My Second IS Lesson: Forum

Hi,

I had my second Infocomm Studies lesson at Computer Lab1. Most of the learning points came from “home-learning” as the lesson only lasted for forty minutes, at home or at school, I still had a lot of learning points. Again, I would introduce you on what the lesson’s objectives were. The lesson’s objectives were to voice your own opinions in a forum and also post your opinions of others’ posts and the three topics were:

1.) The Social Impact of New Media Technologies
2.) Ethical Issues on Media Usage and Intellectual Property
3.) Blog and Website Differences

I was put in-charge to do the last topic, “Blog and Website Differences.” After watching the 9 minutes 43 seconds, I had a lot to take from the vedio. The vedio was interesting, keeping me engaged all the time. In my post, this was what I wrote:

I feel that this video has portrayed that both blogs and websites have their respective advantages and disadvantages.

Blog

Advantages: 1.) Quick and easy to create and post
Disadvantages: 1.) Commitment is needed, frequent posts has to be up

Website

Advantages: 1.) Easy to change the layout of information

Disadvantages: 1.) Some degree of knowledge is needed
2.) Web host is needed to publish posts
3.) Some software has to be purchased

In my own point of view, I feel that the choice is up to you and your interests and purposes in getting a blog or website. However, I would prefer a blog for myself as I have no purpose in making my blog a popular one and a blog is fast, easy and convenient to create and the whole process is absolutely free. As such, this is a summary, if you are a person that feels time is precious, does not want to waste money, go for a blog. If not, you may try using a website.

Also, I posted up my views and opinions onto Jonathan’s post. Below is what I wrote:

I do not entirely agree with Jonathan’s opinion. Firstly, in my point of view, a website would actually be more suitable to share news. Although it is easy to post messages onto your blog, I feel that there is a higher “viewership” for websites. However, I feel that he should have elaborated more on the part where he put “easier to change” as it is pretty general. However, I agree with the rest of the points stated. To add on, to make one point clearer which is “Pressure to update blog regularly” would be to try to get a topic you can talk frequently about, so that it can attract readers.

Lastly, two people posted their view on my respective posts. Below is what they had posted:

I agree with Kervin regarding his post. However, to decide whether to use a blog or a website, I think you should go back to the purpose of the website/blog. If the purpose of the blog/website is commercial, then a website may be more suited to the purpose. However, bloggers who blog for a living - Mr Miyagi, Xiaxue, etc, customise their own templates and have advertisements in the sidebar. This shows that the difficulty in changing the layout does not affect dedicated bloggers. Thus, I think that the choice to use a blog or a website is entirely personal.

I do not entirely agree with Kervin's and Jonathan's point. For one, there does not actually exist a pressure to update your blog if you are not blogging for a living or your school work (E.g. Our IS Blogs)! Also, for Kervin, if we want to attract readers, focusing mainly on a topic will get the readers bored after some times. For instance, imagine this. It is 2015, and you are always looking for a blog to read. Then, you come across one blog which still discusses the Jack Neo saga. Would you be interested?

Besides that, I blogged on the first topic “The Social Impact of New Media Technologies”. The video was especially interesting for me as it portrayed what are the possible lifestyles we could actually face in the future. I blogged:

With high technology in the future, people are “too contented” with what they have and slowly, relying on high technology to do what they want to do, which actually results in people getting lazy. The problem with high technology in the future is how to prevent us from relying too much on high technology. Many would say we can just not depend on high technology too much but are we able to control it? In my point of view, to solve this problem, try to release high technology at a time, one by one.

Also, Ban Siang commented on my post:

In addition to my previous post, I also agree with Kervin. We should always do things in moderation. In this case, we can release a technology at a time, to give people a chance to get used to them. Also, to deal with the problem he mentioned, we can hold lectures / talks to help people prevent themselves from "being controlled" and being too over-reliant on this advanced technology.Also, we must take things one step at a time. Other than releasing the new technology slowly, we must also take away the older technology slowly, or those more familliar with the older technology (i.e. the older generation) will only be at a complete loss.

Wow! Just this simple assignment kept me so engrossed. Firstly, not only does this platform allow you to post your own opinions, it also allows you to view others’ posts and then have many learning points available. I feel that this is a great platform that should be used more often in thefuture in any aspect, an example would