During the course of the last 2 decades, it seems as if the study habits of college students are changing rapidly to adapt to the digital age. Many students including myself use digital software instead of books to master class material. However, this shift is not exclusive to the student body. Professors are becoming increasingly reliant on technology to facilitate their teaching methods. An article from 2011 found on schools.com discusses the rise of e-learning. It is now common knowledge among college campuses that scholarly resources and books can be accessed through free databases provided by the school. Students see this as beneficial as books and articles can be accessed anywhere there is internet available. However, a study posted on a blog from kqed.org shows that emphasis on technology in an academic setting has a chain reaction on other other form of media students use. There is a looming question here. Does the emphasis on technology in academia allow for more distractions in students lives? If this is the case, than we would have to label this shift as having a reverse effect on modern study habits.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Saudi Arabia: new regulation for illegal immigrants
The Saudi Arabia ministry of Interior faced a serious problem in the past years with illegal immigrant and labors works without permit or working with a different sponsor.
Therefore the ministry called on all sponsoring enterprises and individuals, as well as sponsored expatriates, to quickly rectify violations of their related residency and work permits, taking advantage of new exemptions and facilities before the expiration of the period offered King which falls on July 3, 2013.
There will be an inspection campaign soon after the deadline to enforce the labor and immigration laws.
However, all expat violators of the labor and non-immigrant visa regulations, who would like to correct their situations and stay for work in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, will be exempted from all punishments and fines, except for government fees, related to their violations, which took place before April 6, 2013.
A violating expat who would like to leave for good during the given period will be exempted from the non immigrant visa charges, labor license, punishments and fines related to his/her violations on the previous period. However, he/she will be finger stamped; if it happened that he/she was not stamped before, taking in mind that such a measure will not bar him/her from coming back to Saudi Arabia for work, if he/she was properly recruited anew.
Infiltrators, who crossed the border illegally, will not be covered by today's exemptions
The new law will solve several issues as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a large number of illegal immigrants coming from different parts of the world for religious purposes then stay without leaving. Some immigrant crosses the border without visa. The number of crime increase due to this issue and a strict law must be enforced to prevent such incidents.
Once the immigrant granted legal stay in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, their complete records and finger print and their concern sponsor will be available in their computer system to call him in case he/she was needed.
The encouragement of dropping several government charges and violation charges will encourage the immigrant to abide the new procedures.
(Waleed Binselim)
Blogging About Blogging….. Blog Blog Blog
“Blogging” did not
exist before the internet. One only got their information from newspapers and
news networks. We all know that the United States as a whole runs itself pretty
dirty, and there were traditional gatekeepers that controlled what the public
actually heard, and constructed certain limits to how much of a story would get
leaked. Since the internet became public in 1995, anybody with connection can
post any information that they got their hands on. This newfound freedom
allowed people to bypass these traditional gatekeepers of information and
become informed from others or inform others. The leaders in public opinion
with (usually) and educated point of view post all articles they have written
on their own websites, and blogging culture was formed.
People liked bloggers
because they were a new source of information that is telling them something
that they did not hear from the government, which was truth. One of the first
people to break open a major story from the use of blogging is Joe Webb. Webb
worked for a small San Jose newspaper company. With the rise of the internet,
he started his own side website that was linked from the San Jose Publishing
site. He legally got his hands on a CIA report that showed evidence of the
CIA’s involvement with Venezuelan rebel group, the Contras, in a humongous
crack-cocaine scandal. Structured as a three part investigative report, “Dark
Alliance” became the most important published articles of the year, and
arguably the decade. Thanks to the internet, people could bypass the
traditional gatekeeper of the San Jose Mercury News, not have to order a
subscription, and be informed from his blog site for free. This is the power of
blogging. He proved that the CIA was allying with, but not proven to have
funded the Contras as drug traffickers sold and distributed crack-cocaine in
the streets of Los Angeles dating back to the Reagan administration in the 80’s
who were also directly involved. This was the beginning of the War on Drugs!
Reagan created the problem solely for the purpose of population control; but I
digress, because I am approaching a new blog topic. The point is that, drugs
are bad mmmkay. And you shouldn’t do them, or be affiliated with anyone who
does them. Even if they are the CIA. Mmmmkay. And without blogging, this
information would have never been leaked, and the CIA would have never gotten
busted. Three cheers for Gary Webb! And blogging! Mmmkay.
(David DiFabrizio)
Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Title: "Then why don't you watch my videos!?"
Modern entertainment & transmedia
Please copy/paste the below directly into
the html option, not the content
option. :)
Blog
post:
I am a big fan of the Lizzie Bennet
Diaries.
For those of you who don't know, the Lizzie Bennet Diaries is a modern
vlog adaptation of Jane Austen's <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>. In its base form, it's a vlog series;
in its full form, it's a massive transmedia project that utilizes YouTube,
Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and several other social media websites.
<center> <iframe
width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zKrqAsEQLwU"
frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></center>
The overall effect of this means that you
can watch the webseries in two ways. The first is as a regular web series,
where you watch the videos as you would a normal television series. The second
is to immerse yourself in the virtual world that they've created - you can
follow the characters on Twitter (Is Darcy following Lizzie? Why isn't Wickham
Tweeting?) and Tumblr and keep up to date, in real time, on the story.
Of course, the Lizzie Bennet Diaries
isn't the first web series to use this interactive transmedia mode; various
other vlogs for the online cult story Slenderman have been using them for
ages. Slenderman, an internet myth, is a creature (about eight feet tall, in a
suit and no face) who supposedly
lives in another dimension and - to put it bluntly - fucks shit up in the lives
of those he comes in contact with.
<center><img src="http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/33200000/Slender-Man-vs-Jeff-the-Killer-the-slender-man-33279461-1121-628.jpg"
width="400" height="224"></center>
While there are many Slenderman stories
and YouTube channels, two of the most predominant ones are Tribe Twelve and
EverymanHybrid, both of whom use the interactive transmedia world. a
href="http://www.youtube.com/user/TribeTwelve"
target="_blank">Tribe Twelve</a> incorporates the most
important of the things happening into their videos, so like the Lizzie Bennet
Diaries, you can exclusively watch the videos and keep up with the story; EverymanHybrid favors the transmedia method to the point that you NEED to follow their Twitter
and other channels in order to even understand what's going on in the videos.
Both methods would be nearly impossible
to do with a television show or a movie; because they're so heavily fan based
and so incorporated into real time, it takes the smaller and more intimate
vlogging format to work. Where entertainment used to be situated into half-hour
and hour chunks of time, it now invades (albeit willingly!) every hour and
every minute of your day.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? What
do you think about transmedia projects like Tribe Twelve and the Lizzie Bennet
Diaries?
(Nicole Brinkley)
Epic Parenting Mistakes
The article that I want to discuss is about a 29 year old women who tried to put up an ad on craigslist for someone to adopt her 3 year old son. The entire article was actually entitled Epic Parenting Mistakes. I found that out of all of these parents only one women used the internet to try to sell her child. This being an illegal act was charged with advertisement of placement of a child. The rest of the parenting mistakes were disturbing, yet comical to read because they are things that you would never expect a parent to do. Another women tried to sell her child to someone she knew in order to get money to take her other two children to Disney World. Who thinks of these things? I found that that this article pointed out some seriously messed up parenting mistakes even if it doesn't include advertising on the internet.
(Jordana Gelber)
Ryan Gosling Won't Eat His Cereal
(this should be the right link to embed the video into the blog let me know if there is a problem)
-Erica Nardella(Erica Nardella)
People That Inspire Humanity
So this is a link of a video I found on a Facebook page that I liked called The People That Inspire Humanity. This page has some amazing videos that right can make you feel better inside. This video is about a forensic artist drawing a group of people. The catch is he does not look at the person until he draws them twice. The first time he sketches the person they describe to him who they think they look. Then the second time one of the random participants describes one of the other people the artists had already drew. It is a real moving video and confidence boost. Enjoy!
<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/video/embed?video_id=163242577173124" width="640" height="276" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/video/embed?video_id=163242577173124" width="640" height="276" frameborder="0"></iframe>
(Erica Nardella)
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