blog#20

Today’s experience was good and useful for our upcoming essay. It was a Comparison Contrast Worksheet in class. Also as an entire class we discussed what facebook and myspace have to offer that are alike and different. The whole class was involved in discussing what each website had to offer. For like 10 minutes we brainstormed individually what each website had that the other did not have or did have. Some things that Facebook has that myspace doesn’t is Farmville, Aquarium, Awards, Survey Questions to your friends, a wall to post things about your or others. Then Myspace has some things Facebook doesn’t have such as decorating your profile, Search for Jobs, Bulletins, and Rating the Professor. One by one we just each said something that Myspace or Facebook have to offer. I remember saying that only myspace you can decorate your profile, and then Stephen Collins in my group said that on Myspace you can search for jobs, which I didn’t know. I got a lot of information needed because I didn’t know about that 25+ minds are a lot better than 1 mind. I gained a lot of useful information from this group activity and will use a lot of it in my essay. In terms of responding to two other bloggers we never did that in class so I have no idea what to write about. The rest of the class we asked questions concerning the paper and what exactly we need to have in it. People had questions about the correct MLA format, because a lot of the papers have not had that on the paper. She said a lot of us have learned it, but there are still some students that do it the wrong way. Ms. Crawford also showed us on the green board the lay out of our essay and just things that we need to make sure and have in it. We need to have a strong thesis statement in our opening paragraph about the facebook/myspace essay, or a good topic sentence. Also need to have solid points with the paragraphs that we are writing about. Preferably she wants us to have five-six paragraphs, and as always provide useful information for the reader. Once again we never responded to two other bloggers so I just wrote about the what we did in class, and just what basically happened in the 50 minutes that we were there.

Blog #19

This blog is about what we did in the computer lab today which was to explore the websites named Myspace and Facebook. A lot of the students in our classes had both of them, but of course their were some students that didn’t have one of them, or none of them. I had a myspace for a long time maybe since I was a freshman in high school, but just recently I got a facebook. I thought myspace was the shit, but as soon as I got a facebook, just to me myspace got totally blown out of the picture. When I just had a myspace, everyone would be like make a facebook, so eventually I did. In our English class all we did was just explore the websites, which I did but really didn’t learn anything new since I have had both websites for a while now. I was on facebook most of the time just talking to some of my friends that were online at the time. I didn’t gain too much information, but found out that there are other games on facebook other than Farmville. Also since I had not been on myspace for a pretty long time that now you can search for jobs, and you can rate the professor. Little things here and their that I didn’t know existed on these websites. I gained some useful information that I could use in our upcoming essay comparing and contrasting the likes and differences of facebook and myspace. We were talking in the computer lab about some differences, and how on myspace you can decorate your profile, but on facebook you can not do any of that. Like I said before we just got into the English writing lab, and just explored facebook and myspace. I’m sure it was interesting for the people that didn’t have one of those websites and had to make it and learn it right away. We also had to send a friend request to the English Writing Center so they can be our friends on facebook/myspace. Eventually I saw that they would post things on the wall or profile and show available times for tutoring sessions. I think its neat because you can look from home, and not have to drive 30 minutes like I do just to see if there is an available appointment at the time you are looking to get tutored. Overall though it was a really good experience, and I can not wait to start writing the essay.

Blog #18

The articles and videos we discussed were ‘Killing us Softly 3”; “Dove Evolution”; and “Dove Onslaught”. The articles were “Brazillion Obesity: The Big Girl from Ipanema” and “Health and Fitness: Snip, Suction, Stretch and Truss”.
“Killing Us Softly 3” is just showing examples of things that are basically killing us. How advertising is helping people buy things that we don’t really need, whether it is colognes, exotic clothing, or anything that we really don’t need at all. The advertisements are inappropriate, and the one with Calvin Klein was getting nationally recognized, not for good but for bad. Also how women’s bodies are getting compared to figures such as a coke bottle. How the image of men is getting re-looked at because of these bad boy types of commercials and pictures. Also if two cute babies take a picture it is fine, but not if it is interracial.
“Dove Evolution” is a video of a simple girl without any make up on, then how they completely fix her up for a model shoot. Then they use the computer to fix little things about her, such as extra skin on her neck or make her eyes a little bit bigger. At the end of the video, it says something like “no wonder our eyes for beauty is so distorted”, basically saying that it is ridiculous how there is no more simple beauty anymore, and how people are going to the extreme.
“Dove Onslaught” is a video just showing a little girl, then showing fast pictures of all these models, girls working at the gym and some getting a boob job or liposuction. Then at the end it says “talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does”. Basically it is an advertisement to not let your daughter do that to herself.
“Brazilian Obesity: The Big Girl from Ipanema”, is an article just saying how Brazil is starting to become obese, and if you think there are little figures when you come here, you won’t see a lot of that. It shows facts of how the men and women are becoming obese, and showing percentages. That Brazil is having an expensive future due to many of them wanting to get a stomach reduction or whatever to not be fat anymore.
Last but not least “Health and Fitness: Snip, Suction, Stretch and Truss” is just stating that people are messing with their faces, bodies, etc. How some guys love their athletic body, but their face is not going a long with it, and they pay to fix it. Also they would rather pay a couple of thousand to fix their face or body, rather than get a new car. The men and women just want to look as young as they possibly could, and they will do whatever it takes to make that happen.

Blog #17

The four articles that we discussed in todays class is “Jury Out on Facebook Impact on Grades”; “Colleges Scan Facebook During Admissions”; Facebook sparks Suspicion”; “Does Facebook replace Face Time or Enhance it?” Colleges are looking at the students facebooks who are applying to the colleges university. They are seeing on the students facebook what the student is about. They are seeing his/her profile pictures, the language he replies in to his friends, and what type of friends does the student have. They are all helpful hints to help the colleges see if they are making a good decision on the student being accepted into their university. College universities do not what to accept a student in who is a big time party animal, or somebody who has picture on his/her facebook or myspace, & see them smoking weed, or having pictures of things that they should not be doing. I agree with this, but the thing is you have no idea that the person you are looking at if they are just hiding all the bad things you do. This guy or girl could be the local drug dealer, and you would have no idea because maybe he or her does not put out his or her business through facebook and myspace. I know a lot of people who smoke and drink, and they don’t post pictures or talk about it openly because they don’t want to get fired by work, or the high school programs that they are in find out. “Jury Out on Facebook’s Impact on Grades”, is just saying how Facebook is impacting students grades. I can totally agree with this because from personal experience, I have planned on getting on Facebook for approximately 10 minutes at the max, then I just have conversations with all of my friends. Next thing you know is, is that it has been an hour. Lol! I ended up doing my homework, but there are a lot of students that if this happens to them they won’t end up doing their work. My grades have not dropped or been impacted in a negative way since I made a facebook. “Facebook Sparks Suspicion” is just mainly talking about how other students are becoming suspicious about another person. For example, it stated how a girlfriend could see her boyfriends facebook, and say “who is this girl?” You can find out a lot from facebook, and you can foretell things that are going to happen. Relationships can go down the drain, because one of the people in the relationship can think wrong if the opposite sex is talking to another guy/girl. This article is just saying how facebook is sparking suspicion from everybody. Last but not least, “Does Facebook Replace Face Time or Enhance it?” The answer is it enhances it. This website Facebook used to be only for college students, and now everyone from high school, to 40 year old parents have a facebook. Also how people feel younger by using it. Possibly some people dropping cell phones for facebook. I would never do that ever, but that is their decision. Facebook is just helping the older folks feel younger again, and keeping in contact with old friends. Those are the 4 articles we discussed in class.

Blog #14

I thought it was cool being able to comment other people’s blogs. I enjoyed being able to see how other people answer to the blog questions that you ask us to write about. I put comments telling them how I liked it and gave them insight from my style of writing. Although it was good being able to get writing ideas from their point of view. Everybody has a different style of writing or ideas, so while you give them your opinion you learn new things as your reading theirs. I didn’t feel bad about commenting them, because I didn’t criticize their writing, or said something harsh in their comment box. All I did was read their blog and tell them how I feel about their journal entry. It is kind of cool being able to comment other peoples writing. I enjoy reading the comments of what people say about my blogs. I didn’t get criticized. Lol. They agreed with what I was saying and gave some positive feedback. It is good seeing what they think of my article. It is helpful knowing what people think of your blogs, and it will only make you a better writer in the future.

Blog #13

Today in class we discussed a time line of our descriptive essay with Mrs. Crawford and a team member from our group. She told us how we should be very descriptive in our writing. For example, instead of “The cat ran down the street”, you could say “The black with brown spots cat ran furiously down the street”. Like she said you have a more visual picture in your head with the second example, rather than your first. You really just want to be describing with good details the video that you pick, if someone were reading your paper about the vlog you picked you want them to be able to have a clear visual picture in their head. You want to have all your senses in the essay, and if you don’t know them they are sound, taste, feeling, smell, sight. Sound you want to use voice, background. Taste you really can’t do unless the video is over food. Feeling you want to describe the emotion’s the person is using. Smell you most likely won’t use, and sight to describe the persons background. Mrs. Crawford told us that for the beginning you want to use sound, visual, and feeling. Preferably the best length of the video is 5-6 minutes. Before she had explained how to write the essay, I thought it was one of those 6 paragraphs that I use to write in middle school and high school. After she told us how it was going to be written, it seemed a lot easier to me. All you really do is talk about the video and just describe what he or she is doing. The girl is riding a bike, you can add her emotions, race, how fast, what kind of bike. It is all about creating a vision for the reader. The timeline helped because it is a guide that shows you where to put the ideas in your essay. For example, if you have 6 paragraphs, the third and fourth are the middle paragraphs. Definitely the time line helped me a lot because it changed the outlook I had of what we were having to do.

Blog #11

The You Tube video “An Anthropological Introduction to You Tube: by Mike Wesch talks about the popularity of You Tube. Mike says that people view You Tube more than the TV network NBC. There is a video of this popular song that people enjoy in one country, and then people in Korea or Japan animate the song. He says that web links everybody mainly people. Also he communicated with somebody from Africa to put a video onto the page he was making. He is a teacher and has about 10 students. In classes they’ll talk about You Tube. Surprisingly 35+ men and women are the ones that upload videos the most. He shows “Charlie bit my finger”, which is a baby who has the coolest accent ever. Lol! Then about the song “Soulja Boy”, and shows how quickly people all over the world watch these videos, and then make remixes to the videos. Also people about web cams, and when you talk you’re sizing up the context and you don’t know when you’re getting watched. Mike then talks about vlogs, which are video blogs. I noticed how people are nervous doing it for the first time. People in the videos were stuttering and did not really know what to say. You Tube has sections of most viewed, top rated, because people will try to be stars of You Tube. There are so many different types of videos on You Tube, you can look up anything and most likely they will have a video about it. Whatever you can think of, You Tube will have it. You Tube has brought the world together, people communicate and comment videos from Japan, Korea, Africa. Its awesome to me how people can communicate with each other from all over the world. This man credits You Tube for bringing his life back, and You Tube has helped people a lot. If you are ever sad, you can watch “Charlie Bit My Finger”, and I’m definitely positive that it will make you smile. I have my own You Tube video that me and my friends made, and I’ll look at videos of all different things. Sports, hunting, funny videos is what I’ll mainly look at. It is amazing how so many different ideas from the world come onto one website