Muscular Dystrophy Canada is one of the top 10 health organization with membership of 10 000 to 15 000 in 1958. Muscular Dystrophy Canada have volunteers and staff across the country to raise funds to support there patients, researching or a way to cure and improve their life quality.  It make a difference to the people who are affected by Muscular Dystrophy when people donate. They use their funds for research, support, social action to collaborate for change and education.

Muscular Dystrophy Canada have use social media tools like facebook, youtube, twitter and flicker. While MDAS ony have website with banner of picture animation. Although not a huge amount of people view the video in youtube, but they is still awareness to others as there are still some people who watch it. In their facebook account, there are 166 fans. It may be not many and there are ways to improve it but still it is better than what MDAS has done. MDAS basically did not make use of any social media tools. Muscular Dystrophy Canada facebook has been updating with new information or pictures.

By looking at the point i mention above i find that Muscular Dystrophy Canada had done a better job than MDAS as it is more effective, more people know about it online and Muscular Dystrophy Canada use more social media tools. Thus i think that MDAS have to use social medis tools like facebook (which our group is doing) to create social awareness as Muscular Dystrophy Canada show than it is effective.

Screenshot of the Muscular Dystrophy Association Singapore website

screenshot of the Muscular Dystrophy Canada website

from the picture below it shows that they are using new media tools to create awareness.

We search for Muscular Dystrophy Association Singapore in facebook, but the is no group that is created for that.  So we decide to do our prototype on facebook. We decide to create group for MDAS and  a annual quiz for people to do which is based on Muscular Dystrophy. The objective of creating the quiz is to let people know more about Muscular Dystrophy. This help in creating awareness to people. If a person do a quiz, the Asiasoft online Pte Ltd which is the sponsors will donate 50cents to the association.  There will be a chance to win the prize if they do the quiz. First place is a iphone, second place is 2 pair of movie tickets, third place is $30 shopping voucher and lastly there will be mystery prize for 10 consultion places. We will also be doing advertisement in facebook at the side of the page. If people is using facebook they will see the advertising and may click in to take a look about it.

Opinion

I think that by using facebook as a social media tools to create awareness will be helpful as most people are using facebook now. By having prize, people will be interested to do the quiz, if they meat a question they don’t know, they will search about it, in this way they will learn new information about Muscular Dystrophy.

Prototype

My group is doing on the Muscular Dystrophy Association Singapore(MDAS) which was formed in 2000 march. It is a self help organization. It is created to improve the life of people with Muscular Dystrophy. Muscular Dystrophy is the name of the combine of different muscle diseases. Muscle diseases such as muscle weakness, wasting and contractures are usually progressive and may also be dangerous to the life. The diseases obvious in childhood and some may begin at a later age. It is normally inherited. There is still no cure for Muscular Dystrophy. People know the is this diseases but not all know there is an organization for it and also the symptoms of it.  So we have to help them create awareness by using new media tools.

The  MDAS does not call people patients but call them members. The MDAS wants to provide care and support towards the members. They want to provide health and public education on Muscular Dystrophy so that more and more people can volunteer to help them.  Lastly to support medical research so that they can find a way to cure Muscular Dystrophy.

There are many types of Muscular Dystrophy. Some of it are:

• Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy- Only affect the boys, as boys don’t have a sanother X-chromosome to exchange for an abnormal X-chromosome. It occur in 1 out of 3000 new born baby.
• Becker Muscular Dystrophy-Most of the patients are boys age 11 or above and this type is less serious than others.
• Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy- Both sexes affected
• Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy- Both sexes affected
• Myotonic Dystrophy- Both sexes affected as the abnormal genes do not reside in the X-chromosome. It cause stiffness in muscles.
• Congenital Muscular Dystrophy-The patients is affected with this since birth and is seriously weakening the muscles.

There are different type of Muscular Dystrophy because of the pattern of inheritance, origin of the genetic mutation, age of onset, rate of progression, prognosis, incidence and symptoms. Different cause and outcome require different treatments.

The symptoms of Muscular Dystrophy consist of the patients with muscle diseases and is weak. it usually involves muscles close to hip, shoulder muscles and some other. The patient will have difficulty in walking, running. climbing stairs, standing up and carry heavy things. In young children, it will delay the time to walk, run and stand. It is because of muscle wasting which causes the weakness.

There are programmes to improve the life of people with Muscular Dystrophy such as life skills & enrichment and many others. The have use some media to create public awareness such as the MDAS website which is launched in 2001, a forum launched in 2004, MediaCorp Radio YES 93.3FM in 2004, Asiasoft Online Pte Ltd in 2008 and some others.

There is no ways to cure muscular dystrophy.  There are only therapy exercise and surgery to control it. Steroids have used to slow down the disease. There is recommended Genetic counseling for families who are affected.

Opinion

I have learn a lot after i research. Before this NMT project, i have only heard on Muscular Dystrophy and does not know about the details of muscular dystrophy. After researching, i find that people diagnose with muscular dystrophy are very unfortunate as they cannot choose as it is genetic.  They have to leave with the diseases for their entire life. I think everyone should know about muscular dystrophy to prevent their kids to get. Girl from a father who has a muscular dystrophy is a carrier thus if she have a son, the son will have muscular dystrophy while if it is a daughter, she will be a carrier. Thus i think it is important for people to know more about muscular dystrophy. My group decide to create awareness by creating a facebook group, a quiz and advertising in facebook as many people is using facebook now and they use it everyday thus using facebook will create awareness to others.

I have visited the website of the national archives which told me that the national archives and records administration is the nation’s record keeper.

The NARA keep information like the declaration of independence, the constitution and bill of rights which is important ans is preserved. The records of ordinary citizens which consist military records, people who fought for our country, naturalization records and also cancel the cheques of purchase by other country.

The NARA make sure on the continuing access to the essential documentation of the rights of the American citizens and the actions of the Government.

The website provide us about the information about what the national archives is.  It has an online exhibition which let those who are not able to take a look at the exhibition can look at in online too. This let more people know more about it and be interested in it. There is also jobs for people to apply at that website. There is some grant show that the website to assist us to the study of Federal Records or Presidential papers.

The NARA did made use of some of the social media and web 2.0 technologies. They are some examples such as the Youtube, Facebook, twitter and many others. They use these media and technology for public communication and education. 

5 key points

• Have a good portfolio.
• Use of different ways to advertise now. Use some popular website to advertise like blogs, twitter.
• To experience how working is like by taking up some freelance job.
• The different of freelancing and working for a person.
• Show the new media tools that blogs have by showing us the blog of xiaxue.

3 things that inspired me during this lecture

• By the spearker works which show us the creative he has. This tell me to think more differently.
• By knowing that the school project and when working is not the same. As when working works will not be accept if it is not what the client wants. This will inspire me to try to learn more.
• By trying as a freelancer to experience on the working life.

I think this lecture is useful as it let us learn more knowledge about it. By hearing his experience we can know what is happening in the working industry and what things we may have meet during working. This will help us when we are working.  By having a speaker to talk u will by inspired with his works and may try to learn more after the lecture.  By knowing the difficulties i can prevent from giving up if i happen to have the difficulties during working.

From the article, it shows that due to the impact of new media, Google Maps Navigation was created and has lots of advantages. You can search and navigate to places, businesses, landmarks in a short time using simple English. You can search by voice, view of live traffic data on the internet, search along route. Besides that, the Google Maps Navigation has satellite view and street View. Lastly, Google Maps Navigation has car dock mode. All the advantages stated above shows about how new media has make things more convenient. Google Maps Navigation is free so people will be attracted to use this instead of the GPS turn-by-turn navigation as you have to pay for it. But this can affect the GPS navigation companies from earning lesser and lesser as most people will be more attracted to the Google Maps Navigation when it is free.

Google Maps Navigation requires hand phone and internet to work. In the past, people find road or places by using maps. But because of new media, just by having a hand phone and internet you can find the places in a shorter time and is lighter. Now, everyone should have a hand phone and an internet at home. But in the earlier days, not all of the people need hand phone or have the ability to have a personal hand phone. Hand phone is use only for calling in the past whereas the hand phone now has lots of features like the camera, video call, games, phone contacts and many others. The features in hand phone is improving as new media is improving too. The designs of hand phone are getting better as it’s becoming smaller and there is more variety of colours. But because of the impact of new media, people depend on the hand phone all the time, when the hand phone is lost or spoil, all their important information like people’s contacts will be lost.

By having the Google Maps on the internet, new technology may be created, one example is the “little buddy tracker“. Little buddy tracker can be used to track on where the kids is by their parents. But because of new media’s impact, more things are being created which is convenient for some but not all such as the above example, it shows that the kids will have lesser freedom as their parents will know everything they do. Internet can be useful for searching information or interact with friends that you have not meet for quite some time. But it can also causes you to have lesser freedom like little buddy tracker.

Google Maps Navigation helps people to find the places easily and reduce the possibility of being late as using Google Maps Navigation enable you to find out the information you want and it’s faster than flipping through a book. I think that Google Maps Navigation is a good new media although it may causes negative effect like the Google Maps Navigation can causes GPS navigation companies to earn lesser which may results in retrenchment of some workers to save costs used. People will choose to use Google Maps Navigation rather than GPS turn-by-turn navigation and the older version of finding a place which is using maps as it contain good features which can attracts people to use it.

By having the Google Maps Navigation in the Android, people can save money and have good features which can help you to find a place easily that you have not go before. Google Maps Navigation uses hand phone and internet to operate. New media affected our society as people depends more on it and will not be able to do something without it, one example is the Google Maps Navigation which driver depend on it. As time goes by, Google Maps Navigation will not be able to use only in Android but in all hand phone and more features will be added in hand phone to make things more convenient. As time goes by, more better designs will be out too. I think that whether new media is advantage or disadvantage is actually based on how we use it and what we think about it.

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