First Day of Class:

Now that we are winding down with classes, it’s time to take a look back at the very beginning of this class. I was very impressed with this class as I was very interested in the content. My favorite content in the course was the sports unit. I liked the sports unit because I love sports and I really never thought about the salary cap in sports. I would have like to see more information about sports and how much they bring in from their arenas and what they do with that money. I also liked the entertainment content because I love entertainment and I never really thought about how much it could relate to us. I would have liked to see more information about reality shows and why they are such a big hit with people. I did not like the privacy section of the course because it’s good tips for us but I rather learn about sports or entertainment. I would say maybe do the privacy section first to get it out of the way then go on to the more in detail with the other topics. At the very end of the course, I think we should learn more about the current social media platforms such as twitter and facebook and how much they exploded at different points of time. In my opinion I liked this class online but I think this class can be good for online or face to face class. I usually don’t like online classes  but I liked this one because i had a week to get the work done.  Unlike other classes, they could have 5 things due and its due in a day or so. I could also go at my own pace with this class, that was huge for me because I would get busy with my other classes or clubs.

Privacy through our social media platforms and technology is very hard to keep private. Some social media platforms have a privacy button that will help protect your privacy. Some websites ask you to provide your social security account number. One way to protect your privacy is not to put your social security on any website unless you need to. Passwords are also another way to protect your privacy. You should create a password that’s easy for you to remember but hard for hackers to guess. The passwords shouldnt be like 1234 or ABCD because that’s easy to figure out for hackers to get in. Google is huge for privacy. When you make a gmail account and someone goes on it from another computer or somewhere else, google alerts you and you have the option to click it was you or not you. Instagram  is also like that. I just got an alert not that long ago that someone from  Hawaii was trying to get on to my instagram, they asked me if it was me and I said no and they prompted me to change my password. Don’t fall for scams. If you press on a scam, it usually stays on your computer and grabs all of your personal stuff. That’s how most hackers get your personal information. You should only trust some softwares. Don’t trust all softwares.  Don’t keep your credit card on file and only put your credit card number on certain websites such as Amazon and Oriental Trading. A lot of social media platforms are using 2 factor authentication. This will give you a special code that will be sent to your phone or email and you put your code in on the social media platform. The code is only good for one time use so the hackers can’t get that code and come on to your social media platform.

One question comes to my mind when I read the textbook and I go through this class. The question is What is Media Literacy? I didn’t know what media literacy was before I started this class. Back in middle school, we had a class called media literacy but that was a class where we just designed video games and shared it with the class. Media literacy is all around us. When we go on social media and start to read articles, we criticize them, that’s media literacy. When I first heard about media literacy, I thought it was always about reading but it’s not. Media literacy could be used for dissecting logos,describing characters and just simply using the search engine to find information for a research paper. I love to look at logos and slogans and dissect them. I like to see where the origin of the logo and slogan is formed and why they chose that instead of something else. Designing video games is also a part of media literacy. You can create different video games based on themes,age or gender. Media literacy is the ability to identify different media and understand different messages. Another huge media literacy platform is text messages. People get a lot of text messages each day, I know my phone blows up with text messages everyday. Media literacy in text messages is us understanding that the person that sent us a text is trying to say to us not face to face.  We create media messages for a reason. It might be us voicing our opinion on something we like or don’t like or it might be us just reaching out to long lost friends or relatives. Media literacy is a skill that is necessary today. We are living in a digital age where all of our messages and news are on online and we need to know what they are saying to us to understand.

Social media has influenced my life really well. I use social media 24/7. From forming relationships with friends and family through social media to trying to find a job online. Social media has a huge impact on people around the world. When I asked my friends about their social media usage, they are all used differently from shopping to taking photos and posting them. My friend was trying to find an internship and went online to handshake and found an internship. Social media could also be bad for some people. Some people believe everything that they read online. Some news sources are not real but people believe it and spread it even more online. The Internet is more advanced than it ever was back in the older years. Research papers and finding stuff is much easier now as we can just hop on to the computer and search for it in google.  I love doing research papers more now as it’s easier for me to get the information. Social media made it so much easier for people. People go to the internet for everything. Job searching was made so much easier for people to find a job as companies can now post their ads for jobs. People can just go on and apply to jobs with their resumes and cover letters. Shopping online also had a huge impact on people. People now don’t have to leave their houses to buy food. I can go on to amazon and order food or anything else that I may need. Its a good thing because some people are in wheelchairs and may need help and shopping online is better for them. News also took a huge impact from social media. You can go anywhere and get news. Twitter and Instagram all have news,but the news stations like Fox and NBC all have apps now.

Social Media has a huge connection between the USA,Around the world and people who use it. Media has become huge in the past few years with new social media platforms rising for people to use such as Instagram and Snapchat. My opinion on social media is a good thing and a bad thing for people. It’s a good thing because social media can get people jobs and reconnect them to old family members and friends. It also lets people get their news fast and easy. But social media can be bad for people because people can rely on social media a lot. Some news can be fake news. Social media can also be bad because people can become really addicted to their social media platforms and may not be carrying physical conversations as well. In this class,I have been learning about my own media usage and how much I spend on media. Turns out I don’t spend a lot of time on the media as much as I thought I did. I think that makes me a better student and person  because I know how to present myself professionally in a job interview. I have been doing some research on the side of this class. I’ve been looking up different ways people use the internet like shop and job hunt as well as dating search and games. People of all ages use the internet for different reasons. It’s getting to the point where the internet is making some companies become huge like amazon. People use Amazon everyday to order stuff that they need. I want to learn more about how the internet and social media has impacted people from around the world. I want to learn how their social media platforms are different than ours or do they have more platforms we don’t have? 

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

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• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
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• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

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