The snow fall today reminded of the article by Bella English in the Boston Globe about snowplow parents. The term snowplow parents is a clever analogy for parents who are extremely over protective of their children and want to constantly clear any snow in their children’s path. More and more these types of parents are surfacing on the college level, and technology plays a role in their prominence.

In the article, English explains how snowplow parents are inserting themselves into their child’s lives at the college level. She gives examples of this intrusion such as one parent who called the dean of Boston University to complain about her child receiving a A- in a class. English continues by explaining the significance of the intrusion. By stepping into the lives of their child in such an aggressive manner, snowplow parents undermine the confidence of their child. Furthermore, the child will reach adulthood without understanding how to handle adversity because it has never been a part of their life.

Technology plays a large role in the creation of a snowplow parent relationship. With todays technology, it is possible to be in almost constant contact with your parents. Between text messages, emails, video chats and so on, people can easily maintain constant contact. The issue is that this constant contact pulls the student out of college life. It detracts from the college experience the student is supposed to receive. The student becomes reliant on connections to people and parents far away via technology and is less apt to succeed on his or her own.

I certainly have gone through a bit of a struggle with my parents upon going to college. They were very sad to see me leave their every day lives, and I know that if it was up to my mom I would have gone to Middlesex Community College five minutes from my house. Yet, over time my parents have gradually been able to surmount the difficulty of being apart. Now we text or call only about 4 times a week, still staying in close contact but not smothering me. I think the transition has gone as well as possible, and am grateful they are not full blown snowplow parents!

I thought that teaching at the middle school was a very interesting experience because the challenges of teaching and the challenges of conveying the ideas behind digital media. The teaching portion was more challenging than I expected. I was certianly grateful for the opportunity to work with the education class prior to our lesson because they pushed me to put more and more detail into my lesson, which helped a lot. When first thinking about teaching the lesson, it seems like it will be an easier thing to do than in reality. I found that getting the class going and brining them into the lesson was more difficult than expected, but one the students were engaged the lesson improved.

I think one of my mistakes was overestimating the intellectual capabilities of my class. Middle school is definitely a tricky time to tell who is at what stage in their learning curve, which made things more difficult. I found that my assumption that the students would be able to grasp the term of digital media grammar was a bit of a reach, but I think they still ended up enjoying the lesson. Hopefully it at least got them thinking more critically about what is going on behind the scenes of the digital media they consume each day. Also, I felt that maybe because the students are so entrentched in digital media on a daily basis, it was more difficult for them to break into the idea that there were things going on behind the scenes.

Overall, I felt it was a very cool experience. I feel that I learned a lot about teaching from the experience. Also, by trying to break down the concept of digital media grammar, I feel that my own grasp on the subject has grown immensely.

All this talk of teaching digital media over the past couple of weeks has led me to overcome a major personal obstacle. It is an experience that I have heavily repressed deep within myself. If you asked me about it a month ago, I would not have known it actually happened. But finally, after a great deal of emotional turmoil, the truth has surfaced.

I can remember it crystal clear like it was yesterday. I was in 4th grade and my class was set for our first trip to the computer lab to do some activities. Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t really remember that many specifics about the day. I wish I could remember what the activities were exactly. Oh got it! Look at me un-suppressing information as I go. Anyways, we were making our own magazines as a end of the year project. Here was little 4th grade Nick, coming into school pumped for the first trip to the computer lab to work on his magazine. I was doing a sports illustrated spin off about New England Sports. I had it all figured out. I was gonna do an article about the Patriots winning the Superbowl. I also had some sweet ideas for a special piece about the Superbowl rings themselves. Plus, I was going to get an awesome picture of Tom Brady drinking a glass of milk for my “Got Milk?” advertisement. It was supposed to be such a great day.

After lunch finally ended, our teacher brought the class in an orderly line to the computer lab. I’m not going to lie to you guys, but I was ready to tear it up in there. Once I got situated in my chair I eagerly awaited direction. Unfortunately, this girl Eliza, who I always thought was obnoxious and way less mature than me (obviously), sat next to me. But I was too amped up to let that kill my vibe. We were sitting in front of the chubby Mac Book desktops from the dark ages with the screens glowing in front of our faces when the teacher walked up through a basic lesson about how to search for images on google. Child’s play Mrs. Henny, I thought to myself about how easy this was going to be. Finally, Mrs. Henny wrapped up the talk and directed us to begin.

So here I am, surfing the web like a natural. I’m all up on Sports Illustrated’s website pulling some sweet Patriot pictures for my Superbowl page. Next thing you know, I’m editing an image of Tom Brady I found on Google, drawing on a little milk mustache and writing in the “Got Milk?.” Straight tunnel vision. I was in my own little world doing big things. That peace and serenity was soon to be broken. Eliza. She leaned over into my space and said, “Nick I’ve got something so cool to show you!” I was immediately upset by her interruption in my work time, but I just decided to let her do what she wanted to do so that I could rid myself of her as quickly as possible. Thus, after initially glaring over at her, I allowed her to take the help of my keyboard. Big mistake.

I sat there dumbfounded as I watched the letters B-O-O-B-S pop up on my Google image search window. I didn’t know much about boobs at the time, but I knew enough to know that now was not the time or place for them. As I jumped forward to reclaim control of my station, it was already to late. She had already pulled up an absurdly large pair of knockers onto the screen. I was helpless. I tried to get them off as quickly as possible, but Mrs. Henny looked over right at that moment. Needless to say, I had some explaining to do. Luckily Mrs. Henny immediately believed my story and Eliza got in big trouble. Yay. Still though, traumatizing stuff.

How does this relate to Digital Media Literacy might you ask? Well I don’t know. Maybe because it supports what the nice lady at MUMS, whose name I’m forgetting, explained about how technology is not foolproof. Filters are not perfect. I’m sure those computers I was working on had some serious filters, but still some things slip through the cracks. Also, this anecdote points to the importance in educating children at an early age about how to correctly and safely navigate the internet so they don’t run into boobs at the wrong time.

P.S. my magazine was unreal and if I had any copies you would totally want to buy one but I don’t.

-Nick

An interesting article came out last week about how Facebook can deduce relationships between users. Researchers at Cornell University started by studying the connections between friend groups of spouses who openly shared their relationship status on the site. Noticing the way that otherwise unrelated people were friends on Facebook because of their connection with the spouses, the researchers applied this information by scanning Facebook for similar friend group structures that might signify a hidden relationship.

I found this study noteworthy and think there is something to be said about how digital media interweaves with our social lives. By sifting through spouses’ friend groups, the researchers noticed different networks of friends broken into categories such as work, school, and church. The key point in determining a relationship between two users was ties between a spouse and a person in the other spouses network that otherwise have no clearly explainable reason for existing. This feature between couples is indicative of the social norm that a person shares his loved one with the other circles in his life. By introducing a loved one to different friends in his life, more connections are made and mimicked on Facebook, allowing savvy investigators (or stalkers) to put the pieces together and deduce the relationship.

I think this strategy is realistic and can be applied to a good deal of couples. The only flaw I see in it is that some relationships are between people who are both part of a significant friend groups, a college for instance, and therefore, I would imagine it can get tricky deciphering the friend networks. Aside from that scenario, the strategy is accurate. This is another indication of how clearly are lives are on display via social media. Privacy is a thing of the past.

Nick

I found yesterdays class very enlightening. I always knew that there was a lot that went into teaching a class, yet the specifics of how it was done and what made one class or teacher seem superior to the other were always vague and unclear to me. Yesterday, I picked up some important tips and ideas from the other education class about how I am going to teach digital media literacy to middle schoolers.

First off, I need to make it clear to the students what the effective goal of the lesson is going to be. They need to know where it is we are heading in class, so they tie the activities into the overall theme right from the start. If they do not know what the effective goal is, it is highly likely that they will lose focus and stop caring about the material because they fail to see its relevance. Thus, it is my responsibility to lay that out from the start.

Next, I need to hook the students with an interesting piece of the lesson. Perhaps showing them something online that will catch their attention, and then pulling them into the topic with a few guiding questions. In this way, I will get the students to immerse themselves in thinking about digital media literacy right from the start.

From there I will walk them through more critical thinking about digital media and ramp things up. I have to be careful to give them time to reflect and rethink throughout, so that there ideas are constantly developing.

The lesson will finish off with a brief evaluation. I would prefer for it not to be in the form of a test, rather a discussion based around the major point of the lesson. The goal is for me to be able to gauge how much of the material the students were able to absorb, and where they took the new ideas that they developed.

My fall break involved a reconnection with all the digital media I have been missing out on due to school work and football. Although the football schedule cut into my free time this weekend, Monday turned out to be a full day with no commitments. After sleeping in until noon, the day began off with an intense period of Fifa. Some friends and I spent approximately three straight hours playing Fifa, mixed in with eating Chinese food and donuts. Needless to say, it was not an especially healthy way to spend a Monday, but it felt so right. After those three hours, we finally moved on to the next digital activity: Netflix. I have been to busy to catch any of my favorite shows over the past month of school, so it was binge time on Netflix. We cruised through two hours of Family guy with ease, stopping only for dinner. Once we finished dinner, we returned once more to the cave. Picking up a couple more friends, the environment got even more competitive. Cycling through Fifa, NHL, and NHL arcade, the testosterone filled room could be heard throughout the hallway whenever a big play was made, luckily no one was in the hallway to be disturbed.

Besides video games and Netflix, I also caught up on music. During the summer when I have plenty of free time, I am usually able to search through the internet for new music to add to my iTunes. Obviously, I haven’t had that free time at school, so I was very behind. Thus, during break I found some time to find  new songs which was enjoyable.

Overall, fall break was a really nice time to step back from the stress of academic life by being disgustingly lazy and a total bum.

That documentary was made only 5 years ago?!? I felt like I was watching a film from the 90′s, not 2008. Their technology looked ancient. That screening really put into perspective how rapidly technology has changed. These kids were having mental breakdowns about now having a computer! Little did they know, they were barely even scraping the surface of living because they had yet to encounter a smartphone. If only they had known what awaited them in the future.

Although the documentary felt very distant in many ways, even though it was not from too long ago, there were some connections related to my media fast. Computers are highly efficient resources for completing school work and staying up to date with school communities via email. Thus, a day without them meant that I had to plan ahead, print some articles out, and get all online work out of the way. I noticed that in the documentary, the kids did similar activities before putting away their computers. The major difference is the duration during which they went computer-less. It would be extremely difficult to go weeks without my computer because it is so essential to school work, and to get all computer work out of the way is basically impossible. Writing essay by hand or typewriter would be absolutely miserable, and I pity those kids for having to struggle through that.

Thus, I think the portrait demonstrated by this documentary is very relevant in the way it shows the deeply intwined relationship of computer and academics, but I think it lacks relevance in the social capacities of modern digital media. Smartphones have revolutionized digital media. Having a portal to the web along with text messages, email, and phone calls at your finger tips has accelerated smartphones to being the most cherished piece of technology in the social sense. Writing an essay on a smartphone would not be a comfortable or efficient thing to do, but it certainly is the primary way to stay connected and in the social loop. Therefore, this documentary is not totally relevant because the smartphone is now such a huge piece of modern culture.

-Nick

-Nick

After yesterday’s discussion, I noticed something interesting during practice, specifically at the very end of practice. At one point in yesterday’s discussion with Dr. Levy about our generations dependence on digital media, we spoke about how students who participated in athletics or musical recitals had a periodic chunk of the day in which they were unable to reach there phones, and were totally disconnected from digital media. I found this point fascinating because between the 3 hour practices Wednesday to Friday, the 4 hour games Saturday, the 4 hour practice and film Sunday, and the two hour long film meetings Tuesday and Thursday, that is 22 hours a week in which I am totally disconnected from digital media (aside from a projector with football film). Wow. I was shocked when I realized how much time I have away from digital media due to athletics, and even more shocked at how little I noticed it. This evidence makes me strongly believe that addiction is not a valid term for my relationship with digital media.

This realization was great, but I am yet to get to the detail I noticed at the end of practice. Every day, once everyone has showered and is on there way out of the locker room, there is solid five minutes in which their faces are glued to the phones. Conversation is very limited. Everyone is so immersed in reconnected with their digital circles of friends and what not that they barely see what is going on around them, and I am definitely equally guilty of this. Something about returning to your phone after going without it for a couple of hours compels you to anxiously catch up on what your missed out on. Reloading Twitter feeds to see if you missed anything funny, scanning your Facebook, responding to text: it all happens.

Thus, does this intense reconnection period cancel out the time digital media free on the football field? I don’t think so. I think it just goes to show that when we are away from our phones we can be totally comfortable, but once they are there and we know that there is a strong possibility a message or notification is waiting for us, we succumb to checking in and reconnecting with our digital media.

So I recently finished my 24 hour digital media fast. It began Saturday evening at 9:30 PM as I left my phone off on my desk and departed for the evening. It was not long before I encountered trouble without my phone. At around 11:25 PM (which I knew exactly thanks to my wrist watch) I had been separated from the group of friends I had gone out with. We had been bouncing around different suites in Atwater for a couple of hours when I encountered another football friend who I talked with for a bit, and before I knew it they were gone. Instinctively, I reached into my pocket to shoot one of them a txt asking where they had gone, but, of course, it was not in my pocket. Thus, I decided to go about it the old fashioned way and went into the stairwell yelling their names. Still no response. I would venture to guess that the volume of the music made it an even more difficult task, but I don’t think anyone was willing to quiet it down while I looked for my friends. After poking my head in a few more suites with no success, I decided to check Coffrin. When I didn’t see them there I did not know what to do. I could have gone back out with some other people, but at that point in the night, I didn’t think it was worth it, and instead simply headed to bed. The next morning I discovered that my friends had gone to Homestead, which would have been and easy walk if only I had known.

The next day I had a JV football game that my parents and some other family were coming up to watch. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to have my media fast because I would be busy for a good portion of the day with the game and catching up with family. I turns out I did not anticipate my Uncle having some trouble finding the field. As he drove around aimlessly through Middlebury, my parents were in the mountains without service, rendering them totally unhelpful in this situation. He left me multiple messages, but my phone was still off. Eventually my parent got service and met up with him, but it would have helped if I could have simply answered his call.

Aside from these two incidents, I actually kind of enjoyed my media fast. Every time I felt the tick to check my Facebook or Twitter, I told myself that I couldn’t because of the media fast, and it actually felt liberating. Its not necessarily that I am addicted to these social media sites, but forcing myself to say no to them and instead do something productive felt good. I organized my room and got ahead on reading. I did not feel as distracted as I usually do when I read because I was not rushing through it so that I could reward myself by reading barstoolsports.com or scanning my newsfeed. Overall, it was a good experience, and I hope it will push me to  deny social media more in the future.

-Nick

Digital media has had such a profound effect on society, its only logical that it has made it into the popular American satirical cartoons, Family Guy and South Park. These are two of my favorite adult cartoons, and they touch upon the subject in a variety of instances. We can walk through and analyze a few of these clips.

In this clip, Seth MacFarlane is pointing out how stupid and inappropriate some of the actions on Facebook can be. I feel that this particular example ties closely into the concerns Nancy Baym brings up in Personal Connection in the Digital Age about a certain loss of humanity. Louis posted a status about a serious and tragic loss of a loved one, and Joyce simply liked it, a gesture that highly lacks genuine care or support. Unfortunately, I feel that that type of interaction actually does happen on Facebook, and it reflects poorly on our modern society.

In this clip, Stewie is complaining to Brian about Joe’s use of Facebook, which Stewie deems incorrect. This situation brings up a point we discussed in class. What is relevant and worthy of sharing? Stewie is genuinely angry at Joe for posting something that arrived on his newsfeed that seemed unimportant to Stewie. Also, this is an example of how a social cue can be misinterpreted or misunderstood. Joe’s winky face at the end of his status left Stewie confused as to what the cue actually meant. Was Joe not going to the Cheesecake Factory? Was Joe simply confused about what the winky face implies? Who knows.

In this bit, Peter, Joe, Quagmire, and Brian are all standing together when Brian says something funny. After a brief laugh, Brian tweets his comment out, and it is soon retweeted by Peter. This piece is an example of how even when people are right next to each other, bringing the humor in conversation to a wider audience is something they will choose to do.

This is a clip from a full South Park episode about Facebook. The basic summary of the episode and context of this clip is that Stan is being pressured on to Facebook by all of the other kids and adults in town. They are all obsessed with the Friends list on Facebook and insist that Stan is essentially saying that he has no friends or human relationships because he chooses not to join Facebook. In this clip, Stan’s girlfriend, Wendy, is upset with him because she found out he made a page, but did not friend her. Likewise, Stan’s dad yells at him for not friending his Grandma. This is a great example of how social media can become a surrogate for reality and consume a great deal of time and energy. Stan simply wants to live his real life, yet he is forced to adjust his profile virtually to fit the structure of his real life. This is very relevant in that Facebook seems to almost consume Stan. If you have some free time I would recommend you watch the episode here, to expand your intellect.

-Nick