Friday, September 25, 2009
The REAL Digital Natives
Bob and Hugo
Digital natives
A few weeks back, students from two institutions in Quebec – the Édouard-Montpetit College (CEM) and the National Institute of Aeronautics (ENA) – had to answer a survey named Who are the real digital natives? The first thing to know is that the questionnaire was available on internet so the participants needed to be already familiar with the computer technology. There were 48 students from ENA who answered and only 40 from CEM which could prove that ENA students are more comfortable with technology.
Despite of this, the data that was gathered shows that ENA students are more versatile with their computer since 75% use it to do both work and entertainment while only 59% are able to do so. The survey also showed that in 95.7% of the cases, ENA students love or at least accept technology while the percentage is of 92.3% for the CEM students. The survey showed that 2.6% of CEM students are not comfortable with electronic devices while this number drops to 0% of the ENA students.
With all the data captured we can say that the ENA students could be categorized as ‘’Digital Natives’’ and the CEM students as ‘’Digital Immigrants.’’ What these terms mean is that the CEM students had to adapt more and still have to adapt to technology when the ENA students are more familiar and comfortable with it.
Longueuil Students Are Obviously Digital Natives
Jérémy and André
Longueuil Rules the Digital World
Friday, September 11, 2009
Buydehydratewater.com
Buydehydratedwater.com
This site is obviously a hoax. There is no information about the author, the address of the company is not a real one, not having and actual street name or number and the phone number that is provided is actually a number to call telemarketing services (Google search). Though the text is generally error free, there are a couple spelling mistakes which reduces their credibility. As for the subject of the site, it is the main clue that the site is a hoax. This site promotes the sale of dehydrated water, which cannot exist by principal of dehydration. They basically sell you an empty package with the name dehydrated water on it. Also the site advertises career and franchise opportunities that are very sarcastic in nature such as ″Free transportation to work by mule″ or ″Ketchup packets from McDonalds″. Overall the site is pretty convincing and well made, but once you think about the concept itself and rummage through the site a bit to see the touches of humour, you soon realize that it is a scam.
Buydehydratedwater.com
Friday, September 4, 2009
Funding for the Arts.
The ad starts with a famous French Canadian singer trying to promote his culture to English Canadian jury to get some money to promote his culture in France. The ad is filled with funny dialogs. In fact, dialogs between French and English speaking Canadians are funny because it shows a couple of misunderstandings. While the French Canadian is singing his song, the jury understands few words that may sound vulgar in English. At the beginning and at the end of the ad, we can hear the narrator to put us in the concept of the ad. The ad does use music, but not as background music, but as a sign of French Canadian culture. The jury isn’t as clear as the singer is. It looks like it represents darkness. At the end, we can see a big printed statistic that clearly shows the idea of the ad. The target audience is all the French speaking Canadians, and not for the English speaking Canadians. The main goal of this ad is to persuade us that our culture is very important and we should fund it. The statistic they give us at the end greatly shows that it is important to promote our culture around the world, even in an economical view.
Molson Beer (Canada)
Berlitz
The ad tells a story of a new German Coast Guard radio operator who receives a distress
call from a sinking ship. He misunderstands the distress call due to his poor English
language literacy. The main actors interact by radio communication. The radio operator is unsure of his tasks and is unconfident of his communication skills. The tone of the ad is serious with a humorous twist. It employs the music Carmina Burana which expresses the desire for directness of communication. The target audience is English non-speakers.
The message of the ad is that English language skills are vital for critical international tasks. The intention is to inform people to learn English. The commercial is very effective at delivering the message and is very inspiring to all who yearn for good communication in English.