Thursday, October 31, 2013

The Time-Warp of YouTube

Today we had a presentation all about YouTube. When I think about the site, I think of my sister and I when we go to Wal-Mart. We get sucked in. You get onto YouTube to watch that one video, then two hours later and about 10 clips in your eyes are glazed over and you forget when you went to the site to begin with. I will be the first to admit, I get sucked in by YouTube!

We discussed the many uses of YouTube as well today. Specifically YouTube as a writing platform. I think that I would consider it more as an expressive platform. While this is very similar to writing, I think there are aspects of writing that are used on YouTube. Considering the comment section as a platform to share and express ideas about the videos at hand.This is a place where expression and idea generation can happen. While some of the conversation is crude, there are some ideas that are generated from YouTube conversations.


YouTube gives us access to information that once was only seen in certain places or at certain times. Now we can explore almost every part of the world through these videos. We can learn how to do pretty much anything from this platform, from knitting to things that aren’t as innocent. YouTube unleashes a plethora of knowledge, expression, and entertainment all in once place. 

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Writing for a Social Media Platform

Last week we did our group project on Business Writing in the digital age. We specifically talked about good and bad Facebook and Twitter posts. As a Public Relations major we talk a lot about social media outlets because social media management is where we could end up for a job. Writing for social media can be very tricky because there is no exact formula. It is not like in high school when you are told to write a five paragraph essay. You can go ahead and throw that concept out the door. Rather it is a lot of trial and error. 

When you are preparing to post especially multiple posts, look to set up a social media schedule. Decide a theme of what you want to post, is there an event coming up? Get followers involved. You want your audience to participate so you know they are receiving your messages. Finding your social media niche also helps that way you know what messages that your audience participates the most with. 

Another good way to figure out how to run a social media campaign is to look at campaigns that have succeeded in the past. This will not guarantee you success, but it will help generate ideas to have a successful campaign. When deciding what to post do not limit yourself, think broad and creative. Utilize photos, quotes, original content, questions, participatory posts that ask for responses, and more. Your options are endless. Be sure to not just get hung up on one form of posts, but mix it up. Also, if you will be posting to multiple platforms, be sure to change what you are posting from platform to platform or you are tailoring the message to the platform. 


Overall, just don’t be afraid to try anything until you find something that works for you. Keep in mind that it may work for a while, but you have to freshen up your ideas so they don’t become stale. 

Who Do You Trust?

“I read it on the internet,” a common phrase that many of us hear all too often, but do we trust what we read on the internet? Many of us come from the generation that was told don’t believe what you read on the internet, don’t site Wikipedia, and definetly don’t use websites as your main work sited page. What is there to be afraid of, legitimacy, well yes. As A Better Pencil describes, people have been questioning what they are reading since text was invented. This comes with any form of technology. As this newest technology evolves, we will find more legitimacy and fallacy within it as it grows.

We are trained to look for text that is false this does help us sort the facts from the fiction. Something that we must come to terms with is that we will always have to be on the look out for someone trying to impersonate another and so on. Consider Twitter, how many people have a “fake” account where they act like they are a celebrity or act as an alter-ego? We wouldn’t trust these as legit sources, but we know to sift them out when considering the facts.


As the internet evolves, we are able to evolve with the internet. There are now Twitter accounts that are the actual celebrity that is verified through their information. I think that more and more sites will be seeking this legitimacy in their text.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Confronting Challenges of a Particapatory Culture

We were asked to take a look at Henry Jenkins' article, "Confronting the Challenges 
of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century," for writing in the digital age. Immediately I began to think about my mom when I first explored the paper and browsing through. I even read a few excerpts to her while I was riding in the car down to visit my sister in Pikeville this weekend. 

Reading this to her lead to discussions about what is asked from teachers and what is expected of them in today's society. Let me tell you what is being taught now is already so different from what we were taught not so long ago. I read the listed skills to my mom and to her excitement, she practices many of these with her kindergarten students. Even distributed cognition, which she described as interacting with manipulatives in the classroom. This might be blocks, tens units, plastic farm animals, and so on. 

The skills that stood out to me and that I felt that I have been taught include: 

Play — the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving

Distributed Cognition — the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand
mental capacities

Networking — the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information

Now when I first read these words, I thought there is no way that I have been taught these things. In reality, I really was. First "play" this is something that my mom alway encouraged and promoted as well. It continued for me through school as I participated in the FIRST LEGO League (FLL). When I was in seventh grade I was briefly introduced to the concept of the LEGO robots. I was reintroduced in the eight grade where for an entire semester I "played" with the LEGOs and problem solved with them. We had a board of tasks that we had to program the robot to complete. It was through play that we solved these problems. We got to build, rebuild and build one more time different gadgets for the robot with LEGOs. There were also team building aspects in which we had to build together and a project we did about how to clean our water ways. Sometimes it could be grueling, but we had so much fun. 

I am the one with the trophy, circa 2006.
The FLL also added Distributed Cognition as well. I was using tools, LEGOs, to expand my mental capacity. I may have not recognized this at the time it was happening, but it did. Using these manipulatives to problem solve expanded my knowledge and allowed me to solve a problem and complete tasks with the LEGOs. 

Networking was apart of our challenge as well. We had to be able to take in the information about issues with our water ways and pollution and devise a plan to clean them. Our solution? Activated charcoal. Would I have known what that was before this, no. I was able to learn all I could with my team about the water ways and then synthesize the information and in turn share that information with those who asked about it as well. We even made a demonstration of how such a system could be achieved through the dam systems. 

Reflecting on the opportunities that I was given through Robotics and the FLL are amazing. They taught me so much. Things that a traditional classroom did not. This brings me to challenge the research and articles that so many follow. Like my mom, I see the sense is some of it, but where is the breaking point? Learning is no where as interactive for most as it was when I was in school. There is not as much hands on either. The "new" skills that are proposed by Jenkins aren't necessarily new, but need to reemerge in our society.  

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Writing on Clay

After reading Baron's chapter "Writing on Clay" I never realized how much effort that it took to write something when clay was what you wrote on. Having to flatten the clay, then find a utensil to write with, followed by figuring out how to write what you want on the clay. And oh boy if you mess up... This is where I begin to think about what we had to say about revisions and that they really did not happen. Once you got what you wanted down that was pretty much what you had.

I think that just being able to write, even if it was not great, was deemed a very prestigious skill. So who cares if you had a few mistakes (where was my high school teachers and why was I not around in this age!?). Writing is intertwined into everything that we now do that it is an essential skill to have some what perfected, boring or not. You have to have the skill.

Could you imagine if your scratch pad was clay? That would be funny, "Alright class get out your scratch clay to show your work for the ACT."

From clay, to paper, to screen, the art of putting the letters on a page has transformed so much.

I think that this brings us back to Helvetica. The design of the letters is an art. Maybe one that we poke fun at, but someone did have to take the time to design each letter precisely as well. So we are not writing on clay, but we are now writing on screen. If you told someone that a hundred years ago, you would be called a witch, and what do we do with witches?

I guess from this chapter I have understood more of the "art" behind writing.