Are Wii the Children of the Revolution?

The Wii game is a new gaming system that imitates your actions. To me this technology is only a game, not a revolutionary. A revolutionary is something that can save lives, like technology that can find a cure for diseases or that can help make world peace, now that's a revolutionary. We shouldn't even think of the Wii game system as anything more than a game! In my picture I put a life line on the Wii system and then an X with the wording " YOUR LIFE DOES NOT DEPEND ON THIS!" just to represent that this game cannot help save lives and does not make the world a better place.

The Genographic Project

People have always judged others for their appearance, ethnicity and or family, but now that the world is being informed of our ancestry we are all aware that we are related somehow. This picture is representing different cultures of the world and all of them united like a family, and in the background I put the phrase "WHY BE RACIST TO YOUR OWN KIND?" meaning, why judge others for the way they look? We should all respect eachother not only because we are related in some way but because we should respect eachothers differences.

With the Good, Comes the Bad

This image that I created talks about the advantages and the disadvantages of technology. In this image the advantages are pictures of a world with a phone, which represents world wide calling and the car represents speed, meaning technology that helps us get to our destinations faster and or finish our work faster. The file cabinet represents easy access to objects because of technology and the msn conversation is being able to talk to others no matter how far they are, just like worldwide calling. However, advantages always have disadvantages. In the disadvantages section, there is a theft, which represents what technology can cause because some people cannot afford certain technology and instead steal it. Another disadvantage is Homer on the couch which represents laziness, since technology make our lives somewhat easier, we depend on it more and more, and that gives us less work to do, which is what the next disadvantage on my picture. That is the two people, one of the men is shouting at the other, which represents loss of jobs because of technology. And the last picture is the two cars that are in an accident. This represents how people lose focus on driving because they are using cell phones at the same time and that could outcome in car accidents.

IPod Classroom

The technology today is improving all the time and is making more ways to work around our lifestyles. And now, they have created the IPod classroom, where you don't have to go to school to attend seminars/lectures. You can now watch your lectures on your IPod. As a Mary Ward Student this would be the perfect kind of technology for me because I don't like being stuck in one place for a seminar. This is such an advantage for students because they can watch their lectures whenever they have free time or when they're on the go. And, a great thing about the IPod Classroom, I can always replay, rewind, and or fast forward the lectures to get the things I missed before. I personally always miss things and this just makes my life it a whole lot easier I would also never miss a lecture because it's all available to me. However this technology can also be a disadvantage especially to those who aren't self disciplined because since there isn't anyone supervising you and making sure you're doing your work, you begin to slack off, and you’re work begins to pile up until you realize you need to do work and it’s already too late. There are many advantages and disadvantages to this kind of technology and I feel that, that sort of freedom is too much for some students to handle, and that we should just stay with the procedure we already use today. It would make our lives easier but technology isn’t supposed to make life easier, it’s supposed to customize to our lifestyles and nothing more. Sometimes, we need to work hard to achieve great things. So, in the end my decision is that this sort of technology isn’t needed right now because we as students and people should learn that we cannot have everything easy.

When War meets Video Games

Video Games have been around for a pretty long time now, but when did it start to become so violent? For example videogames that are all about war. I can see that when people are frustrated with someone or something, playing these games are an easy way to forget about everything around you. Many people who are going through problems in their life depend on something to make them forget about it, and one of those things are video games that are war based. It is a better way of taking out frustrations instead of drugs, alcohol or violence, but it gives them the idea that war isn't an important issue. Especially in this time, where in a lot of countries thousands of people are dying because of war. And when you play these kinds of games, they're so realistic, you don't even realize that it becomes a big part of your life and you start to base your life on the video game, which can cause serious problems emotionally and physically (meaning that you yourself may become more violent). "If it's not realistic, it's not worth playing," is proof that the realer it get, the more it causes people to change in bad ways, like treating people with disrespect and insensitivity. Personally, video games, especially the ones with that concern war, haven't really attracted me because of the violence, and too me, I don't support anything that makes war seem like it's not an important issue.

Reading in Cyberspace

For me, going to the library can be such a hassle especially if your a Mary Ward student, but now that I have been introduced to the Google Book Search, I don't even have to leave my house. Google Book Search is a program which you can access the full text for certain books. This service is library-based. Having this program on Google will indeed affect publishers negatively because Google is making a profit for the publishers work and publishers feel they aren't being taken into consideration. How could publishers not support this program? First of all, Google didn't ask publishers for permission to do this, and second of all, they aren't receiving any profits. It's only normal for publishers to be against this whole thing. Google's competitors such as Yahoo and Microsoft are also against Google's Book Search, but the only reason why they're against this is because Google is way ahead of them and all they can do is try to keep up. Since Google Book Search was created it has given people the advantage to access most books, both new and old. That makes it so much easier to locate information from and for books. Even though, this is a library based digitization, librarians should still be threatened because some books cannot be fully previewed, so if the book you need has only a little bit of information available on the computer, then no matter what, you'll still have to go to the library sooner or later. In my personal opinion, I feel this new library based digitization is a big advantage for me, it gives me much more time on other things, and when I need information right away, I don't even need to search or reserve books. I feel sooner or later publishers will have an agreement with Google and could possibly improve the Google Book Search.