Week 16- And We're Done.

Our final week of HON 1515 has come to an end! It's very bittersweet. We went out with some fun, though, as we got to play around with a program called "Scratch" that allows you to create quirky little animations. To have gone from learning about the building blocks of the Internet (bits) to actually creating things from these blocks (like our web pages and these "Scratch" projects) was an amazing experience. I came into this course wanting to know more about the Internet and how it works and affects our society. I'm glad to say that I'm leaving the course with these objectives met and with even more knowledge than I could have expected. Though the process does not end here. We've seen that researchers and scientists are still developing new and  interesting ways to use the Internet and this technology will continue to surprise us with what it can do. As long as they keep inventing, we'll keep exploring. So for now, I say goodbye. It's been a blast! Thank you Dr. Parks, Dr. Wilkes, and Ms. Jones for everything this semester :) Everyone have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and a wonderful spring semester and beyond. This be Nick Lee, logging out~

Week 15- Look Mom, I Made My Own Web Page!

For this week's Dissecting the Internet adventure, we decided to change it up and escape the confines of the CAP Science Building and gather in the library where we set out to design our own web pages. While incredibly entertaining and fun, this is where I found that I am not destined to be a computer science major. The process itself, I'm sure, takes time to fully comprehend and execute, but I am certainly in need of much practice before I go freelance. In an hour and fifteen minutes I was able to write a line or two and implement a picture on the page. That's about it. Hopefully I will be able to work on it a little more and truly make it my "own," but we'll see. That was Tuesday. Thursday was all about creating an animation which we would then eventually link to our web pages. The animation part? Pretty fun. The linking part? Still haven't got that far. Again, it's a work in progress. I'd say when we're all finished and are able to admire our handiwork, we will certainly appreciate what Dr. Parks and Dr. Wilkes have taught us this week :) But what I am finished with, however, is this blog post, so staaaaay tuuuuuuned~

Week 14- SaCURITY, SAH-Curity

So I was unfortunately absent from this past Tuesday's class where guest speaker Colonel Michael Barry came to talk about-- and began our discussion of-- cyber security. This is definitely both a popular and important issue our society is facing today and I am certainly interested in learning more about it as we begin to wrap up our semester in HON 1515. Just two more weeks now! Don't have much to say on the subject of cyber security for now, considering I was M.I.A., so I will leave the blog at this. Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving and I look forward to these last couple of weeks :)

Week 13- Gotta Take the Bad with the Good

This week we discussed even more ways in which the Internet has influenced social change. Whether it is the economy or politics or even pornography, the internet plays a role in just about every industry in today's world. I already spoke much about how I feel about this in last week's post, so this week's may be a little short. The one thing I will mention, however, is the amount of good and bad that the Internet has brought our society. Just as there are many beneficial social changes that result from web's use (such as economic growth and networking), there are just as many detrimental attributes (including cybercrime and cyberbullying). While many of the more negative qualities of will either take some time to eradicate or will never fully dissapear, some sort of equilibrium must be reached to maintain some sort of our integrity as a society. We may not be able to rid the world of all of it's "bad," but we can certainly work towards controlling and monitoring it. That's all I have for this week!

Week 12- Beeautiful Possibilities

Our special guest speaker this past Tuesday was none other than Dr. Wilkes, who enlightened us on the many uses of the Internet and cloud computing in his beekeeping business. His presentation showed us that the Internet truly does have many, many uses for just about any profession or hobby you can think of nowadays. With the use of the world wide web, you have an outlet for networking, marketing, informing, and sharing your ideas with the world. With all of these possibilities available through the Internet, it is obvious that social change has resulted from its use in many different areas of our society. Thursday's class was the start of our discussion on these changes as we ranged in topic from blogs around the world to the networking of hate groups. As I'm sure I've stated before in this blog, it just amazes me how in these past few decades the Internet has seeped into so many aspects of our lives, both good and bad. This week, our discussion will continue on social change and it will be interesting to see the other areas affected by the web. So long for now~

Week 11- How Many's a Crowd?

The topic of the week was crowdsourcing, a concept I literally knew nothing about before it was brought up in class. After the many discussions and activities we had in (and out) of class, I believe I have a general idea of what crowdsourcing is all about. What is still unclear to me, however,  is how much researchers need to improve their methods before crowdsourcing can efficiently and effectively be used to solve important national issues. I can't help but wonder if the general public should even be the ones leading the country in really important political issues or moral debates at all. Are each and every one of us honestly capable of contributing to such major issues? Therefore, it's clear that each individual's expertise must first be evaluated before implementing their ideas, but how can we possibly evaluate this? Questions like this, in my opinion, need to be answered before crowdsourcing's influence is broadened beyond online games and social media. I see crowdsourcing as one of those tools our society has found, used, yet merely scratched the surface in its potential. It will be interesting to see where we take it from here :) Let's talk more later~

Week 10- Media Marketing Madness

The all-encompassing reach of marketing and consumerism in this day and age is almost unreal. On Tuesday we had a guest come to speak to us about marketing on the internet, and I must say it seems like a pretty complex business. I guess to fully "succeed" in business nowadays you need to know how to market not only your product or services, but yourself as a whole. Much of what we do in our career life, not unlike the years leading up to it, is develop how we want others to perceive us. The example our guest used was dental offices in Charlotte and how some of these businesses are utilizing Google as a means of advertisement. Imagine all of the other dental offices in the country, let alone many businesses across the world, using Google to market themselves. Now imagine all of the money Google makes off of these businesses. Scary stuff. On Thursday, the last two book groups presented, and the second group also spoke of Google and the company's intentions for developing the worlds largest public library. "A physical library?" you ask? Nope. In a typical Google fashion, they intend to form a massive online library for the general public to one day use at will. I'm sure copyright holders everywhere have something to say about that (frankly, they already have), but I'm not sure anyone can stop Google from doing what Google wants to do. It's everywhere. Happy Halloween!