Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Understanding Voting Behaviors Among College Students and their Surrounding Issues

Every year political election that comes around, the same issues are brought to surface when it involves getting college students to the polls and voting effectively. Whether it's them not being familiar with politics or not being interested in the candidates, factors similar to these, affects election outcomes every year.

Many people blame college students and start to question the ability of young voters but with all of the problems they run into when it comes to politics and voting, the question isn't whether young voters deliver but, "Its can the young voter deliver and effectively?"


The Transition to and from new areas for College Affects Student's Knowledge of Surrounding Politics


Demographics regarding politics and voting varies widely in the county of America. When it comes to students in higher education institutions, similar to any demographic, results after voting are interesting. The college students are the majority of young educated people.

When it comes to voting in elections, having an education plays a major role but there are also more factors that are starting to show in the results of elections. A problem today surrounding voter turnout is that many students are educated along general areas but are also in an awkward stage in their lives with transition to adulthood.
Figure 2
http://www.admissions.umd.edu/about/JustTheFacts.php


Student are most likely voting in another county-- let alone state, they are not familiar with-- resulting in uneducated people voting.

Based off the University of Maryland- College Park Student's Demographics, shown in Figure 2, Twenty-three percent of students are out of state students. Out of thirty- thousand students, that adds up to be about seven-thousand students voting in a state they are not familiar with. The numbers only increase when you break down Maryland residents and the counties they come from. This adds more students voting in a county, Prince George county, they are not familiar with.

Typically during this stage in an young adult's life they have been in a stable area for majority of the their life to learn about the politics in their area.

The transition to another city, state, or country, because of college, can cause a student to become uneducated regarding politics. These students that have moved around, will not know the politicians or issues in their new area. All they are familiar with is how things are at home. Therefore when it comes time to vote, some will vote and some will not.

For those who do vote and are not informed with important information needed, they are causing a disadvantage to what the outcomes could be. Uneducated student voters do not intend to effect the voting outcome negatively-- they only know the importance of voting therefore they still vote instead.

Students Who are Informed but lack Interest due to Understanding Politics


For students who are educated with politics, they are familiar with how American politics work. Sometimes knowing the operation and process can cause a lack of trust and interest.

In a study conducted by the Institute of Politics at Harvard University, over 60 percent of college undergraduates did not trust the Federal government to "do the right thing all or most of the time." Also, nearly two-thirds of college students felt selfish interests, rather than the public good, motivate elected officials.

Many students know the background of elections, therefore they most likely will not participate in the voting process at all. According to the same Harvard study over 85 percent of undergraduates believed that community volunteerism is more effective than political engagement in solving problems within the community and over 60 percent felt that volunteerism is more effective in addressing national issues as well.

Therefore one overall educated person, in this case, the average college student would choose to be physically active when it comes to activism rather than voting.


Thursday, November 20, 2014

Quiz 11

Nick16 answers, "What did you learn so far about your final topic that you didn't know before?"     
 

Diamond24 answers," Describe things that differentiate basic videotaping from professional quality videotaping?"  

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Task Three Video Assignment

Kayla from the class Journalism289i speaks about her favorite place to eat and why.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Vedran Lekic, Doctoral student of Berkley, uses fellowship grant to extend his research on Earth's Inner Structure

Nearly 2 million data lines fill the screen of Vedran Lekic’s computer every day, each representing seismic waves that are detected from of the more than 1,700 seismic stations around the U.S.

As a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkley, Lekic formulated higher-resolution images of the Earth’s mantle structure, stemming from his creation of a global seismic velocity model. Not only is the model able to give geologists a better understanding of plate tectonics, but it also helps explain the movement of continental plates and their evolution, Lekic said. Lekic’s research is based on ground vibration recordings, which he and his students use to detect the scattering of seismic waves across the North American tectonic plate. In conjunction with the National Science Foundation’s EarthScope Facility network, the data is collected from the 49 states and Puerto Rico and makes up about 3.8 million square miles, Lekic said.“EarthScope is kind of like our Apollo mission, but not as costly,” Lekic said. Lekic has already used the seismic information to investigate why and how the crust moves over the Earth’s mantle. As of now, the deepest any machine has been able to dig was about 12 kilometers into the Earth’s crust, a minuscle fracture of the roughly 6,730 kilometers it takes to get to the Earth’s core. Using the seismic information helps geologists see the shapes and sizes of the Earth’s layers. 
Click here to see the Seismic Imaging

Lekic's previous research has granted him a fund to continue his research further
In recognition of his efforts to integrate computer science and geological studies, Lekic joined the ranks of 17 other early career U.S. scientists and engineers who were awarded a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering last week. Lekic is now one of five alumni faculty members, among William McDonough, who have received the award while at this university, and he will be given access to unrestricted funds of $875,000 over a five-year period to support his extensive research on Earth’s inner structure. “The great thing about this fellowship is its flexibility to go chase a really good idea to wherever it leads,” said Orr, a Stanford University professor. “It is an incredibly valuable fund and gives the researchers an opportunity to take off with a good idea instead of waiting a year or more for federal money.”

Vedran Lekic and William McDonough's ambitions involving the research

Now that a large fund has been granted to his work, he hopes to spend more time plotting the seismic information in graphs and models so that he may better understand the Earth, Lekic said. “We are both interested in the energy that moves the tectonic plates and creates the magnetic shield around the planet,” geology professor William McDonough said. Lekic and McDonough are attempting to harness that energy to create another way to build a model of the Earth.


Lekic's past research surrounding aftermath of radioactive or nuclear reactions

Other than his seismology research contributions, Lekic is also a forerunner in the new geological field of neutrino geoscienceNeutrinos are a type of electrically neutral subatomic particle that are created during radioactive decay or some kinds of nuclear reactions. The particle, which was only discovered geologically in 2005 and physically detected for the first time last year, moves through every kind of object, McDonough said. “It sounds magical; it’s like a particle that exists but you can’t really see,” Lekic said of neutrinos. From this data, Lekic is creating a map that will not only cover all 48 contiguous states, Alaska and Puerto Rico, but also dive deep into the Earth’s crust and core. 
Lekic has received several other early career awards besides the Packard Fellowship.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Learning How to Communicate in Higher Education Results in a Better Life

Communication will always be an essential aspect in Higher Education

Higher education systems are constantly being questioned on the importance of the major communications but more or so communication as a curriculum as a whole. The discipline of communication tends to cross boundaries regarding other academic studies. It can be used in:business, engineering, history, philosophy, and many more. Because of this, many have been wondering if there is a true reason for communication classes. The National Communication Association responded to the questioning providing a written work highlighting five major themes of why communication is needed. I will focus on the ones I believe are the top most important. Communications is essential because it helps: development of the whole person; society and crossing cultural boundaries. 

Communication is Vital to the Development of the Whole Person 

Through-out someone's secondary education experience, they are forced to give presentations, make interactions and often to teach others without any proper education on how to.  These things are the primary basics of communication. While learning how to properly communicate in higher instruction people are able to understand the basics of communication which then leads to them using that in their everyday life. Learning how interact with someone else effectively enhances relationships majorly. Although this is taught in higher education, it would drastically help people to learn how to communicate at an younger age. Often people notice the importance of communication but they do not realize the importance of communication's skills. If they understand techniques of communications and then applied them, conversations and presentations would be more up to par. Learning how to communicate at a young age will eventually raise the education bar among students, leadership skills, and family relations resulting in a higher success rate in the United States.

Communication Education is Vital to Society and Crossing Cultural Boundaries

Going off of the idea that communication leads to self-development, communication   
 is an essential part of helping society cross into cultural boundaries. As some say, America is a melting pot. America is made up of many different cultures resulting in many conflicts among the general society. Enormous amounts of conflicts are produced because people are all different and believe in different things. The skills of communication would help people to compromise and sort things out. Developing the ability to speak well also qualifies one to actually participate in public life. If you know what you are speaking about and how to speak about that subject, you are being a positive addition to society instead of a negative addition. Everyone wants something accurate to believe in, and not foolishness. Being able to explain information effectively will help complete compromises, projects, programs and many more. 

Basically not only communication essential to life but learning how to communicate effectively is the main thing students need to learn in education. With anything you do that involves work, school, or organizations, you will have interactions with people. In any educational subject, you need to interact with people. You either have to impress, explain, or persuade someone therefore you need to learn to communicate. Learning how to communicate is important to learn in higher education because it is not taught before and it adds to society. 


Thursday, October 16, 2014

The comparison of The United States and Germany Usage of Devices

Romelo61
Kabrea27

A recent study by Reuters Institute Digital News Report by Nic Newman shows many companions amongst different countries. The study illustrates how users in the countries are using different devices to find out about news. Overall for all countries, users use smartphones and tablets to find out news through television, newspaper, and radio news. Results shows that users use their smartphone for: television news 84% of the time, newspaper news 40% of the time, and radio news 35% of the time. Results also shows that users use their tablet for: television news 84% of the time, newspaper news 45% of the time, and radio news 40% of the time. For all of the countries, users use their devices for television news majority of the time. The results for this study shows that most television news still to this day holds most interest of people over newspaper or radio.

 To break down this study even more, we chose to focus on the United States and Germany. To understand the usage of the two countries, we picked the results of studying the rapid growth of the two countries. Results shows both the United States and Germany use this smartphones more then a tablet when researching for news. It showed the United States uses their smartphone 31% of the time versus using a tablet 19% of the time. Germany showed they use their smartphone 32% of the time versus using a tablet 10% of the time. One can conclude a smartphone is more accessible and easier to use for the people of these two countries when looking for news.

Using both devices, the study also showed how often each country accessed new sources daily. The United States out of a scale of a hundred, accessed news 54% of the time. Germany accessed news 63% of the time. These results showed Germany has a higher interest when it comes to using technology to access news. This may play into the reasoning of Americans using technology for social reasons more.
The study then broke down the interest between countries even more. The United States showed 68% of people are interested in the news and 30% of people are less interested in news. Germany showed 81% of people are interested in the news and 19% of people are less interested in news. These results play into the above information that Germany, as a country is more interested in news more then Americans. People who are interested in the news outweighed people who are not interested with Germany. Americans less interested in news outweighed Americans interested in news. Every study and result showed between Americans and Germans, Germans are more interested and using devices for news more.



Friday, October 3, 2014

Customization versus Personalization; Out of the current top 25 Apps


I choose to create a bar graph to show the difference between how the top applications off the day are being used. Out of the top twenty- five applications, eighty percent of those applications were applications made for personalization. Some of these applications include; Facebook, Yahoo mail, and Skype. The other twenty percent to make up the whole percentage are applications made for customization. These applications include; Pandora, Pinterest, and iTunes Radio. From the article I used, I conclude with the graph I made that the larger population tends to use personalization applications more.