HW 42: Podcast

Hello, this is Kelly, and we are the Beta Pod from Keene State College ITW 101. We are using Baghdad Burning as a reference for this podcast.

Hi, this is Sarah. The passage that left the biggest impression on us from this weeks reading was found on page 262. Riverbend basically says that Bush gives repulsive speeches and is sheepish-however he makes an attempt to sound sincere. The people of Iraq are not big fans of President Bush.

Hi, this is Lori. Student next semester can expect to learn first hand what it was like living in Iraq during the war.

Hey, this is Hayley. The students can also learn from the book that what is shown on Television is not half as bad as it really is.

Hi, this is Emily. Thank you for listening to us, have an enjoyable evening! Peace out.

HW first Podcasting

http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&query=&b=play&id=8538&cast=49707&castPage=&autoplay=true

HW: 31 Responding to Riverbend

During the past reading assignment from Baghdad Burning, there was one person who's story seemed to stick out to me. Abu Ra'ad was a an who lived in Baghdad and worked as a lawyer with his own private office. When i searched his name on the internet not much came up about him. Most of the information discussed his death. As a lawyer Ra'ad's office was very small and only had three desks in it. He had a wife and three children and was always a busy worker. Until one day he went out in his car and never came back. He was missing for many days and his family finally morned his death later on after he had left.

HW: 30 Citizenship Symposium

This past week I attended two of the speeches that were held at the Citizenship Symposium at my college. The one that I attended on tuesday was a woman born in the birthplace of america, Lexington, Massachusetts. Her name was Nancy Tobi and during her speech she spoke about the different kinds of voting methods in the state of New Hampshire. There are two different kinds. One is called the Diebold and they are machines that count the votes for you and the other is just plain old hand counted voting. She was very determined in getting her point across about the different types of voting in the state and she wants it to get easier.
The one speech that I went to on thursday was with US representative and Holocaust survivor, Tom Lantos. In his speech he told of his experiences while growing up and how he only moved to the United States at the age of 19 right after World War II. His main point was to tell us that reputations are now not as important as they used to be and he has hope for the United States of America.

HW: 28 Open Letter to riverbend.

Dear Riverbend,

lately i have been reading and following your blogs from Baghdad Burning very closely and I feel very bad for you. When you are blogging, telling how much tragedy and violence is going on in Iraq it scares me a lot and i can only imagine how you are feeling right now. I don't even think that I would be able to handle everything that you go through because i sit here in America feeling comfortable that nothing will happen over here, when there is so much going on where you are. My heart breaks over and over when i read your blogs. I wish i was able to comfort you so I am hoping that you are doing okay and continue to be that way.
From,
Hayleyy

HW: 27 Letter To Riverbend

From quickly skimming the book and reading the back cover, it seems as though the book Baghdad Burning is about a young girl from Iraq who blogs day to day about her experiences in Baghdad during the war. The author of the book, the young girl calls herself “Riverbend”. She often tells in her blogs of how she is an eyewitness to all of the things that go on in her town. She sees a lot of war going on and she tells the readers how she and her fellow citizens of Baghdad are affected by it. Her blog is not only about the personal things that happen to her during the war, but also the political aspects of it too. She describes how Iraqui women are treated differently and tells the reality of it all. This book would be used in my class because I am in a Blogging class, therefore I will get good information about how to blog from her entries and I will also become more educated about the war going on in Iraq.
“Baghdad Burning” is written by Riverbend. Foreword by Ahdof Soueif and Introduction by James Ridgeway. Printed in The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, NY in 2005.

HW: 25 Responding to Riverbend

In the beginning of the book Baghdad Burning there is a foreword and an introduction that both differ. In the foreword the writer, Adaf Soueif, explains things about the author who calls herself Riverbend. Soueif does a good job of telling us what is to come in the book and describes how great of an author Riverbend is and how people should be privelaged to read her work. The introduction of this book is a lot different. In this part James Ridgeway describes the war that we are currently fighting in Iraq. He tells the history behind it and also why we are there fighting it. It is mostly about the facts and stuff about the war and details but it does not really describe how it is effecting the citizens around. In Riverbend’s blogs, she describes the war from her perspective and tells how it is affecting the citizens around. As I remember hearing about the war, I do believe I have heard all of the information stated in the introduction, but I am very curious to see how the citizens were affected by it. I can only imagine what they went through but since I was not there and currently do not have the chance to go there I would not know what happens day to day.

HW: 23 Respond as Virginia Woolf to one of the blogs you are following

I have been watching and reading many blogs recently on Jezebel.com. One that really caught my attention and was quite disturbing to me was called "Short Girls With Large Tits: 'Experts' Would Rather You Look Fat Than Slutty". In this Blog is talks about how sometimes people look better in an appropriate way when they are fat rather than being hot and having your clevage pop out all of the time. Also, it mostly argues how one should be dressed in an office setting. Talking about how some shirts can be to low but some can be just right. If i were an office employee i would surely not wear anything innappropriate that would effect my working because some people may not take me serious if i am dressed slutty. I would rather have a co-worker look fat than look like a slut.

HW: 21 Responding to Virginia Woolf

Dear Patrick,
I hear that you are reading Virginia Woolf a Room of One’s Own in your English class. I think that this is a very difficult book to read. I read it too and I remember that in this chapter Woolf is asked to speak at some sort of meeting and says that her topic is on women and fiction. She states that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she’s going to write fiction”. In this chapter she also describes the college life , campus, and meals and surroundings by campus. There is also a war going on at the time. People also discuss the founding of women’s colleges which need financial and political support compared to men’s colleges which have always been easily supported for a very long time. It also discusses why women have always been so poor. The whole chapter was mostly held at a luncheon. I don’t know why you would be reading this book at such a young age, but I wish you luck and if you need any more help just let me know.

Love Hayley

hw: 19 applyin graff Ch. 10

In the chapter web of Influence, I chose the paragraph on page 93 to respond to. In this paragraph is addresses the idea that the Iranian blogospere as exploded and became very popular over the years. It talks about how the most commonly used language to bolg wit in their country is Farsi. It is also the fort most widely used language among blogs. There are 60,000 active blogs alone on only one of their sites. The blogs let people of different religions and of different sections of Iran to interact throughout the internet. A lot of Iranians embrace the use of blogging and the Vice President of Iran is a blogger himself. They even have English speaking blogospheres in which Iranian bloggers get to join forces and interact wit some of the well known English language bloggers.

HW:18 My Least Favorite Blog

Over the last seven days i have ben reading many different blogs that have bothered me and made me think a lot. The one that stood out the most to me was from Jezebel.com and it was called "Britney chooses starbucks over a court date". I found this blog to be very insane and disturbing in teh fact that she did not attend her very important court date just to go to Starbucks and get a cup of coffee. I think that is so ridiculous and i don't know who in their right mind would do such a thing. In the end, her ex husband Kevin as custody as of now and i guess that she really didnt care about the kids too much if she chose coffee over them. I would be angry at my mother if she ever did that to me.

HW: 17B

This is my response to HW 17B. The passage "Sex, Lies, and Political Scrapes: An Interview With Ana Marie Cox" had the most influence on me when is came to politics. It influences the way i would vote because this interview/blog involved the use or teenage/young adult programs such as MTV to speak and make people aware of voting. This type of advertisement makes me the most interested in voting and would probably help someone running becuase it focuses on targeting the younger generation voters. This is something that I and any other teens would watch and pay attention to. It also involved juicy sex scandals that many people crave about hearing them. I would actually watch and pay attneion to these blogs.

HW 17: Favorite Blog of the Week

Over the past seven days there have been many interesting and funny blogs that i have been following. One that really stood out to me was on Jezebel.com and it was about the MTV hit show The Hills. In one of the recent episodes one of the girls on the show got really drunk and flashed her privates by accident. I thought it was very funny at the time yet i also felt bad for her because now she is getting bashed on the internet. She also confronted her friend about her boyfriend JustinBobby and it was extremely interesting as to what she said to her and her reaction.

HW 16 B the five pillars of conversational software

This is my response to homework 16B.
In this passage the write discusses the five pillars of conversational software. The five pillars of conversational software are the tings that make blogging popular. The first one is “ease of publishing”. By this they mean that blogging can be easily done by anyone who basically knows how to use the internet. The second is “discoverability” which is the way you can discover new things that interest you by blogging and reading other peoples blogs. The third one is “cross-site conversations” which can be related to writing on other people’s blogs from your site or another site about a similar topic. The fourth is “permalinking” which ables you to make permanent links of other blogs on your site so that people can see other blogs you are interested in and then read them too. The last one is called “syndication” which is a part of a site that is available for other sites to use. This is my response to homework 16B.
In this passage the write discusses the five pillars of conversational software. The five pillars of conversational software are the tings that make blogging popular. The first one is “ease of publishing”. By this they mean that blogging can be easily done by anyone who basically knows how to use the internet. The second is “discoverability” which is the way you can discover new things that interest you by blogging and reading other peoples blogs. The third one is “cross-site conversations” which can be related to writing on other people’s blogs from your site or another site about a similar topic. The fourth is “permalinking” which ables you to make permanent links of other blogs on your site so that people can see other blogs you are interested in and then read them too. The last one is called “syndication” which is a part of a site that is available for other sites to use.

HW:13 Applying Graff, Chapter 7 to "Blogs Will Change Your Business"

This is my response to “Blog will change your business”. I believe that the impact of blogging on business is more important than the impact of blogging on communication that is not business related. Blogs often talk about different companies, products, tv shows and movies and usually always critique them. If a lot of people see blogging for a certain company and it has high ratings or good comments about them then chances are the product or company will become more popular and sell more. The same thing goes for a business that is getting bad ratings or getting ridiculed on blogs, their popularity and business will decrease because of it. In the reading it says that “blogging is the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the internet itself”. By this they mean that people no longer turn to tv and newspapers they now read blogs instead and because of this many businesses such as newspapers and television news stations are not getting as much attention as blogs are. An example of a company being blogged on is General Motors. Even though they are slipping in the automobile business, they often are using blogs to try and promote their products. People also blog about the GM business and complain and make suggestions to them about how to improve their business. If blogs eventually take up all advertisements in the business world then what is going to happen to the companies who get their products ridiculed. I do believe that blogging does have a great affect on the business industry.

HW: 9 Applying Graff, Chapter 4 to Waldman or Huffington for A Blog of One's Own: Women and Authorship in the Digital Revolution

This is my response to Waldman’s interview pages 308-314. In This interview there are many questions asked to Waldman that are controversial. On Page 311 one of her statements is that “you blog about what outrages you or what moves you enough to write”. I agree with this statement because I can relate to it also. If I were forced to blog about things that didn’t interest me at all I would probably not do it at all. Many people today blog about things in the media and stuff about stars or something on the news that will draw other people’s attention and get other bloggers involved. Blogging about stuff that nobody wants to hear or respond to makes blogging dull and boring.
The statement that I do not agree with is on page 313 when she is asked why she wrote so much about her personal life. If I were a famous blogger or just a regular old everyday person who blogs I would never want other people to know all of my personal business. It says that she shared information about her sex life with her husband, her relationships with her children and eventually she wrote a suicide note. I believe that this information can be way too much for strangers to read on the internet. I would not want to write these things about myself and I would be shocked if I were just reading somebody’s random blog and it talked about all of their personal life.

HW: 7 Applying Graff, Chapter 3 to "My So-Called Blog"

This is my response to homework # 7: Applying Graff, Chapter 3 to “My So-Called Blog” After reading Emily Nussbaum’s “My So-Called Blog” I decided that the statement that Parents should not monitor everything that their middle-school children write online is not good. I believe that after reading her passage that parents definitely should see what their kids do on the computer. I personally would want to know exactly what my kids are writing on certain blogs and instant messengers to make sure that they are being safe and are not getting into the wrong things. In the passage Nussbaum mentions that there was a blogger by the name of anonymous and the reason that he wanted to be called that was because he had low self esteem because of his weight, looks, and personality. He stated that he was always depressed in his blogs and if my son or daughter was talking about being depressed all the time I would want to know so that way I could help them. If my son/or daughter was depressed I would want to protect them incase they were doing anything bad. Having control of seeing what children are doing on the internet could help people out. People live different lives on the internet and pretend to be different people. Sometimes the internet is not a safe place for children therefore I believe that it is a good idea to be able to monitor everything your child does on the computer.

HW: 6 Interest Statement for Semester-Long Project

This is my response to the Interest Statement for the Semester-Long Project. The three social computing technologies that I am most interested in are social networking services, email, and podcasting. I am interested in social networking services because I am used to going on websites like that already like facebook and myspace. I also love to email to keep in touch with my friends and family so I chose email also. I have never actually used podcasting and I am not too sure what it is but many of my friends do it and love it so I thought it would be something interesting to look up.
The three empowerment socialized groups that I would be interested in are overcoming homophobia, because I have many friends who are gay and I do not understand why people can be so scared of someone just because of their sexuality. Also, rights and empowerment of people with HIV/AIDS and overcoming sexism because I think that some things that people do and say about the differences between men and women bother me.
The two geographical areas that I am interested in looking at would be the United States because I know of many of the problems already occurring here. And other developing countries because since they are new and developing they should learn more of these technologies and such before they develop so that they are used to it and know about it to tell others in their country.

HW: 5b Applying Graff Chapter 2 to "I Blog, Therefore I Am"

While reading David Kline’s “I Blog Therefore I Am” I came across many different paragraphs that I did not agree with. The one that really made me puzzled was at the bottom of page 239. In this section Kline talks about how the many people are resorting to using the internet and the internet only to find out news that is happening today. He says that it is mostly teens who use the internet daily and the internet tends to “take time away from other media”. By this Kline is trying to say that people no longer watch TV or read a newspaper or magazine. Instead they only go on the internet. He also stated that eventually in years to come Google and Yahoo will become major rivals with one of the major TV companies because people will not be as interested in TV as they will internet. I personally do not agree with this paragraph and what Kline is saying. I think that yes, a lot of people do use the internet very often but there are a lot of people who not only don’t have the luxury of having a computer to be able to see what’s going on the internet so they have to watch TV, listen to the radio, or read articles. I also think that even the people that do find out a lot of their news from the internet also like to see other versions of the news they heard. They would maybe want to read a different article to compare, or even watch a report of it live on the news so you can understand better coming from a person. In the end I just think that people still do rely on other types of technology and not just the internet.

HW: 4 Responding to "Th Voice of the Customer"

Greg Thomas has said that "great brands are always built on promise". I find this true in many ways. Withouth promise to its customers, a great company will never succeed. The promise makes people feel good and secure about what they are buying. The one brand that stands out to me is Tampax Pearl Plastic tampons. Their slogan is "our best protection ever with extraordinary details" and also "made to go unnoticed". I agree with both of these ideas that this company tells. I have used these types of tampons for a very long time and i believe that they are the best kind and they stick to their motto. They also make many promises to their customers like no leaks, giving the best protection, always smelling fresh, and also having a very comfortable fit. I also believe that tiese promises are true. I have never once had a problem with my tampons. No leaks and they always stayed fresh without hurting me. The promises may differ for each customer though because some tampons may be different fitted for different people.

HW:2 Response one of Burstein's 12 key ideas

This is my response to connecting one of Burstein's 12 key ideas to a commitment of my own.
I agree with number 3, that blogging, in addition to being a huge phenomenom in its own right, is the key meaphor for interactivity, community building, and genuine conversation.
This idea ties in with many interests that i have myself. The idea of blogging, although new to me all together has already had an influence on me. Not knowing what blogging is or what to do i have spoken to many people who say that they love it and they do it all off the time. When people like this tell me how awesome it is, it inspires me to want to do it also. Blogging to me is like Facebook.
Facebook, being one of my many hobbies seems to be sort of like a blog in that you can post things up and people can also respond to it. At first before i had a facebook i thought that it was going to be stupid and a waste of time but then once i started it i couldnt stop. The same goes for blogging with me. At first when i signed up for a blogging class i didnt know what i was getting into and i thought it would be the same as i thought facebook would be. But now that i have read and learned more about blogging from other people and from information i have researched i have realized that it is not that bad and is quite iteresting. It lets me communicate and be friendly and open with people that i probably would never talk to in person. It also lets me speak my mind and be free without having to be worried about what other people are thinking about me.

Respond to "Toward a More Participatory Democracy"

This is my response to chapter one "Toward a More Participatory Democracy"

In this chapter, two different people discuss their views on the influence and purpose of political blogging in America. One of them agrees and supports the idea of political blogging and one does not.

I agree with the person who supports the idea of political blogging. I think it is a good idea because it is a way for people to be able to express themselves and say what they are thinking without having to come face to face with someone.

It is like online debating to me. The idea of people forming groups to debate and make different political parties is really cool. It can also influence people to get involved in politics and work as effective ways to find out other peoples oppinions. Reading about all the statistics that are found about blogging also interests me. That there were 33 million people in one year who wrote or read blogs and atleast 11 million were all political blogs was very interesting to know. Not until now reading this i didnt know that there were so many types of blogs let alone blogs where you can run political debates.