Week 2: Proof of Learning

This week’s readings were all about online dating and how we use these communities to find a significant other. We discussed the differences between online communities and online dating communities. This week was interesting to me still. I always enjoying learning about something that will shock me, such as people sending basically strangers money.

We started off discussing how people have been victims in scams while using online dating communities. This article and video was the most interesting to me. It shocks me that people are that, I guess you can say desperate, to find love. I posted a comment about how, it is basically the victims fault for this to happen to. They are the ones that are giving strangers money to visit them. Couldn’t they just go visit them themselves? Another person in the video talked about how money was removed from her account. I and other people commented back that they were confused on how the guy got her bank account. I am curious as to know if she sent it to him. I was happy to see many people agreeing with me on the argument that the victim was partially or fully to blame.

The article on Soul Mates was another interesting article to me. I had never really thought about what the definition of Soul Mates is to me. The article describes it as "one of two persons compatible with each other in disposition, point of view, or sensitivity". This definition was a little confusing to me, and I felt many other people in the class felt the same way. Multiple people posted about how the way this article makes it seem is that a soul mate can be your best friend. Now, I can understand why people would think that, but to me soul mate would be the incorrect term for that type of relationship. I see your soul mate as being the only person for you. Someone that you have a romantic relationship with, you love, and want to spend your life with.

We are already half way done with class. I feel like I had a difficult time with my schedule this past week with being able to sit down and say what I wanted to. It was hard for me at the end of the week because typically I can only get on during the day or at night. Of course, Thursday was the one day I couldn't at night, and when we didn't get the article till late, I was in a bind. Also, this bad weather was not nice to my internet this weekend. But put all that aside, I feel like I truly am learning a lot in this class. I am learning how to overall be a better writer. I am learning to be able to present myself in a better way. With this class only being online, I feel like the first week I was struggling to fully explain myself so people would get my complete thought. This week I worked harder to make sure that when I reread it, I could understand it from an outsider that would have no idea what the topic was.

Week 1: Proof Of Learning

Coming into this class I really didn't know what to except. I wasn't sure about the articles we would be reading and that made me nervous. After the first couple days, I came to see that the articles we were reading was about stuff that interested me. I am a college student, of course Facebook and texting are going to interest me. I really connected to the topics and that took a little bit of stress off of me. I am working a full time job this summer, so after driving in the car for about an hour and a half in traffic home from the city, I don't want to sit around for 5 hours typing on my computer. I am glad it wasn't what I expected because it makes it that much easier.

The article I enjoyed evolving from was the Reputation Management article. I really could connect to this article because personally I was cautious, but not extremely. My Facebook is blocked from people I am not friends with and I limit someone the people I am friends with. Reading this article really made myself think about what is really on my Facebook. I have always wondered how employers are finding ways to see potential employees Facebooks if they have it publicly blocked. But then I thought about how I find ways to get around peoples Facebook to look someone up. Facebook can be complicated at times. Sometimes it will randomly change my settings, or if I go thought my privacy settings, a few albums I have up won't be set to private. I am not a bad person and I try to keep my life personal even on Facebook. I go through my pictures every once in a while and think do I still want this up for everyone to see. Sometimes I'm like what was I thinking having this stuff up for everyone to see. I have worked in retail for the past 3 years. I am friends with everyone I work with, not the manager, but assistant managers. I never really thought that any of the stuff on my Facebook would get me in trouble, because first of all nothing was bad and secondly they know who I am and can see that I am a hard worker. Hearing everyone post about how they/people they know have not gotten jobs or lost jobs because someone saw something on Facebook was an eye opener.

The videos we watched on the first day really fascinated me, especially the How The Brain Works one.  While watching this it gave me the idea to possibly use the medical community as the example for my research project. Some of the stuff in the video, such as your brain getting distracted and not seeing the background, was common sense. Other stuff such has machines that can change the way you think really blew my mind. Everything science can do today will go farther and farther as we go into the future. It is weird to think that when our parents were young, none of the technology or medical advancements had been created yet. Things were different back that and makes me wonder how my life would be different if we didn't have these technologies.

After this first week, I am excited for the rest of the course. Technology has always been something I am interested. I am constantly wanting the latest technology and learning how to use it. As these next weeks come and go, I am sure I will be more comfortable to interacting more with people on the discussion board. I have always been a shy person, even when it comes to just online conversations.

Day 1

This is my blog for the summer course IDS 121.