WebLog 5

Please discuss your experiences as an internet user.  Consider Besser’s article, what are your experiences as a consumer versus creator of internet content?  How have your ICT literacy skills evolved over your lifetime with respect to Warschauer’s model (as depicted in Figure 1), the notions of literacy and ICT access (depicted in Table 1), and Warshauer’s  discussion of the six principles of literacy and the related six principles of ITC access.  How have the physical, digital, human and social resources of your life journey allowed you to effectively make use of existing information on internet as well as contribute new content?  (+/- 250 words, at least one graphic, one photo and a podcast +/- 30 sec.

 I found both of these 2 articles very interesting. While they do have good theories and thorough ideas, some of the statistics and reasoning are outdated as they were both written in the early 2000's and a lot has changed in the ICT world since. I can't really comment from internet creator's point of view because I don't create content on the web, I preliminary just use it, however I can imagine that with the evolution of technologies and the narrowing gap of ICT illiteracy and division it is much easier to create and publish new content that gets bigger exposure than ever before. As a user I noticed a huge change, every thing is much more easier to access and there is tremendous amount of information on the internet thanks to the new creator tools. Regarding Warsachauser's model, I'm sure that my ICT literacy skills developed overtime however just looking at the Figure 1 I feel like I am proficient in all of the points. The only thing I would not consider myself fully proficient in is industrial capitalism. This is because I do not create enough content to monetize off of it yet. ICT literacy skills and access are somewhat related. In order to have total access to ICT you need to be proficient in technology and know how to use it and vice versa. ICT literacy has more than one type and definition, it's all about in what context you use it in. For example if all you need to do is print off articles so you can read them later and you know how to do it you are considered proficient and literate in ICT, however if you need to know how to access the content, create it and distribute it but you don't know how to distribute it you are not fully literate. Digital Social resources have greatly developed recently and they allow me to effectively use and share information on the internet. Facebook for example, with this digital social environment its easier than ever to keep in touch with your friends and share information. Physical factors also changed greatly, now I have a smartphone in my pocket all the time, a device that is more powerful than some computers. Thanks to smartphones I can take facebook with me wherever I go and if I need to look something up on google, there it is, in front of me wherever I am in a matter of seconds. With smartphones you can also create the content and share it wherever you are, it's a beautiful thing.