Reflective Blog Post

This class was a surprise. A big surprise. I had no idea that when I click the add button I was agreeing to a semester of changing paradigms, steep learning curves, and life lessons. I didn't think that school could be this interactive and that a simple GE class could really do so much for my education. Ariel talked about regular classes not being good enough anymore, that she expected more than she was getting, and I think I am coming to understand that.

Learning Outcomes
1. History
My historical Period was the 20th century and I loved it. My assigned reading was about progressivism, and again, I was extremely interested. I real enjoy learning about societal changes and how our focus and a nation changes over time in relation to politics.

• Education Now
• Romanticism- Can I Sign Up for That?
• When is Relativism Okay?

2. Digital Concepts

Of all of the digital concepts, I have certainly most enjoyed learning about participation. I am so interested in how participation is changing and working in this social media world, and how we monitor and denote success through this participation. Over this semester, I know that i have certainly participated more than I ever have, not just though my blog, but through Google+ and all kinds of news sources. I have loved being able to use Google+ as a more academic social sphere, and have appreciated being able to share what i find interesting even more than talking about it myself. 

3. Digital Literacy

• Consume- I have certainly consumed a huge amount of varied information this semester. I have been able to see so many sides of so many arguments. One that comes to mind is privacy. I have posted a few times about how much we know and how much the proverbial "they" know about us. 
• Your Personal World: How Much They Already Know
• Create- Creating all of these blog posts has certainly been a change in my normal schooling paradigm, but I think that the creating I am most interested in of this semester has been the creation of dialogue. I have loved being able to give and reticence feedback through Google+ and the others in class. My favorite posts are the ones that received the most comments. Creating the event was also a fun and intensive part of my class experience. Planning a function based on the core values of the class made me really think about each of them. 
• The New Vote
• NY TImes Article on prescription drugs
• My Focus: Participation
• Does Equality Dumb us Down?
• Connect- Perhaps I touched on this in the section above. Connecting with other students and with others around the world has been a huge bonus to this class. I have a lot more confidence now to join in conversations on the internet and am more willing to say what I think. 

4. Self-Directed Learning

I feel as though this whole semester I have been teaching myself. At first it was to keep my head above water, but now I find that I really do enjoy it. I appreciate being able to say, hey, I want to know more about this, and being able to do it. I love learning from those who probably have very different opinions than I have. Mother Jones, for example, is an extremely liberal on-line magazine, but I love it because it makes me think. 

5. Collaboration

Oh boy, did I collaborate. The historical and digital group presentations were all about collaboration, and working so closely with a ton of people on the event was certainly the most collaborating I have ever done.  We all had to work closely together to accomplish very large goals, and I truly believe that this is one learning outcome that was hit right on the head for everyone in the class. We accomplished amazing things, and I am glad that I was able to be a part of that learning process. 

This class was crazy and slightly unorganized and moderately petrifying, but we did it. I am proud of what I accomplished, not just as a whole with a successful event and an e-book on the way, but as an individual with a broader outlook on my role as a digital citizen.

Event Report

Though technology seemed to be dead set against us, I am very pleased with how the event turned out. Hwanhi and I put a lot of work into this event, and I am so glad that everyone in the class really engaged and made it the success that it was.

My personal efforts to organize the event, and acquire and audience were moderately successful and quite varied.

• I made announcements to over four hundred students in classrooms
• I ensured that the poster went up all over campus from the information desk
• I personally invited my friends and family and my 10 "special" guests who were:
• Harly Richards- International Development student, acquaintance, interested in the idea of the CC and how that works in respect to our current economic system. She was able to attend for most of the event, and was impressed with how broad our expanse of information was in a single night
• Lindsay White- Accounting Student, Friend, Was able to attend, loved the arts presentation. 
• Cassie Reed- Accounting Student, Acquaintance, I invited her because she had expressed interest in my talking about the class before, and always asked questions about how and why we need to be more involved digitally, was able to attend in person. 
• A.J. Butler- Water Polo Coach, interested both in me and my welfare, but also in how he can improve the standing and success of his team through social media, attended on-line. 
• Austin Wheeler- Cadet at West Point, interested in how traditional education is and should be changing, wasn't able to attend at all. 
• Suzanne Whitehead- Works for Hope International raising money to fund a school in the DR Congo, wants to be able to increase technology in their education eventually attended on-line.
• Heather Desmond- Elementary School Teacher, interested in changing education. Wasn't able to attend.
• Dr. Monson, my Political Science Teacher- I extended him a personal invitation, and then extended one to the whole class at his urging. Interested in how Social media is opening government. Attended on-line. 
• Kristin Rob- Old friend from Germany, she and I played on the same team when she was a foreign exchange student to my high school. She loves anything to do with American Politics, and really enjoyed the event. Watched on-line. 
• Eli Pariser- The author of my assigned reading, "Filter Bubbles". Never got back to me, so I doubt he watched, but it was exciting contacting him in the first place. 
• I organized the order of the presentations
• I put together the presentations which was a disaster. Right here I have a huge suggestion for the next event: Formatting. The reason the transitions were so bad was because all of the groups had different formats and different links. All of them should have been using one thing, so all Prezi or all google ppt. This would dramatically help the event, and would have made it more fluid. 
• Collaborated with Hwahi on the script, the event philosophy, the purpose of the event, structure of the event (TED style blitz's)
• Acted as one of the MC's
• Organized music that we didn't actually get to use.
• Worked with individual groups on their presentations, formulating ideas and editorializing some. 
• Picked up the food with Dr. Zappala  

I learned an amazing amount of information from the planning process. It was great being able to work with Hwanhi, my superior in every way, who has had so much more experience planning event and organizing functions. I thought I was experienced, but now know that I have so much more to learn. It was a great experience and I am very grateful that I was on the event planning production team because I know that I will be much more prepared to do anything like this in the future. I enjoyed being part of the show and got a lot of joy trying to think about all of the ways we could ensure people had a great time and got what they came for. 

The New Vote- KONY 2012

I had a thought today as I engaged in a KONY centered conversation with some friends. We were talking about why the movement was happening now and why we as American citizens should care. My friend asked why it mattered to have KONY posters and pictures all over Facebook and Pinterest and Instagram. She couldn't understand what purpose the social media made, after all, the point of the campaign is to call for a continuance of political support for a group of advisors to aid the local governments in Africa in finding and capturing Joseph Kony. At first I didn't have an answer for her. I couldn't say why it mattered, other than all the positive effects that come from a more unified public, but then it dawned on me.

A "Like" on a page is like a vote. When we "like" something, or we re-post something, or comment on something, we are voting for that thing. We as the public are saying, yes, I want this to happen. It is a form of activism. I saw this meme today on Facebook and thought it was rather clever, but also a little bit false. When we like a page, like Kony 2012 for example, we give our support and give a statistical representation of the popularity of that thing. This number is powerful to those higher up, it is a statistical way for our politicians to track what we are thinking and what we believe. Right now Kony 2012 has more than 44 thousand likes which is a huge number in such a short amount of time. To the crusty politicians who don't use "the Facebook," this number is extremely significant and could actually contribute to extended American support for the fight against Kony.

Regardless of whether this is a fight worth fighting or if America has any business getting involved, the American people have utilized social media to show their support for this particular cause. If anything, Kony 2012 has proven the effectiveness of social media and has shown in a much more broad and commercial sense what we can do with Facebook.

Event Possibilities

Hwanhi and I have been tossing around some ideas for the structure of the event, and we would love a little bit of feedback. I thought I would lay out a couple of options for you guys, please let us know what you think! Be critical, we want to know realistically what you think will or won't work.

Possibility A: Traditional TED-ish event.
- Each group would present their topic for 5 minutes, each presentation would be as lively as possible an would discus the tweethis of that particular group.
- We would have a live backchannel and live video feed for our digital audience.
- Though this method is tried and true, it is fairly lacking in audience participation. How do you feel about that? Do you want the audience to participate in your presentation?

Possibility B: Modified TED Event
- Throughout the night, a moderator would take questions from the backchannel to then discuss openly. This backchannel would be available by text and via internet to accommodate both present and remote audiences.
- Question and answer sessions could lengthen the time of our event, but could also facilitate a much more involved audience after the event is over. Thoughts?

Possibility C: Blitz Style
- Each group would get one minute to explain their topic, then would separate into groups of two presentation topics and would give their presentation to a limited number of the audience in a side-room. The audience members would choose which topic to follow and would be able to engage in a much more in-depth discussion and lesson from their respective groups.
- Groups would have more time to explain their tweethis and to facilitate a greater level of discussion.
- Logistically, this would be the most difficult method as we would need to procure a camera and literal room space for each set of groups as opposed to just the one, but do you think that this logistical problem is worth the experience it might give the audience?
Do you want more time for your group?

We would love to facilitate more interaction between the audience members themselves, do you have any ideas of how we could do that?

Please let us know what you think! We certainly need the feed-back.

My Focus: Participation

             As I looked over my meager number of blog posts, I realized what I am most passionate about in regards to our digital literacy; that people actually use it. In my blog post We Are Being Spoken to and Don't Even Know It, I talk about the shift in our society to this "I don't care" attitude. That post focuses mainly on politics, listening to the information and outreach our government is giving us, but I would love to be able to broaden that idea.
             We have so much, and yet we take it all for granted. We have the means to do amazing things, but so few of us actually take advantage of those opportunities. I talked in that post about being able to respond to and communicate with the President, but it doesn't have to be that grand of a scale. We have the tools to communicate with people across the globe that share our interests and beliefs. We have the opportunity to learn from people that are so much more educated than we are now, but are still able to share with them our thoughts and ideas. The concept of open education is one that I think is revolutionary; the idea that we should learn because we want to learn is something that is both amazing and completely contradictory to the way our society runs, but it shouldn't be.
             I have this completely unrealistic vision in my mind of people everywhere avidly learning for the sake of learning, for the sake of conversation and self edification. I think that though that vision is very unrealistic, sources of open education and the proliferation of knowledge for the sake of knowledge is something that we can and should strive for because it is now so possible to do.
             I would love to understand more about they why people resist educating themselves and participating actively in the global society. I know it sounds like an obvious answer, but it must be more than the obvious. My mom always says that she gets too much reality from life, why would she seek out more on-line? People are tired, people are bored, people would rather take the easy way and play a game or stalk a friend on Facebook rather than take the time to learn something. It's just too hard. But why is it hard? I know that I do this myself, I choose something that will turn my brain to much for a few hours instead of stimulating it, but, again, why?
             My thesis for this class is still rolling around in my head, but I want it to have something to do with the positive functions of technology for the educating and enlightening of people, and the stimulating of those people to work for the betterment of their society. Technology can incite change, it has and does daily; I want to see that change grow. I want to be able to talk about TED with all of my friends. I want to be able to discuss issues and feel educated about what I am saying. I want to understand and reverse the causes of inaction that we see daily. Not quite 160 characters, but it's getting there.
             I have gained from this class realization of the broadness and relevance of the technology and innovations that come through the internet, and I want to be able to share that realization with others.

Your Personal World: How much they already know

One of my assigned readings is this book, The Filter Bubble,  by Eli Pariser. Pariser a board member and former executive at MoveOne.org, and a leader in internet politics, explains in great detail through his book how much information we give up when we go on the internet. He talks about the privacy we don't have and about what corporations like Google and Facebook can do with the information we give them by simply logging on.

In this blog post, I want to focus on what exactly that information is. What do they know about us? How do they figure it all out? What are our rights as users? I know that I want to know exactly what I am allowing to be shared about me when I get on the internet.

According to Pariser, just location can now tell corporations a wealth of knowledge about us. He gave the example that he travels frequently from New York City to San Francisco. Not only can this tell whoever is watching what local sites or places to advertise, but can probably predict fairly accurately his political standing and occupation. Another means of using location would be to use the information of those around you. By using the information provided by your neighbors, your age, race, and economic class can be predicted with frightening accuracy.

Google uses this information and much more in a system called PageRank, a set of algorithms created by a team at Stanford, in order to determine which of the millions of search results will be the most pertinent to us personally. It takes into account, for example, the fact that I am an avid follower of fashion and make-up recourses such as Vogue and Marie Claire, so when I type in Mac in my search bar, the cosmetics company pops up first as opposed to the Apple company.

Turns out, we as users don't have much say in how our information is used. Google's Privacy Policy, though easy to understand and fairly transparent to the untrained eye, really gives no option to the user. In exchange for their product, they expect full use of any information the user can give all in the name of "improving the experience"for the user. The user was never asked if they wanted the experience improved. Or to what extent they would be willing to go to have it changed.

The goal of Google is to create a search engine that can practically predict the question before it is asked. According to Google founder, Larry Page, "We want to create the ultimate search engine that can understand anything...Some people could call that artificial intelligence." The arguments for and against the super-searcher are extensive and not the point of this post, but I want to pose the question, do you want a search engine that can answer anything? Do you think that a search engine that can answer hypothetical questions is worth the chaos they would inevitable create? Do we have a say at all?

Sarah Martin

What's the Point of the Class Project? Here's One.

What I want to know is why we are doing this project. As far as I understand, it is mainly for our own edification. Sure, it would be cool if it were something that was interesting and interactive for other people, but all we can really hope for is for our work to be re-examined and maybe used by another classroom of learners just like us. Don't get me wrong, thats cool, but quite frankly, it sounds a little bit dry.

I propose we put our weight behind an actual cause. Or maybe multiple causes. We could learn about social literacy and digital possibilities through actually using them. The historical ties are all over the place. Our founding fathers didn't just write a book about what they learned, they decided to create a nation out of their knowledge. They were activists, not just conversationalists.

The fun project could be a great start. By creating a social change here on campus, we are not only using our skills of digital literacy, we could then compile that knowledge and then write a book about it, after we have actually done something with all of our hypothesizing. The Girl Effect is a movement that I have recently become very interested in, and I would love the opportunity to do more with it. But theres also the Action Against Hunger movement, the Global Fund, which leads the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in third world countries, Educate America, and so many more wonderful causes that could use our help.

I believe that we will best learn how to more fully function in our digital society and how to integrate the skills of digital literacy and active participation by choosing to act for a specific cause, something that we feel passionately about and that we want to be a part of. We will learn to participate not just because we have to, but because we have the skills to do so. I don't want to just write an e-book. I want to make a difference. What about you?