Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Communication & Cyberspace (Chp 12-13, 19-22 & Epil.)



Constructing the virtual organization as mentioned in chapter 12 will be an advantage for students. It will go beyond simple participation in a classroom exercise as it states. It will strengthen the skills of the communication student and enhance their already strong points. The virtual organization would provide students with a substantive example of organization communication. As the students continue through the simulation they will be able to test and perform their acquired knowledge and skills to interesting tasks. The organization will not substitute the standard classroom learning instead it will be in addition to.
There will definitely be human factors taken into consideration. Human performance, behavior and desire should all be considered when designing a machine or system. Organizational communication is one of the key factors that should be considered when putting together human-computer interfaces.

The use of VR in an educational setting is something that will be highly beneficial to the student. Not only will they engage in a responsive environment in which they will retain information but they will also submerse in fuller understanding of the information presented. According to the book the brain can process information better when it’s presented through sight, sound, and touch instead of just text and numbers. As a student myself I believe this is 100% true! For instance, when my professors use PowerPoint to present I need graphics and visuals such as charts or videos to fully engage in the topic. I’m a visual learner to I need to see in order to fully grasp it.

Can you teach a class without that face to face communication? Is cyberspace equivalent to a classroom setting?  In chapter 13 they explain the evolution of classrooms. It seems as though the essence of education doesn't necessarily have to be in a physical classroom. Once the classroom is vacated, the dialogue is then put on hold until the class meets again. But given the opportunity to communicate via online there isn't a hold (Levinson, 216).  Online a class is available to anyone from anywhere at any time with a personal computer or smart system. It has no limitation what so ever.  The art of online education is the text itself! It’s important that everyone participates and indulges in an active discussion. Online education the student actively logs on and post their thoughts, comments, and questions and reads and responds to what their peers had to say.  I personally like online classes because you can access it from anywhere and there really isn't a strain on time unless deadlines are imposed. I enjoy that I can log on in the morning, afternoon or evening, and enter my thoughts and feelings to the discussion board that is going throughout the extent of the course. Like an extension of this class for example! Online education “responds to different kinds of human needs” (Levinson, 225).

Chapter 19 examines writer’s choices in two different genres of e-mail. Cyber communication of e-mail is considered an older form because it requires writing and typing a message. E-mail is a basic format of a handwritten memo including a To, From, and subject lines. E-mail writing requires correspondence. You must go back and forth with the receiver in order to retrieve the needed information. But the thing with e-mail is when to end the conversation and how. The chapter expressed an exchange of e-mail between Bill Gates and John Seabrook, NY Times writer. Mr. Gates ended his e-mail without a proper closing statement. But that may be because of he was familiar with the person and therefore relied on those familiar boundaries. When sending and receiving e-mails we may not have to use the conventional format when writing it because of the relationships we build. But honestly I prefer to write professional in all my e-mails because its great practice to when you have to write professional to a potential employer or etc. Even when writing to fellow co-workers or colleagues I do my best to not write relaxed instead write in the utmost respect.  

Flaming came from the word “hacker”, “to speak rabidly or incessantly on an uninteresting topic or with a patently ridiculous attitude” (Thompson, 331) as chapter 20 defines it. The term has definitely evolved over time and appears to be associated with negative behavior including hostility. There’s a social influence on flaming that considers both the behavior of flaming and the social negotiation of what the behavior means.

In chapter 21, it explains the information arms race. The digitized record of a virtual life, data exhaust is composed of valuable information of our preferences and interest. It’s crazy because every time you like a Facebook status or retweet a tweet, sign up for a store credit card, rate a Pandora song, subscribe for a magazine, or click on a website, you’re leaving behind a trail of data exhaust that lies in the information superhighway. The computer is able to capture all of your moves. Interaction and communication are activities that are the enemies of evolution that we want to check. We cannot be fooled into thinking we have the right to simply select our data with the click of the mouse instead we have to be cautious of such “freedom” and right.

“Cyberytime” in chapter 22 can be described as a site of human interaction in a virtual place that is made possible by the use of computers and system networks. The chapter explains cybertime as absolute time and digital time because they provide information. Cybertime is highly polymorphic, involving extraordinary complex forms of synchronization

“It is time to give up the notion that we may find solutions to our emptiness through technology. We must now turn to our poets, playwrights, composers, theologians, and artists, who, alone, can create or restore the narratives that will give a meaningful pattern to our lives. They are our weavers who can liberate us from cyberspace and put us back in the world” (Postman, 392). I find this quote so utterly true because we need to reconnect with the world and let go of our dependence on technology.  We need not to seek a solution by escaping from it rather from facing it. 

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