Avatar Groupwork

1. How do you define an avatar? Enumerate the consensus definition.

    An avatar is an online representation of a computer user that may reflect his/her identity. Since there are different types of computer users, an avatar can be project in different ways. It may be the person's projection or idealization, or it can just be any experimented character that the user wants to be seen as. In short, in can illustrate the user's appearance and personality or it may be the opposite. The appearance of an avatar depends on the computer user's motivation or purpose.

2. Does definition of what character or personality your avatar has would only be defined in the role-playing games? Explain your answers.

    No, an avatar would not only be defined in role-playing games because it is also a representation of oneself. Avatars can be an image of a person in a virtual world and it reflects his/her appearance, hobbies and interests. Basically, there is no rule in creating your own avatar an it can be anything under the sun 

3. Do you want to be defined as an individual or entity virtually based on your avatar or online name? Why or why not.

    The group all wanted not to be judged based on his/her own avatar or online name. Even though we believe that an avatar may be a reflection of one's personality, it cannot fully define you as a person. Your avatar or online name might have a different meaning for other people and they might misinterpret it. This is why it is important that we should not judge a person by merely basing it on the virtual world. 

4. Do you find any significance of having a purposeful avatar or online identity?

    Creating an avatar and treating it as a display picture to any of one's social networks or any online account is important since it represents oneself. It reflects the values, attitudes, and personalities of the owner which might affect on how people should treat the person. Having an interesting avatar also catches the attention of the viewers. At the same time, it can also tell something about the activities of a person.

5. Does having multiple characters imply negative or positive impact to the person? Give at least two examples and explain your answers.

    Having multiple characters online can actually bring both positive and negative impacts to the person.

    Example #1: A blogger changes his display picture or avatar from a basketball player to a golf player. Let's say from Lebron James to Tiger Woods because he decided to form a new content for his blog because of the change in his interests.

    Positive: Due to the change of his display picture, it might catch the attention of his followers which will cause the users to visit his page. This means that there is a big change that a lot of people will see his blog. It can also be a good part for the owner because he had this freedom to change the picture according to the type of article he is working on. Moreover, the new avatar will speak for the owner's work itself.

    Negative: Changing the display picture can cause people to unfollow the owner maybe because they don't recognize or they are not familiar with the new image. This means that a fewer number of people will read the blog. Changing the image in this case also means taking the risk since the owner is not yet sure of his specific audience because a change of theme also means change of audience. It might bring a hard time for the owner to look for new followers.

    Example #2: A Yahoo! Messenger user changes her avatar from a simple to an exaggerated one.

    Positive: She was able to have this sense of fulfillment of using the application's features about customizing the avatar. It's also part of experimenting or editing the avatar because she used it to picture her goal like "a picture of what she wanted to be". It's one way of telling people that there's a change/you want to change.

    Negative: It might not reflect who she really is and her chatmates might have a thinking that she is having a wrong avatar for herself. There might be a misunderstanding that can come along the way.

6. If you will be asked to make an avatar for yourself today as a Social Being in the #Socmed class, how will you draw your avatar? And what #onlinename will you use?

Andrea: I will make my avatar similar to my physical self as much as possible. I will also include some other stuff that can show my likes. For example, I can wear my favorite color or style of outfit. As usual, my online name would be Baorea which orignated from Baolong + Andrea. Baolong is the nickname of my favorite star Jerry Yan back in grade school.

Aica: My avatar should look like me. As much as possible, I want to see it as just a portrait of myself which has been animated. I want to keep it simple since it reflects my personality. The online name I am going to use might be: #aiczkey, #aiczzz, or #glitzyONE. Both #aiczkey and #aiczzz are termed after my nickname. #aiczkey was given to me by a classmate when we were in high school. Some people call me #aiczzz though I introduced myself to them as Aica. #glitzyONE is the username I have for this online game, Gunbound. 

http://aiczzz.blogspot.com/

Luigi:

http://ramoner.blogspot.com/

Bon: I wil make my avatar look like a pirate. I will picture my avatar with a bass guitar. I would name it 'theb0n' or since I always use that online name.

http://arawigum.blogspot.com/

My Avatar

Baorea

via Weemee

This avatar reflects my personality because it shows my favorite color which is green. It also shows my addiction to icecream because it holds a sundae. It's physical appearance is also similar to mine especially the hair and the headband. I also often wear this kind of outfit, so I chose this design.

The Youtube Experience

I have always considered youtube as a spectacular Web 2.0 innovation due to its sharing features that can benefit many people. I can say that youtube has a positive impact to me because I can have the opportunity to access different kinds of information anytime for free. I can listen to the songs of my favourite artists, watch music videos or recent movie trailers and I can see interesting and funny home videos of other people. Youtube is definitely the easiest way to entertainment. Many people are even discovered in here making them “youtube sensations” such as, Charice Pempengco and Arnel Pineda. Furthermore, youtube helps me to share my own videos to my family, friends and even for academic purposes. With this, people from different places are able to share their works and may update us to different happenings and perspectives in the world.

These benefits of youtube also show that we can also use it as a tool to improve education in the Philippines. Since the use of youtube is free as long as you have internet access, students can search for academic videos for their assignments, research papers and other school related works. There are many tutorial videos in almost any subject like Calculus, Algebra, Programming etc. With this, students can have a different kind of learning style because they are able to get information from other people.  Although, one must be careful in choosing credible videos because there are also fake uploaders that shares wrong information. Moreover, people can use youtube as a self-study tool especially if they don’t have the money to get a formal education or hire a tutor/teacher.  

Youtube has existed for a couple of years now and we can really see how it’s slowly evolving. Each day, thousands of people upload their own videos and information gets wider. I believe that in 10 years youtube can have two futures. Youtube can either be very powerful or it can collapse. It can be so powerful that we may not need to use television anymore. This is because, it can be the primary source of business opportunities and advertising. On the other hand, it can also fall because it may not be up-to-date anymore because there will be new kinds of websites or other forms of technology that is better in sharing. Either way, I still believe that youtube is the perfect tool for us to be updated and communicate to other people in the world.

Real Leaders

Blog reaction from: http://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2010/08/benjamin-frankl.html

The blog Benjamin Franklin and deliberate practice shows the other side of being a prominent person. We look up to many outstanding persons, and we sometimes tell ourselves we can never be one. We admire their impressive works, yet envy them for their skills, talents and advantages.  “Being great only comes to the selected few,” is the typical belief of people.  However, the story of Benjamin Franklin says otherwise
.

 As a magnificent writer who is idolized by many, I never thought that he also experienced criticism. I was inspired how Benjamin didn’t hesitate to improve all his essays word by word. He doesn’t stop for a certain goal and he continues to achieve higher standards. He does more than what is expected from him and is willing to listen to what others can say. Unlike others who shuts themselves, Benjamin is open for improvements.  His story also proves that “practice makes perfect.” He is very persistent and eager to learn new things which gave him the resolve to do his best.

I hope all leaders can learn from Benjamin’s persistence. They should listen to their colleagues and also be open for improvements. This is because, a real leader must not look in only one view, but different perspectives. Indeed, being great doesn’t t only come to chosen people, but to those people who are eager and determined. 

안녕하세요! - Annyeong Haseyo!

 The year 2004 was probably the time when Korean drama addiction was at its peak in the Philippines. This is why, one of my favorite childhood memories was our family trip in Korea last January 2004 ( I was 10 years old). That tour was my second out of the country trip after Hongkong and I was very excited to see the country that I’ve always adore. I was very thrilled to see the places where my favorite Korean idols go and the famous spots where their dramas are shot. Some of these places are the Lotte World- the amusement park in Stairway to Heaven and Full House, Nami Island from Endless Love Winter Sonata, The Royal Palaces of numerous historical dramas and many more.

The well-known sites are not the only reason why I loved this trip. The trip was very unforgettable because it was my first experience of winter/ snow. I believe many Filipinos also wishes to experience snow since our climate is very hot. As a child, I was envious of the children in other cold countries because they can enjoy the wonders of snow by having snowball fights, making snow mans, creating snow angels and the like. I also had my first ski experience in Korea and it was very fun, yet challenging. It looks easy to do in televisions, but it is actually difficult to balance the ski and smoothly drive into the snow. We went skiing in Mt. Sorak and the temperature was below zero degrees (-15 degrees at most), but I didn’t feel very cold back then because I kept falling while skiing. I also remember when I opened the refrigerator at the hotel to put our ice cream, I thought it was broken because I wasn’t able to feel its chill. I realized that it was because it was colder outside, so I just buried the ice cream in the snow. My childhood friends who were also craving to experience winter, asked me to get them snow “pasalubongs”. As a naïve and foolish kid, what I did was to put balls of snow in a small container and brought it back in the Philippines. Obviously, it melt when I showed them to my friends and we just laughed.

Truly, Korea is such a wonderful place that I would always want to go back to. I hope my friends can also experience going there especially those Kdrama-addicts. They have such wonderful culture and tourist spots that everyone will surely enjoy and love.

 Snow Fight at Nami Island

Mt. Sorak

First Skiing!!

Famous Mural from Stairway to Heaven :">