Video Games

When I first read Gee's chapters from, "What Video Games Have to Teach Us", I felt vindicated. After years of playing Zelda, I truly believed that there were benefits beyond the simple enjoyment of playing, and finally someone agrees with me. Games like Zelda and Half-Life, incorporate problem solving skills and reading into a fun environment.

In reading "Games as Cultural Rhetoric", I was reminded of Highlights Magazine, which also came up in my groups discussion on Everest. In Highlights, reading and writing practices were incorporated with fun and games, which I know I responded well to as a child. I especially liked the Salen and Zimmerman's discussion on Seven Rhetorics of Play, and the ideological values that are incorporated in "play". This discussion ties well with Gee's ideas on the social context of learning, and its embeddedness in a material and social world ( Gee, Introduction 7).

As with anything though, too much of a good thing can be bad. There are great benefits that can arise from using a tool like video games for educational purposes. I think that Gee addresses this in the second chapter on the ideas of active learners becoming critical learners (Gee, 39-47). Just like any tool, if used correctly, video games can be a good thing, it just depends on how people use them.

Project Proposal

For my final project I want to write a comparative narrative history between my experiences with technology and my mother's. My mother was born in 1944 and was one of the first women given a job working with one of the earliest computer models.

My paper will include mine and my mother's earliest memories and conceptions of computers and computer technology. I will also discuss:

• How my family adapted literacy values and practices that incorporated computer supported environments.
• How my access to computer technology has varied to that of my my mother. (Focusing on the generational differences.)
• Gender issues related to technology.
• Other issues that I have not yet thought of. (Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.)

I got my idea for this paper from an article by Gail Hawisher and Cynthia Selfe, "Becoming Literate in the Information Age: Cultural Ecologies and the Literacies of Technologies", which I will rely heavily on for interview guidelines and overall format. I feel like this is an important topic because I think generations today take technology for granted. It is difficult for the younger generations to imagine a life without the technological affordances that many have in their homes, or at least come into contact with at school/public libraries.

Finally, I will take what I learn from our narrative histories and attempt to make some practical applications that can be used to curb some of the gender issues that still exist in the world of technology.

Web 2.0

I find the social networking aspect of Web 2.0 the most appealing and useful to me. After several moves I lost contact with many of my friends. Now I have a myspace account, which has allowed me to find and keep in contact with people that I otherwise would not be able to.

This American Life

I really enjoyed listening to these stories. I thought that "2o Acts in 60 Minutes" was wonderful. It combined all of the elements of creative nonfiction that I love with sound. I like the universal quality of these stories, and how they seem to focus on the idea that it is the little things that make life so interesting. I noticed the use of sound and the absence of sound throughout the stories. Sometimes sound was used to add to the story and sometimes is was used in the background. There would be funny sounds for comic effect or music to enhance the story. The song that the girls sang at the end had such an emotional quality that would've been missed if the story had have just been read or even told.
The second episode I listened to was "New Beginnings". I think the story of Luke being told by Lawrence Steger was very interesting to listen to. It included the story with active discussion about the sound clips being played like the use of, I think it was "Road Warrior", and Steger telling them to stop the clip because it wasn't the right part.
I guess what I liked best about these was the personal feel that each of the stories had which were the product of quality of voice, intonation, voice overs, music, and sound effects within each narrative.

Soundscape

The discussion of the soundscape in Reading Sounds made me think about something my mother said one day. She told me that she loves staying at my house because it reminds her of how her grandmother's house sounded when she was a little girl. We live in an old adobe house that is set back a bit from the road, so other than the occasional tractor or crop dusting plane, there aren't a lot of 'city' sounds.

It is easy to overlook many of the sounds that fill our soundscape. And, I think even easier to overlook the way our soundscape affects us. I can think of different places that I love, and a major part of those memories involve sound. Sitting on the porch of the cabin, I could hear the locusts, frogs, waves from the lake hitting the shore, the creak of the porch swing...All of these background sounds come together to form the memory that I have.



I listened to several of the sound clips, the first being Aporee Radio which was a collection of city sounds accompanying a Google map. It highlighted the busy city soundscape. The second clip I listened to was called Ground Truth. It was a video with more of an educational theme to it. The meteorologists were using video and sound to express the purpose for Ground Truth, and stress the need for us to protect our environment. The third site I went to was called The Listening to Birds Blog. It combined written text about the birds with a link to a sound clip of the bird calls. I think each of these sound clips offer a different example of how incorporation of a range of modalities can lead to more effective forms of communication.

Political and Civic uses of Blogs

Blogs are or can be useful in civic discourse by offering the public a place for free and equal access to participate in public debate. Anyone with access to the web is welcome to join in the conversation either by viewing and/or contributing.
I really liked how Barton stressed the importance of students finding their voice, learning how to use that voice, and eventually being able to contribute to a group of voices that can work together for a greater good. I think Barton was getting at the fact that we must acknowledge how privileged we are to have these forms of communication such as blogging, wikis, and discussion boards, and that if we don't protect them they will become the exact things that they were developed to oppose.
I think the greatest role blogs play in the political conversation is that they allow for more access and participation in the political arena. By looking through different blogs we are able to study both sides of every issue and come to our own opinions.

The Blogoshpere

Blogging allows everyone a forum to for his/her voice to be heard, or at least read. I think blogging has changed the ways in which people can react to the world around them by providing them a place to share their thoughts and feelings about anything imaginable.
I also think that the immediate nature of blogging might make people more willing to share responses to things going on in the world. For example, taking the time to write a letter and sending it to a news station that may not even acknowledge it is not as appealing as just posting one's thoughts on a blog for the world to see.
The idea of blogging is really starting to grow on me. I like the idea of connecting to people that share my same interests. I have been looking at knitting blogs and baking blogs, two things that I love doing but don't really have anyone to talk to about.

Rhetorical Conventions and Blogging

First of all, let me just say that I had no idea that the blogging community was so enormous! This is all very new to me. These readings really clarified a lot for me in understanding what blogs are, how they work, and what they are for.
As with any discourse community, it is important for participants to learn the accepted language and methods that are practiced. The rhetorical conventions of writing play a huge role in the blogging discourse community. The rhetorical conventions in blogging require us to make good choices concerning ethics, such as honesty and truthfulness, while also expecting us to consider our purpose and intended audience.
After comparing the reading selections, it is clear that the blogging community expects the rules to be willingly followed by all participants. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation are each as important as honesty, truth, and giving credit to sources in blogging. There are many different types of blogs, and many different reasons/uses for blogs and it is up to the individual to be a responsible blogger.

New Media

I think that new media refers to the ever-changing digital and computer language that is used to create every aspect of what can be seen and articulated on (but not limited to)the computer, television, and/or cinematic screen. New media is related to technology, and can be multimodal (meaning that it can be audio, visual, and/or textual).



I was watching the news this morning and saw the new issue of Esquire magazine. The cover has a digital screen on it, and I thought it really went well with our topic. I wonder, is this going to become more common for magazines? It will be interesting to watch.

Post #2: Media Production and Me

Reading the first selection, I was reminded of an experience I had in a high school English class. I remember choosing to do a video assignment instead of a research paper. The video assignment was fun, and involved little to no writing. I got an A, but looking back I didn't deserve a grade for the minimal amount of actual work I put into the project. As a future English teacher I can use the ideas expressed in this article to help students create a project that is worth while. One relevant point I can take from this article is to place emphasis on the process (brainstorming, research, and refeltction) of creation and not just the final product of my students work. I also liked the importance of Interdisciplinary partnerships; we can do a lot more when we are working together.

Each of these selections address the rhetorical issues of creation. In any project, professional or personal, we need to be aware of some basic questions: what are we saying, who are we saying it to, and what is the best way of saying it. Each of these questions aid us in designing the final product. It seems like the multimodal resources available in text and media make any creative idea possible.

Each of the articles share the questions of first, how do we define literacy, and second, how do we go about literacy pedagogy.

Global connection and Cultural diversity are both issues concerning literacy education. I felt that the common goal of all three chapters was to come up with a 'design' that will allow us to prepare students of all ages, cultures, and backgrounds for successful futures in their working, public, and private lives.

The third selection describes multimodal literacy the best in discussing how we must be able to teach and learn about the meaning of meanings, and that meaning making is multimodal. Our senses are always working together to relay messages to our brain, and multimodal literacy works in a similar way.


In Response to Julie's comment:
I honestly don't know if such an idealistic design can be made. I think that the purpose of new literacy studies is to at least try to find a common ground between the past, present, and future of literacy studies and pedagogy. For now, I guess we have to accept the fact that literacy studies must be able to adapt to the constantly changing world.

Hey  Julie and Moushumi

I hope this is working!