Best Blog Posts

1. Soccer is Fake News!

• This meets the in class criteria of extending course readings to the context of current events.  This was a perfect example of how fake news is used these days to help newspapers and online news sources make money, and how people take advantage of outrageous claims to get attention.  I attempted to make it interesting by providing a funny video that makes fun of transfer rumors, as well as having a funny tweet of a real player replying to fake transfer rumors.
• It has a question at the end encouraging people to give their view on how fake news is such a big problem in soccer, and give them a chance to discuss what they think will happen in the future in regards to the topic.  I also added humor to it in the form of a picture and video to make sure it is not all text,  so it is not boring.  It offers a take on a very real problem that I encounter almost daily as a soccer fan, and something all soccer fans would have an opinion on.
• Some of the features that I was able to use in this blog were humor to make it more engaging, discussion through a question at the end, and just being able to write about something I really have an opinion on and care about

2. The Power of Wikis

• I tried to create conversation by writing about a different view than we took in class.  Many of the articles we read were about how Wikipedia was bad quality due to the nature of how it is made, yet I realized that I use wikis all the time to find out information about many different everyday things.  This was an extension of course readings to a similar topic, but more broad about wikis as a whole, and seemed to really get people interested in discussion.
• In this case, I tried to use a picture of an example of when I had to use a wiki to break up the text, but I could not find a way to use a video or add a sense of humor.  In this case, I aimed more for discussion by offering a different view on the topic and asking a question at the end.  In addition to this, I tried to make it informative by adding articles that talked about the potential business uses of wikis, so it applied to more than just hobbies and gaming, but to the professional world.
• This blog was another one that I was really interested in writing as I use wikis all the time, especially for gaming but also for TV shows.  It encouraged discussion by giving people an alternative way to view wikis, not just as a bad thing but a very useful thing, and discuss and realize the many ways they use them in everyday life.

The Usefulness of the Internet

In the article about what makes things go viral, it was mentioned that people will share stuff because, “It allows people to feel like there’s a nice packet of useful information that they can share with others.” Believe it or not, the internet has articles and videos on it that have actual practical value in life.  In this day and age where memes and viral videos rule over everything, I feel we sometimes overlook how useful some stuff on the internet can really be.  Whether it is be going on WebMD to see what fatal disease you have, or going to Buzzfeed to look at reliable news and quality articles that would be impossible to live without, the internet is so useful and diverse.

The internet is full of many useful things, one of which is how to videos on YouTube (yes, there is actually useful videos on YouTube).  How to videos are huge on YouTube and I am sure that many of the people reading this have likely used one at some point to figure out how to do some household task, or how to do a homework problem.  Here is an example of a very useful how to video about how to fix a cracked screen, one that I actually used to fix a crack on my phone.

Beyond just how to videos, there a a variety of other things that are useful on the internet, like news.  The internet is obviously the only way to find out about news these day, and without this news source, people would struggle to learn about new and important things happening in the world.  An example of important news is this article about a new amazon service that I cannot wait to take advantage of!

Online communities are another useful thing on the internet.  They can be for anything from video games to just everyday life, and they give people a place to discuss their problems.  Online communities give people a chance to talk with people who have been through similar experiences and help people through tough situations.  This article talks about the potential healing power that online communities can offer, even though many may believe the internet is a place where people tear each other down.

We often seem to overlook how useful the internet is in modern day life, and how often we use it when we face a problem.  What useful things do you use the internet for?