Case in Point

So, my presentation touched briefly on America's lowered expectations in terms of today's celebrities, and I just found out that I grew up with one of these celebrities. Maybe a week after my presentation my mom called me to squeal excitedly about how the kid who lives two houses down from us just won Survivor. I played capture the flag with this kid. I was on the waterski team with this kid. I went to high school with this kid. Now he's a millionaire and celebrity. I think he was on Letterman. What the hell.

Isaacson

So, the iPad for me has been a mixed bag. I have big problems with Apple as a company: the produce high cost equipment in Chinese factories as a way to boost profit margins, the never give the user full control of their products, the are the most blatant example of designed obsolescence that I can think of. Then snag is that they're also producing well designed hardware and software that's right on the bleeding edge of the future; the things that Apple produces, for the most part, are indicative of where consumer electronics is going. So, when I got an iPad I wanted to tear it apart, I wanted to claim control of my device while still working with generally superior Apple hardware. I was able to do this to an extent, but the most basic flaws of the device remain. You still need a computer to active and interact with it, meaning that it could never act as a person's only computer, it still doesn't have flash support, and it doesn't have a physical keyboard which will always limit the how quickly or easily you can interact with device. For example, I'm typing this on my iPad right now and every fourth word or so Ill have to correct in some way where my accuracy on a physical keyboard is much, much higher.

As a tool of education, however, the iPad worked like a dream. It's lightweight and much easier to haul class to class than my laptop. I never have to waste paper by printing readings from Blackboard, I just bring my iPad. If I need to fact check something or lookup the definition of a Spanish word it's much easier to do on the iPad then on my cell phone. And, several of my textbooks were available in e-book format for less money or even free.

The iPad doesn't replace anything but it's release, much like the iPhone and the smartphone explosion, has created a popular market for tablet computing. Modern consumers won't be able to replace their laptops or their cellphones with the iPad, but instead they'll have a new way of interacting with the internet and information.

Griffin- Reflection

Concerning my academic life, the iPad is an object of convenience. If I forget to print out a reading, or need a quick review of material or background information on a lecture’s topic before class, then I can swiftly pull out the iPad and within moments feel much more prepared. I cannot take notes on it in class or compose formal writing. Not only because typing out ideas of varying complexity is physically taxing on the device, but I am too attached to Moleskine notebooks to replace them with the iPad. With aps like Epicurious and Pandora, the iPad has helped my home see a positive increase in ambiance and culinary exploration. I also feel a bit more connected to the headlines of the world with the New York Times ap. With the Netflix ap, I haven’t watched a literal TV in many weeks since the iPad has become the center of my home entertainment. I rarely transport the iPad out of the boundaries of home and school. This is due to the fact that it requires available networks to join and is not wireless. Sometimes in classes, I am able to quickly look up trivia or a piece of data no one can recall on the iPad and enrich class discussion with whatever information that was needed. The iPad I imagine works quicker than a phone with internet. Because of the iPad’s many entertainment oriented capabilities, I can be tempted to be distracted in classes if I have it out and online. However, I am aware of the iPad functioning as a distraction so that is why I often keep it away during class. Next semester, though, I hope to use it more in classes and see the results. Mostly though, the iPad seems to me to augment my computer. I still work from the computer as a home base. The iPad promotes even more mobility yet in a lighter way versus a laptop.

iPad as paper analog

Here are the things I wanted to be able to do with my iPad, in order of importance:

1. Go to the park and type out inspired paragraphs at lightning speed.

2. Skype with my friends in other countries/states/cities while simultaneously surfing the internet.

3. Store documents for projects and assignments on which I am working in neatly organized folders.

4. Read the occasional book.

5. Check email.

Here is what I ended up doing with my iPad:

1. Taking notes.

2. Reading/transporting PDF documents.

3. Reading the occasional book.

4. Making designs with the punctuation marks using the notepad app.

5. Checking email.

I've heard other people describe writing in the most loving of terms; this is the way I've always felt about typing. I type fairly quickly, and I love being able to stream my thoughts live, as it were. When writing I can become frustrated at the lack of speed involved in the process, but typing-- typing is as easy as breathing.

So I was upset when I found out that with the iPad I would essentially have to learn to type all over again, because-- and this would have been so easy to fix-- because the semicolon was not in the right place. I would be typing away and I'd reach for the semicolon key and Lo and behold! no semicolon would appear. This threw off my thinking and frustrated me to a degree where I found it easier to type with two fingers, and it was sweet, sweet relief to turn back to my laptop's keyboard and type in the way to which I had become accustomed. I felt similarly to the way I felt upon returning from Paris. At last! I could communicate in my mother tongue!

So typing out paragraphs at lightning speed was out of the question. Skyping turned out to be more trouble than it was worth-- one of the benefits of Skype, to my mind, is that you can do other things while talking to your friends. I've often enjoyed the screenshare function and the ability to view videos simultaneously with my friends. I've watched my friend the artist sketching in photoshop when she was miles away in California. All of these functions were out of the question when I had the Skype app. If there is a way to multitask using the Skype app, I have not found it.

Storing files has proven to be more of a challenge than I originally anticipated, as well. It isn't the storing files which confounds me-- it's the opening of them. My laptop came with a zillion programs for opening different sorts of files. In the iPad, these are sadly lacking. I downloaded a program which synchs with Word files, for instance, and it always messes up the formatting, which makes it great for jotting down notes in class but horrible for editing or creating files which are actually going to be used for anything. I would never write a report on my Word file converter, for instance-- the lack of actual paragraphs I just find incredibly distracting.

For a long time I was also displeased with the process of reading books on the iPad. I still have a few problems with it--I can't flip through pages in the way that I'm used to, people won't comment on what I'm reading, and my gloriously overstocked bookshelf is scanter than it would otherwise be--plus my discomfort with my inability to "see all of the book at once", as it were. I understand paper and the way books are bound and how and to what degree water will warp paper. When the iPad breaks, on the other hand, I will not understand why. When the data is corrupted, I'll have to depend on the experts to retrieve it for me. But my attitude towards the iPad softened when I became almost as irritated at my paper books for different reasons-- I would press the paper, attempting to highlight a word and thereby obtain the definition, and nothing would happen. I would want to search for a particular phrase and would look in vain for a search bar. I eventually concluded that both formats had pros and cons, but this didn't make me any less irritated. I look forward to the day when the two shall be somehow synthesized.

The iPad is also a spectacular way to check email, but that doesn't impress me very much, since my phone can do the same thing and doesn't take forever to turn on.

So in every category except performing as a book, the iPad has not met my (admittedly unrealistic) expectations. Let's talk about the areas in which the iPad has proven to be unexpectedly stellar.

I enjoy taking notes with the iPad. Truly, I do. I love writing on paper, but I can't keep anything organized. On the iPad, each of my classes has a separate document and I just give each day a title and proceed to write stuff down. I can find everything effortlessly. I'm sure some people can do this on paper, but I've never been able to. The con is that I can't doodle. I've tried to remedy this by opening that little yellow notepad thing and making designs with the punctuation marks, which is tons of fun. I also like to invent words which might possibly be Nordic.

In addition, the iPad is a stellar PDF substitute. My favorite app, in terms of my expectations being exceeded, is the blackboard app, because I have access to every PDF document in every class I have ever taken, and I can carry them all around with me at all times. The inability to annotate has been a lot less annoying than I at first thought it would be-- for me, at any rate; I know other people have had different experiences--so I've quit printing out PDFs entirely. I just bring my iPad to class. Problem, of course, is that while the PDF is open I can't really take notes. Oh, well.

I would like to see the iPad become more compatible with different forms of documents. If it could "talk" to my computer and my phone, that would be positively splendiferous. I would like that on-screen keyboard to be updated. But the Blackboard app has actually been incredibly useful--not worth a couple hundred, but useful nonetheless. It would be better if I could MULTITASK, but I'm sure that will be fixed with some software update in the near future. Mainly I find myself using the iPad as a paper analog, a substitute for books and documents-- but then, I'm not sure that's a bad thing, especially since this paper analog has a lot of nifty abilities. But I would like it to become more like a computer-and-paper-analog-in-one, which for me, right now, it isn't.

Hope that satisfices. Have a spectacular break, everyone!

Losing the Trail

I had bought an ebook and downloaded at least ten classics: Tolstoy, Dickens, Homer. I was excited about making this little gizmo a part of my life. But where am I now? I have to admit: the iPad did not have a significant effect on my life. I think the main reason is that in my off-campus apartment I do not have access to the internet (and my iPad for some reason cannot pick up on the linksys account that my roommate and I piggyback). Without the internet, the iPad is a decent e-reader and a bad word processor. I'm not much for the games so that's it for that (I get bored about fifteen minutes into them), and most applications were so complicated that they threw me off. And, again, since they required extensive use of the internet, it was difficult to use them consistently so that they became a "part of me."

So what about the e-reading part? Why didn't I do that? Well, I did, in the case of Roger Darnton's book. But outside of that... I just liked books better. It happened around halfway through the semester, when I was having trouble reading War and Peace. I was in my room and I saw the print copy, just lying there, and I decided to pick it up--and what happened--the magic came back. And there it was, the book miracle: reading the first chapter of Harry Potter in the bathroom and feeling sucked into it. I just decided: it wasn't worth it. I was not converted into a digital man. Ebooks just aren't as good as actual books. Yes, I will use the dichotomy. Why? Because by trying to imitate books so much, the ebook has forced us to make the dichotomy. Until ebooks become unique subjects of their own, I will remain a book-man.

Plus, I was also heavily disappointed when I tried downloading a "museum" app that had very bad paintings (even though they were from the best painters). Knowing that I spent ten dollars on a bad program just about did it for me.

It was like having a pet that I couldn't take care of. Such that it is cosmically fitting that at the end of the year, when I most needed my iPad for the presentation, it, like a neglected puppy, faded into non-existence, becoming just a black screen and not much else.

But perhaps that's the iPad giving me a chance of renewal for next semester--oh! next semester! To have 15 hours again! To have time again! ... Next semester, baby iPad, you are mine!

I finally love my iPad.

So I've been home for two days now and I've actuallly finally started to love this thing. I'm constantly connected to the wifi and for some reason that makes me want to use it more. At school, the only place I have used this thing, I hate logging into the loyola network, and most of e time it is slow and annoying anyway. Here, at home, in a house where I don't have to share the Internet with thousands of other students, I feel like I'm finally using this to it's potential.

I watched a movie on it last ng and it never stopped to reload, I helped my mother with a recipe for dinner on epicurious, and earlier I started reading a piece from Dr. Mosier for class next semester. This makes me really happy because. Now actually like this thing. At school, I never used it. I felt like I needed to force myself to use it and everythi that is supposed to be so cool about it was extremely slow. Im finally tapping nt the potential I feel.

This semester I tried to take notes for my classes on it but my notes became lost between here and my notebooks because I couldn't completely pull myself away. I now know next semester my two English classes I could essentially take fully n my iPad. (I think) is will be crazy to me and I'm going to try and take full advantage of it. I've already gotten quick at using the multitask feature switching between reading and my notes in chapters. Im ready to take it head on.

Overall, I think I completely underused this during the first semester, but now that I'm used to it and can imagine how it can be part of my daily life next semester, I think it will be a great academic tool. We will see though, cause I may just go back to hating it again when I get back to school.

The iPad to the college student

Unfortunately, I can't write the essay that most of you have, so I'll just throw out some ideas.

In the airport on the way home, I saw a man sitting with a laptop in his lap, a cell phone on his shoulder, and an iPad in his hands. Excessive? Pretty much. But I find the iPad to fill a similar niche. Ultimately, it can't replace a laptop, but instead supplements it. Whether that is completely necessary or not is up to you. It is good for reading or surfing the internet in bed, reading and writing email in the airport or on the couch, or watching a movie rented off of iTunes. Or at least, that's how I use it.

For the course, I believe the iPad has been an incredibly useful tool for expanding our course. Between the discussions and the excellent presentations, we have seen the breadth of topics that can be viewed through the lens of the iPad. e-readers, the internet, how information reaches us, virtual reality, AI, and the publishing industry have all come under our gaze. Trying to utilize the iPad for note taking and presenting has pushed our abilities with unknown technology, and also perhaps rubbed with the idea that young people have some inherent skill with shiny new gadgets. Funny that I just had such a problem trying to post this off of the iPad, and had to email it to myself.

I am looking forward to what we can explore in the second semester.

Learning

>The iPad is growing on me. It feels like that’s the best I can say about it for right now. When I was first introduced to thing, I was highly skeptical, and my use of it reflected that. For the first month or two of my owning, the thing was filled mostly with game apps my friend had downloaded on it when was using it; indeed, the only time it got used was when he and I were sitting around my dorm room and he picked it up when I was on my laptop.

For a while we referenced it scathingly, calling it the “iPod Touch Pro” or calling the iPod touch the “iPad Nano.” And it honestly seemed like there wasn’t much else to it. Okay, so it did everything it said it would - hooked up to the internet, played music, displayed books for reading, etc., etc.; but it felt like nothing more than a giant toy. My laptop accessed the internet much more efficiently; it was easier to type on; it had a system set up for downloading images and other files from the internet; it had every program I could desire on it already downloaded and in its fullest form. The iPad felt like the new kid in my electronics collection, and the weird new kid at that - my phone and my laptop already had their purposes, were staple figures in my life, but the iPad came in and I had to work to integrate it. I didn’t like that.

However, a few weeks ago I started taking notes on the thing, as I documented here, and that one step was enough to completely renovate my view of the iPad. I started to recognize it not as a thing that was attempting to replace my laptop, but as a convenient little helper for me to use when I couldn’t use my laptop that could perform most of the same tasks. Once, when a paper was due the evening of a full work day, I took the iPad to work and composed the thing during my lunch break. The iPad is great when you want to check your Facebook or email between classes but don’t want to have to wake up your laptop from its sleep. And, in perhaps the most odd way I’ve used the device, the iPad is a great boombox: I’ve turned the volume all the way up and dropped the thing in my backpack, so that music follows me wherever I go and people get confused about where it’s coming from (to my enjoyment). I actively went searching for apps that would be helpful in my day-to-day and found several that I now actually use from day-to-day. Above all, I have begun reading on the iPad, fitting considering the content of this course. The book I had to present on was available online for free under the Creative Commons license and I read the entire thing on my iPad. Next semester, I have a class in 18th century British fiction where all the texts are available for free on iTunes through the Gutenberg project. I like reading on the iPad to such a degree that it scares me for the future of my hard-copy books.

My relationship with the device now is a loving one. Though it does sometimes distract me in class, I feel that overall, now that I’ve shifted my view of it, it’s come to be a great helper in my life. I look at it as sort of the “bridge” between the other technologies I own, something to fill in the gaps. It doesn’t have its own specific, independent function per se, but I feel like “assistant” is really the only title it needs to have in my life. I’m incredibly excited to continue working with this thing in the Reading w/ class next semester, since I feel I’ve finally come to a place of understanding with it.

iPad failure

Perhaps I am a complete failure as far as using the iPad goes. I use it frequently. I like using it. My favorite are the recipe apps. But I don't feel like I've integrated it as oompletely as I should. I don't use it for taking notes, I don't depend on it for any class whatsoever. I use it for fun. It is useful in classes where I need internet access but don't want to bring my bulk laptop to class. Other than that, I don't use it for academic purposes.

While I have taken notes on and uses my iPad in class for every Digital Human class, I don't feel like it has changed my class performance. If anything, it has become a test of my attentive abilities. Whether or not I can stay on topic with everything entertaining at my fingertips has become a trial for me. The iPad, for me, is a distraction in classes. Almost a hindrance. The thing is that I don't actually like typing on it or doing anything that I can do on computer at all. I don't like e-mailing on it, I don't like working on papers or poetry projects on it, I don't like reading for classes on it. I read an entire 280 something page book on this thing and the only good thing I have to say is that the font is bigger so it feels like I'm getting more done than reading in a book with smaller font and less pages. I'm even typing this on my laptop.

I feel like an iPad failure. I feel like I should be appreciating this technology more. It is, really and truly, a fascinating new addition to my technological life. It is relatively easy for me, as an almost complete Luddite, to negotiate. I don't despise it as a device, I actually really enjoy it. I like the games and I like the apps that I can find that are centered around my interests. But I don't see why it is worth more than a computer. I don't see why I should value this thing so much more than the laptop I am typing on. I feel like there is some element I'm missing, some sort of secret usefulness of goodness of the iPad that I'm missing.

I appreciate the fact that I can download lots of classics and other books for free on this thing. I appreciate the vast amount of almost interactive recipe books I can access on here. I appreciate the games that are not only fun but intellectually challenging. But I don't see what this is doing for me that computers already aren't. I guess I'm not a complete Luddite. Or maybe not even one at all. While I love the book and everything it has been for me throughout my life, I love my laptop too. I don't feel like I'm betraying the book with my laptop for some reason. I don't feel like I'm trying to replace it. With the iPad, I feel like I'm trying to not only replace my laptop but my books. I feel like a traitor to my books and my laptop.

Yet at the same time, I feel like a traitor to my iPad. I mean, it's not the Ipad's fault it is an attempt to combine the book and the laptop all into one compact device. And it's definitely not its fault that I don't like it as well as the originals. The iPad is an incredible new device, and I feel like it deserves more attention that I want to give it. I haven't fully integrated it into my life. I don't know how to. I'm already satisfied with my technological and book life. I don't need it all compressed into one. So what is the iPad doing? Why do we feel like we need devices like this? What are we looking for exactly? I don't have the answers. I don't quite think anyone else does either. I think it's just that we can make these devices, and we can be fascinated by them. But do we really believe in them? Do we really trust them the way we've trusted books and computers through the years?

There's no "we" in iPad

Last night I flew out of New Orleans to visit my parents for the holidays. Just like every other flight I've been on the announcer says over the obnoxiously loud intercom that its time to turn off all "electronic devices with an on and off switch." At this time, people all around me take out the blackberries, Apple devices, and e-readers in order to send that last text, refresh the company email, and check the score of a game. With the second reminder, from our friendly-sky's staff, little beeps harmonize in a chaotic arrangement as all electronics shut down for the next two hours.

Sitting in my window seat, glancing around, I think of my "Reading (w/) the Digital Human" class and wonder: what happens when humans aren't allowed to be digital? Apparently total silence.

People immediately start sleeping, reading, or waiting impatiently for when at least iPods can be turned on for music or laptops can be turned on for solitaire. I even start frantically thinking of the phone calls that I didn't make before take-off. All anyone is thinking on this flight is the fact that they can no longer participate in society. I cannot participate in society. Everyone else will be able to engage in the virtual life, except the roughy 100 people with me on flight 1001 to FLL.

Its then I realize that the virtual life is now Life. I am completely dependable on my technology. I glance down at my backpack under the seat in front of me and realize that I have with me my Mac laptop, my iPad, my iPod, my LG touch phone (not smart), my Nikon camera with two different lenses, and a pouch with all the wires, chargers, and external memory drives that come with them. I am traveling with thirty pounds of metal and wires and I never questioned not to bring them all with me. That alone tells me I am a victim of "Living" in virtual life. I also realize that these devices are symbols of ME. Its all about ME. How can I get connected, how can I get acknowledged, or get in touch with. Holly was right, I am a virtual narcissist. (Insert sad emoticon here.)

Holding a book in my lap, I then realize the upside to my travel prison. No one can bother me. All the finals, grad applications, blogging even, cannot be touched and I love the fact that theres nothing I can do about any of them. I am cut off. Its a restless feeling that actually induces relief. For two hours (at least) I can just be by myself. The businessman sitting next to me in coach can also be by himself - he's now snoring. This moment is the reason I love traveling.

"Reading (w/) the Digital Human" this semester was actually more of a sociology/ psychology class for me. It made me see the world for its dependence of technology. From facebook to e-readers, GoodReads to Blogspot, and youtube to my now favorite NPR app, I see our society as a collection of technological options. Its all about options. We live in a world with an infinite amount of portals to virtually socialize, learn, and entertain the ego. Therefore, however much you care to participate in the real world, you actually have to participate in the virtual world.

For example, if some of my friends start laughing and joking around about a certain video streaming online, I cannot participate in the merriment until I see the video. If everyone knows about a house party this Friday, but I didn't check my facebook for the invitation, I may miss the event. This type of interacting that focuses on the individual and it is one that requires constant maintenance. Keeping in the loop means you have to keep up to speed with uploads and updates. Its your responsibility if you want to be social.

Seeing that this is the next step in a type of "social evolution", this semester's class has set a good platform for next semester's class - awareness. When I started my Women's Studies minor I became more aware of our society's gender roles, when I started this class I became more aware of the reasons I use technology. Just like gender roles, we participate in our culture's expectations of technology to be socially involved and accepted. (There are many times my friends make fun of me for not having a smart phone. Sad to say, my "dumb" phone doesn't always make me accepted.)

Regardless, now that I have internet connection again and am am currently not flying Southwest Airlines, I can participate again and blog about what this class has done for me. I'm excited for next semester's class.

Hooked on the tech

I am totally dependent on this seemingly unnecessary piece of technology. I have fully integrated it in my life to the point that without it I feel like I would be at a loss. i have come to engage the internet almost solely through this iPad. My 3,000 dollar Macbook Pro has become hardly more than a typewriter and I use it less than I used to.
That being said I find myself frustrated with my iPad more than seems appropriate. I have an incredibly dysfunctional relationship with this device where I constantly find myself lamenting its numerous deficiencies and yet I cannot stop trying to make it work for me. I think that the problem lies in the fact that I sense the potential that is present in this type of technology. I see how this sort of interface could revolutionize education, reading, writing, travel, and change the entire way we engage the digital world. Unfortunately, I constantly feel hindered by the reality of the device. This is not entirely the iPad's fault. I have no doubt that my expectations and desires far exceed what is currently available in terms of technology, but it still is hard to see the future without being able to fully engage it.
I have, as of late, been fascinated and fixated on the digital world we are currently engaged in. There is a bizarre and unbelievably awesome amount of technology and applications being introduced to the world right now. It has become possible to interact with the world more fully through the use of electronic devices than "real" reality offers. Virtual reality or augmented reality offer greater depth to our every day lives than we can naturally encounter. How long will it really be before reality un-augmented becomes the outlier?
I am fixated and fully invested in the ipecac and its potential. I am at a point where I have become committed to the point that I will undoubtedly buy the next iteration because it has become so much a part of how I work. I look forward to, and hope for the future of this device and others like it. I see a new order and a new way of engaging the world. i just wish that this potential and idea was fully realized and implemented.

Ipad as a tool

The presentations today really intrigued me and I hope we read excerpts of these books, but that's not really what I want to post about. What I want to post about is Black Friday. Yes, oh joy, the day we brave bouts of materialistic insanity and nightmarish foot and road traffic to participate in that most American of consumer rituals. I journeyed to Walmart for toothpaste and a phone charger on that tragic Black Friday eve and my friend and I found ourselves adventuring further into the electronic section. I saw the station where the iPad was being showcased, looking like a sacred tablet on a white plastic pedestal. People were gathered around it (still, this long after its release, it is a wonder) reverently. After they left, I watched the presentation that was playing on the iPad under it's glass case. It was a commercial-like video of what the iPad can do, on the iPad. It featured a smaller version of the iPad on this video, like an iPad within an iPad, the screen on the screen. It was vaguely uncomfortable to me to watch apple's representation of the iPad on an iPad, it seemed out of place, it seemed pointless, and it seemed simultaneously silly and sly. Look, but don't touch, you of Walmart, at this expensive wonder under glass casing. Look at what it can do, but not what you can do.
The happy day itself, Black Friday, I found myself at Best Buy. The iPad was, again, displayed on white surfaces on a specific section of the store and was again the object of much attention and praise, but was also being handled by customers as a prototypical sneak peek of what their iPad would be like, if they were to buy one. I had seen both of these displays before, but somehow they never struck me odd in such a way (but in other ways). I don't know whether my unease with the disconnect between these two very different displays at the two very different commercial megamarts was to do with class distinctions implied in each or just the general discontent with the rampant consumeristic materialism that Is Black Friday. But josh's presentation and the idea of an incipient object reminded me of this and I felt the need to post this. The ipad as an incipient object is the dominating theme of my interaction with it and also the reason why I cannot fully commit to the ipad, so to speak; it seems to me, still, an object charged with this strange dichotomy of being both simply a new physical tool for information gathering and being some kind of hyperreal symbol of the future at our doorsteps.
I guess that's all I wanted to say, and if this post is too reminiscent of topics we've beaten to death, I apologize. It just seemed to me that those two weird scenes I had with the iPad that day made an abstract feeling I'd been having more present and tangible.


The above post was written on my ipad the day Josh and Kalee did their book presentations. I tried to copy and paste it from pages onto blogspot, only to find yet another thing the ipad cannot do. So, I emailed it to myself along with a reminder to post it. I forgot. But, I wanted to post it immediately and couldn't--so how does having an ipad affect my academic life? It helps me look up terms faster than a dictionary, it helps me conduct online research easily and portably, I no longer have to print out reams and reams of paper when I have a class assignment and I can easily fact-check and look up terms that I come across during class lectures. I can get texts so easily it frightens me. I do not take notes on it yet, but I will be attempting to go paperless next semester and see how it goes for me... but so far, I haven't seen the full effect of what the iPad can do because I haven't been able to fully commit to it. It has definitely made me appreciate the power of being connected, I can zone out better and I can focus in better with it, depending on my mood, but so far I have not been able to fully utilize it as a tool.

The iPad--To Be or Not to Be?

To say that I enjoy using the iPad would not be a complete lie--I do. I like being able to whip it out of my bag whenever I please, whether to play a game (I have an unhealthy obsession with the Angry Birds app) or research something on the internet (something inconspicuous like different dog species or James Joyce). The iPad, if nothing else, is incredibly handy. It's the shortcut I have to the outside world. In the time that it takes to log onto my computer, press "remind me later" to the Adobe reader notice that pops up each time, minimize AIM--which I haven't used in close to five years--and sit back and wait as my Symantec checks for any viruses, I will have already completed the task on the iPad and moved onto something else. Yet, that doesn't mean I would trade in my baby--a.k.a my laptop--for greener pastures, and I think that pretty much says at all: the iPad is functional and desired because it is portable, not necessarily because of its features. For example, despite the fact that it has a little shadow of a circle that looks quite suspiciously like a camera, no such things exists--for this model at any rate. Flash doesn't exist and while it would be nice if the iPad allowed free apps, it simply isn't the case. (Granted, the latter could just simply be my own wishful hoping).

Moreover, unlike others in the class, I don't take notes on the iPad, not for class anyhow. Call me old-fashioned or stubborn, but unless I'm physically handwriting class notes into a notebook, there seems to be some sort of malfunction between the teacher and my brain. In any case, I used the iPad--the app "Chapters" in particular--to work on my thesis. Initially, I couldn't envision anything better. After having--accidentally, of course--dropped my laptop last winter break, constant moving it around just simply doesn't happen because of the crack in screen. Thus, my inability to freely bring my laptop around made the use of the iPad even more of a treasure. However, despite the mobility of the iPad, I quickly realized that typing on it is a hazard to one's inner spell check. Words were incorrect (thanks to the iPad's auto-correct function) and typing quotation marks for dialogue was more of a hassle than anything else.

In addition, I found that my concentration level has decreased since using the iPad. We've discussed in class how we now live in a hyperactive society; up until this point, I have always been proud of the fact that I did not consider myself to be one of these people. However, I've recently acknowledged the shameful fact that on the iPad, I barely ever complete books. Instead, I log on the Kindle app, open a book, read a few pages, decide that there might be something more interesting online, and rush to Amazon.com where I resume my endless search for free e-books. Thus far, I have roughly fifty e-books on my Kindle, of which only thirty or so I have finished, to be compared with the roughly 150 books I have at home, all of which have been finished probably in the same day they were individually bought. I don't want to blame the iPad for my recent hyperactive take on life, but to me, there seems no other explanation; if I trek over to Borders on St. Charles, buy two or three books, I have finished reading everything I have purchased by the next day, and sometimes have gone back for a second reading.

In short, the iPad has greatly influenced my life this past semester, some in better ways than others. Would I trade in my iPad? My answer is a emphatic no. I like being able to use it whenever I wish, to discover new apps that somehow manage to make my life easier, despite the fact that there are definitely cons to the device as well.

Just In Case

I videotaped myself presenting my book, just in case something goes wrong tomorrow.

crazy article

crazy long article, eight pages, but all about how this man was able to manipulate Google into getting his site on the first page of search results through bad reviews.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28borker.html?pagewanted=7&_r=4&adxnnlx=1291424484-aJ%20vuetYYSKhgWo20KSE2w

Technological Like Me

Disclaimer: I may have answered many of the questions that you gatekeeping professors are asking me to cover in this blog post in the form of a long-winded rant about the various ways that the iPad stresses me out, which I posted about a month ago. However, it would probably be a good idea for me to write out my final verdict on the iPad, which is this:

To me, the iPad is nothing more than a glorified netbook with a fancy touch screen. It may even be less practical than a netbook because typing and multi-tasking are much more difficult on the iPad.

For most of the semester, I felt that I had to justify owning such an expensive piece of technology by trying desperately to incorporate the iPad into my everyday life. This meant that for the first few weeks of school, I attempted to take notes exclusively on the iPad, I tried to listen to music exclusively on the iPad, and I turned to the iPad as an Internet source before I did a computer. In the process, I found the iPad to be more of a burden than a blessing. My incessant guilt inspired in me a strong sense of determination to make use of the technology that I was given, but eventually I reached a point where I was merely carrying the iPad in my book bag and taking it to classes with me without turning it on for days at a time.

When I was consistently taking notes on my iPad, I found that my note-taking was easily and often distracted by the technology at my fingertips.

Scenario #1: My professor is giving a lecture, and as I take notes on my iPad, she casually mentions Ermengarde of Anjou. I'm not sure if that's a person or a food or an activity, so I exit my notes to Google my professor's mysterious reference. Wikipedia has 5 different Ermengarde of Anjou pages, I pick one, which describes Ermengarde as "a member of the comital House of Anjou." What the hell is this "Anjou" that keeps coming up? I Google "Anjou," and recipes calling for anjou pears come up. I am curious about this fruit, which I've never heard of. Is it just a regular pear? It is something new and exotic that I need to know about? What's the deal with anjou pears? According to Google images, they just look like regular pears. Disappointing. I Google "exotic fruit," and spend the rest of class reading about jackfruit and the African cucumbers.

Scenario #2: My professor showing a slide show about Hildegard of Bingen. The iPad believes that this woman should be named "Hilda regard of binge." Every time that I go to enter "Hildegard of Bingen" into my notes, I am afflicted by the odious auto-correct. I spend so much time correcting the auto-correct that I miss a third of the slides in the slide show.

Scenario #3: My professor is giving a three hour lecture about the atomic weight of alkali metals. Five minutes into the lecture, she has lost me, and I'm not sure that I can be found. Goodbye chemistry notes, hello Stumbleupon!

Interestingly enough, I have found that when I pull the iPad out in many of my classes (other than Reading w/ the Digital Human), professors seem to assume that I am doing something studious and useful with my iPad, that I would never be engrossed in a Facebook message or carried away on a Stumbleupon frenzy with my iPad. No, surely I must be taking very technologically advanced notes and while looking up scholarly articles relating to their lectures with my $500 state-of-the-art touchscreen tablet. However, when I take notes by hand in my notebook, should a professor discuss the tragic life of Edgar Allen Poe and should I scribble a cartoony raven squawking "Nevermore!," I will almost always be met with a look of disapproval or a hushed "That's very nice, but please not in class," should the professor catch a glimpse of my doodle.

All of that being said, I have found that the iPad is very useful to me as a planner/calendar. I particularly like the Easy Task app for making lists of homework assignments and when they're due. Also, I've used the iPad three or four times when I've forgotten a book for a class at home and needed to access a text quickly. It's also useful when I'm in class with Dr. Cotton, and he wants to know what year an obscure poem was published or whether or not the Oxford English Dictionary contains a definition for the word "goose" used as a verb. Basically, the iPad has made me the go-to girl for looking up random facts when my professors forget or want to know something. At this point, I have given up on trying to justify owning this fancy piece of technology, which has been most useful to me as a planner/list-making device. While the iPad does come in handy as a planner, a notebook, an Internet source, an MP3 player, and probably many other things that I don't often use it as, I am still unable to come to terms with the fact that before I had the iPad, I had a planner, a notebook, a computer, and an MP3 player to do all of the things that the iPad does. Perhaps the iPad is supposed to be like the Walmart of organizational/technological/entertainment devices, as the iPad puts music, notes, books, the Internet, games, a planner, and more all in one convenient tablet, but even after a semester with the iPad I'm still far from comfortable with giving up my paperbacks or my Gameboy or my moleskins. Maybe I'll be a little more willing when I can access Wikipedia without exiting my notes or when I figure how to turn off auto-correct.

Tableau, the "anti-computer experience"

Tableau: physical email from John Kestner on Vimeo.

Thought y'all might be interested in this nightstand, designed by John Kestner, which is going into mass-production for next year.

Proverbial wallets

http://vimeo.com/14492626

Thought you guys might all enjoy this article/video about proverbial wallets. Wallets that connect with our online banking and in turn react to how much we have or don't have in our expenses. This hopes to fill the void in this virtual spending we do with credit cards...

Visual Aids for My (Rolando's) Presentation

Stuff and Fluff

Exhibit A: The Alphabet that Thinks

Exhibit B: California Law Code on Not Touching Trees

Every person who within the State of California willfully or negligently cuts, destroys, mutilates, or removes any tree or shrub, or fern or herb or bulb or cactus or flower, or huckleberry or redwood greens, or portion of any tree or shrub, or fern or herb or bulb or cactus or flower, or huckleberry or redwood greens, growing upon state or country highway rights-of-way, or who removes leaf mold thereon; provided, however, that the provisions of this section shall not be construed to apply to any employee of the state or of any political subdivision thereof engaged in work upon any state, county or public road or highway while performing such work under the supervision of the state or of any political subdivision thereof, and every person who willfully or negligently cuts, destroys, mutilates, or removes any tree or shrub, or fern or herb or bulb or cactus or flower, or huckleberry or redwood greens, or portion of any tree or shrub, or fern or herb or bulb or cactus or flower, or huckleberry or redwood greens, growing upon public land or upon land not his own, or leaf mold on the surface of public land, or upon land not his own, without a written permit from the owner of the land signed by such owner or his authorized agent, and every person who knowingly sells, offers, or exposes for sale, or transports for sale, any tree or shrub, or fern or herb or bulb or cactus or flower, or huckleberry or redwood greens, or portion of any tree or shrub, or fern or herb or bulb or cactus or flower, or huckleberry or redwood greens, or huckleberry or redwood greens, or leaf mold, so cut or removed from state or country highway rights-of-way, or removed from public land or from land not owned by the person who cut or removed the same without written permit from the owner of the land, signed by such owner or his authorized agent, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars ($500) or by imprisonment in a county jail for not more than six months or by both such fine and imprisonment.

Exhibit C: Code Presented in "Thinking Alphabet"

Martin Heidegger argued that typewriters destroyed handwriting, and Plato argued that writing destroyed speech. But Lanham argues that digital expression renovates speech in writing. It invigorates writing. It makes writing more like speech.

Exhibit D: The Style/Substance Matrix

Exhibit E: The (False?) "Assumptions" about Higher Education

1. The Ideal Education is Face-to-Face, One-to-One

No. Blogs have disproved that.

2. Higher Ed., in its ideal form, is performed sequestered from time and space.

But virtual ed. allows us to flow between both. Besides, when we're in college, we crave for real-world experience (extra-curricular activities, etc.).

3 & 4: The Tenure System is Good & The Univ. Protects its Faculty from "Outside World"

"A lifetime of protection makes for an eternal childhood."

Professors should be given money according to their popularity (and this happens in virtual ed). Plus, lots of classes makes for tedium. Wouldn't you like for your course to be given online, so there's less of it?

6: University Faculties are animated by a purity of motive different from, and superior to, the world of ordinary human work.

Oh Plz!

Univ's need to wake up and smell the fresh attention-driven roses of the attention economy.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/25/generation-why/?page=2

This link is to Zadie Smith's recent article ("Generation Why") in the New York Times Review of Books. It's very insightful and provocative. She discusses the implications of Facebook and much more. It immediately inspired me to remove a lot of excess personal data on my profile and has given me a lot to think about in my interaction on the site.

Jonas

Like parent like child

One of the presentation actually reminded me of a ABC television show called "Modern Family". This season there is an episode that addresses the issues (and humor) of being "disconnected".

Upset that the children are too obsessed with their technology, Claire (the mother) decides to teach them a lesson. Her and her husband, Phil, set up a game in which the entire family has to go without technology. This includes cell phones, lab tops, televisions etc. The challenge pits parents versus children in a battle of endurance: Who can stay disconnected the longest?

Here is the link to the episode: Unplugged

Not for the college student

http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/30/why-the-kindle-is-losing-me/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

This is a pretty cool article about why some e-readers especially the kindle can actually pretty detrimental to the college student... It is pointed out the hinderances and what could improve... Pretty interesting.

'Information Overload,' in The Chronicle of Higher Education

An interesting article I thought you all might enjoy:

"Information Overload, Then and Now"

A Note On Notes

The other day, I took notes on my iPad for the first time.

I know, I know - I'm super late to the party. I feel like that might have been the first thing most people in this class did with their iPad, what with the whole "let's try to integrate these things into our academic lives" thing that we were all so excited about at the beginning of the class.

But I, with my eternally stubborn tendencies, couldn't do it. I am a writer. When I take notes, I write. I enjoy the physical feeling of writing - the movement of my hand, the pen sliding smoothly over the page - almost as much as I enjoy what I write. I like my handwriting. A lot of the time, I write down nonsense just to feel myself write the way some people tall just to hear themselves talk. Taking notes is the perfect outlet for that - I have an excuse to write endlessly for an entire class period without stopping. It doesn't really matter if I'm interested in the material or not; I just love taking notes. I know, it's weird. It might be just a vanity thing. Whatever. What I'm trying to say is, from the very outset of this class, I was determined not to let the iPad take away the joy of note-taking from me.

After Timothy Morton came to class two weeks ago, though, I found myself thinking about the iPad differently. He talked about his use of it with his students and the use of it in his personal life, and seemed to be largely singing praise of it - why should we renounce something, he seemed to be getting at, that is so clearly intended to be used for our convenience, so clearly intended to make academic life (and indeed home and work life) so much simpler and quicker?

On Wednesdays, after this class, I have another class with Dr. Schaberg and that particular day, Timothy Morton made an appearance in that class as well. Perhaps it was an attempt to impress him or something, I don't know, but I decided to take my iPad out and take my class notes on it - just for one day.

My fingers didn't stop moving for the entire class. I found that I was able to type pretty much as fast as people in the classwork were talking - an approach I usually attempt with my handwritten notes, but at which I rarely succeed. I felt I was able to type on the iPad even faster than I would on my own laptop. This was especially curious to me. I spend a good chunk of every day on my laptop, and have done so since I got it in high school, so I assumed that my extensive "training" there would make it the instrument on I'd find myself most efficient. Not so. Maybe it's because I don't have to press any keys down, or because I've become adjusted to the iPad's autocorrect and therefore pay less attention to what I'm typing, but I'm like a damn speed racer on this thing. As a result, I found when going over my notes that there was a much more comprehensive representation of what had gone on in class, and I found myself recalling and even understanding better the discussion we'd had, as opposed to looking at scattered half-sentences and marginal notes and trying to remember what I meant by them.

Even in the face of all that, though, I'm still not convinced. An aspect of taking my notes on the iPad that really irked me was the fact that my notes were suddenly separate from my readings. I like to take excessive notes in my books. It's visually easier for me that way to link together thoughts I have with specific areas of the text. Not only that, but over the years I've developed a pretty intricate system of underlinings and markings to indicate specific relationships, linkages and auxiliary thoughts of mine in relation to a text. With notes on the iPad, that disappears - it's just a block of text, arbitrarily organized by thoughts as I have them, and I have to have the iPad set out alongside my book, attempting to pinpoint which notes belong to which sections instead of just having them integrated into the text itself.

For now, I'm working on finding a balance between the convenience and the comfort. Much to my own surprise I've continued use of the iPad as a place for note taking, but I still mark up my books just as heavily as before. The iPad doesn't come out while I'm reading, but instead during class discussions where I can create a separate space for the topics we discuss there. It's not flawless yet, but I feel I might be making some progress. Let's go future! Full steam ahead!