How I organize my bookmarks

I categorize my bookmarks into different groups. I have many folders in my bookmarks such as:

Library: where I put databases, digital libraries and online dictionaries

Daily Life: where I put shopping websites, news, network websites, free movie downloads and other frequently visited websites

Blogs: where I put friends’ blogs and spaces

I always create a new folder based on needs. For example, I’m designing a Flash project, so I collected many Flash related websites and I put them into the “Flash” folder.

The key to organize my bookmarks is: Always put the bookmark into the right folder!

My Second Life experience

Second Life is an amazing virtual world to me. I got a new name for myself, and I became a short hair girl in Second Life! The thing I like most about Second Life is its social environment. There are so many places where I can meet people. I talk to people everywhere: theater, shopping mall, school, cafe etc. People in Second Life are so different! They are from different countries, speaking different languages. People are having their second life on the internet: they can do everything that they do in the real world! There is money currency and stock market in Second Life, so people can practice finance activities in this virtual world. There are also shopping malls where people can buy stuff, and the virtual products are so well designed! It’s easy to tell that the Second Life is a business world: advertisements are everywhere! After using Second Life, I think it can be a perfect media for the language learning. As mentioned above, there are people speaking different languages in this virtual world, so it is very convenient to find a language partner. People can practice the second language by typing and audio. I’m sure that Second Life is a big stage for educators, but we still need to find out how to maximum use it.

I learnt a lot in this class!

At the beginning of the class, I was expecting that I could learn how to improve teaching by using video blog. Today, I think I not only learnt video blog, but also learnt many other useful internet tools, such as Del.icios.us, Second Life, feedburner etc. This class updated my knowledge about internet, and it provided me ideas about how to maximum use the internet to help my future teaching and learning. Last but not least, I was also surprised by the online class technology. The combination of video, ppt, instant message and telephone is very amazing!

My Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24318966@N04/

Home Environment Video

What I like about Del.icio.us

1. The Firefox Plugin
I’m a Firefox user, the Del.icio.us shortcuts on my Firefox browser is very helpful! After I setup the Del.icio.us plugin, it adds two new buttons on my Firefox. One is “tig this” which can add the web pages into my Del.icio.us bookmarks. Another one is “my Del.icio.us” which can quickly view my bookmarks.

2. Various ways to search
Another thing I like about Del.icio.us is its searching function. Del.icio.us provides users many different ways to do the website search. For example, we can find the website by typing in the key words (http://del.icio.us/tag/keyword), or we can search for the most popular website about a certain topic (http://del.icio.us/rss/popular/TAGNAME)...

3. Newsmasher
On the top left of the browser, we can find a Del.icio.us tag. When we click on it, the pop window will provide us other Del.icio.us users’ comments about the current website. It is a very easy way for us to get feedback about a website.

3. Newsmasher
On the top left of the browser, we can find a delicious tag. When we click on it, the pop window will provide us other delicious users’ comments about the current website. It is a very easy way for us to get feedback about a website.

My Video - Growing up every year!

My facebook experience

When I first came to this country, one of the very first thing I heard from people was Facebook. Everytime when I met someone, they always say "Do you have facebook?" It is more popular than I imagine, and I can find nearly everybody there. I think it is definitely a symbol of the 21st century American culture, especially the online culture.

After using facebook for a while, I found there are so many advantages of this site. It is easy to use, and very fast - especially when I upload pictures. It helps me keep in touch with many friends, and if there is no facebook I think I already lost contact with most of the friends. It helps us keep a perfect distance with each other: if we are not close enough to leave each other a phone number, facebook is definitely some information you can give your new friend.

my FeedBurner

http://feeds.feedburner.com/MinnieAndOnlineVideo

Why a Burned Feed is Better than a Not-Burned Feed

You blog because [your reason here] and FeedBurner can help you do that better.

1. Publicize your content and make it easy for people to subscribe.
2. Optimize distribution so that your content is properly formatted for all of the major directories and can be consumed by subscribers wherever they are.
3. Analyze your traffic to learn how many subscribers you have, where they're coming from and what they like best.
4. Make Moneyitize by participating in the FeedBurner Ad Network. Why not reward yourself for your effort?

Youth and Technology

This is my narration video. I made this video because I wanted teenagers to explore their identities, their technology usage and their life style by themselves. The two girls in the video are my friends from a high school in New York City, and they are playing the narrator's roles in this video. They prepared the interview questions by themselves, and they interviewed their schoolmates about the usage of technology. The audiences will follow the two girls (narrators)' steps to listen to the teenagers' stories, and the teenagers also had a chance to look at themselves.

Educational Video - a Whole New World

This is my educational video piece, and the aim is to educate people to help each other, and make the world better. Thanks for my friends' wonderful acting!

video trial

My Expectation about Sp Topic Online Video & Soc Ed

I'm been interested in the video editing and video publishing for a long time. I have some rough idea about how to use I-movie, but I don't think it's enough for me to realize what I want to do. I hope I can gain more skills to use video editing softwares such as I-movie and FinalCut. I'm also looking forward to knowing more well-built online video publishing websites, and I want to see how educators are using online video and blog to improve the instructional design.

Five pictures of myself

Glass arts in Tacoma & Vancouver

I went to Tacoma and Vancouver a couple of weeks ago. Surprisingly, both cities have their own glass art gallery. The material is cheap, but the craft is very expensive. When the material becomesI went to Washington and Vancouver a couple of weeks ago. I found that both places have arts, the value increases a lot. These glass are real beautiful!!

After reading "The Mind’s Eye, What the Blind See"

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.
Helen Keller

In my opinion, sometimes blind people see things more wisely and precisely than others. When they are blind, they don’t judge people by appearance, but they “see” people more clearly through listening to their tone, feeling their emotion, and knowing their behaviors. Appearance always brings bias and stereotype, and sometimes the appearance is far from the essential. Sabriye Tenberken said she “sees” in terms of colors. Everything is represented by a different color. In my opinion, if a color can symbolize the characteristic of an object, the image in Sabriye’s mind is probably closer to the truth, just like the article tells us: “He describes walks with a sighted friend on which he was able to visualize the country side more precisely than his friend. He knew when the river would bend or when the sun would get into his friends eyes as the were climbing a hill before his friend would.” Moreover, when people are blind, they will not pursue the purely visual pleasure, including violent scene on the screen and the luxury cloth design. Thus, they live in a more practical life style, and they are less likely to be confused by visual stimulation. In the East Asia, people always believe in blind people’s foretelling, although it is a common superstition, but it also shows that blind people are considered to be more wise and conscious.

Some understanding of Benjamin's "The work of Art, in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"

After reading Benjamin's "The work of Art, in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", I think Benjamin's attitude toward reproduction, aura, mass and modern arts is very interesting. I try to conclude the points I got as following:

First of all, the mechanical reproduction took away the aura of traditional arts. “that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art. (P221)” In Benjamin’s opinion, the authenticity and awe are the two essential contents of “aura”, and he felt pity that the aura of of the work of art was reduced by mechanical reproduction.

Secondly, Benjamin is a Marxist. In his mind, “people” is more important than “aura.” It means, although he thought aura of arts was important, everyone’s accessibility to arts is more meaningful. Art is no longer high culture which only belongs to rich people. Mechanical reproduction brings democracy to art, and allows mass to access art and even participate in the art production. For example, everyone can listen to music via video, TV, walkman, ipod or internet. Benjamin said in his book, “today there is hardly a gainfully employed European who could not, in principle, find an opportunity to publish somewhere or other comments on his work, grievances, documentary reports, or that sort of thing. (P232)”

Thirdly, “shock” is instead of “aura.” For example, movie as a kind of art is constituted with more realistic contents, which makes the viewers feel astonished and shocked. This kind of art can help people better understand the reality of today’s society.

another test

test

test

test