Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Reaction to Lines on Plagiarism

I think there are a lot of reasons students today plagiarize. For one it makes life so much easier. The majorities of students who do it do not get caught and therefore will most likely continue to do it. I agree with the article when it says students feel like since it’s on something like Wikipedia then its general knowledge and belongs to everyone. Also I think because the information is online students feel like it doesn’t matter who said. When doing a research paper students might also think to themselves, “its research, the teacher should know its not from me”. Another reason might be that students after reading something so good cant think of a better way to say it but at the same time dont want to cite everything because then they would have more citations than information.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Research Topic WJ#6

For my research paper I have decided to research a very broad and controversial topic. I choose to take what we discussed in the debate and go deeper into the investigation. I'm a communications media major and therefore have a very strong opinion on how the media effects society. So in my research I want to investigate what type of social test have been done and studies have been constructed that may lead to a conclusion of what effects the media and technology have on society today and is it more good or more bad.

some exploratory questions I will bring up in my paper:
-Has technology taken over the lives of the youth?
-How much has technology been incorporated into the business world?
-Is technology making us socially dumb?

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

one annotation

McLuhan, M. and Q. Fiore (1967). "The medium is the message." New York: Bantam Books.

In this book Marshall McLuhan talks about how the media is what shapes how we live today. He says that it is not what the media transports to us, but rather, the actual technology in itself. In this book McLuhan speaks of how the printed media have nothing on the technological media and even though we do not notice it initially we have all fallen victim to the changes.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Attached to Technology and Paying a Price (response)

In the Article by Matt Richtel the complicated question about technology is brought up. Is technology hurting us or helping us? The Article brings up points for both sides of the argument stating that technology causes up to try and multitask when our brains are not constructed to do so. The article talks about how multitasking actually hurts us because it makes it difficult for us to weed out irrelevant information. Like a drug technology has even become an addiction in the lives of many who use it such as Mr. Cambell and his son. However, the article does play fair by mentioning that also technology can help us. Those who play video games can gain better vision, and internet users as a whole have been shown to have a better research ability as well as increase our brain activity.
I think most people that use the internet can agree that it does become a major distraction at times. Just like Mr. Cambell got distracted by a tweet, a lot of internet users get distracted when they are trying to do something important. Especially if its more or less, well, boring, like writing a paper. For example, as I read the article about technology with my five separate tabs open I also continued to hold a chat on Facebook with three different people. Also I took short breaks in between sentences to listen to a new song that one of my favorite artist had just posted a link to on twitter. The distractions caused by technology didn't stop there though. As I read the article and noticed a link to see how good I was at multitasking, I just had to click it. With all the distractions on the internet an article that should have taken 20 minutes to read, took about 50 minutes.
We can't escape the world of technology in my opinion. Its too convenient. Of course it has its flaws, but so do we. While we must hope that people can at least control their need for a technological fix while driving, it doesn't matter how much research, in whatever schools, is done; The times that we live in will be a technological time probably until the end of time. As i sit at the dinner table with my family and my and both my sisters have a fork in one hand and our phones in the other; or as I totally neglect my five page paper I have to do because my twitter app is not working or the trending topic excites me; or even as me and a group of friends sit in one room not saying a word but all communicate through Facebook, I know that no matter what studies are done about the effects of technology, we're hooked!

Hey It's Tash!! :)

Hello, my name is Natasha Nichole Richardson-Norman but that's a bit long so just Tasha will work! I'm currently a second semester sophomore at Indiana University of Pennsylvania where I study Communications media as well as Spanish. I would consider my self a cool person. I get along with just about anybody who will take the time out to say hi to me. In my spare time the thing i enjoy most is listening to, and writing music. If I'm not doing that then I love to spend time with friends out doors doing something such as bowling, skating, eating! etc... I love to write my opinion because I happen to be a very opinionated individual and love to debate. One other fact about me is I want to in the future, write major production films. In this blog you'll read a lot of my opinions about different things I come across, so stay tuned!