Nelson's talk

The World is Flat

2012-02-29T12:54:00.003-08:00

I just watched a video for Dr. Z about how the world is flat by Tom Friedman who is a writer for the New York Times. Tom is known for writing about the world around him and what he experiences. He is a very good author and his book is what I want to talk about and it is called "The World is Flat". In this book he talks about the beginning of America when Columbus founded America, he went back home and told everyone that he figured out the world is round. Over 5 hundred years later Tom found himself saying to his wife and other people that he has figured out that the world is flat. This concept to me was hard to understand at first but the more he talked about the reason why he thought that the world was becoming flat was just brilliant. I wanted to share the video with my visual literacy classmates in case you have not seen this speech about his book. He does a good job of expressing his points and makes the video entertaining and insightful. I learned a lot from this video and I never thought of the world in this way.
The video below is Tom Friedman discussing his book at Yale and I think that this is a brilliant concept and I learned a lot from watching a video that was pretty much the same as this video. So check it out!

American History X- Review

2012-02-27T12:39:00.001-08:00

lifeofikkins.com

The movie American History X in my view was a very good movie. I believe that the director was trying to show that hatred can not be solved with more hatred. I mean the whole movie you are seeing the life of a Neo-Nazi. that has an extreme hatred for everyone that has made the streets in his neighborhood unsafe. The character Derek says that his hatred started when his father was shot by an African American. He then began to hate every one that was of a different color that came into his neighborhood. Derek then was consumed by hate and when two black guys came to his house and broke into his car and was about to break into his house, he shot them both and then curb stomped one of them. He went to jail and learned of his wrong thoughts and when he got out he tried to get out of his old gang of skinheads and realized it was going to to be hard to get out of his old life.
The depictions of minorities in this film are situational, because this film shows minorities that are poor and have low income. This movie shows a lot of blacks that are in gangs and some real gangs don't act the way that the gangs in this movie do, but the stereotype of gangs is portrayed in this movie. I believe that the director wanted to portray that hatred can be overcome.
I think that the director of the film tried hard to portray the roles in this film as best he could. I think that he portrayed black gangs vs. skinheads very well and I can see this movie being based off a true story. Other then him being influenced by what he read about Neo- Nazi's and gangs in L.A. I think all races and cultures and genders can appreciate this film for what the story tells. I think that some cultures will think that this story is very violent and should not be shown in schools but I think it is a very good representation of gang wars in America. This movie let me see a different life that I will never experience and see the horror of gangs and of how much hatred influences ones life. The director used a character, Derek's Younger brother Danny as a narrator letting the viewer see the story from a character that the viewer knows to keep us interested in the movie. Also showing Danny side lets us see what his brother did from a perspective that is not Derek's. Also showing Derek's time in jail when Derek was telling the story was really good for the plot to know what happened to Derek while he was in jail. Jail changed Derek and it was nice to see what changed him.

PBL?

2012-02-14T17:42:00.000-08:00

Project based learning is the 21st century way of learning. This means that the students are provided an overlying questions that they have to answer by doing a project or some activity. Here are some videos that can show you what PBL is all about:
project based learning explained
project based learning

If you want to watch more examples then just view some of the other videos that show up after either one of the videos above.

Helvetica- movie Review

2012-02-11T13:27:00.000-08:00

I think in this movie the director is trying to share with the word the importance of the font Helvetica and to show how reliant the design industry is on using this font. The font is used everywhere and to be honest I did not know the name of this font until the movie was introduced to me. Once I say the font I could remember all of the street signs and really any industry that I can think of uses the Helvetica font. I believe that ethics, cultural, and professional background played a big role because the director was around when the big sweep of the Helveitca font was being used and so he portrayed is feelings and his views of what happened when the font got to be so popular. the culture in this movie is in Europe because most of the speakers that the director showed us where from somewhere in Europe but the pictures where both in Europe and the U.S. I was interesting to see the relationship of what happens in Europe and the U.S.

I don't feel that anybody can be offended by this movie because it is about a font. I could maybe see other designers not liking the context in which the director portrays Helvetica. After a set of people or designers talked there was a short picture gallery expressing what the designers where talking about. That gave me a visual representation of what I was being told and I enjoyed seeing somethings that I have seen before and how it relates to this font and its history. I believe that the director focused on the ideas and visual that were being displayed by many different designers and there perceptions of Helvetica. He used album art, billboards, air plane signs, buses etc... He used the designers as the people to tell the story as it was being viewed at the time that the font was getting to be popular. I enjoyed watching this movie, but it could have had more interesting parts but overall it was cool to learn about a lot of different styles of fonts and how important Helvetica is to fonts.

Killing us Softly Over View

2012-02-06T12:27:00.000-08:00

I agree with the statements that Jane makes about women being objectified in today's society because it is everywhere. To be "beautiful in today's world according to the media you have to be thin and have big boobs. "normal" and also very good looking women in my eyes are not always that body type of thin and big boobs. I think the twin themes are linked still because in today's world there are very few women who fall into the perfect height and weight, either they are too fat or too skinny but i'm not sure what she was saying about men not having to worry about this as much, because men are judged by women all the time. If you ask any women what her dream guy would be like? she will most likely say a tall and strong man with a 6-8 pack stomach. Not that many guys fall under that umbrella either, and those who don't have that body type are considered ugly. I believe to some women this is the biggest concern to them but there are women out there who don't care what others think about them and they just live there life the way they want. Its funny to me because when a young girl is portrayed as being older and sexier they put her in a nice dress or a skinny dress and once they are old enough to become that sophisticated women they try to make her into the innocent little girl again. I mean the model cant just be her self, I mean I enjoy looking at the models who dress like normal people more then looking at these unrealistic women.\
I don't think that men are portrayed as often as being violent toward women because women have put out a name for themselves as being more self reliant and being strong and protecting themselves. More often or not you get the man trying to protect a women that doesn't need his help but she appreciates the effort. I'm not just saying that all of this is only against women to I know for a fact that all of these issues effect men just as much. Media tries to portray men in a sexiest way as much as they do women. The only thing is most men enjoy the way that men are portrayed, because not all men are strong and handsome athletes but who wouldn't want to be called that? So this happens for both sides but men don't complain about the issues that are brought up.

Referent for Ideas

2012-02-02T11:36:00.000-08:00

I remembered when we talked about this idea while I was with my friends, because we were talking about out favorite music concerts or shows we have been to and the different styles of music have a different atmosphere at each of the concerts.
My favorite show might look like this:

But one of my friends likes country so his concert might look more like this:

Another friend likes hip hop so his concert might look like this:

All of us were thinking of our favorite music but we all have a completely different view of how a concert looks like. Its amazing how we perceive basically the same thing so differently.

visual symbols and how they effect my life

2012-01-19T17:19:00.000-08:00

I use symbols like the three above everyday in my life. Most people use these symbols in there life without realizing that they even use them. We just see signals and just do the action without really thinking about it, we just do it. my life as much more symbols these three I use a lot in my life. The stop sign because I drive around a lot with my friends. The recycling sign because my dad and I save all of the cans and bottles and anything plastic and we take it to the recycling center and use the money to eat more. which comes to the next symbol, I choose this because I eat a lot of food.

Expectations for Classroom Apps

2012-01-18T14:00:00.000-08:00

blog.web20classroom.org

My expectations are very simple, I want to learn more about technology and how to incorporate my new knowledge in helping my students and myself to understand the information that I need to teach them. I hope that this class will help in teaching me to use new and interesting applications. Also I hope to gain relationships within the class and get to know everyone in the education technology minor. Other then this simple expectation I hope to have fun and by the way the class looks so far we will all have a lot of fun.

iPad 2 in the classroom?

2011-12-01T17:58:00.000-08:00

The iPad 2 us the newest of the apple markets ipads, which is a touch screen tool that can use over 10,000 applications. The ipad 2 is being used in a lot of small school districts. A small school in Louisa, Muscatine, Iowa that my cousin works at has just issued every student and teacher an ipad 2. My cousin Mrs. Brant, had never used the ipad before so it took her a while to get used to the software, but she said "once I figured out how to find new apps and use them I could see why they spent so much money getting them for us". She is now a string believer of how much technology helps in the classroom. She is a special Ed teacher and she finds this technology extremely helpful everyday in her classroom. She said "the students caught on faster to the technology then she did and she learns new things everyday along with the students.

Other sources for this topic include:
https://sites.google.com/site/schrockipad/
http://imaginationsoup.net/2011/04/10-best-educational-ipad-apps-for-elementary-kids/

Google Documents

2011-11-30T13:48:00.000-08:00

Google Documents and the rest of the Google apps is a fairly new technology that uses the cloud. This online document creator is storming the educational field. this application allows multiple users to work on and edit a document, website, or spreadsheet at the same time. This technology is being used in schools all over the nation, to get more student involved in there studies. This application allows students to share and talk online even if they are not at school. This technology is being used everywhere, my mothers school in Burlington, Iowa is using this document sharing program. Over my thanksgiving break I went into my mothers classroom and helped her and her students use this program. I was in a computer lab with 6th and 7th grade students, some of the students did not like the assignment but most of the students were having fun and enjoyed working on a computer.

If you want to check this app out you can go to: https://docs.google.com/demo/edit?id=scADrrkFt9uZovJzzyXNnLdAZ&dt=document#document
Also for more information on this subject you can check out: http://www.google.com/google-d-s/documents/

Smart Boards

2011-11-24T10:17:00.000-08:00

lubna85.wikispaces.com

Smart boards are really good tools in teaching because this gets the students involved with what ever the subject by using a fun an interactive program. Smart boards use a very high tech software that allows students to interact with a touch board and do the activities that are projected onto the board. This software I hope i get to use because I think I can create really good activities to keep my students engaged in the project.

If you want to see a couple of videos here is some I found for this topic on youtube:

5 tips and tricks for using the smart board

students using the smart board

Digital Storytelling

2011-11-22T21:23:00.000-08:00

This video explains digital storytelling in a simple and easy way to understand.
I went to the digital storytelling seminar in Des Mione for the Iowa Tech Conference. I have some experience and some things this video does not talk about is camera angles that you can use, here is some that can be used: Long shot – establishes context from a distance.

High angle- looks down, from above and to show a new angle of what ever it is your shooting.

Low angle- looks up, to make some one look higher then they really are.

This was one subject we talked about during the ITEC conference to introduce our selves in the class.

video posting

2011-10-07T08:29:00.000-07:00

This is my first blog

2011-10-05T21:25:00.001-07:00

This is my first blog just trying it out.