Feedback on thesis presentations, day one

Today kicks off final paper thesis and progress presentations in the course. Constructive feedback, only; no dislikes based on slide colors!

Lorena Swift
China: Communication in Crisis
A good starting look at the Great Firewall of China. I definitely second the notion of trying to route your Internet through China via Firefox plugins. The word for "America" in Mandarin is "mei" (美). I hope that this helps with your "search for America from China" searches :).

Sheila Newsom
Gender Roles and Social Networks
I think the look at Facebook/MySpace/StarDoll presents a good background for the traditional social networking "gender" norms, so keep that information in (but with less emphasis). Analyzing children's/young teen's social networks is a good approach to this topic. To further bolster your paper, I would suggest taking a look at Neopets and Webkinz, or even some Disney-based networks, to see how gender is approached in those realms as well.

Maurice Smiley
Mobile technology and how it's changing the agricultural world (I think)
No comments. Sounds like you know exactly where you're going and what you're talking about with this topic. This sounds absolutely brilliant and I kind of wish I had your brain power for this course.

Corrinda Lathan
Educating through Gaming
Loved that you got the class engaged by means of a memory game :). Are you looking at games across all platforms or specifically board games or specifically video games? (I think video games may tie more into our overall course theme, but gaming is gaming and the same rules in board games apply to video games as well, so... not sure where I'm going with that.) At any rate, I think Lorena had a good question after your presentation. Perhaps you should take a look at how the education world is embracing the technology to go with these changes in gaming (or, conversely, not embracing) and how this is (or isn't) impacting changes among children and how they learn.

Kathleen
Old school politics, new school media
A question: Does political standing (left-wing vs. right-wing) indicate how technologically savvy a candidate may be? Or the demographics they are reaching successfully? To say that McCain/Palin barely scratched the surface is something of an understatement; I would argue that Palin goes beyond the norms of her party and internet use. Her e-mail was hacked, which dealt a harsh blow to the campaign; she used Facebook and Twitter then and still uses these tools to rally her followers to her cause, even though she isn't running OR in a position of political power anymore. BUT, that being said, you've got a strong start. I like the main question you're addressing of if the use of new social technology was a critical factor in the outcome of the election, and was actually going to ask if you were going to address that (but you beat me to it in your presentation).

Good job to everyone. You've set the bar high. Good luck to everyone who will present next week!