Cell Phone-age, Man

Cell phones, these days what can't they do, seriously? These new Mososo systems, I think they might be, meh, a little too intrusive. A great step forward the idea that there is a timer set and you have to turn it off when you reach your destination is quite a solid idea. However, it makes a person almost too much like a machine that someone can watch over, it just seems weird Big Brother-ish to me. I own a cell phone and all but with all these new "advancements" I just don't know so much about how great they all are. GPS enabled phones to know where your friends are? There are so many problems with that entire idea I would rather not even get into it right now. If you look at all the pros that cell phones have recently advanced to you can find numerous high profile flaws with them, i.e. cameras, e-mails, blah, blah, blah I think we all know the stories of people getting their cell phone hacked or stolen, it's just weird how you can put so much of your life into such a small piece of technology. Of course I am a hypocrite and own a phone with a camera and all that but I guess the other side of the arguement is who really cares what is on my phone?

The Fever, The Focus

Some of you may already know but the title actually refers to a Brand New lyric from the album Deja Entendu. They have recently released an album that has furthered my points of the aforementioned preaching about the impact of media in the subject of English.

With the arrival of their new Cd The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me I was quite interested to hear about how the lyrics were documented in the album. The album itself is a question of self concept and self worth and a question of belief of a higher power. The lyrics are deep and at times dark with a lingering sense of hope, but as great as the lyrics were they were presented in a way to make them more than lyrics.

Patrons of the cd were asked to donate a dollar for unknown causes to receive a handwritten lyric booklet (mostly due to Interscope Records), but anyway even those lyric sheets were incorrect. Many phrases and words differ between the audio and the text and I think this further proves a very realistic point that there are different ways to interpret facts. The audience really has to listen to the song to get the text correct, they can read what they want but not all of what they read is true. It's pretty much a mockery of an allegory for the real world.

You can't really believe anything you read or hear and perhaps I just realized what this CD is really all about, finding things out on your own, which also leads me to think that technology also individualizes students but also making them a valuable part of the whole class. These blogs are great for students to share their minds and although each student has their own it is also great that they know they can interact and look at the rest of the class' views and perceptions of events occurring in the classroom.

I seriously suggest Brand New's newest album and Dustin Kensrue(Thrice's lead singer) solo debut.

Standards

With the technology movement really charging forward right now it is inevitable that media is going to have a major say in what will in years become history. I think the media possibly has the largest input with the English Education community. Media really opens up brand new avenues to each student who may or may not have really gotten into the subject of English by text-based means only. I was always given supplementary supplies to accompany my education in both high school and here in college. I was able to listen to Jimi Hendrix wail out the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock because it heavily influenced a writer to write about their experiences with their father after his life was changed after the incident. I was granted the chance to almost lull myself back to sleep (no offense Johnny L and Co.) in an 830 poetry class freshman year to Eleanor Rigby which is so celebrated as a work of a poetry it finds itself in this university's textbook of choice.


Once again, the media is huge in and for English. Let's think about it for just a second. Your favorite movie is probably inspired by a book, usually the book is better (inspiration for a student to maybe try it out). On the other hand if the movie isn't based on a book it was built from a screenplay and without a good basis of knowledge of English how could that have been made possible. Movies aren't the only answer to providing more of an open universe to those interested and those not interested in the subject itself. Music is such a great transmitter for creating interest in English. Songs are in essence poetry put to music and with a great boom in spoken word poetry in the middle of songs it's artistic revival is thriving.


Also students should truly be encouraged to explore these other avenues and perhaps keep a blog of their reviews of various films and music promoting their creativity and opinions in an educational atmosphere.

The Future

All this talk about the future has got me really thinking about past hypotheses about the future and their lackluster results. The media has created caricatures of the future with hopes to far surpass most of anything with reason a person can comprehend. There is a fine line between science fiction and aspirations of a brighter future full of new technologies for any person to become involved with. Personally, I turn to movies as a big reason for the disappointment of what the future is to hold. Back to the Future II reflected a time and place where cars flew and pepsi was still around (in such an advanced society they would have gone back to 'Crystal Pepsi') and some club from Miami beat out the Cubbies for the World Series win. This all occurred in I believe 2025(?). Well we probably all should have thrown out the entire idea of such a world of technological advances could be proven entirely false seeing that the vehicle of choice for the protagonists was a DMC DeLorean produced for not even a half a decade. The point is at the time frame of this movie technology was only beginning to bud.

Aside from a break as well as an allusion of Back to the Future (the sequel), seriously technology has flourished and is now beginning to take the grasp in society it was always thought it had the potential to do. The modern concept of a computer is about the same age as myself, I don't consider myself that old but old enough to get by and make some changes out there in the real world. Think about that for a second a lot of us can say that very same thing. We're not at all done with learning or teaching and neither is what we're working on here. I'm pretty new to the concept of this whole technological deal too, I know how to do a number of things but nothing really complex. I can read a webpage, write a blog or a hefty paper (well light with a good amount of filler), download music and record a little, but ask me anything about html or java I don't even know what these things are. It's like what has been said in here you dont need to know that stuff any more everything is like plug and play making it a lot easier on everyone.

The whole technology movement is really taking off. This blog is shear evidence of that. This will be a part of our classrooms for years to come and from what was once thought a crown of gold in a the highest of schools (financially) is now being made available to an array of schools in different regions. It is our responsibility to keep up with these new technologies so that we may grow with the students. Technology also aids in the aspect that we can learn from every new person we encounter and the internet opened up those resources so that we may do that and continue to learn and grow as educators and the potential students to new technology that we will always be.