My TED

Min, an exchange student from China, now staying in Saint Joe's, Philadelphia, invites you to explore a top popular Chinese social media-- Renren.net. See how she plays with this website, how Chinese students interact through Internet, update statues, make comments and share information. You'll be surprised at how similar it is to Facebook, but most importantly, you'll be excited to see a world you may never enter.

social media revision

I add a little more about the value of Twitter, how does it connect people, what does it mean to individuals. Also, I talk about following celebrities, which is a very unique and important feature and function of Twitter. Not too many other change though.

Thank you Communication class.

I am gonna use Prezi and imovie to do a presentation for my English class. I mentioned the Prezi to my group members, they have never heard of it, which makes me happy. haha. I think they're gonna be "wowed". And I think I'm gonna discard the boring Powerpoint in the future.
This class has given me a lot of information. Thank you so much!

A band that I am crazy about.

This is a South Korean boy band with 5 members,named 東方神起 (DBSK, TVXQ, THSK), means "a god rising from the east". They're very successful and popular in Korean, Japan, China and Thailand.

I've been crazy about it for 2 years. They are handsome, their dance and music is good, and they also perform in some films and TV series.

I embed a MTV below. It's sang in Japanese. The meaning of its name is "Why do i like you". It's a sad love story. I hope you will enjoy the song though I know that you may not understand what they are singing. As a matter of fact, I don't understand either. I just love the melody and the way they perform.

My TED talk proposal

For my TED Talk, I want to talk about a Chinese social media named “RenRen” Net, which means “Everyone”. I’ve mentioned this network in my blog post before. It’s almost identical with “Facebook”, only it’s somewhat restricted to Chinese users, not as well known.

The two sites not only resemble in appearance but also in functions. I want to compare the basic concept and operation of the two social media, emphasizing on introducing “RenRen” Net to the class. I'm thinking of talking about my own experiences and feelings using these two websites, also focusing more on RenRen. I think I am going to use some pictures and perhaps video clips.By that, I want to tell you what are the advantages and drawbacks of RenRen compared to Facebook.

I hope my talk can be interesting, but most importantly, I want it to be clear and understandable. If I made mistakes during my speech, please forgive me!

my prezi-- about Twitter

I'm using Prezi to do my presentation. It's about Twitter. I'm gonna talk about the basic idea of Twitter, its function and value. I'm not sure whether i have answered all the questions, especially the 3rd and 4th one. But I hope my explanation and presentation can give you a good grasp of what twitter is.

CHECK THIS OUT!!



P.S: After the social media experiment, i am still using Twitter. But since I don't have many followers, my pasion of tweeting is plummeting.

my digital story: what do you wanna be when you grow up?

The very special story!
The very exiting experience!
The very first editing and movie making!!!( Xtranormal doesn't count)


Our story is about dreams and ideals, about what you wanna be when you grow up. It's fun and interesting interviewing people, mostly our friends. Digging out their dreams makes me think back of my childhood dreams and of my future prospect. So, really meaningful!
Watching this video makes me very proud of myselves. And I also want to thank all my group members. Special thanks to my friend who talked in the video--the guy in the blue shirt...Haha

Check this out!!! Hope you like it!

Bad luck.

I had a super gloomy Thursday because my dear cell phone crashed, for good. I turned it off and tried to take out the sim card. But I couldn't turn it on again. I tried all means, but none worked.



I hugged it to sleep last night, hope it can get better when I wake up this morning. But no good luck. Guess I should just let it go, in peace.I wish I had treated it better. Send my apology and condolence to my dear phone~!

Our Content Nation

People nowadays can't live without internet, without this invisible interaction because they're everywhere.

In China, there is a website just like Facebook, which is called "RenRen" net. It is, according to "Content Nation", "a social-network punlishing". Once you input your personal information, you can track down your friends, your schoolmates, your ex-schoolmates, and even someone whom you've never met but have some special connections with you. "It enables people to build and use relationships with others". I felt so excited when someone I have lost contact with for a long time became my friend again, through RenRen Net. Do you have the same feeling?




Here is the website of the Chinese version of Facebook. Welcome to check it out~
http://www.renren.com

Another amazing function of social media is Personal markets. Online shopping greatly changes our living pace and style.I still can remember the first time when I buy something through the internet. I felt so nervous because I was afraid that I might be frauded or the stuff was not what I wanted. I checked out the website for thousands of times, comparing the product from one online seller to another. But nowadays, the online shopping system gets more and more mature and comprehensive. We feel safe and convenient to buy stuffs before we actually see and touch them, before we talk to the seller face to face.

"Social media's influence may be broad or narrow, long or short,but it's value almost always benefits more from people who want to be ahead of other people than from those who are trying to catch up with others."

The function of social media is enormously powerful, and infomations we get indeed do us a great favor, but sometimes they can be wrong and mislead us. That's why we also need to discriminate and discern right from wrong.

my movie-- extra-normal

This is my first movie. Thanks to our group members' great and extra-normal creativity, we came up with this crazy idea. It made me think of "Spider man"...
Anyway, we also had another short movie about interviewing a job, also very interesting.


Xtranormal is a great website, it helps those who have no knowledge of movieshooting and editing, like me,  make their own movies. It's really fun, and I am going to try some more times and work out my own idea. Maybe I will post my movie next time.

My Progress

It's really exciting that my group think that my idea of interviewing kids on what they wish to do when they grow up is interesting. They took my idea, and expand it into a more thoughtful one: not only interviewing kids, but also ask adults about their dreams when they were young and see how many of them realize their dreams. It's a little amazing and pity that the other group came up with the exact idea, but we will try our best to make it the best we can do. I think it's the process that matters most~! Hopefully, we can end up having a pretty cool movie.

Right now, I am looking for the music that we may use as sound track or background, or transition. I still haven't gone to the place where we could borrow the flipper or camera. One reason is that I had a crazily busy week. The other reason is that I can't find so many local people to do the interview, because my acquaintances are basically all Chinese. So I want to wait and see if I can work with my group member.

It's fair to say that I haven't really started. But my group will have a discussion this Sunday afternoon in the library. We will check the videos we take, and divide them into groups. Our next step is depending on how much progress we have.

The Conversations

Finally finishing reading the reading, I have to confess that there are several pages I skipped. But the book is very interesting and it gives me an opportunity to look behind the screen and think about film editing. I have never thought about editing, not as much as I think of directing and acting. But after reading this chapter, I realized that the job and responsibility of a director and an editor is quite different and somehow related tightly.

The sentences below are some of my best or impressed me the most:

*The director is ultimately the immune system of the film.

*The editor works at both the macroscopic and microscopic level : ranging from deciding how long precisely each shot is held,to restructuring and repositioning scenes, and sometimes to eliminating entire subplots.

*Editing with eyes half opened-- you can't express your opinion unreservedly.

*You need to get out, to be part of something larger than yourself, yet you're drawn to this particular film in the hope that it will speak to you directly.

*What we think of as normal is largely a question of what we are most often exposed to.

This book let me see film making in a new direction-- the editors' aspects,whose work has not been accredited enough. I understand that editors must see the values that others may not see, they must construct the frames in a way that can arouse direct emotions to each audience.

I like the part where Murch and Ondaatje talked about the similarities and differences between writing and editing films. It made me understand editing better, though I still don't know nothing about 'sound tracks'. Anyway, it's a new experience.

Magic Website

Hey guys~You've gotta check this out!!

This is a magic website: http://en.akinator.com/#

RULES:

1.enter your name, and start the game;

2.keep a name in your mind, better be a famous figure;

3.answer the questions one by one, it won't take too long ...

4.Finally, "He" will guess exactly what you have in mind!


My friends and I have played this game for hundreds of times, it almost hit the target everytime.

Female or male, singer or politician or even cartoon character, it can always come up with the correct answer, as long as you are honest with it.

It's so weird and unbelievable!

Check this website out, check the Magic out~!

Blog Critique ~ Usability

Besides words, I added some photos into my blog, just want to show you something interesting happened in my life. But there is no video, url links, citations or other MEDIA FORMS, which makes my blog a little bit boring I suppose. I will try to improve it in the future.

I think even though the CONTENT is kinda restricted to the assignment of the class,it is still interesting because my ideas are new to the audience. The length of the post is, I suppose, just fine. However, it's lack of scannability because the articles seem to be large chunks of sentences piling together, don't have subtitles or other distinguished marks to catch audiences' attention.

Talk about DESIGN. The style of the whole blog is Amateurish. Its idea is simply to express my feelings and thoughts, so there's not so much additional setting that could distracts audiences' attention, thus, I don't think busi-ness nor background noise is a big problem. Also, the text font, size, color is clear and readable; the layout is clear and well organized. . Because I am using the template, the blog fits the convention, which makes each icon operational and self-explanary.

BUT, I recocgnize that the blog is over-simplified, and due to the content limitation, I think not so many people will have patience to read all the stuff unless they are required to Comment On 3 Other Blogs~~,so I think I am gonna make my blog more coloful, more "me"!!

By the way,"alt text”? I don't think I can handle that yet~! Ha Ha!

Cool Blog, I Love It !

On Wednesday's class, we watched a fancy blog which has several interesting tests to help us detect our personality, but its true intention is to predict what kind of car could be 'the one',that is, to sell cars.

The test asks you to pick one statue which you think resembles you the most and one pair of gloves that you picture yourself wearing in the future; imagine how many people at breakfast; what kind of engine do you prefer to setting in your car; which scenery is the most common one when you're driving, etc..

The form of the blog is very simple and clean, not so many additive decorations or redundant instructions. All the icons and images and movements enhance the quality of attention, and the setting and sequence of the questions make me more and more curious about what kind of result can I get.

The sound of clicking a button is various: when clicking on a statue, it sounds like moving a stone away; when choosing the animal that represents your desired engine, it actually sounds like a real animal. These sounds not only make the tests vivid and interesting, but also help us to imagine the given situation and make our choice. And everytime when you click a button, you see the movement, then you can actually feel like you're touching those things or moving the chairs, or setting the table, or driving on your way...

As the test involves a lot of personal and individual attitudes, preferences, experiences,emotions, dreams, and hopes, so it indeed arouse our thinking. It makes feel delighted and relaxed, also a little bit surprised, since I cannot possibly connect these questions to a result of "what kind of car will you buy?".

It's the most creative and intersting blog I've ever seen.I love it! Do you?

What happens to my creativity?

There are several things that impress me a lot. One is you cannot be creative if you are afraid of being wrong. One is Intelligence is diverse, dynamic and distinct. Another one is that you should attach importance to the process of being creative and value every moment when an inspiration strikes you.

I think the statement that "Education kills creativity" is a little bit too strong because many other factors contribute to this issue. What I wanna mention here is to let you know that: the situation is more serious and arouses more concerns in CHINA.

In CHINA, what school and parents care about most is literacy, and whether children can get a good mark on study. There's only one correct answer to each question. There's hardly any room for questioning and discussion because our textbooks are holy Bibles so there's no need to cast any doudt. The study load is too much for a 10-year-old child to open their mind , look around the world through his unique eyes. Chinese children's creativity drifts away faster than American children.

Recent years, China has been introduced a lot of American education concept, such as encourage children to think more about how and why instead of simply working out the answer.I hope that someday,educationcan becomes a process that make kids feel like walking into a mysterious forest--you will not know where you're heading off to unless you grope every step on your own; and during the journey, you may get frustrated or hurt, but it's also full of fun.

I feel sorry for myself that after these years of education, I haven't been creative for a long time. And i cannot remember the excitement and happiness when my creative ideas get praised and rewarded. I hope that creativity can be injected into my body and I can think in a brand new way.

trip to the Niagara Falls

This weekend, i went to the Niagara Falls with several of my friends. It's a long journey, takes a 8-hour-drive to get there. Anyway,it's totally worthwhile because the natural scenery is breath taking~~ really looking forward to my next trip. I love USA day by day~

Niagara Castle

double rainbow

it's me ~~silly?or lovely?

marvelous


looks pretty silly, haha

the grass land is wet actually

About the Videos

Actually, when I was watching the two videos, I had many question marks wandering in my head.

The first one is--Does each American person gets to use these technology every day? Because , many of these technology are alien to me--I don't know how to use it, I don't even know its name.

The second one is--Does modern technology really has this power to lead us into a future where everyone is physically paralyzed, where humans become exactly like those imaginary cartoon figures in the movie "Wall- E"? I'm thinking that maybe Americans worry about it more than people from other countries do, because they have a closer bonding with media, computer, Internet...

In CHINA, people surely discussed a lot about the positive and negative side of modern technology, however, we somehow empasize more on its bright side. I have to admire the video makers' imagination and creativity, because seeing what we will turn out to be forces me to take this issue more seriously.

my new blog~

Thanks to a little technical problem~I have to create a blog again.

Anyway~

I am an exchange student from China, my Chinese name is Su Min, but you can just call me SUE.

I am really looking forward to this semester, learning and meeting different people.

Please~Please!

Talk to me,

Make friends with me,

Help me even when my questions are stupid.

I am a nice person. Ha ha