Blog 6

Prompt 1

The key prompt point I found interesting was the topic of HOW information is communicated.  In our society, social interaction is extremely important, but with the new media age, it is hard to say whether or not we are focusing less on face-to-face encounters or online chatting.  This goes hand in hand with sharing knowledge.  For example: this WorldView lecture class is partially online, partially in person, so we get our knowledge from both platforms; this raises the question of which is more effective.  I think we have reached a point in society where both online and in person communication are equally informative, with the internet having the upper hand of being able to reveal more information at once.  Discussion boards and in-class discussions have begun to function the same way, allowing the voice of opinions to be freed about knowledge as well.

Experience in the human sense is very broad.  We look at most things as normal daily activities, but there are those events that qualify as an experience.  An experience, to us, is something that is monumental in regards to the daily lives we lead.  An experience would be cliff diving, getting a piercing, singing a solo at a concert; something that ventures out of the norm and into a new territory, maybe somewhere out of the comfort zone.  

Project 3 Poetics and Reflection

Poetics:

In beginning my project I thought about myself as a whole personality, trying to figure out a lay-out that would compliment my digital identity.  In choosing a theme, organization was most important to me; my social presence is very faint.  While I know how to use a lot of media platforms, I do not overly share on them: posting status, images everyday, or sharing my meals.  If I deleted my social media presence, I do believe my world would still go round.  When I was putting together my webpage my goal was to have the organization of age be a huge factor.  To me, this was important because growing up I didn’t experience a lot of online activity, I wasn’t allowed to have a Facebook until I was in high school!  Getting a late start into media made my understanding of it a little weaker, but I still enjoy it nonetheless.

Ages 1-9 was not a phase of much digital exposure, but my main connection to the media and digital world was through Disney movies and software programs.  The Photo I collaged on the 1-9 page was my favorite.  I chose a vibrant colored canvas and the artsy map of the world to represent the new experiences of media and the complete submerging into this new world.  The mermaid opening the small treasure chest is to represent discovery and the unknown, while the line of black and white colored pencils is to signify the simplicity of a childhood mind-state.

The 10-12 page was seemingly the breakthrough phase of technology and my digital identity.  I became very interested in taking pictures, instant messaging friends, and utilizing the internet to find what I was looking for.  The GIF at the bottom of the page says it all, it is Jim from “The Office” saying “YES!” and it represents the excitement I felt over all the new developments that were happening in the world.  Finding how I could utilize these platforms to enhance my friendships, as a middle-schooler was very intriguing.  At this point in my life I attended a Catholic school with little technology, so Instant Messaging when I got home was a huge deal.

From ages 13-16 music was a huge part of my life.  I was in Concert Choirs and iTunes was my best friend.  The excitement of online music was readily accessible to me and listening to whatever I wanted was always possible.  At this point, from the beginning to 3/4 through high school, I learned the value of a good computer system, and the tediousness of the work one must do for assignments.  (This is why I included the sleeping cat on the keyboard.)  My favorite thing on this page is the GIF of the guy punching through the computer because 1. Technology can get scary in many ways. 2. I had this maze game trick played on me in High School!

Reflection:

Having a very low-key social media and digital presence has made me somewhat paranoid to the possibilities of the internet.  In a way, I am glad for not being able to have a Facebook until I was in High school because it prevented me from making any embarrassing posts or mistakes that I could have made at a younger age.  I appreciate more-so now, the virtue of discretion.  Looking at myself through this project I realize how guarded and private I am when it comes to sharing my life.  My social medias are all set on private, I don’t post for likes, and I rarely post anything at all.  My media and digital identities circle around my love for beauty products, tutorials, and aspirations.  As of last month I was accepted into FIDM in LA, so my digital identity reveals a lot of excitement around that right now.  I also see that I really love to learn, the internet has taught me a lot of things I would have never known (not only pertaining to makeup) but, lifestyle choices, current events, and school related things.  I focus a lot of my time on “pretty things” I love to see how others in the world, make their worlds’ beautiful and find inspiration in that.  My digital identity in that sense is very prevalent, because right now out society spends a lot of time searching for beauty, but not inspiration on how to make beauty themselves.  I love finding new ways to make myself and those around me more positive in life, this is one of them.  My advancement in technology has come leaps and bounds.  I could hardly text with my first phone, and now I run two Facebook pages and help run a successful Etsy shop part-time.  Digital media has come far in the past twenty years, and in the ten that I have been involved, I have learned a lot.  But, I have also been scared by it.  Media and the Government is a big issue for me, the lack of privacy, even when settings are private, always looms in the back of my head.  I think this is a good skill however, to keep things minimal and PG when posting, because in the past six years I have learned how easy it is for your future employers to look in on your past, and they do do it!  I think everyone needs to start off learning to post things that they wouldn’t mind their grandmother seeing.  My digital Identity has expanded, but not much, I still have a lot to learn and I am loving figuring out how to live in the digital world today.

My Digital Life Project

Link:

http://mydigitallifeproject.weebly.com

Optional Blog

Society can look around and see a group of people, and online you can know everything about them.  To those close to you, this is an accepted phenomenon; we tend to focus on the positive of knowing personal information and releasing it just the same.  “The Internet is the meeting point …It is a social machine, part technology, part institution formation…and also the identity experience producing new individual and collective behaviors” (Ulmer Interview).  The “personal database” exercise functions in many different ways, it allows for onlookers to try and decipher the complex mind of the creator, it also paints a picture of a small portion of a single unique mind, while working to become a story and disjointed piece of art all on its own.  These individual, personal thoughts relay to those who see it, communicating the deepest corners of the mind, even if the message received isn’t clear.  This concept is different from the others we have covered because there is no concrete idea, no concrete way that someone can depict their own mind.  This project is very much focused on expression and that is what makes it so unique.

Blog 5

My life in a phrase/caption:

 

Family: 

Career:

Social: 

Entertainment:

 

 

Exercise 4

Shifting gears in a manual automotive–

The use of gears in a car is what transitions the speeds and engine revolutions.  Shifting the gears in a car requires the operator to “feel” how the car is working when shifting–also the use of sound is crucial.  Listening to the sound of the car as the shift is made is a key point in shifting.  The actual gears are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, R, and a possible 6.  Each gear is a few inches maximum away from the next so shifting is not difficult to do.  The use of gears is also simultaneous with putting in the clutch foot petal.  Shifting is a non-verbal exercise.

Part 2–

With the data-side of shifting, a lot is left out.  First, and most importantly, the concept of experience should be considered.  A driver with more experience will have smoother shifting abilities, just as a new driver may have difficulty even though shifting is pretty simple.  When you shift it is also not a data concept of gear grinding–when you shift poorly or miss a gear, the gears and clutch make a loud screeching noise that makes the gear shake.  This is not something that is good for the gears, obviously.  When a driver is first learning as well, they must learn to multitask in driving–focusing on the road, while listening to the engine, making sure it doesn’t max out, while also placing in the clutch at the proper time, and shifting into the correct gear.  One must also learn how to read the gauges in the dash, they are all important signs about how your car is functioning.  The RPM’s go up between 2-3k and it is time to shift.  This is somewhat a sensory experience, but reading seems more intellectual when you must process it and react.

Blog 3

In unit 1, the emotion of the knowledge of a specific event is privileged.  The feeling that one gets from a piece can be different from person to person, but the intent of a singular emotion, from the author or artist, is always the same.  The feeling that the author intended with their own belief is important and sincere.  In my project, my emotion may come across in a few different ways: anticipation of reunion, hope, or sympathy.  The way the piece is perceived is crucial to what experiences the viewer has, whether they can relate to the belief or emotional event on their own.

The concept of knowledge in a particular field is specialized in the factor that only individuals or professionals working in it, constantly try to learn new things relevant to that field.  The knowledge pertaining to those of a particular field is important in contributing to society, when multiple groups of people are all really good at one thing, then society advances because focus is not split within single groups.  Getting certain proof as a practitioner in a field is an important piece to how academic communities function; collecting data varies from group to group, but is the key element to building improved versions of the academics we know today and will know in the future.

Design Memo & Reflection

Design Memo:

I wanted to design a webpage that was simple and clean looking.  When I visit a website, I enjoy someplace that is easy to understand and does not distract me from the information with bunches of media and moving parts.  The color scheme was the first thing I did; I chose a green and white theme because it felt scholarly to me, as well as relating to the seriousness of the subject at hand.  The introductory and central image is a succulent plant, which represents growth—a concept that goes hand-in-hand with the topic of growing Creativity in schools and major programs.  Each individual piece of my webpage was something I wanted to utilize to provoke thought and instill my representation of Creativity, down to the font of each titled page.  The fonts differ to get the reader to notice them, if someone looks at the same font for an entire webpage, it becomes repetitive and boring to the audience.

I chose the method of a top-bar for navigation of the site.  I liked that each piece of the website was laid out simply and in plain sight of the readers.  Each bar is in order of progression to show how the information was intended to be read for a greater impact, though if read out of order the information remains important and relevant, it just loses the maximum effect.  I did not incorporate media on the branch pages, I wanted the text to be the main focus on the information pages.  The only page with an extra image is the HOME page, this is because it introduces the readers to the subject and gives them a glance into what the article is pertaining to, before even reading it.  The text is formatted simply as well, this goes along with the overall theme of elegance and letting the facts speak.  I really love the way my webpage turned out, I think it contrasts the topic of Creativity and wildness of the mind with its mild nature.

Reflection:

This project proved to be extremely insightful into how I view my own field.  Before this project I had never thought about the vastness of my major or the struggles teachers and students are facing in creative writing.  Research has revealed to me that the world is not an easy place to write, it is enormously difficult for teachers now-a-days to encourage creativity due to the harsh world we live in.  It had never occurred to me that encouraging students to be creative was becoming an impossible task, what happened to our kindergarten days where painting and playing princesses was purely imagination?  Why can’t we write from the same place that we used to play?  Teachers are also struggling to figure out a fair way to grade creative work that is not discouraging in the long run.  I find a lot of issues within the concepts of grading creativity after doing this project because it brings up issues of how we as a society are grading someone’s mind and imagination.  (This is not to be confused with grading someone who put no effort into a project or assignment, only to those who clearly worked hard but may have had an out-of-the box interpretation of their assignment).  In this aspect I have found a deeper appreciation for my schooling because I never felt this lack of encouragement in creativity that is going on in schools now.

The growing amount of Creative Writing majors had also never occurred to me.  Maybe it’s the inspiration of vintage texts sparking a new light in our generation, but maybe it’s students believing English is an easy way out.  Personally, after years of English courses, I find that if you aren’t passionate about English, others can tell in your writing—the jig is up!  English is filled with inspiration, insight, and imagination, the texts that paved the way for modern day Creative Writing are what form the foundation of how we see the world.  (At least that is how I view them).  After this project, I see English in a new light entirely.  English, a lot of times, is skipped over or made to be less important in the mind—is this why imagination is beginning to run thin?

I found the sources that I used very insightful to the overall concept of Creative Writing.  All three sources were very modern and contained real issues that must be addressed in the English community.  The scholars thought of concepts I would have never sought out on my own, which made the combination of the three very powerful to my argument.  The study of Creative Writing relates to the imagination of Creative Writing, which relates to how we grade that imagination.  This is relevant to how I began to view the overall concept of my field, because it tied together the most basic aspects of it in ways that are difficult to grasp.  I think as a society, we have programmed ourselves to each see English as difficult or easy, but no where is is stated that English can be a combination of the two—we may understand a text but not be able to get our thoughts about a text down into an essay; this is the beauty of English, it is so many things.  If nothing else, this project has shown me that the concept of English is much deeper than I had previously perceived it as, even after studying it for so long.

WEBTEXT LINK

  http://creatingcreativefutures.weebly.com    

Exercise 3– Rhetorical Analysis

The scholarly article “Why All Writing is Creative Writing” by David McVey, portrays ideas critical to the growth and welfare of our future societies.  McVey introduces key factors of reality, in which our present day teachers and students are struggling to be motivated into creating new works of creative writing; I believe that the problems addressed here are ones that must promptly be figured out.  Reaching conclusions of inspiration and creativity will soon begin to press challenges on educators as well as their students–thinking outside the box and exploring new territory is a crucial critique I find myself thinking of.  In a portion of his article, McVey states “If it can be a struggle to persuade students that reading is enjoyable, presenting writing as a pleasure may seem impossible” (292).  His approach to presenting this issue is blunt and honest, in going directly into the truth of the matter, McVey is hoping to allow society to brainstorm new ideas of how to create new inspiration for students and adults alike.

This article, as it pertains to the degree of Creative Writing, is extremely relevant to the struggles of twenty-somethings trying to make a career off of their fiction pieces.  As brought up by McVey, Creative Writing programs and degrees have skyrocketed in popularity as of recently, which puts into question how we as humans struggle to write, but wish to make a career out of it.  I see this as valuable, that humans are continuously choosing to push themselves into a field where writing is fleeting, and talk and text are prominent.  Our society has partially shifted to following individual passions–writing and art based degrees are becoming more socially accepted, contributing to the overall increase in how many students choose to pursue their dreams of writing (creative or not).

The entirety of this article is troublesome by nature, the love of writing in society has turned to fear, starting in younger generations.  “Often students produce poor written work because they have not been briefed adequately on what is required, nor shown a model of good writing in the specific context,” (McVey 293) which in turn leads to discouragement and the act of leaving work before it is made into something much more polished.  McVey discusses the fear of a “blank page” and how filling it with words seems more of a challenge than anything else; students have made a huge ordeal about expressing themselves through assignments when a simple writing task could be utilized to portray individual belief and opinion.  McVey is right to say that students are afraid, in being harshly graded on creative pieces, as well as having improper introductions to material students are lost on how to express themselves from the start.

Looking toward the future of thinkers, it is crucial that the steps we take to provide a more creative future for the next generation be done extremely soon.  Our generation of twenty-somethings has not let the concept of a blank page deter them from expressing their passions through writing, as says the statistics of growing Creative Writing majors and Professors.  Following this, as a society we also need to assess HOW we grade this type of writing.

• McVey, David. “Why all Writing is Creative Writing.” Innovations in Education and Teaching International 45.3 (2008): 289-94. ProQuest. 2 Oct. 2015 .