Education is Broken!

I could listen to Sir Ken Robinson all day long, and it is not because of his witty British self. I love what he stands for and believes.  When you love something one hour feels like 5 minutes. We need to be allowed to pursue what we love! Also while he was talking he quoted so many other people. It was textuality; so many ideas brought into one!

This is broken. So true people do not want to fix something that is broken because a) it is not their job b) jerk c) they don’t need to use it d) designed for people who will understand it and not everyone else. That is our education system. People are not taking the initiative to recreate education because they are hypnotized from the past.

Seeing the texts and Multiple Media I enjoyed because I want to do my Critical photo essay about text/typography and how it keeps evolving.  I enjoyed how the article said, “Though classroom teaching often assumes essay organization as the norm, outside the classroom visually informative prose is pervasive, and not just in scientific or technical fields (P.67)” 

Overall I picked up on the point of this weeks design theme. The articles and videos talked about our lethargic epidemic in education and choosing not to evolve. But IT IS OUR JOB. A few should not be responsible for everyone’s education. We should all be responsible. We need to do what Sir Ken Robinson, “We need a education revolution! By doing this we need to take savvy multimedia makers and combine them with brilliant educator and make a new way of learning.”

I am just super excited because I love this idea and it makes me feel like I will have good job security if I stick with filmmaking! Also I just love filmmaking in general. I find it so sad when people don’t know what makes them happy. My mother always said “Do something you love and you will never work a day in your life!” I also feel privileged because my parents were amazing at telling me what I was good at. I think our parents and teachers play major parts in speaking into our lives. How do we know we are good at things unless people affirm us from time to time. What do you guys think?

Critical Photo Essay

The Power of TYPOGRAPHY

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. We see type everywhere. In magazines, movies, on buildings, clothes, coffee cups, billboards, cars, cell phones…on everything! Many believe because this is the digital age that type will one day become desolate and disappear because of motion media, but the truth is, Typography is going nowhere! In fact, everyone in mass communication is using it and it is a powerful emotional tool!

So for my Critical Photo Essay the question I will be researching is "Typography and it’s influence in our society." I will compile a photo montage of type being used all around us to portray its power, discuss a short documentary called Helvetica and how that one font changed a generation, show how typography is being used in our generation through mass communication and conduct interviews to ask the general public what they think will happen to type.

Overall my hypothesis of this research will prove that typography is not going out of style but the exact opposite. It will show that is a power tool in influencing society and that all though it is changing the way it looks it will remain here forever! 

About Me

I love technology...

About a month ago I did a facebook fast. I told myself I could not sign on for two weeks because it was consuming my time. The first couple days were tricky; it was a complete reflex to sign on to facebook. But after the first week I had so much time to do other things, it was liberating! It was odd to think though that people were not being updated about my life, they had no idea where I was or what I was doing. I was into the wild! But sadly to say I am back on the radar and facebooking away.  We are addicted to technology.

Those videos done by Michael Wesch are completely true! In class we are either facebooking, texting, or tuning out the professor by some form of device. I regrettably can pass a class by going to the lectures, taking a few dinky notes and reading a couple chapters. I love to learn but I get so bored listening to the professor talk for three hours when we cannot have any participation. Most students are in the same boat as me. We know having a degree is important so we go get one, but do we actually learn anything while receiving it? I like classes like this where I can learn by a video, read some interesting articles then blog about it.

Here is the truth: A professor has earned the right to stand before hundreds of students and teach them. The problem is we are not an audience anymore that can be persuaded by a rhetor just standing there and lecturing to us. We need technology involved in our learning. In Geisler’s et al-l-Text article he says, “Rhetorical theory provides a repertoire of moves and strategies that

can be combined to create effective experiences for readers: repetition, emotion, narrative, segmentation, use of visuals and graphics, authority, and patterns of reasoning (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca). These can be adapted to IText to give producers and users the best chance of connecting in productive and meaningful ways.” If a professor wants to be effective in teaching us they need to use technology in a way that keeps our focus. It is not our professor’s job to force us to learn but it is their job to teach us the best they can and that involves molding into these new methods.

In the Pencils to Pixels article by Baron, continually he states that these amazing inventors were against new innovations. The truth is though that writing technologies will never stop evolving. Pencils will always be necessary but in some circumstances using a computer to type a paper is faster. In a decade something will be faster then typing on a computer, this is how our world works. I keep stating this but I am a film a major and one of the key things they teach us is to never stop evolving with new technology because things are becoming outdated fast and we will be outdated with it if don’t keep moving. This video is a perfect example of how photography will soon be replaced by film and technology (Outside Magazine). It is the same idea with learning in the classroom. We need to be innovative in teaching in a new way!

The last two articles have a lot in common with last weeks Intertextualty. We get ideas from bits and pieces of other author’s thoughts. In the wikipedia piece by Kohl, he discusses how “Opinions and considerations of different authors flow into a text… knowledge is not obtained in Wikis but designed in the tacklement with the positions of other participants during an interactive and collaborative writing process.” When people create a wikipedia page they are pulling information from a million sources to make one idea. It is awesome!

Overall the Pencils to Pixels article was my favorite because I love history and learning about innovation. I personally believe that we need to evolve with technology. But what is your guy’s opinion? Should college students get over our professors teaching styles or should professor making more innovative in the way they teach?

Ahhh...Did I get it right?!

Talk about a hurting brain, I didn’t know one word could have so many concepts! For the last 3 days I have been googleing and youtubing (Rhetoric Strategies) nonstop to find information on the word Rhetoric. It wasn’t till late tonight that the articles and videos started making minor sense. To be honest I had to watch the TEDtalk twice because my first thoughts were “How is this video rhetoric?” All I got out of it was that maybe I found a new appreciation for choir that I had hated before. Then I read the Keith Grant-Davie article and handout on the terms and it dawned on me…that was the whole point of the TEDtalk, to persuade me to like choir! Eric Whitacre was the Rhetor and I was the audience, and it was his exigence to open my eyes to the beauty of choir. The constraints were he was surrounded by a bunch of technological nerds (me being one of them!) that needed to be convinced that this “Virtual Choir” was something profound. But he used his credibility as a professional composer (Ethos) the physical youtube videos (logos) and emotion (Pathos) through the music and peoples testimonies to make me persuaded. GENIUS! After that light bulb the articles started making a little more sense. To me Rhetoric means a speaker or writer knows how to communicate to persuade an audience to believe something.

After reading, “What is Rhetoric?” and researching the history of Rhetoric, it seems that the term is as old as Adam and Eve! It was clearly used during Aristotle’s era and has now been modified continually throughout history.  On page 5 we get to see Covino and Jolliffe’s opinion of Rhetoric:

“Rhetoric is primarily a verbal, situationally contingent, epistemic art that is both philosophical and practical and gives rise to potentially active texts.” Quite the mouthful, but broken down I think it means Rhetoric is mainly spoken, to an audience during a certain time in history, that brings new knowledge to the table and persuades effectively. In the TEDtalk, Whitacre states that he thought choir was nerdy but once he finally surrendered to it he finally saw in Technicolor. Whitacre was using his past unbelief to connect to the audience because he knew we were still colorblind. Then when he shows us the video the audience stands and applauses him because now they can see in color, all these voices unified are made beautiful to us! Whitacre persuaded us just like how the article said it could be done!

When it comes to the intertextuality article I found it very interesting and I completely agree with it. Ecclesiastes 1: 9 “Is there anything new under the sun?” Can someone write or say something completely knew that has not been heard ever before? I agree on page 2 when it says “bits and pieces of Text which writers or speakers borrow and sew together to create new discourse.” In film school I had this professor always tell me, “Stop trying to create a new story, all your going to do is change dates and names.” Sounds depressing right? But if you actually stop trying to be the next Shakespeare and focus on making an idea better, then it is just as rewarding. In the videos Whitacre does not try to create the idea of a choir. He builds upon it to create a new way to appreciate a choir!

Overall I think I am getting the idea of Rhetoric. The articles can be confusing because I feel they could convey rhetoric in a simpler way but let me know if I am completely missing the whole idea of it! Could someone please explain to me the history of rhetoric a little better, that is the part I am the most confused about. When did it start? Who came up with it? 

About Me

Fellow Bloggers!
My name is Savannah Cove. I am a senior in Film at MSU and I am from the west coast. I love all sports but especially climbing, skiing and surfing. During my free time I enjoy playing the guitar, slack-lining and photography. One day I hope to travel all around the world with my video camera. This summer I am finishing up a couple classes so that I can graduate and then I plan to move to northern california to go to a ministry school. My faith is pretty much a huge part of my life, always has been and always will! I have 3 sisters, 1 brother, 1 nephew and 2 nieces. Recently, I just got back from New Zealand and Australia making a documentary for an organization. It was a fantastic trip and exactly what I would want my future career to look like.