final project

for my final project i have decided to tackle garage band and make a podcast that teaches a rainy day activity. the activity is how to take ordinary clear plastic toothbrushes and turn them into pretty bracelets. hope you all like it!

video games do they teach anything?

kurt squire is a man that you need to know if you are a teacher in the 21st century. he is a man determined to convince all those opposed to video games that there is a benefit to video games if the right ones are played. first let us remember how it is children learn. if one looks back into the early years of development one finds that there was a lot of game playing. i for instance played "house" a lot and i was always the mom- which is where i probably learned my empathy and ability to easily connect with others. boys played war and police games etc. games are how children learn to be in the real world. since they learn best by mimicking and observing that is what play is. children observe adults interact with each other how they act when presented with problems and how they solve them, children then go on to mimic these behaviors in their play time. play is a time where children feel safe to try on different masks or roles and not be afraid to make mistakes because it is after all just a game. well in video games and alternate realities the same holds true. the student who is afraid to ask questions or raise their hands is confident and a leader because they are not themselves in this other world they are who or what they want to be. video games like civilization and sims and even world of war craft give students play time in which they practice leadership skills, organizing skills, even networking skills. for instance my brother who was super shy in high school got into world of war craft and became a leader of a group of kids from all over the world to take over part of the virtual world of war craft world. he is now graduating with a bachelors in political science! his people skills improved dramatically and his diplomacy skills when dealing with opposing forces, so to speak, are what your would expect from a seasoned diplomat. now back to kurt squire, his white papers are easy to read and discuss the pros and cons of using video games in the classroom. he is part of MIT's study of video games in the classroom, type into google or bing the phrase games to teach and you will have all the information needed to convince your principal that video game playing in your classroom is necessary. also there is a website www.gamesforchange.org that is super awesome you must go to it. have fun with your games and although you might be having so much fun you are learning something!

international copy right laws continued

so after much scouring of the web and hurting my head with much lawyer speak i've come to decide that unless you make money off of your copyright infringement it's pretty easy to take things off the internet for your own use. images for example, i have copied and used for my own art work and purposes and have yet to be taken to court. of course none of what i have used has been open to the world wide public and i have certainly not sold any of my work which i'm sure would tick off those whose images i have "stolen". i have maybe pirated some music in my time. again i haven't tried to sell any of it and use it for my own personal enjoyment. i might have pirated some movies and tv shows... maybe have gotten an email telling my dad that if such things continued our internet would be shut off. i maybe ignored such email and have yet to stop. all of this is of course hypothetical and i am certainly not admitting to any wrong doing. yes there is an act the digital millennium copy right act that was signed in 1998 by pres. clinton that does give those whose works have been stolen a 6 figure compensation provided by the criminal and it can hurt the internet provider of the criminal however, unless you have a patent on all your work it is impossible to prove that your work has been stolen. i have yet to figure out what the difference is if you buy a cd then copy it to give to your friends vs. sharing it digitally over the internet. a blog that i do recommend that you check out if you find yourself in the position of getting charged with such piracy is www.digitalmedialawyerblog.com/copyright he has info on cases pending right now and talks about well lawyer things. good luck to those who are on the chopping block hopefully i won't ever find myself there.

Digital Copyright laws

So I can safely assume that most of my generation has downloaded some sort of file illegally. Yes that's right there are pirates amongst us!! Although today's modern digital pirates are a far cry from the past swashbuckling, "arrg matey", usually violent sailors. Today they are your average boy/girl, teen, twenty-something, thirty-something etc. Pretty much anyone with a computer could be a pirate! There might be some out there who don't even know they're breaking the laws, they just think that a file they are getting is a free file and that we are sharing files not stealing. Back before there was all this digital music (yes there was a time when CD's ruled the music world) I remember making copies of my friend's favorite disks. They owned the CD why couldn't they make copies to put on mixed CD's. Does anyone remember the mixed tape craze? Where you would make a mixed tape for your sweetheart that said all the things that you wanted to say in music form? Anyhoo I diverge from the point, which is if this was ok then why can't we do the same thing over the web? If I wanted to share some music files with my friends in Bulgaria shouldn't I be able to ? Those of you who are old enough to remember the fiasco with Napster and the whole music industry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster  I was on the Napster side. So what were all the laws they broke? Some downloaders have been prosecuted in violation of copyright laws, what about those that were over seas? I must find out (or so my prof says) how I'm breaking the laws so that when it comes to my turn to stand before the judge I can argue a case against my supposed piracy! ARRRRRRRG PIRATES!

Why Blog?

Why am I blogging? My professor told me I had too. Then she gave us an article about blogging and why it may be useful in the classroom. To me the computer and blogging seem so removed from actual communication. I like physically being with someone when discussing important ideas. I don't understand how to connect with someone who I don't know? Yes I am young 24 years old yet I resist the computer and the world with in it. Perhaps I have been jaded by past experiences where people said or posted things they didn't mean or believe in, they lied about who they were, or just wanted too have fun being mean. To me the internet world is filled with vile creeps, liars or those cowardly hiding behind a false identity. The internet can be a valuable place, it does have good deals and plenty of information, but what to believe? What is truth if it's only presented to me on a screen in a media that is easily manipulated. Here in the internet world your word is the only thing that is of true value. I am supposed to believe that you are who you say you are. I cannot see you, hear you, feel you, I have only your type. Here all many mistakes can be covered up or revealed. "Being" with someone is not a physical act. I am what you might say to be an intuitive person, I can read bodies and the subtle nuances that people give off without the use of spoken or written language. You might say one thing but your body reveals so much more. On the internet I cannot experience this. I feel unconnected. 

I know there are some blogs out there that are very powerful, the authors displaying their skills with the written language. Am I to believe all that they're saying? Do I need to? How can I be sure these are genuine feelings and not some ruse for one reason on another? I am just so wary of information on the internet. I constantly cross check information, sources etc. Often times I have resorted to going to the *gasp* library for any needed information. I will admit though I love looking at imagery on the internet. By that I mean pictures from news stories, or art, comics, etc. I am a photographer/visual artist and if there is one great thing about the internet its that it is so prolific in it's sharing of information. Sometimes it is too easy to access anything you want! There are some beautiful images on the internet and some horrible. This internet world is a fun house mirror. Your image is reflected, yet some how twisted- manipulated by the author on purpose or on accident due to a lack of communication skills.