Evaluate your experiences with the blog assignment and the class as a whole. What experiences did you like, not like? What would you keep; what would you change? Due TUESDAY August 12, responses due on the 15th.
Maybe? 
I think it would be a more interactive class if there were some way to get students read and comment on everyone’s blog. Towards the end I started to develop a sense of community and familiarity with a few other classmates I knew would leave comments and appreciated getting comments. It was fun to read their blogs and it was fun to have them read and comment on mine. For future classes, it might help to have everyone start a new blog using the same blogging program. That way we wouldn’t have to register with 4 or 5 different websites just to leave the required comments. I wouldn’t mind some bonus points for hyperlinking to other classmate’s blogs and Super Mario bonus points for making my own pictures and animated GIF files but ultimately I suppose this class is really about what we do with the skilles everyone shares. Hence the communication of it all. There are so many new articles about things that correlate to this class every day, but it made me sad to see that articles and responses I posted in the discussion board never got a single reply.
Other changes I might suggest includes changing the Wood and Smith book (pricey!) or just providing excerpts from Postman’s book and supplementing the chapters and chapter summaries you provided us with more current examples. "Of course, we find the garden even in the midst of our cities." (p.197) Meaning, the root of our learning communication is identifying what's growing in our own backyard.
Best wishes! -Sam Paul
Painting lines in the road... crossing the I's and dotting the T's.
WILD CARD!!!!! Write about one experience you’ve had with communication on the internet that happened outside of this course. Explain what happened, why the situation was exacerbated or eased because the situation occurred in the realm of cyberspace. How would the situation have been different had it happened outside of cyberspace? This situation could be a mis-communication because the words written were misinterpreted, something didn’t happen because of the technology, etc. Due August 8.
When I was but a wee lad my grandmother bought a specific brand of trash bags because it was supposed to include a set of stickers with a popular movie on them. My cousin and I tore open the box when we got home and, surprise (!), there were NO stickers included. We got a bum box. My grandmother, being the patient Saint that she was, advised us to each write a letter which she promised to mail off to the Glad Company. I wrote a nice polite letter letting them know how disappointed I was to not get those stickers and how much I loved stickers and how I wished I could get some of those stickers mailed to me. My cousin wrote a letter using the most off color language he could think of (and had overheard from his parents) to basically let the company know he thought they were elephant butts. Although we both shared the same anger and were equally upset, the way we chose to communicate was critical. Sure enough a few weeks later I got a box of stickers in the mail and a nice apology while I found out my cousin got a letter sent to his parents, with a copy of his letter included, and got his behind beaten. Violence begets violence and bad communication begets bad communication, although I must say his grammar has improved and I do look forward to getting his nice, polite letters from prison each month. I think he has finally learned that you do catch more bees with honey than vinegar. 
Now, more than 30 years later I have also witnessed people get fired for brash communications sent out via e-mail or over the internet. In the business world, even though we all speak the same language, technology has helped take down the buffer or the pause we used to have to collect our thoughts. It can be very hard to mold the English language into conveying the exact specific thought, conflict and emotion we all have internally. Something written hastily or something fired off while in the throes of an emotional upheaval can often cause much more conflict down the line than the actual incident itself. Even though e-mail feels like a throwaway form of communicating to many people, computer servers DO track those e-mails and bad interactions have a nasty habit of providing more evidence against you than you could ever speculate. Just remember that the HR department always wins and back away slowly while apologizing and bowing under their gracious gaze. As Postman says, "(Management) is made up of procedures and rules designed to standardize behavior." (p. 142) Any attempt to upset that behavior has to be addressed. "That is why John Stuart Mill thought bureaucracy a "tyranny" and C.S. Lewis identified it with Hell." (p. 85)
A recent example of the e-mail system coming back to bite you in the rear and removing deniability comes directly from our own President and Vice President in the White House. It is hard to deny you are using the Government for Republican political purposes when there are e-mail directly traceable to you and your staff. Although when you are in the Government you can apparently still deny the communication and then delete the e-mails from the servers, destroy the servers and fire anyone who has the ability (or gumption) to try and track that information down. Wouldn’t a letter or a sticky note have worked better for them? From the Washington Post in April 2007 - “After promising last year to search its computers for tens of thousands of e-mails sent by White House officials, the Republican National Committee has informed a House committee that it no longer plans to retrieve the communications by restoring computer backup tapes, the panel's chairman said yesterday.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/26/AR2008022602312.html
Finally, for this assignment let me reflect on an e-mail incident closer to home that occurred when there were issues about parking with people on the night shift at the hospital. Someone, obviously frustrated and not used to using e-mail, managed to send a bitchy letter about parking to every single person working for the State of
So be nice out there, behave yourselves and learn to bite your tongue when instant retribution seems to be out of your grasp. Remember that the tortoise usually wins the race. I’ve learned there’s something even more satisfying than having a boss or teacher scolding you for using bad grammar or improper words and making a jerk of yourself by pointing out how they used bad grammar or the wrong word in their rant. Not saying anything and letting them vent and then seeing the look on their face when they realize what they’ve done and accepting the apology is way better. It’s the little pleasures in life that make it so sweet and juicy.
Interview three people from three different generations, 18-35, 36-60, 61 and up. Discuss with them how they use the internet. What are their primary uses of the internet? How comfortable are they with communicating on the internet? Has technology changed the way they live their lives, for the better or worse? In general, what do they think of the internet? Summarize your interviews on your blog. These may be posted as one blog or three separate blogs (though this still only counts as one week’s worth of entries). What do you learn from comparing the three generations.
This was another interesting assignment. I hate using the phone but I do owe my family a call on occasion, so I literally phoned this assignment in by calling the beloved family farm and speaking to all three generations in one sitting. The three groups consisted of my dad, mother and sister. Because I had talked to them about this assignment more than three weeks ago, they all knew when it was due and kept pestering me to give me their answers. Then when I needed the answers we couldn’t connect. Many calls back and forth, I’ll try and put down some of what they had to say here.
My Dad, Age 67 (but who’s counting?):
My Dad is a good fellow but he’s been struggling with his computer for years. He’s a retired engineer so he feels he should be able to work his “infernal machine”, yet he can’t quite get into everything it takes. I answer quite a few questions about computers for him every week, mainly about how to get his older programs to work with the newer ones. Things like changing a WordPerfect file to a Word file. I found out that he uses his computer to research genealogy, a hobby he picked up when he retired. Really I should say I found out MORE about his genealogy survey. Once we got on that topic it was about all we talked about. So far he’s done a really good job of tracking people down by e-mail and expanding our convoluted family tree. He has a lot more patience for that than I do.
My Mother, Age 55 (She’s not counting):
I turned my mom onto eBay a while back and right now she’s into the state surplus you can get here in Oregon. www.oregonsurplus.com Has surplus items from the state, so she’s always e-mailing me about computers and things they have for sale. She’s really into sending pictures. She has an old 2 Megapixel camera that takes pictures onto a floppy disc. Her new computer didn’t come with a floppy drive so she had to buy an external one to plug into the USB port and still send pictures. She also told me she looks up information about the Borneo goats they raise on their farm.
My Younger Sister, Age 28 (Mother of five!):
My sister has embraced her computer but she’s still running on a 56k Modem. She likes taking pictures of her kids and so getting online to e-mail out to people them is something she specializes in. She has an old Gateway computer that’s about at the end of its rope. We can’t add any more memory and make it work better, I probably will donate her one of mine. Someone will have pity on that machine. AS Wood and Smith say on page 157, in olden times "...not every American could afford or operate an automobile in the early part of the century." She said the internet is cool and often asks if I got her forwarded jokes and what-not. Yes... (author pauses, rolls eyes) ...I got them. He's really not a muslim ya know.
crushing your head, sis
Although this seems to have turned into a generational family assignment, overall I learned and confirmed that my family likes the internet; everyone is using it for different things and embracing it as a tool to stay connected to the rest of society without leaving the Shrute family farm.
Take care,
-Sam
Hello to Dr. T and the couple of classmates that may or may not be reading this blog!
Assignement Five-0
This week we were asked to join a community. I have been a member of Tribe for several years, but there are lots of individual tribes and niche’s within the site where you can join their communities. I joined the Depression Tribe, mainly because I am a person who suffers from depression. For me it’s more like extreme ups and downs throughout my day/week/life, classify it what you will, it all falls under the general depression category. That I have depression is probably not a surprise to anyone who read my book and knows me as a recovering addict/alcoholic who’s been in the program since Feb. 6, 1996, which is, incidentally, also the last time I was arrested. It’s interesting to me how many sobriety dates often correspond with tragic events in people’s loves. I mean lives. Hmmmm, any correlation there? I think so.
(Wahhh-hoooo! Tragedy!)
So because I am in a few sobriety communities already, the Depression Tribe was an excellent and natural offshoot to join for the two-week duration of this assignment. The people in this group are… well… depressed. Many don’t know where to turn, many have no medical insurance, many self medicate and many can’t get help from the medical coverage they have without it overlapping into their day-to-day care with a normal physician. Once a person falls under the depressed label, the way you are handled by the medical complex changes. Doctor’s “… rely more on machinery than on their own experience and insight” and because of that machinery, like the stethoscope, “medicine is about the disease, not the patient” because “…what the patient knows is untrustworthy; what the machine knows is reliable.” (pp. 99-101) My conflict with Postman this week is his conclusion that doctor’s perform too many tests and over-diagnose. I would like to know where those doctors are in the real world so I can become one of their patients.
Being classified as depressed, it’s difficult for me to know that insurance companies now have access to this information (I was denied because of it, yes that’s illegal), credit card companies too, and all this is in spite of HIIPA laws and regulations. Most depressed people self-medicate and then these issues get pushed into the prison system. For instance, the population of the State Hospitals around the country in the 1960s & ‘70s were more than twice the population they are at now. The reason? People were treating drug abuse as a mental health disease to be treated up until Nixon went crazy with the ludicrous amounts of money he could funnel into the DEA. Blah, blah, blah, you might be thinking that is all conspiracy theories and tin-foil hats, right? Do your own research – those hard-to-hear paranoid statements you hear from rappers in the ‘hood, might actually be speaking the truth. Fight the power!
So I am going to add some relevant quotes in here from the reading, mainly because last week (and each week) I tried taking the class assignment to another level and linked to topics and articles that actually referenced or expanded the class reading. (For instance: take a look at this article and tell me I didn’t do the reading and then take it to a whole 'nutha level by applying it to this class with supplemental research) 
That, however, doesn’t mean you get the premium grade in this class because it doesn’t reflect the requirements of the syllabus. And nope, I’m not bitter or holding a grudge, we’re (collective “we”) just conforming to the rules in order to preserve the integrity of the University system. Even if I spent most of last week arguing with the OSU system because it wouldn’t apply my financial aid unless I signed up for extra classes and dropped them because you are not allowed to apply govt. aid when you only take one class in the summer. My advice to students: wait to have children – you get no lenience or sympathy for having them. I suppose that’s how it should be, that way I can look down on the young kid who decided to deny applying my Government Aid award when he comes to the State of Oregon looking for help in the future with his children. We’re all paying it forward right? So have fun storming the castle (or at the DMV) Mr. _____ from the OSU financial aid office. But I’m not bitter because it all fits into this weeks’ theme of joining a new community thing, right?
Oh yes, so we were talking about the class reading, not the indication of taking that assigned reading to the next level and applying it to real life outside of school. Straight and true: right from the get-go Postman discusses the type of testing that often causes a difficult time for people with depression. Intelligence tests have flourished “… and have been supplemented with vocational aptitude tests, creativity tests, mental-health tests, sexual attraction tests, and even marital-compatibility tests.” (p. 93)
The group I joined was a pretty supportive group of people. Really supportive actually, and, flatteringly enough, some had already read my book and said it was a good honest account of my life 15 years ago, some said they got something out of it. So I was kind of instantly accepted by them, but soon felt sort of sick to my stomach reading about so many people who wanted to share their information and the details of their lives and medical history. I was new blood, someone to latch onto, and depressed people do latch on to any floating timber in an ocean of loneliness. It’s hard to be powerless to help people who are hurting and it’s hard to tell them (or not tell them), that even after years and years, the system still has nothing for them.
Reading through some of the Depression Group’s old posts, I could see how they dealt with people who got out of line in the community. Many accounts are shut down or suspended until people can calm down and promise to behave. With a depression group they tend to focus on the nuance of people’s words and often get offended or really genuinely upset if they perceive someone is poking fun at them in any way. However, the main disagreement in the Depression Tribe isn’t with each other, the group mainly has a conflict with the medical community and getting access to the right treatment.
Even in our modern times, it’s good to remember people were still being treated with shock therapy and lobotomies just a few short years ago. “What is clear is that, to date, computer technology has served… to make people believe tha technological innovation is synonymous with human progress.” (p. 117)
Have a great weekend!
Sam (not depressed at the moment) Paul 
Assignment 4 - Writing Letters to Folks
This week in our class, we were asked to write letters to people via snail mail and e-mail. I chose to send a hand written letter (on a card) to my Grandfather since my Grandmother passed away earlier this year. Although he’s in his 80s he also has an e-mail account where he checks e-mail, nor,ally I copy him on family pictures and funny jokes. So, I thought it might be nice to send him a note a few months after my grandma died. Mainly just to remind him that I was still thinking about them both and to remind him he’s not alone in this world. The tone was reverent and respectful and I thanked them for helping to raise me with my single mother when I was a little boy. Back then, we were living in
My Grandpa is a snowbird (someone who lives in an RV and goes to Arizona or someplace warm in the summer and back to someplace cooler in the winter), so I’m not sure if he got the letter or not. I heard from my mom that he was off traveling to visit some friends. I know he’s lonely after being with someone for 60 years. I am careful with what I write to him, out of respect for his feelings and also because he has his own ways of doing and appreciating things. My grandmother was always the writer for both of them so I didn’t want to do too much and possibly upset him.
The other person I wrote to (via e-mail) was an old friend named Michael. He just had a baby daughter, Freya, and he also has a son a year younger than my son. I didn’t send anything too over the top, there’s nothing worse than one parent trying to lecture or teach another parent, usually the person doing the lecturing has had one experience with one type of child with one type of personality and every single kid is different. So, nothing to auspicious or over the top, just a nice “atta-boy you are doing a great job” and congratulations for his new daughter.
I told him “thanks” for helping me out when I had my son. I usually keep in touch, and I’ve mailed several pounds of kid clothes to him already. (The little rug rats grow like weeds) That kind of thing. He appreciated the nice e-mail, but I think the lack of sleep and newborn cooing put my thankful note of lovey-dovey sappy-sap over the top. Let’s all look at kitty posters. Meow! Awwww.
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Within a confined network, we could accept some exaggerations, with a little contact you could see-through, and accept, these transgressions. However as the number of people compounded, the lies did as well. We’re overwhelmed by the glut of people and now my lies have to top your lies in order to get the same amount or less attention from the other bees in the proverbial hive. 
The video was a little fuzzy so I’m not sure about George. The basic plot of this video is that the average everyday Joe-Schmoe can portray himself as anything online. He delves a little into having a 3 way with some people who are just as ugly or “average” as him. He pretends to be a country music star online (even though that somehow ends up really happening with Brad Paisley at the end) 
I definitley see how this ties into our class reading from Wood and Smith. We all posted lots of reasons in our discussion of why we can't truly know anyone online. We all accentuate our best features, it’s an instinctive thing. When speaking face to face we tell stories about ourselves, often highlighting or exaggerating moments of prowess, brilliance or even self-deprecating humor. We're superheroes! 
The internet makes that even easier, and it is the easiest place to falsely represent one's true self. Why merely exaggerate the truth in a story when you can change it around completely? Who is that hurting, who does it bother? We are free to lie without consequences (more or less) and this contrast between the truth and reality is what makes communication difficult to believe. The internet’s largest boundary is also it’s blessing - the perceived disconnect that allows you to create an alter ego without fear of reprisal.
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