Week 2 Blog

With such leaps and bounds in technology over the last decade, I feel that all aspects of the media and social networking are a double edge sword. I do believe that email and text messaging have allowed society to become very impersonal, yet more efficient at the same time.

I have to wonder if this ability has hinder our basic face to face communication skills to a certain extent. I am sure that we have all ran into the email tough guy who is much more bold than if it were a conversation in person. I have personally vigorously typed an email out of anger, but more often than not don't hit send. I instead ponder/ review the content and make sure that it is being communicated in a constructive manner.

 I am assuming that I am not the only person that holds the term "friend" a little closer to the heart than a mere number of facebook friends. I will more than likely refer to them as acquaintance. I have found that our development in technology allows many friends and family to stay connected when away on business to other countries. So it defiantly has a stronger set of pros than cons in my opinion, as long as people are able to stay connected with core communication skills.

Internet Impact on Education

I have just recently began my journey in the world of education. I have been extremely apprehensive in taking this step. The reason/ excuse has mainly been that I am in the military, and never staying in one place to long, I was very worried that I would not be able to accomplish this. However, the world of on line education has left me with no excuse, so I took the plunge! It has allowed me to participate in all the necessary classroom discussion, as well as complete the class work from any location that I might find myself. It has been a huge adjustment since I have been out of school for 15 years. Last semester was a bit of a learning curve trying to get into the swing of things. I passed all the classes, but really learned how powerful the Internet is. It allowed me to explore resources that I had no clue even existed. I think that the Internet has increased the opportunity ten fold for people that are in a similar situation as myself. There are so many options, whether it is a certain certificate you are interested in, or you want to complete a Masters program.

James E Bio Week 1

My name is James. I am 33 years old. I am an IT major, and am not sure what my expectations are for this course are just yet. I know tht I am very intrested in learning how to develop a web page. I have been employed by the U.S. Army for about fifteen years. I have been deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom for a total of 39 months begining in 2004. I currently live north of UMass Amherst, and am assigned to the university as a ROTC instructor.