Ignite Talk

What makes you, you? There are many factors that make you who you are. -Personality -Attitude -Interests -Choices -Attractions -Experiences We are all different and all have different things that make us who we are!

Final Blog Post

As I have gotten deeper and deeper into the conversation of whether or not social media is a positive or negative in education, I have realized that both sides are equally correct.  Social media can be seen as both a positive and a negative.  As seen in the two articles above,  it generally depends on how you look at the situation.  If you see the situation from the "Henry Jenkins'" side, or the positive side you can see that media can be just as much of a basis for learning as a textbook or a teacher.  We learn so much from the things we see, use, and do on a daily basis.  The positive side of this conversation are pushing to see more media, and social media being used within schools.  For example, our classes blogs!  Social media!  We learn so much from reading each other's thoughts, and commenting with a rebuttle or feedback!  This is the type of social media that younger generations really are pushing to see more of in schools.  However, for every positive there is a negative!  The negative side also has a very valid point.  Children, teens, and students aren't always using media the right way.  We see so much harassment and bullying going on in the media that we cannot blame the side that wants to eliminate media in schools.  James Paul Gee's idea of identity plays an important role here again.  The idea of identity that we can get from video games also falls into media.  Students will create a false persona when it comes to media.  They will use the media in many different ways which can all be negative.  This also plays a major role in their education, alongside the positive.  We see in the second article above a questioning of what students are really doing with the media.  Are they learning, or are they goofing off?  What they don't understand about the media is that it changes your emotions, attitude, personality, and everything that makes you you for better or for worse.  It has been interesting diving deeper into the symbiotic relationship between media and education.  I think it is safe to say that we can see this relationship as either a positive or negative.  No matter our point of view the media is here to stay in education.  As I look back over the semester I see that almost everything we have done in class has involved some kind of media, whether it be blogs, videos, emails, Twitter, or Ignite talks!  Even with all the media we have been through, this semester has be a success.  We have learned how to make connections between things we thought were polar opposites, and then analyze, revise, and do it all over again!

• Anderson, Steven. "How to Create Social Media Guidelines for Your School." Edutopia. The George Lucas Educational Foundation, 27 May 2012. Web. 28 Apr. 2013.

• Bagigah, Ahmed. "Digital Media to Strengthen the Connection Between School and Home | EdLab." Digital Media to Strengthen the Connection Between School and Home | EdLab. Columbia University, 2011. Web. 28 Apr. 2013

• Jenkins, Henry. "Is New Media Incompatible with Schooling?: An Interview with Rich Halverson (Part Two)." Confessions of an AcaFan. N.p., 24 Mar. 2010. Web. 28 Apr. 2013

Mini Project #3

Here I made another found poem on a screen cast-o-matic!  My poem uses different words and phrases from many different education sources that I have found online.  This week I decided to focus on the negative effect of media on education, and if there is one or not.  When reading many different sources I discovered that the conversation on whether or not media has a negative influence on education is all over the place, with many different points of view.  On the positive side, media in education allows a student to become themselves.  Students get to create an online identity in which they can say whatever they want, to whomever they want.  Many scholars, such as James Paul Gee, feel as this ability for a student to create their own "identity" is a powerful tool in helping a student learn.  I agree with this as well.  I know media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, or even a cellphone allow students to be themselves and explore certain things that they can't or wouldn't be allowed to in school.  However, I do also believe that the media has a negative effect on education and learning.  First thought is,  just think of how impressionable students are!  Students can see something in the media, good or bad, and think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread!  This was the argument for the negative influences of media in education.  I also agree with this side too!  I feel as if the media will allow students to create a false identity, with 99% of the time this identity being a negative one.  Even when it comes to education, a student will feel the need to be wanted or popular within the media.  This leads students to do anything for attention.  The media has also engaged in lots of idolization and stereotyping lately.  This causes students to idolize the wrong things in the media.  The wrong things being a woman who is famous for being with multiple men.  Or a man who is famous for stealing or doing things that are illegal.  I don't think our media has a real understanding that these kinds of behavior translate back to us students and terribly affect our education.  In this conversation about media as it happens around the world I believe the positive side is winning.  We see the media being incorporated more and more education in school around the world.  This matters to me as it should to every other student around the world because it our education.  These behaviors in the media, negative and positive, are changing much more than we realize.  In my opinon I think we should cut back on media in education as it relates to the negatives.  I know I probably sound crazy going back and forth in my projects, but this is such an interesting topic and it can go both ways!  Someone play devil's advocate, what do y'all think?!

Link to my video on Youtube, just in case it doesn't show up! Click here

Mini Project #2

Henry Jenkins is a very interesting man, and this is a very interesting article!  Henry Jenkins talks directly about the question that has been burning in my mind.  I know the picture is super small so here is the link to the article.  Jenkins talks about what our class has been discussing, peer-based learning.  In the article Jenkins quotes a quote from his father saying, "never let schooling get in the way of your education."  It took me almost 5 minutes to understand what this quote was truly saying.  Jenkins pushes the idea that schooling and education are becoming more and more intertwined.  Jenkins idea of schooling is the formal way of learning.  Sitting in a classroom, reading from a textbook, listening to a teacher, the usual.  However, his idea of education is gaining knowledge, whether that be from Facebook, a new Beyonce song, the morning news, or even the text you got from your friend with the directions to a party, it is all learning!  I can easily side with Jenkins because I to agree that knowledge doesn't always come from a teacher.  We focus so much in class about connected learning, and peer based learning but I don't think we ever take our thoughts serious!  BUT WE SHOULD!  Jenkins backs up everything we say!  Are learning should not all come from teachers or the formal way!  Honestly, this article backs up what we've been asking all semester; what are other ways of learning?  Connected learning!  I think it is really interesting that this conversation is happening elsewhere, not just in our English class.


I believe that a lot of younger people have the same point of view on this subject.  However, adults on the other hand feel as if you can't learn from a movie or Twitter!  This is really important to me and should be important to other students because I believe we can build from here.  Just knowing that other people feel like we can learn from the media is means to start a rally!  We could rally for Twitter/Facebook textbooks for classes.  Or a curriculm focused around texting, and how to get better WPMs!  This add fuel to the fire or to the conversation that media is directly connected to learning.  This just shows the positive way in which it is connected.  But is there a negative way?!  Stay tuned......

Mini Project #1

America’s low-lying educational fruit
T is for Aca-Fan
Transmedia is for Veronica Mars
A Conversation about make ‘em laugh
Round table part one, UNIFY
Authentic IN ALL CAPS
Transmedia, with Tyler Weaver
Interview with producers about comics
Culture of reading, in Hollywood
Let us now praise famous monsters
Transmedia
Internet freedom between T Bone
Global south and spreadable media
Transmedia

My Found Poem comes from many of the individual post titles from Henry Jenkins' blog Confessions of an Aca-Fan, the Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins".  Jenkins' blog focuses solely on the media and how it is perceived by the audience, and also how it is potrayed.





Gamer in reality
Good versus evil
Star Wars, Ruzzle
Snowboard
Good heroes vs. evil villains
BEER based learning
Wordle, a path to inquiry
Parents roll kids
Good versus evil
Unrealistic at who they look up to
Krispy Kreme on Myrtle Beach
Jeopardy expressions and emotions
Themes versus media
Good versus evil















































My second Found Poem comes from the individual blog posts on blogs of members of both the 9:30am class and our 11:00am class.  Our blogs come in a wide-variety and focus on many topics, almost all relevant to class time the week of.

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When starting my mini project I wanted to focus on how our English class' blogs focus on many, many topics, while more professional blogs pick one topic and expand each post from there.  When reading Henry Jenkins' blog and a few other blogs I noticed that I was right.  Professional blogs pick one topic and each week/day/hour/month create a post that stems from their central idea, Jenkins' idea being "the media".  However, as I was going through all the different blogs from our two class periods, I noticed that I was wrong about our "unstableness".  Even though our blogs have many different titles, with many different meanings they all fall back on this same idea of connected learning.  Our blogs all deal with peer based learning, string games, "why I missed class", and many other topics.  While talking in a workshop group I heard something really interesting.  A fellow peer of mine said that peer based learning and the media have a strong correlation with each other.  After realizing what he said I saw an immediate connection between Jenkins' blogs and our class' compilation of blogs.  If you compare the 2 and their topics of "the media" and "connected learning" you realize they overlap.  This is important to me because it puts our class into a much bigger and better perspective for me.  Being able to see connections between media and learning ties into so much more.  For example, these 2 topics tie into college readiness, success, and even string games!  This is really important to everyone, especially college students because when you think about it, the things we're learning are directly influenced by the media!  So just think, how much of what we see in the media is good?!  Probably less than 40%!  I'm finding this really interesting and I will be looking more into it!  If we have a separation of church and state we also need a separation of LEARNING and MEDIA! Hahaha, I'm done!

March 20, 2013

The meetings with the Forrest View students were very interesting.  I learned so much about how ALL students think.  In our short time talking I learned that we all view college very similarly, whether we're in it or soon to be.  When talking about college readiness I also discovered that we all have the same pressures, insecurities, fears, and excitements.  When discussing college readiness one major topic kept coming up, and this was peer pressure.  Many of us feel like we are pressured into going to college.  Stephanie (a Forrest View student) said that she felt like if you didn't get accepted to college coming out of high school then "your life is pretty much over."  I thought this was funny and interesting that people actually take college acceptance that serious.  She felt that if she didn't get in to college then her life was pretty much "over."  I think that is a very harsh thing to say, especially over "college acceptance."  However, Victoria on the other hand had a completely different outlook.  Even though she knew she wanted to go to college she had come to the realization that "college isn't for everyone."  I completely understand where she's coming from because I feel the same way.  Combined, all groups came up with very similar posters of college influences (shown above).  This was also pretty cool to see how everyone's influence on college readiness came from everything else but themselves.  It would have been pretty neat to see someone's influence be themselves.  What do y'all think?

Found Poems!

Fire!
Do not pop popcorn
Precaucion, caliente!
You are cordially invited
to keep calm, you come alive.
Run for your life, go do it.
The gold award, as we party
to our own rendition.
Trained responders only!

This was my "Found Poem" I wrote in class last monday!  I think it is interesting how about every three lines in my poem make sense, then it seems as though they completely switch topics.  I think it was also pretty funny to see how we all pretty much brought back the same little blurbs from writings around the building.  That shows how all the same posters around campus catch our attention!

What does success look like?!

Wednesday's class discussion really interested me in looking more into success, and what it looks like.  Lately I have been thinking a lot about life.  When kids are growing up all you hear them talk about is becoming a lawyer, doctor, architect, engineer, or what have you.  But where do the normal people come from?  What about our social workers, teachers, bank tellers, or mail couriers come from.  I call these filler jobs, or jobs that fill in everyday society, our NORMAL people.  How many kids do you hear growing up saying they want to be a bank teller after they graduate......not many?  Right.  But why is that?!  I have not always viewed success as doing whatever makes you happy, not content, but HAPPY!  For majority of my life I have viewed success as having an amazing home, white picket fence, wonderful family, trophy wife, and a dog named Spot.  But that can't be what makes everyone happy.  What if what makes me happy is a nice 900 sqft. apartment with bad parking, overlooking a nice local park, single, and a cat named Pepper?!  This leads me to my point!  This picture really upsets me......

I really do not agree with how easy, simple, and one-tracked they are making college admissions look.  They make it seem as if there is only one way to make it to college, by following their exact steps.  But what if there steps don't make you happy?  What if you don't like college visits?  What if you take the ACT instead of the SAT, can you still go to college?!  I really just think that everyone one has a different goal for success, and a different path of taking to get there.  In society we always tend to generalize everything and make it seem one-sided.  We now know that nothing in life is truly one-sided and a person's success cannot be defined by anyone else.

U.N.I.T.Y.

Unity?  What exactly is unity?  Togetherness.  Where do we see it?  How often does it show up?  In class we looked at different pictures in which we were asked to find something interesting, and make it seem odd, even if we knew exactly what it was.  Coincidently we got the picture from the popular movie "Freedom Writer" showing a class of students huddled together.

 

We were asked to make something odd of this picture.  Make it SEEM like something that you don't see everyday.  That was pretty easy given this picture.  How often do you see a class united like this.  No matter the age group, school, or location, you never see this happening!  I think it was interesting that Prof. Lacy put this picture in circulation asking us to find/make something strange about it.  I feel like just looking at the picture we automatically she something strange and out of the ordinary, students UNITED!  Do you all see this as being just as strange as I do, or am I doing too much?! Lol

What Elbow Thinks!

I want to talk more about Peter Elbow's writing "Coming to Know Myself as a Vernacular Intelect" and how I understood it.  When reading Elbow's writing I thought about so many events over the years that have potentially shaped or changed my experience as a writer and a student.  Elbow repeatedly calls attention to the teacher student relationship and how he views it.  Elbow says that teachers have an unfair control over their students creativity.  Teachers have the chance to tell a student if their work is right, or wrong which is solely based on the teachers discretion.  This is unfair seeing as though your teacher changes frequently.

 

Here is my daybook entry where I talk more about what interests me in Elbow's writing.  I have always thought that teachers control way to much of what students feel is right or wrong, and it's nice to know I'm not alone!

Myspace, Facebook, Twitter!

I've had these thoughts and mixed feelings about social networks on my mind for about a week now.  I've heard so many different points of view about whether or not social networks are good for you, or bad for you.  On the good side it is said that social networks help teens to build, perform, articulate, and develop friendships.  This is said to be what social networks provide for young adults.  I believe this is what they were created to do, but they fail.  In my opinion social networks are completely unnecessary.  I believe they tarnish children's self esteem and promote a need to be liked or accepted.

 

Popularity!  The image shows a picture from my daybook of notes I took while reading about social networks.  The word that stood out to me was popularity!  Social networks create the need for kids to feel and be popular.  They create a false image of what's cool and what's not.  Personally, I believe social networks impact a child's social development negatively by creating false images of what acceptable, and teaching kids how to be someone they're not, thus leading to low self esteem.  What do y'all think?!

Are they ALL beneficial?!

Okay, I really want to talk more on the subject of the "games" we all brought into class to share.  I was really fascinated by the variety of games people brought.  I saw everything from simple word games to games that required creative experience.  This was interesting because we all saw them to be beneficial to learning no matter how simple or complex they were.  By reading Gee's passage we automatically think now that every single video game ever created is beneficial to our learning.  However, I don't believe that this is the case.  Although, I do agree with Gee in him saying that GOOD video games can yield GOOD learning.  There is still a such thing as a bad video game, or one that does not help our growth and developement, or does not challenge our problem solving or thinking skills.

For example, I do not believe this video game challenges anyone who is able to play it in any beneficial way.

http://www.agame.com/game/bubble-shooter.html

This games only tests your ability to aim the arrow in the perfect direction, and at the perfect angle to eliminate the bubbles.  What kind of development can you gain from this?  Seriously......  What videos games are truly good learning tools, and which ones are just simply pointless?

Good Video Games, Good Learning.

I want to talk more here about the "Good Video Games,  Good Learning" passage.  This passage really interested my because it focused a lot on the connections between a good, "educational" video game, and actual growth and development of a child.  James Paul Gee gives us a list of insightful things that a good video game can provide to a child.  This words on this list are all collectively critical in the social development of a child.  This passage interested me because it tells us that these traits don't only have to acquired formally, but they can be learned from a video game.  This wold almost certainly cause kids to play more video games, but also help them to grow and develop.

My Wobbliness!

In this English 1101 class I would say that I have had my share of wobble periods.  I have tried new attitudes, new ways, and new points for writing.  A lot have failed, although a lot have also worked!  I came into this class without a clear understanding of what I would be doing.  However, I came out with a completely new outlook.  I have learned many new styles of writing, and ways to write about life.  One very important thing that I have learned is that everything with writing is not always black or white, there can definitely be grey areas!  Wobbling in this class, or not having a solid understanding, has really made my writing what it is.  By wobbling I have learned how to pick myself up, pick my work up, dust myself off, and keep on trucking!  I have learned how to take and receive criticism, and also learn and improve from it.  All in all I would say that my wobbling in this English 1101 class was necessary for me to be able to get a better grasp of the different writing concepts, attitudes, and techniques.  I have learned a great deal in this class that I plan to use for the rest of my college years, and for a lifetime.  I will keep moving forward as a novice writer, and better myself day by day.

Ethnography Project Final Blog Post

Our ethnography project came together well, even though it did not start off as easily.  Starting my ethnography project and trying to find something to write about was not a simple task.  I had the building that I planned on talking about, but I just had no way of relating it to literacy underlife.  After our group came upon the topic of architecture everything seemed to fall into place from there. 

 

 

In this picture you can see my original connection between architecture and literacy.  I used Robinson Hall very heavily to emphasize my point.  However, my focus on Robinson Hall in specific did not last all too long.  I then began to expand my focus points while working with my group.

Revising my work however was a completely different story.  After doing my literacy narrative, revising was not as bad, simply because I now know exactly what it was.  The hardest part in revising my ethnography project would be from broadening my points from Robinson Hall specifically, to all academic buildings on campus.  I think this was a special kind of revision because it didn't focus on actual writing, but rather on changing my work to fit my groups progression, but revision nonetheless.

Working in a group seemed to flow a lot smoother for this project than just about any other project that I have worked on.  My group seemed to pretty much just understand everything that needed to be done.  We never really had any problems with not completing any assignments involved in completing our ethnography project.  I know we aren't supposed to say that everything was peachy clean, but when it comes to working in this group, honestly it was!

However, creating an untraditional piece was not easy at all.  It's so hard to kind of go against everything that we've been taught going through school.  I also think this ethnography project was necessary because it helped us to see that our writings and meanings are created by us.  We're so used to doing things by the book that we forget to add our own creativity and letting it shine through in our writing.

Overall, I think the ethnography project was important for our growth in writing.  It helped us to see that we can't always look for basic meanings that are given to us, but we have to create our own.  I think that is exactly what we needed to learn in our freshmen year of college for many of us.

This picture is my portion of our ethnography project in writing.

Literacy Narrative Final Blog Post

Wheeewwww! Where do I begin?!  Writing this literacy narrative has not been a walk in the park.  I have struggled with about everything under the sun when it comes to writing this paper.  First, I couldn't find a topic, then I struggled with making it interesting,  and I also didn't understand what to write.  However, once I discovered my topic I pretty much just plowed my paper out from there.  I wrote my entire literacy narrative in literally about 3 days, and that was the problem.  I never really stopped to think about the actual assignment, but rather just getting it done!  When I figured out what to write, my essay started off like this......

 

However, after reading and analyzing the start of my first draft I realized that it was not what I wanted to write about,  or even read for that matter.  So it was back to the starting blocks.  My final draft is still based on the same topic as my first draft, but I go about telling the story in a completely different way.

 

Revising my work on the other hand was along the same lines of picking a topic!  I didn't completely understand how to do it.  Coming into this literacy narrative I had revising and editing totally confused.  I mistook one for the other.

 

 

 

This picture shows how I tried to switch writing styles on October 4th.  I tried writing with the "Lydia Davis" style of writing.  I tried incorporating short, choppy sentences, and questions to get my point across.  As you can see, I wasn't the best at it!  Editing and peer editing was pretty easy and successful for me.  I believe I gave a lot of interesting points and suggestions.  I also received just as many helpful points and tips.  When editing my work I had a few goals that I wanted to get accomplished, these were:

• Completely understand my writing, and which direction I'm taking it.
• Try different styles of writing.
• Work on better intros and conclusions, and ways to experiment with my writing.

I would say that I accomplished these 3 goals.  The only one that I feel like I could have had a better handle on was the first one.  I feel like I could have gotten a better understanding of my writing then I have now, but that's my personal opinion.

 

Overall I would say this literacy narrative assignment was extremely helpful.  It wasn't just a normal essay that I was just trying to get over with.  It actually required some thought and input from others on how to make it my own writing and not just some boring, factual essay.  While writing this essay  I learned the true difference between revision and editing.  I also learned how to play with my writing, and not use the basic style for an essay, but switch it up and make it interesting.  My final conclusion from this literacy narrative is more of a opinionated one, but still important nonetheless.  I have learned that writing an essay does not have to be a template or pre-designed event.  Writing an essay can and should be a reflection of your feelings, emotions, and experiences!

 



Ethnography Project Update and Questions!

I want to talk more about my group's ethnography project, and also ask some question that may help us out.  So as of right now our group decided to go with making a video for our ethnography project.  We decided to have sort of a compilation of information, interviews, and discussions to give a deeper meaning to our topic, architecture.  Do you all think a video like this would be boring?  If so, what would make it better?  Our project on the other hand is coming along well.  We each have a our own sub-topic and have already started investigating them on a deeper level.  I would have to say that our topic is pretty interesting though.  By doing this project I have really begun to step back and look for deeper meanings in everything I come across on a daily basis.  I think this ethnography project is really cool, and I can't wait for you all to see our video!

Ethnography Project Updates!

My group's ethnography project on Architecture is coming along well.  We have decided to focus our attention on three main topics which are, architecture within academic buildings, general buildings, and within the classroom.  I think this is a good start for us because we all have different focus points to dig into while bringing our project back to the central topic.  I think our idea of creating sort of a compilation video to provide answers to our different questions will be a great.  The only problem that we may run into is finding out how to use the movie maker website that Lacy sent to us.  Somehow though, we will make it work, hopefully!  Wish us luck!

Annotated Bibliography

• Pizzato, Mark. Personal interview. 1 Nov. 2012.

I plan on conducting this interview some time soon.  This interview is important because it will help me understand more significance behind Robinson Hall.  I will also conduct this interview to stress the importance of architecture, and how architecture can affect a classes style of learning.  In this interview I will ask question of how teaching in this particular classroom in Robinson Hall may be different from teaching in any other classes.

• Manship, Lacy. "#freehand1101." Map. Ed. Kedric M. Wright. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.

This map created by Professor Lacy was very useful in choosing which building would be better to analyze specific architectural differences, downfalls, and improvements.  When using this map I noticed that all of the buildings on this campus have their own unique shape, which made it much easier to choose which building to look closer at.  In choosing Robinson Hall I noticed that it's shape is not as unique compared to other theatre buildings.  This map was very helpful in helping me recognize this.

• Diao, Dr. Yuanan. "Professor Interview." Telephone interview.

This interview will be used as a contrast interview to my other interview.  This specific professor teaches math in a lecture style classroom, and I would like to find out if this is easier or hard to do.  In this interview I will ask specific questions about the architecture of the classroom, and if he believes it helps or hurts to effectiveness of his teaching.  The usefulness of this interview is to use as a control group to my previous interview of Professor Pizzato.

Remapping the Map!

After sitting down with my Architecture group we came up with some pretty neat things that relate both literacy and architecture.  While sitting down in Atkins library we created a list of things that ties architecture into literacy.  On our list we wrote:

• The specific ways in which the buildings are set up.
• The way the buildings are situated on campus.
• The actual insides of th buildings.
• Specifics within the buildings, like artwork or etc.

This list helped us realize how architecture can positively or negatively affect literacy in many different ways.  In the updated overlay version of my map I added different classroom layouts.  The different classroom layouts can affect literacy greatly.  A lecture style classroom versus a intimate smaller size classroom changes a person literacy history dramatically.