Thinking it Through

Friday Cat Blogging

Friday Cat Blogging is back, and Scooter asked that I show everyone his new favorite place: he's decided my pillow is the place to be. Sometimes I awake to find he has taken over my pillow.

Body, Meet Unmovable Force

I started feeling kinda crappy last night: cough, sore throat, sneezing. I awoke this morning with all the crap from the night with additional body aches and the sense the my body was encased in some sort of force-field that prevented movement and thought.

After hours of immobility/sleep, I am able to raise my head from the pillow and put fingers to keyboard but find doing so exhausting.

Determination to post each day this month lives!

Remix Assignment

For the third project in my First-Year Writing class this semester I am trying something entirely new. First, a little context might be helpful.

Chapter 12 of our textbook, Alfano and O'Brien's Envision In-Depth, is titled "Copyright and Creativity," and includes a number of pieces that discuss issues of copyright and digital culture as well as Lessig's notion of remixing culture. We read, for example, Steven Levy’s “Life Isn’t Just as You Want It? Remix It!” Newsweek March 28, 2005, Bill Werde’s “Hijacking Harry Potter, Quidditch Broom and All ” from the New York Times, June 7, 2004, Lawrence Lessig's "Free Culture," and Scott Matthews' "Copying Isn't Cool." We worked on activities such as examining Micah Wright'sThe Propaganda Remix Project, locating the WWII posters he's remixed, and then analyzing the remixed texts.We also watched Grocery Store Wars and some of the Fine Brothers parodies of Lost and discussed the ways in which these texts remix elements of Lucas' film and the ABC television show.

Students engaged in lively debates about file sharing, video manipulation, and the concept of creativity. The assignment I will now describe is designed as a way encouraging students to engage in the production and analysis of a remixed text. How it will go remains to be seen--their projects are due November 10th--but it has certainly been an interesting process.

The assignment reads, in part "In Life Isn’t Just as You Want It? Remix It!' Steven Levy argues that we are increasingly becoming a population of people who “remix” culture to suit our needs and desires. Certainly, everywhere we look today, pop culture has been digitized, resequenced, and reassembled—remixed. It may have started in music with hip hop samples and extended dance versions, but it has moved to movies, with director's cuts and Tarantino-style swipes from other films, and to television, games, music videos and the like. Cheap, easy-to-use remixing software and quick distribution via the Net have set off a creative explosion of new  texts generated from the fusion or remixing of existing ones, and now you have an opportunity to join the masses."

What I have asked students to do is this:

• write an op-ed/essay that addresses some current issue that interests them and then record their reading of the finished product
• find a 3-5 minute video (or shoot their own) that they think will work well as a visual representation of their op-ed/essay
• play the video with the sound off and the recording of their op-ed/essay playing at the same time (some students are overlaying the audio track onto the video track, but that isn't a requirement)
  
• write an analysis of this remixed text

So, their completed project will include their written essay/op-ed, a recording of that same piece (they will email it to me as a mp3), a link to the video they have chosen, and their written analysis of their remix. Those students who are shooting their own video or overlaying audio and video will turn everything in on a cd or dvd.

Now, as you might expect, we've run into some technical problems, and a number of students have taken on something greater than their current tech skills can really do, but the two biggest problems seem to be that

1. Students see working with audio and video as "fun," and so many set out to do something fun and/or funny and in the process lost sight of the fact that they are to write an op-ed/essay. They've re-written the dialog for a commercial or film clip; they've recorded their own version of some song; and they've edited various clips in such a way that the resulting video is--sometimes just in their minds--funny.
2. Students complicate the assignment, thinking they have to create a video that follows their op-ed/essay or they have to write a script for a movie or tv episode or commercial.

I am hoping our workshop yesterday cleared-up many of their misconceptions, but experience tells me that in the end, I will get some odd interpretations of the assignment.

Your thoughts?

Well, So Much for Making an Impression

David Nagel's piece in Campus Technology caught my attention. Seems students are not all that impressed by their teachers' use of technology. In "Students Unimpressed with Faculty Use of Ed Tech," Nagel cites a survey by CDW-G that suggests that only 38 percent of students indicated that their instructors
        “understand technology and fully integrate it into their classes.” Students also rated that lack of          understanding as “the biggest obstacle to classroom technology integration.”
According to Nagel,"74 percent of higher education instructors polled indicated that they 'incorporate technology into every class or nearly every class,' and 67 percent said they were 'satisfied with their technology professional development.'" Now, while I wasn't all that surprised that students don't necessarily think their teachers' use technology is all that, I was surprised to learn that so many of the teachers polled said they use technology in their classes.

The sense I have from talking to teachers is that many would like to incorporate various technologies in their teaching, but that they feel as if they don't necessarily have the time or the institutional support to learn the best ways to do so. And some don't see the necessity of doing so.

Now, I have long been pretty geeky. I enjoy figuring out how stuff--especially when it comes to gadgets and software--works, and I have long been an early adapter of new technologies. However, simply using or playing with technology isn't what matters. What seems to be missing from the CDW-G survey is a discussion about what pedagogical objectives are best served by the use of particular technologies. We need to be much more thoughtful about use of technology than, say, the folks who made the Six Million Dollar Man. Just because we have the technology doesn't mean we need to adopt it.

NaBloPoMo, or How I am trying to blog again

As the post below indicates, the last time I blogged here was February 27, 2009, and while there are any number of reasons I left the blogosphere--busy keeping a course blog and just plain busy--I won't go into them here.

Instead I will begin with a pledge: although I am a day late to the party, I am going to do my best to blog each day of November in the hope that doing so will get me back in the blogging habit.

So, to begin, I am fed up with the Republican party. No, I am not one of the thousands fleeing the sinking ship; I am not nor have I ever been a Republican. But I am a citizen who is concerned about the direction of the "other" party in our to-party system.

I don't have a problem with conservatives; I disagree with their ideology, but I am not frightened or offended by it. But there are very few true conservatives representing the Republican party, or if there are some, they are awfully quite. Instead we are hearing from the Glenn-Beck supporting, teabagging, Obamaisnotacitizen, weregoingsociolisthellinahandbag extremists.

Don't agree with me? OK, list the first 5 Republicans now on the radar that come to mind. My list includes the likes of Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, and John Boner, sorry I mean Boehner. Or, how about Rep. Virgina Foxx? Today she claimed that health care reform poses a greater threat to American freedoms than "any terrorist right now in any country." Think Progress reports Foxx began by saying: "Everywhere I go in my district, people tell me they are frightened. They fear for the future of our country. What they're talking about is, they fear for our freedoms." Watch this:

Now, in case you think I am taking Foxx out of context (although I have no idea what context she belongs in!), remember this is the same Virginia Foxx who said that Matthew Sheppard was killed in a robbery--that his murder was not the result of a hate crime, that, in fact, "it's really a hoax that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these[hate crime] bills."

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/29/virginia-foxx-story-of-ma_n_192971.html

 She has has uttered some of the most appalling, crazy as batshit things on the house floor, the kinds of things that ought to prompt someone in charge to lock her up in a loony bin. For whom does she speak? For that matter, for whom does Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, or any of the other long list of Republican hate mongers speak?

I hate to mark my return to the blogosphere with such a pessimisitic post, but I really do fear for our democracy.

Coen Brothers Get it

In other words, there is no such things as 'Clean' coal, and I wish Obama would stop using the term.

Go Tweety

It's about damn time someone finally faced off with a Republican about the
derogatory term "Democrat party":

That it's Tweety doesn't surprise me since he's been all over the wingnuts
for a few weeks now.

Honoring Our Dead

In the category of "about fucking time," Raw Story and other news sources report that following President Obama's request for a review of the the blanket policy banning all news coverage of the arrival of America's war dead, that the Defense Department has agreed to change that policy. John Bryne of Raw Story notes that

The officials say Defense Secretary Robert Gates has decided to allow photos of flag-draped caskets at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, if the families of casualties agree.

The policy, put in place in 1991 by President Bush I during the first Gulf War, was designed to ensure images of the human costs of war would not sway American's support for intervention in the Gulf. Although advocates for veterans and military families are split on the issue--some say they want to world to honor fallen troops or see the price of defending the country--I believe lifting this ban is the best way to honor those who have given their lives for this country.

In reversing an 18-year ban on news coverage of the return of war dead, President Obama and the DOD have made it possible once again for Americans to honor, rather hide, flag-draped coffins that carry the remains of

Although the ban has been proffered as a way to shield grieving families, it was anything but. As Byrne's notes

The Pentagon had made a habit of flying in dead soldiers under the cover of darkness -- often just before dawn -- as part of a strategy to keep the media from photograph soldiers' coffins in an effort to keep the press from derailing public support for the war as occurred during Vietnam War.

I remember watching the evening news as a kid and seeing footage of soldiers carrying flag-draped coffins from military planes. I was a 5, 6, and 7 year-old kid growing up in a small town, and those images brought the war home. It was because of that coverage that I asked questions about the war, went to the library and read about the war, and eventually bought and wore a bracelet with the name of a Sacramento, California soldier who was M.I.A. I still remember his name, Major Edward W. Leonard. Thankfully he was eventually released and came home. Somewhere I still have the letter he sent me after I wrote him a letter to accompany my bracelet which I sent to him.

Since the war in Iraq began in March 2003, some 4,250 or more members of the U.S. military have died, and, according to a report in the Seattle Times, "at least 584 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. . . ." And no young child has watched coverage of those men and women returning home one last time; no young person, seeing such coverage, has asked, "why are so many dying?"

Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, notes in the Seattle Times: "There has never been a greater disconnect between those who serve in harms warm and those back home. All too often, the sacrifices of our military are hidden from view."

Reversing this ban puts an end to years of hiding the human costs of war.

South Park Video

This isn't something I'd usually post here, but my husband needs access to this video, and his school blocks most of the sites where it can be found. So, here it is honey, enjoy:

Watch more MySpace videos on AOL Video

In the Category of "Duh!"

I came across this headline at MyDD: "Americans Like Obama, Not the Republicans," and all I could think was, well, no shit. Obama earned 338 electoral votes over McCain's 156 and he won the popular vote. That was in November. Since then, he's managed an effective and efficient transition, he's assumed office and has done more work in the last few weeks than Bush managed in his first two years.

And what have the Republicans done? Hmmm. They've whined, complained, waved stacks of paper on the floor of the senate, and, in the house, failed to come up with a single vote in support of the economic stimulus package. No wonder their support looks like this:

Now, just moments ago, the Senate voted 61-36 to pass a cloture motion on the economy recovery package, thus ending debate on the bill and moving to a vote on final passage. The motion received just one more than the 60 votes needed. And only three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (ME), Olympia Snowe (ME), and Arlen Specter (PA) — voted with the Democrats. Shameful.

Obama has gone to the hill to meet with the republicans, he's met with them in the White House, he's asked for their input, and all they've done is bitch and moan and worked to obstruct.

Other than the fact that we need a few republican senators to vote in favor of the package in order for it to pass, I don't really understand why Obama and the democrats are making any compromises. They've tried to be bipartisan, and the repugs have done nothing but attack the President, ridicule the Speaker, and take pot shots at the Majority leader.

As the above graph shows, the American people see what's going on, and they're not buying into the repug's game. The Repugs continue to act as if the 2008 election didn't happen and they're still in charge. They have nothing but the same ole thing to offer, and the American people aren't interested.

It's time, too, that the media caught on and stopped reporting as if the nature of the game hasn't changed. I don't think people are interested in hearing Republican's complain; I think people want their elected leaders to do something. People are losing their jobs, their homes, their hopes, and their dreams. The time for complaining has passed.