Having fun with International Morse code

My last blog post was about how people used newer technologies to communicate with
people after a disaster. Today I thought I would turn back the clock a little bit,
and talk about an older technology and the way it was used to communicate among
people.
I was hunting through a stack vinyl records to add to my collection at the local
Goodwill store, when I found a record entitled international Morse code basic
code course. It was then that I had the idea for this post.
According to the free dictionary by Farlex International Morse Code is “the arbitrary set of signals used on the telegraph.” This
system was invented by Morse, Samuel Finley Breese.
Born in Charleston Massachusetts in April 27, 1791, Morse, a printer and
inventor created this system in 1832, while serving as the acting president of
the national Academy of design, of which he was also cofounder. Additionally,
he is credited with obtaining congressional support for the first US telegraph
line. This victory came, after a failed attempt to gain congressional support
for a transatlantic telegraph line  in earlier years. Records show he died on
April 2, 1872 in New York .

How technology helps people communicate after a disaster

It’s an all-too-familiar scenario here in Florida, from early June to November
residents are on alert. We listen to weather reports on the radio, and check
forecast online; Wary of the danger of a hurricane warning, or watch. It is
like a gray cloud looming ever present in the back of our minds.
In the event a storm does hit, it usually means the loss of electricity for at
least some amount of time. The loss of electricity inevitably affects people’s
ability to communicate with one another. The suspension of services such as cable,
satellite, Internet, cellular phones, and even radio if it is not battery
powered hinders our communications greatly.

The few alternatives left to us
under these circumstances are: person-to-person communication, using the land
lines that are available, this is of course assuming that they are not down due
to fallen wires, or electrocuted transformers, and the most viable method,
assuming that your provider still works and that you have this service to begin
with is texting
In fact, I’ve heard it said in many circles, that texting is the preferred way to
communicate after a storm.
But, what happens if the disaster is on a much larger scale and recovery takes a
longer period of time? How do we communicate with our loved ones then?
Innovative solutions to this problem were discussed by Lisa Katayama from Tokyomango at
this year’s web 2.0 conferences in San Francisco. Lisa has written for various
magazines, as well as published a book. Her area of expertise is Japanese
culture and new technology developed by the same.
Lisa’s presentation focused in part on solutions to the communication problems that
occurred after an earthquake took place in Japan on March 11, that were created
by ordinary people with the aid of technology.
Some of the more interesting examples she cites are

People refugee using mixy a Japanese social networking site to get status updates on if their
family members were all right, and where they were

The creation of a YouTube channel for people who were separated and trying to find
the whereabouts of their loved ones

Refugee shelters using  Google’s Picasso to transcribe the list of survivors and
create a searchable database, so that people could find those were missing

The formalizing of you streaming news broadcasts of a Japanese news network, after
they saw that a teenager was doing this

The creation of donate a room.com by two teenagers for the use of people who had
nowhere else to stay

A reporter who used podcasts to inform citizens of the situation, and keep them
calm and 24-hour basis

vending machines that had a special button to donate to the Japanese Red Cross
relief efforts.

Adding language to the mix, how language barriers affect digital literacy

“When one of you has a minute, would you mind telling me what this means?

I have heard this question countless times, it’s usually what my grandfather says
to me or my sister when he needs help reading something that came in the mail.
Many of you may be aware that certain documents necessary for the navigations
of everyday life in the United States are not available in a second language. However,
what many of you may not be as aware of is that the problem intensifies when
you move from on paper to on screen.

Then the question becomes, not only what does this mean, but how do I find it? And
it is asked by multiple family members, including my mother and father.

More often than not, my sister and I are the ones who are asked to search for
information online. The reason for this is that even after switching the
language settings on a computer navigating the Internet still presents challenges
to a person, for whom English is a second language.

This is why in millions of households across America the responsibility of helping
their parents accomplish tasks that require knowing your way through the
chaotic web that is the Internet falls to teenagers, and young adults.

In fact this is the very topic discussed in the article “Immigrant Parents Rely on Kids for Help Online.” The article
written by Alex Schmidt can be found at NPR.org, or by clicking the link above.

I would like to add one additional point the article does not
mention, even if a person changes the language setting on his computer words
are not always translated correctly, at times this can even change their
meaning and misguide users as a result.

Ready, Set, Send

I was reading Rhetorical Public Speaking
by Nathan Crick. As I glanced at the table of contents, a particular section
held my interest. The section was entitled “the context for online
communication.” Crick places particular emphasis on the aspects that make
online communication unique.

“First, it allows for multiple messages to be sent and received simultaneously and at rapid speed. This creates an enormous competition for time, as it creates an
almost permanent backlog of messages awaiting consideration. In this
environment, messages are naturally developed to capture one’s immediate
attention and be received and understood in a short amount of time. Second,
capability of multimedia messaging further heightens the competition for attention,
such as a simple e-mail might be supplemented with embedded images, attached
files, and background graphics or sound. Third, it creates a situation of
receiving a message in private at the same time that it is capable of being
broadcasted to a group. This reduces the sense of “privacy” that
written speech tends to produce while at the same time allowing a message to be
freed from its situational context.”

It was the two notions of competition, and reduced privacy expressed in this
paragraph, which most intrigued me. As I was reading the passage above, I
recall the phrase, which I once heard in the movie long ago.

“Once again, the phone is faster than the pen.”

I believe the movie was entitled “love letters”, in the movie the two
main characters’ friendship develops, almost exclusively, through letters.
However as they grow older that friendship blooms into an unspoken love.
Somewhere in the middle of the movie, while the two leads are in their early
20s the male lead finally gets up the courage to ask the woman he loves to the
dance. Unfortunately for him, he is beaten to the punch, in the form of a phone
call by his wealthy rival to the love of his life, asking her if she would like
to go with him. In the movie the same serves, not only to single a gradual
distancing between the two protagonists, but also emphasizes the passage of
time, and the introduction of new and faster technologies. These new
technologies inevitably take over the old technology’s former place.

This same scenario can be translated into modern times. You only need to alter the
phrase slightly to read “once again, the text is faster than the
phone.”

In regards to the issue that of reduced privacy, I would not only agree with Crick’s
statement but, I would go, as far as to add that this lack of privacy has
resulted in a lack of both thought regarding the message content, as well as a
lack of care for what is said. It used to be, that whether it was an employer,
or a friend people took time and care to compose their communications to one
another. These old conventions are now overshadows by the more pressing needs
of getting someone’s attention, so your message is delivered to its intended
target and is received quickly.

moreStaying connected

In classin class, there has been a lot of discussion concerning digital literacy, and what it means to be digitally literate. We have all shared our definitions of these two terms, yet I want to take it a little bit further and discuss the process of becoming digitally literate. Ironically enough I was doing homework at my desk, when I heard my grandmother asked, how do you text?

She continued by saying, that she wanted to learn how to text because, she thought it would be easier to get in touch with my cousin –her grandson Charlie. Charlie has already completed basic training for the Marines .he has been stationed at 29 Palms , as well as their San Diego base .he recently communicated to us that he was returning to the San Diego base , but apart from that we had not received much news so, my grandmother decided that she would try texting to be able to communicate with him.

Ater a few basic instructions, from my sister my grandmother began composing for message to Charlie . Meanwhile the conversation that I had started earlier continued after a few minutes my mother asked my mother, if she had seen Pan Am on ABC? my grandmother responded, with a very uncharacteristic uhum, to which my sister jokingly said are you’ll absorb in that ? my grandmother’s response was  another uhum.  My mother made the comment “she’s already gone. ” However, just a few minutes later we all heard my grandmother grumble “oh no , whwhere did it go ? ” The entire message has been erased . after a moment, my sister realized that my grandmother must have gone over the  160 character limit .

it was then, that I noticed  , the commonly held convention of character limit is known only to modern generations  another comment made by my grandmother pointed to the fact that, she found the on screen keyboard to be less comfortable than the actual keyboard . she equated its similarity to using a typewriter . this is just a short anecdote, demonstrating the first steps to learning about texting , but I hope it has served as a demonstration of the process to becoming digitally literate .