Where Did California Go?

For this week's MOOC Talk, we were asked to provide our speaker with questions about his material. I was beyond ecstatic that my question was chosen! I feel like an extremely small celebrity. I am also impressed that Mr. Delano would take the time out to give me such a thoughtful response.

Here is my question: 

It seems as if this week will be a discussion of the synthesis between news literacy and social media literacy. With social media outlets (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr) becoming the forefront for access to breaking news and information, is there a fear that these social networks will eclipse traditional news media? If this were to happen, what new purpose would these news media outlets begin to serve? 

And here is Mr. Delano's answer: 

It seems to me that the major current weakness with the social media outlets is the need for being an informed consumer of news and information.  Since anyone can post their views, there is a virtual avalanche of personal opinions and interpretations.  Professional journals have minimized this by having a rigorous system of peer review that minimizes unsubstantiated arguments prior to publication.  In the absence of peer review, consumers of news need to be knowledgeable enough to be able to critically evaluate information in the social media.  This is a large responsibility that the traditional news media has taken seriously, but are now being challenged to short-cut in order to be ‘first’ with a report.  In my view, it is far better to be ‘late but accurate’, than to be ‘first and inaccurate’.  Therefore, I have an implicit faith that ‘quality sells’, and that junk (albeit fast) will ultimately fail among discriminating readers.  Those readers who are not discriminating (i.e., uninformed; uncritical; seekers of entertainment, rather than knowledge) will contribute to the rising level of ‘noise’.  In summary, with so much ‘noise’ being created by social media, the burden of thinking critically is growing on the audience.  In the absence of a well-educated, thoughtful audience, the ‘noise’ will create confusion and chaos.  When that ultimately occurs, I predict that the value of high-quality journalism (in whatever form) will again be appreciated due to its rigor for ‘getting things right, rather than just being first’.

What struck me most about his answer, was his idea about "noise." From first hand experience, I have come across many creators of "noise." These are the people who believe every single thing that they see or hear, and throw any sort of caution to the wind. They have no concept of the idiomatic grain of salt. Even amongst the people in my college community, I see no inquisitive desire in them and sometimes marvel at their ignorance. 

What do we do with these people? How do we get them to be interested and informed in the "news"? For these questions, the answer may lie in the problem that I addressed in my post. I think that the lack of critical thinkers comes from the fact that the "news" does not challenge us. It provides us with information that is so transient that we as viewers could really care less if the information is true or not. 

Therefore, to combat the "noise", perhaps news outlets need to work harder to give us information that we will care enough about to either believe in or disprove. If I turned on my TV right now, and the breaking news was that California finally broke off from the U.S., I would be more interested in that than in the 10 ways that I could wear a scarf for the fall. 

I would want to know more about the new island of California, how it will affect the economy, where it will float to, if it would eventually sink, if Californians would still want to call themselves Americans or declare themselves an independent country, but this raises yet another issue. HOW do we figure out if something is true? How do I know if something across the country or across the world actually happened? 

I think that this comes back to Mr. Delano's talk about the importance of social media to journalism and broadcasting. Social media provides us with the ability to experience things that are happening, even if we are halfway around the globe. Perhaps if I see a person's footage on Vine of Californian soil breaking, or 20 Instagram pictures of the fault lines breaking with mass hysteria, I will be inclined to believe that it is true. I cannot even think of how many times someone (or myself even) has said "Yeah it's true! Everyone's posting about it on *insert social media outlet here*" Social media does indeed provide us with another layer to the news and other information, and has now become an integral part to how we discern what is true or not. So maybe a synthesis of social media and journalism will provide the kick start that "noisemakers" need to become more questioning. 

What is "News"?

This week's topic of Media and News Literacy led me to think about this blog post. I feel like as of late, there has been a loss in the definition of what "news" is considered to be. When I open a newspaper or turn on my TV to watch a news channel, I have always had expectations for what I was going to find. In my household, I was brought up watching the news with either my mom or dad, and it always featured pressing global, social or economic issues, with the occasional segment about holiday shopping, the latest gadget, etc. I even remember school projects where we had to write about articles that we found online or in a newspaper.

However, today, I feel as if the "news" is all crap (for lack of a better word). If I turn on Fox, ABC, or any other channel, I no longer see the urgency to report on things that really affect us. There's a segment on Thanksgiving recipes, the newest Iphone app, fun things to do in the season, the rising cost of taking a vacation, and the birth of a celebrity's child. Sure, these things be "important," but they are fleeting. Where is the substance? Are these really the things that are important to my society? Is this a true display of my society's values?

Even with big events, like the Trayvon Martin shooting or the Government Shutdown, the minute that these things are "finished," the attention and focus completely disappear. I think that this is a huge problem. When news outlets stop reporting on these issues, they most definitely do not go away, but abruptly severing our connection to major events may give us that inclination. It is okay for there to be occasional features on triviality, but the news needs to go back to providing substantial information about our world.

I know that the first reaction to this post will be "Hey! Theres CNN, HLN, BBC and many more!" That's all fine and well, but the amount of news outlets that broadcast mostly frivolity far outweigh the more sensible ones. Even thinking back to Mr. Prinsloo's talk, I feel as if listening to, watching, or reading the news is one of the fews ways that we can maintain the ability to "read the world," and how can we do so when we are not provided with any pertinent information?

Even throughout history, LARGE events, such as the Civil Rights marches and the inhumane treatment of their participants have been broadcasted worldwide, and have moved massive amounts of viewers to action. In thinking about that, how can we incite and promote change if we are not even aware of the things that are going on?

I might be the only person that feels this way, but I really hope not. As I have said before, the news (no matter what medium) should give us global (and local) information. I want to hear about issues that will affect my life on a larger scale, and I want to know what issues are affecting a person my age in, say, Saudi Arabia or Australia. I think that the news needs to return to reporting on what is truly important. How do you guys feel? Any ideas?

Examples of Visual Literacy and Learning

In my previous post, I stated that visual association could be very useful to education. As soon as I started thinking about this idea, a couple examples of how visual aids could be effective in understanding cultural differences popped into my head. However, I came across a cool example quite a while ago.

Over the summer I saw these really interesting graphics that mapped out the linguistics differences of certain words across America. I found out that we all use different words for things, depending on where we live in the country. I spent such a long time looking at these maps, because I have family all throughout the nation, and I found the results to be entertaining and extremely accurate. I looked further into the project, and discovered that this project was done by a Ph.D. student at North Carolina State University by the name of Jonathan Katz.

I encourage everyone to take a look at this project, because it is a perfect example of how cultural differences can develop throughout a city, state, or country- and how we can easily highlight these differences with visuals.

The link to Katz's project is here: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~jakatz2/project-dialect.html

Enjoy!

Open Up Your Eyes!

Photo credit: flickr.com

Before I get started with this post, I just want to take the time out to say that I am proud of myself in how far I have come in this MOOC course, and in my understanding of the various concepts of metaliteracy. When I first began this course, I found myself to be so lost. I don't know if the topics are becoming easier or more interesting, but I really think that the course is beginning to make a lot of sense.

Anyway, back to what I'm really here to talk about! This week's MOOC talk was about the importance of visual literacy to metaliteracy. I have to say that this week's talk was pretty cool. I know that for me, I learn best from visuals and hands-on learning, but I never realized that such a huge part of our overall learning and understanding comes from visual aid. I think its great that Mr. Stone used this talk to highlight the importance of visual literacy.

Mr. Stone uses a lot of great examples in his lecture, but one of my favorites had to do with the project that was done on his campus. Large letters that spelt words like "thrive" and "grow" were placed in relation to trees and bushes, in order to draw attention to nature. Mr. Stone noted that so many students walk around with their heads down in their phones, and paid absolutely no attention to their surroundings. I think this project was an interesting way for the students and faculty of the campus to really engage with their surroundings.

I also thought the juxtaposition of information with nature was pretty awesome. Many of us do not associate nature with information or technology. After seeing this example, I tried to think of more examples where our natural environment was utilized to dispense or provide information, but I could not think of anything. I also think that the visual word association in this project was interesting. Words like "thrive" and "grow" are words that can be associated with plants and nature, but they also can be related to college and education. Isn't college a place where we come to thrive and to grow? We come to branch out, and to leave as more developed and informed person. Was this project supposed to intentionally have more than one meaning?

I made these connections from a couple of videos I saw on Mr. Stone's Vimeo account. There are two "Type in Motion" videos for the words "vacuum" and "wind," which work mostly with the aforementioned concept of visual word association. For "vacuum," the letter U is sucking up the rest of the letters, which is the motion that we would typically associate with that word.

In thinking about metaliteracy as a whole, I think that visuals such as these could be vital to global metaliteracy. Could you imagine using videos like Mr. Stone's to teach different languages to students young and old? For example, I can already see how videos like these could be useful to a person learning English (which is arguably one the hardest languages to adopt). Imagine there being videos for nuanced words that look and sound the same, but are radically different; like see and sea or red and read. Or what about using these word associations and infographics to inform students about other cultures? With ideas like this, I think that visual literacy could be (and is!) a vital part to our learning and understanding.

My Thoughts About Textbooks

Photo Credit: z-comix.deviantart.com

I just read a post from one of my fellow MOOC classmates, which was a mini-rant about textbooks. I would have to say that I agree with him in thinking that textbooks have been the biggest rip-off of my college career (aside from the meal plan). We, as students, spend hundreds of dollars on textbooks every semester for our courses, which I think is highly problematic for three main reasons:

Issue Number 1: I think that textbooks make some teachers unbelievably lazy, or lose their zest for actually teaching and instructing. Some professors think that if they come across a textbook that aligns with their course work, they can just prescribe this as our main course of understanding, and then go over any questions that we have in class. I have taken way too many General Education courses where this was the issue. Some professors even assign readings that we do not go over in class, but they somehow end up on our exams.

Issue Number 2: By show of hands, how many of you have taken a class where a professor has assigned a textbook, and it spent the whole semester collecting dust in your car, on your desk, or in a drawer somewhere? Well, I have both of my hands waving high in the air. I have taken many courses just like this, and I still remember some of the really absurd prices that I paid for textbooks that I did not use ($160 math textbook my Spring semester of freshman year!). If a professor does not plan on having us crack into a book, then what is the point?

Issue Number 3: I feel the pain of this issue every semester; the problem of selling back your textbooks. We spend hundreds of dollars on these things, and once the semester is over, we're lucky if we can get back even half of the price that we paid. Every semester, there is at least one or two books that I shelled out a ton of money for, only to reel back, mouth agape, when I hear of the price that is offered to me when I try to sell them back. I would snatch my (now useless) book up in horror, clutch it tightly to my chest and quickly flee from the scene, because I refused to give up something so expensive for so little (Yes, this is exactly how I react, every time!). With that in mind, how valuable could these textbooks really be if institutions are willing to offer so little to purchase them? It really makes me wonder.

Personally, I have gained just as much from a class without textbooks (if not more), as one with them. A perfect example would be this course, where there are no textbooks and the class is largely online. Yet, I feel as if I am learning so much.

I think my verdict here is that textbooks do have their merit, when they are used as an integral and sensible part of the course. However, I respect those professors who do not use textbooks at all,  and have utilized other sources (poems, short stories, novels, movies, pictures, group work, the list goes on) as teaching aids.  I have had many professors who have done this, and those were the classes where I was thoroughly engaged, and still remember the key concepts.


*My classmate's blog post link here: http://ggmetaliteracy.blogspot.com/2013/10/free-textbooks.html

Metaliteracy Across the Globe

Photo credit: oskard.deviantart.com

I found this week's topic of global education and metaliteracy to be quite interesting. Personally, Mr. Prinsloo's MOOC Talk presentation and his reading entitled "Modernity and its outcasts-the role of higher education" stood out to me the most this week.

During Mr. Prinsloo's MOOC Talk, he opens up his presentation by introducing himself to his audience, and by providing us with a few key facts about himself.  He makes it a point to say that he is not presenting a global view, but simply a glimpse into his own view of metaliteracy. However, I do not think that this point is valid. After this slide, Mr. Prinsloo spends the rest of the time speaking about a wide variety of metaliteracy topics that I really found myself to identify with and understand. Although he claims to not be making a case for the issue of metaliteracy across the globe, I really think that his presentation and ideas can definitely be utilized to make a case for the importance of a new kind of education that would be relevant to all parts of the world.

In every country, city or any other realm of the globe, there is always an area that is underprivileged. These areas usually contain people who do not have the ability to access education. A perfect example of this can be seen in Prinsloo's article, where these people are classified as "homo sacer." It is so unfair that if a person does not have the choice to access education, then they are seen as useless. Therefore, I think I can see a synthesis between Prinsloo's lecture and and his article. In his lecture, he speaks about the importance of "reading the world," and in his article, he states that there should be strides taken to "disrupt...schemas dictating the rules of belonging and worth."

In thinking about all of our metaliteracy topics up to this point, I think that everything comes back to the idea of the "alternative student." Just as we need to recognize that there are new institutions of learning, we also need to "read the world," and modernize our preconceived notions of what a student should be.

A student is not just a young person in a dorm room, or one who attends a physical institution. Unfortunately, there have been way too many times that I've seen someone's willingness to learn be invalidated by their age, economical/ social background, or by where they choose to obtain their education.

The alternative student is vital to Prinsloo's call for a new type of graduate and faculty. I think that any type of alternative student (including the ones that Prinsloo mentions in his article) has a better understanding of their (and others') world. At some point, education may not have been their primary focus, which I think makes them more receptive to new ideas and concepts, once they are interested in being educated. Therefore, I think that these people can also qualify to be the "new faculty." There is so much more to being wise than a couple of extra letters at the end of a name.  Experiences are what truly make us intelligent, and give us the authority to inform and educate others.

Why Are Some Institutions of Higher Learning More Credible Than Others?

Throughout the last couple years, there have been many "online institutions" that are usually targeted to the alternative student; perhaps a person who is past college age, or does not have the time to make a full-time commitment to school like the average student. However, these institutions do not garner as much clout and respect as the other physical institutions (such as the University at Albany, for example).

In keeping with our entire class theme, my question is, why not?! Metaliteracy and the ability to utilize technology to gather information is at the forefront of our every day processes, some that we don't even realize. From being able to pick up our cell phone and search the nearest gas station to hopping online to do intensive research, we are constantly plugged into information. 

So why is it that these institutions do not receive the credit that they deserve? From taking this course I have come to realize that they are on the cutting edge of technology and metaliteracy. To have an entire institution that is solely online takes a lot of time and dedication, and this should be taken into consideration. I can only hope that once the concept of metaliteracy and MOOCs spread even further, that these institutions will gain more believers, and will be amongst the top names in academia.