Tutorial Six: The internet and online communities

Either search online for a community which interest you or choose one of the provided online communities to investigate. Make sure your selected a community that comprises some form of online forum, discussion page or chat room. You may also wish to see if your community has a Wikipedia entry.

Provide the web address and the name of the community you are investigating http://www.thelowdown.co.nz/ The Low Down

What is the brief or focus of this community The focus of this site is to give people with depression an online forum through which they can talk to others who are trained to help or talk to people who have had like experiences with their mental health. It is aimed to make the users feel comfortable as they are anonymous and to make them feel that they are not alone in their battle with depression.

What services are provided? How interactive is this site? How can people contribute? The services provided by the site are: Send the Low Down team a text or email Chat to other members of the community online (this is monitored) View stories on the site, recorded by well known New Zealanders like Scribe See the different types of help available that aren't necessarily on the site The site is very interactive and you can work your way round it quite easily. If you look at the site using Adobe it is formatted in an interesting way, in the form of a room, so that as you go to each page it is like another wall of the room. If you don't have Adobe you can look at the html version and it is still all there.

Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment on why people choose to contribute to this community. What is it they are seeking? When people join an online community they often find that they get more back, the more they put in. There is a sense of community that members get when they communicate with other members and often these people can be empathetic or have as much enthusiasm for the subject (depending on what the online community is about) as they do. Also members like to get a sense of being a specialist in the field that they have a interest in, whether they are a specialist or not. Often receiving comments back from other members and getting a positive reinforcement from others gives them a confidence boost.

Cut and paste an example of the type of topics being discussed (you may have to provide a context to your excerpt). The community I have chosen to have is from Bebo, a site where people have their own page which is about themselves, what they get up to and has photos, quizzes etc. This particular page is a group I am part of. It is a site which one of my fellow Moyles Supervalue employees set up and it is dedicated to our workplace. Here are some examples of things people post on the site: "...someone should upload xmas party fotos ...i wana c them lol" "Hey I got some photos of moyles, its just random s*** of the produce, the aisles, and the checkout oh and the bread. I'll upload them some time, yuss!" "(Person) you random!!! What are you doing here!!! Moyles represent... jealous are we???"

Considering material presented during the course and make comment on the potential ethical issues that may arise in this community e.g. lack of identity and accountability. The most major ethical issue surrounding this site is the use of the "Supervalue" logo which, as far as I know, the person who designed the site did not ask permission to use this on the site. If a figure of authority felt that this was not good enough they could probably have the site shut down.

Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment on the benefits this community holds over traditional notions of community e.g. communities reliant on geographic proximity This online community is not limited to members all coming from the same geographical place. However it is predominantly people from one area who are a part of it. Other people from different Supervalues around New Zealand could join if they wanted but many probably haven't searched it as a group. It does have community spirit, as people who are a part of it mostly know each other from work and enjoy sharing photos from Christmas parties etc. There are also people on the site who are family members of some staff or friends of others. The thing about this online community that makes it more beneficial to be a part of than a traditional community is the fact that it is open for discussion at times that suit the member, you can write comments when it suits you rather than having to actually meet the people. I have found that it is a good way to keep in touch with people that used to work at the supermarket, or people that I ordinarily wouldn't talk to out of work time.

Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment what this community lacks or can not provide which traditional communities can. It is not as personal as going out for a coffee with someone, and even though it is more convenient, because people can go on it when it suits them, there is a loss of that person to person contact. People don't have to put as much effort in, or give up their time. The other problem I have with online communities as well as other technological devices (such as cellphones) is that people are often much more brave in what they will say to someone, compared to what they would say in person. This is negative in my mind because people lose that diplomatic way of saying something and often things can be misinterpreted.

Tutorial Three: Blogger

Provide a brief summary of the services offered by Blogger.

Blogger provides a service which allows people from all walks of life and with all ranges of knowledge on technology to create their own website on which they can put postings, pictures, articles, ideas, really anything they like. They could design a blog about something they're interested in, or it could be like a diary of their life. Visitors to blogs can link to the page, email them or leave comments on their postings. It is possible to limit who has access to the blog and comments left by others can be deleted. The blog can be personalised by getting a choice of templates, colours and fonts, as well as adding personal photos. It is even able to recieve photos and postings sent from cellphones. In short it gives people a way to get across their opinion on something, express their interest in something, share knowledge, or keep in touch with others.

Name one other blog host.

MySpace

Tutorial Two: Digital Camera use and applications

“A new technology is rarely superior to an old one in every feature”. Briefly discuss this statement in relation to digital camera technology. What would you consider to be some of the pluses and minuses digital camera technology holds in relation to more traditional film based cameras?


"Film and digital do different things better and complement each other. Neither is going away, although film will decline in areas where digital excels, like news."

Retrieved on May 16, 2008, from http://www.kenrockwell.com/index.htm.

I think that for personal family use or for anyone really who is not a keen photographer but just likes taking some holiday and birthday snaps, then a digital camera is better. They are better because you can retake photos that don't quite turn out and people can see them straight away. You can choose which ones you want to print and which ones you want to delete. These are all handy features for an everyday camera, for someone just taking personal photos. For a professional photographer I belive film is better because it has a better finished product and doesn't come out pixelated as digital camera photos do. They can focus in different ways, to highlight different things. There are different lenses that you can put on to change the photos image. They leave room for more artisitic freedom.

List some of the ways that digital images can be stored transferred and manipulated using other communications technology.

cell phones
disks/memory sticks/cds
personal webpages eg. bebo, myspace photoshop (used to alter images and add features)
email

Given the prevalence of image capturing devices, and thinking about the issues discussed in tutorial one, consider what sort of ethical issues may arise with their use.

Ethical isues arouund the use of images are often in terms of a person involved in the image not giving informed consent. They then may not know how the material will be used, adjusted or who will be able to see it. A prime example of this is when Kate Winslet was made to look far skinnier than she is, on a magazine cover and she was outraged. She has always been an actress who advocated eating decent meals and being healthy rather than being ridiculously skinny. I find it sad to think that young girls are looking at these images and thinking that these people look as they do in the media.

Other problems are images that are taken privately and are sometimes exploited for money or out of spite. This leaves the other party feeling betrayed and often embarrased. Images being used inappropriately in this way is commonly done on the internet, as it is available to essentially the whole world on the web.

In many ways it is hard to control how your image is used and who can see this image. There are too many ways that these images can be stored, altered and displayed

Briefly discuss some of the ways that digital images could, or are, being used in occupational therapy practice.

Some images are used to advertise a service supplied by an occupational therapist eg. a day programme may be advertised by using some images of people who already come to the programme, doing some of the activities and having a good time.

Sometimes images may be used for education purposes, either for other occupational therapists or for clients. They could be pictures of the steps in a recipe for making a cake accompanied by the written instruction also. In the case of the other ocupational therapists that may be your colleagues, this could be something like pictures of manifestations of a certain diagnosis.

Provide a brief summary of the services offered by Flickr.com

"Flickr is an image and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community platform. It was one of the earliest Web 2.0 applications. In addition to being a popular Web site for users to share personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers as a photo repository. Its popularity has been fueled by its organization tools, which allow photos to be tagged and browsed by folksonomic means. As of November 2007, it hosts more than two billion images."

Retrieved on May 20, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flickr

Name one other photo storage website which offers a service similar to Flickr.com

Shutterfly

Explain what the difference is between a digital and an optical zoom

"Digital zoom crops your image and magnifies the result of the cropping."
"Optical zoom lenses physically extend to magnify your subject."

Retrieved on May 22, 2008, from http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-locale=en_US&pq-path=399


Explain what is meant by the term mega pixel

"Digital images are made up of thousands of these tiny, tile-like picture elements.... Digital cameras capture images as pixel elements, known as pixels. Simply put, a megapixel is equal to one million pixels."

Retrieved on May 22, 2008, from http://www.digicamhelp.com/camera-features/camera-parts/megapixels.php