Twitter Applications

As we have found during our Introduction into the Writing Arts class this semester, Twittering has become a huge source of following.  People from all walks of life can be seen and heard while posting their tweets.  Any individual can follow anyone else to see their up to the minute activities.

Famous “in the eye” individuals like Ashton Kutcher can be seen as the #1 person to follow on Twitterholic with his stunning 3,800,511 followers, others like John Dickerson who is a political correspondent holds the # 100 slot, and Darren Scott Monroe an online business professor hold slot # 927.  In addition to actual people, groups of them can be seen too.  For example Twilight fans are on the Twitterholic list at # 497, while New Moon (its sequel) holds the close # 500 spot.

While most of these famous people and topics are the hot topics of todays conversations, other topics of talk can be too, and from the everyday Dick and Jane.  As a student my followers are at a whopping 20, but others like my friend Beckie (whom of which I talked about in a previous blog) only has four.  I do however see a definite advantage to the classroom use as is in the case of Darren Scott Monroe and with this current class.  I think as a future educator that specified twitter pages could be extremely useful.  It could help to enhance class performances with students helping each other with homework questions as well as helping to direct the teacher in a round about way as to what he or she may have missed while teaching the lesson.   It could also be a great means of communication with the students’ parents and or guardians.  Once in the classroom I will make it my personal goal to look deeper into the positive uses of this communication application and all it has to offer.

Update!!

Just thought I’d let everyone know that I did in fact pass my praxis II using Webkinz as a study tool. There were some comments that maybe people thought this would not be effective but it was. I would recommend to anyone who has to take the praxis II in the future, sign up for Webkinz and use “Are you smarter than a 5th grader” games. They were way more help than the study books you spend a fortune for!!!

Emily Lynn Strupczewski

          After searching the web relentlessly for hours I had a tough time finding someone who wasn’t hopelessly obsessed with celebrities, porn spam, or an over the top political activist.  Nevertheless, after searching my own follower list, I had yet another epiphany. (Similar to the one about Web 1.0 and 2.0 for my dedicated readers) It seems that not all of my followers are related to class.  In matter of fact, out of my 30 followers, only 27 are related to my field (Writing arts/elementary Ed), members of tfwf, or other professors I was forced and encouraged to follow.

            Therefore, I decided it would be fun to conduct an experiment potentially based upon the three people on twitter who I wasn’t required to follow for class. They just happened to be my stalkers; I mean “friends”, Ric, Emily, and Katie.  After telling them how they might be part of an important educational experiment they all showcased several valid points for being the main focus of my blog.  However, after hours of deliberation, I decided to write about Emily because her follower list showcased the largest and biggest variety of Twitterers.

            I thought that it would be interesting for the readers to have some background information about Emily before I make unfair assumptions about her shortcomings and virtues simply based on who she is following on Twitter.  Emily is a bit on the wild side, really likes her vodka, often time’s claims to be a good Christian despite missing church for the last 4 years of Sundays, and is hopelessly obsessed with the television shows Grey’s anatomy, the biggest loser, and a slew crap targeted for primarily female audiences.  She also loves sports, particularly soccer which she coaches, is obsessed with the band Goo Goo Dolls, and most importantly is banned from several local department stores for stealing.

            After clicking on Emily’s follower list I was bombarded with a variety of different soccer twitterers such as Soccerskills, Soccerfan15, David Beckham, Woman’s professional soccer, soccerisfun73, MLS insider, and Us Soccer.  Emily’s list also included the following; musicians: Daughtry, Adam Lambert, Goo Goo Dolls, Taylor Swift, David cook, and many local bands. Actors:  Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, and Vince Vaughn. Comedians: Dane Cook, Adam Sandler, Kathy Griffin, and Other irreverent things like E-news, E online, Oprah, and Stub Hub.

            If I was an outsider who did not know Emily I would definitely assume that she is a professional soccer player, or one of those over the top fans that sports face paint, team colors, and an enthusiastic spirit at any given game.  Furthermore, I would presume she has quite a taste for rock music, and bases her choice of favorite actors solely on looks opposed to real talent.(Now I know that sounds unfair, but come on you know that would be like me saying I like Megan Fox because she is a Oscar award mogul…..we all know the real truth)  Anyway, I would also say that Emily likes to shop (based on her following hoot)  is outgoing (based on her following Stub Hub) and has a good friend base because 40 out of the 70 people she follows are not famous or related to sports.

            So what does this all mean?  Well…it means that, at least in this case, you can get a pretty good impression of a person based upon who they follow. As I said in the background information about Emily, she loves soccer and the Goo Goo Dolls, which is reiterated based upon who she is following.  In addition, if we really read into her followers, we can assume from her love of comedians that she likes a good laugh, and enjoys going to professional sporting events and shopping based on her following of Stub Hub and Hoot.  Who would have ever thought that someone’s followers could be an expression of the deepest recesses of their heart.  I know I did not, but now I am curious to see what the other member of tfwf conclude in their findings.  Good luck everyone!

Web 2.0

People are constantly claiming that technology is changing constantly. This statement is most easily verifiable when one looks at the internet. The internet is a relatively new technology, and yet since its creation it has changed immensely from the original framework its creators had. Originally the internet was used mainly by engineers and technicians, and scientists. Now, it is used by everyone and it has completely transformed in ways that show this shift from a purely technical workspace to a medium that is used by almost everyone world wide. It has changed to such a degree that many people have dubbed the internet in its current state Web 2.0.
Many may ask in what ways has the internet changed? Let us quickly look at a few examples. Originally people made individual web pages for themselves or businesses. These sites would give personal information about the creators but the sites were modifiable only by their creators. Also the sites were not generally connected to other sites. Now we have blogging sites, myspace, facebook, etc. Dozens of different types of sites that have taken the place of personal websites. These sites serve the same purpose as personal websites but are accessible, modifiable, and connected to dozens if not hundreds of other sites. Blogs allow you to share personal info or really any kind of information about any subject and have others respond to the posts. Thus blogs have become a two way communication tool. My space and face book have taken the place of personal websites, and are again connected to hundreds if not thousands of others. The original web was mainly used to create websites as singular entities. With Web 2.0 these websites are connected to a larger whole. Web 2.0 has also in many ways taken the place of television. With websites such as hulu which allow users to watch hundreds of shows and movies online many have taken to using their computers as televisions. Web 2.0 has become a medium that is no longer used solely as a technical work space. It seeks to connect the people of the world together and provides the tools necessary to accomplish this.

Twitterholic???!!!

Ok so this is about the craziest thing I have seen in a while! I googled twitter applications and lists came up so I looked them over and one that kept catching my eye was twitterholic. I was like “what?!” I did a little more research and found that your tweets are constiantly monitored and if you qualify based on your tweets as a twitterholic they basically call you out on it. So someone in twitter world is spying on our tweets and judging us based on them. This is why I do not broadcast my life across the internet on things like facebook, myspace, twitter and everything inbetween. Included in their methodology is a statement saying “we are in your pages and reading your stats.” Is no one else alarmed by this?! They find out through crawling your twitter page. Everyone on twitter is crawled at random to determine if they are in fact a twitterholic. So basically if you are a person who tweets constantly about every little thing you are doing all day, you are a twitterholic. Wow! There really are people in this world who think people care everytime they buy a coffee or eat lunch. Well guess what; we don’t! I think it’s time for everyone to get off their computers and start living a real world life. This is getting really ridiculous and really aggrevates me. There is more to life people!!!!

Following Dane Cook

I chose Dane Cook to review. I went to see him at the Wachovia in May for my birthday and he was a riot. I have always watched him on Comedy Central and I really love his movies. He is hilarious in Good Luck Chuck, Waiting and My Best Friend’s Girl. When we started these Twitter accounts I looked him up just for fun. When I found him I was surprised to find that his tweets were protected. I put in a request to follow him and within a day he had accepted. I was even more surprised when I looked at his page and found that he has 1,315,122 followers. Everyone from other celebrities to fans follow him. It made me wonder why he protects his tweets if he is going to let everyone who requests follow him. Obviously he has a twitter for publicity and gaining more fans; but I don’t get the point in protecting the tweets. I really expected him to have fewer followers. On the opposite side of that he follows 94 people. After looking at some other celebrities and who they follow, I found this number to be rather high. He follows a lot of other celebritites and a few friends and fans. But he follows a lot of fellow comedians. After looking it all over I think that maybe he uses twitter to keep up with the competition as well as staying in touch with friends. Reviewing who people follow and who follows them is interesting but I think overall there is no ryhme or reason; people follow who they are interested in.

Tweeting Tweets on Twitter and What Others Have to Say

To fulfill an assignment for my Introduction into the Writing Arts class, we were responsible for adding a “friend” onto our twitter account.  However, the addition was to be someone not already in the class.  I chose my friend Becky to help me with this accomplishment.  Finding Becky to be an interesting character both in and out of the classroom setting I thought that it might be fun to have her join in on our little class tweets. 

Becky is a light hearted individual always caring about the environment and the world in which we live.  She is in her early 20’s yet on many occasions she appears to be years above her time.  She has a quick witted sense of humor that allows her to get away with the inside joke on many different levels.  One of the things that I believe help Becky to be who she is, is based on her current occupation.  She works for an individual family as a caregiver for the grandmother; whom of which resides in a nursing home.  Having to deal with an older generation on a weekly basis I’m sure only adds to her maturity.  Again, Becky is very much pro earth and all about the green globe.  She is very big on recycling and the use of correct plastics when needed.  She’ll even look at you funny if you don’t comply. 

After having added Becky to my twitter list I found that she had already had an account.  I checked it out just to see if there was anyone else on her page that I knew and much to my surprise there were only three additional people listed.  As I waited to see if she would chime in, time past, the moon went from full to new to full again, over and over and still no words ever came from Becky.  I have talked to her via email as well as the standard phone conversation, yet no tweets ever came my way.  So, now that time in my class is coming to an end I figured it might be nice to check out Becky’s twitter page once again.  Still, to my surprise I found she only had those same three people listed, with the only addition being myself.  Being snoopy I looked into each of these other three people to see who they talked to and what they talked about.  Again I was surprised. 

Person “A” who goes by the twitter name of peacehome2 had no tweets what so ever.  His page was completely blank, white, lacking all text with the exception of his name and a photo of, I’m assuming, himself. 

Person “B” goes by kelsey_dur93075 and similar to peacehome2 this person had only one thing posted under her tweets on twitter.  It turns out that this one thing posted on her site is a link to another site that apparently has things on it which should not been seen; or at least that’s what I got from the written details.

Then there is the third person, person “C”, and this site is listed as TheScenePhilly.  After checking out the site I found that this particular individual is very much pro life style and an activist of sorts.    

After my peering I found nothing that I would have normally thought I would find.  Assuming that she would be tweeting with people who view things as she does, maybe to complain about old people, work and the smell of mothball, possibly to talk to others on how to make the world a better place, or maybe as an insight into what her friends and family are doing.  However, knowing Becky’s strong views on the world and pollution I’m not surprised that she doesn’t go on the computer that much, and certainly not to talk about nothing.  Why would she want to add to the already smog-filled air.

Web 2.0 vs Web 1.0……..an epiphany!!!!!

          At first when we were assigned the Web 2.0 reading, I assumed that it would be some sort of new variation of the internet.  I wasn’t sure if would be similar to the difference between the base model of a car compared to an upgraded version with new features such as leather seats, a sunroof, spoiler, an improved sound system, and most importantly 20 inch rims, but I assumed it would be different in some sort of way.   However, I was not sure why.

           I still wasn’t sure of the difference between this new web 2.0 vs. web 1.0 after class so I consulted my good friend Mike Wesch (from AnAnthropological introduction to YouTube) and watched his Web 2.0 video. After viewing the video I made an important connection.    Web 1.0 used now outdated HTML (which is computer language (not that I had to look it up)) opposed to Web 2.0 which used updated language with more structural elements such as italics and bolded font.

           So It turned out that my suspicions were right……well almost.  The difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 is not exactly like the base model of a car compared to one with updated features, but its more like the 2000 Honda accord compared to the 2009 Honda accord.  In the year 2000, before the big .com burst, Web 1.0 existed.  From what I remember it consisted of the dreadful 56k modem, a green-blue screen, and no Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter.

          Lucky for us, we are now in the era of Web 2.0 which is characterized cable modems  crystal-clear reception, and social networking staples such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twiiter.  It seems as if one of the main differences between web 2.0 and Web 1.0 is that everyone is Web 2.0 is a close-knit community, while everyone one Web 1.0 lived on a giant farm separated by acres of land.  Web 2.0 is us in the form of ideas, text, videos, or pictures and Web 1.0 is a complete different generation.

viewing the world one click at a time

Recently we went vent over the web 2.0 readings for our Introduction into Writing Arts class.  Through the readings and class discussions the only thing that I was able to get out of the whole thing was the following:  the world is just one click away.  In other words there really isn’t to many things out there in today society that anyone person isn’t able to find out.  Just by the click of your mouse you can surf the web, find or locate just about anything that you are looking for and in the end you have access to those answers in which you are searching for right at your finger tips.  With websites and links you can go from page to page and usually without a delay of any kind.  You could be looking for those local movie listings, great places for dinning out, Targets store hours; both during the holiday season and not, you might want to know the price of something; camparitive shopping, without the use of all that gas, time and energy – not to mention money, or maybe you need to know how to get from point “A” to point “B”.  There are a great many resources online and with all of its ease the world is a much smoother place.  Just think how much longer it would take if you had to punch in each command individually; you might as well get in the car and go.

Viewing things 1″ at a Time

In a recent Writer’s Mind class, my professor had us describe everything that we saw throu a 1 in picture frame.  As a class we were given the topic of school lunches, and the assignment consisted of us listing ,with as much discription, everything that we could see.  One could also take this a step further by adding a sence of smell and possibly even touch.  The idea is to help student become as discriptive as possible.  To help further their writing potentials and to highten their awarnesses of the “readers visualization”.   In addition I’d like to point out that this type of educational experience can be done in classrooms other then English or Writing.  When I was in high school we did the same thing in one of my art classes.  We took a 1 inch picture frame and placed it onto a photo graph.  We would then paint, draw, or with what ever medium we might be working on at that time.  The idea was to help us focus on the details; thus allowing for a similar reaction with the students out come.  I have attached a copy of my own paper for this project, just to give you an idea as to what this type of writing might come from a project such as this.

1” Picture Frame: School Lunch

Shades of browns and tans in a swirling like pattern.  A smooth and yet rough type of textured surface.  A raisin is half sticking out, full, plump and bumpy.  Its juiciness very appealing, causing my mouth to slightly water.  Yet somehow it looks like an old mans face. The smell is strong with sweetness, and the faint touches of cinnamon are aroused.  I bite into it.  It’s soft all around, to my hands and my teeth.  The sugars rush to my teeth and pallet, it’s good; no really good, for now I detect something else, it’s soft too, but this time it’s creamy.  I look down; it’s white unlike the rest.  Its texture is sooth like velvet and there is no real odor.  I do not recognize a specific sent.  It’s not good, and not bad, just different.