Swine Flu

This morning on the radio I heard that a Queens school had cases of the swine flu. Queens is a fairly large part of New York City so I didn't think much about it. But when I found out that the school was a close to my home, I was surprised and a little scared. This virus came at a very unfortunate time. This virus has probably been around for a month, within this one month time span many students from all over the U.S. have gone to Mexico for their spring break vacation, which is how these students at the school were infected.

The swine flu is a strain of the influenza(Flu) virus that originated In Mexico. And what's scary about it is that influenza such as the swine flu, is very easily spread and can cause death, but not to worry it is treatable. In case you are worried, I found ways to protect yourself on Wikipedia.

"Recommendations to prevent infection by the virus consist of the standard personal precautions against influenza. This includes frequent washing of hands with soap and water or with alcohol-based hand sanitizers, especially after being out in public. People should avoid touching their mouth, nose or eyes with their hands unless they've washed their hands. If people do cough, they should either cough into a tissue and throw it in the garbage immediately or, if they cough in their hand, they should wash their hands immediately.

Some physicians in the US are recommending the use of masks when in public.^[84] The purpose of a face mask is to effectively cover a person's mouth and nose so that if a person is around someone who is infected, there is a decreased likelihood of transmission. Recommendations to protect against the avian flu indicated that using a face mask with a rating of N99, N100 or P100 in the United States or a rating of FFP3 in Europe should be effective in protecting against transmission.^[85] While face masks with these ratings provide 99% or greater efficiency in protecting against flu transmission, N95 or FFP2 face masks provide about 94% efficiency.^[86] N95 and FFP2 rated face masks may therefore also be effective."

I know wearing those masks will probably make you look silly, but it'll save your life and a lot of trouble.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30398682/

OUR CLASS WIKI - SO FAR

In my attempt to contribute to the class wiki i tried to start a page. My assigned wiki page was New media in Politics. I have read a lot during the elections on how politicians have tried to reach voters, and one of the methods was to use social networking sites such as facebook and myspace. In researching the topic, I did the typical google search, but i also used the Baruch library database, and found a lot of good articles.

I find that the class wiki is very unorganized. For instance in my assigned page New media in politics, I see a section in the middle about how President Barack Obama had used new media in the elections, after that there is a section on international politics and New media, and after that there is again another section on how Obama used new media. So other than just trying to post sections and pages onto the class wiki, I wanted to help edit and organize the information within the page.

ADVICE TO BARUCH COLLEGE

Blogs
If there was a Baruch blog, students can utilize the blog to discuss general topics, ask questions, etc. Also there can be course specific blogs related to Baruch, such as a CIS, English, accounting courses blogs. Blogs are also a good way for students to get to know each other, which i think is a good method of getting to know one another for socially challenged people.


Second Life
Virtual worlds have been a big success as a method of teaching students. Colleges such as Harvard has used second life to host class room discussions, debates and other class activities, and has proven quite successful. Baruch could use virtual worlds in similar fashions that otehr colleges has used them and also Baruch can easily build its Virtual Vertical Campus building since the Interior of the VC building is almost identical at every floor.

Old VS. New

New media has 5 important characteristics called the 5 C's
Communication
Collaboration
Community
Creativity
Convergence

Youtube for example allows users to communicate with via comment box, message box, and even video responses. People have gotten together from all over the world to do some sort of video collaboration. Here's one of my most favorite collaborations.


But collaborations don't necessarily have to take place in one room, such as this collab: Youtube Madlibs.


And community wise, the community in youtube is exactly like a community you can find in the the area around your neighborhood. You know ,laughing with one another, and fighting with one another, here is an example from the youtube page of the new transformers trailer.
Flash11l19 (1 day ago)
Die motherf*****
Christopherno1 (1 day ago)
lol grow up kid and get a brain
xerpent888 (1 day ago)
f*** you motherf*****! do you know how to make a good movie a**hole?
vangelisxcbuy (1 day ago)
this will be epic
trumpxcard (1 day ago)
effin agree with you.

Don't use just feel the love within this community!!!!!

And typically a media has to be digital and a website to be considered New Media. A newspaper, a book, or tv does not count. If a website does not have one of the 5 C's it might not be considered a new media.