Final Metacognitive Post.

Upon signing up for this course I wasn't sure what to expect, and when week 1 started I felt in over my head with the readings.  Chapter 1 on the Semiotic Landscape ( Kress & van Leeuwen) was and still  a difficult concept for me.  Once we began to read Chapter 2 (Kress & van Leewen), I started to see some light in that I could begin to relate the theories and concepts to my own studies in Communication Studies and work in Marketing over the past twenty years. 

I had many ah ha moments in the course, many were with the discussion of today's students and how students today are learning and how our brain's physiology maybe changing with the use of technology.  I have discussed many times through out the course that I have a daughter who will attend kindergarten in the fall.  The Rich (2008) article; " Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?" fascinated me, since I did not grow up with technology but my child will.  The Brain World Article (2012);  "The Irreversible Way Educational Psychology and Technology Changed the Brain", fascinated me, especially as I embark as a parent of a school aged child who will adsorb and learn much differently than my own experiences.  

My hope after completing the MALET coursework is to manage and develop eLearning systems for adults.  Throughout our coursework I have acquired valuable information regarding the way that adults learn. Through Jenkins Participatory Culture video (2010) I have learned valuable insights on how technology can assist with learning.  Jenkins discusses the value of learning through each other and problem solving without a traditional classroom model.  That students regardless of age can learn from others not necessary a "teacher".  

Overall I felt the course challenged me in a way that I wasn't expecting and pulled me out of my technological comfort zone to understand literacy before the internet.

References:

Jenkins, H.J. (2010. March 6). Participatory Culture. Video retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFCLKa0XRlw

Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge.

  

Rich, Motoko ( 2008, July 27) R U Really Reading?. New York Times. 

   

The Irreversible Ways Educational Psychology and Technology Changed the Brain. (2012, October 15). Retrieved May 6, 2015, from http://brainworldmagazine.com/the-irreversible-ways-educational-psychology-and-technology-changed-the-brain/ 

 

The Irreversible Ways Educational Psychology and Technology Changed the Brain

- See more at: http://brainworldmagazine.com/the-irreversible-ways-educational-psychology-and-technology-changed-the-brain/#sthash.0iW1sl43.dpufThe

The Irreversible Ways Educational Psychology and Technology Changed the Brain

- See more at: http://brainworldmagazine.com/the-irreversible-ways-educational-psychology-and-technology-changed-the-brain/#sthash.0iW1sl43.dpuf

Sales & Marketing Collaboration Training Literacy Guide

Literary Guide: Training methods for the adoption of collaboration software in the Professional Services Marketing and Sales Department

Population: Adult Learners

Employees of a Professional Services Marketing & Sales Department

This department consists of a mix of employees who are 100% remote and others who work in the home office but travel on a regular basis.  

As part of their work load employees in the Marketing & Sales department are required to conduct training's, seminars with vendors and at trade shows.  In addition the staff supports a company web site and hires vendors who create content for their web site.

Background: Each employee is issued a company computer with remote access software which allows them to access the company network.  When traveling each employee is required to log into the software to access company e-mail and servers.

Challenges:  Access to the company software has been a challenge remotely.  Employees have had the inability to obtain documents needed to conduct training's on a timely basis which has resulted in inefficiencies.

Employees who support the web site have been unable to access files for review and approval, which has resulted in delays in content and budget ramifications when working with vendors.

Skills to be achieved:

Understanding the collaborative work model and why it’s necessary and how it can save time.  

Assumptions: Employees in this department are digitally literate.  Each employee is comfortable with the internet and accessing web sites.  

Challenges: Employees need to become comfortable with the collaborative environment online and how to use it and its differences between the company file saving on companywide servers.

Goals: The goal of this literacy guide is to teach collaborative environments to office staff.  The end goal is to have a fully collaborative environment on the cloud instead of the current method of saving information on company servers which require access to company’s remote software successfully installed and working on each person’s machine.  

Training Methods to achieve learning goal:

• Department specific iMovie’s made specifically for this department
• Web ex seminars
• Written guide with documentation which contains specifics regarding the departments collaboration goals  
• Recommend employees subscribe to https://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleDocsCommunity  & http://blog.clarity.fm/best-collaboration-tools-for-working-with-remote-teams/
• Department Blog will include the collaboration tool guide, collaboration documentation and all videos which pertain to the collaborative environment.  Employees will need to access the blog via user name and password.  Blog will be updated frequently to keep employees up to date on the latest collaborative office tools and tips and techniques
• Employee Buy in: Get employees excited about using collaborative software
• Internal Public Relations campaign for home staff, flyers posted around office reminding staff that collaboration is best.  Make collaboration fun through contests and games where employees who start collaborating win prizes such as starbucks gifts cards, company cafeteria bucks or free pizza lunch
• Department Managers will be requested to explain the benefits to employees in staff meeting and web ex conference calls

Grace period: There will be a grace period which will allow employees to still access company servers, once sufficient training has been conducted employees will be informed that collaboration is the new department objective and remote access will only have access to company e-mail and specific servers.

I choose to include various participatory methods such as  you tube videos, web ex conferences, and a department blog for the employees to train for the implementation of the collaboration model.  Each employee will be offered the same sources and be asked to login for training together as a group to participate together,  In addition they will be asked to help and assist each other when they have questions or comments regarding the implementation.  Henry Jenkins explains this type of participation as building a community and establishing a "community" type atmosphere within the department that will lead to less refusal and more acceptance to the new methods.

Adolescent Interview-Chris Age 15

 I conducted an interview with Chris who is age 15 lives in Indian Harbour Beach Florida and a freshman in high school.  Chris is an avid skate boarder and basketball player on his school team.


Below are the questions I asked him via e-mail, our original plan to meet via face time didn't work out since he was on spring break and visiting his Dad.

Chris uses an iphone as his main electronic source. He states that he is only on social media for about 15 minutes a day, and uses snapchat and instagram.  He is an avid watcher of you tube videos on skating and basketball and likes to shop on RageOn and Adidas.  He does play video games but not the games I expected he plays NBA2k15, Robot unicorn attack 2 (which I had never heard of). his younger 11 year old brother is an avid World of Warcraft player and I thought Chris maybe of been playing that game too.

In school Chris is in honors classes, he states that the Internet is used in Marketing and a World History Honors class which are two of the 7 classes he takes in his high school. He uses the internet rather than the library to do research and prefers ebooks; "eBooks because it's easier to get to the information you need faster than regular books. You can also save information from eBooks to print out and make copies of. " He does not use blogs in his classes nor does he follow any blogs. He will begin to start to study for the SAT soon and said he will prefer to prepare online for this exam. When asked if he feels that he could be distracted when doing research on the internet he stated " Yes, but I can move around them efficiently."

Chris said that he does post photos and other personal information to social media via his iphone. He said that he mostly posts about skating and other athletic activities. He doesn't accept friend requests from people he doesn't know. He is aware of the dangers of social media and his parents have spoken to him regarding internet safety. He is familiar with the term cyber bulling but has not been effected by it. He only shares his passwords with his parents. One thing that concerned me is that he isn't concerned about any internet privacy issues.

When asked about his personal relationships I was happy to learn that he feels more comfortable with physical relationships than those online. He shares his online interests with his friends in the physical space but again enjoys being with people more than being online. When asked how he would feel if for 30 days he would have no access to the internet his response was "I would be fine, I can go without it." That was not the answer I was expecting to be honest but I'm happy to know he feels like that.

Chris is an exceptional kid, I have been friends with his mom over 20 years and watched him grow up. I'm usually on the mom side of the conversation learning from her his likes and dislikes. His parents do a wonderful job keeping him and his brother engaged in family activities especially living in Florida they are able to enjoy the weather year round. They are a family who surfs, rock climbs, skateboards and camps together and has dinner as a family and my friend stated that at night internet usage by both children is monitored and done in the same room as the parents. I'm sure that I may have learned a bit more if I wasn't his mom's friend and he maybe telling me what he thinks I may want to hear but I do know that as a family they are committed to "family time" and I think that and his interest in sports keeps him more engaged in offline relationships.

Media Education-Participatory Culture, Video Gaming and Real World Skills

Media Education Post

   The article Participatory Culture, Video Gaming and “Real World skills” details how many researchers believe that video gaming provide players valuable skills that can be transferred into real world settings.  Educators have differing opinions on the merits of video gaming and question their effectiveness.  Video games fall into collaborative problem solving which is one of the four forms of Jenkins’ participatory culture; it’s described as working together in teams, formal and informal, completing tasks and developing new knowledge through Wikipedia, alternative reality gaming, or spoiling.  The research in this article took 40 participants who played world of warcraft and asked them to identify how much they used the following real world life skills while playing the game; knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.  The study found that the forty participant’s skills used the most while playing were analysis, synthesis and evaluation. 

  This articles key issued can be interpreted by using Green’s approach to literacy.  Culturally the players must understand the content and the context of the game to continue to play and succeed.  Operationally players must use the language system (the rules) of the game they play to decode and incode a range of texts.  Players need to follow the rules to be able to play the game and to understand the prompts that they are given throughout the game to continue to play.  Finally video games use critical thinking to ask questions of themselves and others when playing the game, to inquire and to construct their own method of success while playing.

  Although this is not a large study by any means it does open up the doors for discussion on the validity that these types of virtual reality video games have for use in the classroom. I agree that according to Jenkins’ theory of participatory culture the skills that gamers acquire through gaming can be beneficial both within the game and in the classroom and into the future as they will need critical thinking and the ability to make and evaluate decisions.  One could say that these skills are priceless and the place to learn them would be in conjunction with traditional school and virtually through a video game.  That learning these types of skills through gaming is a benefit and that trial and error learned virtually could better prepare students for their future.  My only concern is that many of the teenagers I know spend countless hour’s online playing video games and not enough time in the real world to use the skills that they are learning virtually.  The advantage of these skills learned online I believe are only beneficial if students are spending an equal amount of time in the real world.

References:Brown, K. T., Mino, M., Cooper, J. E., & Bertelsen, E. (2007). Participatory Culture, Video Gaming, and "Real World" Skills.International Journal Of The Humanities, 5(5), 1-10.

I choose to deconstruct the Shopkins commercial.  Shopkins are a collectible toy geared toward girls who are age 5+
Shopkins Commerical

Observations
This commercial is geared toward girls with its colorful pink tones and colorful pink and girly bubble type lettering.  The only gender represented is female.  The girl in the commercial is age appropriate for the product.  Shopkins are listed for ages 5+ on the packaging.  The girl in the commercial is wearing an outfit which is complimentary to the colors which are used throughout the commercial.  Her outfit doesn’t distract from the product but compliments the coloring.  She has a happy expression throughout the commercial as you would imagine a child would be playing with their favorite toy.  The camera pans in and out to show the 148 toys that that can be collected.

Assumptions the ad makes

The commercial and the product are assuming that girls will be interested in collecting shopkins since they are female and since women are the traditional grocery shoppers in the family.  The assumption is that girls will want to emulate their mothers and will be interested in this type of toy.    The commercial for this product continues to maintain many of the stereotypes that are prevalent in girl’s products today. The toys are bright pink and the commercial is in pastel and candy colors.  The logo is in a big bubbly font.  The commercial only features a female and the products are all grocery store items.  The accessories are pink shopping carts and pastel blue shopping bags. 

Possible Consequences

Unfortunately we as parents buy items that we may not always agree with.  As a parent to a little girl I have always been very gender aware when buying toys.  I’m not a fan of buying the pink colored blocks or the pink telescope.  Unfortunately as the years have gone by and many Christmas and birthdays have past my daughter has received many of those items along with a whole arsenal of princess attire.  We have tried to do our best to buy “boys” toys for her on each holiday and to make sure that our home has an equal number of gender neutral items such as trains, trucks, cars, army men.  Reality is that as great as that is she still is drawn to pink and pretty girly things and loves to collect things.  Shopkins for her are fun and something she can relate too because she goes grocery shopping with both of her parents and actually enjoys shopping.  She is at an age where belonging is important and since these toys are the “hot toy” she feels like she is special.  The ad creates unrealistic expectations in that your child is never going to collect 148 items and the commercial shows them as a close up so that when the child sees the commercial they get more excited seeing what they could collect.  At 4.99 each (for a set of 2) that’s an expensive collectable that will probably only last a few months.

Week 6 Journal Post Weblogs and the Public Sphere

           The Weblogs and the Public Sphere reading by Andrew O’Baoill, caught my interest in the week 6 assignment.  As a former e-commerce store owner, one of the areas I found hardest to conquer was the weblog.  O’Baoill’s reading focuses more on the political aspect of weblogs but I feel it can be related to any interest or discipline across the web. Weblogs fall into both the critical and cultural dimensions of the Green model.  They serve to ask critical questions and construct alternate perspectives; they also culturally develop an understanding of content and context. 

            
            Weblogs are defined as a website containing a writer's or group of writers' own experiences, observations, opinions, etc., and often having images and links to other websites. (dictionary.com, “Blog”)   In1997 Habermas identified three key features regarding the public sphere; inclusivity, disregard for public rank and rational debate (O’Baoill, pg 1) each of these features can be related to the blogosphere.

            
          Web sites such as blogger.com and livejournal.com allow users with little or no technical experience to launch their own weblogs.  I feel that’s where the inclusivity stops with weblogs.  Content is “king” weblogs need to stay updated and current and those that have the most traffic are those that have the most google rankings. Google rankings are highest when weblogs updated content on a frequent basis.  This article was written in 2003, twelve years ago.  Since that time Jenkins participatory culture has come of age online and with the advent of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram no longer do bloggers just update content on their blogs but they update their social media pages which then link back to their blog sites. Today’s most popular weblogs  are multi-media giants like The Huffington Post, Mashable and TMZ, all of which are backed by large investors. These large media machines have the ability to obtain new content frequently and have large staffs monitoring and updating them.  Weblogs have become main-stream on most media related web sites such as local news stations and cable networks.  Bravo TV is one example of a website that has their own blog style web site where users can comment in real time.  Today’s weblogs are money making enterprises and with that the concept of inclusivity is blurred.  In reality creating a blog is still a simple task but ability for one person or small group to keep it updated with content, and obtain high google ratings is a dubious task.

Outside rank should not be a factor in within the public sphere according to Habermas (pg 3).  

            Outside rank in this context is considered the reputation that the contributor builds with the public sphere.  Weblogs have the ability to build reputations on an ongoing basis. Today’s web sphere it’s not as easy for an individual  to launch a blog and have a large amount of followers.  What is possible is to have a blog with small amount of regular users.  Today's contributor can grow their blog and gain users and create a public space via social media links.  Many of the blogs that I have recently found have been found via research on Instagram.  I conduct searches using topics I’m interested in and find Instagram users who are posting.  After following on Instagram I will normally click through to view their weblog site and I will link to their Facebook page to see when they update their blog.  For me I feel that following them via Instagram postings allows them to gain my acceptance.  Weblogs allow for anyone to become a “published” expert, weblogs change the way that information is published from top down hierarchical to a free flowing network. 

Habermas wished for the concept of a rational debate until consensus is achieved (pg 4).  In today’s cluttered websphere I don’t see how that would be possibility. The organization of how content is set up on weblogs doesn’t lend itself to users being able to clearly view all comments.  Since information is fluid comments on one topic can quickly morph into another topic. One of the interesting topics on page 4 of the reading is the fact that weblogs don’t follow a hierarchical order like a newspaper and the concern is that weblogs cannot provide a balanced framework for interpreting information.  Since the design of the weblog isn’t fluid there is a lot of room for confusion and misinterpretation.  One benefit of weblogs is that they may not be able to come to a consensus online but they are able to organize and mobilize on a more local level.  One example of a local weblog are the Patch.com sites.  They act as a community information site just as a local newspaper would in the past, but they allow users to comment and give their opinions on local news.  Patch.com can mobilize local groups for volunteer opportunities, school functions and local political events.   

References:

"Blog." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web 22 Feb. 2015.

O'Baoill, Andrew. "Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs: Weblogs and the Public Sphere." Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs: Weblogs and the Public Sphere. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2015.