thoughts on week 5

This was the best article I have read so far! First, it was short enough to keep my attention the whole time. Second, I understand statistical redundancy!! It was a plethora of emotions knowing that I could deduce what was being talked about in this article & it made sense! Obviuosly if you are taking data and compressing it, some changes need to occur. I even understood the difference between lossless and lossy! Why can't it all be this easy???

Data compressing kind of makes me think of math. You can write a number out in standard form, which is a shortened version of expanded form. You can even use expotential notation if available. Data comperssion reminds me of that. To shrink the number down to the exact amount would be lossless (not losing anything). To round up or down, just taking a bit off here or there, would be lossy (losing a small amount). The article from DVD-HQ helped me to understand that even better. I guess I didn't realize I was as visual a learner as I must be.

The most interesting aspect of the DRL article is reading about something that when written, the future is unknown, but being here, knowing the idea worked. They knew they would have support through 2004, but I have since used the DRL to obtain pictures for assignments for my classes at Pitt. It is cool to see the plans for something that you already know the outcome of.

I think using YouTube is a great idea to help teach in the classroom/library. I have thought of it many times. Many districts, however, block it because of the inappropriate nature of some of the videos. I have used TeacherTube before, which is similar to YouTube (in fact you can find the same videos) but it keps its content safer. (There is an option for flaggin inappropriate material) and it's a great example of data compressing!