bleh

As the end of the semester approaches, I can feel my brain starting to shut down and resist being productive.  It's been a long and different school year.  I can't decide if it's changed because I'm focusing on classes for my major now or if I've just started focusing instead of goofing around.  I can't believe that after this semester I will only have two semesters left until I graduate (not counting this summer).  I'm not sure where the past three years went.  I know some people say that as you get older time flies by, but I never realized how tue that is until now.  I feel like I just came to UNA yesterday; but every time I see one of my freshmen residents, I feel my age and realize how much I've done in such a small amount of time.
I finally decided to go through with taking the GRE.  I realized that I need to open up my options and apply to more than just one grad school.  I've toyed with the idea of even going overseas to get my Masters. It scares me every time I think about all I have to do within the next year.  Applying for graduation was a reality-check for me that I need to get my ducks in a row and start working on my applications for grad school more.
I have two semesters left to survive.
Two semesters left until I get thrown one more step closer to the "real world."

tweetless in alabama

  For New Media Writing, my professor made us start a blog and a Twitter account.  At first, I didn't have a problem keeping up with my blog posts and Twitter updates.  I actually kind of enjoy posting these blog entries because they give me a chance to rant and rave about anything I want.
  I know the same can be accomplished via a journal so why does a blog seem more appealing?  I think, for me, it might be because of the thrill that someone out there might stumble across what I've written, and that person might even care or like what I talk about here.
  In the four months I have had a Twitter account, however, I rarely think about it.  Any "tweets" I post are more than likely extremely pointless and me complaining about how much I hate Twitter....kind of like this paragraph.  I don't like being forced to say what I want in 140 characters or less--that's smaller than a text message.  I feel that Twitter is too restricting on expression.  I know you can link things via your Twitter page.  I'm probably going to link this blog post to my next 'tweet,' but I can't help but question "What's the point?" Why don't I just give people my blog and let them read that instead of being distracted by another thing to click?
  So I'll probably end up deleting my Twitter account by the end of the semester; but I might stick around in blogger world and see what I end up with.  

fyl? really?

So I'm friends with the majority of the people I went to high school with on Facebook.  I only talk to a few of these people, and I generally ignore their posts and updates.  Today, I went  to my homepage and one of them had posted that her life "sucks." Really?  I remember this girl very well from high school.  She is an only child in a very well-off family.  She has basically had everything handed to her since day one.  Her recent photos are of her and her family in California for the National Championship football game between Alabama and Texas, which costs quite a hefty sum of money.

Curiousity got the best of me, and I decided to find out why this girl's life "sucked."  Maybe she had a death in her family, her dog ran away, her family member lost his job, etc.  Nope.  She and her boyfriend broke up...Now, I realize I don't know all the background information on her relationship, and I can't really relate to her broken heart because I've never had mine broken, but I can think of many situations where people are worse off than her.

I'm sure people in third world countries would be more than willing to switch places with her if the epitome are her life "sucking" is a break up.  It's like when people put up a status asking people to pray for them because they have a test that day.  How about instead of that, you ask people to pray for the people in Haiti or people in other less fortunate situations?  We've become quite self-involved; and I think sometimes we (myself included) forget that we could have it much worse than we do now.

to read or not to read? that is the question.

The other day I was talking to my mom about her class.  She teaches sixth grade at the school I attended, and her class is currently “reading” Where the Red Fern Grows.  (I put reading in quotations because they’re listening to it on tape.  Albeit some of the students read along with the tape and others purely listen.)  She said that listening to the book on tape helped her non-reading students to like the book more and they actually read it this way.  This led me to bring up some of the topics we’ve discussed in my New Media class about how this generation needs more visual and technological things to learn.  She thought that was part of the problem with this generation: they need something waved in front of their faces at all times to keep their attention.  I agreed, but then I posed the same question to her as I did in my last blog entry: are we to stubborn to see the benefits of learning via technology over text? 

When I was in sixth grade, I hated it when teachers made us listen to books on tape.  The majority of the time, I would always read ahead of the tape because it slowed me down.  To this day, I prefer reading from a book over an electronic device.  Do I think my way of reading is better? Of course, but I can see the benefits of books on tape/CD or the Kindle.  Books on tape/CD make it possibly for people who don’t like to read to actually enjoy books.  The Kindle makes it easier for people to have a lot of books but store them in one spot.  What way do you prefer to read?

kids these days...

So in New Media Writing Monday, we were discussing how teaching styles have had to change for the new, younger generation. The generation before mine learns strictly from text. My generation learns mostly from text, but the age of learning visually slowly started to form during our school days. The generation in school now learns from mainly visual techniques.

While I was in elementary school, the interenet and video games were still in the process of being perfected. Technology has advanced so much at this point that visual teaching methods are the only way to keep the generation now in school focused. This brings to question whether this generation is lazy or are previous generations too stubbourn? Are we so blinded by our "Kids these days..." comments that we fail to see the added benefits of visual learning?

Dr. Mauriello brought up several good points about this. This generation has better hand/eye coordination and pick up on visual things faster. When I go to a web page and hear sound coming from it, I turn the volume down because I don't want to hear what the ads are saying. I want to read what's on the web page. The new generation isn't bothered by this "noise." Are they picking up something I'm missing by listening to the "noise" or are they just better at blocking out the "noise?"

I can agree that there are several pros to visual learning, but I can also see the pros to text learning. I think that teachers should strive to mix their teaching techniques with both ways. I think that teaching with strictly visual ways doesn't always challenge the student. The visual way is simply a quick-fix. For example, reading a book is completely different from hearing it read or seeing it in movie form. There is no way to get the same amount of information in reading a book that you would hearing or seeing it. If you don't pay enough attention while listening to a book, you can easily drift off in your thoughts and miss something; and movies never tell the whole story the way the book does.

With the world becoming more and more technologically savvy, it's good for people to know how to work with technology; but you still have to read the manual to know how to use it.