WEEK 1: Introduction to Module 1: What's in a name?
I enjoyed the first week of WEB101 and survived it ok. It all seemed a bit daunting at first but after I looked through the work that I had to do, I realised it wasn't as bad as I thought. I managed to find my way around the Blackboard and download all of my assignments and work that I needed to complete for the week. I introduced myself to my tutors and fellow students on the discussion board and I found out there are a lot of people studying this unit. For this weeks activities I had to go to the namechk.com website and establish a common username for sites like, Delicious, Twitter, Blogger, Wordpress, Flickr, LinkedIn and Friendfeed. If I was already a member of a particular site I had to perform a search to see the availability of my existing username, it was a lot of fun.
WEEK 2: 1.1 What is the Internet?
I am a bit more relaxed this week and starting to get used to studying for university, I am getting through the work a bit better and feel more confident. I completed all that I needed to for this week and I am also working on my first assignment, which I am a bit nervous about. I really enjoyed the activities I had to do this week which were "Routing in Action", where I had to do a proxy trace on the headquarters of Wikipedia.org, Amazon.com and Flickr.com. For the second activity "Who owns what?", I had to perform checks on domain names like, Flickr.com, Youtube.com, Mickey.com, Google.com and Yahoo.com to see who owns them, Flickr and Youtube were owned by Markmonitor, Mickey was owned by Melbourne IT Ltd, and Yahoo and Google own their own respective sites. On the discussion board I explained that my earliest memory of using the Internet was back in 2000 where I used it at work, mainly for emails and to do research.
WEEK 3: 1.2... and what is the World Wide Web?
I am learning all about the world wide web this week which should be interesting, although my daughter is off sick from school the poor thing so I have to take time away from my studies to look after her, I just hope I can keep up with it all. I have nearly finished working on assignment no.1 and just hope it is ok. For this weeks activity I had to use archive.org's wayback machine and look at various websites from years ago to see how they have evolved, I looked at: Apple.com (Oct '96), Google.com (Nov '98), Wikipedia.org (Jul '01), and Dominos.com (Feb '97). The old websites were all really basic and bland with no pictures and boring to look at compared to what they are today. I had a lot of fun looking back at those websites and seeing how much they have changed. On the discussion board ( 27/6/11, Official Thread: and what is the World Wide Web?) I agreed with Kristy and Natale with regards to online shopping, I said that online shopping is great, especially for people who for some reason, say ill health cannot get to the shops. The one drawback that I found is a couple of times I have ordered goods online and I have not received them, trying to find out what has happened to the items I purchased was a nightmare.
WEEK 4: 2.0 What is Web 2.0?
Off to a good start this week, my daughter is a lot better and is back at school so I should be able to get a lot of the work done. I really enjoyed watching the first video (Web 2.0....The machine is Us/ing Us) from this weeks module, it was very clever and well made. I also enjoyed the video by Clay Shirky Web 2.0 Lecture called "Here Comes Everybody" I found it fascinating, he is a really good speaker and I enjoyed listening to him. For this weeks activity I had to join the website Delicious and bookmark a few sites that relate to WEB101 and the work we are doing, which I enjoyed. I answered the question that Ainslie posted on the discussion board " Do you think Tim Berners-Lees intentions for the net are being realised through the concept of Web 2.0?" I said yes as Web 2.0 is what Tim Berners-Lees tried to create in the first place, Web 2.0 is people to people and that is what Web 1.0 was supposed to be all along. Tim Berners-Lees maintains that Web 2.0 is really just an extension of his original ideas of the Web, that does not warrant a special moniker. I am learning so much and I am finding this unit very challenging.
WEEK 5: 2.1 Blogging
This week was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it, I learnt a lot about blogging which basically started out as a few simple online diaries to what they are today. Anybody can contribute content to a blog, on any topic that they choose for the world to read. The weekly activity was to sign up to Google Reader and subscribe to many different websites. I came across some very interesting sites but one in particular was "Old Picture of the Day". This was a very interesting site with very old historical pictures. I came across a picture of the first Laptop computer which came out in 1981, cost $1,800 and weighed 25 pounds, I posted this on the discussion board and Deepti had a laugh at how small the screen on the old laptop was compared to her new Laptop. I enjoyed the readings this week by Rebecca Blood called "Weblogs: a history and perspective" and the reading by J. Rettberg called "Bloggs, Communities and Networks in Blogging". I am finding this unit very interesting and very challenging, I am getting a lot out of it.
Photo by PJM, Old Picture of the Day
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