Matrix Podcast

Going Digital

Recently our class researched topics on the Digital Nation website (click post name for site) and presented what they learned to the rest of the class. Each person chose a tab to research. I did Learning, Raquel did Relationships, Jordon did Virtual Worlds,  Dalton did Waging War, and Vince did Living Faster. I learned quite a bit from the presentations of the other topics.
Raquel went first with her topic Relationships. She talked about a girl who created an online personality about herself, and another girl researched her eating disorder online and blogged about it. Raquel also talked about an 83 year old grandma who makes a cooking show with her grandson, and she is thrilled about using the new internet technology to touch people's lives. In Relationships, they're showing how people can connect to each other and even lead separate lives online, and how lives can be changed from the internet. But there was a dilemma with the internet, with parents wanting their kid's Facebook passwords, and even a kid who committed suicide because of online bullying. But everything in life has it's strengths and weaknesses, and I believe the internet connects more people than it hurts.
After Relationships was Virtual Worlds, presented by Jordon. She talked first about how they were using virtual games and scenarios to help cure soldiers of PTSD. They use sights, sounds, and even smells to trigger reactions from the soldiers, helping them relive what happened during the war so they can slowly come to terms with it. Then Jordon talked about a young teen in South Korea who is addicted to internet gaming. With South Korea being the most wired place on the planet, a teen boy named Young Il spends at least 8 hours a day on the computer. He's addicted to computers and gaming and so is 10% of South Korean teens. He recognizes his problem and is trying to get help, but the real problem is the parents and even the internet itself for allowing Young Il to become addicted. Lastly Jordon talked about creating virtual avatars of kids and adults, sometimes for therapy and sometimes just for research. The studies found that time spent with a person's own avatar was profound, and that people learned something about themselves. Also, if a kid saw their avatar doing something there was a good percent chance that the child would honestly think that THEY did that action themselves. It just goes to show how much virtual reality can affect the mind.
Dalton presented after Jordon with Waging War. Dalton's tab was about how technology is being implemented to help the military and even to help recruiting for the military. He talked about this gaming center in California that allows teens to come in and play all sorts of violent video games while recruiters walk around the center just talking to the kids. They don't actually recruit them, they're just there to "answer questions" and talk to them, but if a kid comes up to them wanting to join the military, then they go into action. This caused a moral dilemma within the community and there was mass protesting about it. There was an argument that these kids believed war to be like the video games they played like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor, but war is NOT a video game. There's no respawn in war, your life is really on the line. Dalton also talked about how Marines use simulators to train, using realistic video imaging and situations called Immersion Training. The Marines have to clear a building that can be loaded with hundreds of different scenarios, and they train and train until they get it perfect every time. There are also people in the military who control unmanned aircraft that conduct bombing missions and then go home for dinner to their family. Even these pilots of Predator Drones suffer PTSD from trying to separate their military lives from their home life.
Vincent wrapped up the presentations with Living Faster, talking about just how technology impacts our lives. Technology connects us, helps us interact, and even controls what we do. Kids now are wired all the time, having smartphones and computer messaging, they're always connected. Their focus is less on the world and on school and more on their phones and friends and their technology. Technology has created a less peaceful environment for the world, everything is busy and there is technology everywhere. One couple talked about reading with their Kindles in bed, but how it wasn't peaceful anymore because of the annoying click of the button for next page. There was another researcher who believed that the hearing of the new generation has diminished from being able to hear 300,000 sounds, to only 100,000 sounds. He says that the senses are being dulled by the overload of information and noise that this era involves. The question is, do we try to prevent this, or just let it happen?
Digital Nation has much to offer, and anyone who decides to look into this site will learn great things about technology and the new digital world. I know that I myself learned quite a bit about how technology affects us all and how it's being applied in the world today. And in this world today, you can't afford to be ignorant about technology.

That... Was... Epic!!!

My classmates and I just finished creating PowerPoint presentations on epic films that we watched on our own after viewing all three of The Lord of the Rings movies. My first comment is that I have to say my classmates did very well on these presentations. Good job guys/girls. I did this same thing last year with the previous class and there were more presentations, but I believe that these were better prepared.

Raquel Ortega went first with a comparison/contrast between 300 and LOTR. She was a good presenter, spoke well and presented her movie well, too. I especially liked how she pointed out the parallel between the two movies on how the protagonists face insurmountable odds but don't cower in the face of fear. One of the best things Raquel did during her presentation was describe her images and why she put them on the slides that she did. Overall she had a very good presentation, and a very good movie too. :)

After Raquel, I presented my own movie, Matrix Revolutions. Following me was Vincent Ribordy, presenting Brave Heart. First off I believe Vincent had a VERY good grasp on the connection between Brave Heart and LOTR, and he fully understood his movie as if he watched it 20 times. It was really nice hearing descriptions of certain things from the movie that I never even understood myself. He pointed out how William Wallace and Frodo were very similar in the same aspects of sacrificing themselves for the greater good (even though Frodo doesn't die). He also presented the subject of supernatural forces really well, describing the visions of William's love and what they meant. He also showed a video of the torture scene and explained how that didn't instill fear in the resistance, it just made them stronger. Overall he had a very good presentation with good images and great explanations.


Following Vincent was Dalton Ricketts presenting Saving Private Ryan. Dalton showed his love and enthusiasm for Saving Private Ryan and explained much of the movie for those who hadn't seen it or couldn't remember. He explained the plot and quest line very well and also described Captain Miller to give us a better understanding of how he was such a hero. I believe that Dalton could have used a few more images and more slides on the other topics such as parallels, conflicts, or symbolism, but his overall understanding of the movie was excellent. It was a good presentation.



Wrapping up the presentations was Jordon Kampfer and her movie Pirates of the Caribbean. She had a good presentation of this movie, and a good description of Will Turner, the main hero. She fully understood the plot of the movie and explained the sub heroes really well. I like how she pointed out that Orlando Bloom played in both movies and also that the themes matched up very well. Jordon also had many images and really good ones at that, making her slides interesting to look at. In my opinion she could have used more slides and explained more parallels between the movies, but overall it was a good presentation.



I believe that my classmates had a good time studying epic films and they enjoyed watching and talking about their movies. I think they have also learned to look deeper into films as they watch them, and not just watch them as movies. This has taught me an easier way to compare movies and look for parallels between those movies. I enjoyed these presentations and I'm looking forward to what else is in store for the year.

Backflip Off Roof Tosh.0

Tosh.0
Tags: Tosh.0 Videos,Daniel Tosh,Web Redemption

DigiNati Intro

I just read the introduction to Digital Nation, even though I participated in this project last year. I feel like the introduction provided a good overview of what they were researching in the program. If you just jump into the program and start watching videos, eventually you get a good grasp on what they are trying to learn about and research, but it's much easier to understand by reading the introduction. They are looking at the effects of technology on the way humans now connect and interact as well as learn and even wage war. It's so fascinating that just 30 years ago on this planet not a single person in the world had a cell phone or a desktop computer. Compare that to now, how I don't know a single person without a cell phone, and most people in our country have anywhere from 1-4 computers at home or with them.

I enjoyed watching the user submitted videos, especially the guy who talked about his kids ingesting information from wherever they could get it. He talked about how he would bring home a new phone or a new piece of technology and his kids weren't even surprised by it, they just absorbed it and took in all the information they could. I believe that this world and this youngest generation will be just that, 'information ingesters'. In a world where connection and interaction and learning is dominated by technology, they are going to NEED to ingest all the information they can. We have left the time where we could sit down and focus on a single thing in this world. We have now entered the world of the multi-tasker.

Slings and Arrows

By looking at my other classmate's blogs on Slings and Arrows, it looks like a really weird show on Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. I saw really weird costumes and looks on the people's faces, and it seems like this was a parody or knock off of Shakespeare.

The last entertaining show that I saw on TV was Tosh.0 and it was absolutely hilarious. He talked about this little girl who had a video when she was little where she was standing on her counter in front of the mirror and yelling about everything she loved. He always makes really funny jokes about videos and sometimes he brings the actual people to the show to make new funny videos.

Matrix vs. Return of the King

Reece

.

Snow Day

Snow days are good and bad. They are good because I love to sleep in, and being the lazy person that I am, just relax. I enjoy playing in the snow and the occasional drifting that I do in my car. I welcome more snow days, but not too many! I don't want to have to stay in school longer at the end. Snow days are also bad because we miss school, and our minds get off of the subjects that we have been learning about. Also, if we have too many school days, we have to make them up at the end of the year.

History of War

History of War

Animoto Practice

Final Vlog

Final Blog

Media Communications was such a good class this year. Looking back through all of my past blogs, I can see that I have learned a ton from this class. We learned about Media Literacy, photo manipulation, epic characteristics, food companies, and even war technology. By far the most interesting was the Digital Nation part, because I loved learning about new technology. My least favorite part was probably the pulitzer prize photos. I was glad that we learned about Media Literacy and how to interpret the media. Media is part of everyday life, and it is very important that we learn how to read and interpret what we see and here as far as media-wise. I don't really feel that anything should be added to the lesson plan for this class, as I feel that we had a bunch to do over the year. Overall, this was one of my favorite classes so far, and I hope more and more students continue to sign up for it. I am officially done with this class, and two days away from a Senior at Oskaloosa High! This is my final goodbye, and farewell. Peace!

Feed

 

Feed, by M. T. Anderson, is a fictional book set in the near future. It's about a group of teens with "feeds" implanted in their brains like everyone else, and the "feed" does everything for them. They can browse online, chat other people, make phone calls, and even play games, all without using their hands. But when a group of friends gets hacked by an old feed-hacker, one girl, Violet, starts having problems with her "feed". Violet was against everything about the feed and the corporations that controlled almost everything people did. Titus, the narrator, builds a relationship with her and learns from her. She teaches him about the hidden things that the corporations do, and about ancient languages and other stuff. But when really bad things start happening with Violet, Titus starts to panic and wants detachment from her. Violet starts seeing less of Titus, and eventually he breaks up with her and leaves. But Violet is still getting worse, and the doctors say she could die. I wont give away the end of the book, but all in all, Feed is a great book with a real theme. It opened my eyes to what our future could look like, and eventually what could happen to the world. This book sort of teaches people the direction we're headed, and tells them to think twice before advancing technology and media too far.

Other books that are like Feed are The Holy Land, Enders Game, and Oryx and Crake.

I Sound Like A Hippy

After watching Food, Inc., my eyes have been spread wide open on the food industry and everything they’re doing and controlling. It seems that now, the food companies control almost everything having to do to with what we eat. They control what we see, buy, eat, and even what farmers MAKE. Major seed companies are almost dictators when it comes to farming, having total control over what farmers plant as far as soybeans. Terrible things are happening in the food industry, from Kevin Kowalcyk, a 4-year-old healthy boy, dying of E-coli poisoning, to chickens being genetically altered so much that they can’t even stand up, let alone see daylight. Food should be healthy, and we should have a choice with what food we want. Nowadays it seems that the only truly healthy food is organic food, and that is what is the worst. It has changed the way I see food, and brand names, and food companies. I’ll never forget what I’ve seen in this video, and it makes me angry with the food companies for being food dictators. They Should Not Be Controlling How We Eat!

The first few chapters of the movie were about chickens and cows. They said that chickens now have been genetically altered to have bigger breasts for more meat, and to resist diseases. However, this proves very bad for the quality of life for the chickens. Most of the chickens have problems standing because of how fast their body grows and develops compared to how much meat they have and how much they weigh. They also showed that some of the chickens just die, and they don’t know why. The chickens have also been pumped full of antibiotics, which is very bad because the farmers who deal with the chickens have become allergic to the antibiotics just by being around the chickens. We are putting this stuff in our bodies! The very sad thing about chicken farmers is that they have no control over their lives anymore once they are in the chicken business. Big companies like Tyson™ and Smithfield™ have them under contract, and the farmers are in so much debt that they have no vote in what they do or say. The terrible control that these companies have over so much food, and so many farmers, should be illegal, but it’s not.

Another thing that has spun out of control is the corn industry. Almost every product in a grocery store nowadays is made from, or of, corn. There are so many corn products, and the human population is ingesting large amounts of corn, when we are not naturally made to digest corn easily. The government is subsidizing corn with the farmers, paying them to grow corn crops. However, there is already so much corn being made, that corn is now being over-produced and over-grown. We are backing ourselves into a corner with the food industry, because if a corn virus or an insect that attacks corn comes, then our food industry could come crashing down. In addition, our animal industries are being overloaded with corn. The entire beef industry runs off corn-fed cows. The bad thing about cows being fed corn is that their digestive system is not created to digest the corn correctly. Cows that eat corn acquire E-coli in their stomachs. Just one cow that has been corn-fed can eat grass for just five days, and it will lose over 80% of the E-coli in its system. E-coli is very bad as it is a harmful bacterium that has caused many deaths since it’s discovery. The meat industry sees that grass-fed cows taste better, are healthier, and cause fewer problems for the human population that eats beef, but they refuse to switch cows to eating grass because corn is a lot cheaper and easier. Why has our food industry changed to care more about how much money they make rather than the health of the general population? It’s almost too terrible to even say anything about.

Not only has our food industry been compromised, but the farming industry has been, too. Major corporations like Monsanto™ have patented the genetically engineered soybean seeds, and they now control 90% of the soybean seed industry. They have made it where farmers cannot plant seed anymore unless they buy it from Monsanto™.
The patent infringement laws make it to where farmers cannot clean and re-plant their seed anymore, because the actually seed is property of Monsanto™, and it strictly enforced. Monsanto™ has sued many people for patent infringement, and has put many farmers out of business with their monopoly of the seed industry. To me, it seems like they are the seed dictators of America. It’s ridiculous that our industry has come to this. I feel that there needs to be more laws AGAINST the food and seed corporations, to prevent them from attacking farmers and other people who rise up against them, because it is obvious that the industry is becoming communist with how they control everything that happens. Many people who worked for Monsanto™, Tyson™, and Smithfield™ now work for the FDA, USDA, or even the Supreme Court justices. The laws that we try to pass against the food corporations will be shot down as long as there are biased, maybe even bribed, workers in the organizations that control the corporations. So many people have been sued, when the reasons they were fighting against the corporations were person, whether they lost a 4-year-old son, or whether the companies put them out of business. It shouldn’t be that the person with the most money wins the court battle. That’s exactly what our Constitution is against.

It is clear that many things need to be done to change the food industry and what is going on with what we eat, how we eat, and even what is made for us to eat. I’m not saying everyone who reads this blogpost (a pebble on the beach of the Internet) should fight the corporations and start eating everything organic. This post is meant to strike into the mind of whoever reads it and to make them think about what is going on, and hopefully, the reader will make a smarter decision next time they go to Wal-Mart™ to buy their favorite foods.

Vlog #5

Two parts to this one.

PART ONE

PART TWO

Digital Nation Presentations

The past week we have been watching our peers present their tabs from Digital Nation. Everyone had great information to share, and it was very interesting.

First, I would like to talk about Brant and Keith's tab, Living Faster. They provided some interesting facts and points on the way technology and information is affecting the human body. They said that 60% of the brain prunes off when someone grows up, meaning that the brain is most affected during the teen years of adolescence. This is important because it is mostly teens who use technology and the internet and social media. So therefore, they are most affected by it. There was also the discussion of how multitasking could be the opposite of focus, but some people seem to think multitasking is just focusing on many things at once. These are both true, however, while multitasking, the focus is split up into smaller and smaller portions to keep track of each thing being done. That's what I believe. Brant and Keith had a good presentation of interesting facts about their tab, and it sparked good discussions that people might still have questions about.

Second, Justine presented her and Shelby's tab, Relationships. The information and videos that Justine shared with us were interesting, disturbing, and definitely discussion-worthy. She gave us many ideas and opinions about what she saw on her tab, including the question of "Should the internet be censored?" She had one point that actually applied to me, about how people emphasize what is bad with online dating, but about 60-80 years ago people all over the country used to fantasize about their favorite popular celebrity, and what would be the difference between now and then? Having strong feelings for someone whom you've never met isn't new, but some people treat it like it's foreign. Justine also showed us the video about the girl with anorexia. The girl found a website that was about people who love that they are anorexic and they actually refer to anorexia as Ana, the goddess. I felt that this was very disturbing and this is what sparked the discussion of should the internet be censored.

Last of all, the tab Virtual Worlds was presented by Willie, Cody, and Kinsey. They had a bunch of good stuff too. Kinsey mentioned that there is a website called Second Life, where anyone can go and create their own avatar of themselves, and live in a virtual world with jobs, money, relationships, and life problems. There was also a program that takes the digital image of you, and creates a virtual image of it in 3D. Much more technology has been created that can make things more realistic digitally. It's crazy to think where we will be in 10 years from now. There are already virtual programs that they are doing to trigger memory, or for therapy. Cody and Willie also talked about video games, and how they are either good or bad. An expert said that violent video games don't make people violent over the long-run, but maybe shortly after playing the violent game they are hyped-up and violent, but not for good. Violent video games don't make people more violent. They said that video games can be helpful, and can teach many things. Overall, they had a great presentation with a bunch of interesting info.

Vlog #3

Vlog #4

Power to the Points

Recently, we watched many PowerPoint presentations over epic comparisons of different movies to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Many of the presentations were interesting, and all of them were well-done. Out of the many that we watched, I had three favorites. The first one was the presentation Chris gave over Avatar. He made many parallels between the two movies, especially great parallels between Jake and Frodo. Jake showed many signs of bravery and compassion throughout Avatar, and Frodo did the same in the Lord of the Rings. This was a great parallel between the two major characters. The main thing I liked about Chris's presentation was the great pictures and the good parallels between creatures and setting, like with how he compared the horses and creatures they rode to the Nazgul and the hyenas. He chose a great movie to compare to the Lord of the Rings, and he did a good job making the parallels stand out.


The second presentation that I really liked was Brant's. He compared the Star Wars Episodes I-III to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and did a great job with details. He talked about how the main characters in each movie were being pulled on by an evil force, and had to resist it with their purity. He made great parallels between sub-heroes, and explained just how vast the setting really was. He also discussed the use of supernatural forces within both movies, talking about the Force and lightsabers, while also mentioning the powers in the Lord of the Rings. Brant made great parallels between the good and evil of both movies, talking about how both Anakin and Frodo are pulled to the evil (dark) side at the end. He also used a few good images, but he could have had more character and setting images to show detail about setting or characters.


The last presentation I really liked was Shane's over The Princess Bride. This movie is such a great and comical movie, but it still holds a ton of qualities of an epic. The main character Westley is similar to Frodo in his bravery, determination, and compassion. Westley had to infiltrate a castle to save the one he loved, while Frodo had to infiltrate Mordor to destroy the evil that could destroy everything he loved. Shane had a great presentation, with really good pictures, great parallels, and good designs. He used a ton of good pictures of characters, and a few scene pictures. He made parallels between the plots and characters, like Gimly and Fezzik both being strong yet unintelligent. He made good parallels with the vast settings, and the guides. Such as Gandalf compared to Miracle Max. He also explained really well about the in medias res of both movies. Such as when Westley tells the story of how he became who he was. Overall, Shane had a good presentation, explaining really well about both movies.

Slide Share

Iron Man vs. LOTR

View more presentations from Oskaloosa High School.