I always thought VR was extremely interesting. There are many programs that are touted as “empathy builders” – things where able-bodied and able-minded people are able to experience what it might not be like to have it. Yet, there is a severe lack of content for those who are unable or struggle to use VR. Sound for the hard-of-sight are not able to make up for the lack of visual cues. This is in addition to those unable to hold controllers.

Many videogame companies are striving to be more accessible, but it appears VR is not yet working towards it as much as other companies are. Perhaps it is the medium that is too difficult for accessibility, but that doesn’t mean companies do not have an obligation to make their products more accessible. (Perhaps not an obligation, but not expanding their markets is a foolish move.) In a 40 billion dollar industry, it should be a higher priority. VR is part of the future of entertainment and those with disabilites shouldn’t be left behind.

Read the article here: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/virtual-reality-has-an-accessibility-problem/

Read my other article about videogame acccessibility here: https://fsulis4022spr20drive.car.blog/2020/01/16/videogames-and-accessibility/

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Cyberbullying has been around for longer than many may think. The first cases were discovered from suicides. The first being in 2007. This is when neighbors made a fake profile to harass a 13-year-old girl.

Additionally, an 18-year-old girl killed herself after her nude photos were sent to more than 7 Ohio schools. Then, only one year later, a 13-year-old killed herself after her nude photos were sent to 6 high schools in Florida.

Unfortunately, for anything to change these kids had to die. After their deaths, these states, as well as a few others, added cyberbullying to their laws. As the years went by, more social media platforms came about. Therefore, in 2010 a University student jumped of a bridge to kill himself after a video of him kissing another boy emerged on twitter.

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For more information, go to:

https://www.bark.us/blog/the-history-of-cyberbullying/

Electronic health records have been a major change to healthcare. Information Technology specialists all around the country are transforming paper files into digital ones. This helps providers give better service to patients and reduces costs. Though there is something to be said for the quality of access to records. People can give horrible stories about how they’ve had poor experiences with gaining access, even having to pay for the right to gain information about their own health after they’ve already seen the doctor. It should not be difficult for patients to access their own information from their healthcare providers. It can be life or death in some instances.

“…In February 2019 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology proposed two rules to give patients immediate, free, electronic access to their health data” (Forbes). The White House is now reviewing these rules and if approved they would create guidance to allow patients to share their data. They would suggest that healthcare providers not hoard information along with other regulations for hospitals and healthcare providers. But what about privacy?

Records vendors are saying that these proposed rules would violate privacy and intellectual property. Obviously the data needs to be secured and we need to be constantly looking for ways to improve security. But what if banks all of a sudden stopped allowing you access to your money information because they couldn’t be secure? Why should we not raise a fuss about healthcare providers blocking access about our own health if we would drop a bank in a heartbeat blocking access to our money? There has to be a choice to access and let patients assume some of the risk by allowing healthcare providers to do this, digital life is routine today, so should healthcare access. We can’t allow big business to dictate what information about ourselves we have access to, they cannot be allowed to hod the power to our lives.

These proposed rules are important to connecting patients with their data, but it is the right thing to do. It creates responsibility for patients own healthcare and allows self-determination in maintaining those choices. If patients don’t have access to their information,studies have shown it leads to errors as well as unnecessary and expensive treatment. Federal Lawmakers are on the right track in creating legislation for this area of concern. It is time we hold patients accountable for their health information and give them access to that information.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielmendelson/2020/02/01/you-should-be-able-to-digitally-access-your-own-medical-records/#a52b3dd203db

http://washingtonian.com/2020/01/31/the-washington-post-needs-a-new-social-media-policy-or-maybe-some-better-guidelines/

Continuing on the topic of social media guidelines we learned this week, here’s this article. So, at first I thought: “why would a company need guidelines, it’s pretty common sense what to post and what not to post, especially if you work for the company.” Well, I was wrong. The Washington Post’s employee recently got suspended because her tweet displayed poor judgement that undermined the work of her colleagues. After a whole scandal happened, the Executive and Managing editor sent a memo to the newsroom saying their social media guidelines are in need of an update because the employee sent out something inappropriate but it wasn’t clear if she was violating the guidelines or not. Therefore, she was only suspended. In my opinion, this probably taught the company’s editors to set a clear and specific guideline for social media postings.

You just graduated with your Information, Communication, and Technology degree, what’s next? You can take this degree into marketing, communication, tech, the opportunities are endless. Everyone wants to love there job you know the saying “If you love your job you will never work a day in your life”. Today we are going to talk about one really good career path for the creative and the tech savvy. Web design is the perfect combination of the two. Before jumping into anything the best practice is to take the time to research for all things. You can find a good overview of what a web designer does, what the workplace is like, how to get there and more. Follow this link and you can find the answers to all your questions.

Online cyber-bullying and harassment has become a huge problem in today’s society. Social media platforms specifically are being targeted with negative and hateful speech. Ever day thousands of adults and children are being targeted with abusive and threatening comments posted on their social media accounts. No need to fret, there are some ways to take legal action in order to protect yourself from these kinds of threats.

Many social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter not makes it possible to notify the site owners if a threat occurs. These platforms have settings where you are able to block individuals and report to spam abusive comments. Unfortunately, for Law Enforcement, since this is an emerging threat, laws pertaining to this form of abusive has yet to enact laws that address the problem. In extreme circumstances a Civil Action can be filled n order to protect children or oneself.

It is important to remember that you are not alone. Thousands of people are being harassed online and this problem shouldn’t be taken lightly. In order to decrease social media harassment more people need to speak out about this issues surrounding it.

https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/i-m-being-harassed-on-facebook-instagram-or-twitter-what-are-my-legal-options-34927

If one were serious about Instructional Design, how would one become a designer? Knowledge of and having good qualities for ID is a good start, but for something to truly become great, the task at hand needs to encompass what makes you you. In a less corny way, you need to find your personality to give substance to your work.

By cultivating your personality, you will narrow on the topics and discipline that you enjoy or are really good at. Having a niche leads to seeing it in different areas, and allows to apply and immerse yourself in it, which will help when looking for a job. Even my own experience, Instructional Design is not a keyword to look for a job. Many companies will have different names, but it usually comes back to the idea of ID: Training Developer, eLearning Developer, Program Manager, Training Manager, etc. Being aware of different naming variations will keep your eyes on all open opportunities. Sometimes even the naming variation will lead you right to your niche of expertise (Ex. eLearning is usually synonymous with the education field, but it could also be for online certification training for companies). [Source: https://www.learndash.com/why-instructional-designers-fail-to-find-jobs-and-how-to-fix-it-part-1/]

But how would one develop their personalty while continually becoming more involved in ID? Both can work in tandem, and many in past have done so in the past! In the source provided at the bottom of this paragraph, there is a web article from many people how to they became designers. I’ll leave the specifics for you to read, but the general idea of all tips is that become observant of the developing industry, learning by doing and trying, invest in understanding how people learn, and continue to develop your communication skills. [https://elearningindustry.com/become-an-instructional-designer-24-top-instructional-design-career-tips]

 

As a leader in technology, IBM is no stranger to AI and the newly developing technology in the field every day. With the main goal of technology being to make tasks easier, developers often fail to make sure that their tech is accessible to all types of people, especially in the early days of a new gadget. IBM has taken initiative in this sense and formed an organization known as FATE, or Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics to ensure that this initiative is prioritized within the tech community.

In this article, IBM laid out more details about FATE, as well as the new tool they had released to be used for testing new technology and its accessibility among what they call “protected groups,” including the disabled community. This tool is called AI Fairness 360, and is available for download by tech developers worldwide. Overall, this step towards tech that is not only inclusive, but open to adaptations and being accountable for their shortcomings is a huge step especially by a large company such as IBM and will set a progressive precedent for tech companies to follow.

Is your enterprise fit for Artificial Intelligence? Do you want to get ahead of the competition with this revolutionary piece of technology? If you answered yes to any of these, what are you waiting for? Your competition sure isn’t! Businesses that do not deploy AI within the next year will be at a great disadvantage.

According to the article 1 in 3 business leaders believe AI will have the greatest impact on their enterprise in the next year. Artificial intelligence will be a universal tool for all businesses. It can even predict the markets future for your business.

What can AI do for you? Well it will improve your business in short, for example the article goes onto explain how machine learning technology from AI can enhance manufacturing, the supply chain, and even transportation operations. AI does this by using AI-based software to perfect efficiency, discover each department’s loss value, and even reduce waste, essentially it is a smart computer pulling all the strings overseeing everything all while predicting thousands of different algorithms to perfect everything. This of course is what makes AI far more advanced and useful when it comes to businesses.

A Look at the AI Economy for 2020

On October 30th, 2019, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced that the social media giant “made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally.” This move echoes the up and coming social media video platform TikTok’s decision to do the same thing. The decision to ban political advertisements was praised by the community as a whole, but caused their stock to drop by around 1%.

Facebook, on the other hand, has doubled down on its previous decision to allow any and all political advertisement on its platform. In a speech given in Georgetown, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said that while he had had considered banning political advertisements, he ultimately decided not to, citing the opportunity for greater expression by leaving them up.

Opposing sides of the political fence had much different reactions to Twitters decision. Democratic Senator Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez praised the decision, saying that platforms have “a powerful responsibility in preserving the integrity of our elections.” In contrast, President Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale called Twitter’s decision “yet another attempt by the left to silence Trump and conservatives.”

To learn more about this, consider reading this article on CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/30/twitter-bans-political-ads-after-facebook-refused-to-do-so.html