TV is DYING! ... or is it?

Blog Post #1 - 2015

Ahh the TV - for me the television and I have a love/hate relationship.  I love watching shows and I think it can be a great form of entertainment, but I hate how it takes up time as if you got sucked into a black hole!  I love being able to watch shows that I find interesting, I hate commercials, boy - I really hate commercials.  I love finding time as a family, sitting down together - watching some of our favourite shows, having a good laugh.  But I hate scheduling my life around the tv show schedule.

 ... You see, my relationship can probably be described as quite the oxymoron.

Since the introduction of wonderful inventions such as Netflix, Apple TV, Shomi, Crave TV, and of course Youtube, people are starting to 'watch' tv on their own terms.  So what does this mean for regular cable tv?  Is it really dying out?

kanelart.com

Some business insiders and entertainment promoters are predicting that TV may very well be dead in only ten short years!  I find this very interesting and something to ponder.  More and more families are opting out of cable packages these days - and instead are adding more GIGs to their internet plans at home.

Think about your own TV usage at home, or that of your family.  Observe over the next couple of days who watches the TV and who decides to get their entertainment from other vices.  What do you think will happen to the life of the TV - and cable networks?  Do you see an end on the way?

Blogging Rules!

Image Source: awesomelytechie.com

Having an online presence can be a lot of fun, but also holds a lot of responsibility!  Here are some key tips to remember when creating posts for your blog.- Don't divulge personal information: use your FIRST NAME ONLY, don't give any details with regards to contact information, home address, phone numbers, last names of friends or relatives, instant messaging names, age, or birth date.
- No questionable photos of you or anything else: If you wouldn't show it to your grandma, don't post it on the web! Avoid posting photos of yourself.
- Remember the internet is permanent! Anyone on the Internet can easily print out a blog or save it to a computer.
- Use blogging provider sites with clearly stated terms of use, and make sure they can protect the actual blogs, not just the user accounts, with password protection. (Even so, it's better to assume anyone can see it.)
- Avoid trying to "out-do" or compete with other bloggers.

- Keep it clean and positive: Our blogs are reflective of our Catholic values. Sexist, racist, homophobic, or any type of oppressive and offensive language will not be tolerated!

Welcome to 2015-2016!

Image Source: www.brainsonfire.com

Welcome to the 2015/2016 grade 10 Media Arts/Comm course.  I am happy to have you all as students in this new and exciting school year.  For this blog unit we will be sharing some news, stories and events that involve digital media along with various other forms of media.


As part of your media arts / communications technology course you will be required to create and maintain your own media arts / communications blog. Blogging has quickly become a very popular form of communication and online journaling.


Through this course your will be required to reply to six different media / technology issues or topics that will be posted here for you to respond to on your own blog. Each response must be no less than 300 words and should have discussions relevant to media arts and communication technology. You will also be required to respond to 6 other people's blogs with thoughtful ideas and comments with a 100 words (min). The evaluation for this unit is found in your unit guide. Once you have completed all tasks (which will take you several months) you will submit your unit guide, with a list of the six blogs that you responded to, for evaluation.


Happy Blogging!
Ms. Powell

Blog Post #6 - 2015

Self Stick Banishment ....

Oh selfies ... truly a household word now-a-days ... and really - one of the most popular form of photography that seems to be taking place.

According to a Samsung poll, selfies now account for a full 30% of the photos taken by people between the ages of 18 and 24.

And of course, just like everything else, things expand, growth happens and then along comes the Selfie Stick!

I was listening to the radio the other week and actually laughed out loud - because now it seems as though many places of business are actually banning the use of the selfie stick - for safety reasons!  Even Pizza Hut was so kind in making an actual safety video for the use of the selfie stick!

 
Of course - we laugh - but really - I suppose it could be an issue ...  so what do you think ...  Selfie stick - should it be banned or not???  Make sure to do a bit of a google search and get opinions and examples to support your thoughts.

Photoshop Transformations

Always amazing to see what magazines really do to make their images look good!

Click the link below to see a video where images are retouched in Photoshop.

watch-6-hours-of-pro-photoshop-retouching-in-90-seconds

Blog Post #5- 2015

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Communication 

When I say "artificial intelligence" what do you think of? Let me guess. Star Wars? iRobot? Arnold Schwarzenegger storming around in a leather jacket as the Terminator? We generally associate artificial intelligence (AI) with movies, which is why the concept seems fictional to most of us.

The reality, however, is that AI is a broad topic. It ranges from your phone’s calculator to self-driving cars to something in the future that might change the world dramatically. AI refers to all of these things, which is confusing. We use AI all the times in our daily lives, but often, we don't even realize it! In order to realize this, we need to stop thinking about AI as robots…a robot is only a container for AI. An example we all know is Siri. All of the data and software behind Siri is AI, and the woman's voice we hear is a personification of that AI. No Schwarzenegger robot involved at all!

As crazy as it is to believe, many scientists theorize that within the next 50 years we will have AI that can THINK like humans, and therefore do some of same jobs and tasks that only humans can currently do. This is both fascinating and scary to me. The more technology we have, the faster advancements in AI will happen. To put this all into perspective, if we hypothetically time travelled 10 years into the future the technological advancements we would see would be just as shocking to us as they would have been for someone travelling 100 years from the late 18th century into the 1980's. Imagine someone who has only ever travelled by horse and buggy seeing a smartphone for the first time. That's how we could feel seeing 10 years into our future. CRAZY!

Even today we see advancements happening with things like Google Glasses, and self-driving vehicles. What do you think these advancements in the world of AI will mean for us as digital communicators? How does the change the way we think about communication?

Blog Post #4 - 2015

Stereotypes or Stereo-Gripes...

Commercials annoy me.  Anyone who knows me knows that as soon as a commercial comes on I either change the channel on the TV or turn down the volume.  Commercials are annoying.

Unfortunately the other day a commercial came on and low and behold I couldn't find the remote!!!  It was buried under cushions, or hiding somewhere - and then this commercial came on:

At first I chuckled, quickly and briefly, until my husband spoke up and said "What a horrible commercial!"  I asked him why and he said he was actually insulted by many of the things being said.  

And he's right you know.   Most people would very quickly shut-down any kind of commercial like that that was directed towards woman - so why shouldn't men be just as upset when comments like that are broadcasted on public tv?

So what do you think about the ad?  Is it done in good taste - with a little humour - or is it highly offensive? Have your say by posting your own blog about stereotypes in commercials.  Be sure to find your own example to support your arguments.