Recently, a classmate raised a question about the use of a laptop during class. Specifically, surfing the net or cruising facebook during class. I was really curious about this topic and have formed some of my own opinions but I was also curious about policies regarding this in my current classes; so I did a content analysis. I looked at the syllabi for my classes this semester and was surprised by what I found. In SFL 331 their is a provision which asks students not to use cell phones or PDAs in class however there is nothing about inappropriate laptop use; at the same time we did talk extensively about classroom distractions on the first day. SFL 351 says nothing about laptops or cell phones. What about this class? Nothing. Humorously, I've actually mistaken the first paragraph of the syllabus in this class as a list of "do-nots" in fact almost every time I look at the syllabus it catches my eye but there isn't anything about classroom protocol. However, Dr. Coyne has included a large section about interaction in the class, which is less possible when people are surfing the net, etc. I decided to look online and found plenty of syllabi which outlawed surfing the net such as this one:
"Once in the classroom, you will silence your cell phone or PDA, and keep it packed inside your purse or backpack. Same goes with iPods, etc. During class lecture, you may not use your computer at all unless we are doing an in-class exercise or search. Do not surf the Web or check e-mail; if you do so, I will ask you to leave the class, and the dismissal will count as an unexcused absence."
It thought that was pretty intense especially because I take notes on my laptop. Last semester there was a guy in one of my classes who listened to his ipod during class, I thought that was odd.
I'm hoping to be a professor someday and I wondered what my policy might be in my future classes. I think when it comes to these things I take a bit of an Amsterdam attitude. That is, do what you want as long as it's not bothering others. I've been distracted a few times by people in class who are surfing the net on their laptops, most notably when they are playing games. However, it's usually a problem but I almost always sit in the front. I'm sorry if I've ever distracted you, as I'll admit, sometimes I get sidetracked in class and look something up. Usually it's related to the course but I'm not perfect. That's my general feeling about this. What do you think? Dr. Coyne?
I figured I would post this eventually, I suppose now is as good a time as ever...I posted a video (not this one) for my brother's birthday a few years back and realized that I enjoyed making youtube videos. Then I made this one on a sunday afternoon while my wife did the dishes (yeah I know). It had a small run for awhile and after about 2 years now has over 200 hits. That's no where near viral but it's funny to have old friends see me and tell me they saw my video.
I started these videos as more of a privately public thing and they turned into more of a publicly private thing (hopefully I'm using the terms correctly). It's funny how you can put a side of yourself out on the web that you don't normally show to others. It's even funnier to me how after awhile you don't care anymore.
I wrote this post almost a month ago. I say this because there is some sort of pride in addressing something before we do in class. I didn't have time to finish it and became busy with other things but today's class was relevant so I decided to finish it up and post it.
So I'll bet many of you have seen this:
This was really popular when I was in high school. This was the first of many videos on the internet to be termed "viral" (the first is speculated to be "the dancing baby" ca. 1996). This particular youtube video has over 15 million views! However, it has been estimated that in 2006, only three years after the release of the video onto the net that the video had over 900M. The current view king of youtube has only 165M.
Viral videos are all over the place and most of us have seen well, all of them. "Chocolate Rain", "Tunak, Tunak, Tun", "The grape lady", "Lazy Sunday" if you haven't seen these you probably should, because they may be an answer on a game show you may be on someday. For the most part these videos are all in good fun for example "evolution of dance" is a comedy sketch, or "lazy sunday" which is a SNL skit they are meant to be seen and laughed at.
Then there are the ones that weren't meant to be funny but we laugh at like "Grape lady falls" which (I'll be honest) still makes me laugh. But is that ok? Is it really ethical to let these videos just post all around the world? Or should libel/slander laws be expanded to apply here? I don't honestly know but it's something to think about.
Let's look at a few examples:
The grape lady, this lady reported for Fox news out of D.C. that means that everyone watching the news saw this, plus the over 5.5 million views on youtube plus everyone that saw the episode of Family Guy plus everyone that then saw the Family Guy clip on youtube. That's a lot of people, how would you like your most embarrassing moment of all time to be broadcast to 10 million people? I wouldn't, now in the case of the grape lady she's doing ok, she works in New England somewhere or something as a reporter. But what about old Ghyslain?
That's right Ghyslain, Ghyslain Raza? A.K.A. "The starwars kid", this poor guy was already an awkward teenager when this video came out it didn't help that his shame was posted all over the web. If you don't know the story poor Ghyslain taped this video in the schools studio and then forgot to erase it. Some peers of his found the tape digitized it and posted it on the net. I remember feeling that this would have been my dream, me fighting with my sweet lightsaber for all the world to see! I would be the closest thing to a real Jedi Knight, MTV would interview me, I'd start a franchise which Lucas Films would purchase we're talking merchandise, autographs maybe a talk show. All that happening is really a long shot but I had an avid imagination. It wasn't the same for Ghyslain though, in fact his parents filed a lawsuit against the kids, they ended up settling out of court but he still had a hard time with it. I looked him up on facebook hoping to find a huge fan site for him but no he (if it really was him) was just a normal guy, I think he had about a hundred friends which means he doesn't just let anyone jump in. Poor kid, he probably gets more friend requests in a day than I have in my entire facebook career, which isn't saying much.
It's interesting to say the least, the latest viral video which pokes fun of someone that I've seen is John Daker. Some poor christian guy got up to sing a song made a couple mistakes and now he's famous. I kinda hope he's dead now. Let me clarify that by saying I hope he's dead so he doesn't have to feel the embarrassment.
Last and not least is B-money. He's in my ward, his name is Bryan. He's a nice guy but he's got a few issues. The interesting thing about his videos is he puts them up seriously, but they're deemed as a joke. At the same time they are pretty good. I think this case is particularly interesting because you have someone who is thinking "wow I'm getting really famous and popular in a good way" but it's almost the exact opposite.
So what do you do about videos like this? I haven't even got into sex tape scandals. Or the snowboarder who dropped out of the olympics because of his pictures. The fact is whether he have cameras implanted in our eyes or not a lot of our lives are on film and a lot of film is on the net. I mean shoot, Dr. Coyne had her marriage proposal taped and she never even knew it. Crazy stuff.
Every march I look forward to filling out my bracket. The first time I ever did this was the '99 tournament. I remember getting into it because of some friends at school. Since then my family has started putting together a bracket group every year and for the most part everyone really gets into it. It's interesting to me how media has been able to do this. You can watch every game online and you can all post your brackets online for everyone to see. It makes it possible for the whole family to do something together that they wouldn't be able to do otherwise. Even when I was on my mission my dad would send me a bracket and I would blindly fill it out (having no idea what had happened during the basketball season. Last year when my wife and I were in Romania and my brother in Brazil and my family in St. Louis we were still able to come together via the NCAA tourney online and via mail. I think it's a pretty cool thing.
Today at church everyone was talking about it, especially BYU and KUs losses. It was a common topic that you could feel comfortable talking to just about anyone about. In reality the media has made it that way, without the internet and television it wouldn't be able to reach as many people as it does. In fact sports in general, like the weather in some respects, are common to most everyone. I had a friend who was really into sports and he boasted that because he knew so much about sports he could strike up a conversation with almost anyone, and it was true. Almost anyone he met he would try to talk sports to them and was successful in building friendships because of it. It is something that most everyone at least knows a little bit about and so we all hold it in common and it's because the media makes it widely available.
What a nail-biter! I can't believe how emotionally involved I was. I feel really mixed about the results, while I believe that the movie played a role I'm not so sure that it means Oliver Stone and co. should give any compensation. Weren't there greater factors? If Oliver Stone pays then shouldn't the parents of the assailants pay? What about their peers who socialized them? The dealer of the LSD? You could go on forever. In reality media has an effect great or small and that effect size can be mediated/moderated by other factors such as LSD. I think the lesson learned is don't watch a crazy violent movie, when you're psychologically unstable and tripping on LSD.
Ultimately the whole thing was a lot of fun. I'll admit I had a good time being Richard Rhodes. I should apologize to Rowell Huesmann for calling "her" a "biased and a poor scientist" that seemed to be what he said in his article though, not directly but it was implied. My compliments to the prosecution as well they did a phenomenal job! I couldn't believe some of the objections they were pulling out, crazy.
I've been running a question over and over in my head for the past few days. It all started with the sexual content assignment. I watched Lost, Community and Chopped. Chopped and Lost were void of sexual content but Community was not. In this particular episode one of the characters didn't want to play pool in a gym uniform so he quit the class. Then after realizing that if he was secure with who he was that changing "his style" was okay, so he decided to play in the uniform. He played against the gym coach who taunted him consistently about how he loved clothes more than pool. This lead to both of them ripping off their clothes and playing nude for the victory. And now the question i've been pondering for over a week is: "is that sexual content?" "is that sensual content?" I first watched this episode with a couple of guys. The one laughed hysterically, the other didn't react to basically any part of the show. When I saw this section I wasn't offended nor did I think it was weird. The big question that this has brought to mind is, what is sexual content? I'm not exactly sure but I do believe that we are very confused about this in society today.
I asked my wife about this and she said that for a woman watching the show this was sexual content. I thought about it some more and realized that if two women would have done the same thing I would have felt it much more strange and inappropriate than a couple of guys. Thus sexual content is different for genders and also can depend on the sexual orientation of the person. In our ever-changing world this type of differentiation is common in many aspects of life. For example, when I go to the gym I generally take a shower. It doesn't bother me to shower with men, I've done it since high school and it's not a big deal. However, I've noticed that some guys do not shower in the public showers but prefer the private stalls, I'd say this comes from an obvious discomfort with naked men or being naked with naked men. Which regardless of sexual orientation could make a person feel awkward, it was a very awkward thing when I began taking showers after sports practices in high school but after time became fairly commonplace. Personally I do not feel that showering is a sexual experience however I do feel that because nudity has become synonymous with sex, showering has consequently become a "sexual" experience for some people. Let me now clarify that I am not demeaning people who dislike showering with others I'm simply saying that our culture has sexualized something that in the past (i.e. Turkish or Roman baths) was not sexual, and the current reactions are caused by contemporary trends in thinking.
Another example of this is breast-feeding. While many college freshman scoff at Freud's psychosexual theory, specifically the oedipus complex, they seem also to believe it. Even in Utah where breast-feeding in public is legal many refer to it as strange and seem as though they would consign the mother to privacy as if the experience between mother and child was too intimate for a public setting. While I don't believe this is true, generally people show a fair amount of disdain for public breast-feeding. I'll be honest, I felt the same way in the past but since my wife began to breast-feed I have felt quite a bit different. It seems to me that this act is a quintessential part of mothering. The attitude that many in American culture have about breast-feeding is best highlighting when viewed in contrast with other cultures. Almost every foreign missionary has a story about a woman breast-feeding in a lesson and how it was "so weird". It obviously wasn't weird for the woman or for her husband sitting next to her. However, it was for the missionary, to the point that in some cases they have to leave because they couldn't focus. This is an obvious difference in culture and another thing which we've overly sexualized. Is breast-feeding sexual content, a lot of people react to it as if it is.
Who has been doing their scripture reading lately? If you have you may or may not have noticed that we skipped some chapters in Genesis. The chapters that we skipped have to do with sex. Namely Lot's daughters involving themselves with their father to preserve their seed. Later Jacob's sons become heavily involved in a wide variety of sexual sins. Is that sexual content? Yes. But should we have clearplay for the Bible? Or are we supposed to be mature enough to handle these types of situations and realize why they were written. Genesis is a revelation given to Moses from God. God told Moses about these encounters. However, we skip over them because our society today can't handle it, it would be way too difficult to handle something like this in sunday school because sex has become so taboo.
Ultimately what I'm trying to say is that sensual and sexual have become the same thing. People don't even talk to their children about sex because it's become such an awkward topic. I'm not really sure why but I think it's because we have over-sensualized sexuality. It's no longer just a biological function. It seems to me that what is termed as sexual and sensual is really a personal thing. Everyone reacts differently, this was illustrated nicely by Dr. Coyne's story of her mom giving the book to the neighbor. Or by reactions to the Twilight series. Personally, I think it's silly. I think we need to differentiate between sexual and sensual. Sexuality is an important part of life, our kids need to know about it, we need to know about it. However, when are children turn to media for answers what they get is typically sensual. They tend to get a bastardized version of sex when parents are unwilling to talk about such an important subject. Perhaps by sorting this out we can reduce some of the confusion and put a more definitive label on sexual and sensual.
I love google. Typically I have a difficult time with giant tech conglomerates (i.e. microsoft) but I really wouldn't mind if google took over the world. It would be the best for everyone since all of their services are basically free. This morning a coworker and I were working to convince another coworker of the incredible power of google. We talked about everything from gmail to google docs, to sending texts via gchat all the way to chronium a new OS coming out for netbooks. If you haven't heard of it don't worry you'll probably end up using it someday. (The same goes for google wave). Google has essentially put my entire life online from the blogs I post on to the projects that I work on for school. I don't need a flash drive and really I'm losing reasons to have a laptop. These are just a few of the ways that Google is using media to make our lives more efficient, connected and wonderful. Thanks Google.
So while studying for the test I read something I didn't remember. I think it was in the book but I'm not sure, anyway whatever it was said that Media was the plural of medium and a medium is a means of doing something...Wow, that's really broad but thinking about this made me expand my view of media quite a bit. So I thought about this tonight at the hunger banquet, if you've never been before they divide everyone up into three classes: really rich, rich and poor. My wife, son and I were poor and ate beans and rice and drank water out of plastic sacks. Meanwhile they have people walking around acting as tourists and then a couple others who are personifying greed and corruption. These people will sell you things, for example one couple near us bought two seats next to the keynote speaker at the "really rich" table for twenty bucks. Later they came around selling, hot dogs and chips, which was the food for the rich people, the really rich people were served food from Tucanos on big platters and were waited on. The whole point is to use this experience as a medium through which they can teach more about hunger/development in low SES nations. Plus the extra money people pay is donated to help people in parts of the world where it is needed. It was a really cool experience. Not only did I learn a lot about international development but it expanded my view of media. We really do live in a media saturated world.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
a screw driver that he'll pass it just fine! (i think this might post in 6 separate posts)
t!" or something close to it. What a way to scare a new parent! But she insists on watching it. The good news is that i know now that if my son swallows
l of that was a lot of fun to write but pointless. I really wanted to post about this show my wife keeps watching on tlc called "your child swallowed tha
ffordable for the average student but for now i'll just have to deal with a phone and an ipod touch with spotty wifi that i won at a football game. Ok al
e it because of peer pressure to put pictures in my posts. That's right i'm doing this via text so no photos, hopefully one day mobile internet will be a
This is my first mobile blog post which probably in and of itself deserves a post. I set this up to be more efficient in my school work but i haven't don
