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Final paper in the works

I am almost done writing my final paper. I decided to definitely write about the first prompt on Technopoly, because even though I feel it was probably a harder read, I enjoy talking about education and college lifestyle.  I have to admit it was  not as easy as I had originally thought it was going to be. I find myself going off topic a lot and having to refer back to the thesis that I had come up with. I have lots of ideas about technology and education especially being an education major, but having to relate it all back to technopolies, which is really complex, has been very difficult. I have basically decided that the modern day college campus effects the way we view education, how universities use their mission statements and how students learn in a college setting. I really do not like writing to fit certain criteria such as deadlines, because it is currently stressing me out to get the number of pages in. Although, on the flip side, I do not like not knowing approximately how long the paper should be. I should probably get back to writing my paper now. I hope the rest goes smoothly.

Midterm Evaluation

Working on the midterm assignment of auditing a wikipedia article was very interesting. I had a feeling that Wikipedia wasn't that reliable, but it's interesting to see how true that can be when you break apart an article. We researched the Jersey Shore TV show and controversies. The way we decided to do it was split up the sources and check into all of them to see which were accurate and which were not. Most all of my citations were accurate, but the thing I did find was that, in some parts, they left out other points of view, which creates some bias. Listening to the other presentations, I feel as if the class came to a mutual decision that Wikipedia is not a scholarly source. I think Wikipedia is a great place to get a quick snapshot of a topic, but not to research something in depth. Also I feel it depends on what you are researching, because, our article the Jersey Shore did give a great overview of what the show was about and the characters in it. More debatable topics though, may not have as accurate facts. I thought it was a very interesting project and am glad I had the chance to do it.

Final Part 1

After receiving the final assignment for this class I began to think deeply about which one I wanted to pick. Choosing for me sometimes is the hardest part because I'm always afraid I won't have enough information to fill the required page number quota. I think I am leaning more towards the first prompt because it relates to my life more than the second one does right now. I am a music education major, so the rest of my life will probably be spent dealing with the educational system. I think technology has changed so much in regards to education, especially college education. The way we apply for colleges is changing so quickly, only a few years ago, applications were sent in by mail. Just this year, my brother applied to Rutgers, and everything was done online, no letters of recommendation were requested, and he had to self report his grades. When I applied, just 4 years ago, I needed letters, and a paper transcript sent. This goes to show how fast things are changing and how college is becoming a technopoly.  Things are changing to make things more efficient and therefore is making college campuses a technopoly. Some other thoughts I've had about ways technology has turned the college campus into a technopoly are, bus system, next bus, wireless printing, online library resources, online registration and key swipes.

Current Event

The article I chose to present on was called, Hope for quicker, more accurate cancer cell identification. Researchers in Illinois have discovered a way to use laser lights to identify cancerous cells in humans. The results would be shown in 5 minutes from taking the scan, and shows cancerous cells in red and normal cells in blue. They claim that the results are 99% accurate in showing where the line of cancerous cells and normal cells meet. The way this machine identifies the cancerous cells is by using a laser light NIVI to see what the cells are made of. Cancerous cells have a high amount of protein that normal cells do not have making it easy to identify.  The technology doesn't exactly make a whole world of sense to me, but I don't really understand any medical technology. I think this could really be a great think if it became easily accessible to the world. Advances like this one could help save so many lives. In class we briefly discussed that there wouldn't be any negatives to this technology, which to me says that not all technology is really bad. I feel like a lot of what we have read talks about how technology is such a bad thing, when in reality it can help all of us out tremendously.

http://www.gizmag.com/lasers-identify-cancer-cells/17070/