MY PORTFOLIO WEBPAGE

http://www.users.muohio.edu/coorsat/ims/splash.html

This Old Phone? Good Enough for Me

The article that I  read for this week is called  "This Old Phone? Good Enough for Me" by Matt Richtel. This article talks about the cell phone industry and how it has taken a hard hit in this time of recession. 

The marketing research firm, In-Stat,  estimates in its latest report which was released Tuesday,  that shipments of cell phones will drop 20.5 percent worldwide in the next year. It also predicts that the percent of cell phone subscribers will drop from a growth of 19.3 percent  last year to a 9.8 percent growth this year. Most people at this point already have a cell phone and no one has the money to make an upgrade at this point.

This article hits close to home for me because recently I dropped my cell phone in water and it broke. At first, I just assumed that I would go home and get a new one the next weekend, however, when I got to the store, every cell phone i looked at was at-least $150... Therefore, now I am using one of my brothers beat-up old cell phone. But at this point, I rather have this then drop $150 on a new one that I will probably end up breaking eventually anyways.

Making Sense of New Prices on Apple’s iTunes

The article that I read for this week was called Making Sense of New Prices on Apple’s iTunes  by Brad Stone. On April 7th, iTunes great 99 cent prices for every song is being changed to a three tier pricing system where not so good oldies are 69 cents, old songs are 99 cents and new songs are now priced at $1.29 per song.

This new change is not so good for someone like me who loves music and is always buying new songs that just come out. However, if you are someone who does not use apple products, such as a different brand mp3 player you could benefit from this. With raising the price, Apple agreed to remove the DRM protection off the music files so now these songs can be played through different players.

Skype, the Web Phone Giant, Brings Cheap Calls to Cellular

The article that I read for this week is called "Skype, the Web Phone Giant, Brings Cheap Calls to Cellular." If you don't know, Skype is an internet calling service that uses web cams so you can view the person you are talking to over the computer. I currently use Skype about once a week to talk to my brother who is in the Marines and is now in Japan. It is nice because I am able to see him and talk to him over the computer for free, however, i have to be on my computer to be able to do it.

Now, Skype is moving on to mobile phones. They are planning to make their free software available right away for for people with an iPhone or an iTouch and at the beginning of may they plan to also make it availible for people with blackberry phones. Many cellular companies have had their eye on programs like Skype, threatened that if it was to go on to mobile phones, then people would use Skype for things like text messeging(which would be free) instead of using the data plans that they would otherwise have to pay for. I think that it was a good idea for AT&T to bring Skype onto their network because I think it will draw a lot more customer to them, as did the iPhone.

An All-Electric Sedan, Awaiting Federal Aid

The article I read called, An All-Electric Sedan, Awaiting Federal Aid, is talks about Telsa Motors and their new car they are planning to create, however during this time in the econemy, they cannot start to produce it without around $450 million dollars in goverment loan. It is called the Model S and it will be the first all- electric sedan which will begin the generation of fossil-free cars. This car will cost between $57,400 and $49,900, however, if you take into account how much you save in gas prices, it would be equivilent to buying a $35,000 sedan. The battery takes 45 minutes to charge and can run for 300 miles on each charge. As for the amount of space it has, it can hold 5 adults and two children rear facing seats in the back. This car is equipped with a touch screen and internet, which is stored under the hood. Depending on if they get the goverment loan or not, they are hoping for the Model S to be ready by mid 2011.

In my opinion, I think that this is really cool and the start of something big. I hope that they are able to get that goverment loan and start the production of the car which they say will take around 24-30 months. Telsa also has a waiting list where you can reserve one of the first 2,000 cars produced if you put down $4,000. They are also using this money to help finance the sedan. Elon Musk, the company's cheif executive says that “This car will be manufactured, it will come to market. You should have zero doubt about that."

My Favorite Things

Favorite Things

I'm going to write out some of my favorite things, so
you can learn more about me. I hope you like it.

• light blue


• www.google.com


• the beach


• MyMiami
  

Adler, Richard P. and Brown, John S. (2008). Minds on fire: Open education, the
long tail, and learning 2.0. EDUCAUSE Review, 43(1), 1.

I think it is really interesting how this article puts web 2.0 learning styles into perspective and shows you how web 2.o is changing the ways we are leaning today even though we might not even realize it. This IMS class is the first class ever where I have had to use a blog and the first time I have used a blog in general. Although I am still getting used to it, I am starting to like it a lot. I think it definitely brings into perspective a new way of learning. Although we still learn in class from the teacher, we are also learning new things from the students in the class as well as the teacher learning new things from us.
I chose this article because it really goes into the different learning styles that you can take away from Web 2.0. Just to start out, it talks about how over the past few years “we have created building blocks that could provide the means for transforming the ways for which we provide education and support learning” through the growth of the internet being used in both formal and informal ways providing educational resources to most anyone who wants them. It goes on to talk about social learning and how it involves active participation and different experiments that have been done in order to figure out what ways the students are learning best. This article describes how the Web 2.0 movement is changing the ways in which we are learning. “Educators, along with students, are learning among and between themselves.”