ebony wililams

paper blog

2009-04-27T18:39:00.000-07:00

Thesis

Online training is becoming an increasingly popular choice for learning solutions. Convergence training and education have become critical activities for two reasons. First, as concerns about the costs of training expand, organizations are seeking more efficient ways to diffuse convergent and online production knowledge through the workforce. Convergence here means the ability to work across two or more platforms (e.g. Print and online). Online production refers to both web publication and the delivery of new to internet worked screen-bases services, including mobile phones and personal digital assistants, webinars, and podcasts. Secondly, while organizations still face digital media skills shortages, there is a strong demand for the latest and greatest technology. As on-going technology changes, it is my argument that face to face training is key to bridge immediate skills gaps. There is not much research done on why online training is “not” effective. This paper will show that online training is less effective than face to face training. This paper will outline how online training is less effective because it lacks engagement with its audience, lacks retention of new learning’s and clients face complexities with technology.

April 21 class

2009-04-20T17:24:00.000-07:00

Both articles for this weekly were highly challenging to relate to Organizational Leadership for me. The articles discussed how the digital information age has grown since the start as it relates to music and sound. In the Article, " The Aesthetics of Failure", the author states that we are now living in a "post digital world". Both articles discuss how tools involved to play music, or use of songs and DJ's are the medium for the music message. This type of convergence is very transparent and is characterized by that same transparency. The innovation of digital audio has come about due to mistakes and failure. This allows for increased creativity in music. Music and how music is created has emerged along with the age of digital convergence. I can only relate this to how we listen to music today versus how we listened to music five years ago. How DJ's can get to mainstream via the Internet instead of only being heard on the radio. Ipods vs walkmen. Through trail and error and innovation, the medium of convergence has changed in relation to the past.

The terms in the article were extremely difficult for me to understand. I can relate this to my belief and topic of my paper. If one is not computer savvy ie. aware of music terms in relation to the article. Key learning's and retention are not going to be sustained or effective.

"Quentin Taratino's Star Wars? Grassroots Creativity Meets the Media Industry".

The author describes through an example of the movie, Star Wars, how fans are just as important to the producers of the movie as producers are important to the fans. The article describes how through grassroots convergence, fan communities emerge on line allowing them to be creative in creating parodies and future product ideas. The article discuss, "Fan digital film is to Cinema what punk DYI culture is to music." I ask the class, if you agree with this statement? Fan filmmakers are able to utilize the convergence growth to make their way into mainstream film industry. This use of convergence enables everyday people an opportunity to contribute to their present and future culture. Since the media creates grassroots creativity, fans are able to create their own version for example of the "Star Wars Movie" and post online. It has not always been a positive effect from fan involvement onto the grassroots of convergence. Unfortunately, some organizations have loss profits due to the same fan involvement and communities on the web. Media has adopted policy to prosecute fans that over step their ability to access or participate in convergence. For example, downloading music on some websites are now illegal, or reproduction of purchased games are illegal. People that download music, film, or books can be viewed as "prohibitionists" according to the chapter. The article also states, "The new consumer will help to create value or they will refuse it".

What kind of convergence value have you recently denied the most?

In summary, creators can treat online fans as clients to build product profits, or deny them. In essence, these fans are very valuable.

4/14 blog

2009-04-12T16:55:00.000-07:00

In the Article Theory of the Derive

The author describes the word "derive and how its used, its meaning, and how it relates to psycho geographical effects. I did not get the purpose of the article during my reading, therefore, I don't understand the key ideas of the article and how it relates to leadership or digital convergence.

I understand the work "derive- is a technique described as drifting in an almost therapeutic state. During the state, the person is acting in an playful constructive manner with some awareness of their psycho georgraphical surroundings. This however, is not the same as taking a walk through the park. In this state, one drops everything for a moment in time such as an hour, day, or week. The author suggests that acting in this state alone or with more than six people will not provide the same effect as acting with two or three. In order to be effective, one must derive to a narrow social space, such as "Las Vegas" or NY. This is how the author ties the psycho geographical term.

I pose the following for class discussion- what does the author mean when he states "Men can see nothing around them that is not their own image, everything speaks to them of themselves. Their Landscape is alive"

Does the author suggest that people have conformed to their surrounding, have cultures submerged so much that we don't own our own identities? Is this the reason one should "derive"?

In terms of "derive", I imagined people that are considered storm chasers are deriving into a highly unsafe psycho geographical place.

In the Article- A Users guide to De'tournement
The author explains how this french word can help to change or systemize our culture or society. The word de'trounement means deflection, diversion, rerouting, distortion, misuse, misappropriation or turning something aside from its normal course or purpose. The author starts out by describing the effects of distorting art and how the meaning can change from this distortion. The article also explains the differences of Minor and Deceptive de'tournement. Film, novels and artwork can host major forms of de'tournement in a sense that it can have political and cultural effects.

A current example of de'torunement can be the recent posting with Obama as a guerrilla in the New York Times and how it effected race and politics if my interpretation is correct.

I think it would be helpful to have class discussion on the author's statement -" The idea of pure, absolute expression is dead; it only temporarily survives in parodic form as long as our other enemies survive. "

The two above articles were similar in terms of environment culture, the past helps to determine the future through innovation whether in art form or through chasing a storm and how this innovation effects our future culture.

The use of French language terms made the articles quite difficult for me to understand, however, the references at the end of both article's allowed me to have better understanding during the third try.

Niether articles are to be useful in my paper, since I am proving the ineffectiveness of on-line training. This may change after class discussion to allow better understanding of the three articles read.

I am looking forward to discussion on the statement "Plaigarism is necessary, progress implies it."

April 7 class

2009-04-07T18:15:00.000-07:00

Why the Digital Computer is Dead

This article opens with discussion of important terms to help one understand the information within the article. The author explains the difference between analog and digital computers. Prior to tonight's class, I had no idea how to connect or summarize either articles. My learning's of the summary of the article is to describe how humans have"agency" in comparison to the computers we use to give back information that humans put into them.

The four key ideas I gathered from the article are:
1. The author discusses the need for a different term for computers- the word compute has a sense to belittle others in terms of position. The term "computer" in its original form is referred to those that have tedious tasks to compute manual calculations. The author states the concept of computation is outdated and is worth questioning.
2. Secondly, since a computer can not think on its own, its compares to completing other simple daily tasks like watching a television or using a typewriter. The agency of a computer is limited to the information you give it. As explained in class, humans have "agency" to get things done whereas a computer can only do what we tell it to do. I struggled to grasp this concept in terms of digital media convergence. To tie this concept to a leadership role, one may think of how a supervisor gives direction to subordinates. If I send a email to a subordinate to complete a task, he may complete the task differently if I was to bring the employee in my office and to assign the same task. Since agency is limited by the information given, an employee may struggle with direction in an email due to lack of physical presence to ask questions. This information can directly help prove the point of my thesis statement, since its my belief that on line learning is not as effective as classroom training for this very reason.
3. The author compares computers to the use of a Muse. How Muses are "called upon" to give us information much like computers. We can use a Muse much like a search engine. The use of retrieving information from a particular medium. The article states, " the consequent relationship between a human and an electronic invocator is a quasi magical refrain of the ancient cultural form of invocation." This supports the authors argument to compare a Muse to the use of a computer.
4. My final key concept is to describe what the author meant in terms of how technical invocation is magical. I tend to believe that innovation has a sense of mystery a magical thought that provokes one to create from the mystery into reality. It is my belief that this ideology is similiar to how digital media convergence continues to grow. It starts with the unknown to reproduce and create curiosity to its audience. The average person may not understand how computers operate within the hub, however, we enjoy the mystery and the after effects.

The author discussed the term "avocation", a distracting call to deviate from one's original path. As discussed in class tonight, an avocation can call you away to learn how to use technological equipment. This thought process from the article creates a second argument to support my thesis statement for my paper. Use of computers to train staff in organizations are not helpful if the employee is advocated from understanding the use of the program of the technical equipment.

The most challenging concept of this article aside from the high valued language was the initial connection to leadership and digital media convergence.

Questions

Since the articles are to evoke critical thinking skills, is it beneficial to blog after class vs prior to class. Since our blogs are graded and this language or thinking is new to most, it is my belief that we may blog more effectively post class and create greater dialogue with one another to help clear up any confusion or to continue a great discussion such as the one we engaged tonight.

How can leaders leverage avocation through the common uses of communication via technological mediums?

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Walter Benjamin made the argument that if you take a piece of art out of its original setting, it will lose its original "aura". It can be challenging to understand this ideology in terms of how you apply this rule in different situations. Benjamin uses art as an example to explain his ideology in terms of Marxism. This idea of capitalism and how we affect social order through politics is a key point in the article. How the government can create conditions to make it possible to abolish capitalism in order to force people into certain roles. One can think of the recession we are facing now and how slavery started in America. Secondly, how slaves revolted to change politics and socialism.
The second idea of the article describes how when reproduced, authority creates ambiguity. In art forms, perceptions of the viewer can become truthful in the viewers mind, however, one can have a different "aura" of the art work if viewed in person or via the Internet. I gave an example in class that explained how the impact of visiting the Constitutional Museum in Philadelphia changed my life vs. seeing what I viewed at the museum via a television commercial.
3. There are different methods of technical reproduction of art. An "Aha" moment I took away from the article is the speed of production on which the artwork is reproduced. For instance, when we think of a camera and how innovation has changed how quickly we can view the picture via the camera itself, online and in hand. This form can have a huge effect on the "aura" on the moment or how you would view the picture. I think of how camera's have changed from the simplest form of printing to digital forms and now instant digital prints from the camera itself eliminating the need to develop film. This form agrees with the ideology of Marxism. We as a social form are forcing society to eliminate the need to develop film with the use of the Internet printing, printing from the camera itself or storing on a digital frame. This has directly affected the form of capitalism to force even my company, Target to conform. Due to the rapid growth of digital convergence, we were forced to eliminate the option for our guests to develop film in our stores.

It is also this ideology that supports my thesis in my paper to argue that although online training is cost effective, we are forcing people who are not familiar with the technological piece and learning differences to change learning styles and retention aspects in order to save organizations money. True Capitalism!

2009-03-24T14:07:00.000-07:00

Revised Thesis

Online training is less effective than face to face training. Online training is less effective because it lacks engagement with its audience, secondly, it lacks retention of new learning's. Finally, effectiveness is weakened due to the complexities with technology.

Article #1

Rethinking E-learning Design on Generative Learning Principles

This research article discusses the lack of an educationally sound and theoretical design basis for online training. The article focuses its research on the "fruitfulness of a new, generative theory and model of learning form making sense of the e-learning design". The article discusses the framework similarities and differences of design and technology.

The article discuss some of the traditional problems with e-learning such as:

establishing and maintaining strong connections between knowledge and skill treated in e-learning environments
the need for any time and any place learning that is embedding in an organizations culture
the need for staff development to be appropriate to the learner's immediate needs
the need for improved course design, flexible and accessible technology, and increased learner preparation and involvement.

As mentioned in my thesis- I have learned from this article that most of the ineffectiveness can be leveraged in the course design. This was an AhHa moment for me. After reading the article, I am starting to change a bit of my thinking on the fast movement of digital convergence. This article will support my thesis with its outstanding research on legitimating some of my opinions on e-learning and digital convergence.

Article # 2

A Study into the Effects of E-learning on Higher Education

This article discuss how the Internet is used as the medium for Higher Education Institutions to capitalize on new students and their own geographical reach. This article discuss the issues surrounding the implementation process, global impacts and structure concerns. The article continues to discuss how University structures are rigid and have not proven to achieve high results regarding the incorporation of technological advancements. Life long learning can be diminished in an online setting versus a traditional setting. Since digital convergence has taken off so fast, it has forced the structure of the higher education system to drastically change to keep up with competitiveness of other schools.

The article provided great information for my study. Information that suggests the need for proposers of this type of learning to step back and take a look at the effects online training can have on a school or organization. Such constraints are organizational, cultural, managerial and financial.

In summary, I am making great progress with my research and look forward to discussing more in class.

answers to questions for 3/24

2009-03-22T16:59:00.000-07:00

It is really difficult for me to answer the question; what motivates people to create blogs. In my opinion, everyone creates blogs for their own personal reasons. Possible reasons could include, express emotion, opinion, debates, and ask questions. The list is endless.
In a country that allows freedom of speech, bloggers should have ethical responsibilities, however, I find that need for that would somewhat be close to impossible. I have recently learned that many personal attacks on celebrities are started with blogs and host many unethical lies or information to harm one another.
Based on an enormous amount of recent I have completed in this class, I have learned that blogging has made an enormous impact on how people use the web. The first time I heard of blogging was at the beginning of this class, therefore, it has changed the way I now use the internet. I do believe that blogging creates a more participative and collaborative culture on the internet. It has become a great outlet for many. It has also hurt the newspaper industry.
Blogging uses the internet as a form of digital convergence medium.

Article #2

Since bloggers are somewhat independent publishers, people should be mindful of content. This jumps back however, to my response to the first article. People should be mindful of ethical implications of blogs, however, internationally people are emotional and say what they feel even if its unethical.
I do believe that blogging can help to promote civic engagement and keep people away from the community. Blogging can be seen as a form to advertise what's going on in the community to bring people closer together. Blogging can also become addictive and keep people in the house glued to a computer chair engaged in the bloggeshpere community. I believe that blogging has both some great pros and some cons, at the end of it all, its up to the individuals values and ethics to make the decision.
I have mixed feelings on if the administrator should have the right to edit posts by others, its does take away from the authenticity, however, its the administrators right to determine whats gets published. Good question!

update to Blog #5

2009-03-11T19:14:00.000-07:00

This is the link for article #1

thefreelibrary.com/Training staff online: does computer-based staff training

Title for article #2

Teacher of the Year: WEb Training Best Practices Gets Top Vote by Lisa Kianoff

updated Thesis:

Online training is less effective than face to face training. The reasons why online training is less effective is for the following three reasons: Technology complexities, engagement and retention of new learning's.

My next blog will further discuss this revised thesis.

blog entry#5

2009-03-01T17:10:00.000-08:00

Thesis- To prove or disprove through research, my belief that online training lack of effectiveness does not match the dollar savings to organizations that use this form of training. Online training lacks engagement of face to face training and is weakened when the trainee lacks digital media skills. In my paper to help prove my point, I will discuss the five keys of learning and how online training does not meet those needs satisfactorily.

Article #1 Teacher of the Year: WEb Training Best Practices Gets Top Vote by Lisa Kianoff

In this article, author Lisa Kianoff discuss how easy it is to utilize this form of training through hassle free webinars. Kianoff also touch on my thesis statement about the effectiveness of the training. Remembering what you have just saw and learned is key. Engagement is key as trainees must work with the trainer to participate during the training session. Trainers work hard to keep the attention of the trainees utilizing digital tools that allow trainees to ask questions, raise their hands and provide feedback. Kianoff, explains the importance of leaders and how important it is for them to understand the future of evolving technology and how they must think twice before making quick decisions to save money and remove face to face training. The article gave tips to trainers to effectively keep trainees engaged during training sessions.

This article was very relative to class learning's as it discuss the future and the need to change and the problems that come with change in the evolving technology world. Usage of online training with those that lack basic web or digital skills have a very opposite result that leaders are looking for when switching to this new form of convergence. Online training courses have the ability to be viewed at later times. in order to really drive the effectiveness of the training, both parties must be able to use basic tools of technology wisely.

I found the article to be very helpful. I have emailed the author for additional advice and websites for my continued research.

Article #2 Training Staff online- Does computer based staff training work? A team of administrators and nursing educators is giving it a try. By Richard L. Peck

This article discuss the difficulties of class room training such as: scheduling conflicts, engagement, note taking and restlessness. Two Nursing Administrators worked to create a program to improve results through better training. The result of these efforts was a creation of an online training webinar. The administrators found that tracking the training was a big win for the organization. The administrators then decided to take the training to the next level to offer more online training courses. They found that these online modules improved productivity and gave the organization an increased flexibility to get a large number of employees trained. The organization utilized interactive modules with easy reading material contained in the webinar for better retention of what was learned.

Test were given at the end of the webinars to track retention of the modules and to keep track of training results. The downside was for the people with computer phobia. The author stated that brief encounters with computers created comfort for trainees. The CEO was not sure at the end of the training how the trainings would work for the long-term. The CEO was more concerned with the short term money savings. Webcasting and intranets for organizations get more information out in a quicker time to more employees. Organizations have decided to Synchronous (live) and asynchronous(self-paced) modules to get training information to their employees. The down side of E-learning has a short shelf life. Organizations have utilized convergence to help with the engagement piece with hand raising, note taking and polling features.

The future of E-Learning is going to the use of simulators.. The second article did not give much information in terms of my thesis. It was more useful in explaining the wins to on-line training and not a full explanation how it works hand in hand with the five keys of learning and the continued effectiveness.

Blog entry #4

2009-02-23T17:21:00.000-08:00

Proposed topic for final paper- To determine the effectiveness of online training.

Thesis- To begin my paper by defining and analyzing the five aspects of teaching/learning process. Secondly, I will explain why convergence training and education have become critical activities to organizations. Thirdly, I will discuss how digital media skill shortages weakens the effectiveness of online training. I will conclude with discussing the Win's of digital convergence and how the concepts help organizations grow.

In the article "Making Rapid E-Learning Work", the author discuss why online training is an effective tool to address business needs such as events, competitive developments, product updates or other business needs. The article also discuss how reducing the training time saves organizations more than half the expense for online training vs. classroom training. Finally, in order to train larger groups; online training is more efficient allowing organizations to send the same message nationwide to all employees. This article provides clear information on the topic of my paper as it explains a global history of online training research along with the benefits of this type of training in the workplace.

In the article "Online teaching tools find Converts", the author discuss the advantages of online training such as- repeated access to content, concepts, principles, facts, people and simulations.
The article also discuss how online training helps to improve the performance of employees, saves money, free up management staff from training, and how it saves printing costs. This articles has similar information as it relates to class due to discussing on how accessible online training is due to improvements of digital convergence ie. Internet accessibility and pod casts through MP3 players. This article adds to my paper as it explains the use of webinars, online collaboration solutions and the accessibility of information on company shared websites.

blog week 2/10

2009-02-21T16:50:00.000-08:00

Overview of Chapter 1- There is a digital convergence culture that utilizes "blogging" as means to play a hide and seek game between the media audience of the "survivor" and the media "producers". The internet has replaced water cooler talk with online forums. Bloggers are able to speak uncensored to accomplish goals with others internationally.

The Key ideas of Chapter 1-
1. Circulation and exchange of communication is done utilizing "blogging"
2. A Contest is played out over information.
3. Collective intelligence refers to the ability of virtual communication to leverage the combined expertise of their members.
To support these ideas, the book discusses how the circulation and exchange of ideas of communication where known as "spoilers" a hard core group of fans that go to the extraordinary lengths to figure out answers to survivor before the show is aired to the public. Collective information is gathered together amongst the spoiling community where spoiler "chill one" asserts himself as the best spoiler of all time. The most challenging concept for me to understand during this reading is why many spoilers went to such extremes to play cat and mouse with the producers of the show. I don't understand why they couldn't just wait until the show aired.

Overview of the Article-
As we continue to develop new media and the web, we must not let our traditional thinking of media create a black box for the web. We must understand that the past helps up to build on to the future. Without the history or looking back on traditional media, we would not be able to add the extension of new digital convergence today.
The key ideas of the article-
Why reinvent the Wheel, process, and message? Process for film has stayed the same through the emergence of digital convergence.
To support this idea, the article states that during a web meeting many wondered when the web would reach the threshold, speed, and professionalism of film, radio and television.

The most challenging idea of the web article is to understand all the ideas and theories that make up the world wide web. I will have a change to explore these topics more when researching the information for my project. My food for thought question is: Why doesn't the Supreme Court rule it unconstitutional to prohibit distribution of indecent conversation over the radio such as the CDA act of 1996?

The web article will be extremely helpful to review in terms of my project to understanding the worldwide web. The digital communication world is very much alive. Setting up blogs/threads, news media, places like "face book" and you tube is a form of media convergence that gives people an outlet to be free! People are able to portray or say what they want and voice their opinion in an uncensored way.

Blog for week of 2/17

2009-02-18T17:12:00.000-08:00

This weeks readings were common in the fact of digital convergence in the forms of the Internet, pod casting and blogging are faster, cheaper and interactive ways to communicate. All forms of these types of digital convergence can be used to communicate in the workplace, academic settings, and for political uses. Finally, all forms are ways that can hold the media accountable for what it communicates.

The first key idea for the readings are the importance of engaging your audience, whether utilizing podcasting, blogging or the the internet with pop-ups. Secondly, digital convergeace trains our brains and our thinking to in some form lose focus and somewhat become less like to use old traditional forms of media (such as reading books or newspapers). Finally, convenience was a major theme. The convenience to key information more effeicient quick information is a plus in our ever changing society.

To support my first key point, I think back to podcast and blogging articles/podcast. Blogging and Pod casting are great forms to keep audiences engaged. Blogging used by the Democratic party was very successful in helping Obama to win the election. Blogging and pod casting allows the public to speak for themselves in an uncensored way to keep the readers or listeners engaged. I too like the author in the "google" article have loss my sense to concentrate for long periods of time in order to read books. With so much information at the click of a button, I have trained my brain just as the author to lose concentration quite quickly. Finally, unlike traditional media, the "blogging" article discuss how utilizing the above forms of communication, readers able to be more interactive with all new forms of digital convergence such as blogging, texting and etc.

I disagreed with the author of the "google" article in the fact that he believed that the Internet causes a down spiral in human development and growth. I believe the author is just paranoid and needs to understand that we now have the opportunity to get efficient information quicker expanding our human development. Children today have more access to information than I did as a child and are sometimes smarter than me in some aspects.

Questions for class discussion:

How many have the same attention span problem with reading?
Do you believe Pod casting is an effective training tool?

I am still a newcomer to all the new technology I am learning in this class, however, I am still undecided how I will utilized this weeks readings for my presentation.

Cultrural Paradox of the Global Village

2009-02-01T16:45:00.000-08:00

Cultural Paradox of the Global Village discussed how the Internet is a world of simultaneous relationships where we all at someone establishes our DigiSelf. Our DigiSelf can lead to death or theft in its worst forms or it can lead to profits and success in its best forms. As the Internet continues to strip us of culture and individuality, we would fight a losing battle if we thought we could ignore it or act as if it didn't exist.

Key Ideas:
1. The thought that we cant shut out the effects of the Internet on our culture or society, even if we choose not to use the Internet directly. The effects of the Internet can cause such great success and such bad failure. When I think of this, I get very nervous and paranoid for my children.
2. DigiSelf. Who is that as it relates to our individual selves? Our Digiself can be stripped of it's identity, perceived as better than we actually see ourselves. Our DigiSelf is extremely intriguing and can spark such great conversation.
3.The Internet has no culture. The Internet is everywhere, yet nowhere. I never realized how culture less the Internet is. The article sparked thoughts of how it can be an addition to individuals internationally. Its internationally used the same way to seek information everywhere.

The author disused how we transfer our thoughts and conciusness into the computer world creating our self, taking information that can relate to us culturally. The TV transfers information into our home and information is many times biased. The Internet gives factual information as we can continue to become a part of cyberspace. We have the ability to control what we watch on the TV, however, we can seek answers to questions utilizing the Internet as our mind "wonders" as stated in the "Internet" article. With one click of the mouse, we can continue to find answers to questions not received from watching television.

The most difficult concept of the article was realizing how hopeless I am when it comes to rights of my DigiSelf. Ultimately, I don't own my Digiself 100%. How do I accept that I can't have full control of my DigiSelf and how do I protect my Digiself at all costs?

As more Corporations review Face Book and My Space to get information on employees it can become very mind boggling when we think about it. Anyone can get a picture of us at anytime now with digital cameras on cell phones and create a false identify and reek not only DigiSelf havoc but actual in life real person havoc. This may lead to a great paper topic. Too early for me to tell.