Creating a Calendar for Your Blog

As our group has been evaluating medical support websites, we have noticed how important it is for medical support groups to have a current, updated calendar on their website.   As part of our project we are setting up a blog that demonstrates how to create and use different important tools, such as a calendar.  One of my responsibilities was to figure out how to create a calendar that can be published on a blog or website.  Here is what I learned:

Web 2.0: Our Project

'I have always imagined the information space as something to which everyone has immediate and intuitive access, and not just to browse, but to create.'  (Tim Berners-Lee, 1999, p. 169)

This quote was in our reading assignment for tomorrow's class.  I think that this quote captures a lot of what this class has been teaching me about the digital world.  Before this class, most of what I did on the internet was consume.  Our professors have really pushed us to become part of the digital world by consuming, creating, and connecting.  This is a powerful combination, because it actively involves us in the Web 2.0 experience.  (The fact that I am writing this on a blog is evidence of this....I started this blog and have maintained it as a part of this class.)

Social Media--Connecting us or distancing us

We often hear about media and technology in a negative context.  We hear about the problems that occur because people spend all their time on the computer and they no longer interact with others in person.  If this is the case, they have stopped part way through the purpose and potential of social media. 

I'm Grateful for Modern Inventions

With Thanksgiving approaching, I have been thinking a lot about the things that I am grateful for. I was amazed by how many of the things that I am grateful for involve technology and modern inventions. I think that this is largely due to the fact that they make our lives easier and more convenient.

Two inventions that I am grateful for are the refrigerator and air conditioning. (Yes, even though it is below freezing outside right now I am still grateful that when it is hot outside during the summer there is a way to keep it cooler inside.) 

Make Your Own Online Quiz

For our Digital Literacy labs, one option was to make a survey.  I decided to instead make a quiz. 

With finals approaching, I decided it sounded fun to make my own quiz.  My family has a Thanksgiving Trivia quiz that we have used for many years.  I used an online free quiz making website called ProProfs.com to make my quiz.  You can sign-up for free and make your own quizzes too.  It is really simple and fast! Here is how you can do it!

Peer Evaluation--Clint Peterson

For our midterm evaluation we are also supposed to evaluate one of the other people in our class.  I was assigned to evaluate Clint Peterson. 

Clint Blog--The World Through Clint's Lens 

Reflective Blog Post

Where am I at?

Looking back over the past month and a half, I have learned a lot in this class.  In this post, I will focus on how I have met each of the Digital Civilization course learning outcomes since the beginning of October. 

GoAnimate—Create Simple Animations for Free!

Here is how you can create your own animations for free at GoAnimate.com.

1.       Go to goanimate.com

2.      Click on “Sign Up”

Atomic Age: Creating a Monster

Nuclear discoveries involving fission during the 1930’s led to interest and research in using it related to weapons, medicine, generating power, and much more.  To me, one of the most fascinating parts about the nuclear discoveries is the fact that it created the possibility for greater benefit and destruction in these areas than the world had previously known.  As one source states, “Once the first atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, Americans realized a new era in history, one defined by the ability of humans to destroy their world.” 

This reminds me of Frankenstein, because these scientist’s discoveries led to the creation of a monster.  In a PBS documentary it was said that J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb”, “tried to warn his countrymen of their dangers, but powerful figures within the government feared he was a treat to America’s security.”  As quoted in the same documentary, Oppenheimer said of his discoveries, “We knew the world would not be the same.  A few people laughed.  A few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu Scripture the Bhagavad-Gita.  Vishnu is trying to persuade the prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.  I suppose we all thought that one way or another.”

Firms . . . Forming when and why?

One of our assigned readings for class was focused Ronald Coase’s ideas on when firms form and why.  It was fascinating to read about this, and I learned a lot.  According to our reading, Coase believed that, “firms will arise when they can arrange to produce what they need internally and somehow avoid these costs [of using the market].” 

Psychology: Our Many Selves

In our Digital Civilizations class last week we talked about psychology.  We discussed Freud and Jung and their theories and beliefs about the human mind.  When we were talking about this someone (I apologize that I don’t remember who it was) mentioned a quote from C.S. Lewis. 

Modernism--the break down of certainty

During the late 19^th century and early 20^th century, there was a reaction to the Enlightenment ideals.  Below are some of my notes from our Digital Civilizations discussion on modernism:

·         Reaction to Enlightenment ideals > rationality

·         Reaction to positivism > truth

·         Lack of certainty

·         Lack of faith in progress

·         War—industrialized war

·         Relativity—Freud

·         Perspectivism—Nietzscher: morals based on perspective and circumstances—dangerous

·         Art for art’s sake—formal (playing with form), detached, rhetorical)

·         God’s role replaced with art and science

·         Surrealism, Expressionism (nonrepresentational—doesn’t look like—throw back to Romanticism)

John Scopes (Monkey) Trial

In class we talked about Darwin’s theory of evolution and his work, Origin of Species, which he wrote in the late 1850’s.  Sixty-five years later, evolution was the topic of a court case that started in Dayton, Tennessee.  It arose over the conflict of a teacher who had taught evolution in a school despite the fact that the law forbid doing so. 

The Frontier--Making of the American Character

In our Digital Civilizations class we recently talked about the American Frontier.  As I was reviewing some of the material, I found some fascinating things that I want to share.  The following are some quotes from Frederick Jackson Turner’s paper entitled, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”.  As I read these I realized that often we view the American “West” as what had to be overcome or colonized.  We watch movies that show the ruggedness and the need for civilization.  However, as we look closer we see that the “West” allowed for development of people.  Even though the way that the “cowboys and Indians” lived lacked some aspects of a cultured civilization, we come to find that it is that lack of strict structure that allowed for the development of a new character—the American Character.