My last blog post

As the embedded video tells us, the technology use can look very different depending on how we decide to use it. The video gives us an example of two kids with totally different attitudes towards technology tools (Halverson, 2013). One of the kids comes home from school with her homework and turns on her technical devices that will help her. She uses for example Wikipedia to search for information, and she uses Facebook to communicate with her friends about the homework. With other words, she´s using digital media to create a learning environment for herself.

The other kid is using the same technology but for different reasons. He listens to music and play games and has not really a model for how to use the technology. All of the people that surround him use the technology for entertainment. He doesn´t know how to use the technology to amplify his learning experiences. As new tools and technologies are arising, it supports something that can be called globalization (Black 2009: p. 688). It´s now possible for us to communicate with people all over the world, but where we in this example can see that it depends on how conscious we are about the technology´s benefits.

The example above shows different kinds of technology usage which reminds me of how it has looked like in a school back home in Sweden. I used to work as a substitute where all of the kids were using smartphones even during class. They were using it for things outside learning and the teachers decided after a while to prohibit mobile phone use during school. I think the problem here is that the students haven’t learned how to use the technology for learning which I think is something we must improve. When a person pursues his or her interests with the support of friends, and is able to link this learning to academic achievement, it is working with something called connected learning (Ito, M. et al. 2013: p. 6). Digital media expands the accessibility and reach of connected learning, but my example shows that the use of technology also can be negative if we don´t know the best ways of using our technical devices.

Before this unit I was pretty against the use of technology because of my own negative experiences. After this unit I feel that my opinion has changed and I have a better understanding of how positive the technology use can be if we just know how to use our devices. My own experience of how the technology can promote learning comes from this unit as email and the elearning system has been used to help the teacher  and the students to communicate with each other. This has helped me a lot with getting the latest information which would be impossible without the technology. We have also read lots of digital articles during the unit which I found very positive and convenient as you could read them whenever you wanted without the need of hard copies.

References

Black, R. W. (2009). English language learners, fan communities, and 21st-centuries skills. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(8), 688–697. Retrieved from http://opac.library.usyd.edu.au/search~S4?/redgu1002/redgu1002/1,1,1,B/frameset~4977953&FF=redgu1002&1,1, (2015-10-12)

Ito, M., et al. (2013). Connected learning: An agenda for research and design. Irvine, CA: Digital Media and Learning Research Hub.

(2013). 6 2 Technology Inside versus Outside of Classrooms Rich Halverson. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2LnT6v0lrQ (2015-10-12)

Remix

I downloaded the app “Edjing” from App store and was relieved how easy it was to understand how it worked. When I opened the app I received a question if I would like to have a short introduction of how the app works. I followed a few steps and then it was my turn to work on my own. I found a song in their list called “Boys don´t cry” by Grant Lee Phillips. It´s a very peaceful song which I thought could be interesting to work around and try to do more energetic. I thought it was really funny to remix and a big reason is because of the app´s features. It wasn´t too complicated and I think it´s a really good start to try this app if you have never been remixing before. My understanding is that you start on the left side and determine the beat and the sound effects you prefer. You choose the music on the right side and in the middle you press the button “sync” to synchronize your choices with the music.

I was working with music mixing which is one way of remixing. Except from the music and sound, remix has expanded to also involve moving and static images taken from the Internet, films or personal archives (Knobel & Lankshear: 2008, p. 22). There are many ways of remixing and I will give you examples on one “photoshopping“ remix, one “machinima” remix and one “anime music video”.

Photoshopping is when you edit a photo and change the content in some way. You can for example take a picture of you and replace your face with the face of a celebrity, and you can also if you want change the background so it looks like you are somewhere else. Machinima is a combination of machine and cinema and is a process where fans create movies by using videogame animation engines. When you create machinima it means that you tell a story by using elements and resources within the game. An anime music video is a video where the resources are clips of animated Japanese cartoons taken from television series or movies (Knobel & Lankshear: 2008, p. 23-25).

Photoshopping remix – The link gives an example of a photoshopped picture where Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama don´t look like they use to do…

https://www.google.se/search?q=photoshop&biw=1280&bih=699&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIgveG5dSJyAIVpRemCh2_zQKY#imgrc=PcNzBDFCP11B2M%3A

Machinima remix – This link shows how a man walks out from his house and ends up in the middle of a game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m9j9CgKX4o&list=TLTM8ivllfhfYxq7ljAcU3x3rZDd0KDafc

Anime music video – The following link shows us short clips from ten different resources together with appropriate music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDLyW1LNScA

 

Reference

Knobel, M., & Lankshear, C. (2008).”Remix: The Art and Craft of Endless Hybridization”. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(1), 22-33. http://opac.library.usyd.edu.au:80/record=b2647834~S4 (2015-09-22)

A new board game

We created a board game about the music during the ‘90s. We included the most popular and well known artists and vocal groups during this decade, to ensure that the people who will play the game already have knowledge about who the famous artist and groups are. When we are ready to take an action that we want to succeed, we are thinking really well, but if we rather let us think about something without any action or interest, we think very poorly (Edutopia, 2012). With this said, we wanted to create a game where the players felt happy and curious about the game and could bring their previous experience into it. The previous experience is very important for having the opportunity to learn which James Paul Gee gives an example on. He tells us that if two people get the same book to read, the one with most experience about the book is also the one who will have the best opportunity to learn (ibid.).

The game we created is pretty easy where the goal is to go from the ´90s to the 21^st century after answering the questions correct. You hit the dice and jump as many steps as it shows, and when you end up on a Q-marked square you have to answer a question.

An engaging dynamic is something the principles of gaming can create which encourages people to develop competencies and skills as they focus of the activities of the game (Educause, 2014). If we would develop this board game further, we would also have information squares so you really get a feeling from the music industry back then. This will give you as a player various opportunities to develop your competencies compared to how the current game looks like. I think our idea is interesting and is absolutely something that would engage people!

 

References:

Educause. (2014).”7 things You Should know About Games and Learning”. 2014 (October) Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-games-and-learning (2015-09-13)

Edutopia (Producer). (2012). “James Paul Gee on Learning with Video Games”. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnEN2Sm4IIQ (2015-09-13)

A significant movie

A movie that is significant for me is the comedy “The Hangover” from 2009. The movie is about a couple of friends who decide to go to Vegas for a few days before one of the guys will get married. The bachelor party is in Vegas and is not what they expected. After the first night together they wake up in the hotel room with a crying baby in the closet, a screaming tiger in the bathroom and a missing friend who will get married in a few days.

The movie is important for me culturally because of its way to show how a bachelor party can look like. Bachelor parties are very common in my culture and are not always as planned. The movie show us in a humorous way how it can look like, but ends very happy which affects me personally.

The movie is made by professionals, but with today´s technology it´s even possible for amateurs to create movies. Nowadays it´s common that people make storytelling movies that reflect on their lives which can be a good way for healing from their tough experiences. It can also be a help for other people in the same situation to learn how to survive during this painful period (Bailey: 2011, p. 76-77). I believe that almost every bad situation has a good end even if it´s difficult to see during the hard circumstances. I also believe that we learn from our mistakes and get stronger from bad experiences which are the reasons why I really enjoy this movie.  The movie is an excellent example of how bad it can be, but also an example of how people solve different kinds of problems.

Except from helping people to get through hard times, movies can also be a way to change people´s minds and show them how to behave in different situations. A student in the United States was killed with a gun many years ago after he was smiling at a jealous guy’s girlfriend. A female student at the same high school then decided to make a movie about this to show other people how we actually should solve these kinds of situations in a better way (Bailey: 2011, p. 83-84).

Link to the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcdUhdOlz9M

Reference:

Bailey, B. (2011). “When I make a film, it’s out of my head”: Expressing emotion and healing through digital filmmaking in the classroom. Digital Culture & Education, 3(2), 76-97.  Retrieved from  http://www.digitalcultureandeducation.com/uncategorized/dce1056_bailey_2011_html/ (2015-08-31)

New literacies

I have chosen four sites that I find suitable as new literacies and new ways of communication. The first one is Tumblr (https://www.tumblr.com), a blog site where you can feel free to post whatever you want. You can also, similar to Facebook, like and share other posts that you find interesting. The second site (http://weknowmemes.com) focus more on a picture I found. It’s a picture of a child raising his hand with the text “Stay strong! Weekend is coming soon”. Why I chose a meme is because of its popularity on many different media platforms. I think they say so much more compared to original pictures and can today be seen everywhere (even onTumblr), which means there´s something special about them. Even Lankshear and Knobel (2012) see this phenomena growing when they discuss multimodal texts and today´s opportunities to communicate. They argue about how the technology makes it possible to send these kind of texts to other people and receive feedback in no time (Lankshear & Knobel: 2012, 51).

My third site is Wikipedia (https://www.wikipedia.org/) and my fourth is a fan fiction site (https://www.fanfiction.net/book/Harry-Potter/). I chose these two because of the same reason. Both of the sites encourage people to participate and create content together which is what Lankshear & Knobel call “Web 2.0”. They compare two different business models that I think show us a picture of how it has been and how it works now. They talk about Web 2.0 as a collaborative business model where people interact and create content together, while the business model for “Web 1.0” means that we work alone and create our own content (Lankshear & Knobel: 2012, p.60).

References:

Fanfiction (2015) Retrieved from https://www.fanfiction.net/book/Harry-Potter/ (2015-08-17)

Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2012). `New´ literacies: technologies and values. Teknokultura. Revista de Cultura Digital y Movimientos Sociales, 9(1), 45-71. Retrieved from http://everydayliteracies.net/files/RemixTeknokulturaEnglish.pdf (2015-08-17)

Tumblr (2015) Retrieved from https://www.tumblr.com/ (2015-08-17)

Weknowmemes (2012) “Stay Strong The Weekend Is Coming Soon”, retrieved from http://weknowmemes.com/2012/03/stay-strong-the-weekend-is-coming-soon/ (2015-08-17)

Wikipedia (2015) Retrieved from https://www.wikipedia.org/ (2015-08-17)