Tuesday 1 July 2008

Opinions

I think we should be learning :

how to use fun websites,
to track down lost friends,
to create our own family trees and find relatives,
about interesting websites,

in I.T lessons.

A wurdle about me and my ugly best friend beth : )

Myspace and Facebook.

I think that it is good that the school has blocked these websites. This is becasue of safety reasons. You can gain information from the websites and talk to peers in the classroom. However it could lead to people putting up school information which could lead to dangerous situations. If somone got in trouble the school could be held responsible. Also, you can't learn I.T skills from the websites so it would only be used for messing around during class.

Social Bookmarking

Social book marking is when you find find good websites and then publish them for others to see. This could be friends, family, peers or even teachers. It makes you use your social skills and introduces new, helpful websites that you might use or need in the future.

Tuesday 24 June 2008

Blogs for freedom

Many countries have limits on what people can write or on press freedom. Different coutries have different opinions. One country who has strong opinions is China. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6707-the-blog-revolution-sweeps-across-china.html
This is a great website to find information, you learn a lot. This is an interesting extract from it :

Ever since the Communist party took power in 1949, the Chinese media has been tightly controlled by the government. Online publishing is a real threat to that control, and the government is clearly worried. A crackdown in 2003 closed websites and internet cafes and saw the arrest of dozens of online commentators.
Yet this is not proving enough to stifle the pluck and ingenuity of China’s bloggers. The rise of the blog phenomenon was made possible by blog-hosting services. Just as companies like Yahoo host email accounts, sites like blogger.com, based in the United States, host blogs.
Blogs usually allow room for readers’ comments, and because they often contain numerous links to other blogs and websites, they each act as a unit in a dynamic community. Together they form an interconnected whole – the “blogosphere”.
When Mao and Zheng started CNBlog.org, China had 67 million internet users. Today, it has more than 90 million, and most are hungry for information. The official China Internet Network Information Center in Beijing says 62% of internet users go online primarily to read news. Internet cafes are spreading rapidly throughout China, even in rural areas, largely thanks to official efforts to promote technology and improve the country’s economic competitiveness.


People use blogs to express their opinions, like the man in my last blog. He wanted to express his feelings about Whales. This isn't always the best idea, as many people could disagree and you could get into a lot of trouble.

Someone arrested for writing something on their blog...

Junichi Sato is not only a whale activist in Japan (and there ain’t many people who can put THAT on their business card), he’s also a blogger. And he’s been arrested for the crime of exposing the truth
We’re asking bloggers around the world to blog this story in solidarity with Junichi and blog him out of jail!
AFP reported
“Sato, writing on his blog shortly before his arrest, appealed for a continued probe into the alleged whale meat embezzlement.”I just want to appeal to the hearts of people involved in the whale embezzlement case: ‘Do you think it’s alright to remain silent?’” Sato wrote.
“If Japan wants to take the lead as an environmentally advanced country, please, conduct diplomacy that can turn international friction into cooperation.”
Junichi is a prominent anti-whaling voice in the media in Japan, and his arrest, along with colleague Toru Suzuki, on the eve of the International Whaling Commission meeting is probably not a coincidence. Some media in Japan are saying that the arrest, covered on television, was a warning to other activist groups that as the G8 approaches, voices of dissent in Japan will not be tolerated.

After reading this, I don't know what to think about it. He is only saying what he strongly believes in and trying to make other people change their opinions. However, it was a voice of dissent. This has definately warned other activist groups.

Tuesday 10 June 2008

RSS

On many news websites (e.g., CNN, New York Times, the BBC) and blogs (web diaries or weblogs), you may have noticed links or buttons that say Syndicate this site, RSS, or XML; they all refer to the same thing: a quick way to have the headlines or new additions to these sites delivered to you, as they occur.
There is some discussion as to what RSS stands for, but the majority agree it stands for "Really Simple Syndication" (XML is the language in which the file has been created). When you "subscribe" to a RSS feed, the latest news and additions to the website will be delivered directly to you. You don't need to subscribe to email alerts or click from one site to the next, trying to see the new content that has been added since your last visit. Put plainly, it allows you to identify the content you like and have it delivered directly to you, taking the hassle out of staying up-to-date by showing you the very latest information that you are interested in.

Step up : )

Step up : )