Sorting Things Out, by Bowker and Star is an examination of classifications that have become woven into lives without us even realizing it, how these classifications affect us and the way we think about things, and how they were formulated in the first place.
 
That being said, I found this book to be near impossible to get through.  The subject had great potential to be interesting, but the academic jargon and over-the-top writing style not only put me off from the get-go, but it nearly put me to sleep at the …

In Sorting Things Out:  Classification and Its Consequences, Geoffrey Bowker and Susan Leigh Star carry an indepth discussion on the politics of classification in the medical industry and the misrepresentation that results from the construction of such information.
The text (which I am still only slightly more than halfway through at this point) has made me consider the classification systems implemented in school systems and the consequences these systems have on the way of thinking for both students and teachers as well as public perception of the school system.
At the public high school …

I feel like I have a knack for picking stuff with weird names.  Either that, or there are some real strange folks naming these online applications and Web 2.0 things.  If it were up to me, I'd be calling stuff “Dragon Fire”, or “Steel Blade”, or maybe even “Crank 2: High Voltage……” (Well, come on, who's more manly and tough than Jason Statham?)  As if Twitterlicious wasn't odd enough, this week, I'll be talking about LuLu. 
 
LuLu was founded in 2002 as a way for independent publishers to publish their work (as an option …

I thoroughly enjoyed Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics.  It was a book that gave a great in-depth analysis of an art (and I know now that it is an art) that is often brushed off as being “for kids.”
The first thing that really interested me was McCloud's distinction between “realistic” and “iconic”.  I found this point to be especially powerful when, on page 36, he has a side-by-side comparison of the iconic version of himself and the realistic version of himself, stating that if he had illustrated himself in the realistic sense throughout …

WetPaint is an interesting  and interactive site that allows users to create and develop their own wiki sites.  To general consumers this service is free which is a huge benefit.   The Wetpaint site boosts that it is “The leading social publishing platform [and] brings your website the benefits of a more active user base. Your online visitors will no longer just be exposed to your brand, they will be engaged with it. They will create massive amounts of relevant content that search engines love and reward with increasing amounts of …

While working on a map of Rowan University’s campus from memory for class, I have discovered several things.  The most apparent of them was that I am a poor artist, the second was that I am also a very poor photographer, and the third was that my skill in working with various forms of technology, such as scanners, digital cameras, recorders and then putting these images into a form where others can utilize that information are horrendous.   In fact I am ashamed to admit that I did not realize that …

Having lived at Rowan for six years (4 of which I didn't own a car) and been a member of SGA, PROS freshman orientation staff, a Resident Assistant, Resident Director, a member of numerous campus planning committees and Coordinator for iMPACT! freshman leadership program, I believe I know this campus pretty well.  For me to write every memory and route taken on a map would take me a decade.
In fact in PROS, they used to make us do this very assignment, draw a mental map and place every single department …

Twine is an ambitious social bookmarking site that enables users to research, track, and share information related to their defined interests.  The application has several overarching goals, the first being to provide users with customized recommendations of content based on the individual’s search and sharing history.  (Further details are below.)  Second, Twine provides users with a variety of ways to organize the information they collect, listing interest categories that include twines, items, members with whom the users have connected, and other information.  The third overarching goal of Twine is to …

Greetings,
  I'm working through Information Ecologies by Bonnie A. Nardi and Vicki L. O'Day, and I was surprised to see how closely the questions I'm interested in mirror the ones addressed in the book.  The big question in the book is not whether an over-reliance on technology is good or bad but rather how it is affecting us.  I see a lot to like about the technology we use, but I also see drawbacks.  I want to be a good user of technology and a smart one. 
  I am …