Advancing with Technology

 Our last and final(s) week, reflecting on and putting together all our work done so far in this class in a neat and organized manner to show to our potential employers. Building a portfolio is similar to building a resume where you demonstrate your experience and talents to those looking to hire you. In high school, I had lots of help learning how to build a strong resume. It's nice looking at the work I've done so far and seeing how I've grown. I learned a lot in this class and I'm definitely proud of all the work I've done. I had lots of fun!

To discover the impacts the emergence of AI is having on higher education like college and university, I conducted an intervention with my friend Aaron who is studying and working in the software engineering industry where AI is having one of the biggest impacts. I asked my interviewee questions like how he feels about it, how he's used it, how it's impacting him and those around him in school, and how it's affecting his industry. I had heard a lot about AI taking people's jobs and how insures like computer engineering and computer science were being affected by it, and me being curious to learn more I chose Aaron as my candidate. It was interesting to compare what I had heard about the effects of AI on software engineering versus someone in the industry's experiences with it, especially when its popularity has been rising in other industries as well. The take away was that AI can be harmful if used incorrectly.

 This week required us to design a concept app that would benefit people with accessibility needs, further reflecting on how identity, power, and privilege affect different groups of people. We had to design an app that would address certain issues that negatively affect people with accessibility needs, how the app would be designed/operated and how it would benefit people. I chose to focus on deaf individuals and attempted to solve the issue of communication between deaf and non deaf individuals. Last week we  talked about how certain people don't have easy access to the internet or the technology needed to access  it for various reasons This made me reflect on how I myself am privileged to have the technology to reflect on the material this week and make a project on it without ease.

  I've always been well aware of how identity plays into power and privilege. I grew up lower class and went to high school with other lower class minority students. Luckily enough for me, my community has done the best they could to provide us with opportunities like a high school that provides dual enrollment and AP courses, as well as a library that provides use with computers and WiFi. One thing I have noticed growing up is that many things like institutions and technology aren't really build for handicapped people. It makes me wonder what they have to do to do simple things like accessing a computer, watching a movie or even going to the bathroom. One of my peers in high school was paralyzed from the waist down so she was in a wheel chair, fortunately my school had an elevator that allowed her to access the first and second floor of the school but the elevator often broke. I hope in the future that we can help fund more research or projects that will make technology more a...

 This week we wrapped up on our research of the unfamiliar apps we chose to explore and report on. I reported on Twitter(X), and Tumblr. This project was really fun as it forced me to delve into a completely new experience, one which I wouldn't have normally done. The project due this week has set goals on what we want to get out of joining these new websites, like learning how to interact with others or learning how to join communities, be an active member and how what we can benefit academically from them. It was nice learning and reflecting on my experiences and using that to answer the questions.

During times when information is so easily accessible for anyone, it is critical to know where and how to access reliable information and pick apart the information you read. Many people lack the skills of information, digital, and media literacy. People don't know how information is spread or how to identify wrong information. This leads to a chain reaction where people share this misinformation to others, those people share it with others, so on and so forth. So it's important that we as a collective ensure that we are navigating the internet safely. Throughout middle school and high school, I always paid close attention in my English and history classes, allowing me to learn how to look for reliable sources and analyze texts by looking deeper in between the lines. This helped me grow my literacy, as well as analyzing things I consume like video games, movies, and texts in my free time.

 For our community of practice assignment, we had to propose two social media apps to explore that we've never had the opportunity to be a part of. I chose tumblr and twitter/x. These two websites have really drawn my attention because of the reputation they have and the controversy they stir. I've always seen posts from these websites on other social media sites like instagram and it's made me curious as to what they're like. My goal is to join certain communities within these apps, interact with others and see what kind of interesting people I find.