For this post, I went to the above URL and searched the page. The internet is quickly moving to becoming the new thing for schools around the country. Cyber world is something that can take the levels up high on achievement and awareness on all topics. The page had posts of all the Berkman Interactive videos. It is a wonderful new approach to education because the videos can be seen world wide. At Harvard’s website, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society shows how positive the cyber world is. Also shown was a digital library; a great way to pass on knowledge to people all over the country.

For my final paper my topic is internet and learning, so this is just another website agreeing with the fact that using what the internet has works to everyone’s advantage.  The Berkman page is such a great way to show how internet is a positive thing. It is able to give people the education they need if they cannot actually physically go to a campus and sit in a class. A post on the page sums it all up — it can improve teaching skills, learning technique and make it accessible for citizens everywhere. First off, teaching skills, the internet knows more about a lot of things that can help teacher help students. It has so much to offer like blackboard, wiser, wikispaces…etc. It actually brings the students to hands on learning and challenging their minds. It is now a step up from just plain books and desks. That moves onto the second part of learning techniques. Just like the Berkman website, there are so many videos and sites that are proving students with new knowledge. The last part is making it more accessible for citizens everywhere. A family friend who went to UMB went back home to cali and through the internet was able to still stay at UMB. Another example would be, my brother who has glaucoma. The internet and online classes are very helpful to him to see and that way he does not have to bother someone to drive him to campus or dorm.

Through this website I found out things that I did not even know where happening around the world. And the topics in the videos was like sitting and reading books upon books with the knowledge that they give. As I will say in my final paper, I have grown to love the idea of the internet and it being played into the education system a lot more. It helps teachers with a new grading technique that also ends up helping students with driving them to write better and receive better grades. As well as, it being able to be in the hands of everyone who has a computer. (sometimes a good and bad thing) But when the good outweighs the bad, the good is all that is important. My favorite video was the first, dealing with Caron and  Mechoulan on How to Archive the future. Everyone always feels like ignoring the past, but in order to have a better future a person much organize their past, learn from it and be able to push themselves to do better. The internet age is definitely a push on better education and overall everything.

Challenges: no face to face meeting

Opportunities: discover things about the web, wiki and research

Internet tools: google, bing, UMB Library website

Internet tools to communicate with others: Just wiki and emailing

Best: emailing – much easier to work

Internet tools to help others that aren’t available now to help virtual communication: I’m not really sure. I have not really thought much into it,most things that are available now are extremely helpfully already.

I usually hate doing group work because usually social loafing happens very quickly. Some people do work, while others do not. So far it’s ok. I got an email and now we are figuring out roles to each person. I do think this will be a successful group work because all of the members seem ready to work and be a part of making the wiki!

A good smart mobbing action is when people in Beirut, Lebanon did a flash mob in a mall on Easter Sunday.

A fun fact is that I am in a dabke troupe, Middle Eastern dance team, and we did a flash mob type of dance for our church parish fundraiser. It was pretty cool to see the turn out. No one saw it coming!

After looking more into smart mobbing, there was a blog called “smart mobbing” written by Ryan McCarty. He defines what a smart mob is, “…a group, contrary to the usual connotations of a mob, behaves intelligently or efficiently because of its exponentially increasing network links, enabling people to connect to information and others, allowing a form of social coordination”(McCarty). He then states that he thinks the idea of smart mobbing is a great idea. I do agree with him. Most of the times when people think of mobbing or mobs, negative things come to mind. But the whole concept of “smart mobbing” is taking the power of social actions to better society.

At first I didn’t know what the term “smart mobbing” was but thanks to Bing and Google , I got this (:

So first off – mobbing. When i think of mobs, it can either be good or bad. You get the mobs like the Italian Mobs. OR when people get a group of people together to boycott certain things or go against certain things.

Then you got Flash Mobs which is something that’s taking over the world. People get a huge amount of people together and meet a mutual spot. And out of nowhere music starts playing and people start dancing all accordingly to others.

I would love petitioning for the Middle East. Having the nationality of Lebanese, I would really love to petition to help clean up in towns of Lebanon. Or surprise a family with a check to cover their spendings for the month.
As well as, putting together something for children with life threatening diseases. Two of my best friends have a lung disease called Cystic Fibrosis. I would petition to make a site that collects donations to take children and young adults around the world. To allow them to live life while they are here.

I think that the impact of these projects could be a great win or a huge loss. They could go either way – negative or positive. Negative because some towns or cities cannot accord too much and if they cannot organize something to grab attention from all it could really hurt them. Another point would be that people will probably give to what they want and forget about all the other organizations.

That last point is also a positive, people hate giving their money out and not knowing where it is going. This gives them that control of where their hard earned money goes. Another positive impact would getting those non profit organizations the media it needs. People from all over could go to these sites and can donate. Sometimes people cannot give the 50, 100, 150 donation that most envelopes have for them to check off, so this crowdfunding site can reach out to any help; whether it is 10 dollars or 100 dollars.

In the article, “Crowdfunding sites target civic projects” written by Michael Morisy, the projects that are being funded vary from dog parks and park repairs to nonprofit organizations dealing with making the world green or civic projects. People want the government to be more like a vending machine where sites will be made about certain projects and people will donate according to what they want and that will raise the money needed to build whatever it may be. Some sites give out to their supporters rewards like mugs and whatnot.

An example of crowdfunding given in the article takes place in Philly, where the Parks and Recreation Department created this type of site and people are donating money to plant trees around the city. Even here in our home town of Boston, a non profit group called “Tech Goes Home”, they have raised money through the crowdfunding technique to buy ipads for a class of blind children. (How sweet!!)

These projects and the idea of crowdfunding sites are being funded because it gives people a sense of control and effort to help their home towns or states. It is a way for people to get to have a say in where their money goes.

Hello Blog world (: