It’s not exactly as I would have liked it to be because I am extremely neurotic about this sort of thing, but I think that I accomplished what I set out to do. About two weeks back when I was first given this assignment, I thought about the various important and/or controversial topics that I could cover. I wanted this to be interesting, I wanted it to hit a nerve – preferably a strong one. I have for a long while now stood very strongly in favor of equal rights for homosexuality. I think those ideals drove me to the topic that I ended up with on this project. When I started, I thought about the boys and young men who had committed suicide this past year because they had been bullied, because of ignorance, and because of hate. I felt sympathy and sadness for those boys and wanted to somehow put that cold reality into this assignment.
I fist thought of a logical progression of events, possibly how things may have played out in the minds of these boys – first they fall in love, then others disapprove and this lessens their self esteem. They start cutting, then end their life. That is generally what my intro mash-up consisted of. However, with the addition of music and video, I was able to take this idea to an entirely different, broader level. I was able to incorporate more than just bullying. It was the intolerance to homosexuality in general that causes the homosexuals to harm themselves, and to receive harm and hate from others.
I incorporated a news cast about a man who had been beaten nearly to death due to the fact that he was a homosexual. I also incorporated a clip of a man stating his true feelings about what should be done with homosexuals in our country. That man is from the well known Westboro Baptist Church – a group who spreads their hatred of “fags” all over the United States as they picket anything from an elementary school to the funeral of a U.S. soldier, with signs that read “God Hates Fags,” “Thank God for 9/11,” and so forth.
I took my first music audio clip from a film that I watched while researching material for this project. The film is entitled The Most Hated Family in America and it follows the Westboro Baptist Church. The song is by Johnny Cash and is entitled God’s Gonna Cut You Down. I felt like sound of this song captured the bitter and hard emotions that relate to feelings of inequality. While it played I chose to show images of the hateful signs that are shown by the Westboro church, as well as a hateful stare, a depressed young man, a progression to hanging himself, and finally gravestones to symbolize death. I also used audio clips from a speech which President Barack Obama gave shortly after the suicides of the 6 young men, whose faces are included within my presentation. His voice speaks while the images are being shown, and the cold Johnny Cash song remains in the background.
I attempted to remain consistent by keeping with President Obama’s speech while switching the music to Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy. I decided to change the music so that the viewer could recognize a significant change in tone. Obama’s words also change in tone and are reassuring rather than sad. He continues to speak as images flash of hands holding with a gay pride flag between them, gay men in the midst of loving embraces and kisses, a hug representing acceptance, and a peace sign formed with lit candles. Here’s hoping that my message came across clearly. Cheers.

I hoped to show that while love is true and beautiful in all forms, homosexuals are often harmed or worse, harm themselves due to intolerance or ignorance. In this project I showed the faces of the 6 boys and young men who committed suicide just months ago as a result of their bullying. I hope that the message is conveyed clearly.

While it seems to me that  Facebook users give out more personal information that sits around on their profile all the time, they seem to censor themselves a bit when writing on people’s walls, posting photos, and commenting on statuses.  Why? Because mom is on Facebook now, and she might not like to see a picture of you nearly falling over with urine on your pants after having drank too much.

whoopsies!

Did I speak too soon?

Twitter is a bit of a different story. While Facebook users might be a bit surprised to find that their favorite networking site is betraying them by letting out their personal information to the world, even with personal settings, Twitter users give that information out without the site having to lift a finger. That seems to be why they sign up! Users on Twitter appear to feel free to write all about themselves, all the time. Whether it’s something you’d like to get off your chest, a picture of yourself, or a link that you think others would like, it’s all about you – all about the user. Generally speaking, I would say that all 18 of the “tweeters” that I currently follow are not only aware of their information being so incredibly public, but want it to be so. I can gather this from the outrageous amount of “tweets” and followers that each one has. Here are a few of the top dogs:

impressive following for a reality star

Generally Snooki’s tweets consist of her day, photoshoots, or drunken ramblings. The last one might be the reason for her high following.

tweets galore!

Apparently celebrity news requires a new tweet every hour of every day. Many times twice hourly.

what have I subscribed myself to?

I’m not completely insane. Check out who’s got the most followers on my list.

I think I’d be upset if anyone else had more followers

nice try.

All of these people voluntarily offer up their information. So, is it of the site’s fault, or of their own?

Example of an event page on Facebook (P.S. McDaniel students, you should totally come to this!)

Many of the features that Facebook offers are meant to attract a certain type of user to the website, as the creators “seek to craft users with particular dispositions who behave in particular ways online, and how it disciplines dissent on its site.” (503) These users enjoy displaying their information, and become attached to the website so much so that they not only like to have email updates sent to their email address, but also to their phone, where they can also access Facebook any time, anywhere. These are just the type of users that the website likely wants to attract – those who find a “technologicaly mediated space that is a pedagogical tool shaped by popular culture, where corporate, government, community, and individual contexts overlap” (504) to be appealing.
So, what is the final verdict then? Do we create this online “habitus” on our own, or is it the creation of our corporate overlords? Could be both. Either way, I’m hooked. You decide for yourself.

Upon reading Bryan Alexander’s article, Web 2.0: A New Wave of Innovation for Teaching and Learning? , I came across two websites with similar formats which I intend to compare within this blog post. The two sites that I have in mind are Writeboard and Google Docs. Both websites have set out to make collaborative writing on the web considerably more efficient. While the sites have many similar qualities, each has its own unique qualities which may cause a user to prefer one over the other. The two are alike in that they both promote the invitation of friends, family, classmates, colleagues, etc. to participate in writing a document, or, one can write on their own.

Both are also completely free and open to the public, yet require a user account in order to create and access information. A useful feature within both websites is the ability for each person involved in the writing process to revise the document from their own computer. For instance, Google Docs allows the user to click on a link to view the document in its various stages of development.

While both sites have their strong points, Google Docs far surpasses Writeboard in several areas. For instance, while Google Docs is compatible with several browsers, Writeboard is limited in that the site only guarantees compatibility with three browsers:

Google Docs is also superior in that it offers an enormously large array of additional tools and features that are not included in the Writeboard package. Just to list a few, Google Docs offers the ability to create spreadsheets similar to Microsoft Excel, slideshow presentations similar to Microsoft PowerPoint, and customizable graphs – all of which can be embedded within your documents.

Google Docs presentation maker

Google Docs drawings

These features would be incredibly useful to students, business associates, teachers, or anyone looking to share a document with a friend – all of which are qualities that both sites list for their intended users. This leads me to state that Google Docs comes out on top in this comparison.