Kelly Reed Class Visit - Get Your Make On!

For this activity, we decided to create items that play off of the gender expectations for both boys and girls. Toys are one of the first and most significantly gender coded items that kids are exposed to. For the sword, we intentionally mixed these codes to draw attention to these gender expectations. One side is black with flowers and the other is pink with flames. By mixing these concepts and codes, we neutralized the message of the sword being for boys, and pink and flowers being for girls. The toy is now a toy for anyone.

This message is represented in the portrait of Merida from Brave. One side of the portrait shows her being presented as stereotypically 'girly' and 'princess' like. The other side shows her more traditionally masculine, holding her sword with out the flamboyant colors of a typical Disney princess. This represents the theme of neutralizing the messaging of boy vs girl, as reflected in both pieces of our artwork.

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Digital Native or Not?

I was born prior to most of the modern day technology youth have access to today. Although I was not born into this technology, my early childhood years saw the transition into today's modern technologies. Due to this, I think of myself more as a digital native than a digital immigrant. Though I was born in a time when cellphones and laptops were not quite as ubiquitous as they are today, I spent most of my time with the forms of technology that were available to me. As a 6 or 7 year old, I would play Nintendo 64 or Playstation or Gameboy, which were new and advanced for the time. By the time I was in middle school, I was spending a lot of time on the desktop computer, on websites such as Myspace (shoutout to Tom !). I developed the 'native' skills of twitch speed or parallel processing while going down Wikipedia rabbit holes while playing flash games in another tab.

Quick Key Tutorial

One of the most important aspects of being a teacher is assessment. Assessments, whether formative or summative, are integral to effective teaching practices. As teachers, there are countless items on our To Do Lists, and often, the collection and analysis of classroom data is timely and easily neglected. Here to the rescue is Quick Key! Simply put, Quick Key is like the familiar Scantron test forms used throughout colleges. Unlike Scantron, Quick Key does not require any fancy forms (or even a number 2 pencil!), and as long as you have a smartphone, you are capable of quickly collecting and analyzing assessment data in your classroom. In order to get started, follow the short tutorial below! 1. Access the Quick Key website (or app on your phone). Click on "Teachers" on the homepage, and follow the "Sign up for Free" prompt. 2. Input the necessary personal information to create your account. The site offers 3 different account options, but you simply ne...

danah boyd vs Prensky - Digital Nativism

Are today's youth digital natives? In the debate of digital nativism between boyd and Prensky, I wholeheartedly agree with boyd's perspective. Digital nativism is the idea some generations are digital natives, meaning they naturally adept at navigating and understanding digital technologies and systems. On the other hand, the existence of a digital native implies the idea of digital immigrants, or those who are foreign to the digital familiarity experienced by natives. In chapter 7 of danah boyd's It's Complicated , she discusses the idea of digital nativism and how it is actually dangerous mindset to have. To start, boyd discusses that the idea of nativism vs immigrant truthfully stems from the fear created by generational gaps which are increasingly illustrated through technology use. She paraphrases Barlow when she discusses that, "the implicit fear that stems from the generational gap that has emerged around technology." The idea of generational tensi...

Collins Compositions

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