Technology has seemed to have taken over todays society, from social media, to the way we go about doing daily activities, to the way we interact with each other, and we have even seen it in the business world. Companies now are required to use the modern technology available to remain appealing to the public and to be “successful”. We can see this displayed in the quality of technology that companies use typically judges on how successful the company is. It can even be interpreted by their internet presence. Do they have a useful and user-friendly website or do they seem to have a strong ad presence? These are all perspectives of the corporate and business world that have been altered by the sudden rise of technological advances.

Therefore with this in mind you could also argue that the job market and outlook of different careers has gone through a dramatic shift with the high demand for all types of engineers and careers in technology. Because now these careers are the ones that can help continue this driving force of new technologies to be built and maintained. The demand for new technologies has never been stronger.

So you might be thinking wow all that sounds great, but why would that apply to me? Well the workforce must prepare themselves to be able to use these technologies as well. To be a competitive candidate for any career or job, having good technological skills is a must!

Fortunately, the internet provides an endless array of tools to practice and hone these skills. Programming in particular is a very appealing skill to have in todays world. Knowing about the different programming codes and how to implement them could be your edge or key to landing that dream career!

And even better learning to code can be a fun and extremely interactive process!

Here is an extremely useful article that displays the top 10 programming languages, what they are best used for, and which websites are best to use to learn them!

http://mashable.com/2014/01/21/learn-programming-languages/ 

I hope you find this useful and that you unleash your inner programmer!

Until next time,

Alexandra Orrego

As a new semester of college SPRINGs back into action (get the pun?), most students are mostly dreading the stress that awaits them. Did last semester leave you with a bad taste in your mouth? Did you feel as though managing your time between school, work, student involvement, and your social life was impossible? Maybe your managing skills are not the best and you tend to be a forgetful person! Hey, it happens to all of us. Great news! Because of the innovative technology era in which we live in, there are useful tools that can make this and the next semesters to come much more manageable!

Technology has come a long way since when most of us students began school in either pre-school or kindergarten. Back in those early days, every year we were given agendas as tools to begin to instill in us that organization is a key factor of success. On the other hand did this agenda ring or vibrate every time you needed to be somewhere or an assignment was due soon? Was this agenda conveniently with you where every you went, being the perfect storable size? Well… no I doubt it.

Luckily people in this world continuously find new and innovative ways to provide us with the most efficient and accessible solutions to our everyday stresses and struggles.

In order to be successful, especially in college, is to be able to strategically and efficiently manage your time, so that everything that needs to be done gets done. With good time management is always organization. Our brains have proven to fail us time and time again when trying to remember when our assignments are due, test dates are, club meetings are located, and maybe even just remembering to have some downtime.

One tool that I have seen be very useful is a very inclusive application downloadable on your smartphone or laptop, called : iStudiez Pro

 “iStudiez Pro is the unique application for students which combines tracking schedule, 
homework and grades with a delightful user experience. ” – iStudiez Pro website.

As one of the highest rated, student friendly practical apps on the market right now, istudiez has the reputation of being extremely user-friendly as well as not just being an electronic agenda but  a life saver!

ANOTHER great tool, that I have personally found very useful:

ONENOTE:

onenote is a digital notebook where you can easily take notes in class and organize them with a click of the mouse (or mousepad).

Here are some tutorials/overview of these two apps that I have found useful.

iStudiez Pro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp_s1THqvu0

Microsoft’s OneNote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bKiatpaacg

I hope you find these tools useful to tackle those tough semesters ahead!

Until Next Time,

Alexandra Orrego

As you all may know, I am a part of a team of awesome SIFs who are working on an educational, innovative project. The project is aimed towards recreating an interactive virtual 3D model of the intersection of Decatur St. and Ivy St. ( now Peachtree Center Ave.) in what it would have been like in the 1930s. Working on this project for the last semester has shed light in the fact that the project has taken a lot more time and energy than expected, while also hitting several bumps on the road. To me, that’s no problem as I know that all great masterpieces (not implying that our project will live up to the word “masterpiece”) take hard work, time , and dedication.

Currently we have been at a standstill with the project because of one fact: there is a lack of pictures of the street during the 1930s. In  order to resolve our problem, My job for the project was to search the internet inside and out for any pictures of buildings, preferably head-on shots, that would aid in recreating the building in a virtual 3D model as accurately as possible. Another SIF was setting up the 3D world in the game engine called Unity. As the search continued and the results were very disheartening and minimal, we decided to look to outside sources for help. One of our project supervisors heard that Emory was attempting to recreate the city of Atlanta into virtual 3D model in a similar project. He explained that those at Emory had access to old maps and pictures. Soon we were in contact with a project member from Emory, and found that they did have a  lot of information and maps but they were not specific to the street that we were particularly focused on during the time. Then again, back to square one.

As a couple of weeks went by, A SIF came back with news that he had contacted GSU’s special collections which had resulted with no pictures, but he did return with an explanation.

Decatur Street from the 1920s to the 1930s was a hub of Blues artists, moonshiners, and prostitutes. The street was home to Theater Eighty One which housed some of the most influential rising blues artists. At the time racial discrimination against African Americans was still a prominent issue. Decatur Street was a street filled with famous dancing halls, great blues artists, and completely original entertainment but it was also severely impoverished. The are was filled with poor African Americans and other minority groups that were rowdy and to the public eye, and eye sore. During this time the idea of the new south was being implemented and to the government photographing only the positive sides of Atlanta was in their best interest. As the poverty rate in this are was astonishingly high, also contributed to the fact that people in this area did not have access to cameras and therefore added to the high rate of undocumentation of the area. This street is a hole on history, when it comes to trying to dig up photographs and visuals of the area.

With all of that said consideration of taking the project to a different historic street around the GSU campus might have to be looked into. Hopes for recreating the virtual model of Decatur street are still strong, we just might have to consider other sources.

Although we have come to a wall in the project, all the research done has allowed for us as SIFs, and myself personally, to gain so much knowledge of the area that surrounds us as well as gain experience , that not all projects are going to come to be finished and completed easily.

I am still looking forward to where this project will take us and what new information and knowledge I can gain.

Until Next Time,

Alexandra Orrego

There has been an exponential rise in technological advances in the past 10-20 years. You can see this advance in every aspect of our everyday lives from our smartphones, laptops, advances in medical technology, and even advances in educational technology. So what does this sudden growth of advancements in technology mean?

Almost every technology today has had something to do with a Computer, whether it be creating the technology through computerized assembly machines, coding and programming the technology to do what we want, or simply designing the idea through computerized softwares or programs. Bottom line is the Computer Science and information technology fields are on the rise and a demand for people with these skills is high. Schools of higher education have had growth in high numbers of students entering these fields of study all over the country.

In a recent article posted by Georgia State University, an emphasis on the growing importance of computer science is explained by expanding its exposure to students not only high school but in elementary and middle school as well. The article congratulates a Georgia state professor for being awarded a $1.2 million grant in order to create a computer science curriculum integrated into “urban elementary school classrooms”.

The plan is to create a program educating children from third to fifth grade the same strategies and knowledge “that industry leaders use to create websites, apps, games and other digital media.”

The purpose of this project is to educate children in innovative ways in order to expose students early on to skills that are becoming very important in this “increasingly digital society”.

This article struck me as a completely ingenious and innovative way to begin to build and educate a technologically literate and skillful generation that will hopefully then be able to contribute to this age of technological innovations and advancements.

Through this article we can continue to see the importance and impact that technology has not only had on our social live but on our educational and acedemic lives as well.

I am excited to see where technology will take us in  the next 10 to 20 years!

until next time,

Alexandra Orrego

P.S. here is this article if you are interested in reading it!

http://news.gsu.edu/2014/10/21/professor-awarded-1-2-million-computer-science-curriculum-project/

As the weeks pass and both projects are beginning to form, the knowledge that I continue to gain has not seized.  Particularly the Atlanta Transit project has begun to take way with all members of the projects learning how to efficiently sift through archives of transit plans for the MARTA rail line. It includes all maps that display actual functioning lines, to proposed lines, to rail lines that were never built.

How we can use this information to obtain a tangible idea or final result comes from using the software ArcMaps, a software made by ESRI. ArcMaps allows us to take these Geographically tagged, archived maps and create an accurate layer, in which we then trace to create layers upon layers. As we all continue to track all the maps found and continue to add layers, the end result will be an inclusive map of all the planned and proposed rails that the City of Atlanta wanted for MARTA.

The uses for this map will hopefully be to see how transportation affects the city of Atlanta and how that in turn affects which of all the proposed lines were actually built throughout out the years. We can then look to how these stations and lines affected the communities that surround this convenient way of transportation. I believe that the mission of this interactive map will be to educate the people of Atlanta on how public transportation and construction have immediate and long term effects on the surrounding communitie’s’ economic status, social status, and ultimately their potential due to their accessibility from public transportation.

As this project continues to unfold, I have been exposed to many grad students who have degrees in Geoscience. These intelligent students have instilled in me the hand that technology has in creating all of these important mapping projects. One particular student has mentored me in thinking about guiding me on which other minor or double major to pick up, because of its demand.

I am infinitely grateful for all the opportunities that being a SIF has allowed me to have and I am always excited to see where the next upcoming weeks will take me!

I will be sure to keep you all updated.

Until next time,

Alexandra Orrego

As CURVE begins to gain “regulars” , “newbie” traffic, and large intellectual groups I continue to see the growth and resources that the CURVE space is able to provide for not just GSU students but the community. The visuals in the space are incredible and it is a daunting task coming up with ways to optimize all the resources that the CURVE space provides. As the weeks go by and seminars, classes, and research groups have come in and out of CURVE, its become a bit more clear the type of students and researchers that CURVE is meant to attract. These ambitious intellectuals are seeking knowledge on their own personal interest or to improve their abilities in the subject matter at hand. As a SIF member of two innovative projects as well as computer science major, the amount of knowledge that is out there simply by meeting the right people and gaining meaningful relationships has impacted me in being proactive to seek these opportunities much more especially when it is to gain that connection for a job or internship or simply for personal knowledge.

One specific  The entrepreneur workshop seemed very useful in not only the sense of helping guide entrepreneurs and giving them the tools to succeed on their own but also to provide them opportunities to network. Specifically a guest speaker was brought to the workshop. The speaker named MK was a GSU alumni who has been the successful business  owner of 3 companies and was now working on developing two other companies. MK seemed very passionate about giving the attendees of the workshop helpful knowledge and tips on how to successfully start their own business and this was rooted in his wish to give back to the GSU community that molded him into a successful business man. He mentioned several times his bias towards GSU students for internships and his need for people for his teams. These statements jumped out at me. The fact that the GSU community from current students, to faculty, to alumni can all connect with each other and provide each other with unbeatable opportunities to get ahead amazes me. I was very proud that CURVE was able to host such an event and bring such ambitious and successful people to GSU.

I am excited to see what other opportunities CURVE can bring not only to GSU but to the community as well!

until next time,

Alexandra Orrego

This week has been another one of those informational weeks. I was recently recruited to be a part of the Atlanta transit project. This project is geared towards focusing on Atlanta’s public transportation history, particularly MARTA’s planned transit lines as well as existing ones. With this being said our plans are to create one all inclusive map of how MARTA’s transit lines were originally planned to extend to and where they actually ended up being today. With Atlanta’s new street car being prepared for release in the next upcoming months, we can see how public transit has impacted life downtown and how public transportation remains as an important issue for large cities like Atlanta.

When analyzing the “game plan” for the project I was taught how to search for archival maps of Atlanta’s MARTA plans through GSU’s libraries resources. With these maps we can therefore sift through all the maps and record all of our findings to avoid overlapping and duplicates.These maps are then used in a large and very resourceful software called Arcmaps where we can over lay these old transit plans over another realistic map that places it to be geographically accurate. All this information was very enlightening and interesting when learning how all the mapping processes work. This project is going to be an exciting and educational experience for myself who is a computer science major in order  to obtain some hands on experience with mapping. I am glad to be what you call a rookie introduced to all the experts and professionals, because I get to collaborate with the best in the field.

I am excited to see what new things I learn, and with that, an update on my other project:

As some of you may know I am working on creating an interactive 3D model of the block at Decatur st. and Peachtree center ave. (formerly known as Ivy st.). Progress has been made much slower than we anticiapted, but only because we did not account for the delays when  confronted with the challenges of 3D modeling and finding historically accurate, head-on pictures of the buildings on the street. So I have taken the initiative to continue to look for picture on the immense world wide web as well as attempt to gain experience and knowledge on how to help with the interactive part.

I took  the liberty to download Unity which has been decided to become our interactive game engine, and I have proceeded to watch lynda.com videos on the gaming software in order to be of more assistance to my project “mates”. As I have only just begun the long and informational process of learning how to create and build in this gaming software, I realize that I have only scratched the surface.

I will continue to update you all on these interesting and innovative projects and hope to share with all of you the journey and headaches that innovation takes, but ultimately show you all the amazing finished products. (although that may be further down the road)

As our project on the interactive 3D model of decatur street in the 1930s continues, we have come to face challenges fearlessly. Some of the biggest challenges we are facing include historically accurate 3d modeling, finding pictures of the actual buildings that were there at the time, and filling all the historical holes from which we have to sort through what seems like a limited amount of information about the street. In order to tackle and overcome these issues, we reached out to emory because there was word that they were working on a similar project, except at a much larger scope. It seemed that they were working on a  3D model of the entire city of Atlanta based on the findings of numerous archival maps. We decoded to reach out to the people working on this project in order to gain some insight and information that could ultimately help and reduce the risk of replicating their project.

We did a video conference with someone who was leading the project at Emory and found a lot of commonality between the two projects, although Emory was working on the entire city while we are focusing on a specific street. We ultimately came to the decision that we could possibly join forces to aid each other on the project. We could help with their large scope project, reach out to other universities or interested partners, and seek funding all in order to have the resources to accurately and efficiently complete our projects. It seemed as though it were a reality check to see all that was still necessary to achieve the excellence and complexity that we wanted for the 3D model.

Although it was an eye-opener everyone on the project came together to decide that it was best if we united forces with those from Emory and possibly researchers at Georgia Tech. We are working on looking for an experienced 3d modeler and gaining more references and images of the buildings to therefore accurately replicate them. Ultimately the conclusion although the road to our goal has gotten a bit more difficult we have gained important knowledge needed to fight these challenges and overcome them.

As my second week of working at CURVE ends, I begin to reflect on my time spent there, the progress made, and its overall usefulness in the name of research. Working at CURVE has truly made my lasts jobs seem so mundane and unbearable. Honestly to me working at CURVE no longer feels like a job, let me explain. The room is a high-tech visual and research oasis. As a computer science major, I am continuously at awe with all that the space can do for students at GSU, especially those dedicated research students. The workstations each have either a pc or a mac of incredible quality. The PCs have 12 core processors and 128 GB of RAM (making them extremely fast and capable of loading things with a lot of data), while the macs 1 TB of hard drive making them able to store a significant amount of data and files. These workstations are all set up with high resolution samsung screens making the visuals great and are arranged for groups with multiple seats all around the station. The interact wall is immense. The wall of screens seems to stretch over more than half of the space.  This screen has recently been used to display medical models of the human body to allow a class of students with  medical related majors to clearly examine all that they can. The 4k screen adds to this high-tech lineup of equipment allowing for an area for viewing detailed images. Although the room is filled with such great resources for students the traffic has been very slow due to its very recent opening this summer. Not many students are aware of the space, it is still very early in the semester, and it is strictly for research and group projects. I see nothing but potential in this space and I constantly feel so privileged to work in such a collaborative and academic-forward environment. Although there has not been a large use of the space, our group project has had a chance to meet in the space and discuss our projects progress.

Meeting with the group we tok the liberty to use one of CURVE’s many workstations. Attempting to create an interactive 3d model of Decatur street during the height of the blues movement, Robert Bryant( a fellow SIF and graduate student at Georgia State University), pulled up the walkable model of the street he began in a game engine called Unity. He had about five or six buildings set up with a side walk. Although he said it wasn’t much the street looked great! the buildings were so realistically 3D and he had used an old 1937 map of of the street to create a sidewalk with the an accurate measurement of the actual street. The old map was great for all of kinds of information that will help us make the street as realistic and historically accurate as possible. We were able to see exactly where buildings were, in between which buildings were there alleys, and where  there were fire hydrants. I think one of the most important, was where exactly theatre 81 was located. When discussing the progress and direction of the project we had decisions to make upon which direction we wanted the interactive part of the project should take. Should we all someone freely walk around and they can only interact with certain parts of the street that we want to explore, or should to be sort of like a movie where they are guided to separate places and then when they are there they are able to click on things to interact with it and therefore gain more information and knowledge of the subject.

Our main goal is to make the model and street as interactive and as game-like as possible in order to promote it to feel like more of a game and ultimately more fun than an educational tool. Therefore, of executed correctly as a player continues to play they are exposed to various historical aspects and information that they are kind of forced to learn something of the time period and its significance.

As we continue to work on this project, I am continuously challenged and shocked at the intelligence, dedication, and ambition of the project members around me. This project has repeatedly continued to excite me and reinforce my belief that gaining knowledge and learning is fun and essential to growth.

 

Since last week I went with a more technical and underlying mechanisms kind of post, I have decided to theme this post over the historical aspect of my projects research. As stated before, I am apart of a project that is working on creating an interactive 3d online model of a historical blues block in the heart of downtown Atlanta, which is ale the heart of the Georgia State University campus. With this being said, since having taken on this project,  I can’t help but relate my everyday strolls in Atlanta to its bluesy history. I wanted to shed some insight and perspective on how the past of Atlanta’s streets can be seen today.

This weekend I had the privilege to attend Atlanta’s biggest music festival, Music Midtown. It is a two day music festival at beautiful Piedmont Park. The festival, in its peak years, reached an attendance of 300,000 people. Therefore this year, as a multitude of people traveled to Atlanta for the festival so did vendors of all kinds and street performers of all kinds. These vendors and street performers were looking for success either financially or just through popularity. They took advantage of the crowd. Walking both towards Piedmont park and leaving the festival from and to Marta both vendors and street performers caught my attention but I gravitated more towards the dedication and up beat attitude of the street performers.

When reflecting on all the street performers I was confronted by, I began to realize their uncanny similarities. All performers had some sort of bluesy aspect to them, either by their instruments, songs played, or style of playing. The performers included a duo of two young males, one with a trumpet and one with a saxophone. They played contemporary songs with their instruments. Both the trumpet and saxophone are common and essential instruments used in a blues song and band, and are honestly not all that popular in today’s top hits music. In addition to these performers was an older man with a bass guitar playing very bluesy riffs and rhythms, he played with such conviction and when looking back acted as a preserver of blues. Also seen, was a man playing the guitar while also playing the harmonica that was strapped to him. Both the guitar and harmonica are very prevalent in blues music. All these performers displayed a modern day  interpretation or influence of Atlanta’s past.

This experience was very eye-opening, since I would have expected much more contemporary music played by street performers given that the festival’s lineup was mostly of contemporary music. I believe that Atlanta’s history has influenced many individuals even today. Although Atlanta was a blues hub in the 1930s, you can still see the preservation and strong influence that the blues period had on Atlanta and its current population.

With this information I plan to research if there are organizations or locales around Atlanta that attempt to preserve this genre of music as well as how and why it is done. I believe connecting with this aspect of my research will allow me to better understand why this project is important and relevant to us today as well as how it is.