Reaction paper on chapters 11 and 12

In chapters 11 and 12 I finally feel like I understand these topics of CMC. I understand the aspects of discussion groups. I am now savvy on how they started. (neat) I like the idea of having discussions on certain topics and getting feedback from others. I like the idea of being able to gain knowledge and have conversations with people. I myself have conversations all the time by using my e-mail. Perhaps I will become more computer savvy and join different discussions online. I am already starting by using this blog. I am having some trouble following up with what I am supposed to do with all of it, but I am learning more. The things that bothered me about these chapters was about people being able to change thier identity and talking to you or other people by misrepresenting theirselves. That part to me is very scary. Knowing all the trouble especially kids could get in is very scary. I can't believe there are people out there who actually send threatening messages to actually hurt or scare people. I believe they call it trolling. I guess there are crazy people and in these two chapters especially I learned how people can try to hurt you online and other ways to prevent things from happening. I learned about online behavior and how you are supposed to present yourself and act verses the way you are not allowed to act. I guess there are always people that will take advantage of everything ruining it for the rest of us. The part in chapter 12 about cyberspace rape really disturbed me. What kind of person even thinks to do something like that? Again crazy people. I guess that is one of the big disadvantages of going online. But because that happened now there are better ways of being protected too. Well that's it for me today. Untill next time.

My reaction to the readings in chapters 8,9,10 is that now I know when i read something for this class even if I don't understand it, I will once I have class. It gets broken down in class so I can comprehend it better. Maybe I have heard of some of the things before but didn't recognize that I knew some of them until I had this class. The use of graphic accents and acronyms were a little familiar to me because of my children. They are growing up already knowing all of this and what things mean. I on the other hand sometimes feel childish using abbreviations and silly acronyms because I know my kids use these everyday. I have to ask my kids what something means if I get a text message or e-mail from somebody and they use abbreviations that I do not know. I hope to become more abbreviation "friendly" after this class. The things that I read now only make sence to me because I sat in class and listened to how my instructor broke it down. I like the section about telecommuting. I always wanted to work from home. I think people that get to do that are lucky. The online game chapter introduced some new terms to me. Like toading. What a weird name for something. Internet addiction was interesting, like we need something else to be addicted to. I know quite a few people that I think are addicted to using the internet and not just for games. It's crazy. But the chapter on information and education is right on. Everything we learn now is through the internet. You have to be able to use the internet or a computer for anything nowadays anyway. Setting up my myspace account was not that easy. I didnt really want to do it because I am so paranoid. My kids have it and believe me with girls it seems tobe nothing but trouble. Someone broke into one of my daughters accounts after she didn't use it anymore and when we contacted myspace they refused to shut it down again and again. My daughter forgot her password and can't even use her page. But they refuse to help us get it off. I will probaby not use this space except for school and hopefully be able to shut it down after. I can see where people would think it would be fun. But right now in my life I am too busy to really get in to it. Plus it makes me nervous. I don't really know if anyone I know uses this. I guess I'm gonna find out now. I am going to try to make a cute little page with some music and see if I can get into this and enjoy this. We'll see. See ya next time.

Blog reaction paper 1

Today was my first class in Computer Mediated Communication. I am happy to report that I like this class more than I thought I would. When I first had to read the reading assignment I was overwhelmed with all of the information I had taken in. But in class the instructor broke it down in ways that didn't freak me out like I thought it would. I think that computer knowledge comes easy to some people and I am not one of them. I also think that people that it comes easily to don't realize how something so easy to them is really hard for people like me. As of right now I have hope that I may make it through this class. I didn't freak out when Dave ask me to create a blog. Although I still am trying to find ways to make my blog look more "professional" like some of the other blogs I have seen. I am just going to take this class one class at a time and ask lots of questions. If I try to remember everything my syllabus says that I have to do by the end of this class I will get overwhelmed. I would like to believe that I will have a better knowledge of how to be able to do these things on my own and not have to ask everyone for help. I liked the way we had group discussions and took the time to answer questions. I hope this class stays this way. I also like the idea of learning how to blog and being able to meet my classmates. This class may turn out to be fun and not like my other class I am taking this session. I also noticed that a lot of other people in class had questions and it wasn't just me. I only asked a few questions but other people had some of the same questions I did and Dave answered them all. I am glad he is not one of the teachers that makes you sorry you even asked a question to begin with. I have had plenty if those. I also liked the way we started our class. We told about ourselves and Dave also told about himself and made everyone feel comfortable. The only thing I think I am not gonna like about this class is the reading. I don't mind reading, it's just that I can't remember everything and I don't know if I am concentrating on the most important parts of the chapters. But if we discuss our chapters in class like we did today I should be fine. I hope I will continue to like this class and I hope I can do okay in it. I actually hope I can do better than okay. We shall see.