Week Three Reflection

After class last week I was able to set up an I-Google account, and do a little more work on my blog site. I would still like to add some more things to it. The next day I left for three days to visit my parents in Wisconsin as our school was on spring break. I was without internet access for these days, so I read some more of Hendron and printed off the articles so I could take them with to read. On my drive there I heard a lot of discussion on the radio about President Obama’s town meeting that was going to be held on the web. It brought to mind some of the articles we have read giving time lines on the development of new technology. Some callers didn’t think he should do this because many people still don’t have access to the web. However, it was pointed out that he would able to reach many, because this is what more and more people use - the web to get their news. These same arguments were used for and against FDR using the radio and JFK using television to get their messages out to the people. So here we are witnessing the use of another technology to communicate. I heard that over 100,000 questions were submitted to his town meeting.

When I returned home, I was able to connect with a few people on facebook. When I went looking for friends from my high school class, there was only one listed. Could it be my age? However, I heard that in the last two months facebook has seen a dramatic increase in the number of people over the age of 35 signing up. My kids are still surprised that I’m on facebook, but I have to admit if it were not for this class I probably would still not be on. Sunday night I was listening to 60 Minutes and they had a story explaining how hackers are using sites like facebook to access your username and password, so they can get to your bank accounts or whatever. The hackers pretend to be one of your friends, and once you click on they have what they need to get into your sites. Downloading music is another way. This is a link to the story if you are interested. I also spent some time looking at twitter and delicious. I wanted to sign into these accounts, but ended up spending my time answering the four strands for Thread 3, and following the discussions which I thought was all very interesting. I would have liked to have heard Future of Education interview with Erin Reilly, on how we might best equip young people with the social skills and cultural competencies, but I was teaching that night, so I missed it. I was able to explore oddcast.com and viewed the Sitepal introduction to the product. Losing three day of internet access, put me behind of where I wanted to be at this point, but I hope to be doing some twittering very soon.