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CST 361S - Week 7

Service Project

This week, I spent 4.5 hours at my service site for my last shift, wrapping up my project by refurbishing and testing the last round of laptops, along with following up on the revisions I made to the SOP(standard operating procedure). In total, I spent 30.5 hours volunteering at my service site with 25 out of those 30.5 hours on site, and the rest doing offsite work. It was a bittersweet feeling walking out of the warehouse knowing it might be a long time before I go volunteer again due to traveling and other upcoming events this summer taking up most of my weekends, but I had a great experience working with all the volunteers and learning about the importance of reusing technology and how important it is to lessen the gap created by the Digital Divide.


Gamers, Quests, and Changing the World

Although I am not as hardcore of a gamer as I used to be back when I was younger, I found myself relating more to this week's TED talk than any other discussion video so far in this class. Having accumulated thousands of hours of in-game time myself over the years, I firmly believe that video games are not the evil, time wasting hobby that most parents view it as (at least mine did!). The four principles of believing a task can be accomplished, working together socially, and finding a purpose in the "bigger picture" are all beneficial traits that bring out the best in people. I am not an advocate that everyone should play video games or spend all their time playing them, but I think we can all learn from the four traits that McGonigal mentions in her talk. 

I would like to see a game that blends virtual and real worlds, especially using AR, that is designed to crowdsource a solution to a pressing real world issue. With the line between virtual and real worlds becoming increasingly blurred these days, I do think that such a phenomenon is possible. If it does, I'm definitely signing myself up to try it out and play it. 

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