Fantastic Shadow Art

 The daily create today was to document your shadow, so if you should ever become seperated you could identify it. (Hey, ask that guy Peter Pan how often that can happen to a fella...)

Week 5 Reading Response

Communities of Readers, Clusters of Practices by Henry Jenkins

The Afterword provided by Jenkins speaks very highly of creating an environment in education more in line with the participatory culture students are encountering online. One of the main issues public education is dealing with is the Transmission model of pedagogy that has stagnated our educational system. With Transmission the teacher is the keeper of all knowledge and "transmits" that knowledge to the students. Generative pedagogy allows for students to be more engaged in their education but ideally we should aim for a Transformative model of education that allows for students not only to generate their own understanding of the material but actually transform it into something meaningful to them and their lives. Creating knowledge that will inspire life long learning not just retaining information long enough to pace a test or exam.

Allowing for students to become teachers in the classroom requires them to "spell out their core assumptions" as they "pass along what they've learned to newcomers." This can be especially helpful to students who haven't spent a lot of time reflecting on how they have developed their craft by making them think of the sequencing and vocabulary needed to pass this knowledge along. Have you ever asked someone to show you how to do something only to have them take over because they have to do it themselves? They lack the communication necessary to explain the steps to you.

This article also points out the way in which schools are failing to provide this type of environment to their students, "everyone is expected to do (and be good at) the same things" but also, and possibly most important, that dispite the shift in mechanisms "the hierarchical and pre-structered relationship between teachers and learners" remains the same as before. In order to create a participatory environment teachers and administrators must be willing to give up control and their role as the guardians of knowledge.

A New Generation of Goals for Technology Education by John M. Ritz

"Goals provide direction so content can be delivered for long-term impact to students who study the subject" Ritz lays out a wonderful set of objectives for goals we need to keep in consideration as we start to intergrate technology into school curriculums. Tracing the aims and goals of education back to 1918 Ritz takes us step by step through the changing beliefs that have shaped our current educational system and calls for a consideration of what we want technology to teach and be used for as we plan what and how we want students to develop this 21st century skill.

One of the things I found striking between the two articles was that Ritz points to how we are consumers of education and Jenkins brilliantly makes a point there is a real danger is "seeing students as consumers rather than participants within the educational process. I particulary like this quote because often the problem educators see in using more technology in class is that it is a distraction or entertainment, and in fact American attitudes towards social media and the Internet is as a consumer. When we change the focus from being able to watch movies or play games to creating movies and games we are encouraging some of those self-reliance and self-expression ideals that are so important to our culture.

We don't want students to have a seperate identity from school and their future roles as citizens. We want them to be able to practice now those skills of discovery and curiousity that will help them beyond school as they continue to make discoveries and practice life long learning.

Summer Block Buster Hit

The Assignment: Take a dramatic closeup of anyone's face - an actor's, a friend's, your own - and superimpose a landscape or scene over the face. Since this is a mashup, get crazy with it. Take two completely unrelated images and put them together, then try to make a story out of it!

John McClane (from Die Hard) gets a little help from the Tooth Fairy (played by the Rock). In what is possible the first Action Movie Cross Over to be Kid Friendly, this summer's block buster is predicted to be FAIRY HARD. In theaters everywhere July 6th.

Still like those Carrots

I'm really pleased with getting the shadow of the tree in the background. There are a lot of clever recreations on the website. Ze Frank's Project. Opening up twenty tabs so I can look more into it later.

Gravity Falls Wolf In Sheep's Clothing

Everything Connects, Everything Matters

Exhibit A: Fried Green Tomatoes is released in theaters in 1991 (I am 10 years old). I will eventually own a VHS of this movie and fall in love with Idgie Threadgoode. It will be a while before I finally read the book at the library, originally published in 1987, and my world is forever altered with the realization that these women are Lesbians. (In fact I will learn this word by loving the movie and book so much I read it literally cover to cover, including the title page, which will introduce me to this word. Using the CARD CATALOGUE! I will look up this word and other related titles. Finally coming to the realization that this word describes the way I feel.)

Exhibit B: Matthew Shepard is beaten and left for dead 284 miles from where I live. I am 16. And all I can think is "that's what happens to gays." His attackers would use "gay panic" as their defense, because who wouldn't believe two good old boys were just totally freaked out and justified in killing someone for coming on to them. I would spend a period of years trying to ignore or correct my orientation before discovering other "options".

Exhibit C: From "Chocolate War" by Robert Cormier, which I will read around the same time Shepard is killed. Around page 200 Janza will taunt Jerry by calling him a fairy, "the worst thing in the world - to be called queer."

Exhibit D: The library saves lives. It's true for me. I was really in a dark place, struggling with these feelings and this lens of looking at the world (did I mention I was homeschooled, that I was Mormon, that we lived 7 miles outside of town). But I kept going back to that card catalogue, and I kept looking at the four or five books I could find in a small town library, the vague references that would lead further along a path I was hoping would lead me to happiness, or understanding, or at least some advice to deal with this issue. I would eventually find this documentary narrated by Tom Hanks but by then I would have discovered many of these same movie gems from my searches at the library.

Exhibit E: It's funny how an idea for a blog will morph into something different. I was having a conversation with a friend about how it's easier to see gay subtext in Batman and Robin than in Superman but you can do it. In fact, there was a time when they only way gays were able to connect with others like themselves was through subtext, because actually talking about it or mentioning it would get you banned or censored. Or arrested. (Remember: The American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed homosexuality from its official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1973.)

Exhibit F: Sometimes I wish I had a cool story to tell about a librarian who helped me find new role models and opposing points of view but the truth is I was always too shy to talk to my librarians. Instead I find resources in the appendix or 'further readings' sections of books. I'd follow one bit of information and examine it until I had a next step to take. Not always very fluid, sometimes having to back up a few steps and try a different avenue. I've always loved movies, and I was finding that in the 80s and 90s people were coming out loud and proud. Torch Song Trilogy and Desert Hearts being some great examples of positive, but low budget, projects that came out and if you were resourceful enough, you could get your hands on to watch. (I did want to point out the difference in these covers however because even though artists are making more direct and poignant statements about gay and lesbian lifestyles, the marketing of these stories could still leave you confused. I mean seriously, who is this dude?)

Exhibit G: The Children's Hour. 1961.  Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner

This is one of those movies that had to deal with the Hays Code in Hollywood that made it impossible to talk about issues like homosexuality. It's one of those stories in which the one woman gets married and the other commits suicide. There is actually a reason suicide rates are so high in the gay community and it has to do with the fact that most stories about a gay character end with them committing suicide. This is the movie that Vanessa Redgrave and her partner Marian Seldes go to see in the opening segment of If These Walls Could Talk 2

Exhibit H: Compare that to the history of The Price of Salt (first published in 1952) which they just turned into the movie Carol. Again the setting of this book was before the APA had changed homosexuality from a mental illness. There are butch women at the time that have to count the articles of clothing they are wearing before leaving home to make sure they have purchased the corrected amount of "women's" clothes to not get busted for cross dressing, which is illegal. Police harassment of the Gay Communities that have established themselves in larger cities is epic, and getting arrested in a raid is on everybody's mind. The beauty of this current movie is that is retains those historic roots. "Look for the meaningful looks," an older lesbian friend advised me before seeing this movie. And it's true, how would you have found each other when to admit it was criminal?

Exhibit I: But slowly people do start to come out, and change is made and before you know it you've got characters like Matt Fielding on Melrose Place (an openly gay character!) and Rickie Vasquez on My So Called Life. These are not easy to pull off, anyone familiar with the history of The Golden Girls will know that in the original plan for the show, and in fact the original pilot episode shot, there is supposed to be a main gay character but he gets cut before the show is picked up and the original pilot reshot to take out many of his scenes. These characters are a great start but are still treated like bombs about to go off, Matt Fielding doesn't date the entire series and the one kiss he seems to get, the camera pans away from before contact.

Exhibit J: Because, let's face it, we had no idea how accessible and easy to store and share movies, books, music and images would be today, I spent the late 90s and early 2000s "collecting" news, movies and books about gays and lesbians myself. I had a large collection of movies, including films I didn't watch or feel were very good, but I had them because there was so very little to have and pass around as it was. When this article came out I was floored. Here was a MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENT petitioning his school to let him take his boyfriend to a school dance. I could not image the clarity and love a person like him must feel to be so confident at that age to just declare himself like that. This article came out in 2009, I was 27 at the time. And just starting to feel comfortable coming out to co-workers and people outside my friends and family.

Exhibit K: I have watched the issue of marriage equality build momentum, receive a devastating blow (Prop 8) and eventually be addressed by the Supreme Court. Now believe me, the fight is not over. There were over 200 restrictions and laws proposed to congress this last year to limit or take away equal rights of gays, there are still plenty of people who don't support my marriage and are fighting to get it nulled. I have seen Don't Ask Don't Tell end, and in 2013 when the Supreme Court handed down its decision I got married and started the process of helping my Canadian wife become a citizen.

Exhibit L & M: In what feels like a very short time I have seen gay characters in books and movies and television go from being something that was maybe hinted at or completely hidden in subtext, or two dimensional, or the butt of jokes (anyone remember that on Three's Company John Ritter's character had to pretend to be gay so the landlord would let him live with those two single women). Pretty Little Liars, Modern Family, Glee, all have gay characters who are rounded out characters with real relationships.

Exhibit N: In fact the dirty secret so many actors and artists were worried would get out is now so blasé  that people casual come out in interviews or act like declaring themselves is silly or pointless. There's even this new term "queer bating" for shows like Hannibal that play with gay subtext to draw in the gay viewers with promises and innuendos. Frozen 2 and the newest Star Wars characters Finn and Poe have also gained a lot of attention with their "first Disney princess" or "first Star Wars" gay character hype.

But then you have Exhibit O: A reminder that at the moment of a devastating rampage that will make you feel unsafe and the target of violence as part of an entire community, there will be those who will side with the hate. You will also have insensitive people try to intimidate and shame you further. It's still too raw to talk about Orlando, let's remember Exhibit B, Matthew Shepard, and how that made me feel. I'm still not safe, there are still lots of people who have no issue with condemning me to hell or wishing my death.

Exhibit P: This young man was my friend's nephew. He committed suicide last week. He was a teenaged gay man from Bountiful, UT who just couldn't put up with the bullying anymore and didn't see any happiness waiting for him in life. Again those thoughts and feelings from when Matthew was murder come up in me, again those thoughts that this is what happens to gays. And I wonder if he felt as scared by strangers' reactions to Orlando as I did. And I wonder if there was a librarian or teacher or book or movie or kind word that could have made a difference.

Exhibit Q: I don't like the term Queer. I'm a lesbian but my community word is gay. That's just me. But UC-Denver (and other places) used Queer Studies as their term and apparently that is how I'm supposed to identify or at least be okay with. So fine. Okay. Whatever. I'm just as happy to be here.

Week 4 Reading Response

via GIPHY

I've got this, I've got this, I don't got this.

This has been a hard week for me, and I think it started last week with the whole iMovie busted bubble. I do want to use more tools from the computer and Internet. I don't want to be that blacksmith who never learns another trade and is put out of business because he doesn't challenge his knowledge about how the world works.

I am a self-educated woman.

And this class is hard for me because I've skirted around computers and learning how to use them my whole life.

Embarrassing.

I'm the fourth kid in a large family and I never got a turn on the Nintendo.

I got a Samsung Galaxy 5 two/three years ago and that was the first time I had a "smart phone".

And look, what I've taught myself is pretty impressive. Marjorie came to me today to connect her FitBit to her phone (Sync!). But we have a problem all the time with people who are dismissive to us because they've had this technology longer. Oh, it's so easy to work. Oh, it's so amazing.

*Rah, rah rah*

But, next time you step out of the bubble of people you have created around you, into a public space. Think about the 4th person from you - they don't have Internet. Period. And we aren't talking about people who have given up internet just to use their cell phone. We are talking about no connection to it at all.

Maybe they go to the library. I mean, could you go anywhere else for free Internet? What if you didn't have a computer you could connect to the Internet with? (Save the libraries!)

Twice in this class I've felt misunderstood. And like last night I was up thinking about it. And I have to say first that I have really struggled with the Twitter network. I just don't understand how I can look at the full conversation with someone so I understand what I'm responding to. Hyphasis is a bit better for me, and I like that you just plug in any web address and you can make comments.

I feel that's a pretty cool program. And balance that with how I can't navigate Twitter. I'm sure if I had someone give me lessons I'd be a wiz at it. But I'm already learning and processing so much as it is, that again I'm throwing that back into the unimportant pile. I just don't care.

But wait. learning it means participating in this course, and because this is a class it's actually urgent.

But who do I delegate that to? Wait?

Does that mean it is Important, but I don't feel it's urgent. (Being a wife and a teacher are the Urgent and Important things, and graduating with a Mater's is a slim part of being a teacher. But Twitter is not as interesting to me as SoundCloud or alternatives to iMovie).

Meaning I will give a set time everyday for this, but it will take time. Discipline.

And that's how I'm trying to teach.

How do you write a lesson plan for that? Which standards did you cover?

I am so busy trying to pour out of my head onto the page what I want this class to look like, sound like, be like. Speak up. Declare my intentions.

That's the real reason to learn writing. To better process your own thoughts and feelings. And share them.

And it takes me longer to express my ideas here in computerland because I have to interrupt flow to go google how to take  screenshot of the Twitter convo so I can share it here as an example - but my phone keeps shutting off when I try to press and hold the down volume and power button at the same time... (*after 20 minutes I gave up trying)

Plus it's been an hour and a half and the "video" is still loading. (*And it never loaded, but then like magic I tried something different and we have that cute dog at the top of the post *remember that's how I'm feeling this week, if you need to go smile and lighten the mood a little)

What I really want to be doing is organizing for my Return to Teaching (dramatic theme music).

Second year, so many mistakes, so many new ideas. And I am passionate about what I do because I'm passionate about understanding the distance between the have and the have nots...

*Here is a spot where I went off trying to find this picture and when I came back my train of thought was much derailed* I'm leaving in all these editing notes because despite what I say I can't help but go back over and reread and tinker with the writing. I want to share meaning. And I need more than 140 characters.*

It took twenty minutes to upload the (17) photos (which is actually pretty good time). I think this is what happened the first time I had a misunderstanding on Hypothis, I tend to bounce around a lot in my thoughts. And it's hard in cyberspace to see the space a conversation takes place in. It's hard to keep track of your conversations and misunderstandings happen.

But that's why I named my blog Unfiltered Learning. I don't have time to edit this. I don't have the time because this class is asking me to do what we are trying to teach students to do, figure it out for themselves. And I see the beauty in this because I see through this lens, is how I learned.

Unable to go to school. 12 years old and illiterate.

A goal that changed my life.

Read one book, every four days, and it has to be at least 100 pages.

It was huge, because when I finally did get to walk into my first class room at Otero Junior College I had already develop some of those skills we as educators/behavior scientiest/developmental experts/ humanitarians are saying we need to help students with.

Perseverence

Grit

Resilience

Are these all the same thing? What makes them different? Do using them together create a stronger meaning?

And how is the experience I am having right now challenge all of those strengths I have?

Oh let me count the ways.

But no more fancy pictures.

This class is so jarring in how it doesn't fit in with the UTCE 5010 class or the Urban Community Teachers program that I started my Master's in. And I don't know if it was suppose to fit in. The list of options presented to my cohort didn't present this class in the same way I am precieving it now. And I think again that Twitter is not a good medium for me to communicate in. My comments yeserday seemed to cause a few misunderstandings and then I struggled to navigate the conversation.

But alas my screenshot didn't work. (Remember I was working on that earlier).

So let me now share with you an observation. This was our Daily Create for class yesterday. And it was pretty straight forward and people really expressed their different creative elements. Mine's rather plan because I've been working on this other Design thing for class that is taking up a lot of time, as all computer work does with me right?

But then I notice something, What3Words talks about it's product.

Here is an ad for What3Words - notice the clever placement of
Fiction, Unless, Pave
?

Mind you, our assignment has nothing to do with What3Words, our assignment is to find "our"three words, Google search those words and use those images to make our JPEG. And it's a good assignment that runs you through the process and you get some hands on experience PhotoShopping and it lets you be creative.

So really the fact that I get so upset by this...

In everyone’s language

We have rolled out our 3 word address system in 9 languages: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swahili, Russian, German, Turkish & Swedish. We are adding to those every month and are currently working on Italian, Greek, Arabic and more.

The 3 word address in one language is not a translation of the 3 words used in a different language version and you can use the language you are most comfortable with.

You can choose the 3 word language that we display 3 word addresses to you in, but you never have to tell us what language you are inputting the 3 word addresses in: we will recognise the language automatically.

Doesn't mean anything to our class, and really I just wanted to know if anyone dig into the cite we were all using for the project.

Because I've been having trouble with our course required readings this week too. You see, when I got back from San Francisco this week I was all jumbled up. There's this blog post I've been working on since Orlando about being gay that I just don't feel is ready to share. But it's important to me and on the 25th I found out a friend's nephew killed himself. He was a teen, gay from Bountiful, UT.

And then I got tripped up some more and again because of this required reading:

PROS

"The similarities with more conventional journal writing are reasonably clear, but yet, to write a blog is a little like displaying a personal journal in a shop window, for friends and passers-by to read at their leisure." Davies and Merchant (2007) 

and

"The presentation of self in a particular way, as showcased through our own blogs, has been a focus of our recent academic work." Davies and Merchant (2007) 

And again I was working on this blog. Now see I know myself pretty well by now, remember why I named the blog Unfiltered Learning. Because I was suppose to take the filter off.  I am suppose to just go with the gut and say to hell with it...

But now I had two posts I was juggling when I lost my motivation to keep going.

Willpower is a finite resource. This
amazing book has really helped me
better prioritize what is important. 

*Now remember children are not this reflective. Reflection must be practiced, it is a skill to learn. One I've practiced a lot with my journals. But I imagine that the way I'm feeling is the same as a sixteen year olds. Other stuff is happening. I struggle with this already.*

Willpower helped me understand that when I used all my energy on things I didn't want to be doing (no matter how "important" they are) I have less energy for the things that really matter to me. This cycle starts to get out of control when to reward yourself for all the things you "have to do" (relaxing with a beer, watching television, playing Call of Duty, etc) leaves you no time for the things you "want to do".

Alot of the books I've been reading and studying try to explain how you can balance the time and prioritize better (my chart above has really helped me). Remember how I said learning how to better use Twitter better became Important (because of school) but not Urgent (to me the student) so I needed to schedule blocks of time for it. You also find out that the 45 minutes of DEXTER aren't as important as actually get your steps in (although I found a way to do both, thank you treadmill).

CONS
"Looking from the Inside Out: Academic Blogging as New Literacy" by Julia Davies and Guy Merchant was published in 2007. Which means when they refer to Riverbend's blog in the present tense it has really been 9 years. Did anyone look up her blog?

I did.

And that's when I got tripped up for the third time and by that time I was doing the What3Words assignment. And I did ask if anyone was looking behind the curtains.

Riverbend and The Survival of Riverbend

When young adults start to see differences in the world and the way they've been told about it, it can cause some resistence. And that's where I'm at. I don't care about using the Internet better if it just produces apathy. Busy work. Cool stuff but no real master, no real craftmanship. I Twitted several articles that kind of spoke to my frustrations.

Study: The More Stuff We Have, The Less Creative We Are via @forbes https://t.co/KQ2hSxQ7u0 #ilt5340

— Bea Elwood (@belwood303) July 3, 2016

Do Today's Tech-Obsessed Teens Have Less Empathy? https://t.co/odb98dvMhe #ilt5340

— Bea Elwood (@belwood303) July 3, 2016

What, Me Care? Young Are Less Empathetic https://t.co/nxN94Wpg5w #science #ilt5340

— Bea Elwood (@belwood303) July 3, 2016

Social Media Is Destroying Quality Human Interaction https://t.co/0si90maDfP via @thoughtcatalog #ilt5340

— Bea Elwood (@belwood303) July 3, 2016

I don't have anything figured out. I have more and more questions. But that's what I need to get back to the classroom. I need to get back to work with my students.

And I need to learn to just say it and move on.

(*now to read everything through one more time)