Modeling Reality with Virtual World

Today's most controversial trend in the development of new technologies is virtual reality. It's a mix of excitement and concerns that determines how our future world would be like. Besides gaming, there are several ways where virtual world can greatly benefit us as well as potentially making its damage to individual users.

We can benefit from virtual world by using it as a training tool for medical practitioners. It is the best way to ensure medical students receive the right kind of practices by gaining experience to better prepare students for the job. In the past, mentioned in the article "Avatar II: The Hospital", hospital may have to hire actors to train new nurses in preparation for emergency incidents, which is costly and only a limited amount of times available to prepare for the real deal. However, with new technologies,"the virtual world allows a much more immersive experience, Dr. Greci says-and it doesn't interrupt a hospital's regular business." (Simon, 2010). And within the classroom, the tool allows students to take roleplay of the job by experience it on virtual world. Professors will be able to monitor the experience and provide feedback on student's performance. (Simon, 2010). It's safe to say that virtual world as a training tool for medical students and practitioners is a great way to ensure medical skills, and to prepare nurses to gain the right mindset under emergency situations through virtual practices.

Put aside the positive benefits from using virtual world, the downside of using such technology can influence negative social behavioral. A psychological research study shows in the article "Virtual world may impact real-world behavioral" indicates that "just five minutes of role­play in virtual environments as either a hero or villain can easily cause people to reward or punish anonymous strangers," says lead researcher Gunwoo Yoon of the University of Illinois at Urbana­Champaign." For those who develops an obsession for playing video games are most likely to be impacted by virtual reality technologies. Once the user puts him/herself into a roleplay, it's likely that they will be influenced momentarily by that roleplay. Because roleplay requires the person to think and act according to a designed character such as a hero or a villain. Sooner or later into the virtual world, the player will begin to identify him/herself to that of the avatar and risk the chance of carrying that character onto the real world.

However, a virtual world is created for users to experience things they may otherwise cannot practice in the real world due to social constraints or the fear of consequences. Others may argue that virtual world can foster creativity, where users are free to experiment things before confirming an idea in the real world. This can best be use in the science field and technology field where innovations are encouraged. By mapping an idea out in a virtual world, it gives researcher a better control on reducing errors when implementing it into the real world.  Therefore, virtual world can foster creativity in that it cancels out consequences if the result does not match to the expected. Virtual reality foster creativity in that it isn't real, so user is free to experiment anything without constraints and attachment.

As virtual world is expected to continue to develop and innovate, I expect it to be applied and used in ways that is most beneficial in making a better living environment. I happen to watch medical related TV shows, they always demonstrate new technologies of the future and how those new tools make things more convenient. I picture the future of virtual world becoming more realistic, and I hope that it's better for the good.

Blog about Twitter

Our school provides an online platform in specific to enhance education, and one of the many functions is that it allows professors of online courses to hold an "in-class" discussion with fellow classmates, we named it BlackBoard. Now the question is, how is that differ from that of Twitter?

With Twitter, every post and every interactive comments can be grouped together using hashtag (#). And as I was scrolling through the posts by my fellow classmates, the list goes on to posts from previous courses that was using the same hashtag code. However, interactive comments on Twitter is less formal due to its limited characters for every posts, and the tendency to using informal language is higher because I tend to forget that it is related to a course.Whereas on BlackBoard, not only because it is meant to be a learning platform, in order to view a post or comment, it requires to take the step of clicking it and open it specifically. Unlike Twitter, it doesn't have a limited character for each post, so the materials and contents are written more formal and structured. To summarize, Twitter is more relaxed and it tends to be easier to make comments due to its easy to access and short texts. Whereas on BlackBoard, it takes longer time to do what we can easily do with Twitter. 

Having a class discussion online is very different from that of traditional in-class discussion. By shifting it online, we can track who says what, and students are more active to comments and more expressive. As oppose to in-class discussion, we can see that only those few who always interact with professors and the majority of the students in class tend to be more passive in comparison. 

Social Networking Sites

Personally, I have an account on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Snapchat. And if anyone remember MySpace, I had one as well. Let's get started with my impression of the first four.

Twitter- I initially started this account mainly to follow news. It is easy to get handy, everything is pretty straight forward for someone like me, who is familiar with mobile friendly social media platforms. And it's simple. My impression was that it functions almost like texting for those who is active. It's a great platform to communicate, to stay connected and interactive with others.  

Facebook- it's a site where we stay connected with friends. It's fun with all the game options where users can invite their friends to play, as well as different entertainment activities. Some requires to exit the site to its sponsored site. It seems to provide a high security options to protect users, such as the option to allow selected group of friends to see a post. A lot of ads and they seem to be using cookies for their relevance. Definitely the largest content platform amongst all.  

LinkedIn- I was invited to create an account from someone who I once worked with. The theme on the page says business, and it really differentiate them from other social networking site. Its function is very similar to the previous version of Facebook before the recent upgrade. Users post, give likes, comments, and share. Except that it's contents are much more informative. 

Instagram- simplest platform of all four. It's like sharing an up-to-date photo album and user can choose to either share it with the public or reserve the account for people they know. And it allows users to post selectively, providing more security and privacy. 

In conclusion, all of them seem to be providing a similar service made free for everyone, and yet, they each have their specialty. They are all available platforms to enable friends to stay connected no matter where they are. And yet, they are different by tailoring themselves to better service the slightly different groups of audience. 

Scial Networking

Social Networking media has becoming more of our everyday life. In fact, social networking media has been seen as a substitute to traditional socializing such as to make friends. More or less, we all use social networking media to communicate and interact with our friends. Even businesses have been adapting to this new technology which together we allowed the power of social networking to continue to grow.

Social networking on the Internet enhances how businesses market themselves, branding, and interact with potential leads. For example, the majority of Facebook users publish and update their personal information and before they know it, they are creating a behavior pattern that is available to the public on the Internet. In the article "Leaving 'Friendprints'", Shawndra Hill says that "a person's pattern of behavior on various networks can reveal tell-tale signatures, similar to fingerprints...that can be used to solve a wide range of business challenges". Another example that these technology tools changed business is the effect on the recruiting process. A more professionally used website very similar to that of Facebook is LinkedIn. Recruiters have been shifting the traditional process of waiting for the right candidates to they are now actively tracking down for the right candidates through social networking site. Shally Steckerl who recruits talents for Microsoft says in the article "Social Networking Technology" mentions that "with LinkedIn, he can find people faster using a vastly increased network of contacts". Therefore, social networking technologies have drastically changed the way business are conducted in ways to save time and resources.

However, there is always two sides to everything including social networking technologies. As much as the new technologies impact businesses and our everyday life positively, it is also threatening the boundaries to personal privacy. It raises the questions of privacy on social networking website such as Facebook. In the article "Leaving 'Friendprints'", Lance Hoffman who is a computer science professor at George Washington University mentions that "just a person's name and birth date - routinely found on a Facebook profile - can be a useful lever for an identity thief". In another article about Facebook privacy by Rebecca Greenfield says that "...if you really don't want intimate photos out there, don't put 'em on Facebook. But also, don't expect to hide something if you do - everything can be shared and re-shared these days". Nothing we post on social media can be hided because once it is out there, the chances of it being re-posted or shared is no longer within the control of the original publisher.

Regardless of the many positive and potentially dangerously negative impacts that social networking media contains, it will continue to take a role in our everyday life. As it is used more as an entertainment channel than a professional tool, the only way for social networking technologies to evolve is to become more official to use in the professional world.