Melanie McBride, Praxis 2.0: Escaping the edu-travelogue:
I think the author presents a good argument, discussing both teachers who are only teaching their students what they want them to know, versus giving the students the layout/background and encouraging them to make something of their own from it; as well as teachers who are restricted about what they actually can encourage their students to do because of government and state regulations, etc. This also comes into play with traveling versus a travelogue. An individual can only get so much out of hearing about something, but they don’t actually have the understand of the trip it took to get there, what it entailed, the trials and tribulations, the exciting parts, accomplishments, etc. That’s the difference between teachers who structure their teaching around what they want to see from you, versus wanting to see growth and exploration with the information they’re giving you. I think her paragraph about giving students the knowledge to explore, and then the freedom to make the decision for themselves about following restricted guidelines versus what they can do on their own time, in their own homes, is an extremely important part to allowing for the freedom and exploration for students to take in what their taught and actually produce something “original”, from their own culture, creative thinking, etc. In reviewing the questions she gives out for other teachers to think about, I think our class does a great job of handling those areas: learning culture, content policy, tools and technology, ideology and self expression, and situated learning are all well addressed in this course. We are given the absolute freedom to express ourselves, whether through language (as I’ve personally demonstrated), culture, personality, etc. – everything is what we want it to be, not specific to what our professor would prefer to see; we have our own personal space to express ourselves anyway we choose without being reprimanded for it. We’re provided with examples of open source software, and other tools that can help us with the projects were given, and if we don’t prefer those specific ones, we have the resources to search for others; and I’d personally say that I’ve learned A LOT exploring the different areas we’ve studied this semester.


Brian Lamb, Dr. Mashup; or, Why Educators Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Remix:
I think as the author mentions, “Elements of reuse have always been present in creative work, even though the borrowing may have been framed in terms of “tradition,” or “influence.” Artistic and scholarly works build on the work of others.” that mashup isn’t an assault on originality. It’s true that the artwork of today, whether it be movies, songs, music videos, paintings, drawings, sculptures, etc. have all gotten to the degree they’re at by building off of other ideas, and using the tools at hand to either combine or just simply do something different with what’s already there – while bringing their own touch to it. It might be looked upon different because it’s technology, but look at Lady Gaga – I think that woman’s terrifying, but she does what she does because she wants to bring something new to the table, and think about how crazy of a degree that “new” has reached… it all depends on the way you’re looking at it, and how limited the scope is of the art you’re referring to. Regardless, things are continuing to move more digitally, and I don’t think that mashup takes away from originality – people are taking what they have access to and are putting their personal twist on it. Even with our current mashup assignment – one thing we have to accomplish is altering the original message or meaning of what we’re using. As far as plagiarism goes, I think educators should look more into how they can make things available while still regulating the way they’re being used, to avoid as many problems as are foreseeable, but that is a whole other factor that comes into play that produces a struggle with the topic.