April 8th Presentations intrigued me!

For Lorena Swifts presentation, I knew somewhat of what was happening in China but it is more censored then I remembered from last year. It is pretty sad that the government over there is so controlling that the Chinese people are not allowed to feel and think for themselves. Sometimes I think that our own government is heading down that same path with all the new laws being enacted. It seems ridiculous that with all this technology available that even some countries still want to be left alone, but as we all know leaving a communist country alone to their own devices is dangerous for all those other countries... we are going to have to just keep a keen eye on them and hope for the best. I just hope that their censorship of their country does not spread.

Sheila's presentation was about gender roles found in the meatspace and how they are reinforce within the websites that do or do not have gender profiles in cyberspace communities. I know this is not a strange occurrence in traditional living outside of cyberspace, because of our choices whether to continue to be men or women, (as with gender changing operations) but people make their own avatars who they want to be. I was questioned about my own avatar once and had to say the female avatar was a women at the other end and the person questioning me was not sure to believe me... It felt a little strange at the time and to assure myself that I was not misrepresenting myself I continue to use a female or the like avatar. That Club Penguin was an interesting site, especially when she explained that even when it was a genderless site that some people were still attaching or retaining their gender on the site. Very interesting.

Maurice Smiley I knew that the cell phones were so helpful to everyone I just never looked at it from the point of view of the farmer. No wonder the farmers are doing better now that they have closer access to the information that they need to stay in business. Too bad the price of fresh food just keeps climbing. No winning against Mother Nature though.

Corrinda's presentation was interesting since I have a disability in the memory area of my brain from a car wreck and am constantly struggling with things that I have to remember. Gaming is not a a waste of time since I know for a fact that one of the ways that someone gets tested for memory is playing a memory game on a computer. Not a game like halo, but like the memory game that was played in class. Yes, not all games are fortunate to be a training or learning game, but it is better to let off some steam than to act it out literally. I really would like to see how her final paper turns out since it might help me further my memory abilities.


I really enjoyed everyones presentations and positive feed back...Thanks.