Flattening the World

1. The Berlin Wall
a) The Berlin Wall was a symbol of flattening the world because when the wall was up, it was one community, one ecosystem, and one market,in other words a barrier. When the wall fell, it opened up to the world and became an open playing field for all.
b)About six months after the wall came down, Microsoft came out with a new program that was called The Windows Went Up, which was a big breakthrough in personal computing for people.
c) The personal computing is influential because it represented 1's and 0's on the computer that can be saved, manipulated, and shared in many ways. It also opened up more media for people.
d)Personal computing empowered people because they were more comfortable with technology and could use more media. They opened their horizons to new technological advances.
2.New Age of Connectivity
a)TimBerners-Lee created HTML.
b)HTML allowed authors to create hyperlinks and to send and share images on the computer. HTML made the computer a lot faster.
c)Netscape was the browser that started the revolution of the HTML.
d)The important outcome of the bubble was that cables could carry billions more information than the copper telephone wires.
3. Work Flow Software
a)The Work Flow Software is a program that allows people working in different states or conditions to come be able to communicate and collaborate with each other.
b)The teams of the Higglytown Heroes work in many places including Florida, London, New York, Chicago, Las Angeles, India, and San Fransisco.
4.Uploading
a) Uploading is the transmitting information from the computer to a network.
b)The Community-developed software is a program that a group of amateurs work on as a hobby. The bad thing is that there is not good service to call if you have a problem or question.
c)Blogs help flatten the world because they are like online journals. While most might be really long and personal, most blogs are about specific topics and are helpful for people and you can view it all online.
5.Outsearching
a)Outsourcing helps flatten the world because you can take your work from home and pay other people to do it for you and you do not have to worry about it. The information is easily past and it opens up many career options as well.
b)Reason number one for why India became so popular with outsourcing is because fiber optic cable was laid all over India which could hold more information billions of times better than telephone wires. The second reason is because Technology institutes in India was very beneficial in science, accounting, and math. The third reason is because India has the second largest population of English speaking people.
6.Offshoring
a)Offshoring is moving a company from the home to another country where it can be done cheaper and has lower medical costs.
b)China is affecting the flattening world because many companies move the business to China and if rival companies want to be able to compete that means they must move their companies to China also. The people in China are paid very little for their labor, so China has become the greatest manufacturing place.
c)One positive of offshoring is that the wages in China are less, so the same labor can get done for less if the company does move to China.
7.Supply-Chaining
a)The steps to supply chaining start when the cashier checks your item out, the signal is sent to Wal-Mart command centers, and there it is checked to see if more supply is in need or not and then trucks come to supply the needed items to the store.
b)The negative effect or efficiency is that Wal-Mart is in constant demand for the lowest prices. The workers may be locked overnight supplying the store and some illegal immigrants even come to work as Janitors.
c)I think that Wal-Mart is still good at keeping the prices low and they have some good competition because people are starting to look for the lowest prices possible in today's economy.
8.Insourcing
a)UPS helps small business because they are becoming more recognized and growing larger. It is easier to transport items through shipping it, and therefore you can send items anywhere in the world by the simple use of a UPS truck.
9. In-forming
a)Google helps with informing because it enables people to find webpages that are directed towards what they searched. It is simple and pulls up thousands of links about the topic.
b)Google is a risk because you can find out more about people. You can easily search yourself and find something about you. There is more personal information that can be found through google and google will pull up those lings.
10.The Steroids
a) Digital Steroids pulls all media(pictures,text, video, etc) and stores it on your computer where it can be manipulated and shared.
b)Personal steroids shift power from institutes to individuals and includes web pages.


To me, flattening the world means that we are creating new and efficient ways to communicate with people all over the world. Every day, new technology is being invented and so does the technology on the internet. I think that the Flattening the world is very beneficial because we are creating new ways to have access to the internet. Almost everything can be done over the Internet today, which is a huge step from the Internet in previous years. The lines of communication have become easier between people too. Altogether, the flattening the world helps all people.

Flat Classroom Project

I think that flattening your classroom, or having a "flat" classroom means having a student teacher interaction in the learning and educational environment, or being on the same page with your teacher, and vise-versa. All of the projects are student centered, and is an easy way to link classrooms for the same purposes and research.

Elements for the students
1) understanding of technology and the use of technology
2)opportunity to be grouped with other partners, to share opinions, explain trends, and create videos.
3)access to educational websites such as blogger, wiki, posting photos and videos, etc
4)being assessed on a criteria based rubric
5)real life deadlines, responsibility, accountability, and interdependence
6)having completed videos viewed by global judges
7)participating in a student summit, completing the project and showcasing their learning.

Time Line
1)Application Deadline: December 1 
2)Online Teacher Information meeting before January 15 
3)Classroom and student handshake January 15-31 
4)Wiki editing and collaboration: February 
5)Non-participating classrooms removed from participating: February 15 
6)Video pitches and creation: March 
7)Student Summits and video judging: April 1-15 
8)Awards ceremony: After April 15 as determined by the project organizer


The first project that I watched was called Mobiles In Our Life and was mainly about the use of cell phones in our everyday life. I think the video was really good. One main purpose was for communication which is very important. The other main purpose addressed was for education. I think that it is unfair that they get to use their cell phones at school, but hopefully that will be us soon too. Also using cell phones for medicine is important because it allows quick and easy access to help when you are sick and doctors can communicate easier between other doctors. In urgent cases is a great time to have a cell phone because you can easily call for help. Overall, I think the video was very good, and I think they did a good job at explaining all the uses of cell phones and how they apply to our lives.


The second video I watched was called Connecting the World Online News Report and it is about the uses of the Internet and connecting it to our world. Not only social networks, but there are also many other networks out there for many purposes. The Internet is not all about facebook and myspace, and twitter. There are many websites that are out there to connect the world online. The Internet is mostly social networking, and what people many not know that there are many other websites besides facebook and myspace that can help social connect you and your friends from anywhere in the world. The video was helpful because it showed a different viewpoint of the Internet instead of my main website, facebook.


The third video I watched was called The World Wide Web. It shows what life would be like without the Web and how we use the Web for many purposes everyday. You can use different websites for reasearch, entertainment, and communication. You can connect with anyone throughout the world through the web, no matter where you are at. Emailing and research are made easier through the web, You do not have to go to the library or send your mail through the post office, now you can use google and email. The video was helpful to show the many uses of connecting people through the web.

Global Uses!

From 1996 to 2010 the Internet has paved new paths for everyone. From the uses of the Internet, to the number of users, to the countries with access, the Internet became a worldwide service that has improved the daily lives of most people. In 1996 only a select number of countries had Internet access, but nothing like we have now. There were only about 16 million users of the Internet in 1996. The growth statistics from then to now have dramatically increased as the Internet become more productive and faster. Of  course compared to recent times, the Internet in 1996 was just a small thing that shows how far technology has come since then. Some of the top websites visited in 1996 were aol.com, webcrawler.com, netscape.com, yahoo.com, and infoseek.com. These websites have undergone many changes since they were first released. Some popular websites in 2010 are myspace.com, facebook.com, google.com, ebay.com, youtube.com. Comparing the years and some of the top websites shows what kind of population grew. The more recent websites are social networks and search engines. Lots of people now have facebooks and myspaces to keep in touch with friends and have a profile that is all you own. Youtube has become very popular. Youtube not only has music videos, show videos, educational videos, and entertainment videos, but you have the ability to upload your own videos. Lots of people have been discovered on places like youtube and have gotten a head start on a good career. Google is probably one of the biggest websites used. You can search anything on that website. Google is great for answer any questions, research, school, and fun, and is great because it is a worldwide website.  The Internet was pretty boring in 1996. The web pages were very plain. The web page would get the point across and was very short to the point. The web designs were plain, usually one color and not very appealing. Some pictures were on the websites, a lot of them were like clip art figures. The Internet now is a lot more complex. The webpages have many colors and patterns. The information inlcuded in the websites is specific, and goes into great detail. The webpages are more appealing to the eye with many pictures that draw your attention. For examples the screenshots in this website: https://www.msu.edu/~karjalae/internet96.htm were very simple. The Internet was not very fast in 1996. A lot of computers had the same connection and caused the connection to become slower. The Internet now has many connections and people can create their own connections. There are certainly more connection options today then there were in 1996. People have become more technologically advanced since 1996, and so the access and browesing of the Internet has become a lot easier. Not as many communication tools were available in 1996. Email was available to people and so were chat rooms. There was nothing really like facebook or myspace. Today email has become more advanced and everyone uses email instead of the postal service. Technology has really advanced and continues to advance for the better. I think that the Internet has really helped in people's lives to make things much easier. Without the Internet, I would have had to research information in books and handwrite a paper about the information, but thanks to technology it has made my life much easier and still continues to improve!