Manon’s Blog

As time continues, I am starting to realize that my knowledge of the internet has greatly grown. I feel a lot more comfortable with the blog than when I first started. The addition of small details to my blog has personalized the blog to reflect me. The past week was all about the voki.

Before this past week I had never heard of a voki. To be honest, I probably would have guessed it was a type of toy maybe made by Apple since they seem to love unique names. Yet, the voki turned out to be a very valuable tool for my website. Just as I would in real life greet a customer (which I am constantly doing at work), my voki character greets anyone who enters my blog. My favorite part, however, is that I could make the voki into whatever I wanted. As a blond myself, I found a blond character and added small details I felt made her more attractive. After all, appearance, as I have learned, is very important on a website.

Personally I’ve always enjoyed British accents. With the help of the Voki site, my character was able to gain the British accent! I must admit, I greatly enjoyed that aspect of the voki.

Yet beauty wasn’t everything this week. I also spent time discussing the negative uses of the internet in class. Certain people have begun abusing the internet for purposes that are not beneficial to all. Unfortunately I am scared to say that the actions of these few people may hurt the average user as well. If violence is spread throughout the internet, some users may find that their internet usage may become limited. Though not practical, necessity overrules practicality. Please remember to stay safe on the internet! Having the internet is a privelage and it should not be abused.

When creating a website for the first time determining where everything should be placed is not obvious. However, just like anything in life, there is a useful and effective way to organize a website. There are certain areas of a page that attract more attention from a reader than others. These areas are known as “hot spots.”

Luckily, I mostly had automatically followed the “hot spots” naturally. The only real changes I made to my blog were to place my blog links to the right side bar. After all, it has been shown that most users tend to look to the right for any links. Otherwise, my blog title was already located in the upper left of the page and my blog information remained at the center of the page as well. The left hand is the first place readers look since most people tend to read left to right. Furthermore, since information should be the “center” of attention to the reader, it is important to place any writing at the center of the page.

These few tips are very helpful to help create a more user friendly blog or web page. By going to the Hot Spots
web page you will be able to further explore how to create a usable website.

With the recent You Tube scandal, online violence has become a pressing problem in the United States. Recently there has been an increase in the amount of violent videos uploaded to different online sites, notably You Tube.

The fact that young teens are able to not only premeditate an attack on one of their peers, but videotape it as well, is very alarming. Teens seem to have lost the disgust in violence that current adults still have. They are less susceptible to seeing pain in others and reacting in a way to help the injured person.

However, is the internet to blame? Though the internet access may have increased throughout the United States, there is no direct link that it has increased teen violence. When video games first came out the same claims were made, however, many studies disagreed with the assumption.

As seen here, the violence rates have actually decreased with the years. There is no need to blame the internet and websites such as You Tube for the inability of some teens to control their anger. However, if we, as a society, work together to defeat such violence, perhaps teen violence will continue to decrease. No teen should enjoy violence, whether it be watching violence or committing acts of violence. Personally, anyone who wants to fight should be sent to the military because they could be more valuable committing such acts against a common enemy. The penalty may be harsh, but shock is really the main solution to catch the attention of any violent person.

Truthfully, I could never commit an act of violence. I cannot understand how people enjoy watching people in pain. It is hard enough for me to watch people suffer in a movie, let alone in real life. For now I do not know how people turn to such violence, I can only hope that with the combined efforts of parents, friends and teachers, teen violence will continue to go down in quantity.

These past few weeks have all been about understanding the true value of blogging. I mean, I’m not going to lie, blogging has never been something I ever imagined myself doing.  Perhaps I resembled the man below.

I found this picture to be very appropriate at the moment since I am reading Hamlet in English Class at the moment. I realize that I too must, like Hamlet did, get through my main struggle. I must not worry about being too open and just sharing what I think others may enjoy as well, just like this cartoon.

Before I begin my reflection on the course thus far, I wanted to quickly mention that lately my blog has had a few problems. At times my blog cannot upload and a message appears stating that there has been an error and to try again later. I am in the process of trying to fix this and I hope that soon there will be no more problems. I am sorry for the inconvenience.

On a more positive note, this week I completed working on my group tutorial! My group (Matt M and Brandon L) and I explained how to create a graph using Microsoft Excel. Originally Matt had recorded the tutorial, but due to some minor complications at the start of the video we had to rerecord the tutorial. In the end my voice was used. I know I have a rather soft voice so I hope it will appeal to any of our tutorial users.

The process of creating the tutorial was fairly fun. It was nice to work with other classmates on a project. Using all of our background knowledge on Excel made the tutorial even easier to understand. Though some days people in my group were missing we managed to create an informative tutorial.

I look forward to any future group work. Group projects not only create a more up-beat and lively atmosphere, but allow me to get to know some people better.

In November of 2007 an article was released on Science Daily Online discussing the overprotection of teens on the internet. Many schools and parents have placed restrictions on students and children from roaming around on the internet. The teenagers are not able to use any blogging or chatting websites. Parents and teachers have placed these restrictions to help protect the safety of their children. It is widely known that there are many hate groups and other “digital dangers” according to the article “Benefits of Online Interaction…” Some children may be offended or hurt by material spread by the internet, yet is that a reason to isolate them from the pain?

Personally, I agree with Professor Brendesha Tynes that teens need to be exposed to such internet dangers. As hard as society tries, racism and negative input will remain important issues that will lurk through our streets. Choosing to create a teenage class where ignorance is bliss will only be negative to the future of the children. Prejudice cannot always be ignored, instead it must be confronted. Similarly, the dangers created by the internet must be confronted. Instead of pretending nothing is wrong with the internet, parents and teachers should teach there children how to protect themselves and remain safe on the internet. Eventually, students and teachers may find that the benefits of confronting the internet far outweigh the negative possibilities that the internet presents.

Myself, I have never been subject to internet protection at home. I have learned to remain safe on the internet through experience. I know never to give my name out on the internet and I know how to keep any pages related to me private. As a result, I have never had a bad experience from the internet, besides spending hours researching for a last minute project! I realize that some people do not feel as secure on the internet as I do, but that is why I find that learning internet protection is so important. No one should fear the internet because it has so much to offer!

These recent days class has been about learning to create the tutorial. When you are teaching someone something new, though words can be very beneficial, visual presentations are much more alluring. Many people find visual displays are more memorable and therefore effective. Using such logic, my group and I realized that we must use some sort of visual, video display.

Microsoft Encoder has the ability to memorize and then display all that one does on the computer. It follows every movement of the mouse making it possible to show exactly where to click and what to type. Furthermore, the program can record sound while you move your mouse around. The sound clip and video clip will therefore automatically be saved together making the process simple and effective.

Matt, Brandon and I plan on using the Microsoft Encoder to create our Microsoft Excel tutorial. The encoder will make the data entry and graph creation process simple to understand and use. The tutorial user will also be able to see how a graph made on Excel actually looks to see if it fits what they need. Since Excel is used to create a visual product, a visual tutorial is very beneficial. As we continue to make our tutorial I look forward to perfect my Encoder using abilities. I know that I will be able to use this program in the future.

For further information on the Excel Tutorial, my group members also have corresponding sites.

Matt M

Brandon L