Market Study

I have mentioned most of my social contacts as I have progressively found them, but here is an updated collected list of my contacts throughout the semester.

1. Professor Gideon Burton who utilizes blogging to direct his students in the class and creating their own blog. He utilizes the blogging process as a way to transform the traditional research paper. He explains more about this belief and reasoning in 'Writing About Literature in the Digital Age' chapter 2.

2. Sharon Bell, a Mississippi high school teacher also uses blogging to direct her class. It looks like she set it up at the beginning of the school year, yet it has failed with time.

3. Brain Ellingford, a Orem High teacher who uses blogs in his classroom. Here is his summer blog to help students with their summer assignments and discuss anything interesting or ask questions.

4. Lisa Halverson, a PhD student at BYU who has taught several GE courses. Here is her website.

5. Dr. Dave Hunt, a Sociology professor at Augusta State University.

For our research, we are using examples of how Shakespeare is all over the internet.
     Facebook

Shakespeare Page      

Shakespeare Aloud 

Shakespeare In the Park 

Grassroots Company

Twitter

 

Shakespeare B Trust 

Shakespeare's Globe 

William Shakespeare (person profile) 

Shakespeare 4 Kids

Through collaboration our sources and social contacts have tripled. Awesome! :) I simply listed my social contacts above but you can refer to Tara's and Mallory's blog for their social contacts and such. 

   

Relating Love's Labour's Lost

So I just wanted to do a last shout out for BYU's adaptation of Love's Labour's Lost. 

I like how they re-worked it for a more modern time period and yet kept almost all of the original text or dialogue. This plays into the theme of my current Shakespeare class concerning Shakespeare's ability to relate to various topics and times. In my current final project we are discussing how much Shakespeare still plays an influential role in society and there are facebook, twitter accounts, and blogs dedicated to the discussion and study of Shakespeare. His influence has not died, but transformed to fit the modern age just as this play transformed Love's Labour's Lost to fit the 1940s era.

Shakespeare is still relevant to the modern age and our current society. In the classroom, you may have to convince your students of that by showing them the various social media dedicated to Shakespeare. That would be a great way to validate and explain to your students that studying Shakepeare is still valuable and relevant to the modern day.   

Collaborative Work

I am working with Tara Pina and Mallory Stevens for a collaborative final project combining our papers about education.

Audience: We will work towards creating a presentation for the UCTE Conference.

Format: We are leaning heavily towards a mixed media project.

Content: We will interview and ID common problems in the classroom through students and teachers (at the high school and university level). Mallory has already sent out a bulk e-mail to teachers at Timpview High, and I have a few possible contacts from Orem High.

We will also show current examples of how various teachers are successful (and possibly unsuccessfully) in the classroom. Currently I could do this with using blogging in teaching through Dr. Burton's blog and his believes concerning the changing nature of the research paper (explained in his chapter online). I also found Ms. Sharon Bell's blog-- a high school teacher from Hattisburg High. I also know that Mr. Ellingford at Orem High creates class blogs, but keeps them personal to protect privacy.

I will be contacting Mr. Ellingford to ask if we can set up an interview time for the video portion of our paper as well as the blogging portion of our presentation.

If we do a writing portion I can talk about the research and contacts I have found that have previously used technology in their classroom

For further exploration I have tried to contact Online High Schools in Utah (Open HS & EHS) I discovered through Ms. Lisa Halverson a PhD student in Instructional Psychology & Technology. I also e-mailed her for more information about her previous employeer-- an online high school-- because they advocate the use of twitter.

We will also contact a  BYU professor Dr. Amy Jensen who recently gave a speech advocating the use of technology.

BYU Love's Labour's Lost

Saturday I attended BYU's performance of Love's Labour's Lost.

Before I attended this play I watched a Globe Theatre's performance so that I could contrast a traditional performance with BYU's adaptation. 

I really liked the ease and naturalness that these actors present while performing Shakespeare and helps the audience increase understanding with intonations and reactions. I found it much more enjoyable and comprehensible when I watched this performance than reading the play itself. 

BYU adapted this play to the era of WWII. 

In the director's note, Stephanie Breinholt explained that Love's Labour's Lost has always reminded her of her grandparent's story. So they used this play to represent the WWII era. They multiplied the parts and spread the lines around to lend importance to some more minor characters. I like the multiplication of parts because it showed how many people were in the same sort of situation and representational of the entire generation. At the end, when the girls tell them to wait before they get married the men leave for war. Don Armado ends up leaving with the 'King' and his associates after enlisting, leaving his radio show to his assistant. Every man in the play was enlisted in some part of the military. 

I think that BYU's adaptation was very creative and showed that Shakespeare can transcend time and generations. In my Shakespeare class, we often look for ways to relate Shakespeare to the current issues and BYU has done a great job showing how Shakespeare relates to this WWII era. 

They also creatively placed Don Armado as a radio host and added a LIVE jazz/swing band to create the 'bar' atmosphere... without the alcohol. The band was by far my favorite part just because I love band and it made me want to pick up my trumpet again. (Also it's always cool to watch a group together enough they don't need a director--this is typical of jazz bands). I felt like the band and music added to the play more than anything else. During the men's confessions of love the band played mimetic music (music that matches the scene) that characteristically matched each one of the men's personalities. Sometimes the music was soft and romantic and for another it was an upbeat swing that brought out a really fun side of the character. It was really cool to see how the band contributed-- and the parts they chose to stay silent. I am a huge music buff so I noticed how the trumpet used 3 different mutes/ tools to draw out a different tones throughout the play. I LOVE the big band's contribution and I don't think I would have liked it nearly as much without it.

 

The background of this video is the style of music. I don't think they got the band til the last minute because I can't find anything about them. 

"Trailer" for my paper

So I re-did my thesis video and almost lost it in the mass mess that is YouTube, but luckily I re-located it and nabbed the link for y'all.

Yesterday, I definitely noticed I was sounded a little stiff and memorize--not so conversational. I tried to play it a little more casual, but I don't think it worked and I have a giant "Ummmm." Oops.

I also noticed as I was trying to grab audience interest in my paper, my paper naturally took a little bit of a different direction. So I think I know where I am generally headed based off the three points I make that teachers can use technology: introduce more sources and information on their subjects, support independent student learning, and more easily cater towards specific students' needs and interests in assessments.

And yes, my apartment has terrible lighting without the sun. The sun didn't want to join me so sorry if my glasses give ya a nice glare every once in awhile--they like to make their presence known. :)

Plans

So this morning I recorded my video for our thesis/ paper trailer for our class collaborative project. However, I somehow lost it.... So that was an hour down the drain.

Instead I will post my plan and future intentions, because I haven't posted in awhile.

For  class I want to make a video under 2 minutes that is just a "trailer" or hook for my overall paper.

For my personal paper, I want to concentrate on current teacher examples I have found of successful integration of technology in the classroom. I want to concentrate on this aspect as more of a list of suggestions or how-to when it comes to integrate technology into modern classrooms.

As my "Market Study" my professor wants me to really evaluate my prospective audience. I want to find more teachers and more examples of how high school teachers and professors have integrated technology into current classrooms.
             I have several examples that I presented in my paper, but I would like to branch out and find more examples, as well as, find groups of teachers who are currently talking about this issue and concerned with technological integration.

Wednesday: I want to re-create and post a video of my thesis and hook. 
Thursday: I will post what I have researched concerning my audience and social media. 
Friday: I want to post a Rough draft of a presentation of my social media and sources. 

Rachel O. " A Foolish Wit " Paper

Rachel,

So like many other classmates I have decided that leaving you an enormous comment would be more harmful than helpful, so here is your own personal blog post on my blog. :)

Here is a link to your final paper  and blog, for other readers.

First and foremost I wanted to let you know that your paper is awesome. :) I really like the argument and I you move from Shakespeare's time to the more modern situations with Mitt Romney very well.

I didn't see a post about your interview, so I'm not sure where you are thinking about taking your paper, but I have a suggestion.

I think an interesting next growth for your paper could be how Mormon's combat and deal with this blunt prejudice. You have firmly established that the prejudice exists, so now you can enter the other side.

BYU's presence is a huge promotion for the LDS church, but especially living here in Utah--Mormon headquarters-- we are subject to much more than that. Desert News, BYUTV, lds.org, "I'm a mormon" ads, mormon.org, KSL (KSL.org)--to an extent--are all strong voices for the LDS church. The Mormon messages through an independent YouTube channel for LDS geared videos.

The LDS church is not simply accepting or quietly combating this prejudice. They are an active and louder and louder voice in the technological world.

A good and real example of this recently is the Washington Post article that cast the church in a HORRIBLE light (we are all prejudice against blacks) with its interview with Randy Bott (a very popular figure in the church esp for young ppl--like BYU students). "The Genesis of a Church's Stand on Race"

The church then released an official statement through KSL.com. "LDS church"

Paper Progress

I had my interview with my professor on Friday and talked about my "FINAL" PAPER. 


I think it went well and I am eager to explore some of the avenues that I was contemplating and some that he brought to my attention. I want to add an excerpt about incorporating facebook into the modern classroom (especially because it has been my favorite to experience in the classroom as a student). Of course, all of the media has their own advantages and disadvantages and need to be used in class to accomplish certain goals and expectation.

Some of the future avenues:

1. Add facebook section (I really want a personal interview before I include this)
2. Explore more about my assessment section- this was something I only dipped in and it is something that I could really use to argue as an advantage for English Language Learners, as well as how current technology will make current assessments invalid so there is a need for change
3. Something that really caught my professor's attention in my paper was a tantalizing hint at how technology affects student-teacher relationships (this could be explored positively or negatively)

I will need to proceed with great caution in some of these explorations of my paper. A lot of the topics and issues I bring up could easily become it's own ten page research paper. I need to keep a tight reign on  my topic and 'sharpen' my thesis.

As we continue with our paper in class we were asked to think about how to reach intended audiences best. I wrote my paper with a specific audience in mind-- high school teachers and professors. All teachers could certainly be included, but have a STRONG inclination towards professors become of the minimal barriers they would have to overcome to implement technology in their classrooms. Parents become less and less protective of their children as they get older (typically) and with a classroom full of 'adults' they have the authority and society expects them to have the wisdom to manage their own life. (Professors do not have to worry about getting parent's permission/ release forms).

A lot of my research has been found in journals specifically geared for a teacher audience. Interestingly enough most of the journals are maintained by professors. Ironically these journals do not have a great online presence, but it does exist. Obviously getting my paper published in one of these journals would be ideal for reaching my intended audiences; however, I do not think my paper is the right style because it is usually the Technology articles are examples of how the author (a teacher) implemented certain technology in their classroom.

Another idea would be to publish an electronic book then forward it to all of the current social contacts we have as a class and any future social contacts we will have. Food for thought as we explore the idea of inserting our voice into the current conversations.

Messy Writing Process

So normally when I write about I tailor my sources to my already conceived ideas about a piece of text or literature. This is not what happened with this research paper. With this research paper I was constantly changing my direction as I found more sources and talked to more teachers.

When it actually got down to the writing of my research paper I ended up with about four different google docs ranging from a thought process, breaking down sources, and a few rough draft paragraphs that said along the same lines of the same thing but each had important key element the other was missing.

So I resolved to print everything out and do an old fashion cut and paste (tape) project.

My messed up writing process:

This is my rough draft/ outline broken down into sections (by highlighted boxes) with various rough paragraphs attached, quotes to incorporate, and then some scribbling pen to lead me on in a further direction.

My boyfriend thought I was nuts for doing this, but it really calmed me down and I was able to see a clear focus and outline for my research. I did decide to post-pone my facebook category (the blank box) because the amount of research did not match the research I had for blogs and twitter.

I thought it was ironic that my paper was about integrating technology into the classroom yet I got overloaded by the technology and needed to go back to hard copies of all my research. Just goes to show that I am one of those students who need a healthy balance between technology and hard copy activities. I am a very hands-on person and it is how I organize my thoughts best, but I have done several previous research papers purely through technology.