A New World Of Learning

               As I began reading the book A New Way of Learning, my mind started wondering on what really is learning, How should teachers or Professors really teach us, and is there a real right or wrong way to teach?

              

                 Learning is the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, practice, or study, or by being taught. That may be the definition of learning but to me learning is being able to absorb things and really understand them. It’s the ability to understand something enough to the point where you can teach it to other people and/or talk to other people about it with complete confidence in yourself. But how can we increase the learning process for kids and young adults what can teachers do to enhance all of their learning abilities?

                 

                   Professors/Teachers I think should for starters stop being set in their own ways, and by that I mean just because it worked for you the last 10 years and got you good test scores doesn’t mean the students actually really learned anything it just means they remembered it for a certain period of time. They (in referring to the teachers and professors) need to realize that all children learn a lot differently so they need to stop trying to teach the world and start teaching within the world. With that being said that statement is just saying the world around is constantly changing so therefore the same things that needed to be taught 12 years ago aren’t necessarily the things that need to be taught today. The teachers today need to understand that the children in today’s world are completely different their brains are wired to where there attention spans aren’t nearly as long as they used to be, the children have to be constantly doing something. If I were a teacher in today’s world I would do my best to try and adapt to the ways of the children. I would make sure there where PowerPoint’s, games, and interactive activities so that all the children have equality opportunity to learn the best way they can.

                 

                   Is there a right or wrong way to teach? I honestly don’t think so everyone has their own special way, but I do however believe something’s may work a little bit better than others. A New Way of Learning has taught me that everyone learns differently and ultimately you are the one responsible for that so even if your professor or teacher isn’t helping you like they should it’s your responsibility to better yourself, so go out there and learn all you can and carpe diem “seize the day”.

Preparing to Win

                                                                   Preparing to Win
I couldnt get my picture show to post to my blog so here is the link.. Enjoy

http://www.photoshow.com/watch/Mx7Un3PS

Country Music

Realism the tendency to view or represent things as they really are.What do I think is real? I think a lot of things are real. I believe God is real and that he stands by me every day, I believe the spirit of people is real, I believe music is so real you can almost touch it.

              

              Music is such a big influence on my life. When I’m happy I want listen to music, when I’m sad, When I’m angry, When I’m working out, When I want to have a good time. There is a piece of music for everything honestly, but my favorite of music is Country. I know I know you’re probably thinking yea typical, but honestly I love country music for so many reasons.

              

  I love country music because you can literally find a song in country music about exactly how you feel at any point in time. So many people think Country music is just about Drinking Beer and Women but it’s not at all; I mean yea some songs are about that but that’s about maybe 1/3 of Country music. For instance one of my friends died last semester his name is Scott Harper otherwise known as Boots, he died in the line of fire in Afghanistan and a song by Tim Mcgraw called If Your Reading This was the perfect song for that occasion.

 

The saddest two deaths I’ve ever had to deal with was my aunt Terry who died of breast cancer when I was five years old. When I found out she died I was in complete shock and was very upset because she was my best friend. Terry was my new step-dads sister and she helped me accept my mom’s new marriage and help find beauty in so many things. The other death was my best friend James Mason Ely! He died while he was visiting his family in Mississippi. He was helping his grandpa cut down tree limbs and one of the branches and him straight in the back of the head. These two people are two of my heroes because they were such wonderful people and such godly individuals and I strive to be like them every day.  But the song Brad Paisley’s When I Get Where I’m going was perfect for both of the

              

 Country Music has songs about Growing Up (Taylor Swift), songs about drinking, songs about objects, songs about feelings Carrie Underwood, Kelli Pickler, Tim Mcgraw, ect. It has songs about your past, partying, God, your dog, cancer, your daughter, or if your angry at a man or women aka Shania Twain etc.

One of my all-time favorite songs is by Alan Jackson called Drive, because it talks about getting behind the wheel of a car, boat or whatever and just feeling the independence from that. It’s also about how growing up everyone always wants to drive and the anticipation of that. This song takes me back to when my sisters and I where littler and dad would teach us how to drive his truck around the block. It also reminds me of when my uncle would let me and my little sister drive the boat around the lake.

I love Country Music because not only because I was born and raised in the South, but because It’s something the means so much to me The lyrics, the beat, just everything within the music to be just feels so real. It takes me back to memories and helps me create new ones.

When I want go out and have a good time I love to listen to Brantley Gilbert, Shania Twain, Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, Blake Shleton, Tim Mcgraw, Justin Moore, and so many more.

Brantley Gilbert Kick it in the sticks

Justin Moore Backwoods

Luke Bryan Rain is A Good Thang

Even If you want to tell someone you love them there are so many perfect songs like that- Love Like Crazy- Lee Brice, Crazy Girl- Eli Young Band, Carolina- Eric Church, I Need You- Tim Mcgraw ft Faith Hill, and my favorite right now A women Like You- Lee Birce

 And My Kinda Crazy by Brantley Gilbert

I believe Country Music is real to me because I can describe it with every aspect of my life. I feel that however way I’m feeling on any certain day it can help me express that. And it’s not that I feel that the music real person or anything more, I feel that county music is about everything. 

SONY SONY SONY!!!!

Concentration of media ownership is a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of mass media. I know I know that definition sounds so blahh doesn't it. When I had to do my research on this for class i found so many amazing things about  concentration of media ownership.

             In my studies I found that the six media companies in the world are CBS, VIACOM, Walt Disney, Time Warner, News Corp, and General Electric and without these different and independent ownerships of television and radio stations and other media outlets, citizens wouldn’t be able to access news and entertainment from a variety of sources and viewpoints.  

         

              When choosing my company I wanted to  focus on I choose Sony. Sony has many subsidiary companies, which you can find at Sony Corporation dot com. These subsidiary companies are companies that are completely controlled by another company. In this business they have cross media ownership, which is where one parent company owns many smaller companies in several different media.

     

 

When I was reading about cross owner media I came across a very interesting You Tube video that was a band called the Fray. In the video it asked “how might cross ownership media help a band make it big?” In the video it began to explain how it can. It said in 2004 the Fray was signed by Epic Records owned by Sony. The Fray then released their first single ‘Over My Head’ and was then used in action film ‘Stealth’.  ‘Stealth’ was distributed by Sony Pictures. Their Next hit How to save a life was played on Grey’s Anatomy, SCRUBS, and Cold Case (which is a CBS show). After that their second single How to Save a Life came out, they were asked to come on The Late Show (also on CBS). Time Inc., new musical express is owned by Time, which is owned by Time Warner, which is owned by Warner Brothers, who make the films that the fray has been on. So as you can see just from that cross media is very helpful in the business aspect of everything. It’s a lot like the internet you stream to one site, which can lead you to another and another and so forth.

 As I continued my research on the topic of concentration media ownership and cross media there was only one website I found that had a positive overview of media concentration but had concerns with the government getting involved," media outlet being influenced by various corporate interests. Other times, the ownership interests may affect what is and is not covered. Stories can end up being biased or omitted so as not to offend advertisers or owners. The ability for citizens to make informed decisions is crucial for a free and functioning democracy but now becomes threatened by such concentration in ownership."  The positive side to everything Ive been speaking about is the example I gave about the musical group the Fray. Media Concentration can also help with business and just people trying to get information out there and so on.

So This Younger Generation?

We have been talking a lot about this so called Media Literacy thing and how it affects us, the older generation, and how we think it is effecting the younger generation. However we have not managed to ask the adults how they think the media is going to affect their kids and what they plan to do about it. So I interviewed my mom to see how her reflections were on this topic.

         When I was interviewing my mother I realized that so much had already changed from when I was little including the way my mother is raising my sister. 

Dark Side of Media?

We watched a documentary in class today over how the media is affecting people’s capability to learn properly.  In the video it spoke a lot about how students now-a-days multi task constantly especially in class (which I’m doing right now). Professors, Deans, and many teachers are starting to believe that this isn’t helping our students this is hurting them because they are unable to keep their attention on the lecture or on a book longer than 200 pages (which is true).

Than you have the other professors who are very excepting of the new technology and are wanting the students to embrace it and for the teachers to start adapting their teaching with the new technology. In New York a Principle of a Middle School has been able to give all of his students a Mac P.C have to enhance their learning.  Since he has given the children the computers the test scores have gone  up, grades have gone up, and overall attendance has gone up.

I believe that within all of this study that including media into learning isn’t an awful idea at all and multitasking isn’t bad either. When the Generation Z and the generation behind grows up,  the ability of having to remember things are going to be limited because of how close the internet is to our finger tips. I also believe as said in the documentary in class that “ the generation z is not going to have to memorize things so much they are going to need to know how to fix things and how to come up with new ideas,” which I believe is completely true.

As you can see within all of this I’m completely for media being involved as long as it’s for educational purposes.

Sterotyping?

         Stereotyping is a popular belief about specific types of individuals. We all stereotype whether we may mean to or not it’s just a natural instinct. I wonder to myself why do I stereotype, How did I learn to stereotype, and I don’t want people to stereotype me. I usually tend to draw conclusions about other people based on who they surround themselves with, what they dress like, what there background might be, and what interests them. I’m going to put some images down below and tell you how I would stereotype them...

If I saw this guy I would assume that he is rather smart, definitely Asian, nerdy, and probably a college kid, he probably attends a huge university and has strict parents.

Now we all know her, Its Friday, Friday, Gotta get down on Friday... If I were to stereotype her I would say a young teenage girl, with parents who are probably living through their daughter. She is probably pretty popular I would assume and dresses fairly nice and lives in a suburb home.

And This Guy.. He loves the outdoors, probably in his mid to late 20's, he probably does a lot of outdoors things to try and "find himself". He loves his dog; he probably has the whole Frat Boy/ Outdoorsmen look going for him I presume. I would also assume that he is single.

See steortyping is so easy. Now Im not sure if any of my ideas on these people are right to any degree but I'd presume that they are probably close.