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. 

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

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

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.