Round 2…

What was your favorite topic, article or video? Why?

My favorite topic/ video of the Module was definitely This Is Water from David Foster Wallaces commencement speech.

I have watched this video for a number of years. I think I came across it after I started reading his novels and essays in College. What I love about this video is the humor, relative darkness and reality he brings to something that is usually a happy the-world-is-your-oyster occasion. Knowing what we know about him now, and his writing, this is exactly what one would expect but it doesn’t make it the speech any less appealing to the listener. I also really enjoy the video accompaniment with the speech splashing across the screen the reality he is describing being played out in front of us. It adds another layer to the work that makes it more accessible to the viewer/ listener. I think my affinity for DFW may have me viewing this with rose colored glasses but I was pretty happy when I saw it in the viewing list.

BONUS!

This movie was surprisingly good. Segel gives a really great performance and worth a watch if you enjoy DFW work.

What was the best hypothes.is discussion? Why? Provide quotes.

• I think our (Earth that is) best hypothes.is discussion for Module 2 came over the video Henry Jenkins on Participatory Culture (Big Thinkers Series). The idea of a participatory culture that students and teachers can become a part of got us all involved in a dialogue and brought out a lot of really great discussion points and got the group and I really thinking. What stands out to me in the discussion was the ideas that we built off of. Each member piggybacked of of something and added their own twist much like group discussions in a physical classroom. Pretty cool! I have linked the video and a portion of the discussion below.

BriannaG40- The first comment stands out to me the most when he said, “high school students have a richer culture and participate more outside of school.” I can see where this is true. Although many schools are gradually immersing technology into classwork, it is minimal. Technology is still being used at the substitution phase, meaning students are turning in classwork using technology but they are not using it to communicate with.

• hunter_freiburg — This line you are speaking about also brought to mind that with the advances in the internet and the way people are using internet based tools, a classroom can be on a cell phone. If a kid loves apps, he can look up how to write code on the internet. If someone wants to learn French, they don’t need to sign up for French classes anymore, you can just download Duolingo. Is traditional schooling going to fade into background in the not-to-distant future?
• swilsonmoses- I think this is a really important point, especially in relation to the “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture” article. The article points out the ways that student technology use is narrow, limited, sterile. To some extent, it seems that our fear of students misusing technology is leading to a general limiting of guided experience, leaving young people to do all their learning of the “dark” parts of the internet (or tech as a whole) on their own. It reminds me of sex-ed in the US, or of our higher drinking age than other countries — instead of young people learning responsibly, the things that they will do anyways are banned and they have to learn on their own.
• anastasiaellis — I too wrote this quote down as the first idea that stood out to me. I think both of you make a valid point. But Hunter addresses the main point: “If a kid loves.” Teachers can introduce all types of content and can utilize all sorts of media, but if they are not giving the students a reason to love the technology, if we aren’t giving students the ability to experience and engage with the technology in a way that is applicable to them and makes them “love the app”, then they aren’t going to run with it. This is the difference between forcing something on students in school and them experiencing it on their own outside of school.
• JenniferHolmes- I agree, I have seen a lot of schools that have started a one-to-one program, but students continue to do the same work as before, just on a device. It is a slow transition for teachers to change their way of teaching. The mindset of not being the center of attention is difficult to give up. I think once teachers start to allow students to really explore with their learning, as Hunter mentioned, we will begin to see the shift not only in teaching perspectives, but student learning perspectives.

What was your favorite creation from a classmate? Who impressed you? Why?

• My favorite creation of this Module came courtesy of Cecily and her Kingpin GIF mashup. I think I loved this one so much because 1) I LOVEthis movie and think it criminally under-appreciated and 2) I think it is a fantastic representation of the actual joy that accomplishing some of these new task we are, as a class, to do every-week. Roy Munsons bliss is my own when I finish something that really challenges me and I am legitimately happy with the work I created. Without further ado, I give you Roy Munson accomplishing a Weekly-Thing — — — ->

What did you make and what tools did you use? (challenges, dialogs, weekly-thing)

• Audience Archetype — For the Audience Archetype weekly-thing I declared my self a seeker. I didn’t create anything per-say except the description and explanation (see below). For the image accompaniment I used google images.

The Seeker

(from SLACK)

I am, without a doubt, a Seeker. When I find a story that I love, whether it be movies, TV, books, what-have-you, I am looking for “more back-story, more bonus content, more sneak peeks — more, more, more.” I love researching my stories and characters. I once read that Tarantino writes 40 page backstories for all his main characters. I would LOVE to get my hands on something like that. I recently read Absolutely On Music by Murakami, which is a collection of conversations between the author and Seiji Ozawa, a famous conductor. I know next to nothing about about classical music (or knew that I had an interest) but I listened to the pieces they were talking about in order to gain understanding. I researched Ozawa and his career. I, in the past, have read just about everything I can find about Murakami. I love getting context and knowing all I can, not only about the story I’m taking in, but about the storyteller. While I love this aspect of storytelling, I rarely, if ever, want to influence the story. I have no desire to be a player. While l love talking about the stories I enjoy, I don’t see myself as a Relater either. I chose the picture above as it really captures the essence of the “seeker” in my head. It’s all about making connections, about connecting dots to deepen a story and turning over stones to find deeper meanings than whats on the surface. The image, to me, is a “seeker” putting in time to paint the clearest picture one can of the story being told. #week-4-thing

• Module 2 Challenge — for Module 2 challenge I did a Podcast Preview in the vein of Serial or one of it’s many offshoots. My aim was to make something that was satirical but still held that same creepy feel of unease. For this challenge I used Audacity which was intimidating at first but once I got a feel for it pretty user friendly. For the music in the background and the sound clips, I found youtube clips and repurposed them into mp3’s (since this is an academic purpose does that count as fair use?) and spliced them into my own dialogue. I was pretty happy with the way this one turned out!

• Transmedia Gif — For the creation of the transmedia gif I used gifs.com which was extremely user friendly and easy to use. I had a lot of fun with this one. I actually made a few (a couple of them seen below). I felt that the confused Travolta was the most appropriate for the class and went with that one but once I saw somebody else post about The Princess Bride I had to throw that one in their as well. I feel like we were all a bit of the confused Travolta as some point this semester but it all seems to be becoming a bit more clear as the year goes on.

• Dialogue #1 — For the first dialogue of the year me and my group (Kyle Smoker and Mandy Silverstone) hopped on the online meeting tool Zoom which allowed us to find a comfortable spot and sit down and chat for a while across the city. While I was short sighted and signed up through facebook instead of my CU email, it worked just long enough to get our ideas discussed. This one was a lot of fun. We dove into do not track which is a sort of digital, interactive docu-series. We jigsawed the videos/ readings and had a pretty fun little chat about it all. Looking forward to the next one!

• Week-6-Thing — For the week-6-thing I researched some Creative Commons sources and found one to be particularly interesting. It is called the The Public Domain Review. In particular I found an article about the early illustrations and art of Mardi Gras and Carnival to be particularly interesting. I have copied my post on #slack below!

• From #SLACK — My favorite source that I cam across was the *The Public Domain Review* (http://publicdomainreview.org) which, from their website, says that their aim is to “[provide] an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas.” Additionally, as the title suggest, they focus on works that have fallen into the realm of Public Domain. I think I liked this source so much was that it worked with material in the public domain but also involved writers and artist who researched works and added original contributions. My favorite piece that I came across from the website was an article about the early artist of Mardi Gras which had some amazing illustrations and information about the artist and the history of Carnival and Mardi Gras (LINK! — http://publicdomainreview.org/2018/02/07/illustrating-carnival-remembering-the-overlooked-artists-behind-early-mardi-gras/) These illustrations alone are worth taking a look at! Check it out! #mixtape #week-6-thing

How did you challenge yourself? What was your biggest stretch?

• My biggest stretch for Module 2 was without a doubt the Podcast Preview. I researched a number of Podcasting apps and tools before I came across Audacity and all those other options were not, by any means, user friendly. The online podcasting sites that I found only allowed for one track with no editing (was I expected to create a perfect podcast in one go?). I found an app that was more of a voice sharing memo app than a podcasting app which it was labeled as (this could be cool for a creative project among multiple people around the state, country, world, etc.). After finding and downloading Audacity it was the clear frontrunner. It was fun because it allowed to me get a little creative with my writing and editing. I love podcast and i’ve never really thought about making one, this kind of changed all that. The stretch came in finding clips, music and writing the “script” for the short clip but it took a good amount of time and I think the stretch was definitely worth it in the end.