After reading both articles, I felt like the message from both authors ran along similar lines: that technology may be a useful tool in the learning process, it has gone beyond the classroom.  Technology has taken over every aspect of our lives.

As stated in, "The Flight from Conversation", Turkle asserts that we have gone from, 'I have a feeling, I want to make a call' to 'I have a feeling, I need to send a text'. There is safety in texting; and emotion is hard to read or often misread in text.

In the beginning of this article, Turkle makes the revelation that technology and our various hand-held devices not only change 'what we do, but who we are'.
I could not agree more with this statement.

One does not need to look further than Facebook to validate this statement.  On my own 'Friend' list, I see filtered photos, exaggerated commentary on relationships, and misrepresentation of status, financial, social and the like. And, if I am to be totally honest, I have also fallen into this trap from time to time.  I only post pictures of myself that I see as flattering; when I post about my family or my sons, I only post comments that show them in the best light.  I post pictures of family gatherings but do not discuss the tensions between this family member with that family member.  I make deliberate choices about  what  post because I make a conscious effort to present my life in a certain way.  Don't misunderstand me; I also post when I am miserable because I haven't slept and how much I hate the humidity. I show my humor and sometimes my choice in words are, let's say, colorful.  Should you visit my Facebook page, if you KNOW me, you will be able to tell when I am being authentic and when I am filtering what is posted.  Below is a picture I I would post (but did not because she is a current student of mine). 
I look happy, right!? 

But, this is how I felt that day due to behind the scenes stress and frustration!

The key here, is, if you KNOW me. If you know me.....

Turkle makes the statement that, 'Texting, email, and posting let us present the self we want to be'.  In these forms, while there is a connection, there is no conversation. Through feel life, face-to-face conversation, we connect on a deeper level than just script on a screen. While we can be connected to hundreds of people on various social media platforms, there is no way we can have meaningful conversations with that large a number.  

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/problem-texting-relationship

Technology is a wonderful tool.  It makes our day to day work easier; in the classroom, it opens the door to literally the world. At the same time, it has the power to isolate us, even in a room full of colleagues, a classroom full of students, and families at the dinner able.

tinyurl.com/msraspallo

Dinosaurs are strong!

Regardless if how one self identifies, male or female, to be strong is not just a male characteristic.  

By using colors that are stereotypical of one gender versus the other gender together, it allows for the message that girls and boys are strong.  By creating a dinosaur that can fly (that is not a pterodactyl) gives the message that the sky is the limit.  Anything is possible; use your imagination.  Give validation for imagination and vision.

I worked with Alex and Vanessa in collaboration on this project.  It was a great way to validate others input, hear different ideas, and have my ideas heard.  

Working with Pinterest as an educational tool and resource.

Pinterest, an online bulletin board, offering many options, in numerous areas of interest.  https://www.pinterest.com/?utm_source=homescreen_icon

Categories include: home, gardening, art, arts and crafts, photography, clothes, food, and education.  For the purpose of this entry, I will concentrate on education.

Being an online bulletin board, you can go to any category and PIN entries of interest.  In pinning specific boards, you are essentially creating an online portfolio that you will be able to go back and reference.

Pinterest can be highly addictive as to 'pin' a board is quite easy.

Refer to link referenced above.  Once you open the to the site, click the 'EXPLORE" tab and the category 'education' will pop up.  From there, you can access thousands of projects, academic worksheets, ideas for portfolio and journal lesson and formats, how to organize a room, holiday projects, other countries, professional development ideas, and all things education.

Once you 'pin' a board, you have the ability to create online folders and download printable activities.  

After you choose to 'pin' a board, you then need to save it to a specific topic/named board.  There are as many ways to organize this as there are teachers.  Boards can be separated by subject matter, grade level, and the like.

Mulan's Mixed Messages from Rethinking Popular Culture and Media

     by: Chyng-Feng Sun

Before I even read this chapter, I knew that Disney's Mulan and its  portrayal of Chinese society and culture was going to be torn apart!

First the positives as noted by Sun:  

* Mulan was authentically Chinese in how her beauty was depicted

* the physical depiction of Chinese people didn't all look alike, sporting slanted-         eyes and sporting pig-tails

* Mulan is not depicted as a princess or sexualized but as a heroine

* Mulan was not portrayed a damsel in distress waiting to be rescued or saved by 

  her Prince Charming.

 

Then Sun goes on the tear Mulan apart in it's perpetuating stereotypes of Chinese culture:

* the author points out that in order to 'put Mulan on a pedestal, the China of  is        the most oppressive, rigid, and sexist culture in the world of Disney animated  

  children's movies'.  

* Disney perpetuates stereotypical gender roles in Chinese culture.  Sun then goes     on to point out that these myths are created through WESTERN MEDIA  with 

   WESTERN EYES.

If you have never seen Mulan, here is a brief summary of the story: 

Mulan is the only (female) child to Chinese parents.  When her aging father is called to serve in the army, Mulan goes in his place.  She cuts her hair and portrays herself as a young man and trains as such.  Her true gender identity is revealed when she is injured in battle defending the life of Captain Shang, the equivilant of a drill instructor.  Prior to her injury and the her gender being revealed, she was considered a hero because she saved Shang's life.  Once her gender was revealed, she was then was deemed to be worthless simply because she is a woman. 

In the movie, Mulan seeks the services of a matchmaker.  This insinuates that the role of woman is to marry; the matchmaker further demeans Mulan, criticizing her as being too skinny (not suitable to bear sons). As Sun points out, Mulan is the victim of overt sexism!

https://asiasociety.org/education/women-traditional-china

An overview of women's roleshttps://asiasociety.org/education/women-traditional-china An overview of women's roles

So, as we analyze Disney and the sexist, racist and SCWAAMP values that seem to run rampant, we will continue to be called to recognize these issues in the media.  The question remains: with this knowledge, how do we address these issues in the classroom?  Media is a wonderful tool but far from a perfect tool!

My feelings regarding Disney movies have two distinct time frames.  Growing up and after I had children.  As a child, growing up in the 1970's through middle school, I really had no interest in Disney and Disney movies.  Movies like Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Alice in Wonderland did not enchant me like it did many of my similarly aged female cousins.  While I attended numerous birthday parties with a princess theme, I do not recall ever being impressed or of feeling that I wanted similar celebrations for my birthday.  




Fast forward to the birth of my children and nieces and nephews in the late 1999 and early 2000's.  During the early years of my children lives and those of their cousins, the Disney franchise put out some, in my opinion, great movies that, not only did the kids enjoy, I also enjoyed.  Some of the movies that we watched, while had come out much earlier, had only come into my conscious thought because of my kids.  The movies that I am referring to are: The Little Mermaid, Tarzan, Monsters, Inc., Pinocchio, Finding Nemo, Lilo and Stitch, A Bug's Life,  Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin.  A bit later there were other movies, including Frozen and Brave to name just a couple.  

To this day, I still have never seen Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland,  Sleeping Beauty, or Snow White in their entirety. I must admit, however, that of the Disney movies that I have seen and watched with my children, I have thoroughly enjoyed.  A Bug's Life and Monster's Inc., did not have any fairy tale princesses in traditional Disney fashion. We can discuss these movies at another time. However, I think it is pretty clear that my interest is typically not drawn to a 'fairy tale princess'. 

For this blog entry, I am asked if my notion of princess is challenged in the movie Frozen.  The simple answer is yes.  Both Elsa, the Queen and Anna, her sister, is  the princess.  Yes, in true Disney fashion, their bodies were perfect, they had beautiful singing voices, and Anna, in the end had met her "prince" who was not a prince.  What was different and what I found fascinating was, in the end, true love was realized between the siblings!!!

In "Unlearning the Myths that Binds Us", Christiansen asserts that we resist need critically examine the hidden and not so hidden messages that are in, dare I say,  (almost) every Disney movie.   https://disneyanalysis.weebly.com/female-stereotypes.html

https://disneyanalysis.weebly.com/male-stereotypes.html

As I continue on this journey of being made aware of unspoken messages and the insertion of material of long held stereotypes, I can help but wonder if I will ever be able to watch a Disney film (or any media production) with critical eyes on what messages of being fed to society.

Assignment #1: What do you make of the positions of Boyd and Prensky regarding the topic of digital immigrants versus digital native?  Where do I stand on the digital native terminology? 

First in order, to respond to either of these questions, I need to define the terms Digital Native and Digital Immigrant as I understand them.  Digital Native is a person who is fluent in functions of all things involving technology: computer functions and programs, email, social media, access to information and how to use such information(apps, articles, videos, games, images and etc.).   A Digital Immigrant is one that struggles with using technology  through various aspects of life, education, recreation, and work.  Prensky defines digital natives as native speakers of digital language.  Like learners of any language, Prensky asserts that, when learning a new language, some digital immigrants will learn better than others.  (I can  personally attest to this as being accurate!).

Prensky makes the assertion that," The biggest problem facing educators today is that digital immigrant educators who speak an outdated language, (that of a pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language". 


Once again, I can attest to the validity of this statement through personal experience.  It has only been during the last 2-3 years that I have been comfortable to introduce enrichment technology within the scope of my instructional day.  While I have had to use technology in the classroom to collect data for my school district benchmark testing, I have only recently began to use technology for day-to-day instruction.  More recent, I have opened the opportunity to my students to use technology for interest driven learning and student driven instruction.  

Prensky also talks about content in two forms: Legacy content and Future content. Legacy content, as I understand it  and described in the chapter, is teaching the main content areas of reading, writing, math, and connecting the past using 'traditional curriculum'.  Future content, is both digital and technological.  To digital natives, as asserted by Prensky, is highly interesting.  Prensky then goes on to make an telling statement:  Are digital immigrants able to teach in this (future content) world?  In other words, as a digital immigrant, I need to learn a whole new language, to not only stay current but to engage my students in a manner which many will be most comfortable learning? So, not only do I need to 'learn new stuff, I also need to 'learn new ways to teach old stuff'. Quite daunting, if I am to be completely honest!

In the piece, It's Complicated, Boyd states,"Teens make their own media or share content on line but this does not mean they inherently have the knowledge or perspective to critically examine what they consume".  He goes on to write that," talking about youth as digital natives implies that there is a world which these young people all share and a body of knowledge they have all mastered rather than seeing the  online world as unfamiliar and uncertain for all of us". 

In other words, just because the world is at their fingertips in twitch speed does not negate that fact that youth need the experience and guidance, even us digital immigrants, to help make sense of the world in which they live. Through a formal educational setting to informal interactions, digital immigrants can offer valuable guidance and instruction all while learning a new language. 

Finally, as a certified ELL, early childhood educator, I can relate to the newcomer learning an L2.  As a digital immigrant, I truly am learning an L2 and, like any newcomer (or anyone learning a new language), I am struggling a bit, as I learn the language of technology in a digital world.


https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/digital-technology

In terms of technology, am I an immigrant or native speaker?

Quite clearly, I am an immigrant in regards to the language of technology! Having been born in 1966, the world of computers were just coming into existence, for me, in junior high school (known today as middle school).  http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1966.html

I have been teaching for ten years and to this very day, I am learning new language and functions of technology.  For instance, I am very new to the blogging world.  I am also very frustrated with struggle with learning how to imbed links and videos within my text.  https://youtu.be/Gpu_PV3BTfI

As the mother of two young adults; Matthew is 19 and Jacob is 18 who are both extremely proficient in the language of technology.  They are definitely native speakers in the world of technology and social media.  To their frustration, they are often called upon to help me as I navigate the world of technology.   

What I have learned over the fast two weeks, I have learned to imbed images and will attempt to do so here without the assistance of my son.  As a tired teacher, I am also a learner.

What am I doing summer?

In addition to completing my coursework for my M.Ed in TESOL, I am planning numerous celebrations.

My son, Jacob, graduated from La Salle on June 7th.  His graduation party will be held on June 30th.  

My Dad turns 80 today!  My brothers and I are planning a surprise celebration for him to be held on July 22nd.

In addition to these two celebrations, my god-daughter is getting married in November.  Along with her mother and sister, we are planning her bridal shower and bachelorette party.

In between these wonderful celebrations, I will be learning where I will be teaching next year, preparing for a new curricula in literacy, spending time with family during weekly beach days!