Advice

If I were hired by the Baruch College to use new media to improve the College, I would suggest Baruch to replace its means of communication between professors and students from BlackBoard and Baruchmail to G-mail and Hangouts. Although BlackBoard has been doing a relatively satisfying jobs over the years, many students have been complaining about its less user-friendly interface compared to other newer tools.With G-mail, students can send and forward emails to others without having to worry about doing so would mess with the configuration of the email setting.The new app called Hangouts is an interesting and interactive way of communication that has truly revolutionized the traditional way of communications between professor and students. It has the powerful function that allows students to participate in online sessions by simply clicking on the link provided by the professor. In doing this, the difference between a actual class and online class has tremendously minimized, since students are allowed to voice their opinions in a timely manner.

Privacy & Confidentiality

New media has many benefits to society in so many great ways but has also greatly challenged peoples’ privacy. Privacy and confidentiality are the biggest concerns regarding the use of new media. With the increasing popularity of social networks, much more user information will be at the hands of different organizations. Before signing up as a member, these website usually require user to provide their names, phone number, address, and so on. With these information available, any organization can track down a user with ease, which can put users at risk for privacy loss and danger. Confidentiality becomes an issue because just by using a credit card at a store someone can hack into the system database and steal a customer’s personal information. Today people have to be cautious to what they post online because if something goes viral, virtually the whole world can view it. This can be detrimental to someone’s reputation.

Creativity and New Media

I created an avatar in Second Life. In this virtual world, I am able to communicate with and meet other peoples. Aside from that I am able to experience exciting things like travel in numerous places and fly over beautiful scenes. Users can also shine themselves by dressing up.This game allows users to have a second life where users can accomplish so much more than they already have in real life, which I think can in turn encourage them to try new things and go as many places as possible while they still can.

Creativity

New media fosters creativity by allowing users to share ideas with one another in a timely manner. Its role in fostering creativity manifests in encouraging new ideas and collect as many as collective efforts from participants in order to perfect old ideas. In turn, companies can collect ideas to improve their products and services.

In his article “ Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers”, Miller explains how technology companies have been the most active in relying on others to innovate for them. People’s ideas are the source of innovation for such companies. By collecting ideas on the internet, companies can benefit from it and deliver more user-friendly products/services to the general public who gives feedback to developers. And unless we keep the process of giving feedback and improvement going, there is no new media at all.

Source
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/technology/internet/26twitter.html

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual world is a simulated environment powered by internet where an avatar is created to represent the user. Its applications includes gaming and virtual learning. In the virtual world, people can communicate with others and explore different roles. 

Virtual world allows users to socialize with other people who shares a common interest as well as to allow people to express their imagination. According to the article "After Second Life, Can Virtual Worlds Get a Reboot?" Minecraft is a virtual world that allows kids to exercise their imagination and to connect with others who also want to build and create things. It allows people to explore their creativity and share it with others. However, virtual worlds may take more of users's time that would have been used for other productive activities. Other concerns are the possibility of money laundering and children's well-beings in online worlds (The Washington Post).

Virtual worlds help foster creativity by encouraging users to explore. According to the article "Avatar II: The Hospital" Dozens of hospital, medical schools and health foundations have stake out space in the online community Second Life, where participants can build their own virtual clinics and stage just about any training drill. With the creativity of virtual clinical, Nurses and doctors can explore different scenarios that they may face in real life. 

As of today, we have seen increasing use of virtual learning websites that help medical students to apply their knowledge to examine the assigned virtual patients. More variations of its application will just be derived from the demanding needs in different aspects of life. 

Sources
http://www.forbes.com/sites/dianemehta/2013/04/30/after-second-life-can-virtual-worlds-get-a-reboot/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/01/ST2008040103032.html
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703909804575124470868041204

Blog about Twitter

Twitter only allows simple discussions. And because it only allows up to 140 characters in a tweet, it has to be mainly relevant to the topic, otherwise, one has to post more than one tweet. However, it is more convenient in terms of getting notice about replies and updates of others than a blackboard discussion, in other words, it is more interactive and fun, because one can participate in a topic discussion by typing a # ahead his tweet, others can also leave comments to a specific person by typing a @ in front of a user name.

A blackboard discussion is similar to a twitter discussion except it has no character limits. It takes some amount of skills and time to navigate its less user-friendly interface. Compared to a twitter discussion, it encourage user to express idea without having to trim it down to 140 characters and in a detailed manner. One major disadvantage is that users do not get notices about others' comments on their posts such that it is much less interactive.

There is nothing comparable to an in-class discussion in that it is more interactive than any other social networking sites. In-class discussions do create the most natural and engaging environment because it requires the most attention. Discussing about a controversial topic in-class vs. online will always differ. In-class discussion provides a more intimate environment.

Social Networking Sites

Facebook

I created my  Facebook account back in 2008. I am using it more often than I used to.  I mainly use it to stay connected with friends and entertain myself with interesting videos. Facebook is a social networking site that allows you to posts statuses, post your location, and post pictures. You can privately message people or publicly post on their wall. You can also tag people in pictures and videos.

Twitter

I signed up for an twitter account just two days ago solely for the purpose of this class.  Twitter is a social networking site that is faster paced than Facebook. It enables people to send and receive messages up to 140 characters.  I feel it is harder to use because of the number of characters allowed. If you want to know trending topics from all around the world you can find hashtag and read what other people think about the topic. What I find very appealing is that you can actually communicate with celebrities.

Myspace

I had stopped using Myspace for a long period of time. My impression about Myspace is that allows users to share interests in music and creativity by uploading music and customizing your page with html coding. It is more of a blog to share stories about yourself than to connect with friends. 

Pinterest

I just found out there is a social networking site called Pinterest. By clicking here and there I kind of get an idea that Pinterest is a social networking site that allows you to pick topics you are interested in. It then generates picture icons based on your interests. You can also search things you are interested in, favorite them, and organize them into your own categories.