Digital Literacy Today
Technology enters our lives more inclusively, changing the ways
we communicate, study, work, and entertain ourselves. Whether it is for better or worse is debatable, but one thing is for sure: Technology isn’t going anywhere. The video presented here is about digital education that is getting a lot of attention today. The author of the video shows how a “Second life,” an interactive online classroom, makes long-distance learning without crossing international borders possible. Students can study, work on the project together, and test out some new ideas in this new environment. |
I understand how important digital literacy is, but I cannot help feeling sad about losing our long-forgotten simple way of life, when we could pick up a real hard-cover book and not be distracted by constant messages and e-mail notifications, when we could spend a day strolling in a park instead of blankly gazing at a monitor, and when we didn’t feel like our life was over when our Internet connection broke down. Another concern is the ability to control ourselves in the virtual world, which is flooded with unnecessary information. The virtual reality can either make us smart or dumb depending on the choices we make. We can waste this time on mindless browsing and game-playing or we can spend it wisely on learning new things.
Credits:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM_1IEJsy2Q Image: http://www.advanced.org/teleimmersion2.html |
About Weebly
I have never been good with technology and computers and never had any interest in such things. My heart would literally stop every time a little window with a warning would pop up on a screen. So, when I started working on the website, I thought it would be challenging. To my surprise, it was very easy. I guess, Weebly creators thought of people like me while working on the website. Although it is easy to follow the 'bring and drop' concept of this website, later I realized that it was not just about the space-filling, but optimizing the way it looks to the persons who would visit my website. In the end, I caught myself looking at every website I visited and critically inspecting them in order to improve my own site. I especially liked how the images supported my ideas and brought harmony between the visual and conceptual elements. The last sub-page to my research, "Conclusion," is my favorite in terms of how it looks and especially the way the colors of each of the images play out to create a warm harmonious feeling. The experience I gained has given me confidence to continue this endeavor and try myself to build a new website completely on my own, where I could express myself to the fullest.
Credit: Credits:http://www.software-answers.com/News/EduNews/Pages/Teaching%20writing%20in%20the%20digital%20age%20can%20prove%20challenging.aspx
About "Life Is Real"
"Life is Real" was my first digital essay; that is why it is the simplest one compared to the bibliography and the research web pages. The interesting part about writing this essay was questioning myself and trying to understand for the first time what type of writer I wanted to be. What was I expecting from my writing? Was it a recognition from my classmates, or a grade from my professor, or something completely different? As it turned out, although I respect the opinion of others, especially teachers, my harshest and hardest critic is my own self; that is why I understand the agonies of Junot Diaz in his writing experience. Knowing my own abilities and potential, I realize that I am the best judge of my own writing. So, the biggest discovery about "Life is Real" is that the whole process of writing is about self-discovery, about what else you can learn about yourself after conducting research or building a website.
Credits: http://www.brookhavenretreat.com/cms/blog-22/item/970-continual-self-discovery
About My Research
As I have mentioned, "Life is Real" was a stepping stone in my digital writing experience. It was like my "first love," a little bit awkward and clumsy, but memorable. Having acquired enough experience in this area, I could fully enjoy working on my research, the main topic of which was music and language. My favorite part was hunting the artifacts, the songs by foreign bands. The process was both productive and entertaining. The organizational decisions were very important. I turned my pages hundred times, copying and pasting the material and trying to find the best way to arrange them, sometimes imagining I was a viewer who had never visited this webpage, and thinking of what I would look for and would pay more attention to. The process of creating this digital research was slow with tons of editing and fitting, but it was rewarding in the end.
Credits: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/weightless/2011/01/self-discovery-series-19-posts-on-creativity/