The Importance of Information Literacy (Revised)

            Information literacy is an extremely important concept to grasp, especially for those people who are in college.  Being able to sift through the millions upon millions of pieces of information that are available is an extremely vital part of being successful in college.  The technology options that our society is able to use have changed the amount of information that can be accessed and the ways that it can be sorted through.

            In the early stages of organizing information, the sources that were stored in a library were listed on cards.  A person would have to search though thousands of cards to find the sources that related to their topic.  Also, if they were searching for multiple topics then they would have to search through a different set of cards and compare their results with their previous search and see if there are any sources that encompass both ideas.  With the advancements of technology, the information that was previously on these cards is stored on a database on the computer and searches can be done to do the work that took many minutes and condensed it to a few seconds.  This is one of the major milestone steps that libraries around the world have taken to simplify the previously taxing process.

            The amount of information that people were able to access previously was very limited because of the resources that they had.  In today’s world, information from across the world is and the fingertips of millions of people through databases.  A database is a compilation of works that include newspapers, magazines, journals, scholarly works, books, and many others.  They even include audio sources that include interviews from important people and other things.  With all of this information so easily accessible the world has become a much more educated place.

            The world we live in is changing exponentially every day.  The information that we have access to is limitless and that is why information literacy is extremely important.  Being able to decipher what information is truthful, accurate, and relevant is extremely important, especially in the college world.  The databases that Siena College has chosen for its students to use are one of the ways that we can be sure that the students are using secure sources.  With the help of the librarians, sifting through the information has become more efficient and less stressful.

Experiences Relate to Our Readings

            The Dragonfly Effect by Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith (with Carlye Adler) is a book about “quick, effective, and powerful ways to used social media to drive social change” (cover).  According to their model, social change can be compared to a dragonfly by the way that it is broken down.  It is broken down into the body of the dragonfly and its four wings.  The body stands for the goal which all the wings are helping to achieve.  The four wings stand for Focus, Grab Attention, Engage, and Take Action.  The wings of the dragonfly can be related to more than social change in businesses.  For example, Wing Two:  Grabbing Attention, has been used in our first year seminar class.

            There were many different design principles that explain how to grab the attention of the audience that you are trying to reach out to.  One of the ways that the book said was effective was to use visual helpers.  According to a study, people who only listen to a presentation only retain about ten percent of the information given while presentations that included visuals along with audio had people retaining about fifty percent of the information.  This relates to our class because when our guest speaker came in and spoke to us about service learning, she gave her presentation with a visual slideshow of pictures that she had taken throughout her life.  Also, during our visit to the library Mr. Conley used a visual aid when he was showing us about the different parts of the library on the siena.edu website.  As you can see, visual aids help people retain more information.

            Another one of the design principles that The Dragonfly Effect outlines in Wing Two is the fact that unexpected things grab audiences and make them want to learn more.  The things that we do in our first year seminar are not what I had imagined going into college.  I was expecting lecture halls and classes with desks but I have been proven wrong.  We go to many places and learn hands on instead of learning through books and paperwork.  Out of the classes that I am taking right now, this is one of my favorites because of the unexpected and exciting things that we do every day.  As you can see, the aspects of Wing Two of The Dragonfly Effect can be used for more than just campaigns.

People Helping to Shape the World, One Outreach Center at a Time (Revised)

            Personal experience and social change run hand-in-hand.  I define personal experience as the way that people treat others and the respect that they have for each other, despite their situations or their backgrounds.  In order for social change to occur, people need to work hard, and sacrifice some of the luxuries in their lives for others that are not as fortunate as themselves.  By recognizing that everyone is human and should be treated equally, the world will become a more peaceful and happy place to live.  The St. John’s/St. Ann’s outreach center epitomizes social change by giving the people that depend on it to live all the luxuries that they can under the circumstances that they are under. 

            One of the main things that the St. John’s/St. Ann’s outreach center acts as is a local food bank.  The people who live within the southern region of Albany are allowed to come to the food pantry as long as they show a proof of address within 30 days.  One of the ways that the outreach center tries to help the people who go to the center, besides the obvious fact of giving them food, is to let the customers pick their own food like they were in a grocery store.  This gives those who are less fortunate who come to the center for food feel like they have some freedom in the choices that they make for themselves and for their families.  This is just one of many things that the St. John’s/ St. Ann’s outreach center does for its constituents.

              Another thing that the outreach center does for its people is called the “Welcome Table”.  This is a meal that is offered on Tuesdays and Saturdays from 11:30 a.m. until 1:00 p.m.  Instead of having the customers come and grab the food that they want and sit down, the outreach center acts as its own restaurant.  There are waiters/waitresses, people order what they want, and they are not forced out at any time.  This gives the outreach center’s people the sense of freedom and happiness because most of the people who come to the center cannot afford to go to a restaurant and eat a meal.

            Social change is an important part of the world we live in today.  Without the people that work towards the common goal of making the world we live in a better place, we would not be as well off as we are.  The extra lengths that the people who volunteer at the St. John’s/St. Ann’s outreach center take to make the people they serve happier and free makes all the difference in the world.  If there were more people like the volunteers at the outreach center in the world today, the world would be a much better, understanding, and peaceful place to be.

My "aha" Moment

My "aha" moment was last year on this day.  This is the time where I learned how a community can come together can support each other after a tragedy.  My friend Austin committed suicide on this day last year and it was a giant loss for his friends, his family, and the entire school/community.  Instead of taking the grief and putting a negative spin on it, the people of the community rallied together in many ways including creating t-shirts and bracelets with his name, his football number (43) and his lacrosse number (14).  That Friday is when I really learned how a community can become a family.  That day at school, everyone wore black and orange, our school colors.  There was not a person who wasn’t wearing black or orange, even those who did not know him.  During the football game that night, we had a white out to represent Austin and the life of joy that he lived.  Directly after the game there was a candlelight vigil where the entire school gathered on the football field around his number and name that had been painted on the ground in the middle of the field.  We shared a lot of memories, a lot of laughs, and a lot of tears but we got through the pain together.  We are not just a school or a community, WE ARE A FAMILY. J

The Importance of Information Literacy

           Information literacy is an extremely important concept to grasp, especially for those people who are in college.  Being able to sift through the millions upon millions of pieces of information that are available is an extremely vital part of being successful in college.  The technology options that our society is able to use have changed the amount of information that can be accessed and the ways that it can be sorted through.

            In the early stages of organizing information, the sources that were stored in a library were listed on cards.  A person would have to search though thousands of cards to find the sources that related to their topic.  Also, if they were searching for multiple topics then they would have to search through a different set of cards and compare their results with their previous search and see if there are any sources that encompass both ideas.  With the advancements of technology, the information that was previously on these cards is stored on a database on the computer and searches can be done to do the work that took many minutes and condensed it to a few seconds.  This is one of the major milestone steps that libraries around the world have taken to simplify the previously taxing process.

            The amount of information that people were able to access previously was very limited because of the resources that they had.  In today’s world, information from across the world is and the fingertips of millions of people through databases.  A database is a compilation of works that include newspapers, magazines, journals, scholarly works, books, and many others.  They even include audio sources that include interviews from important people and other things.  With all of this information so easily accessible the world has become a much more educated place.

            The world we live in is changing exponentially every day.  The information that we have access to is limitless and that is why information literacy is extremely important.  The databases that Siena College has chosen for its students to use are one of the ways that we can be sure that they are using secure sources.  If a student decides to go off the path to education that Siena College has set for them, they might be having problems in their future when it comes to the legitimacy of their information in their papers.

The Development of Technology through Apple (Revised)

            Apple has guided the development of technology in many different and innovative ways over the course of the past few years.  They have established themselves as the worldwide leader in electronic innovation by doing business in four different continents in eleven different countries.  They have made a name for themselves internationally by having 62% of their sales being overseas.  The advances that Apple has made to the world though the modernizations that it has created with its products have changed the way that the world runs today. 

            The development of technology has been a very long and taxing road but it has come to place of great inventions and ideas that people want more and more of.  Less than thirty years ago, computers in the home were a rare occurrence.  Now, through the advances that Apple has made with its products, computers are in almost every household and usually in multiples.  Internet can also be accessed on many different devices that Apple makes including the iPhone, the iPod touch, and the iPad.  Through these changes in technology, the power of the internet is at the fingertips of millions of people worldwide.

            Many businesses around the world harness the power of Apple products to make their businesses as efficient as possible.  One of the companies that have decided to use Apple products in order to further their business is General Electric Company.  They have even gone to the lengths of creating many of their own apps that help them with many of their business ventures.  For example, they have created an app that will help them monitor their wind turbines so that if something goes wrong, they will know before they have to manually inspect them.  This is just one of many apps that GE has created to help further itself in the economic world we live in today.

            The products that Apple has created are used for more than just work.  One of the main reasons why Apple makes these products is for entertainment.  Many people around the world own multiple Apple products and the company wanted to make it easier for them to keep everything in one place.  They have created iCloud.  This is a revolutionary advancement that will keep all of a person’s information from all of their different Apple products in one place.  Also, the iCloud makes all of the information accessible on every Apple device that they own.  This is phenomenal step in the way of technology innovation.

            Apple has changed the way that we think about technology and in turn changed the way that the world operates.  Without them, I do not think that technological advances would have progressed as much as they have.

Service-Learning Changes the World

            Service-learning is a two way street.  On the one hand, service includes giving back to the community and bettering the place that you and many others live.  On the other hand, learning entails that you are learning about the people, places, and things around you as well as learning about yourself along the way.  Experiencing both of these things at the same time will help some people understand the world around them and appreciate what they have been blessed with.  Through the stories and experiences that our guest speaker shared with us during today’s class, it is extremely obvious that she has learned a lot about herself and about the world around her.

            Kelly attended the University of Richmond for four years and in that time span her life completely changed for the better.  She went into college thinking that she was going to be a leadership major and though all the experiences that she had during her college career, ended up creating her own major.  She took advantage of so many different opportunities that were offered to her including studying abroad in Spain for an entire year trying to help the greater good.  One of the things that stuck out in my mind from her presentation today was the following quote:  “Social change has less to do with your personal leadership skills but more about uplifting others to work towards their own empowerment.”   These are the words that she has based her life off of and they are very powerful.  I believe that this quote means that if you focus more on helping others be the best that they can be, you will have accomplished more than if you had focused on your own skills.

            Some of the ways that Kelly embraced this concept was, as mentioned before, traveling abroad.  She has traveled to many places including Spain, Guatemala, and Ireland.  While she was on these trips, she did many things to help the people around her such as renovating old cooking shacks so that the people would not be inhaling as much soot and dying early on in their lives.  One of the main things that she studied and ended up writing her senior thesis on was about refugee camps all over the world.  She learned that the fate of the people in the refugee camps was based off of a lottery ticket.  If your number was called, then you were allowed to leave the camp and make a life for yourself in a first world country.  While in Richmond, she was actually fortunate enough to meet someone who was at one of these refugee camps and was making a life for herself in the United States.  The most humbling part was the fact that she found out the woman she was talking too, Abuk, was exactly the same age that Kelly was, 19.

            The advantages of service-learning are never ending.  The people who dedicate their lives to this type of work are owed so much.  Without people like Kelly trying to make a difference across the world, planet Earth would be a terrible place to live.

People Helping to Shape the World, One Outreach Center at a Time

            Personal experience and social change run hand-in-hand.  In order for social change to occur, people need to work hard, and sacrifice some of the luxuries in their lives for others that are not as fortunate as themselves.  By recognizing that everyone is human and should be treated equally, the world will become a more peaceful and happy place to live.  The St. John’s/St. Ann’s outreach center epitomizes social change by giving the people that depend on it to live all the luxuries that they can under the circumstances that they are under. 

            One of the main things that the St. John’s/St. Ann’s outreach center acts as is a local food bank.  The people who live within the southern region of Albany are allowed to come to the food pantry as long as they show a proof of address within 30 days.  One of the ways that the outreach center tries to help the people who go to the center, besides the obvious fact of giving them food, is to let the customers pick their own food like they were in a grocery store.  This gives those who are less fortunate who come to the center for food feel like they have some freedom in the choices that they make for themselves and for their families.  This is just one of many things that the St. John’s/ St. Ann’s outreach center does for its constituents.

              Another thing that the outreach center does for its people is called the “Welcome Table”.  This is a meal that is offered on Tuesdays and Saturdays from 11:30 a.m. until 1:00 p.m.  Instead of having the customers come and grab the food that they want and sit down, the outreach center acts as its own restaurant.  There are waiters/waitresses, people order what they want, and they are not forced out at any time.  This gives the outreach center’s people the sense of freedom and happiness because most of the people who come to the center cannot afford to go to a restaurant and eat a meal.

            Social change is an important part of the world we live in today.  Without the people that work towards the common goal of making the world we live in a better place, we would not be as well off as we are.  The extra lengths that the people who volunteer at the St. John’s/St. Ann’s outreach center take to make the people they serve happier and free makes all the difference in the world.

The Development of Technology through Apple

            Apple has guided the development of technology in many different and innovative ways over the course of the past few years.  They have established themselves as the worldwide leader in electronic innovation by doing business in four different continents in eleven different countries.  They have made a name for themselves internationally by having 62% of their sales being overseas.  The advances that Apple has made to the world though the modernizations that it has created with its products have changed the way that the world runs today. 

            The development of technology has been a very long and taxing road but it has come to place of great inventions and ideas that people want more and more of.  Less than thirty years ago, computers in the home were a rare occurrence.  Now, through the advances that Apple has made with its products, computers are in almost every household and usually in multiples.  Internet can also be accessed on many different devices that Apple makes including the iPhone, the iPod touch, and the iPad.  Through these changes in technology, the power of the internet is at the fingertips of millions of people worldwide.

            Many businesses around the world harness the power of Apple products to make their businesses as efficient as possible.  One of the companies that have decided to use Apple products in order to further their business is General Electric Company.  They have even gone to the lengths of creating many of their own apps that help them with many of their business ventures.  For example, they have created an app that will help them monitor their wind turbines so that if something goes wrong, they will know before they have to manually inspect them.  This is just one of many apps that GE has created to help further itself in the economic world we live in today.

            Apple has changed the way that we think about technology and in turn changed the way that the world operates.  Without them, I do not think that technological advances would have progressed as much as they have.