Hirra Zafar's Blog

A way that I use new media to foster my creativity is by posting pictures on Instagram. I am really into makeup and my cousin had convinced me to start posting my looks on Instagram since so many people had begun to do that and I also enjoyed doing makeup. I started it just for fun as a hobby; I do my makeup and then post pictures of it on my page to share it with my followers. By using hashtags, I can reach a lot of people that are looking for posts like mine. With Instagram you can share images with lots of people. A lot of people use it as a personal blog as well and I had started doing that too. Along with pictures of makeup looks, I would also post pictures of myself at places I had been to. In addition to pictures, Instagram also has Instagram stories where you can post more content that you might not want on your actual page. Here's a few examples of my posts from my page:          

The article "The New Math of Mashups" discusses one way that new media fosters creativity. With sites where people can share music such as YouTube and Sound Cloud, it allows for people to get more creative with music and then share it. Musical artists can take parts of different songs and pieces, or add in parts they've created to make something completely new. Whereas before only professionals might have been able to do this, with the open accessibility through the internet and these music sharing sites, any kind of person whether an amateur, a professional, or just an average person would be able to do this. Some amateurs had been able to gain popularity by posting their mashups on YouTube such as a guy named Alex Aiono. He started posting videos of him singing to mashups of popular songs that he created and edited himself and he was able to get a really good response from people and made a career out of it. The article "Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers...

Virtual reality has many different uses. One of the main uses of it is for the purpose of education. Teachers can create lesson plans that use virtual worlds or reality to make things a little more interesting. In the article "The virtual world moves into the classroom", they mention that students can take virtual field trips to different parts of the world; for example, if they're learning about the country of India, not only do they have just their textbooks and images, but they can put on their goggles and actually experience visiting India through this technology. Virtual reality can help enhance students' experience with learning which is a big pro; however, if it's not manipulated correctly, then it could possibly just be distracting, it's up to how the teacher chooses to use it.  Another use of virtual reality is in the medical field. In the article "Avatar II: The Hospital", they discuss how nurses and medical students take advantage of th...

Compared to a Blackboard discussion, I feel like a Twitter discussion is more direct and to the point. Since Twitter does have a character limit it would be more like a back and forth conversation since you can't type long sentences. In Blackboard discussions, you can write as much as you want to get your point across. I also think on Twitter discussions can move faster since there is not as much writing and if all the people are online at the same time, it can be faster since you get updates in real time, compared to Blackboard where you would have to log on and look for replies yourself; Twitter gives you notifications every time someone interacts with your tweet. I think if it's the case that everyone is online at once, a Twitter discussion can very much be like an in-class discussion. It can get a little messy and confusing compared to an in-class discussion, however, if many people are posting at once; it may be difficult to keep up with every response. If you're in a ...

Besides Facebook and Twitter, the other 2 social networking sites I chose to discuss are YouTube and Instagram. From all 4 of these the one I am least familiar with is Twitter because I'm not an avid user; for some reason it's just not appealing to me. I find it a little bit annoying that there is a maximum character limit for tweets, so if you want to share more information , you would have to create a thread. I can understand the reason behind it since Twitter was meant for quick news or updates. Also, most people don't really want to read too many words so it makes sense. I like that you're able to search twitter for whatever topic you're interested and that it allows for some fun interactions between people. Personally for me, it's still a little bit confusing and messy; it can be a little bit difficult to follow a conversation or discussion through replies and retweets since they can be all over the place. On the other hand with Facebook, each post has a ...

Social networking sites can be used for many things. The very first thing that comes to mind is personal use. You can connect with friends and family that are close and the ones that are far away as well. Sites like Facebook are really beneficial when it comes to keeping in touch with people in your life that don't live near you; it allows to share news, pictures, and videos immediately with someone that lives 5000 miles away from you, so there is that convenience. Another use is job recruitment/search; as mentioned in the podcast, "Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting", LinkedIn is a really popular social networking site for that purpose. It's very easy for companies to look at individuals' skills and background and then contact them with a job offer. On the other hand, it also makes it easy for individuals to connect with all these executives and companies; they are also able to search for jobs that they would be interested in and apply directly fr...