Blog #6

In the Jenkins piece they discussed collective intelligence and convergence which were the major concepts that stuck out to me. What I took from this is that Jenkins argues the reasons that popular sites such a Youtube are being banned from schools are because most do not think it is conducive to a learning environment. Jenkins believes social networking and other popular sites are typically banned should not and are not all that bad and can in fact help. 

Weinberger and Jenkins are similar in that they believe in the same basic principles that knowledge is everywhere and deciding that certain things exist in only certain places is not true on the modern web. We (the user) affect the way the Internet can function by collaboration. Traditional education tools are becoming dated and the Internet can act like a bridge to bring newer more effective means to teach (Prezi, Wiki, so on).

Blog #5 implicit meanings

This idea that Weinberger discusses that, "the meaning of a particular thing is enabled by the web of implicit meanings we call the world" (170) makes sense. The meaning of a particular thing is based on the implicit meanings attached to it, various items evoke certain meaning depending on the relationship someone has to it. Everyone does not respond to specific things the same, especially if that specific thing has significantly less relevance to you personally.

The third order of order discusses the concept that information is metadata that can use an idea in multiple way or contexts. This concept of order may not be useful for a particular, but instead a variety of order and definition.

The song that I chose is Dramamine by Modest Mouse. The song brings back memories of high school and the people that surrounded me during this time. I think of specific times of year that I played this song frequently, my girlfriend at the time, driving my car shortly after getting my license, the fact the band is from my high school. It is interesting how a melody can be attached to various implicit meanings, I thought this would be difficult to do but all I did was play the song and it all came back to me.

Blog #3

The organizational habit that I discussed involved clearing space on my hard drive and bookmarking courses on my Internet browser. I found that clearly room on my hard drive allowed me to stay considerably more organized by dividing my courses into titled folders. Try going on your computers and look in your Documents folder, I think a lot of people have can agree that they have a large amount of miscellaneous documents that are due for a deleting, digital clutter. I also create bookmarks for my courses on the tab below the URL, I find this advantageous because it allows for a more direct path to the course website. It may not seem like it does much organizationally but I argue a “one click away” system helps me get to a site quickly, which personally makes me visit the site more readily.

There are many ways someone else could adopt my system but organize it differently. They could create a folder for the whole specific semester, for example you could create a Spring’11 folder or even be more specific and call it JanSpring’11.

Bookmarking is fairly straight forward, so variations in bookmarking seems tough to discuss, but there are a variety of ways that Internet browsers can act as organizational tools. I personally use Google Chrome because I have been accustmned to their layout, I know that with Chrome you can use iGoogle which is a tool that acts as a customizable homepage.

There are many ways to organize your computer documents, some methods work better for others but the computer is a very customizable device that can be a very useful tool if you want to treat it as one. 

Blog #2

Firstly, the prologue. I really thought the analogy of the Staples store to the digital world was very interesting. I always thought it was interesting how stores, especially grocery stores organized their product. How everything you always needed was in the very back and how this is different to the Staples model which places popular products in the front of the store.

Chapter 1 continues with the Staples example by providing various other types of ways in which we categorize and organize information and physical items to fit purpose and cut time and cost. Like what constitutes a spice, how we make a table for a meal, or why a CD with numerous tracks was developed. I thought the section on Bill Gates purchasing the Bettmann archive was very interesting. Gates is the man.

Chapter 2, when we are introduced to Mortimer Adler, I thought it was interesting that the Encyclopedia Britannica was disputed based on order and that doing it alphabetically was a problem and was debated. Than arranging by category would also be problematic. Than Samuel Taylor Coleridge discussed the five major category breakdown, which I though made sense.

The example that I came up with for how I personally organize something is at the very beginning of the semester I clean out my computer and create folders for every one of my new courses. I also place bookmarks for all my courses on my Internet browser so I have an easier time getting to the course website more quickly.

BLOG #1

The most impressive web application I have come across is The Hype Machine (hypem.com). It is a fantastic music site that helps you discover popular and up and coming artists through collecting a variety of music blogs (collective intelligence). Great site, it has replaced itunes for me personally. I am currently listening to it right now.

BLOG #1

As we had discussed with our group I found the most important concept to be collective intelligence and crowd sourcing. No matter what your career goals are there will be a very good chance that you at some point will work with, or discuss with other groups. The collective idea will be able to typically exceed the work of a single individual.
It is important to be able to have this social ability, to work collectively. Especially in a digital world there are now even more possibilities to interconnect everyone in completing goals.