NMT PROJECT RESEARCH

For my project, I researched on a particular organization called the Samaritans of Singapore, in short, SOS. I would like to provide a bit of history on the SOS. The SOS was established on 1st december 1969. They are a non-profit and non-religious organization, which aims to prevent suicide by providing emotional support and befriending to those who are despairing, discouraged or distressed. Their vision is to be an available lifeline to anyone in crisis and the mission of the organization is to provides confidential 24-hour emotional support by trained volunteers to people in crisis, thinking of suicide or affected by suicide.

The services that they provide vary.

Ranging from 24-hour hotline:1800-221-4444, email befriending, face-to-face sessions, emergency squad, Local Outreach to Suicide, Survivors(LOSS) and Healing Bridge; a support group for suicide survivors.

For my individual part of the research, I have researched on my group proposal. Firstly, there will be a blog that is linked to the website to show responses of those who have recovered from the intention to suicide. This will serve as a credibility for other suicide prone victims and will have a larger impact on convincing them not to suicide and thus guiding them out of the mindset that they are worthless. They can also provide responses for suicide prone victims for them to have a chance to interact with those who have recovered from the intention of suicide. I believe this suggestion will greatly help the discouraged feel encouraged.

Secondly, I would like to introduce Social Media Networking to the organization. I have looked around the website and have found that the organization have never really used any social media networking tool except for providing their e-mails. Facebook, Twitter and Youtube would be a good addition to their extended helping hand.

Moving on, I will be elaborating on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube and how these tools will help the organization. Starting off with Facebook, starting a group in Facebook and inviting people to join the group. This will enhance people’s awareness of suicide prone victims. The group can post discussions and share the different symptoms that suicide prone victims have and how to prevent these thoughts from recurring in the victims. The more members the group has the more aware the world will become of suicide prone victims.

Next, I shall explain the wonders of Twitter. Why choose Twitter then? Twitter appeals to people young or old and tweeting is basically just a minute away from posting your status. In the case that the organization makes use of Twitter, they could create an account and have members from all over the world to follow them. This ensures that everytime they tweet facts or greetings, the followers will be sure to find out what it was by the significant tweet sound.

Following through, it finally comes down to Youtube. Youtube is a website that is enjoyed worldwide and there are millions of accounts which upload videos unto Youtube daily, not to mention the number of people who go on Youtube to search for tutorials online or simply to find videos to cure their boredom. My suggestion is that the organization creates an account with the organization’s name as the account name. Through this, they upload videos on a regular basis. The videos can address the suicide prone victims and also help them cope with their problems by suggesting feasible solutions and methods. Youtube can be said to be the best social media networking tool for them. Furthermore, if people subscribe to their channel, they could earn some extra revenue as they are a non-profitable organization, the extra cash could serve well to hire more helpers.

Comparing SOS with a foreign website about suicide, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention(AFSP). AFSP is much more updated than SOS judging from the way their website looks. AFSP is also several steps ahead of SOS by using social media tools. I believe AFSP would have a much greater impact than SOS. AFSP’s layout is also much better than SOS and clearly engages the site visitors more than SOS. Pictures are uploaded onto the website to make it look much more popular and that people actually takes part in the events held by AFSP. SOS needs to learn from AFSP in this aspect.

In conclusion, I strongly recommend that SOS work with social media networking tools and also create a blog to further increase their influence in the 21st century where computers are almost everything. This way they can promote themselves better and at the same time save money. Gathering volunteers who enjoy maintaining websites can be beneficial to maintaing their blog and different accounts.

National Archive Blog Submission

The National Archives was established in 1934 by President Franklin Roosevelt, but major holdings date back to 1775. The National Archives and Records Adminstration is the nation’s record keeper. National Archives is the keeper of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. It holds in trust for the public the records of ordinary citizens-for example, military records of the brave men and women who have fought for our country, naturalization records of the immigrats whose dreams have shaped our nation, and even the cancelled check from the purchase of Alaska.

The National Archives preserves and provides access to the records of the United States of America. Records help us claim our rights and entitlements, hold our elected officials accountable for their actions, and document our history as a nation. The National Archives basically ensures continuing access to the essential documentation of the rights of American citizens and the actions of their Government.

The National Archives provide Federal agencies superior records storage, access, and disposition services through a national network of facilities. The National Archives also runs a Government-wide records management program to identify records of permanent value, assure the timely disposal of temporary records, and provide agencies with guidance on managing their current records, and it assists non-Federal institutions through a grants program administered by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

Yes they do use Social Media for public communication & education. If the users find the information they could always share the information online via the share button through Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, Twitter and MySpace. Also they make use of electronic mail and has services that allow users to contact them through the use of e-mailing information to the National Archives or the person who updates the National Archives regularly. This makes full use of the social media available at the time. Also the National Archives is a sort of Social Network as they have different facilities in which the users can contact anyone of the facilities and the information will be shared throughout the network. They also make use of Web 2.0 technologies. In this case it is the use of Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs) which in turn is shared in the web page which allows other users to access it if they have questions to ask the website updaters. The users questions can also be answered in the case where another user has already asked the question and is replied. Also information is shared in the home page where there are the regular updates or updates that the staff has uploaded unto the website.

New Media Review

I have chosen and reviewed an article about new media, the evolution of windows vista to windows 7 OS. I particularly chosen the article as I am quite interested in it myself. Thus the following paragraphs will be my exploration of the windows 7 OS. Firstly, I think windows 7 is a good OS which has many of its features enhanced. Thereafter, it has touch screen properties and a similar property as a Mac OS, which is a double windowed screen to facilitate the user in working also can be known as double tasking.

Secondly, I think windows 7′s price is too costly after reviewing its features. If asked to choose between Mac OS and windows 7 OS, I think that majority of the population would prefer a Mac OS just because of its cost. Also even though the Mac OS is not suitable for gaming. I think majority of the population are salary people and would probably choose Mac OS than windows 7 OS.

Finally, Comparing the popularity of the 2 new OS. Even though Mac OS is abit older. Mac OS overall percentage of usage is more than windows 7 OS. But the percentage of the windows 7 OS is catching up to the different OS. Probably because its new and people want to use it.  Nevertheless, the popularity of windows 7 OS is rising and there will surely be more people using windows 7 instead of the other OS. My conclusion is that, in the near future, the competing OS will surely be the Mac OS and the windows 7/other improved OS from windows 7.

Thus, in my opinion New Media is extremely useful to us but at the same time we can be too reliant on the technology. Improving ourselves is great, but there will be many occurence of rivalry between different technologies. There should be a limit to how far technology can bring man.

Reference Link : http://mashable.com/2009/11/26/windows-7-passes-mac-os-x/

Done by : Ling Choon Wei P03 C245

My New Media Terms!

New Media Terms

Monday Blues

Hi all. I’m in ANP lab now but it seems like Mr. Rick Toh is explaining things i already know. So a short post for now. Learnt some new stuff though. Goodbye for now.

Sunday night fever~

Last rest day of the week! Been a fun throughout the week. So tomorrow school starts again.. Monday is a uncool day for me. School starts at 9. Ends at 7. Well well… That’s to make up for Friday where I have no school. In addition. Tomorrow is Director’s Cup! Basketball. From 7 to 9. Wow. I’ll be spending a solid 12 hours in school. Isn’t that just great. Signing off now since it’s getting abit late.

Learnt that Media is used to express lots of different kinds of things and can be applied in many variety of ways.

Wednesday

Went to change /add / drop cds today. It was not good. After MOS(Motion and Sound) I figured out my cds still hasn’t changed the cds didn’t accept my pending request. IM STILL IN PSYCHOLOGY! OMG!!!! I hate psychology. Its very very boring. I went to the lecture on monday and i found that the lecturer’s attitude wasn’t good. I didn’t get her jokes. I found her tone threatening. And most of all I didn’t like the way she put her words. Even though the other students in the lecture hall was laughing I wasn’t. So i practically didn’t enjoy it muich. Too add to it today was the tutorial for it. I couldn’t find the room and ended up sitting at IIT concourse and blogging on wordpress. Just penning down some of my thoughts and rants onto wordpress. So far in the semester. All the core modules were fairly enjoyable and it has interesting lecturers so I don’t think i will have problems to find the motivation to get things started and studying. Hopefully this semester i can get better grades to pass through the semester.

New Sem New ATTITUDE!

Hello People. New to WordPress here. But then Its a new Semester. Last Semester GPA was lousy so i think i’ll be working much harder. Jia you to myself!