CLT Visit

I always had a general idea of what the first floor of the Coates library housed, including an extensive media collection and of course, more books. However, I never knew that the AT&T Center for Learning and Technology (CLT) was its ultimate asset. After our visit to the CLT, I now understand why several students scurry down those spiraling stairs to the first floor. This extensive resource center consists of 14 Macs and 12 PCs, inviting both types of computer users. Moreover, all of the computers contain specific types of software, ranging from audio and video editing to graphic design. According to the Instructional Support Manger for Trinity University, Mr. Robert Chapman, the CLT staff is willing to download additional software onto computers if students truly need it for academic purposes. He further communicated that some of the CLT staff members can even give basic training to students who have never used the software before. Not only does the CLT offer advance computer software on all of its computers, but it also serves a checkout center for anyone who wants to borrow necessary technological equipment such as digital cameras, video cameras, tripods, headphones, and USB microphones. What impressed me the most during the CLT visit was the high definition video conferencing room. Along with its modern and chic feel, this room boasts the ability to connect students and faculty to other parts of the world. Mr. Chapman mentioned this amazing system is often used by students or faculty traveling abroad who want to converse with friends at the University. Furthermore, it can allow fifteen people to engage in a teleconference at the same time.

    After this informative visit, I am fully aware of all the resources CLT provides and definitely see myself taking advantage of them for both class and personal projects. Since this class involves aspects of media design such as photo editing, I can come to the CLT and use its graphic design software to complete any necessary assignments. I also discovered during the visit that the CLT provides the lecture capturing system for certain classes, and I am lucky to have that resource for my Integrative Biology course. I usually watch the lecture feeds when I am studying for tests or if I need to go back and take notes on certain parts of the lecture. Hence, I am indebted to the CLT for creating and monitoring the lecture capturing system. Lastly, I was happy to learn that the CLT also has scanners. Now, if I ever need to send personal emails with scanned documents or pictures, I can do so. I must say, this visit was quite influential on my view of library resources. I find myself incredibly fortunate to have access to the CLT and all that it offers.                                                                                                         

Here is a self-portrait that I drew and scanned using one of the CLT scanners. Please excuse my limited artistic abilities J.  

 

Reflections of Excel

So far, I believe my experience with Excel has been excellent (no pun intended). Before, I had a general idea of Excel functions, including making graphs and basic tables. However, now I have learned so many of Excel’s incredible functions. I now know what a running balance is and how to calculate it, as well as specific formatting options available to make an excel document appear professional. In addition, I am so glad that we learned what the auto fill function was because that saved me hours of time when I utilized it for my Biology lab assignment. I think in future classes, the methods of graphing, formatting of excel documents; use of formulas, and the wonderful auto fill function will be extremely helpful. In terms of real life, I think knowing how to calculate a running balance and loan Amortization will be useful, along with all the skills I already stated that would be helpful for my future classes. In general, I feel anything I learn about Excel in this class will stay with me forever and therefore will be helpful in my real life. Ultimately, what I like about Excel is its ability to save a person so much time with a variety of functions. With Excel, any calculation can be done if there is a formula and the auto fill function can easily apply that formula to all necessary cells. Moreover, Excel is a great organizing tool not just for business purposes, but really for any academic or personal purposes as well. The only aspect of Excel I do not like is that because there are so many functions available, it is easy to become overwhelmed and forget how to execute a specific function. Nevertheless, I know the more practice I receive with this program, the more comfortable I will be.    

Internet Ethics: Image Manipulation

I chose the image revealing the condition of Lebanese capital Beirut after an Israeli air raid. I selected this picture because of its surprisingly deceptive abilities. The manipulation present is practically unnoticeable. I think if I were to view this picture in a magazine or newspaper, I would never detect its illusory alterations. This image was actually manipulated to display an excessive amount of dark smoke, which seems to be consuming the entire city. The Reuters news agency put this false picture on its website, but eventually took it down after discovering that the original version had been manipulated. Personally, I believe this image was manipulated because the photographer might have felt that modifying this picture would lead to prominent magazine companies advertising it. Thus, I would assume this is primarily a matter of personal greed on the photographer’s part. This type of manipulation can be quite harmful, especially because it is so subtle. For instance, citizens of Lebanon could have seen this image and become overly worried about the situation. It is obvious that the air raid must have resulted in numerous injuries and some deaths; however, depicting an image of the air raid to communicate worse consequences can have an overall negative impact on people’s psyches. It is interesting how even scenes of a catastrophic event can be altered to obtain specific reactions from people.      

This video, although brief, shows the transformation of a real looking woman into an artificial version of what we usually see in magazines. There is a small portion at the beginning of the video displaying what occurs prior to a photograph being taken, including heavy makeup and hair treatment. However, the actual manipulation is the portion detailing the use of Photoshop to enhance the woman’s natural features and correct any flaws. In this case, the woman's transformed image is mounted onto a billboard for even more people to view. I support the message this video is conveying, which is that society’s view of beauty is entirely misconstrued. This type of misrepresentation can lead to normal girls feeling as if they must look this way, which is actually impossible. Ultimately, image manipulation of this sort can lead to body image and self of steam issues in girls.                

One Blog-One life: The Dark Side of the Internet

Source: bamablogunite.blogspot.com

Unfortunately, the internet is the equivalent of a double-edged sword. It can help us, serving as a vast cyber pot of knowledge and discovery, or it can harm us, doubling as a dark bottomless pit of dangerous information made available to innocent minds. Moreover, the internet is portrayed as an open forum for people to express their constitutional right of free speech in the form of personal websites, social networking accounts, and blogs. Specifically, blogs seem to be the ultimate platform for anyone (not just the stereotypical “computer potato”) to express a variety of personal aspects, including their opinions, helpful advice to others, and memorable moments of their life. Thus, blogs are similar to journal entries, except for the crucial fact that they are open to anyone who has access to the World Wide Web to read. Whatever actions an individual commits after reading the blog is solely up to the individual, making him or her responsible for those actions, not the blogger. However, if the individual is not entirely stable psychologically, then the family of that individual is responsible for that individual’s actions.  To understand how important this statement truly is, let us dissect the interesting case of a California medical student, who wrote a blog entry that would end one life, and ruin two others.    

The first year medical student posted an entry on his personal blog, which was hosted by a weblog content provider. The entry consisted of detailed instructions on an assisted suicide with the primary intention of “serving the rights of competent, terminally ill adults.” Now, the first questions that emerge from this scenario are “Is this act legal?” and rather, “Is it ethical?”. I believe that this act is both legal and ethical. It is legal because it is a form of free speech and it is ethical because it exhibits a concrete purpose of helping the terminally ill. The medical student did not state the purpose as “aiding those who want to die” and therefore did not have any bad intentions when writing this entry. Terminally ill patients have an incurable sickness that will eventually lead to death, and so the medical student might have figured that he really wanted to assist these people in achieving a proper end to their lives. Hence, this is in no manner unethical, but rather quite noble. The medical student was most likely aware of the risks of posting this entry; nevertheless, he ultimately did it for a good cause. If that is not ethical, I really do not know what is.   

Moving on to the meat of this case, we come across a clinically depressed teenager in another state who reads the medical student’s entry and ends up surrendering her life to an overdose of drugs. In addition, the teenager explains in her final note to her family that the blogger assisted her in successfully completing this task. This brings us to the chief question, “Who is responsible for this tragedy?”.  One’s first response would be to blame the medical student for committing the crime of assisted suicide. However, it is important to realize that there is a clear difference between a decision and a well-informed decision. Keeping this in mind, I did some research, wanting to know what factors make assisted suicide a crime in the United States, particularly in California. According to the Patients Rights Council, a credited source addressing all “end-of-life issues”, the general assisted suicide law for the state of California is “Every person who deliberately aids, or advises, or encourages another to commit suicide, is guilty of a felony.” [i] For this reason, legally speaking, the medical student has not committed a crime because he did not intentionally assist the teenager in committing suicide. As I stated earlier, his only intention was to help the terminally ill. Because no crime has been committed, nobody should be prosecuted. Although nobody is legally responsible, we still need to determine who is technically responsible for this tragedy.   

Personally, I find the parents of the teenager entirely culpable for all that happened. They should  have been aware of the fact that their daughter could possibly be experiencing suicidal thoughts, one of the likely symptoms of depression. Furthermore, the parents should have kept a close watch on their daughter’s internet usage, such as sitting with their daughter as she used the internet, or placing parental controls of some sort. I acknowledge that no parents can monitor their child at all times; nonetheless, when the child is clinically depressed and could take his or her own life at any moment, it is at least important to be with the child as much as possible. It does not seem right to leave a depressed teenager unaccompanied at all, let alone with a computer, which supposedly has all the answers to one’s questions.

Consequently, it would not make any sense to blame the medical student for this tragedy because, as I discussed earlier, he never directly intended to write this for the depressed teenager. Moreover, blaming the teenager would not be fair because she was not in a proper psychological state to make decisions on her own. In fact, she was very vulnerable and therefore easily influenced by whatever she read. Some might claim the weblog content provider is responsible, but that too would not be right because the provider had no actual reason to disallow the medical student from posting the entry. The entry was not inappropriate in any way, it did not directly hurt anyone, and it was for a good cause. For this reason,  prohibiting the medical student from posting it would be a violation of his right to free speech. That brings us back to the parents, who in my opinion, are exclusively responsible. I am certain that if they were more involved in monitoring their daughter, they would have saved her life.             

Reference:

[1]  “Assisted Suicide Laws." Patients Rights Council . 2011. Web. 13 Feb 2011. <http://www.internationaltaskforce.org/assisted_suicide_laws.htm>.

Copyright and Creative Commons

Mr. Jason Hardin, Manager of Access Services, came to talk to our EIT class about important issues regarding copyright, including what copyright actually is, when an action is considered copyright infringement, and what we as students can do to avoid breaking any copyright regulations. Something Mr. Hardin mentioned that really sparked my attention was the legal standard for copyright. He discussed how a person’s work must be in a “fixed tangible medium” for it to be considered as copyrighted. I never realized that clicking save on my computer essentially copyrighted my work. Before Mr. Hardin mentioned this point, I always assumed that even if I did not save my work and someone else were to copy it, I could sill argue that my work was copyrighted solely based on my personal statement. However, now I understand that if I do not save my work, it is open for anyone to copy and claim as their own. I guess now I have another strong reason to save and save often.

Another point I learned from Mr. Hardin’s presentation was that college students can actually receive take down notices from major music, movie, and entertainment industries.  Take down notices are basically letters by rights holders to let colleges know that file sharing is taking place. I think it is amazing how these industries have professional hackers just to watch out for any file sharing that is taking place.  Mr. Hardin further expressed that these industries can recognize a person by his/her IP address and ultimately, the college can figure out that person’s identity by the IP address. As a result, he explained how Trinity could easily track a student committing the file sharing because the industry includes the IP address in the take down notice.  

One copyright issue I find quite intriguing is the one about Fair Use. What actually makes a usage of something fair? Title 17 of the U.S. Code includes this policy, stating four factors that should be considered when determining whether fair use is justified. The four factors are the following:  1.) Purpose of the reproduction 2.) Nature of the reproduced work  3.)Amount of the reproduction  4.) Effect of the market from the work. Specifically, Mr. Hardin communicated that under these guidelines, a professor is allowed to make several copies of a work and distribute that work to the class for educational purposes. The professor could claim “Spontaneity of Usage”, conveying that the timing of his particular teaching schedule restricted him from asking permission for usage. Some would not consider this as a good enough reason for claiming fair use, arguing that limited time should not be used as an excuse for fair usage. Conversely, others might think it is a perfectly good reason because the professor is making the copies for an educational purpose. Personally, I totally agree that the “Spontaneity of Usage” reasoning is legitimate and should be considered as fair use because the professor actually does not have the time to seek permission of the rights holders and also,  the act of making and distributing copies of the work is for the purpose of education. Moreover, the amount of reproduction is not too great and the effect of the market from the work is very minimal. Thus, all four factors of fair use are considered and satisfied.   

Copyright Blog Entry by Vedanti Upadhyaya is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.