Amazing Collaboration: Queen and Adam Lambert

Aside from Journey's music, Queen's music was the soundtrack of my childhood. I remember my father wearing out their records at every opportunity. Imagine my surprise (and delight!) when I got to see one of my favorite singers, Adam Lambert (who has been compared to Freddie Mercury), perform with Queen on the European Music Awards. A vocal collaboration made in heaven!

Take a look at the performance below. Will they rock you?

Yes. Yes they will.

Digital Literacy

How does digital literacy help a person in society?

For decades, school systems and governmental agencies alike have stressed the importance of literacy to an individual's development and level of functionality within present society. An individual who is illiterate is typically thought of as being at a disadvantage in society. Without the ability to read and/or write, how can a person establish himself/herself in society, maintain a professional career, remain aware of important current events, or seek to foster change or development within existing societal structures?

While traditional literary remains an issue today, an even bigger issue in present society is the notion of digital literacy. Fairly recent technological innovations such as the Internet and the World Wide Web have made digital literacy the new hot topic of discussion. According to Stephen M. Mutula and Justus M. Wamukoya (2007), digital literacy "refers to the ability to use internet-dependent applications and non-internet-dependent applications" (p. 90). Moreover, digital literacy refers to the ability to use and understand technological innovations that are designed to access information and communicate and interact within a virtual environment (Mutula & Wamukoya, 2007, p. 90).

Individuals who are digitally literate are able to search for and retrieve information, socially communicate with others in a Web-based environment, and utilize and understand software applications such as Microsoft Office.

These individuals hold several important advantages over those who are not digitally literate:

1. They are able to access information from all over the world quickly and efficiently. This important attribute enables individuals to become well-informed citizens, who are knowledgable of current affairs and who can communicate about current events.
2. They are able to strengthen their communication skills and advance their levels of social interaction. Individuals who are digitally literate are able to communicate effectively with one another in virtual environments such as forums, email, chatrooms, etc, broadening their worldviews and enhancing their social, cognitive and reasoning skills.
3. They are more marketable in society. Those who are digitally literate are more likely to perform well in the education and job markets. Computers and technology skills are now a prominent part of the learning experience from kindergarten through college. Individuals who learn how to manipulate and work with digital technology from an early age are far more likely to become successful workers in the corporate environment. Most companies require their employees to have some level of computer knowledge, as most occupations require the use of computers and their associated software and hardware components. Companies rely on economic income to sustain their growth and the growth of the nation's economy is firmly linked with the growth of the nation's digitally literacy. The more digitally literate and competitive we are as a nation, the more opportunities we have to foster worldwide corporate partnerships and grow our economy.
4. They develop higher-level thinking and reasoning skills. Those who are familiar with technology and the digital world are more likely to develop higher-level reasoning and problem-solving skills, enabling them to become more effective members of society.

For more information regarding digital literacy, please visit:

Digitalliteracy.gov

ICT Digital Literacy



Work Cited:

Mutula, S. M. & Wamukoya, J. M. (2007). Web information management: A cross-disciplinary textbook. Oxford: Chandos Publishing.

The 2012 Grammys: Highs and Lows

I think that most would agree that the Grammys live broadcast each year is either a HIT or a MISS. Sometimes the show reflects the year's best musical talents and the live performances live up to the hype. Other times, the show seems to cater to a few select musicians (some of whom the audience has never even heard of) and the performances fall horribly flat.

So where did this year's Grammys rate? In my opinion, somewhere between HIT and MISS. Let's agree to call it a HISS, shall we?


The Highs:

• Jennifer Hudson's moving tribute to Whitney Houston
• Adele's powerful rendition of her hit Rolling in the Deep and her sweep of several Grammy awards
• Kelly Clarkson's strong assertion of feminine strength and confidence in What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger

Hudson performing Houston's I Will Always Love You

The Lows:

• Nicki Minaj - from Red Carpet  to Grammy stage. Seriously...what was that debacle?
• Katy Perry's less-than-stellar performance against the backdrop of muscled men and shooting flames
• Lady Gaga's outfit (but I'll get her a bit of a break here because is it even possible to top a dress made entirely of meat, or a human-size egg?)

Hail Lady Gaga?

Nicki Minaj performing - We held our ears, too!

Goodbye, Whitney Houston...

The world lost an amazing voice yesterday. Despite all of her hardship and struggles, Whitney Houston defined the 1980s and 1990s with her strong, soulful, and pure vocal talent. She will forever be missed.

Let's take a second to remember one of her greatest hits, I Will Always Love You from The Bodyguard.

Cover Songs Done Well: Lisa Scinta

Have you ever heard of Lisa Scinta? She's an undiscovered singer with numerous videos on Youtube, in which she performs acoustic versions of popular songs (mostly in her bathroom!). Her voice is absolutely amazing and it's only a matter of time before some big record producer catches on to her talent and signs her as a professional recording artist.

Here is one of my all-time favorite covers of Lisa's - Lisa performing Eminem and Rihanna's Love the Way You Lie.

Google Search vs. Delicious Seach

Admittedly, whenever I need to search for new articles, pictures, current events, etc., my fingers automatically type in the same six same letters: G-O-O-G-L-E.

Google has been my standby search engine for as long as I can remember. Its popularity has even made it into a cool new verb (i.e. "Let's google it!"). Can you imagine doing the same for an alternative search engine such as Delicious,which consists of social bookmarking sites. "Let's delicious it!" just does not have the same kind of feeling.

Let's compare the two. Say we were searching for sites and articles related to Madonna's performance at the Superbowl. We would thus enter Madonna AND Superbowl into each respective search engine. This is what we would find.

- Google returned a total of 437,000,00 results.

- Delicious returned a total of 125 results.

- Comparing the results on the first page of each search engine, none of them were identical.

- I would argue that, in this case, the results that Google returned seemed to be more reliable and more useful. Google returned a variety of results including news articles, videos, and reviews. Delicious, on the other hand, returned more opinionated types of results including blogs, Twitter tweets, and photos.

-I would also argue that, in this case, Google's results seemed to be more current (at least on the first couple of pages which included timely news articles). Google also allows its users to search by date or category. Delicious' bookmarks seemed fairly random and in no particular order.

Uploading Images to a Blog

There are two wonderful options for displaying an image on a blog. The first option is to upload the image directly to Blogger by clicking on the "insert image" link, browsing your computer for the file you wish to upload, and saving it to Blogger. The main advantage of this approach is that it is the fastest way to upload a image to one's blog. The main disadvantage is that it may "eat" up a lot of bandwidth or space on one's blog, depending upon the amount and size of the pictures used.

The second option is to upload an image to Flickr, edit it using Flickr tools, obtain the HTML code for the image from the Flickr site, and then embed it into the HTML text box of one's blog. The main advantage of this approach is that Flickr provides users with photo editing and resizing tools and allows users to organize their images by creating tags and descriptions. The main disadvantage is that this process is generally slower than simply uploading an image directly to Blogger. In addition, the correct visual display of the image depends on Flickr's site status.

Below is an example of a photo of singer/song writer Kris Allen embedded from my Flickr: