Journal 5

I have been slacking on blogging for the past two weeks so I have to get all caught up! We have been reading Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky. The first incident he writes about in his book is how a man named Evan went above and beyond using social media to retrieve his friends phone that was left in a cab. His friend ended up getting a new phone and somehow pictures of the person who found the phone in the cab and was now using it for her own benefit, showed up on the new phone. When Evan reached out to the finder of the phone she was no way about to give it back to Evan's friend. In response to not getting the phone back, Evan kept trying to convince the young girl to give the phone back and when she was reluctant he started a website about what was going on. The site talked about the injustice of how this young girl would not give the phone back and people started to jump on the bandwagon and overreact. People were able to find the girl's myspace page and started posting photos of her to the site and writing about how horrible she was for not returning the phone. Evan got so upset that he saw justice was not being served he tried to get the NYPD involved and when there wasn't really anything they could do the followers of Evans website started to take this incident personally. In the end, Evan's justice was served and the NYPD retrieved the phone.

This whole story really bothered me and I could probably blog about how psychologically ridiculous Evan took this whole fiasco as well as the community that he had built revolving the incident. Luckily for you, this is not a psych class, so I won't get too much into it. The crazy thing that I believe Shirky was saying was how technology, the internet, and more specifically social media can bring groups together. Shirky says that "When we change the way we communicate, we change society." It is crazy how the people that followed Evan's site took what happened so personally and wanted justice to be sought out even though they did not know Evan, or his friend. Social media has give the world an opportunity to come together by communication. People can come together and get in arguments with each other, which unfortunately I see on Facebook everyday, or they can come together and fight for a cause. One thing that was brought to mind while thinking about the internet though is the struggle the world is having/going to have to maintain separate cultures. I am worried that soon cultures are going to start blending together and some will be lost forever.

Journal 4

My coworkers and I were talking about how we did not learn enough of what to do in real life situations, such as how to pay your taxes, how to fill out a DW2 form, or understanding of different types of insurance. I always hate filling out DW2 forms because it is never clear to me when to put which number. This also reminded me of when I was a student athlete because eighteen year olds are given scholarship checks, and are not given the tools to learn how to properly balance their money. The fact that an eighteen year old is entrusted with a hefty check every month or so, and is expected to use ti wisely boggles my mind. The only real life issue I remember learning about how to deal with was learning how to write checks in 3rd grade, which has stuck with me my entire life probably because it was related to adult life and was exciting!

In Dewey's book he talks about how it is the teachers responsibility to have the children retain useful data that they will need rather than useless data they will never use. I saw this meme the other day that said "and another day has gone by and I have not used the quantum theory once... If a student knows they need to learn something that will be useful to their future it will interest them. 

Another concept that I agree with is that sometimes work does not coincide enough with play, which causes work to only get done as a reward, or to avoid punishment. This leads to half as work. Learning through experience is a way to make work and play come together. For example I have reentry been learning how to make videos on adobe premier pro, and although it is a lot of work figure out how to make certain things happen, it is really fun for me. I am pleased with my work after my video is done! I am excited that I know how to make an even better video than my last one, and it causes me to want to make more. I take the learning into my own hands by searching for instruction, or accidentally learning something from messing around with the tools. Dewey's main focus on learning seems to be learning through experience and allowing the students to fail and to learn things that apply to their world.

Journal 3

This last week our movie trailer blogs were due and I was pretty confident that I could whip it out really quick, but when I started brainstorming I realized it was going to take a lot of thought to put together. I knew from mind mapping what I wanted to project through the video, but coming up with a short 2 minute trailer was difficult. While I gathered video clips I knew I had something really awesome, but I was worried about how I would make it all flow together.  This was my 2nd video I have ever made and I started to question if I should switch from adobe premier pro to iMovie because they have pre made trailers at your disposal. After checking it out I decided to just see what I could come up with using adobe because I really liked my clips and wanted the content within them to be heard instead of just having the iMovie music playing. I am so happy with my decision! I have learned how to do so much every time I fool around with the program! It is extremely exciting because creating videos was never something I ever thought I would, or could do. Now I want to make them all the time! I keep thinking of things I can film to make a mini movie out of.

I am also extremely proud of the way my trailer came out! When I kept playing it over and over again, I realized that it was actually pretty good! I really enjoyed this assignment. I feel like I am learning so much about what I am capable of in this program. I have already gathered really cool technology skills, as well as understanding how I am learning as I do the reading and the assignments.

Movie Trailer...The Company You Keep

Journal 2

Right after I wrote my last blog I realized that I was actually talking about the Smith book rather than the Dewey book, but then I realized that they both have similar connections and that is why I was cross referencing them! I love the Smith book because it puts what  Dewey says in a way that I can understand it. One connection that I have noticed between the books is that they both talk smack on classical conditioning. This is interesting to me because I have a Psychology Degree and funny enough I completely agree to what both books said! Both books state that classical conditioning has nothing to do with learning, it is just training. I completely agree with this statement. Hitting a child's neck to make him bow to something does not mean he knows why he is bowing. It just means that every time he sees or feels a certain stimulus the child will bow, but he does not learn or understand why he is doing what he is doing, he just does it. While Pavlov was conducting these classically conditioning stimulus the animal is stuck in a cage unlike a human. An animal in a cage will respond a certain way then an animal that is free.

It reminds me of saying the pledge of allegiance in elementary school. We were trained that every morning when we get to school we stand up and repeat a pledge that we are taught to memorize. Just because we memorize something does not mean we are giving meaning to the words we say. We say the pledge because we are suppose to, not because we really know or understand why we say it. I recently got a job working with autistic kids which makes this topic interesting because ABA therapy, which is what is used on autistic kids, is exactly what classical conditioning is. Repeating an act, or word until the child memorizes what it is based on reinforcement. Maybe I can come up with a way that I can help the autistic kids learn without using classical conditioning! That is my new goal even tough it might be the only way they can learn.

Journal week 1

In our cog tools class we are reading John Dewey's book Democracy and Education and to tell you the truth it is such a hard book to get through. It is extremely dense, and I have to reread some parts because I start to notice that I have no idea what I just read. I know I just kind of ripped on the book, but it does have some really interesting points. Dewy talks about how education is focused on what we do not know, instead of what we do know. The teacher is not focused on what the child did correctly, but instead they get there confidence in learning lowered because the teacher is focused on what they did not fully perform correctly. He states that learning is done in an environment in which people learn from others around them that they can relate too. He uses clubs as an example of learning where you belong and who you are. I really enjoyed when he talked about how the most important thing we learn is who we are by figuring out which clubs we can and cannot relate too. It is like the old saying, "be careful who your children's friends hang out with." The company you keep is who you learn form, and who you start talking and acting like. This type of learning is continued and never forgotten.

Dewey loves using language as an example because it is one of the ways  that proves that learning is mostly not conquered in the classroom. The way the education system is set up, there is a lot of memorizing, and then forgetting. When children learn new words or skills through there friends, or clubs those words are not forgotten. He talks a lot about language and how children learn a language from observing the company they keep. I am interested to see what the next chapters of Dewey have to teach me about where learning actually takes place.

Video Game Awesomeness Final Post

The other night I watched the Z-boys documentary which made me want to just surf and skate all day, so I thought why not play a skate game since right now skating is all I can think about. My friend dug up his Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4 for his playstation 2. I was stoked he only had a playstation because there are less buttons involved and the controller fits in your hand better. I was able to pick the identity of Bam Margera, which I was super stoked about because I've always wanted to know what the day in the life of Bam would be like. I noticed that knowing who my virtual identity was made me way more into succeeding in the game. I was Bam Margera. The game had so many subdomains I should have totally started out this project playing this game. There was a practice level and a free skate level, so you don't even have to play the career mode until you've got some moves down. In the practice subdomain every trick you perform amounts of cash pop on the screen, which I found out is super useful later in the game because you need cash in order to unlock certain levels. There wasn't really a guide on how to do tricks except for the instructions from my friend, so there was a lot of discover learning going on while Bam was in the air.

Something I noticed was that since this game resembled a subculture that I could relate to, I was way more into it. I wanted to do well, and if I fell I would cringe and say ooooo like I could feel Bam's pain. While playing career the game did a really good job of telling me where to go and what to aim for by a stranger on the street that came up to me right away. The career level I played was called college and you got to pick between different cities to skate in! It is really easy to complete your goal, but the more you skate around and practice your ticks the more money you see pile up. Each time I would go up to someone with an arrow on their head, which was my goal, I would collect a letter because to pass the level I had to spell the word skate before time was up. Then they would tell an extremely quick story line instructing me what to do next. The time limit doesn't really give you the stress free freedom to learn how to do trick, but thats why there is free skate and practice subdomains. This game is simple, there isn't enough time to worry about a huge storyline. It's al about skating. I loved in for some reason way more than skate 2.