Update

Just checking in to let myself know I am still alive and on task!

I have been frantically going through my NED11 assignment 1 and trying to gather enough skill to integrate my learnings, while I almost succumb to the noway out of here but failure it the only option thought after days and nights of brain strain and non advancement. But I didn’t succumb and I handed the Assignment in.

The process that I went through was in the end like most things really beneficial to my knowledge and skills in both NED11 and NET11. I have been doing a lot of research for my assignment and have learn’t a great deal more about the WWW than I ever realized. I now have a greater understanding of the Internet’s power and the daily global use and reliance most people are now faced with. I realize a deep connection between business success and failure dependent upon not only a web presence but also the usability, function, layout, and authorship of a web site. There is a deep connection with mediocrity and failure when particular products or businesses have no web presence or a poor one. And conversely there are many instances where a simple idea has catapulted into the realms of extreme success, mainly from a well made web site.

I see from this that all the learning and skills that i am developing are extremely important to my future endevours in business and lifestyle, and without a thorough understanding of using and interacting with the Internet I will find myself by the way side in a very short space of time. The Internet is not only a technological and information platform used on the side, but it is fast becoming a normal and daily routine of interaction that we depend upon to advance through the days activities of banking, mail, current affairs, business affairs and social communication and interaction to name a few.

I guess I’m on the right track being here then! I’m EXCITED!

 

Module 5

Info-Communication Concepts

Nardi & O’Day, however, suggest that we might view technologies as an ecological system:

“We define an information ecology to be a system of people, practices, values, and technologies in a particular local environment. In information ecologies, the spotlight is not on technology, but on human activities that are served by technology.” (Nardi & O’Day, 1999)

A fascinating way to look at the Internet.. I have previously look at the Internet as a place of evil and a menace to the simplicity and freedom of being on the Earth. I have however developed a new approach and understanding of the Internet and find it more a modern tool for living and interacting within the modern world of technological day to day activities, while providing a platform to connect with current information and knowledge about the natural world and interacting in it.

I do however think this term is another manifested word that has been created as man quickly leaves the natural world, and attempts to live in a man made only world. Man is capable of creating eco-systems of sorts, but not ecologies that can flourish and flow with a healthy harmonious life external from the natural world. To begin with all the technology that we use comes from the Earth originally, so if man was to create an ecology of his own from materials on the Earth, while living on the Earth, he must surely understand the dire need for harmony between dependent ecologies in order to be at any level of balance. And we are dependent upon the Earth for many may things. The Information Ecology has developed on its own and separate from any balance with the Natural global ecology of life on Earth. This progression has caused directly and indirectly massive Earth ecological disasters, deaths, pollution, chaos, wars, rape and depletion of many natural life currents. Not a healthy way to live and create. An outsider can clearly see where this is heading.

“Healthy information ecologies take time to grow, just as rain forests and coral reefs do. An information ecology begins with our own efforts to influence the shape and direction of the technologies we use and the settings in which we use them. We urge people to get involved in the evolution of their information ecologies – jump into the primordial soup, stir it around, and make as many waves as possible.”

“We feel a sense of urgency about the need to take control of our information ecologies, to inject our own values and needs into them so that we are not overwhelmed by some of our technological tools.”
Information Ecologies: Using technology with heart, Bonnie A Nardi &Vicki l. O’Day

 Great words! I do feel a great need to understand and manipulate information as I believe that the only way to be free, happy and healthy is to understand your situation, and most peoples situations in the modern world rely on technology and information. I feel that by better understanding the modern Information Ecology I will be better prepared to choose my future more appropriately, rather than having the future dictate my life, and in the process I have the power to help the Information Ecology grow and flourish.