And So the Stress Begins…

I’m assuming everyone is loaded down with assignments, projects, finals, meetings, and everything else that life and school has handed to us. I just wanted to wish everyone luck on the finals and give them a reason to smile!

Hope these help!

Ambient Findability

First off, what is findability? To me, findability is the ability to locate someone efficiently and effectively. Throughout technology today, there are many genres in which findability takes place. For example, you use findability when you “check-in” somewhere on your smart phone.

Twitter and facebook both have tools that you can adjust on your smartphones that let people state the location that they are posting from.

So what’s the use? Simple. Morville discusses this in his book. By making themselves accessible, people are able to locate them more effectively. For example, if you used the smart phone “check-in” tool at the mall and one of their friends was at the mall too. Their friend would then possibly locate them or be able to connect with them. However, if neither of them knew they were there, they might not ever connect. 

The Future is Now

Every time a new gadget or technology tool comes out, my dad makes a reference to Star Trek. When skype came out, my dad was like, "People use to dream of this stuff! I remember when I was a kid and Star Trek was on.." So when reading Ambient Findability, I couldn't help but think, I'm living the future of generations before me. Some things that seemed so far away, I am experiencing now.

It's hard for me to think about the future because we currently have SO many advances in technology. But I do think there will be more tools to use. For example, watching CSI, you see a lot of potential technological advances. Holographic touch screen computers being one of them.

Comparing technology from 5 years ago to now seems crazy! The cell phones, computers, tvs, and everything have completely changed. It's going to be exciting to live in this technological age and see what else manifests in the next five years.

My Thoughts on Daylight Savings

Okay, so daylight savings time started this week. I miss the days when Indiana was an exception and didn't partake in the useless time change. I understand that it gives us more light in the morning, but what about as a whole? I mean, it's getting dark by the time I get out of class most days. So for me, and I'm assuming most college students, it's not too beneficial.

Not to mention, when we do change the clocks, a lot of people are so confused. I showed up early to a few things this week, not that it's a bad thing, it's just frustrating. Not to mention, my sleeping schedule is completely off. Hmph.

Thanksgiving Traditions

With the Holidays approaching, I wanted to start thinking about and discussing my families traditions on Thanksgiving. I have a rather large family and when we get together for the holidays, it’s like we never moved away from each other. Right now, both of my sisters are married to marines and are stationed in North Carolina, I am at school, and my brother has also moved away. Getting together for the holidays is one of the very few times that we are able to all get back together at the same time.

Each year we have the same food; turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, au gratin potatoes, stuffing, green beans, corn, and sweet potatoes. Then there is the dessert, my grandma’s specialty; pumpkin pie, cheese cake, peanut butter pie, and whatever else she comes up with! I usually take it easy and make the puppy chow.

Every Thanksgiving, my grandma insists we name the turkey. However, it usually is Tom, Bob, or George (she’s really creative). After we eat, we sit around, laugh, watch football, and just enjoy each other’s company. To us, it’s all about family, and that’s what I’m most thankful for. 

Lupton

When reading text, we have found ways to interpret it in our ways. For example, in Thinking With Type by Ellen Lupton, she states “A word set in ALL CAPS within running text can look big and bulky, and A LONG PASSAGE SET ENTIRELY IN CAPITALS CAN LOOK UTTERLY INSANE.” Because, as readers, we interpret text that is in all capitals is considered yelling or shouting.

So who decided this was how we conveyed shouting at each other via text? By using different texts like capitals, italics, etc., we have the opportunity to convey texts in a completely different way. It’s intriguing to think that text can be altered in such a way that changes our perception of its meaning. 

My Favorite Blog

There is only one blog that I read nearly every day. That blog is Perez Hilton's blog about celebrities, gossip, fashion, and other fun stuff.

One thing I love about this website is that it's very easy to read and navigate. So to make my blog as user friendly as Perez's blog, I changed a few font colors and added a search bar for my blog. Enjoy!

Should Movies Really Be Spending So Much Money?

With the release of Paranormal Activity 3, I thought I would discuss the amount of money that is spent on movies today.

When Paranormal Activity was filmed, they spent $15,000 on everything they needed for the movie. The actors were paid a mere $500. However, after it began to gain popularity after its first release at the Screamfest Film Festival in October of 2007, it began to gain popularity. It then had a limited release at certain theaters in September of 2009. By October of 2009, Paranormal activity was playing in theaters worldwide, grossing nearly $200 million. It was said before the movie was released worldwide, they thought about pulling it out of theaters early. But then there were reports of people leaving the theaters early they were so scared.

Audience members watching Paranormal Activity

So how does such a low budget movie gain such popularity and revenue? This is why my opinion comes into play. After watching Paranormal Activity, I didn't sleep well for three or four days. For a movie that doesn't have all the bangs and whistles, that's pretty impressive. I'm a fan of scary movies, but lately it seems as though Hollywood has been failing to come up with new ideas. They have started remaking movies or doing sequels to many movies that were previously popular.

Why did Paranormal Activity scare me so much? Simple. Throughout the movie, there is a spirit, ghost, or monster of some kind tormenting and terrorizing a couple. However, this movie played off of its viewer's imagination. If I remember correctly, this movie never physically presented this "being" that was terrorizing the couple. The viewer cognitively manifested their own fears to create what this monster was. I also think this movie plays off of very common fears. The dark, spirits, and the unknown. During the movie, the female, Katie, is seen standing at the end of the bed watching her boyfriend sleeping for a long period of time. It was this that really scared me. How do you know if someone is watching you when you're sleeping?!

Katie watching her boyfriend sleep.

But what does this mean to me? Hollywood goes to extreme lengths to create a movie that makes a lot of money, spending an abundance of money in the process. However, sometimes less is more. In this case, that holds true.

Paranormal Activity is now a 3 movie series spending about $8 million and grossing nearly $550 million all together.

What do you think of the series itself? Is less more?

Will Cable Become Obsolete?

In a USA Weekend article that I got out of the paper, it stated "Some people are ditching cable and satellite television- and their $75 average monthly tab. Instead, they're signing up for HULU Plus ($8 a month), Netflix streaming (another $8) for movies, and renting $1 DVDs from the Redbox in the supermarket. Not for you? You could still save by shedding premium channels and supplementing with some of these services - particularly if you are not watching many of them anyway. A recent Neilsen study showed Americans now have about 130 channels available on average, but they watch only 18."

So my question is this, with all of the new, more cost-friendly services that are available, will this have an impact on cable? Personally, I think this could be the case. Recently, all cable switched to digital from analog. Analog has become a thing of the past. This could happen to cable as well.

Halloween Favorites From the Past

Yay Halloween!

Breast Cancer Awareness

Since this is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I wanted to take the time to blog about it and how important it is to me. Right around Christmas of last year, my grandma was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. My grandma has lived with my family since I was born and we are incredibly close. Luckily, she didn't have to undergo any serious treatment. She is currently taking medication and getting much better!

However, this isn't a blog just about my grandma. I never thought something so serious would hit close to home. I think this month is a great time to think of breast cancer awareness, but I think it's really important for people to think about it all year around. It can happen to anyone, cancer doesn't discriminate. As a young female, I think being aware of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, or any other prominent feminine sickness is important to be aware of. Educate yourselves! And that goes for men too. There are a lot of things people are unaware of that can have a large impact on their life at some point. So continue to get your yearly check-ups! It's very important. And don't forget to wear pink this month. :]

The breast cancer ribbon tattoo I got for my grandma!

Midterm Review

List of Online Readings/Articles:
How Students Use Technology
Is Social Media Ruining Students?
Did Pencils Make Us Dumber?
On the New Literacy
Tech Support Cheat Sheet
Is Google Making Us Stupid?
Does the Internet Make You Smarter?
What do We Need to Teach About Knowledge Work?
How Does Our Language Shape the Way We Think?
Social Media is Here to Stay...Now What?

List of Books:
The Medium is the Massage- McLuhan
Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century- Selfe
Here Comes Everybody- Shirky
Sams Teach Yourslef HTM and CSS in 24 Hours- Meloni

List of Class Articles:The Coming of the New Organization- Drucker
Three Meanings of Epistemic Rhetoric- Brummett
The Aggressive Egg- Freedman
Inquiry Paradigms and Writing- Emig

A Few Things I Love

Description		Why I Love Them	When it Started	Where I Get Them
	Hello Kitty	She's adorable.	Elementary School.	Everywhere! I get her as gifts or pick them up for myself.
	Elephants	They are so magestic.	Highschool.	Goodwill, mostly. But I have got them as gifts, too.
	White Powerade	It tastes amazing!	Middle School.	The only place I've been able to find them is Marsh. They are hard to find, but they're my favorite drink.

My Life: My Family

Is Privacy Dead?

According to CNN, "Privacy is dead, and social media hold smoking gun." They believe that our constant need to capture and share every moment of our lives will diminish our privacy.

Recently, a U.K. firm is releasing a camera that was invented to capture every single moment of a person's life. It's worn on a cord around your neck and takes an image every thirty seconds. The camera costs $820.

CNN argues that this "life-logging device" posses many risks to our privacy from stalkers to identity theft. What happens if someone gets their hands on your camera? Their could be a plethora of pictures a thief could use to steal your identity or find out everything about you and stalk your life.

Many social networking sites pose the same issue. By constantly letting people in on multiple details of your life, providing your location, and uploading personal pictures, you have the chance of someone using these details to target you.

But this is my question. With articles like this CNN article, social networking users are heavily aware of the "risks" involved with social networking. Social networking is a great way to connect with people in a safe way, if you know what you're doing. If you manage your privacy settings and don't post incredible details about your life, you shouldn't have a problem.

Lastly, if you are on a social networking site, you shouldn't care much about privacy in the first place. When you let your 700 friends in on all the details of your life, how are you trying to be private? I believe social networking is a way for people to display these things about their life that they wouldn't always vocalize, but feel more comfortable behind a computer screen.

Read the CNN article here.

Changes

If you notice, I have changed the format, background, and colors of text on my blog. Why, might you ask?

First off, I changed the format/orientation of my pages because I thought it made it much more pleasing to the eye and a lot easier to read. As I write more blogs, I want my readers to be able to read them with ease and with no problems.

After changing the format of my blog, I decided to change my background to something that wasn’t so cliché and, once again, made my blog easier to read. I chose a background of an elephant. The background itself doesn’t look like a plain image of an elephant because it is zoomed in to show the texture of the elephant’s skin. I felt as if this background was earthy and gave my blog a different feel. Not to mention, I love elephants!

Lastly, I had to adjust the font color of my blog because it was blending in with the background.

Hopefully these changes will make my blog easier to read and more user-friendly!

It's Fall!

I am very excited that it is finally fall. It's my favorite season of the year.

Fall

Reasons I love Fall

• Apple Cider
• Leaves Changing
• Halloween
• Carmel Apples
• Pumpkin Carving
• Sweaters
• Thanksgiving
• Pumpkin Spice Coffee

These are just a few reasons why I love Fall!

Polemic: Right or Wrong?

When reading Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century, Cynthia Selfe introduces her thoughts on polemic. By definition, polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person, or a strong verbal or written attack on someone or something. So in her book, Selfe poses two arguments about the link between technology and literacy.

Selfe describes the two arguments as boon, the way in which humans use technology to further progress interaction and communication amongst each other. The other argument or representation is bane, which describes how technology has caused a negative impact on communication, reading and writing skills, etc.

So what's the problem with polemic? Selfe creates this argument that it's so black and white. It's either one way or the other. However, I feel as though technology can impact a person in the way they allow it to. There is definitely some gray area in between these arguments that Selfe doesn't address.

Language and the Way We Think

While reading an article by Lera Boroditsky called, "How Does Our Language Shape the Way We Think?" I was interested, but not surprised. Boroditsky brings up interesting arguments and examples of how people who speak different languages think, well, differently.

Boroditsky states that language effects the way we think about space, time, colors, and objects. She also says that other studies have found that languages effect how people "construe events, reason about causality, keep track of number, understand material substance, perceive and experience emotion, reason about other people's minds, choose to take risks, and even in the way they choose professions and spouses." To me, that seems like a lot of stuff language can effect.

That's incredible!

According to Boroditsky, "it's possible that everyone thinks the same way, notices the same things, but just talks differently." But to me, it is obvious that the thinking process in which one uses to speak different languages is vastly different than others. When you have to go through a slew of processes just to read one sentence in one language, but a completely different thought process to read the same sentence in a different language, there is a difference there.

Language also plays a role in how we learn other languages. "everyone does not pay attention to the same things: if everyone did, one might think it would be easy to learn to speak other languages. Unfortunately, learning a new language (especially one not closely related to those you know) is never easy; it seems to require paying attention to a new set of distinctions. . . it requires paying attention to the right things in the world so that you have the correct information to include in what you say." When learning a new language, you have to acquire a completely new thinking process that may be completely novel to you. That's why learning languages can be so challenging for so many people. It's not just the words you have to remember, but it's the thinking process that you need to get you there.

This article completely fascinates me. As an English teacher, I need to be aware of these kind of things to better understand my subject, but especially my future students. There will be times that I have students and there might be a language barrier. Understanding their thinking process will make it much easier for me to explain things to them, understand their homework, and most important, to understand them.





"But what would your life be like if you had never learned a language? Could you still have friends, get an education, hold a job, start a family? Language is so fundamental to our experience, so deeply a part of being human, that it's hard to imagine life without it." -Lera Boroditsky

And You Thought Text Message Break-Ups Were Bad...

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Ever felt like you were stuck in a relationship and just couldn't find the right way to tell that person you just weren't interested anymore? Well, for those who live in China, they don't have to worry about how to break up with someone. They simply pay someone to do the breaking up for them. How crazy is that?

People in China are paying people, sometimes quite a large amount, to do the dirty work for them. They have them send a heartfelt e-mail or by some other means and let them know that they just don't want to be with them anymore.

As if there weren't anymore pathetic ways to break up with someone, you can now simply pay people to do it for you. Facebook, text-messages, twitter, now a "break-up agent." Technology is ruining romance, relationships, and chivalry.

Want more details? Read the original blog post here.

How Has Technology Been Affected By 9/11?

It has been ten years since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Many people have spent this weekend reflecting this day in history and how it has impacted our country and the rest of the world. While many thought of where they were and how their lives have changed since, I had this and so much more on my mind. One thing that I focused on was how technology has changed our lives since 9/11.

One major form of technology that has changed is security. Everyone knows that when you go to the airport today, it is incredibly difficult to get through security. There have been new metal detectors and x-ray machines that have been implemented.  There have been many complaints and news stories about how airport security has affected people. Although airport security can be a hassle, I think it’s important that we remember how important airport security is and why it is there today.

The government has also started using biometric screening tools that help to regulate border security and visas more effectively. This system uses fingerprints and photographic images to identify people that enter the United States. There is a similar system used in order to leave the country. Because of this regulation, our government has found two of the hijackers that were involved in 9/11 (Ember 1).

I think we should all remember how important the measures are that are being taken in order to prevent or try and prevent from what has happened before, happening again. 

Rhetoric Reflection

Rhetoric is used in writing, speeches, and many other forms of communication. Given the definition of rhetoric, situated, strategic discourse, I want to sift through this and come to a few valid conclusions.

To me, this definition has a few meanings. If it is situated, it is organized or thought out in an organized manner. Being strategic can mean a lot of things. To me, in regards to rhetoric, one is strategic in order to carefully plan their thoughts and feelings in order to get a specific outcome. The outcome can be many different things. It could be persuasion, informative, etc. Lastly, we have discourse. Discourse in this situation means language in use.

Let’s put this all together. Situated, strategic discourse. Planned language in order to gain a specific outcome. Is this the meaning of rhetoric? It seems incredibly accurate. When writing and speaking, one must keep these aspects in mind in order to impress or persuade their audience.

How Does Technology Affect Children Today?

 

When reading The Medium is the Massage, there was one idea that stuck out to me. Because I am an English Educaion Major, the discussion of technology's affect on children and their education seemed to be the most important to me. McLuhan states, "The child was an invention of the seventeenth century; he did not exist in, say, Shakespeare's day. He had, up until that time, been merged in the adult world and there was nothing that could be called childhood in our sense." McLuhan is exactly right. Up until the 18th century, children were perceived in a very different light than they are today. They were expected to act the same and even dress the same as adults.

 

Technological advances are partially if not one of the greatest influences on the way society views children today. A man, Rousseau, was the first to suggest that children were not little adults. He had the idea that children didn't think, act, or behave as adults did. His idea didn't catch on quickly, but when it did, it stuck. As time progressed, less and less was expected of children. By the 20th century, it was acceptable for children to behave and dress in the nature we see today. 

Technology has shaped the way we perceive what is socially acceptable. McLuhan ends his education piece with this, "Today's child is growing up absurd, because he lives in two worlds, and neither of them inclines to grow up. Growing up--that is our new work, and it is total. Mere instruction will not suffice." I think this is the point where I disagree with McLuhan. I think technology has definitely had an impact on children today. However, to me, it seems as though McLuhan thinks that instruction and technology are two different worlds to children. Today classrooms are advancing and implementing technology just as quickly as everyone else is. There are many ways to use technology in the classroom, making these 'two worlds' relatively cohesive.