the "dangerous" books

No, it's not as bad as it sounds. There are a couple of new books out there that are "The Daring Book for Girls" and "The Dangerous Book for Boys". Now, their gender can do what is in either book, but they are a blast. They are so much fun.

The books include instructions on the typical things that are "gender" appropriate, but also on things that you might remember doing as a kid or hearing your parents or grandparents talking about.

I this technologically driven age, we seem to forget how to do things without technology. I decided to try a few of the activities in the book for girls and at first I kept thinking "I know how to do this on the 'puter" or "There is such a faster way of doing this" but then I found myself really beginning to like what I was doing and enjoying doing it that simply.

That made me think of something else to try. I decided to go a month without my cell phone for just idle chitchat. I had it with me in case of an emergency, but I didn't use. I also didn't use the computer for outside of checking e-mail or doing assignments because of my classes. That is the reason why this blog has such a big gap. At times, I didn't know what to do with myself. I would find myself thinking about the game(s) that were on the computer and how I hadn't played that in a while; or wondering if a friend from half-way around the world was on messenger and if I should get on to chat. But then I caught myself and tried something different. I tried remembering some card games I used to play, I picked up a book for actual reading instead of for class, I wrote a few letters to friends, I went for walks/jogs in the canyons. I found that after a few days of not having myself tied to my computer or my phone, I felt a bit better. My back and eyes didn't hurt from sitting in front of the computer for ages.

This world of technology has kind of destroyed us–especially if it is the younger generations who have grown up with all this around. We start to depend on it in ways that we never thought we would be.

If everyone would take the time, perhaps once or twice a week to start, to just stop with technology, I believe that they would find out more about themselves and pick up some good books and some good habits.

Kids, Parents, and the Digital Age

So, I received this article in my news feeds this morning. It reminded me of what was read in the article Next. There are parents who don't want to play the video games with their kids because they believe in the "the violence, the obsession," and they don't think it's good for them. My reaction was, if the parents don't believe that the violence and obsession is good for them, then why are they permitting the kid to play the games alone. Do they talk about what the game is about and how it can affect the kid's normal life? From the talk in the article, it seems no. The article also states that those parents who do play the video games with their kids are normally the ones that are younger, part-time employed, and possibly single.

The poll results were interesting:

• 81 percent of children age four to 17 play computer or video games at least occasionally, compared with 38 percent of adults
• 59 percent of those age 18 to 29 play at least sometimes, double the rate for people age 50 to 64
• There is little difference among users by race or region, with middle-income earners likeliest to indulge
• Casual games like card or board games were the favorite of 31 percent of gamers, about twice the number who like action games, the next most popular alternative. About half of women cited casual games as their favorites, triple the number of men who did so, while twice as many males than females preferred action games.

It seems that with the digital world, even the card games have gone high tech. I remember my parents playing card games with us--they still do when we get together. But with all the focus on digital entertainment, the old stand-bys of playing outside or playing a board game together have gone out the window and instead of the parents getting involved in the new gaming the way that they would with the older "manual" games, they have decided it isn't worth their time or effort.

Odd huh? They want to communicate and bond with their kids, but it has to be their way instead of learning what they like to do.

"Kid-Friendly"?

Alright, so I'm not big on having young kids around, but my mother and I were talking about children's programing yesterday and some interesting comments came about.

We started talking about what type of things I was allowed to watch when I was younger. I was allowed to watch The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, any of the Muppet movies, Lady and the Tramp, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Robin Hood (the Disney version with the foxes), the majority of the animated Disney movies that came out during the late 80s and early 90s, The Munsters, and some of the older television shows when we could find them or my dad recorded them off the TV. My mom said that I would go through many copies over a year because I knew how to work the VCR. We had cable, but my parents knew how to block certain channels or how to "erase" channels so I wouldn't be able to get at them at certain times of the day when I was home.

Saturday morning cartoons/programming were completely out when I was younger. If I wanted to be with a friend Saturday morning, my mother would ask if that friend could come over to our house; because my mom knew that at the friend's house there would be Saturday morning cartoons and at our house there would be VHS movies. Things like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, Batman, and others weren't allowed until I was a bit older. I never really got into a lot of the Saturday morning programming. Yes, I knew the shows and I had watched a little bit so I could understand what the kids at school were talking about, but I didn't really watch it as much as those around me did.

That could explain my love of the older Disney movies and the Muppets.

So last Saturday I got up earlier than I expected and I decided to flip through the channels and see what was on. Well, the Saturday morning programming was going and I decided to watch and see what had changed . . . and it had changed. Is this what they are calling "kid-friendly"? I was really taken back by what I saw. There was a lot of cartoon violence, the girls were all "sexualized", and there was humor there that went on many different levels. It made me think that they were trying to entice the parents into the cartoons/programs as well as the kids.

There is a reason that I like the older shows like I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dike Show, and The Munsters. Yes, for today's younger generations it might not catch their eye because it doesn't have any fancy explosions or CGI or cool fights, but it worries me to see where children's programming is heading.

What does that do for the youth of today? I think that it starts the desensitization process at a very early age and their exposure to it just seems to increase that desensitization to the point where they look at the everyday news and events and just kind of shrug their shoulders and say "huh, so . . .". And unfortunately, those youth are the ones who will be making the next generation of "entertainment", so what does that tell you about what will come next?

One Laptop Per Child

I was flipping through the Newsweek that my boss just leaves around the office--primarily on my desk--when I came across an article on a laptop project that is aiming to have a laptop for kids in developing nations. Apparently it is solar powered, runs on as little as two watts, has a screen that is readable in bright sunlight, swivels into an e-book reader, most software is collaborative, and is just under $200 (and you can get a tax deduction for the donation).

People in the US can't buy one for themselves unless they pay for two of them; one to go to a child and the other for you. That is still less than most laptops today and it benefits both you and a child in an underprivileged community. Nicholas Negroponte is the chairman behind the company and says that this could be something that can change the face of the world's economy. His original goal was to have the laptop for $100, but the production starting cost was a bit higher than he though it would be. He's still aiming for the goal of $100 which he says is obtainable in about 20 months; he wants it down to $50 by 2009/2010.

I think that this is a wonderful opportunity for the community to get involved. Not only do they get a reasonable laptop but they are able to give a laptop to another child and allow that child to advance in ways that they normally wouldn't be able to. Who knows, perhaps something amazing will come out of the project.

www.xogiving.org

Dirty Gold?

I was talking with a friend about my love of gems and unique jewelry when she looked at me appalled and said "aren't you thinking about how that effects the environment?" I didn't understand what she meant by that. I know that gems and gold/silver/platinum all come from the earth and I'd rather not buy lab-created stones, but she went on to tell me that mining can produce upwards of 20 tons of waste per 18-karat gold ring. I think that those figures are a bit high, but I'm not in the mining business so I really wouldn't know.

I know that the movie "Blood Diamond" has gotten jewelers and potential consumers to take off the binders and notice what is going on, but it seems that our want for that "something shiny" takes us a step farther. Some people are willing to kill to get that perfect gem, but there is always a buyer.

Yes, I know that with my love of gems and jewelry I'm spurring on that sensation, but I don't like the look of the lab-created stones. With all the technology we have, they still look fake and ugly. There is a real beauty when you're holding a gem that has been in the ground for centuries and now is that piece of art in your collection. The lab-created stones have a fakeness to them that no matter what setting you have them in, they don't look natural. They tend to make them too big, so that adds to the gaudy factor.

I've always been interested in where my gems come from and how they are mined, but now I'm a bit more studious when I'm out looking at jewelry. There are sites out in the web that are ecofriendly and sell recycled gold or they know exactly where and how there gem and jewelery is coming from. But I'm still all for the natural stuff.

Age and Technology

I was reading Newsweek and found an interesting article. It seems that Tom Anderson, cofounder of MySpace, is actually 5 years older than his profile leads you to believe. In the article the editor of mashable.com says that "young people don't want someone their dad's age running a site they think is cool". Does that have any reflection on today's society? I think it does.

For one, you never really can take things at face value anymore. An apple that is red and shiny on the outside can be all brown and disgusting on the inside. Things aren't always as they seem. But with today's youth, they want to be older so when they're online they say they are older than they are. Yes, it is dangerous to spread your real birthday all over the internet for anyone to see considering with your birthday anyone can have access to very personal information, but things get crazy when it comes to social networking sites. Like that editor says, today's youth don't want to think that someone their parent's age (possibly) is the one that came up with something cool.

I believe that in the age of technology and the way that it is changing quicker than you can blink, we can't ever take anything by face value anymore. Sites that look legitimate may be completely inaccurate, things said to be run by 20somethings are actually run by a bunch of young teens. Yes, today's youth are getting smarter and smarter than their older generation counterparts, but those older generation people want to fit in and not seen as obsolete, so they have to find a way for that to happen . . . so down goes the age.

Ukrainian Orphans Halloween Party

I'm sad I wasn't able to post this last saturday when it happened, but sometimes you can't trust technology.

On Saturday October 27th, the Alpine Garrison was invited to a Halloween party for 45 Ukrainian orphans that were brought to Utah through the Save a Child foundation. It was an interesting experience. Many of the kids knew a few words in english, but most of the time it was point and guess and sign language. We were afraid that the kids wouldn't understand what it was we were doing, but since Star Wars is pretty universal they were really excited to see us there. Many of them had never been to a Halloween party before.

Many of the kids were pretty hesitant at first. They were giving us a look over and trying to decide what it was we were doing. Once a few of them decided to come up, they were coming up in hoards wanting their pictures taken. They got to press the buttons on Vader's chest box and hear him breath. They got to hold the blasters and lightsabers of the troopers and the Jedi.

And they even got to hear Vader speak a bit of Russian to them--that surprised a couple of young girls who were trying to figure out if it was a real person in there.


And the Jedi got to teach a few of the young kids there how to swing their lightsabers correctly.

It was a fun experience, even if I couldn't communicate with all the kids and I wasn't in costume but taking pictures and spotting for everyone else.

Halloween

Okay, Halloween is actually one of my favorite holidays, but there are a few things that I'm totally against.

1-Adults who dress up and go door to door and beg for candy. I will shut my door on adults who do that . . . especially college students. If you're going around with little ones, that is fine because you are escorting them and keeping them safe, but a bunch of older teens and young adults? Come on! You have money, go buy your own candy.

Now, I know that I dress up for charity events, and yes, I even dress up for Halloween, but I don't go out trick-or-treating anymore. Leave that aspect of Halloween to the younger kids. They have more fun anyway.

2-Christmas items in the store before Halloween or even thanksgiving. I get really miffed when I walk into the stores looking for fun and inexpensive Halloween decorations and I see the christmas stuff already up on display taking up half the store and all they have is a couple of shelves worth of Halloween stuff. There are two holidays before christmas for crying out loud! I think that if a store wants to have it's christmas stuff out, why don't they put it up somewhere in the back of the store and keep it there. It seems like that stuff is coming out earlier and earlier each year and Halloween and thanksgiving decorations come out a few weeks before the holiday and then disappear just a quickly as if retailers were ashamed of the goods.

3-Pets in "human" costumes. Those little costumes that have arms and only go over the animals front paws. I saw a dog that looked so miserable from that that I felt sorry for the little guy. I think it's great that people want to include their pet as part of the family--my cat sure thinks hes the head of the household--but they should have a bit of dignity. Give them a little coat or cover that still lets them be their selves, but don't try to make them look like the kids in the family.

4-People that see the need to smash or steal pumpkins. A friend of mine is an amazing pumpkin carver and hers really turn out like works of art . . . but very few people ever get to see them because she won't put them on her porch. A year or so ago, she had created a fantasy scene on her porch with carved pumpkins and it was truly amazing. Well, she left for the afternoon and when she arrived back home in the evening, half the display was gone. She found two or three in the road smashed to pieces. That evening as she was taking her kids around their trick-or-treating route, she heard some neighbors talking about a couple pumpkins on the porch of this one young man's house. He said that he had done all of them. She took a look and sure enough, there were her pumpkins. When she confronted the young man about it he was adamant that they were his, but my friend knew better. She signs all her pumpkins on the bottom and somewhere in the design. Those were hers.

My parents won't put pumpkins out of their steps anymore either. We've had them smashed in our rose garden, up against the side of the house, in the road, and on my car--which is not easy to get off once it's dried.

If people don't want to take the time or have the family activity of carving a pumpkin, then ask someone else if you can pay them to carve one for you or get one of the ones that has a face painted on it.

Now, getting to the real reason I wanted to write about Halloween. Commercials and advertisements have gone to two different extremes in my opinion. One extreme is that they dumb it down for the kids and tell them that they need a different and more expensive costume each year and that it has to be what they want not what their parents--most of the time--can afford. The other extreme is the sexualization of the costumes and accessories for the adults. I normally make all my costumes, but I've been busy this semester so I wasn't able to start on one, so when I had a bit of free time I decided to go looking for pieces to use or for a full costume that wasn't too expensive. What I found was a lot of short, skimpy costumes or some that didn't have any ethics behind it. I ended up going back to the safety of the poodle skirt, although I didn't wear it all day.

I'm not a big fan of the macabre portion of Halloween or at least what some members of the general public make of it. I was watching CNN a few nights ago and this guy had gotten in trouble for hanging nooses and then dummys from his house. He saw nothing wrong in it, but I think that it is the wrong message to be sending to today's youth. In a world where there is so much death and violence, things like nooses and knives sticking through chests or heads isn't needed. All I need to do on any given day is turn on the news.

I'm all for the fun aspect that Halloween and its decorations can become. A few friends and I are in the planning stages for a haunted house, but we aren't putting anything that could have a negative effect on the youth of today.

Reading Response: Coming to Terms with Place

When thinking about place, it's interesting to think about what 'place' people are talking about. There is the physical realm in which we can use our senses to experience the world around us. The internet is also a sense of 'place' that we can be in two places at once: I can be in my office on a hot summer day and be chatting and talking/experiencing things in rainy Ireland with a friend. The introduction of technology has completely changed that sense of place. Where do I belong? Which community do I belong to?

Place for me is where I am at the moment. Is my mind there fully or is it someplace else? If I'm at school, that is my 'place' for the moment. If I'm at my apartment, that is my place. If I'm at my parents, that is my place and I'm there. I am defined by the place I am at the moment.

I was ashamed to call myself an American when I was in eastern Europe last summer. The name 'American' isn't something that is welcomed all that much anymore. The sense that our place of residence has tainted us in the eyes of the world because of certain people.

It's also interesting to think of place in different times of your life. What was it like when you were a child? What did you consider your place? What about a teen? An adult? Everything changes with each passing of time and life as it continues on. Change is inevitable, but we tend to think of the places where we grew up as unchanging and then when we see them again, they have changed. Imagine when you were in elementary school, the ceilings were so high and the seats and the toilets were all the right size for you. Now you walk into an elementary school and you are amazed that the ceilings are so low and that everything seems so tiny . . . not anything like you remember it.

One interesting way you could get students involved and also get to know your students a bit more is to think about what is their place . . . or have them think of what place means to them? How about giving them a still camera and having them go out and take pictures of what they think is their place. What will you get back? Will you get the standard house with a yard and family? Or will you get a street with a little house on the end? Will you get a picture of job site? How about the school? It would be interesting to figure out exactly what the students think about place. Also, ask them to write a bit about the pictures they take and how this place has shaped them into what they think/feel today. You could ask them to bring in an object that reminds them of a certain place. Many will bring in happy objects or things that make them think of the happy things, but what about the sad things that shape us? Is that something you could ask the students to bring in or photograph and write about?

So many questions and different ideals when it comes to place that it is hard to even think about. What does that do for you when you think of a place in time or space . . . is it reality or some magical land that you go to to get away from everything that is only for you and in your head.

Reading Response: Literacy in Multimedia America

While reading this, I tended to agree with almost everything that the author had to say. The classroom practices of inquiry and teaching the students how to look for information to answer the questions that they've raised; the safe classroom environment that students can learn to listen to others and express their own voices and reflect on their own experiences, is something that I have been passionate about if I get into a classroom. I think that in today's classroom it is so pressured for the 'perfect' student and that they should all be 'book-smart' and that gets in the way of being 'worldly-smart' . . . which I believe is more important. By being media literate, it will take us farther in life because it is something that we can use on a daily basis because we are bombarded with so much media and by being literate in what they are trying to say/do, it has the "potential to change the way we think, feel, and react to the world around us" (pg 87).

All Media Messages Are Constructions
I agree with that wholeheartedly. Things are so tweaked before any of the public actually get to see them, that we don't know if what we're looking at is reality or some constructed reality that those producing the show/news want us to see. "Depiction does not embody truth"( pg 91) is the whole premise of what media is today. We all interpret things differently depending on our social status and what our past experiences have been, so we need to teach students what to look for and how to interpret what they see intelligently.

Media Messages Are Representations of Social Reality
Social reality, according to the text, "refers to the perceptions about the contemporary world that are shared by individuals–their picture of the world around them" (pg 94). This is not completely accurate and I don't believe that it ever has been. We construct our realities and it is important to let our students know that. The questions posed in the text are really helpful guidelines that I would take into a classroom setting . . . perhaps even have them as something to accompany an assignment.

1. Who is speaking for whom in this text?
2. What sense do these representations make of the world we live in? What are the texts representing to us and how?
3. What are typical representations of groups in society?
4. What does this example represent to me?
5. What does it mean to others?

If the students can learn to look at media and simultaneously ask themselves these questions, perhaps they can better learn to observe the world around them and what forces are in work to sway their perceptions one way or another.

Audiences as Well as Individuals Negotiate Meaning
This is a double edged sword at times. When you are sitting in a classroom and they ask you to state your opinion after many others have already done that, students tend to change their opinion or statements to fit what everyone else has said; or they'll say what it really meant or was saying to them because they had a different experience in the past that has led them to see things a certain way. Each individual will pull something different out of any media. For example, if I hold up a picture of a rose, many people will see just the rose. Perhaps one will see that it is a yellow rose. Maybe something will think back to that yellow rose they saw at a funeral or hanging for a tree. Each will bring something different to that one media.

Practical use of everything media literacy has to offer each and every day with each form of media that is out there will make our students–and us–see the world in a different light. Everyone brings something different to the table and instead of saying "you're right" and "you're wrong" we need to allow our students the freedom and the safety to express what they see and how they are feeling.

Reading Response: Ideology and Consciousness

For the article's sake it was long, but it was relatively easy to read. To see the differences they made between ideology and consciousness was interesting. I do believe that as teachers we need to be careful what and how we say things to our students. At preteen and even the teenage era, the mind is still impressionable. For many years in public schools the students are spoon-fed all their information.

"Appearances are extremely important in a mass-mediated world" is important to get across to our students. They are bombarded with images–both good and bad–whenever they open their eyes. Everything from tee-shirts to billboards to music and television, they need to understand the ideas that the media is trying to express and what the attitudes and opinions are of the people who made the media, as well as their own attitudes and opinions.

"A mass medium is not just a 'vessel' which carries ideas from one place to another, but is itself a subjective, interpretative, ideological form". I do agree that the "medium is the message" however, it doesn't always work. If you put a beer ad or logo on a tee-shirt, that doesn't necessarily mean that the person enjoys that beer . . . perhaps they just like the logo. Personally, I don't drink beer, but I like the Guinness logo. I have a few key chains and tee-shirts that have the logo on it. Yes, I am getting their business out there every time I wear that shirt or someone looks at my keys, but that doesn't mean I condone what beer and alcohol does to people.

Near the end of the article it talks about the role that culture plays into media becoming a part of everyday life. I think that society should also be included in that. We are so worried about what the next person is going to wear, or what the fashion trend for the next season is going to be. We have become obsessed with our outward appearance needs to be because of what the magazines are saying; obsessed with what we need to eat or listen to because of what the 'celebs' are doing.

I agree that we are saturated–perhaps even over saturated–with media, but as teachers we need to provide the opportunities for our students to look at today's media and decipher exactly what it is that those media want you to think. We need to provide a safe environment that the students are able to say what that media means to them and what they think it is saying. We need to give teens the guidelines and the tools so they can decipher what that media is trying to tell them and how best to avoid the traps that media has set up.

Today's youth and the media

Now, when most people think of the word "media" they usually assume television. That's what happened when my friends and I sat down and actually started talking about the media and what our assumptions and our viewpoints on the matter was. Having started the semester with a media literacy lesson, I was waiting to see what everyone else thought media literacy meant. We had the television going on in the background and for every 15-20 minutes worth of a show you had about 5-7 minutes worth of commercials . . . and depending on which channel you were watching and what time it was, the commercials differed.
"That's just good marketing," said an advertising major.
"But it isn't advertising anything that is needed," said a family science major. "It's just showing kids what the marketers want them to pressure their parents into buying."
"Children are the best marketing tools we have," said the advertising major.
"But children and teens are still impressionable," I said. "Media has a huge effect on how we think and how we act/teach."
I got a few raised eyebrows at that, but most agreed with me.

Media literacy allows people to interact with different media in constructive and thoughtful ways. Daniel Rossi, a director of Satellite Academy says "the reality is that our kids are in constant contact with the media. Their opinions–about violence, about commercialism, about issues of race and gender–are often developed as a result of the media images around them, but many aren't even aware of it until they slow down and analyze the process." My friend in the family science major said that children, on average, spend 5 hours every day watching television yet there isn't a lot of discussion between those children and their parents on what they are watching and how it relates to things going on in today's society or even within their home.

Media affects our values and behaviors. Media is about to affect us on a subconscious level. Cable in the Classroom has been a huge supporter of media literacy and has recently stated that: "Our attitudes towards work, school, government, and family can all be influenced by media. Each story, whether fact or fiction, reflects underlying values about who or what is important. if women or minorities are consistently portrayed as lacking power and authority, impressionable young viewers may absorb that message. If scenes with smoking, drinking, violence, or casual sex are repeatedly shown, young people may believe these behaviors are normal and appropriate. on the other hand, highlighting our shared values can bring us together in times of trouble." They have also suggested five things that everyone should know about media:

1. all media messages are constructions
2. each person interprets messages differently
3. media have commercial interests
4. media have values
5. each medium has its own language and style

By discussing images–whether moving or just a still image–with students we can try and allow students an environment that they can express how a certain commercial, image, or clip makes them feel and what that media is actually trying to say to them.

Learn More and Study Less

A friend sent me this in an e-mail a while ago and I recently was able to dig it up. I wish I would have been taught this early on in high school or at least have received it while I was in the early stages of college . . . perhaps I would have been able to do better on tests and in my classes. I believe that as teachers, we have the ability and partially the responsibility to show our students the best way that we see possible for them to achieve with what abilities and talents they have. Now, I'm a horrible test taker. I always have been. I can study for a test and know about 95% of the information well and be able to answer questions that arise in class, but when it comes to being handed a test and actually sitting down and having to answer those questions my mind decides to shut the doors to that information and I'm stuck staring at the paper. When I first received the e-mail, I tried out some of the tips for my biology final. I missed one question on that final. That is the best that I've ever done on a test . . . ever!

We need to distinguish–or at least help our students try and distinguish the difference between studying and learning.

Here is what was in the e-mail sent to me. It was originally written by Scott Young. Some of his insights are amazing and something that I hope I'll be able to implement into a classroom setting if I continue with teaching:

Time spent studying does not equal learning.
More studying time won’t help if the way you are studying is flawed to begin with.

Holistic Learning
Smart people don’t just learn better. They learn differently. While many students get caught up in memorizing facts, intelligent learners know to seek the bigger picture and connect the facts together. This form of learning I call holistic learning.

Holistic learning is basically the opposite of rote memorization. Instead of reciting lists of facts, rules or formulas, you seek to connect ideas together. Instead of having separate boxes in your head for geometry, algebra or ancient India, you deliberately link facts together, so they form a bigger picture.

Excessive studying shows you aren’t learning holistically. It shows that you didn’t learn the material the first time. If you properly link ideas together to see the bigger picture, studying should only be a brief refresher.

How to Boost Your Study Habits
Holistic learning isn’t like a brainstorming technique or mind-mapping. It is fundamentally changing how you look at the process of learning and how you absorb information. As such, there isn’t an easy ten step program to master it.

But there are some tools that can help you shift your learning habits so they become more holistic:

1. Visceralize - You’ve probably heard of visualizing, right? Visceralizing means taking all of your senses and connecting it to information. Studies have shown that people remember more vividly information that comes to us in an emotionally aroused state. Linking feelings, senses and imagery to bland ideas makes them more real. You probably counted on your fingers when learning numbers, why can’t you do the same when you are learning now?

2. Metaphor - The heart of holistic learning is relating things together. Metaphors are literary devices that link two things that normally don’t go together. Come up with metaphors to describe more complicated ideas in simpler terms.

3. Ten Year Old Rule - Explain ideas to yourself as you would to a ten year old. Sure, this isn’t always possible in your last years of a medical degree or learning how to apply neural networks to computer AI. But the idea is that you should be able to “dumb down” an idea enough so it seems obvious to yourself.

4. Trace Back - Put away your books and start with a random fact or concept. Then relate that idea to another concept in your subject. Keep doing this tracing pattern until you’ve linked many ideas together. The Gupta Dynasty reminds you of ancient Greece which reminds you of Socrates, reminding you of Confucius…

5. Refresher Scan - Scan through information in your text book. Notice whenever you encounter information that you either don’t remember or weren’t 100% sure about. Quickly link that information back to existing ideas through viscerlization and metaphor. If your refresher scan is turning up more than a few points per chapter, you haven’t learned it thoroughly enough.

6. Compress Information - Not all information works well for holistic learning. A common point cited to me is learning anatomy for first year medical students. Anatomy involves learning arbitrary Latin names for hundreds of different elements of your body. There often aren’t clear patterns and constructs, just a dry list of facts. When encountering information such as this, your goal should be to compress it. Find ways to group information into smaller chunks of memory through pictures or mnemonics.

7. Write - Take a piece of paper and write out the connections in the information. Reorganize the information into different patterns. The key here is the writing, not the final product. So don’t waste your time making a pretty picture. Scribble and use abbreviations to link the ideas together.

Using multimedia in a classroom setting

With the push for technology to be used in today's classrooms, it is easy to unconsciously exclude certain students. Now, now one would consciously teach to exclude students but sometimes, as teachers, we do that. You know what you are trying to accomplish by using a certain movie clip or image or sound file, but students are trying to figure that out. They will make assumptions and draw their own conclusions. Normally that is what you want them to do . . . you don't want to give them all the answers, you'd rather have them think on their own. While talking with a few other professors and teachers about this, we came up with these questions that you should try and answer yourself before you show the media in your classroom:

• Who is included? Who isn't included?
• How are those who are included represented? Positively or negatively?
• Does the media reinforce stereotypes in any way?
• What are a few assumptions that students might make?

If you put yourself in the student's position and look at the media through those eyes, you might find that what you thought was innocent might be something that one student could find offensive.

Now, while you can't please everyone, using certain guidelines can help you so your classroom will function as a safe environment for everyone.

Ordinary into something else . . .

Take a look at this . . .


Now, to most people, you'd look at this and just say "yeah, so what?" To me, seeing a room full of these was amazing. This is an ordinary Darth Vader helmet. About 20 artists were given a helmet and asked to create something else out of it. Each of them created something completely different. They used their imagination and their talents to transform ordinary Vader helmets into works of art.

I believe that is what we need to do with students and projects they create. Sitting in my brother's multimedia class last year, I was kind of dismayed at the fact that they were doing the same projects I had done 3 years earlier . . . nothing had changed. They hadn't even updated the software. The computers were changed out, but everything else looked the same as it have before. They students were all doing "cookie-cutter" projects . . . each had to look exactly the same. Where is the creativity? Where is the expression of oneself? It had gone out the window when the students had signed up for a class they thought was going to let them express themselves in a different way.

Multimedia and film should be about expression. Just as each of the artists were given the exact same object to play with, each of those objects looked different. We can give our students the baseline, the guides, to start with, but we need to let them expand and create as they see fit. Of course, being in a public setting, they have to follow certain rules and regulations, but other than that, let them explore. The students are probably over-ruled and over-stifled in their everyday lives when it comes to their education: "please copy down the sentences on the board and find the noun and adverb in each" . . . "your essay must be 200 words and between 3-5 pages and must include the following . . ." .

Creativity is my main goal when it comes to teaching. What better way to get to know your students than to let them be creative and express themselves in a safe environment.

Photo Essay

I will admit it right now . . . I'm a geek. And not just any type of geek, I'm a Star Wars geek. Yep, I dress up as a character(s) from the movies and go out into public. However, I have a purpose behind my madness . . . I make children (and adults) smile. I'm part of an organization called The 501st Legion. The local chapter is called the Alpine Garrison. We use movie quality costumes to bring smiles and happiness to children--both big and small--through charity work.

For many of these kids we are a dream come true! When you were younger, didn't you think it would be cool if the characters from the movies would jump out of the screen and come to life in front of you? Well, that is what we are doing while enjoying the smiles we get from people.

Saturday we were able to participate in the Uptown Downs Buddy Walk in Murray. They organize this walk to promote awareness of Down Syndrome and for those in the Downs community to come together and enjoy themselves. They normally have various characters walking among everyone but we were specifically asked to come back this year because of the impact we made last year.

We're a crazy bunch, but anywhere we go, we seem to be able to draw quite a crowd. This was one of the entrances to the park where the walk was being held. The troopers decided to stick their heads in the little openings for a little girl who was laughing and smiling when they did that. The little girl was about 4 and had a mild case of Down Syndrome.

This boy is a teen who has a mild to moderate case of Down Syndrome and didn't leave us until one of his siblings or a parent would come and "escort" him to the other activities and characters there.
Three of the four kids in this picture have Down Syndrome ranging from mild/moderate to severe. The little girl was just so amazed by the character that she wouldn't take her eyes off him even with coaxing from her mother and others.

Again, the wonderment and amazement that we get from these kids is fun to see. They are a bit hesitant at first, but when they realize that we aren't there to hurt them, they get up close and don't want to go away.
This is Wampa. Normally we get two different reactions when he is around . . . people are either afraid of him and won't come near him or they are completely drawn to him. The Wampa from the movie is pretty fierce looking, so our actor-when he had this costume made-decided to put a friendlier face on the costume. I love this picture, but I wish I would have snapped it just a few moments sooner. This little girl has moderate Down Syndrome and was just standing there amazed by Wampa, staring up at him. Since you can't see much in that mask, one of the spotters tapped him on the arm and told him to look down. He leaned down and the little girl just had her mouth wide open and reached up to touch his face. The mother was smiling because normally she doesn't get near strange objects, the girl is a bit weary but wasn't afraid of Wampa.

This is the whole point of the photos. Normally the troopers don't participate in the walks because they don't have very much mobility in the costumes. This walk is short compared to the rest of them so some of the troopers decided to walk with the kids. This particular trooper wasn't going to walk the route but this little girl came up behind him, took his hand and wanted him to walk with her the entire way around. She wouldn't let him leave to go suit down at the end of the route until a member of her group came and picked her up. I later learned that Star Wars is one of the few movies that she will sit still and watch all the way through.



These kids are interesting to spend an afternoon with. They find wonderment in the little things that normally we just look at and dismiss or give little acknowledgment to. They always find us a wonder and amazing. The smiles that we see on the parents' faces are sometimes worth all the 'trouble' of putting on the costume and having limited vision and being hot a sweaty. For them, seeing their child smile and be happy running from character to character, wanting to touch them just to make sure that they are real . . . that is what makes it worth all the trouble: smiles.

We'll carry on into the future.

Social Networking Warfare

Normally I don't read all the articles in Newsweek . . . I just look at the cartoons and a bit of the movie stuff but an article in the August 6th Newsweek caught my eye. There has been a lot of debate lately over "social networks" such as Facebook and MySpace over safety and usage. It brought up some interesting points:

• "The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes and other 'good' kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college."
• "MySpace is till home for kids whose parents didn't go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. It is the preferred digital hangout for outsiders–bunrouts, punks, emos, goths and gangastas, as well as minorities outside the mainstream."
• "Facebookers are strivers"
• "Myspacers are there in part becasue they're rejecting the values of preppies, jocks and tools"
  

Hmmmm, makes me think that those social values and labels are now moving over towards the digital age. Those lines/rifts are seen in every high school and society around. Near the end of the article it says "the division around MySpace and Facebook is just another way in which technology is mirroring societal values".

But could style have something to do with it as well? You look at Facebook and it is very clean cut–no weird backgrounds, white and blue contrast–where as MySpace ranges from person to person with the fonts, backgrounds, and add-ons.

Interesting to think that lines are still as sharp as ever when it comes to society and values. Many say that lines are beginning to blur when it comes to society and how it interacts with each culture, but I believe that the lines are still there and that they aren't going to change any time soon because of the way a culture has control of its society.