Blog 9 Emergent Behavior

A strong an example of emergence I have participated in is the drills my high school marching performed during our shows. I was a member of the marching for 6 years. I played the bass drum so I only had the opportunity to move during the show one year. The drummers stood still in my band because it is very difficult to do drills with a bulky drum on your shoulders. We created a center piece for the show to be based around. The band preformed many drills over the years, but we could only truly see what they looked like on video tape. Everyone on the field was assigned fairly small movements on the field at different points in the music. To the individual participating it just looked like people randomly walking around, but to the people in the stands it formed shaped and pictures. On the field, there was no way to tell that a bigger action was happening because of everyone's movements. Our movements were precisely timed and measured. We knew exactly how many steps to take and where to stand. These little movements that everyone made it possible for the big picture to form.

            This is an example of emergence because the small actions of individuals lead to a much bigger action. Everyone only took a few steps or turned around but to someone in the audience it was a much bigger movement. Everyone contributed to the total picture. The individual actions made a much larger impact when joined together with everyone else's. This is how the drills were successful and put on a show for the audience. No one would want to see one person do something, the art is in  everyone working together. It is amazing what can happen when each person does such a little thing. This is what emergence behavior is, everyone does a small part that causes something very large and complex to arise.

Weblog 7-8 China Debate

                Many people in the United States do not realize the kind of freedoms that they enjoy compared to life in many other countries. In China, the citizens do not have nearly the quality of life that the people of the United States have. One big issue is freedom of information and ability to speak out about issues. There are very strict rules and censorship of the internet in China. "The Great Firewall" as it is known blocks many websites and information from people's access. Most sites about government information and many communication sites are unable to be accessed by Chinese people. This is a form of social injustice forced by the government. The people are working very hard to find a way around these barriers, but have not had much success.

            Many large, American companies such as Cisco, Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo have expanded to China. However, the government places restrictions on the use of the systems. In 2002, Cisco approved a sale of $100,000 worth of routers and internet equipment to the Chinese government. It was later released that this equipment was used to build the "The Golden Shield" by the Chinese government. This blocked millions of people's access to the internet. This is probably why Cisco tried to cover up it and only debated this sale internally with their officials. The other companies also have done business in China for similar purposes. Google and Yahoo allow the government to limit what websites and searches are allowed by their engines. Google, especially put up a huge fight to work with the government and help the people access information. However their efforts were not able to stop censorship.

            The United States government is not happy that their companies are contributing to social injustice in other countries. The government is not the only one, as  Arvind Ganesan, a director at the nonprofit Human Rights Watch said "If you know ahead of time that a sale could lead to human rights violations, and there’s no way of mitigating that, maybe you shouldn’t offer it to that entity,". The government realized this state of distress by it's members and the citizen's of the United States and called a conference to discuss the issue. The companies defended themselves. I believe that companies have every right to sell their products to people all over the world. Though I do not feel it is ethically right for them to sell them if they know the products will be used to limit human rights, I do not feel it is the government's place to tell them that they cannot. Companies such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Cisco are privately owned companies. They are not ran by or affiliated with the government in anyway. This should mean that they are free to operate their business with the out the government telling them what to do. The capability of a product to be used for censorship should not limit its ability to be sold.

            Many people do not feel this way and think that the United States has an obligation to protect people's rights all over the world. The United States could place restrictions to help the people of China by helping to block resources to the Chinese government. This can be viewed similarly to other plans the United States have used in the past to bring freedoms to people. As an American company, companies should be forced to follow the values of the country. They should be expected to be against social injustices and definitely not help the governments create it. Many people in China are fighting to find a way to have freedom on the internet, and the United States should not be making it harder for them.

            Chinese people have made many strides to help bypass the "Great Firewall" and gain freedoms on the internet. But are their efforts enough? The Chinese government is huge and very powerful. "The Great Firewall" is very detailed and complicated. Hacking it would be very difficult if not impossible. Even when people find ways around the restrictions the government finds a way to shut them down. "The idea is that coders elsewhere get to Twitter, and offer up feeds at their own URLs—which the government has to chase down one by one." says Jonathan Zittrain, co-director of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. People will never be completely successful because the government will always find them. The government is using many high-tech methods to block the micro blogs that people are using to try to access information. These include IP filtering, DNS blocking and redirecting, URL filtering, and packet filtering, and connect resetting. This is too much for people to bypass without something being done to limit the government's actions. Even though they have had some success with their blogs and some successful protests no real change has been made. The battle for protesters is so difficult because the government has truly stepped up the censorship. They are working to build a massive system with an comprehensive surveillance network. This would be equipped with the latest technology monitoring people in every way possible. How can a group of activists compete with that? As much as I would like to believe the people can win this fight it's just too big. Even a huge company like Google was not able to win the battle against censorship, The people will need a partner, probably another country, to come in and help them.

            People are finding some success such as the use of UltraSurf and other programs as different way to access the internet without censorship. They can also use the readily available proxies and virtual private networks. People have found success by posting their stories and grievances.  For example in 2003 when the story of Sun Zhigang's death was told online the uproar led to the law causing it to be overturned. The "underground" internet blogs are slowly becoming the most popular way for people to get true information about what is going on in their world. In these ways it is helping to increase the freedoms of the Chinese people, but the government is always looking and watching. Many websites are being shut down and blocked every day.

Sources

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/04/15/googles-ordeal-in-china/

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/05/leaked-cisco-do/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall_of_China#Protest_in_China

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/100852/The-Rising-Tide-of-Internet-Opinion-in-China.aspx

Digital Story Proposal

I am very good with computers and usually do not have problems getting things done. However many of my friends and classmates do not know a whole lot about technology and how to use it correctly. In this case, it is only is a small problem, but for many people the issue is huge. In my digital story, I plan to talk how many experiences helping people in and out of school with computers relates to the much larger problem of the digital divide. Many people have the misconception that the digital divide is only a problem about people having access to computers, but it much bigger than that. It is not enough to just given some one new technology, but you must also show them how to use it. I have seen firsthand how a computer is useless to someone who does not know how to use it.

            I think the digital divide should be expanded to include the concepts of education and digital literacy. Everyone deserves access to a computers and a high speed internet connection, but they also need the knowledge to use it. I will provide specific instants when just giving people access was not enough. It has been shown that people must be taught how to use technology for them to get all they can out of it. I believe for my main theme in my story I will discuss how many of my classmates got new laptops for college but do not have the knowledge to use them in all the ways they need. For example, most students in my chemistry lab class did not know how to use Excel well enough to do a project. I think high schools should offer more classes in computers and software. My high school only offered one, and it was not very detailed. Besides students the elderly also lack many skills in technology. My family recently got my grandmother a computer for Christmas, and I have been teaching her how to use it. There are no library or community center classes available to help her learn. I plan to relate my friend’s and family’s problems to those on a much bigger scale. The digital divide is a large problem in the United States and all over the world.

I have only experienced a very small side of this problem. I plan to explore and present how this issue is affecting the lives of so many people. I think this topic fits in with our class because there are minority groups that are mainly affected by this issue. The same groups such as blacks and Latinos are the most impacted. That is just in this country alone, and there are many other countries affected much worse. Computers and skills have the potential to help people greatly improve their lives. They can help provide an education, employment, and many other goods and services. I believe that this a social justice issue because it is a way that people of minority race and status, among other reasons, are missing out on everything today’s world has to offer.

I have not completely decided on the exact format and programs I would like to use to tell my digital story, but I believe I will be using Animoto, Atranormal, and Prezi. I found these programs on the Cogdogroo site. I plan to use Prezi as my main format and import in pictures and videos from the other two. I think Prezi looked like the best way to tie everything together and to provide the text. I like that you can make like a moving power point that keeps everything more exciting. I have never seen a program that allows you so much freedom in making a presentation.  I would like to make a short movie in Xtranormal. It allows you to make an animated movie. I would like to write a short script and create short films of the situations I will be discussing. This should keep the presentation entertaining and enforce the ideas. I really like the photo editing and affects in the Animoto program. You can make really cool slideshows and make dynamic displays.

            I have been playing with these three sites and learning how to use them. Presi has very helpful tutorial videos on their website. I have also been watching videos and projects that people have made to show me the different features I could use. I have worked with video making software before, but none of these programs. They do not seem too complicated and I have learned a lot from playing around with them. My only concern right now is that I have not tried to put videos from Animoto and Extranormal into Presi. I believe the file types will be supported and it should work. I would like to use the other two to add some extra to the project. I plan on trying to put together a short one just using files already on my computer to make sure it works before I begin my project. I plan on continuing to practice with the different programs so I can get used to them before I need to make my digital story.

Annotated Bibliography

Warschauer, Mark. "Reconceptializing the Digital Divide." First Monday 7.7-1 (2002). First Monday. July 2002. Web. 29 Sept. 2011. <http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/967/888>.

This article describes many specific situations in which social justice projects were done in various cities. It proves my point that access to technology is not enough.

Jenkins, Henry, Ravi Purushotma, Katherine Clinton, Margaret Weigel, and Alice Robison. "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture:Media Education for the 21st Century." New Media Literacies. MacAurthur Foundation. Web. 29 Sept. 2011. <http://www.newmedialiteracies.org/files/working/NMLWhitePaper.pdf>.

This article discusses digital literacy and education. It shows the need for new skills and ways to obtain them.

WebLog 6

I am a very big internet user. I use the internet for basically everything from homework to communication to entertainment. I am on my computer all the time, probably too much. I am mostly a consumer in my use of the internet, but I have posted some things. I would not consider myself a creator of internet content. I have a made a YouTube video, written some fan fiction, and various posts/comments but not a lot. My biggest internet content creation is probably the fan fiction I wrote over the summer. I was really surprised that people actually read it. This helped me to improve my productive skills of writing which tied in literary and ITC skills. The internet also helps to improve communication skills, because I use many social networking sites. My internet use also includes receptive skills because I read a lot to learn and do homework. The internet is the first place I turn to get help on homework . I use the internet a lot for information and entertainment. I watch a lot of videos and television on the computer. The internet allows me to have access things that I would not be able to any other way.
Literacy and ITC skills are linked to each other. Using the internet allows you to gain and improve literary skills. All of the skills that I mentioned above are also literacy skills as well their ITC components. Computers teach new ways to use skills outside of normal context. Literacy and ITC work together. They add to each other but without literacy abilities ITC could not be used properly. The internet can use many types of literacy and communication skills to get a message across. Because ITC helps people spread these messages in a social context it is very similar to literacy.

The website "Where Race Lives" ties many different events and theories in to the concept of social justice. It shows how much race really did and still does affect people's lives. Many people believe that the government has taken actions to help lower class people, but in reality the help never reached the people that truly needed it. When the government started social security and programs to help people on homes it excluded many lower class people. Non-whites were not eligible to benefit from many programs. These people are the ones that really needed it. So even though the government appeared to be adding social justice agendas, they really did not. It cannot be just if it excluded people due to race.
In the past people had very negative views towards non-whites. People even excluded them from work and housing when the law prohibited it. However, law enforcement agencies were often racist and did not stop them. It was very difficult for minority people to find a place to live and work. It has been found that neighborhoods can decline just because of people's deceptions of having African Americans and Latinos move in despite the fact they have not caused any trouble. People just had the mindset that these people were bad for the area. This idea is the exact opposite of social justice. These prejudices are completely unfair. Today many aspects of life has improved for non-whites, and they are included in the government's programs. However, people still experience racial acts, and the world still has a long way to go before it can be socially just.

Photo:Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice

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