Copyright Troubles

Today it's hard to know what copyright infringement includes and what is actually legal. Sometimes there is no black or white answer, but instead a vast gray area. If I were find an image to use in a class webpage it would be wrong to find a random image from google images without citing the photographer. An alternative would be to instead use a free photo site such as stock.xchng at www.sxc.hu. These photos do not need any sort of citation, because the creators have agreed to let the public use the images. However, if I needed an image from a specific site I could always e-mail the creator and ask for permission to use the specific image. I would still need to cite the information about where I found it and who the creator is. If I still wasn't sure about having permission to use the file I would be better off finding another source.

Mary Camp

Time's Person of the Year & Web 2.0

In Lev Grossman's Time article about 2006's person of the year he states "It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before." This relates to the further discussion of Web 2.0 and the importance that simple search engines like google or user updated pages like wikipedia have on the world today. This article is very clever in distinguishing to the way life was before we had blogging, amazon, or even google. I love how it relates everyday people in everyday life making life changing discoveries. I agree completely with the idea that websites like youtube, google, and amazon are changing the way we live for the better. I think the future for web 2.0 is very bright, because of the way it's bringing us together. Nowadays checking a blog written by a friend from Denmark is just a click away, and searching for your favorite tv show box set on amazon doesn't take all afternoon. In the article "Walking the Web 2.0," Will Richardson writes about the importance of educators using blogs, podcasts, or even wikipages.The article discusses the difficulty that teachers have with this new technology, and even though it is useful it can take a while to adjust. The older generation seems to be somewhat afraid of where this new technology could take us, but I am very optimistic with the future.

Mary Camp

Microsoft Word Experience

My previous experience with Microsoft Word includes using many features of Microsoft Word 2003, but I have yet to work with the 2007 version. I have written papers, made fliers, used clip-art, made invitations, and hand-outs. I feel I am well versed in word, but would like to know how to combine the different Microsoft office applications together to help my work look more professional.

Mary Camp