blog#20

Today’s experience was good and useful for our upcoming essay. It was a Comparison Contrast Worksheet in class. Also as an entire class we discussed what facebook and myspace have to offer that are alike and different. The whole class was involved in discussing what each website had to offer. For like 10 minutes we brainstormed individually what each website had that the other did not have or did have. Some things that Facebook has that myspace doesn’t is Farmville, Aquarium, Awards, Survey Questions to your friends, a wall to post things about your or others. Then Myspace has some things Facebook doesn’t have such as decorating your profile, Search for Jobs, Bulletins, and Rating the Professor. One by one we just each said something that Myspace or Facebook have to offer. I remember saying that only myspace you can decorate your profile, and then Stephen Collins in my group said that on Myspace you can search for jobs, which I didn’t know. I got a lot of information needed because I didn’t know about that 25+ minds are a lot better than 1 mind. I gained a lot of useful information from this group activity and will use a lot of it in my essay. In terms of responding to two other bloggers we never did that in class so I have no idea what to write about. The rest of the class we asked questions concerning the paper and what exactly we need to have in it. People had questions about the correct MLA format, because a lot of the papers have not had that on the paper. She said a lot of us have learned it, but there are still some students that do it the wrong way. Ms. Crawford also showed us on the green board the lay out of our essay and just things that we need to make sure and have in it. We need to have a strong thesis statement in our opening paragraph about the facebook/myspace essay, or a good topic sentence. Also need to have solid points with the paragraphs that we are writing about. Preferably she wants us to have five-six paragraphs, and as always provide useful information for the reader. Once again we never responded to two other bloggers so I just wrote about the what we did in class, and just what basically happened in the 50 minutes that we were there.

Blog #19

This blog is about what we did in the computer lab today which was to explore the websites named Myspace and Facebook. A lot of the students in our classes had both of them, but of course their were some students that didn’t have one of them, or none of them. I had a myspace for a long time maybe since I was a freshman in high school, but just recently I got a facebook. I thought myspace was the shit, but as soon as I got a facebook, just to me myspace got totally blown out of the picture. When I just had a myspace, everyone would be like make a facebook, so eventually I did. In our English class all we did was just explore the websites, which I did but really didn’t learn anything new since I have had both websites for a while now. I was on facebook most of the time just talking to some of my friends that were online at the time. I didn’t gain too much information, but found out that there are other games on facebook other than Farmville. Also since I had not been on myspace for a pretty long time that now you can search for jobs, and you can rate the professor. Little things here and their that I didn’t know existed on these websites. I gained some useful information that I could use in our upcoming essay comparing and contrasting the likes and differences of facebook and myspace. We were talking in the computer lab about some differences, and how on myspace you can decorate your profile, but on facebook you can not do any of that. Like I said before we just got into the English writing lab, and just explored facebook and myspace. I’m sure it was interesting for the people that didn’t have one of those websites and had to make it and learn it right away. We also had to send a friend request to the English Writing Center so they can be our friends on facebook/myspace. Eventually I saw that they would post things on the wall or profile and show available times for tutoring sessions. I think its neat because you can look from home, and not have to drive 30 minutes like I do just to see if there is an available appointment at the time you are looking to get tutored. Overall though it was a really good experience, and I can not wait to start writing the essay.

Blog #18

The articles and videos we discussed were ‘Killing us Softly 3”; “Dove Evolution”; and “Dove Onslaught”. The articles were “Brazillion Obesity: The Big Girl from Ipanema” and “Health and Fitness: Snip, Suction, Stretch and Truss”.
“Killing Us Softly 3” is just showing examples of things that are basically killing us. How advertising is helping people buy things that we don’t really need, whether it is colognes, exotic clothing, or anything that we really don’t need at all. The advertisements are inappropriate, and the one with Calvin Klein was getting nationally recognized, not for good but for bad. Also how women’s bodies are getting compared to figures such as a coke bottle. How the image of men is getting re-looked at because of these bad boy types of commercials and pictures. Also if two cute babies take a picture it is fine, but not if it is interracial.
“Dove Evolution” is a video of a simple girl without any make up on, then how they completely fix her up for a model shoot. Then they use the computer to fix little things about her, such as extra skin on her neck or make her eyes a little bit bigger. At the end of the video, it says something like “no wonder our eyes for beauty is so distorted”, basically saying that it is ridiculous how there is no more simple beauty anymore, and how people are going to the extreme.
“Dove Onslaught” is a video just showing a little girl, then showing fast pictures of all these models, girls working at the gym and some getting a boob job or liposuction. Then at the end it says “talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does”. Basically it is an advertisement to not let your daughter do that to herself.
“Brazilian Obesity: The Big Girl from Ipanema”, is an article just saying how Brazil is starting to become obese, and if you think there are little figures when you come here, you won’t see a lot of that. It shows facts of how the men and women are becoming obese, and showing percentages. That Brazil is having an expensive future due to many of them wanting to get a stomach reduction or whatever to not be fat anymore.
Last but not least “Health and Fitness: Snip, Suction, Stretch and Truss” is just stating that people are messing with their faces, bodies, etc. How some guys love their athletic body, but their face is not going a long with it, and they pay to fix it. Also they would rather pay a couple of thousand to fix their face or body, rather than get a new car. The men and women just want to look as young as they possibly could, and they will do whatever it takes to make that happen.

Blog #17

The four articles that we discussed in todays class is “Jury Out on Facebook Impact on Grades”; “Colleges Scan Facebook During Admissions”; Facebook sparks Suspicion”; “Does Facebook replace Face Time or Enhance it?” Colleges are looking at the students facebooks who are applying to the colleges university. They are seeing on the students facebook what the student is about. They are seeing his/her profile pictures, the language he replies in to his friends, and what type of friends does the student have. They are all helpful hints to help the colleges see if they are making a good decision on the student being accepted into their university. College universities do not what to accept a student in who is a big time party animal, or somebody who has picture on his/her facebook or myspace, & see them smoking weed, or having pictures of things that they should not be doing. I agree with this, but the thing is you have no idea that the person you are looking at if they are just hiding all the bad things you do. This guy or girl could be the local drug dealer, and you would have no idea because maybe he or her does not put out his or her business through facebook and myspace. I know a lot of people who smoke and drink, and they don’t post pictures or talk about it openly because they don’t want to get fired by work, or the high school programs that they are in find out. “Jury Out on Facebook’s Impact on Grades”, is just saying how Facebook is impacting students grades. I can totally agree with this because from personal experience, I have planned on getting on Facebook for approximately 10 minutes at the max, then I just have conversations with all of my friends. Next thing you know is, is that it has been an hour. Lol! I ended up doing my homework, but there are a lot of students that if this happens to them they won’t end up doing their work. My grades have not dropped or been impacted in a negative way since I made a facebook. “Facebook Sparks Suspicion” is just mainly talking about how other students are becoming suspicious about another person. For example, it stated how a girlfriend could see her boyfriends facebook, and say “who is this girl?” You can find out a lot from facebook, and you can foretell things that are going to happen. Relationships can go down the drain, because one of the people in the relationship can think wrong if the opposite sex is talking to another guy/girl. This article is just saying how facebook is sparking suspicion from everybody. Last but not least, “Does Facebook Replace Face Time or Enhance it?” The answer is it enhances it. This website Facebook used to be only for college students, and now everyone from high school, to 40 year old parents have a facebook. Also how people feel younger by using it. Possibly some people dropping cell phones for facebook. I would never do that ever, but that is their decision. Facebook is just helping the older folks feel younger again, and keeping in contact with old friends. Those are the 4 articles we discussed in class.