Just Add Water and Blog

          The article, “Semiotic Domains: Is playing Videogames a waste of time?” discusses different forms of literacy.  The article brings up valid points that I normally would not consider literacy to be.  Literacy is language which means that images, symbols, and graphs are all forms of literacy; as the article states this is true, but not a concept I often think about.  This started a chain of thinking.  Does this mean that literacy includes paintings, sculptures and music because all of that can be part of a culture?  As I continued to read on, the article mentions that some other forms of literacy are rap songs, academic essays, and super-hero comics therefore I think that music and paintings are definitely forms of literacy.

            I think that because this article defends the argument that videogames are part of literacy, I have come to form the following opinion.  I think that there can be many forms of literacy, but instead of grouping them into just “literacy,” there are different genres of literacy.  For example, I think there is a creative literacy in which paintings, sculptures, poetry, music, and other forms of free-writing fit into.  I think there is an academic literacy that reading, academic essays, and other writing for school fits into. I also think there should be a genre for practical literacy in a culture such as recognizing driving signs, and being able to read a map.

Then there is miscellaneous literacy in which videogames, and comic strips fit into for example.  Video games can be educational as the article mentions, and if it is helping a child to learn different parts of culture such as colors then I think it should definitely be recognized as a form of literacy. I don’t see anything wrong with classifying videogames as a form of literacy as long as it’s recognized that it’s not the same as picking up a book to read.  Three year olds can play videogames appropriate for their age level, but they can’t pick up a book and read the entire thing.  Saying that a three year old is literate in videogames and literate in reading are two separate ideas; as long as it’s specified as to what genre of literacy is being referred to I see no problem with saying videogames are forms of literacy.

  In a class I am currently taking we are discussing the topic of bilingualism. I thought this topic and the essay I read were really interesting and I wanted to share it with this blog.  I realize that there are many advantages to having a bilingual society, however there are far more reasons and factual information that prove otherwise. I personally do not think that we should have bilingualism. If you make the decision to move to America, then you should realize you must learn our language and respect our laws and morals. If your religion and beliefs conflict what we stand for and do not wish to speak English, then you should not be living here. The passage Bilingualism in America: English Should Be the Only Language has clear examples and factual information that bilingualism will be a detriment to our country. “Communicating with each other in a single, common tongue encourages trust, while reducing racial hostility and bigotry.” If people are speaking numerous different languages then it will form a communication barrier between neighbors, friends and co-workers. Also as said in the quote, speaking in different languages causes racist feelings for many and causes hostility between native Americans and the new immigrants. “Bilingualism is a costly and confusing bureaucratic nightmare. The Canadian government has estimated is bilingual costs to be nearly $400,000,000 per year…The United States has ten times Canada’s population.”  Our country is already in debt and does not need to be spending more money on programs for something that angers countless American citizens. India has ten official languages and this has led to “countless problems in the government’s efforts to manage the nations business.” We have first hand experience from India that bilingualism causes problems, so why would we waste money and our efforts to implement this new idea. Bilingualism is an idea with good intentions; however it will clearly cause more tribulations than intended.

While reading the essay about video games the topic of semiotics came up. Literacy is so much more than purely reading, writing and speaking. There are so many types of literacy that we do not even realize have an affect on our everyday lives. Video games are just one on many types of literacy. The use of gestures is a type of literacy that many people hardly notice they use in daily life. While walking around campus I see many of my friends going to and from class. Instead of saying hello I will sometimes just wave my hand. The wave of a hand signifies hello or goodbye. Another example of gesture communication is if two friends walk into a library talking, and a librarian puts her pointer finger to her lips. This gesture implies “quiet” and the librarian didn’t have to say a word; she only used a hand signal to communicate a word. Without speaking or writing people can communicate through hand, body and eyes movements. A person can be completely literate in a conversation of gestures, however not be able to write or speak in the language.  I have had many experiences in other countries when I could not communicate with a native person of the country, but by simply using gestures I was able to become partially literate in their language simply by using gestures.

            Facial expressions are a large factor within literacy. People can tell someone’s mood simply by a facial expression. You can tell if someone is happy, sad, bored or tired by the change in facial movements. Without saying a word or writing anything you can communicate merely by your facial expression. For example, if a student is sitting in the back of a classroom with his or her head resting in their hands and a blank face, the teacher will make the assumption that the student is extremely bored and tired. Mark Bowden, a body language specialist says that body language, hand gestures and facial expressions can say more to an audience than the words spoken. I think that there is so much more to literacy than just the typical definition and video games are not a waste of time for those who understand the language.

           In the article, “Understanding “Internet plagiarism”, by Rebecca Moore Howard I found it also very ironic and funny that people would buy a paper for an academic course to hand into the professor on the subject “plagiarism”! The article was about plagiarizing and how the Internet makes it so easy for plagiarism. It is awful that people knowingly take information off the Internet and students use it in their papers as if it was their own work. But, it is not as if plagiarism is new. People were able to plagiarize textbooks before the Internet was available. The Internet is indeed faster and easier to find information but it is a very helpful place to find good information for a research paper, if the student cites the information correctly.

            In Module #1 in Introduction to Writing Arts one of the main purposes of the class was to fully understand plagiarism. There are many aspects, rules, and definitions for plagiarism and it is important for people to fully understand the severity of the problem with plagiarizing.  I never realized how much of an issue plagiarizing was in the academic standpoint. I just always thought it was known that not citing someone else’s work is cheating. It is so crazy to me that there are so many websites available for people to cheat for academic papers. By stealing work from other people it is not going to make help you succeed it will only hurt you. Maybe people think since the Internet is so full of information that maybe the professor will not find out that they are cheating? Or maybe they do not think their professor or teacher is Internet savvy and will not even see the difference? 

It was so interesting to read this article “We Are the Web,” written by Kevin Kelly and also watch the video on YouTube by Wesch “The Machine is Us/ing Us”. The quotation that really summarized my feelings towards viewing the evolution of text and hypertext is on page 2 of the Web article, “Not only did we fail to imagine what the Web would become, we still don’t see it today! We are blind to the miracle it has blossomed into. And as a result of ignoring what the Web really is, we are likely to miss what it will grow into over the next 10 years.” I never thought about the hyperlinks and how everything works on the Web, and I can not believe I never knew anything about the subject because I am on the Web multiple times a day, clicking around and going page to page on the Internet. It was also interesting to find that people were against the Internet in the beginning of its creation. Newsweek had a headline: “THE INTERNET? BAH!” I would regret writing a headline like that now, especially considering how much the Internet has helped people with research, reading, academics, communication, shopping, etc. But, I am like that too when something new comes out because it is hard for me to catch onto new things and understand how they work.

In the video on YouTube it was surprising to see how much the computer and Web has evolved. The opening of the video was a great way to show the start- writing with a pencil and paper and having to erase the words and add words with arrows. Then being able to compose words and sentences on Microsoft Word and how much easier it was to erase and add different words. I also never looked at the Web as being every single persons space and creation. But, now I do understand that it is the people that add websites, photos, blogs, Wikipedia and all different types of people are the ones that make the Web work. I just can not believe that I use the Web everyday and never knew the work that went into it. I wonder if every person is going to miss what the Web is going to be in 10 years?

          It is amazing that Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook in his dorm room at Harvard. Facebook is a website that is constantly talked about and used by millions every single day. It is unbelievable that Zuckerberg is only 23 and can be the “nation’s richest man under 25, with a net worth estimated at $1.5 billion”. The website is a great site for communicating with friends and family. I am signed onto Facebook many times throughout the day. I sign on a lot and it is the only website that I notice the changes and updates. It was also good to see how and why the changes were made for Facebook, I always see the changes but I did not understand it was to keep people’s interest. At first I hated that high school students were able to sign onto Facebook, because I loved the fact that it was just for college kids. I was never a member on MySpace and the reason why I did not like that website was because every person was able to have an account. I like how Facebook is a site for friends that are already acquaintances, and I also did not know that was Zuckerberg’s purpose. It was great to keep in contact with close friends from high school when heading off to college. It made it easier to move away and still stay in contact with friends. It was also great to see the pictures that they were able to post online for every one to see who their new friends are and what they are doing at school.

           Now, every person can have a Facebook account and check out what Facebook has to offer. Unfortunately my PARENTS wanted to know what the hype was all about and they have accounts. So embarrassing. My step-dad thought it would be funny to “friend request” my best girlfriends and send them embarrassing messages about me. But, it was all for a joke and to mock my friends and I about how much we go on Facebook. My mom signed up for an account because a year ago one of my brother’s best friends passed away and they made a group in dedication for the friend. My mom wanted to check it out, read the messages and look at pictures, which was fine and good for a parent to see something amazing like that happen on Facebook. I wonder if there are going to be any new websites in a couple years that are spin-offs from Facebook?

In the article, “Naked in the ‘Nonopticon”, written by Siva Vaidhyanathan, I am able to relate to the people that protested against “Newsfeed” on Facebook. I was not an actual protestor but I did not like the new application when I logged onto my account and saw that my name was on the newsfeed and exactly what I wrote on my best friend’s wall yesterday. I understand why the Facebook executives were surprised by the upset because they assumed that every single person did not care about privacy because they are on Facebook for everyone to see anyway. But it was just the thought of having everything you do on Facebook posted for everyone to see. Before newsfeed if people wanted to find out what I was doing they would have to search on people’s profiles for traces of my comments or go to my personal Facebook page. It seemed as if Facebook was making it easier for people to stalk, and people did not have to do any work or search for people and friends recent activity because it was right there as soon as they logged on.

            “Through a combination of weak policies, vapid public discussions, and some remarkable technologies like camera phones and the Internet, we have less and less control over our reputations every day.”  Privacy issues are very confusing and confrontational in today’s society, especially on Facebook. Friends can post pictures on the Internet without your permission for the world to see. We need to constantly be aware of how we are projecting our identity and as soon as your picture is on the Internet it is there for everyone to see. Because of all the recent technologies people’s privacy seems as if it no longer exists. Doesn’t it seem like people in today’s society want personal information out about them? Why are Facebook and MySpace so popular even when people complain about privacy issues? 

            The article “Naked in the Nonopticon” brought up many good points.  First, Siva Vaidhyanathan talks about Facebook and how its executives mistakenly assumed that their members were not the sort who cared very much about personal privacy.  I can completely see how this presumption was made, but the fact that so many college students are on the network must also be taken into consideration.  Not every student is the laid back, wild college attendee.  Some are actually quite private and do not want their personal information to pop up on the newsfeed.  However, I do like that Facebook takes the concerns of its users into consideration.  When people protest their problems, Facebook does a great job of reformatting the issue, like in the case of allowing its users to turn off the newsfeed application. 

Also in the article, Vaidhyanathan talks about how our life is being lived in public whether we acknowledge it or not.  The example of NSA was given and how it owns our phone calls.  Honestly, I do not mind this at all if safety is concerned.  Especially after September 11^th, I could care les if people listen to my phone calls.  If there are things people should not be saying, or that jeopardize the safety of others, then they need to be recorded.

Lastly, I wanted to comment on the part about how people are denied second chances with recent technological advances.  Camera phones, for example, provide the opportunity so people have less and less control over everyday reputations.  Vaidhyanathan’s opinion on the subject is that it’s just plain un-American.  However, I agree with Solove and think that in some ways, we have become our own enemy.  New inventions such as the camera phone and internet advances like you tube make it hard to keep things in our lives personal.  It was only a matter of time.

            The article by Howard in regards to plagiarism poses the question, “Why would increased access to text cause a dramatic rise in plagiarism?”  I think there are couple answers to this question. There are two types of students when it comes to plagiarizing and that is lazy students or students who honestly make mistakes, occasionally.  The fact that there is an increased access to text would cause a significant rise in plagiarism regardless of what kind of student someone is.  There is always going to be someone who would rather take the easy way out and pay to have their term paper done for them, or take information off the internet to shorten their time.  The other student is a bit more complicated.

            I attended a previous university before this one, and for my writing classes we had to submit a paper into “Turnitin.com” which is mentioned in the article.  I had no problem doing this because my work is always original; however the article brings up a valid point.  In some ways this is a violation of students’ rights. This is where the other student comes into play.  It is a fact that there is so much information on the internet.  What if someone else’s wording is similar somewhere out there in cyberspace?  Should a student be faulted if they unknowingly have unoriginality in their paper?  I always wondered after submitting a paper in through “Turnitin.com” because it reads over so many sources on the internet, I personally would be curious to know how many papers come back with 0% plagiarizing due to the fact of increased text on the internet.

            My other argument with this issue is that a teacher should somewhat be able to tell if one of their students is plagiarizing; maybe not in the beginning of the year, but after spending a decent amount of time during the school day with them.  I think a teacher could generally tell if the wording is not what the student would normally use. 

            Another question the article raised was if students are more unethical today.  I don’t think students are more unethical, I just think it is easier to plagiarize and it’s easier to detect plagiarism.  I’m sure years ago there were still lazy students that existed it was just more of a challenge to detect it and I imagine harder to plagiarize because of the lack of online sources.  If a student put in their citation that they used a book and the wording was alarmingly not cohesive with that students’ writing capabilities a teacher could easily go to that book and see for herself/himself if the student in fact plagiarized.

            Howard says that 2.6 million students access websites such as “schoolsucks.com” each month to have their term papers done for them.  That’s a disturbing statistic.  I don’t know what the solution is.  Are students too overwhelmed with work that they need a quick way in order to turn in their papers or are students becoming lazier with each generation?  I don’t know, but it’s unfortunate to see those kinds of results.

              This article brought up many valid points regarding the privacy of the public today.  As more technology emerges, the more risk the public is at stake for complications with identity, and false accusations.  I do believe that some of the reasons why some people have more complications than others is because of the amount of information you choose to release.  Some issues can’t be controlled such as what our Government has access to, and pictures being taken by the public, but issues on facebook, you just need to be careful of the amount of detailed information you choose to post.

            There were two instances that really upset me after reading the article.  The one was about the boy who recorded a video about himself imitating a Starwars character, and then his classmates found it and posted it on the internet.  They edited it to embellish making fun of him more and then publicized it.  The boy was basically traumatized and his parents had to move away from the town. That’s absolutely disgraceful.  I understand the boy identified with this Starwars character and so what if he made a recording of it? Maybe he just wanted that for his own personal reasons and didn’t want anyone else to see it.  His peers had no right posting that information without the boy’s permission.

            The second incident was with a woman walking her dog in the city and not picking up after the dog went to the bathroom.  I have a dog.  Every time I walk him and he goes to the bathroom I carry around a plastic bag to pick it up; however I wouldn’t judge this woman as hard as the public has.  No one knows the circumstances. Maybe she was taking a long drive with her dog and she didn’t have a bag on her and the dog had to go to the bathroom. Maybe this was her very first time leaving her dog’s waste on the ground. Everyone makes a mistake here and there, I just think it is so unfortunate that you have to worry about every little thing you do once you leave the house.

            People are constantly being judged and I don’t think it’s fair.  It’s reality but it’s not fair.  There is always some kind of story behind an action and a picture is just the surface meaning.  No one knows the real circumstances, and for a woman to be harassed because someone happened to catch her not picking up after her dog is simply ridiculous.  I think people who spend their time watching others and trying to humiliate other peers need to either enroll in some more classes or get another job or a job at all because they clearly have way too much time on their hands.