Are we, or are we not evolving?
Something I always think about is how well I would do in school if not for the internet and the advancement of technology. It was not until 1974 that the first personal computer was born, and even then it had no keyboard or screen. It was not until 1977 that a computer anything like the one we know today was used. Say I was born in the forties like my grandmother and had to lug around 6 different books for college classes instead of an ipad full of ebooks. Even my mother had to rely on an encyclopedia to acquire information.
Today we have a vast amount of information under our fingertips, in our pockets, or on our desktop at any given time during the day. This leads me to a question I have asked and that I think have answered. Our humans done evolving?
In my cultural and linguistic anthropology class we discussed the topic of evolution shortly, only to lay the foundation of the class. But an interesting idea stuck with me; that being the idea of cultural evolution. People, biologically may be done evolving; but our technology has brought us much further than our bodies may be able to sustain. This is not to decline the amazement of the human brain, but to expound on all of the incredible things the human brain was able to accomplish. If it were not for cultural evolution we would not have coats, umbrellas, shoes, and cups. All of these creations were birthed because of the human need for it. In my opinion, we as humans are constantly evolving to fit our needs. We as a species are ever-changing, and adapting our environment and our technology to be more useful to us. In a way the homo sapien sapien species will never stop evolving because it will never stop challenging old ideas and technologies; that concept in itself is truly beautiful to me.
Exposing Students to More Challenging Subject Matter:
A Response to Small Differences Matter
Everyday in school from the time of first grade to twelfth was spent summarizing something, comprehension skills, and the ability to regurgitate the information that had been forced down my throat the whole semester. Often times I spent nights reviewing information on a subject only to forget it a few months later. There are very few teachers who had the ability to give us a knowledge that would actually be retained, as opposed to those who just gave us knowledge without actually challenging us. And while, at that time I was thankful for my short term memory skills, I look back at some of time in school and think how wasteful it is.
I think it is important to change our school system to more effectively challenge the student in a way that will be beneficial to them and the world in the future. Like in Small Differences Matter: The DNA of Online Reading Comprehension, I think it is important to instill valuable tools in students that go beyond the seat of a high school desk and to a career. In Small Differences Matter, Mcverry mentions skills like analyzing and synthesizing and how those who have attained those skills do much better at online reading comprehension. I believe that these skills go beyond online reading comprehension and can be used in just about anywhere. Look at the recent South Park episode that pertains to ads. Most of the people can not decipher the difference between pertinent information and an ad. The ability to find information and determine its credibility is vital to success, whether you be looking for an online recipe or researching the American Revolution. Exposing the next generation of learner and doers to more challenging ideas of learning and using information allows them to be better tools in the world.
Worldview, Culture and Other Ramblings
While reading Gunther Kress's Multimodality, Representation and New Media, one thing stuck out to me. Kress used the example of a girl's drawing to express both meaning and perspective. "The difference in meaning depends on the relation of the depicted entities to each other in the frame of the picture-space: the resultant difference in Georgia’s sense of herself and her family is an effect of these spatial relations. In drawing the materiality of sound is not available for making, to indicate just how ‘being’ Georgia’s parents seem to her, instead the affordance of space is used – making things taller or shorter, broader or thinner." Essentially, Georgia's drawing was effected by the relationship she had with her parents and the relationship her parents had with each other. Georgia depicted herself much smaller, because of the dependency she had on her parents and the role they played in her life. She also made her father taller than he actually is, possibly to show the equality between both of her parents.
This idea of worldview effecting our perspectives of ourselves and our culture is carried over in to history. If you look at the people in Mesopotamia, you can see that their world view was troubled. Because of their location between two unpredictable and violent rivers, they too became violent; often making human sacrifices and being involved in wars. Even their religion relied on the mercy of their Gods. These people highly contrast those of the Egyptians, who also lived by a river. However the people of Egypt were much more peaceful. Because of their location and worldview they not only had the free time to develop complicated writing systems and create some of the largest structures of the old world, but they were also able to develop a positive view of the afterlife and their Gods. All of this because of worldview (and perhaps location).
Fast forward to the indigenous people of the Arctic. These people have a multitude of words for just one substance; snow. Their interaction with the environment around has gone so far as to effect their communication and language. Worldview, inner reflection and outward perspective play a huge role in culture, communication and language. Look at society today. Our language is shaped by our values. We are constantly abbreviating words, shortening sentences, and eliminating grammar; all to get our point across in the timeliest manner. We create words that mean the most to our culture, and often times more than just one (the word "butt" is a great example of this). Understanding the way worldview effects our perspective is important in understanding other cultures and people.
This concept can stretch as far as the classroom. I'm not a major in education, but I know that understanding a student and their background can aid in teaching them. In programs like TESOL, it is important to understand where the students come from and their culture in order to help them learn the language of English.
J.K. Rowling and the Ministry of Magic
J.K. Rowling's Biography
Initially, when I first began remixing biographies I was doing it the wrong way. What I thought was going to be a remix of whoever's biography I chose, whether it be a roster biography or the review of a doctor was actually wrong. While I was remixing everything I could, my website kept refreshing itself, removing all of my work and causing me to start all over. I began to get lazy and started using biographies that were more aligned to people I knew. My plan was to replace a high paid coach with a friend of mine. First I was going to use my friend Haley as the US coach for the volleyball team. That website had a video of the coach and highlights, so I changed my idea to making my friend Haley into a criminal. Finding old criminal news and trying to replace her name in everything. That took a long time, and when I had finally finished the webpage it refreshed itself. I then decided to use Haley as the coach at USC who's last also happens to be Haley. This made changing the biography much easier, limiting it to just pronouns. Just when I thought I was done and in the clear, I came to class only to find out that I had done it wrong and had to make a whole new biography remix.
