Artifact #7 Professors Use Technology to Fight Student Cheating

In Kim Clark's article, statistics show that from the mid 1900's to 2002 the percentage of students who admitted to cheating had risen 50 percent.  These days cheating is an art that has been mastered by technology.  Students today use cell phones, computers, and ipods to score high points on tests they never studied for.  Professors are now trying to battle technology with technology.  Using web blocks and text matching softwares to catch students in the act of cheating.  Even though schools may be able to block bits and peices of information they cannot always block what has already been done in cell phones and ipods or graphing calculators.
 
A new way to cheat is through bar codes on bottles of soda.  Students spend so much time preparing a brilliant cheat sheet when some of that time can be used to study.   The idea of battling technology with technology seems to be a good idea until students out smart the teachers.  Cheating in school, although frowned upon has always been a part of our lives.  Whether it be writing the answers on each others shoes and sitting in strategic places in the class room, to bar code scanning replacing nutritional information with notes to the test.  There is no complete way to make sure no one has cheated in class when new ways are always being thought up and perfected.

Artifact #6 I am Anonymous

After viewing the video, my opinion is that anonymity with websites is impossible to achieve.  Although a nice idea and comforting thought these days nothing seems to be "anonymous".  Freedom of speech is one of those things that should not be posted on the world wide web.  Whether its a religeous belief or opinions of war and government issues, watching what you put down on the web is crucial.  The internet isnt written in pencil, its written in ink.  Once a post is made or your words have been submitted the possibility of hundreds of thousands of people seeing it is much more likely than not.  Before you ever have the chance to delete or erase anything you may be subject to responses by the viewers, which aren't always in your favor.  With every website there is a creator, the creator has access to whoever posts anything on their site.  In turn there is no such thing as complete anonymity.

 Christopher Poole says the website http://www.ted.com/ is completely anonymous.  There is no need to enter personal information, or give anything to log on.  Although this may be true when you access a web page from a browser of any type anywhere there are people who can track your behavior. They can hack into email accounts as well as desktop systems and review the history reports in the data base of the computer you used.  As much as I would like to believe and trust in the sites complete anonymity, I cannot based on the fact that tracking is an option some hold the power to.

Artifact #5 Thank Sex for Making the Internet Hot

It was quite interesting to learn that pornography was an early adopter of the internet that popularized many computer technologies.  It was the first part of the web to make money and now sex is everywhere on the web.  The internet offers freedom and an anonymous place for the sale and viewing of sexual material. So it comes to no surprise that pornography is one of the most popular aspects of the internet.  Humans are sexual beings and even though many people are too embarassed to talk about sex doesn't mean that they don't secretly view porn.

I am curious to find out if many people even purchase porn on DVD or cable tv anymore since internet porn is so popular.  The following statistics (Lengel, Thurlow, and Tomic 143) are a bit out-dated so I can only imagine what they are today:

•   In 2001, there were 74,000 adult websites accounting for 2 percent of all web content on the net and bringing in estimated profits of US$1 billion
• 8.49 million Asian internet users visit adult websites which is equivalent to nearly 50 percent of all active Asian internet users
• 36 percent of British internet users regularly log on to adult sites, a fifth of whom are students
• revenues in the United States are expected to reach $400 million by 2006

Strand 2: Units 5 & 6

Unit 5: Women on the Internet

The digital gender divide focuses on the inequity of women's access to and use of communication technology on a global basis. Before widespread participation in CMC, women have historically had little access to communication technologies.  Such technologies are controlled by men, therefore women are prohibited access in many regions.  In CMC early developments, men were almost exclusively the inhabitants of cyberspace; however, women online are now the norm rather than the exception.

Women who try to enter the world of computing and computers often report feeling isolated and/or intimidated.  To generate more participation by women, technology-oriented training programs, computer classes and entertaining websites have been implemented.  These websites use gender stereotypes to promote a gendered style of technology participation.  Stereotypes are also associated with women in chat room because women appear to enjoy the ability to use emoticons and other visual images to express emotions.

Women are the vast majority of victims of violence and harrassment, in both the physical and virtual world.
Let's look at the types of cyber violence:

• Online contact leading to offline abuse
• Cyberstalking. Tracking someone's actions online with illegitimate intent
• Online harassment
• Degrading representations through images that is disrespectful and/or harmful

To 'feminize' the Internet and CMC, women oriented web communities have been adopted to reach women around the world.  The Institute for Women and Technology (INSTRAW) is seeking to raise awareness about the gendered nature of access to communication technologies.  Some feminine gendered sites are incorporating women-oriented styles of communicating.  These efforts make CMC more gendered-balanced.

Women access to technology ranks as the third most important issue facing women, after poverty and violence. 


Unit 6: Interpersonal Attraction, Cybersex and Cyberporn

Sex and pornography are central issues in internet studies and the study of CMC.  They are also the most frequently talked about aspects of cyberspace as well as the most popular.  It's not all about sex though.  Much of the online interpersonal attraction is about love and romance.  The internet facilitates romantic exchanges through online dating sites.  The promise of future interaction, together with similarity, humor and self-disclosure is a good recipe for finding someone potentially attractive in cyberspace.  However, where there's attraction, there's the potential for sexual attraction as well.

Sex is normally defined as a mutual attraction and desire as well as the gratification of these desires.  Then we have cybersex, which is suggestive or explicit erotic messages or sexual fantasies exchanged via the computer with others who are online at the same time.  Last but not least, there's vsex, a creative sexual outlet in the form of interactive personalized erotica, providing mental and physical stimulation. Sexual encounters on the internet are some of the least understood aspects of interpersonal relationships in cyberspace.  Sex and pornography are ultimately about relationship and identity, and as such constitute important topics for discussion in CMC.

"At the end of the day, the internet invariably reflects the sexual desires and romantic aspirations of its users and the societies to which these people belong."