Blog 21: University of Minnesota class WRIT 3577W

What have I learned in WRIT 3577W? This has been a great experience. While reviewing certain topics, I definitely learned a lot. Topics that were more review for me were in the internet section in the beginning. I previously took history of computing at the University and it covered a lot of what we talked about. It was very interesting to get the facts from a different perspective though. The biggest topic that I learned about was rhetoric. Before taking this class I had always hear the term rhetoric but I do not think that I actually really knew what it meant. I certainly had never learned about rhetoric. I feel like rhetoric should be something taught to us at a younger age. It is a very useful tool that I will take with me throughout the rest of my life. The last topic was the most fascinating to me though when we talked about the Internet of Things. I had known about the different aspects of it but never really put a name to what it was. I feel like this is going to be a huge part of our future going forward. It was interesting to hear the perspective that other people had on the internet of things. It was interesting because that topic came up in a different class for me this semester so I was able to use the knowledge that I had from this class to help learn about it from a different perspective. Thank you for the great semester and I hope others gain as much information from this course as I did.

Blog 20: Virtual and Augmented Reality

I decided that I would like to write a blog post about my final project for WRIT 3577W. I decided to go with talking about virtual (VR) and augmented (AR) reality. I decided to talk about these two topics because of the importance that they will have in the future. First, it is good to recognize that these two topics are not new. For decades we have been predicting that the future may include holograms or some type of alternate reality. It is really cool to see something like this become a reality. Some new discoveries that I had while doing this project was what was in store for the future. The applications of these two technologies is endless. As one of the articles that I read said, the only thing holding us back is our imaginations. This is so true. Think of some of the applications that these technologies have, health, fitness, education, and more. Doctors could use it to help with taking vitals during a checkup. Surgeons could use it to help them while doing surgeries. People in school could use it to help with learning. You could have all of your books or important documents stored in the goggles and it could be projected onto your desk. More importantly, this could really help students that have disabilities. Another interesting application is video games. This is going to be one of the biggest markets in my opinion. Recently video games have become more popular and the applications for this topic are endless. Imagine playing Minecraft with AR or VR. You could literally build your cities around you in a room. The future is looking very exciting for AR and VR and I am excited to see where it takes us.

Picture taken from: https://startvr.co/wp-content/uploads/iStock_000085205875_Double.jpg