MY Personal Cyberinfrastructure

In this blog post I will relate Gardner Campbell’s article “A Personal cyberinfrastructure” to my own college experience with technology. Afterwards I will brainstorm what my own personal cyberinfrastructure would contain, and how it could be used to enhance education.

From my experience in higher education, there is little to no interaction with technology. The furthest extent of technology used in my college experience is based upon the LMS “Blackboard”. This is used only to check grades, announcements from teachers, and to submit papers. The extent of teacher’s technological expertise is proficiency in power point to give their lectures.

Gardner Campbell mentioned LMS like blackboard saying, “Higher education looked in the mirror and, seeing its portals, it’s easy-to-use LMS’s, and its “digital campuses”, admired itself as sleek, youthful, attractive. But the mirror lied.” He says that blackboard does not make a campus “digital” it is only an illusion. I have to agree here, I have been using blackboard since middle school, more than 10 years ago. In this web 2.0 age, what measures has higher education taken? The answer seems to be none.

My personal cyberinfrastructure would be a platform to conduct my studies. I could compile all my resources when writing papers, and drag and drop quotations and citations as I see fit. MY personal cyberinfrastructure would have a live chat open with the tutoring center, where I can posit a question to them and get a live response right when I need it. Included in this chat would be contacts for all of my classmates, added automatically, to ask them for help and study together online. In personal cyber infrastructure, I can add articles that I read, and take notes and add them into the file. Teachers can see this file and my notes, and add comments and additional information.

Grades can be given and attached to my profile, including awards and commendations. Professors can comment and leave their letters of recommendation which can be accessed by future employers. This infrastructure will be given at the start of college, and will be carried with me to apply for ever class throughout my college career.

That is what I envision when I think of a personal cyber infrastructure in college. I want a comprehensive study platform, with communication, data consolidation, and space for professors to comment and add feedback. This infrastructure requires many changes in the campus. Including a faculty that is proficient in this platform, which I believe is the purpose of Campbell’s article.

What would you like to see in your personal cyberinfrastructure in higher education? Leave a comment!

 

Phake Tweets- The Lion King

Mufasa- All is well today in the circle of life, except my brother keeps nagging me. I swear he will be the death of me…

Rafiki- @The_Lion_King Deez coconuts agree! But death is not the end of you Mufasa! HEEHEEHEE

Timone + Pumba- @The_Lion_king Dont listen to the monkey! His head is an empty coconut. BTW You gotta check out this grub! A meal for a king!

Simba- @The_Lion_King Pshaw Dad we’re lions! We eat wildebeasts for breakfast. How could you ever be stopped?

Scar- Fools….

The Assignment-

I did Cogdog’s Phake Tweets fanfic assignment . For this assignment, you must use the twister tool to create a fake conversation between famous people. For mine I chose the Lion King.

The Story-

I have probably seen this movie over 50 times in my life. I remember watching it back and forth multiple times a day as a child. I have seen this even more after my two little sisters started watching it as often as I did. These characters are ones that have stuck with me throughout my life. This conversation that I made between them is a foreshadowing for Mufasa’s demise.

Although his downfall was sad, it was necessary as well. I say this because the Lion King follows Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Story.

Think of any epic story or movie you have seen. These stories may seem totally different but actually has a lot of similar themes. According to Joseph Campbell, any hero story is actually the same story told in different ways. One aspect of this universal story is that of the Master, and the death of the master. In this event, The powerful, protective character dies, leaving the hero alone and unguided. Many examples come to mind- Obi Wan Kenobi of Star Wars, Gandalf of the Lord of the Rings, Dumbledore of The Harry Potter series are the most popular ones. In all of these example, the mentor or the powerful protector dies, leaving the heroes to fend for themselves finally. In doing so, they learn more about themselves and grow from it. So too is the death of Mufasa for Simba.

New Internet Format, New Era.

This post is a reflection on our classroom presentations over the month of March. One theme that I have noticed is that the application of web services and technology has grown faster than people can keep up with.

One example of this is Gina’s article on cyber-bullying, Although cyber-bullying crimes are committed frequently, there is no definite way to regulate and punish offenders of this. One group of people who commited cyber-bullying were charged with manslaughter, and their sentence was 300 hours of community service, and a class on bullying. The judicial system has not yet adapted to new types of crime which can be committed through this new medium of communications.

The next example is from Shin’s article of cyber-warfare. In this article, cyber-warfare is posited as the next step in war. Because computers control so many aspects of warfare; communications, radar, targeting systems  etc. If one can hack these, they can drastically change the tides of warfare. This article explains how the USA has numerous amounts of people able to attack other’s computer systems, but very few people capable of defending America from cyberattacks. According to one source, the pentagon is attacked more than 5000 times daily. This is another example of how we have not yet adapted to this new technology.

These are just a couple of numerous examples which explain my feelings on this section. This new era of technology has brought with it new challenges for us as a society to adapt to. We must change our regulation, communication, and definition of military power to be able to make in this new era of technology, cyberspace, and society.

Article Summary- Internet Addiction

Article Summary

I read an article called Internet addiction: Why you need to disconnect, which describes our need to connect to the internet, and how to overcome it.

The internet is a way for us to feel special, according to the author of this article. Twitter, status updates, blog posts… they are all ways for us to say LOOK AT ME. Somehow, there is gratification in knowing that our personal thoughts and posts will reach an audience of any size. For the author, the internet is our means to indulge our narcissistic tendencies.

The reason for this is apparently  because we are immature, seeking attention in everything we do. Or perhaps it is a way to control the chaotic environment that we live in. According to the author of this article, Internet addiction just refers to our need to post about our seemingly special existence, and the way to stop is to just knock it off.

My Response

I have a few problems with this article. The reason I chose this article is because I used to be involved in Online Gaming, to the point of addiction. I feel that the author of this article didn’t describe the physical addiction part of internet addiction, only the need to express ourselves. What about web browsing addiction, or chat room addiction, or gaming addiction? These addictions do not come from a narcissistic need. One cannot just stop being addicted to something. There is a physical need in the brain to interact online.

I feel that websites nowadays all follow the same format the “Scroll Down” web pages. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and more of these web 2.0 sites have formatted their pages so that the user only has to scroll down to be fed constant information and entertainment. It is so easy to look at the clock and realize that 3 hours have passed just by scrolling down or following associative trails through the labyrinth of Youtube videos.

These websites understand how our brains work and utilize them so that we utilize their services frequently. One needs help breaking from the addiction that comes with web usage, we cant just stop our addiction as easily as the author mentions.

Poice Beat- Sheriff Jon Brown’s killer brought to justice

The Assignment

I did the Police Beat writing assignment!

The details of this assignment are as follows:

Essentially, identify an innocent seeming song that advocates some odd/criminal behavior and reformat it as a police report style article.

The song I chose was “I Shot the Sheriff” by Bob Marley

I always love listening to Mr. Marley. Whenever this song came on, I always wondered how this story would play out if it were true. Ladies and Gentlemen, here is my rendition of the events that took place.

The Story

At 3:35 pm a man was arrested for shooting a police officer at the edge of town. Sheriff Brown tracked the suspect to the edge of town, where he was fired upon and killed in the line of duty. The suspect was apprehended an hour later and taken into the station for questioning. When questioned, the suspect would only respond by saying, “If I am guilty I will pay.”

The suspect’s Identity will not be revealed to the public at this time, but he has ties to the killing of a deputy last month, as well as a judicial history with Sheriff Brown. The suspect has had multiple charges of illegal agriculture on public land. Sheriff Brown was personally responsible for killing those seeds before they grew. It is not certain at the moment if this was the reason for the murder, although he swears it was in self-defense.

The suspect will be tried for the murder of two police officers, which in this county is a capital offense.

 

 

 

DFPQ1

The Medium is the Message

This sentence explains my thoughts on today’s internet usage. With the advent of Web 2.0, communication online has drastically changed. Discussions are being held via comments on blogs and similar platforms, internet lingo and meme usage are inserted into conversation to add a new dimension to the post, and even to the point of this internet based communication transcending to our spoken interactions. Nowadays there are many ways to join an online society by joining forums, starting blogs, and commenting frequently. In no time at all one can have connections and an infrastructure of who they are online.

What is the medium? Web 2.0. What is the message? Its here to stay, learn to use it. This user-generated world is the way in which our age is applying the internet. Therefore this user-generated, online society IS the internet right now. Perhaps when technology changes even further, blogs and user content will be a thing of the past, but until the medium changes, web 2.0 is the message

 

The Nimda Virus

The article I presented was “Memories of the Nimda Virus“

I made this simple prezi to outline the main points, which I will explain here.

History

The Nimda Virus attack happened in September 18, 2001. After only 23 minutes, this virus was the most propagated one at the time. The purpose of this presentation is explain the rapid propagation.

This was one week after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The outbreak of this virus caused a lot of scare in America, where some thought that this was a follow-up cyber attack. However after further investigation, there was no relationship found between the worm and terrorist organizations.

Earlier is 2001, another backdoor worm named “Code Red” was propagated, which allowed this Nimda virus to propagate easily as well.

Propagation

1. Email spreading
   • When a computer was infected by the Nimda virus, the virus would send an email to all of the user’s contacts. The email would be blank with an attachment “readme.exe” If the attachment was opened the computer would be affected.
   • With some windows operating systems and mail applications, this email would automatically get downloaded if the email was opened or even PREVIEWED.
   • The newly infected user would then have its email searched and send the virus to all of those contacts.
2. Web Browsing
   • The Nimda virus would attach itself to ALL writable documents on a computer. This includes web files such as .htm, .html, and .asp files.
   • When an infected computer would be browsing webpages, the Nimda virus would attempt to transfer itself onto the web server.
   • If the server was not well protected, it would get the Nimda virus, and give it to any other users browsing the webpage.
3. Shared Networks
   • Because the Nimda virus gets written on all writable documents, any file that is transferred over a shared network propagates the virus.

Payload

The nimda virus was a backdoor virus which left computers open to further attacks.  It did this in two wasy: The first was to make the C Drive sharable so that any person could access it.  The second was by creating a new user with administration privileges.

Conclusion

The nimda virus propagated so quickly because of a lack of security in the Windows operating system. Although the Nimda virus has been protected against nowadays, the author of this article notes how there are still loopholes in the windows system which makes users prone to similar attacks. Therefore it is highly recommended that one installs anti-virus software on their systems.