke MBE 

   

The State Representative for Southport is: Mr. Peter Joseph Lawlor MP 

   

The Federal Representative for Queensland is: Senator Hon Joe Ludwig 

References: Gold Coast City Council - http://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/t_standard2.aspx?pid=346

                     Gold Coast City Council -  http://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/attachment/factsheets/fs357_government_members.pdf

                 Parliament of Australia- http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/senators/homepages/senators.asp?id=84N

    

Week 9- Response To Content

Can I say whatever I want on the Internet?

http://www.mattwardman.com

In America, we have rights; The Bills of Rights provides the American people their "god given rights". Included in this is the Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Press; meaning theoretically we can say and or write whatever it is we want to. I am not sure if this is the case in Australia, but in American as much as they tell us we can say and express our feelings however we want, we can absolutely not. There are many limitations to what one can say and put on the internet for others to say. So in reality no we do not have the freedom of speech and press. 

There are very clear and fine lines that limit what one can say, specifically on the internet. For the most part there is good reason for this. For instance people cannot put information or say things that are directed at a group of individuals, and disrespect that in a racism or prejudice manner. Nor can people put up child pornography, even if they believe that it is okay. In recent months, Australia in particular, has been cracking down on this more then ever with the so called "Clean Feed". The Clean Feed is a essentially a government implemented filter for the internet.  "This means legally mandating Internet Service Providers (‘ISPs’) such as Optus, Telstra and iiNet to implement technical means to filter out a prescribed list of websites.  Sites containing images of child abuse, in particular child pornography, will be the initial focus of the list." (Maurushat, pg. 3)

 So as it can be seen there really cannot say whatever we want on the internet...unless we want to deal with the repercussions of doing so. 

References: Maurusha, Alana, and Renee Watt. "Clean Feed: Australia’s Internet Filtering Proposa." University of New South Wales Faculty of Law Research Series, 2009. Web. <http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1149&context=unswwps&sei-redir=1#search=%22Clean%20Feed%20australia%22>. 

                     

Week 8- Tutorial Task

Film is ready to be revealed!


So today we finished up the movie! It took some time but we worked hard and were able to piece together all of our video clips to form a spectacular movie. I must say it did not go exactly accordingly to plan, however I personally feel that it came out better then I had imagined.


At first our plan was to put some popular music and video clips from movies in our movie, but then realized that was easier said then done. We knew of copyrights, but we did not realize the extent in which a copyright covers and protects certain content. For instance, in the beginning we had thought of using the "Jeopardy Theme" song. We thought if we gave credit to the producers, we could use it. However we were struck with reality when we realized it wasn't that simple. If we wanted to use the simple song we would have to go through a big long process and most likely have to pay to use it in the movie. Hence is why we decided to use Creative Commons Mixer Library to find our music. The same went for some of the video clips we were going to use at first. Between the copyright issues and the idea that the movie wouldn't flow as well, with the different video quality and such, we decided to disregard that part of the movie also. In the end even thought we changed up our plan a bit the movie came out great!


This is the moment you have been waiting so long for. The premier of "Keep Calm and Text On"...

Week 8- Response To Content

Creative Commons: The Internet's Show and Tell

Today in class we learned about Free Software. Free Software is essential programs and such that an individual has the right to download, use, share, and modify for free at their own will. Free software is beneficial to every because everyone is free to do whatever they want with it. Copyrights usually get in the way of people doing what they want with photos, videos, and software; however this idea of Free Software eliminates the issue of copyrights because the creator waives the rights based on the notion that whoever uses it will do the same. 

http://world4software.blogspot.com/2011/01/open-source-free-software.html

               

A prime example of this is a website called Creative Commons. Creative Commons is a database that include things such as videos and photos that people are allowed to use for their own work. Copyrights disallow to to openly use these sorts of things whenever and however they want.  To achieve a vision of universal access, someone needed to provide a free, public, and standardized infrastructure that creates a balance between the reality of the Internet and the reality of copyright laws. That someone is Creative Commons." (CC) This site allows people with different talents and views to come together to help others use their creativity to the greatest extent. It creates a community in which people with the hopes and ambitions to help spread creativity can come together as one and help one another if if they are complete strangers. 

References: "About." Creative Commons. Web. 23 Sept. 2011. <https://creativecommons.org>.  

Week 7- Tutorial Task

The Stresses of Texting filming begins!

This week we began to shoot the video footage for our movie. As a group we decided that we wanted to personally film the majority of our video because we thought it would bring more character to it. Before we actually starting filming we came up of a list of different things the boy could be doing, meaning why he was not answering the text. After coming up with a list of about twelve difference scenarios, we decided that we would use movie clips for about three or four of them; while the rest we would film ourselves. 

Courtesy of GeekForceFive.com

The filming went very smoothly for the most part; much to our surprise we got all of the filming done during class time! The first couple we were able to film in the hall way and they came out really well. Then we decided to film a couple of scenes at one of the village apartments; at this point things began to take a turn. I was the lucky contestant that got selected to play the role of the boy in the movie; one of the scenarios was that "I" fell down the stairs. So it was quite the project figuring out a way to get me to fall down the stair without killing myself; it was certainly not as easy as I had planned. But I am still here to tell about it, so it was not too bad. All in all though our filming came out much better then I had expected and I am very satisfied with the footage we are going to use.  

Week 7- Response To Content

Wikipedia: Is it all that is appears to be? 

http://ohinternet.com/Wikipedia

            


More or less when you type anything into a search engine, one of the first results is going to be an page from Wikipedia. In the last few yearsWikipedia has become the go to web site to find information of any sorts. It is  "an international project that uses Wiki software to collaboratively create an encyclopedia. (Voss, pg.1)  But the really question up for debate is whether or not it is useful. I feel Wikipedia is absolutely useful, but only to a certain extent; It is useful to find information out, however the the information is not reliable enough to be used in an academic paper. Personally I feel like Wikipedia is an excellent place to start any paper. If you read the section on a given topic I believe you get a very good idea, sometimes detailed more then other times, and a very good outline of everything. From there, one can then movie on an more or less validate and look further in depth into parts of the given topic.


The main issue with Wikipedia is that anyone can change the information on it; that is why some people are skeptical using it. It used to be that anyone could change the info, but today it is harder because you have to be a registered user in order to be able to change or add information. I personally have never attempted to change anything, but I have heard stories of people that have. Usually in they put up false information is lasts up there for a few days before it is corrected or removed. As I said before this was a couple of years ago, I would imagine that is is harder to change things and if you did in would get taken down very quickly.


So as I say I do think Wikipedia is very useful. Whether it is to get a complete broad outline of a research topic or help with a homework assignment, I find myself looking at it all the time. More so I find it extremely useful and reliable just to find the answer to everyday questions. If I randomly wonder about a date or the name of a person, Wikipedia is the idea place to find the answer.  


Reference: Voss, Jakob. "Measuring Wikipedia." Humboldt-University of Berlin, Institute for Library Science (2005). Online. http://hapticity.net/pdf/nime2006_180-works_cited/MeasuringWikipedia2005.pdf

Week 6- Tutorial Task

Group Project - Making a Short Film


In the upcoming weeks, we have been given the task to create a short movie that covers some form of new communications technology. After putting so ideas on the table and some debate, our group came up with the idea of texting messaging and the time it takes for someone to respond. As hard as it may be to admit, we have all sat impatiently, just waiting for the other person to respond. While it may only take them a few minutes to answer, it usually feels like an eternity; during which time we ponder what in the world they may be doing. We decided our movie would be based on this idea of sitting, waiting, and just wishing the other person would respond to the text message.


We all have been in this situation a time or two....

As a group we thought this would be a good idea because it is something we can all relate to. When you text someone, you cannot see their reaction; it is not like talking to them in person. So when you are waiting for a response, so many things run through your head; did they not look at it, are they busy, were they offended, etc. Our film is going to take all of this into consideration and the film is going to show what runs through a girls head after she talks to a boy and he does not answer instantly. The minor details have not yet been decided, but this is a rough outline. I feel like our group came up with a great idea and it is going to make for a n awesome movie!