A Remediation Of Ourselves

The perfect woman has been painted as an unapproachable, sexy, flirtatious, skinny, flawless creature that doesn't exist in reality. Bolter and Grusin write "Virtual reality therefore contains the contradiction that it is both Cartesian and anti-Cartesian, abstract and sensual, centered and fragmented, perhaps even simultaneously masculinist and feminist in orientation-all because, like other transparent technologies, while seeking to enact the male gaze, it also leads to a fascination with the many viewing and viewed positions made possible by the mediated self" (253).

Society has remediated the way a woman should look over the years. The size of a woman has been a distinct part of this "designation" of beauty. Marilyn Monroe was a beautiful woman who, in today's standards, would be considered overweight. She was the perfect image of what a woman should be in her day and the fact that the most recent years have created such a malnourished rude woman as a new role model should be seen as atrocious. Our culture changes from era to era and there's no way we can anticipate what will be seen as "right" for the next generation. Forming these images of perfection from any era will forever be a part of what virtual reality's purpose will be. Our society continues to designate what is beautiful and what is not. It will never stop.

Technology In Control

Technology is so crazy sometimes. I sat down one day and thought about how I got so used to using a small hand held phone. From this thought I began thinking about how I actually think that we all have been remediated ourselves to fit our present culture. Growing up in this society of technology dramatically advancing every few months has changed the way our brains think. Bolter and Grusin write "This is not to say that our identity is fully determined by media, but rather that we employ media as vehicles for defining both personal and cultural identity" (231). For example, cell phones have defined our younger generations a great deal. Just turn on any television station and wait for another kid begging their mom and dad for a phone so they can keep in touch with their friends. This "need" for human connection actually takes away from the human experience. The child is in fact distancing themselves from their friends at a young age because they will be "texting" their friends rather than hanging out with them.
Bolter and Grusin go on to write that "Clothing and jewelry treat the body as a medium in the sense that the body becomes the material ground that carries or bears expressive decoration; such decoration appears to respect the boundary between the body and the world" (237). I believe that this concept can also be applied to that of cell phone, internet and video game technology. Our society has become so dependent on technology and it makes sense that it has become a consuming thing in our lives.

Future

When we look back at the first production of video games there was such a great calling for people to upgrade in digital pictures and capabilities. Now it seems that we have reached a bit of a halt for the time being because Nintendo looked the other way and created a remote that can actually do whatever your body does.
Bolter and Grusin write "Although the remote control for a conventional set allows the viewer only to change channels, reduce the joysticks, keyboards, and trackballs of the games refashion and magnify the player's sense of control" (92). The player now has a better sense of control because the remote was fashioned to be able to bring the video games from the hands to the entire body. Just think about what the next big life changing advancement in computers or software might bring. I see a distant future in which we all will be touching the air with floating digital images. This would be useful when the time comes that we are no longer a physical world and we are all fully immersed in the environment of intense superficial and biological technology.
Here's a picture of what I believe might happen in the future.

Some Different Websites

I was thinking about how there are so many websites out there on the internet that are more useful than we think. There’s no way we will ever use all of them because there are so many and we are but human. Although, there are searches that we can do on Google or Yahoo that will help us narrow down our searches. We can search within search results for example. One such search can be for websites that are useful and aren’t well known. I searched for some websites and came up with:
http://games.gamejump.com/WhiteLabelWeb/index.htm

I think it might be useful for those of us who are attached to our phones.

New Thinking

It's hard to think about the moments in which the internet had only text located on it. Today we see it as a visual, kinesthetic and auditory learning center. I agree with Bolter and Grusin when they say that the introduction of images on the internet had two profound effects on the consumers/users of the world wide web. First, more people started to use the internet because of the images newly added and second, older media could be remediated to create better and more efficient programs. I believe that these two effects opened doors for new ideas to form on and about the internet as well.

I don't think that the internet would be the same without all the graphics that it has incorporated into it. The internet started with basic images from pictures and drawings that have been remediated and transformed into moving graphics and videos that can start talking to you when you enter a website.

A Movie For Class

Multitasking

Hypermediacy changes from age to age depending on social context. Does the same idea apply to multiple capabilities such as multitasking with technology? If you think about it most of us listen to music as we operate our car. That is seen as multitasking. I'll sometimes listen to music as I read. This too can be considered as multitasking. But how much does it limit us in the ability to intake knowledge? Can we still function to our full capacity or have we been limited in the amount of information we are capable of absorbing because we are multitasking?

Hypermediacy uses multiple ways of simultaneously representing an idea or concept. Through hypermediacy we can see that there are moments in which a person can have several different tabs or windows open on their computer. From this we can gather that a person can be multitasking while they soak up bits of information from each website while only paying a little bit of attention to each window they are connected to. Does this limit our comprehension when we multi task in this very technologically advanced age? Or can it be seen as a good thing that we can do so many things at once? I pose the simple question of asking whether this has been solely socially constructed or if it has become something that is necessary during our day and age making it important that we can participate in such tasks as being hypermediacy literate?

Classroom Situations

So I was conversing with a class of Juniors at a high school I substitute teach at and I posed the question of whether they would enjoy using Twitter in the classroom during a discussion. They all agreed that too much wouldn't be cool. However, what they did like about the idea was that they would have to make their point about the topic very concise because the characters are limited on Twitter. This class has given me another positive aspect of using Twitter in the classroom. The students would have to be clear and concise in each and every Tweet if they wanted to make an impact on the conversation. I really like the idea.

Digress

I value my understanding of computers and other technology I use on a daily basis. Without my phone I wouldn't get calls for work. Without my computer I wouldn't be able to do my homework and go to school to get a great job. Without technology I fear that we are all lost. There are many forms of technology that take control of the different facets of our lives. We have all become dependent on it and I hope that one day we might, as humankind digress ever so slightly so as to remember where we started from. The pencil and the paper. Reading from a book without using any other form of technology besides the written word itself and glasses. Will the machines take over our lives?

Hello

the sun!!!!

Uploading

Visual Essay

My Visual Essay

file:///C:/Users/Leontine%20Armstrong/Documents/Documents/Leontine%20Armstrong%20Visual%20Essay.pptx

Bing

So apparently there is a website that my students are using more than Yahoo searches or Google. It is called Bing. I had no idea what it was, or that it existed until my students showed me. It is a search engine similar to Yahoo and Google, but it's supposed to be better. We shall be the judge of that ultimately.
http://www.bing.com/

I think this new development is similar to that of critical literacy Selber has defined. The internet is being used for developing more and more search engines that are used by students. I saw some of my students looking up games to play as well as research for their projects. I think it is classified as critical literacy because they are using Bing as something that it might not have been initially designed for.

Remember

Selber makes some interesting points about how constructivism basically comprises of common sense concepts. He writes, "In oversimplified terms, constructivism is a philosophy of learning based on the premise that learning is an active process in which students construct new knowledge based upon their current/previous knowledge" (76). The importance of building more information on top of already useful information should be more heavily emphasized in education. There are moments from Kindergarten through college that a teacher will tell their students to completely forget everything they have learned about a given topic and listen to only what they have to say about it. I strongly believe that this creates a set back to the advancement of the student. How can we build up knowledge if the student has been continuously told to forget everything they have learned and start to adapt a new way of thinking? This actually sets back the advancement of future learning for everyone on the planet. When we are forced to continuously forget what we have learned in the past how will we remember anything?

For Love Of Education

Computers open up an immense amount of doors for advancing learning, understanding, comprehension, technological capabilities, and much more because this isn't even the start of the very long list of possibilities.
Stuart A. Selber makes some excellent points about how re-thinking the concepts of what computer literacy will do in his book "Multiliteracies for a Digital Age." He explains that it should be more important to have competent and computer literate teachers rather than just having an immense amount of resources. I agree that having teachers who love to teach what they know to their students has a much greater value compared to having unlimited computers or resources that won't be used well because of funding issues. Shouldn't the content and quality of education be deemed more worthy than quantity? Education is a valuable real life aspect of a student's creativity and understanding that shouldn't be ignored.

Here's a link to the California state site: http://www.ca.gov/

So here is my experimenting with embedding an episode of Family Guy from Hulu.com. Next step will be a movie!

Why Aren't Things Getting Better?

I really like the fact that Selber discusses the importance of “a computer literacy program that is comprehensive, innovative, and relevant” (7). Wouldn’t you think that this is what all educational systems would be striving for? Our schools however, don’t operate that way. The districts and school boards are only concerned about results when they should be thinking about how to create better more functional programs for students. So much usefulness goes to waste.

Poker Face Video

Thinking

Selfe may have created a book that is a little too long and detailed. What I find interesting is that I believe that it really is important that we are dragged through the overly excessive details because it makes us pay attention to what her main points are. I think it might be an underlying part of what we need to pay attention to. We aren't only paying attention to the facts Selfe gives us, we are paying attention to her presentation of it as well. Food for thought...http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/mba/lowres/mban1350l.jpg

Our New Required Technological Literacy

Cynthia L. Selfe’s book Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century, opened several doors of inquiry for questions about what is considered “literate” not only when her book was published, but today as well. Computers are expensive, but unfortunately are almost a requirement to everyday life concerning school, work, recreation, and everything else that is dealt with on the world wide web.
I have in the past realized that computer literacy is something that shouldn’t be taken for granted because I grew up in schools that had computers and as students we had access to them for school purposes. Selfe writes “In other words, the poorer and the less educated Americans are in this country-both of which conditions continue to be closely correlated with race-the less likely they are to have access to computers and to high-paying high-tech jobs” (7). I understand that I was fortunate along with many others. However, until I read Selfe I didn’t really take the time to think about how many people still don’t have access due to their race or class. Does this perhaps set us back as humankind because we aren’t attempting to help those who are expected to be computer literate yet don’t have access to become so?

A Response

I really like how Elise explains that Lester Faigley expresses the idea that students are now coming into the classroom sometimes with more knowledge about a particular idea compared to the teacher. It is an enlightening concept Faigley presents that teachers are no longer expected to fill the students with information. Teachers instead are given the chance to expand the already preexisting knowledge that the student already contains. Labeling students as authorities to the knowledge they have has been useful because the students become more productive when they are presented and encouraged with something they are familiar with.

Students Vs. Teachers

Does the realization that students are writers actually aid a teacher? Would it be ok with most teachers to see their students more literate in technology than they are? These questions can be difficult to answer if a teacher doesn't have an open mind to the possibilities of learning their students can obtain.
How can we deal with a student who is more technologically knowledgeable and still impart the wisdom within us?
I definitely agree that if students are exposed to more information, that their teachers simultaneously will gain authority on the subject and understanding as well. I think that embracing knowledge, whether you are a teacher or a student, will have a positive outcome despite who is more experienced with something. If a teacher discourages their student because they are more technologically advanced than they are, I believe that there will be many problems because the teacher is in fact hindering the learning process of both themselves and their students.
Authority and dominance in a classroom are created by the position of the teacher. When a student excels it is important to celebrate it and not assume a jealous position because it actually will undermine the teacher’s character and authority.
Students do have a sense of purpose of creating, molding, forming, and manipulating something that is their own. When a teacher embraces the fact that the student is able to do this without their assistance we are shown a glimpse into the mind and ability of a student. Hindering a student’s learning process in any way will have negative impacts.
As a teacher it is our job to inspire, push, pull, and create meaning in our students and their work. When we encourage the idea of becoming more advanced than we are, the student will take it as a creative challenge to excel and become something that they hoped to be, yet weren’t able to become without us.

Cool?

Marshall McLuhan writes "Every culture and every age has its favorite mode of perception and knowledge that it is to prescribe for everybody and everything" (21). I find this claim stimulating in that each generation and age has its own slang terms that mean completely different things from the last. McLuhan gives the example of the word "cool." It has changed meaning as it's changed hands. Now at the present moment it's seen as meaning a positive idea. McLuhan goes on to explain that "The restructuring of human work and association was shaped by the technique of fragmentation that is the essence of machine technology" (23). Would this then mean that because we are so heavily relying upon machinery we have also become fragmented? I think it does apply because we are presently seen as being very dependent upon technology for our everyday lives.

Detachment

As I read Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, I found several points he makes very intriguing. He says "We acquired the art of carrying out the most dangerous social operations with complete detachment. But our detachment was a posture of noninvolvement" (20). This is interesting because with the digital age we have all become very detached from life itself. How many of us send empty and meaningless text messages saying "hello" or "what's up?" to our friends we rarely talk to? Technology, despite its positive aspects, has created a detached barrier between us all. This could just be the beginning of what is to come. The internet has also created a detached movement towards not even being able to recognize the tone of voice our friends have.

First Class Meeting

My name is Leontine Armstrong and I am excited that school has just started again!