What was challenging?

The challenges of this course overall is the amount of production that must take place each week. This would not be so bad if it was not for other responsibilities such as a full time job that also requires an intense amount of production and communication across several platforms and devices. I am currently experiencing multiplicities of ‘new literacies’ almost to the point of overload. I let Twitter distract me on a daily basis because I want to be thinking about the course, and what I am learning, pretty much whenever I am not sleeping (and I am sure some tweets find their way into my sleep). This slows down my work day and makes it more enjoyable but it’s a distraction. I’m finding part of navigating ‘new literacies’ is to choose times of focus and limitation of communiques and times of extreme communication across multiple platforms and devices.

Secondly, what’s challenging about this week was the video assignment I chose from the video assignment bank. I knew it was going to be hard to learn how to animate effectively in Adobe After Effects, and it was going to take a long time to make the illustration I had in my head, but I knew I would learn a lot whether successful or not. Because I was finding success, I kind of became obsessed with animation and was working late until 2-3 am a couple of nights. This tends to happen to me when I start to grab a hold of something new. It’s good and bad. Because after staying up until 3am and getting 3 hours of sleep I got sick the next day and I was not as productive. This was a reminder to me about pacing myself better. I probably would be okay staying up until 1am and getting up at 7am so I should try to shut my brain off earlier.

The third challenging part of this week was chapter 3 in Lankshear & Knobel. There was a lot of information to digest in this chapter. I read the chapter 2-3 times and I highlighted important things and put sticky notes on pages with thoughts as they came up. This was just a small step to being able to synthesise what is learned in the chapter with scholarship. I downloaded Ken Robinson’s “Creative Schools” this week and I have been listening to the audio book while I do my professional work. I know I am an aural learner, right next to social and visual so it is possible for me to get just as much, if not more, out of the audio recording rather than more reading. I found much relief in doing this because the amount of reading I do on a day to day basis is already immense. After making it halfway through the audio book, I was able to make some connections between Lankshear & Knobel and “Creative Schools.” Now the real challenge was limiting myself on what I wanted to focus on for my response. Chapter 3 encompassed so many things, but I decided to focus on the contrast between modern/postmodern, web 1.0-2.0, and affinities. I was able to draw out some deep thinking by focusing on the comparison in education reform to these concepts as well as suggest social responsibility in regards to participation in affinities.

What was most enjoyable?

I really enjoyed creating the animation as part of the kinetic typography video assignment. It was challenging, but I now feel empowered to create animations for many other things. In my mind on any given assignment, I see movement, I hear sounds, I see words - now I feel as though I can take what is in my head and deliver that to the world. Rather than something static or abstract from what is in my head, like simply writing about it, or making a static visual, now things can move and emote to communicate what I am thinking about. However with that in mind, I have to limit my scope of work so that I do not take on too much work. In fact, I would like to do a video showing some behind the scenes stuff and reaccounting the week in an animated compilation, but I know I will spend another 4-6 hours on this and I don’t have the time to do that. Knowing when and how to effectively use media, all things considered, is also part of the learning that happens in this course.

What was learned about the focal theme and what issues / questions have emerged?

The light bulb turned on for me when I saw the table on page 53 of Lankshear & Knobel. When I was able to see and compare and contrast modern/postmodern by use of the table and compare that to education it all started to make more sense. As a society we have entered the postmodern era and so must education. I likened it to ‘ed 2.0’ in response to ‘web 2.0’ as was learnt in the chapter reading. All this fuss about about creativity in schools, and creative arts, and technology is about this pull from society for education to be more relevant in the postmodern and digital age.

The issues that have come up this week, however, in regards to’ affinities’ and ‘open,’ and as I think about education reform is: What is acceptable and appropriate use? We have seen, on numerous accounts, that young learners can align themselves with very harmful factions or individuals on the internet. In Colorado alone there has been accounts in the news of teens aligning themselves with ISIS through use of social media. And of course, the most recent event in Charleston, SC, where the shooter aligned himself with white supremacy. Is it okay for young learners to have a Twitter account, or email, or Facebook? How do we really monitor and guide young learners in ethical, moral, and responsible ways to interact, create, and ? When do we start talking to young learners about these things?

Points earned 10/10?

This week was rough. I got sick and I struggled physically and mentally. The pace and breadth for this course is extremely intense. I don’t feel like I delivered as well as I typically could on the critiques and as timely as I would have liked. I also came in a little later than I like (Friday) for the reading response to chapter three. Although I don’t feel the quality of most of my work suffered this week, the timeliness sort of did. However everything was turned in this week and I did participate in more than the required discussion on blogs and twitter. I give myself 9/10.