I'm a PC...for now.

I’m really excited about this class and the coming semester. I am already planning on taking the next new media course in the spring semester. I really enjoy talking to you all and learning about your backgrounds. As for me, I was born in Los Angeles but never got to enjoy the beach, we moved to El Paso when I was four. My first language was Spanish and I did not learn to speak English until I was eight. My parents still don’t really speak English. My family is a very traditional Latino group, I’m not. The same can be said about El Paso and its people. Growing up, that reality always led me to believe the rest of the world ignored us. We lagged in education, technology, jobs, social attitudes and any other progressive aspects.

I believe the educational progress of the Latino community is directly tied to the group’s acceptance of technology. The Latino culture, in my experience, is always hesitant to accept new or foreign concepts that threaten their comfort zone. The community cannot afford to be two steps behind, as they usually are, in utilizing a new medium (i.e. Latino print magazines and newspapers are making a profit). The socioeconomic factors remain (digital divide) and I’ve seen them first hand. However, the strength in numbers of the community and capitalism could provide a smoother transition than past technological revelations for the group. There is a specific role in there for me I just have to define it.

I have no doubt that after this class I will be a better, and more rounded, communication professional. I also have a suspicion that this class will help me better define my career plans and ambitions. This class can be considered a new venture for me. I am excited at the thought of knowing something three months from now that I have absolutely no idea about today. I ask you all to consider that. How many times do we get that opportunity nowadays? I hope Dr. Royal doesn’t get scared that one of her students knows nothing about his graduate class. I am sure I’ll be an Apple at the end of the semester, if not earlier.

The video from last week was interesting on many levels. One pertains to what “we don’t know” about upcoming innovations. If they were talking internet in the sixties, what are they developing now? It is an exciting time to be around. Something else that was interesting was the near misses or the obstacles they encountered that actually assisted them.

Great to meet y'all!

Ha! That would be a great pick-up line, Dale!

Tweets, and blogs, and walls--oh my! Man, I don't know any of this stuff! I'm really looking forward to this class. I've been avoiding learning how to use all of these new communication tools for too long. In my last position I was forced muddle my way through Dreamweaver, but it will be great to fully understand what I'm doing.

The video was great. I knew some history about the Internet being created for defense purposes, but I didn't know how instrumental universities were to its development. Students were writing the code? Wow!

See you soon!

Hello all...from Dale

Hey everyone - I'm really excited about this class and it's been great to hear everyone's stories and backgrounds. As for me, I've been a producer at News 4 WOAI in San Antonio for the past nine years. I actually quit a couple of weeks ago and moved to San Marcos to focus on grad school. The stress of the news biz got to me and I decided it was time to do something new...and I've wanted to do this for five or six years now.

You can reach me on twitter. My handle is @normalguyguide. But I have to warn you - I tweet A LOT. Especially on Top Chef nights. So my feelings are never hurt if I get unfollowed...some people don't like to be bombarded. I mentioned in class that I was supposed to do a Top Chef blog for the San Antonio newspaper. It looks like that is on hold or won't happen now. They want me to blog as my real name and not my NormalGuy brand. That's a dealbreaker for me.

I thought the coolest part of the video was the story about email's invention. It was a completely sidebar little thing this guy tried out just because he thought it would be neat. And the title of "inventor of email" has to be one of the greatest ever. Imagine dropping that to someone at a bar. "What do you do? I created email. Sweet."

See everyone on Wednesday!

New Media vs. Old Media

I'm looking forward to digging in to Cindy's class. Like I said during my intro in class, I tried to build a site and failed miserably. I want to combine my 25+ years of experience in TV and film production with some sound knowledge on web design to become more well rounded in combining old and new media.

The old media folks and the new media whizzes are battling it out, to a certain degree right now, at least in the area of journalism. I follow and contribute to both and don't necessarily favor one over the other (although, unlike my paper, I've yet to find a comfortable way to read my laptop while on the toilet).

I do believe that we, as media developers and consumers, are experiencing the period that is the changeover between old and new. The battles, the growing pains and the uncertainty will all eventually be settled and journalism and all of media will be vastly different than just 10 years ago.

I thought that the video was especially interesting (although, as a producer, I thought the quick cut edits at times were distracting). It's always fun to look back and learn about the development of any great innovation but to see the things that lead to what we now know as the internet was truly fascinating (of particular interest was the guy who developed e-mail, basically on a whim). Now it's up to us to learn, to develop, to participate and to innovate in the next chapter of the internet revolution.

Hello all! --- Yvonne

I'm really looking forward to this class and I'm ready to get my hands dirty with all the web building tools I'm so ignorant about...

As I said in class, I volunteered to be a webmaster for Lion's Club before I knew what that really meant. After I sent the humbling email that said basically 'Hey I don't actually know how to do this stuff,' ta-da, I'm in this class! So there's hope for me yet... I'd like to do their website for our class project if I can. (They're the ones who run the tube rental place in San Marcos that contributes all proceeds to local social service organizations, like the non-profit I work for Southside Community Center)

I also teach 2 labs of Kym Fox's MC1313 Writing for Mass Media, which I really enjoy. I know I'll be using tidbits I learn in this class and posing similar questions in the labs just to see what dialogue comes of it in class.

On the internet video, it's interesting/unsettling that we made our technological advances in times of military crisis or in some kind of international competition. That seems to be what really spurs our big decision makers to spend money and manpower to develop the things that really help us.

See you all soon :) ---- Yvonne Paris

Hello! :)

Hi Everyone,
This is Lesley. I just graduated with my undergraduate degree in Mass Communication (Journalism). I took this class with Cindy in my undergrad and I really enjoyed the class and Cindy. I decided to take it again because I knew that even though it was only a semester ago so much had changed in the software. I'm excited to brush up on my web skills and revamp my web site.

This is now the second time that I've seen the film over the history of the Internet and it still takes me by surprise. The idea that many people didn't believe that the idea of the Internet would be successful and that people wouldn't be interested it in is simply mind blowing especially when it is now such a prominent aspect in every day life.

I'm excited for Cindy's class and my first semester in graduate school.

Introduction

It was great meeting everyone Thursday. I look forward to an interesting semester! The video has been interesting and informative so far--I needed a brush-up on the history of the Internet. It's been a while since I've studied its history.

"I am you and what I see is me"-from echoes by pink floyd

hi all,

most people call me "eric". but who am i? my answer: thoughts come and go, but it is the sum of my actions that dictate who i am, and perhaps someday, the results of those actions will be the only proof of my brief existence... that, and this blog.

to the point, the video we watched in class made me wonder: what if the inventor of electronic mail thought to himself: "Nah, this is a dumb idea... No one will ever use this." what if he had trashed the idea completely. i'm sure it would have surfaced in another form or fashion, but it may have been many years before it's inception as a popular form of communication. it makes me think of human potential in general. look at how far we've come with technology just because of people like the inventor of e-mail. there are no limitations but those we place on ourselves...

anyway, here is the SparkNotes version of my story:

grew up in South Texas. moved to Austin in 1997, put college on hold to pursue Kuk Sool Won (Korean martial arts), moved to the Houston-area in 2005 to study martial arts under the Grandmaster's son, Master Suh, "Alex" Sung Woo. while in Houston I earned my BA in English. I moved back to Austin in June 2007, when a series of random events thrust me into the pursuit of photography. i am self-taught and have been shooting for nearly two years (www.ericmphoto.net).

I love to learn. through this masters program i hope to develop skill sets and understandings of today's technology and, more important, technology of the future. i want to know where we are going, not just where we are.

my ultimate goals in academia are to earn at least 3 more degrees before i reach age 50. i love learning.... good luck to us all.

Nice to Meet You (From Caitlin)

First of all, I am excited about this class. I tend to gravitate towards the philosophical/theoretical elements of mass comm, so it will be good to learn some logistics - but I have the feeling there will be plenty of excellent discussion going on here as well. I love that New Media can be interwoven with so many topics and I love that the benefits of connectivity tend to make people very positive and enthusiastic.

A few older family members of mine have lamented about the "old days" of computers, when the machines were "as big as a room" and had to be kept at chilly temperatures. The film definitely captured these early awkward days and gave me an appreciation for how far things have come. As others have noted, it is amazing how haphazard the network developments were... it seems fortunate that anything came of these early experiments at all. And I think it's hilarious that all of the grunt work was assigned to grad students.

In addition to taking this class I am also taking a class in the English department, I am working on a thesis about literary journalism and I am a lab instructor for MC1313. Outside of school I am an austinist.com contributor (I mostly do film writing) and I like to do typical Austin hippie things like yoga, going to shows and brewing my own kombucha. I am trying to be more active on Twitter: my handle is camo_g.

Looking forward to a fine semester!

Hey...from Josh Shepherd

What's happening on a great Saturday afternoon? It's Josh checking in on the blog. I thought the film on the internet was super interesting. I wonder if it would have been different had it been produced before the dot.com bubble popped. It was great to hear that they basically had now clue what they were doing. There really didn't seem to be a plan; they were just throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what stuck. As long as it was good enough, that was all that mattered.
I am really excited about this class, mostly because the work I have done on my podcast has opened me up to all these possibilities. I spent 7+ years in broadcast land and this arena of new media is fresh to me. I love the ATX having been here forever by attending elementary, middle, high school and college all in Austin.

Anyway...any one interested in my podcast or site. It's on Itunes or you can go to http://www.backlineshow.com/ BacklineShow is my Twitter handle and Facebook handle, as well.

See everyone on Wednesday!

A Little About Me and First Day of Class

Hello all,



Well, I just moved to San Marcos from the Rio Grande Valley about two months ago. So far so good. My first class in the program was Media Law with Prof. Walsh. Tough course but I'm glad I took it because it exposed me to the idea of free speech and how the First Amendment is constantly being challenged. It will be interesting to see what new challenges privacy and free speech will face in the twenty-first century with things like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.



Technology that's used to transfer information fascinates me. Cell phoes, MP3s, and PDAs have become so ubiquitous in our culture. Everyday I see people glued to their newest gadget that they swear they can not live without when only ten years ago no one could have imagined them. I'm no exception; I long to own a 3G iPhone.



I'm taking the new-media track because my goal is to either work for or start a web based news focused topical magazine. I would like to explore topics through feature stories that include video, audio, and open forums. Also I want to learn about Flash and get better at Photoshop.



The thing I learned from the film we watched in class is how the Internet got it start military technology. It always fascinates me what leaps technology takes through the pressure to win wars. Also, I didn't know e-mail came about as a side job and wasn't really paid much attention to at first. It was also funny in a nostalgic way to hear the "You've got mail" prompt from AOL.



Okay, I think this post is getting a bit long so I'll leave it here and wish everyone a great weekend.

See ya in class.

Hello there, I'm Carly

Hi class!

I got into new media kind of on a whim. Last year, I was looking for something new and stumbled upon Twitter. It took me a while to fully understand its potential...but once I did, I was hooked. I find the ability to connect with an entire community fascinating. Since then, I've been soaking up as much information as I can about new media and social networking.

This is my second semester in the graduate program in the SJMC, but I've called Old Main my home for several years. I graduated in December '08 with a degree in Mass Communication (PR). I'm so excited to learn from Cindy and to start my own site.

You can find me on Twitter here.

You can find my blog here.

Other than school and work (I'm assisting Dara Quackenbush with Mass Comm Week coordinations), I love reading and hanging out with my super awesome weenie dog, Harper, who loves Lone Star.

Something I found interesting about Wednesday's video was a comment made by the narrator of the film, the Internet is a vital information link during crisis and war. I feel like we've especially seen this recently, for example, during the Iran Election Crisis. The Internet (mainly Twitter) was protesters' only way to get vital information to the rest of the world.

Welcome to the Online Media Blog!

Welcome to Online Media Design at Texas State University. On this blog, we'll talk about issues, comment on class discussion and share project ideas.I'm the instructor, Cindy Royal. I've been teaching Web design for 10 years, first as a graduate student at UT and now at Texas State. I've seen many of my students go on to online or multimedia careers. It's an exciting time to be in communications! As you probably know from other places online, there are many places online that you can learn about me. There's my personal Web site, my tech blog, my music blog OnThat Note and Twitter. Mainly, I love technology, am an avid live music fan and when I have time, I like to hike or kayak around Lady Bird Lake in Austin. I look forward to working with each of you this semester.

Once you are a member of this blog, it's easy to set up your own blog, maybe on a topic of your own interest. We'll be discussing in class.

I've used this blog in the past with other classes, so you can see some of the previous topics and posts.

So, I want to learn about you, and so does the rest of the class. Take a moment to introduce yourself. And, in your post, make a comment about the video we saw on the History of the Internet, something that you didn't know or found interesting.