I figured out how to remove my earlier inserts and type this message. yippie
The URL that would take someone directly to your blog is:
http://benfogg.weebly.com/blog.html

First Alternative Summarize a current reading for the course while also responding thoughtfully and generating provocative questions for the other group members to respond to. 


I will be summarizing the Digital Immigrant and the introduction to a Catastrophic Bifurcation and attempt to generate provocative questions, but I was not very good at provoking in the other Drew Kopp class I took so here goes nothin'.


Digital Immigrants

            Prensky’s basic point is that there are people born before the “digital age” that have since learned it and there are those that were born into it that don’t know anything different. He relates people that learned it later in life to people learning a new language or immigrating from their birth country to a new one. He explains that no matter how proficient they get at speaking the language and adjusting to the culture; they will always maintain the “accent” and will have one foot in the past and one foot moving forward. Prensky talks about how natives can adjust to the ever changing digital world more easily because they do not need to “translate” the new information from “their native language.”

            He throws a bunch of studies in there where he argues that people’s brains and “thinking patterns” have changed. He even comments that “their brains may already be different.” I think of the brain scans they use to conduct these tests and imagine the brain to be like any other muscle in the body. Areas that get regular exercise are stronger (bigger) and areas that are uses less often are weaker (smaller). I think that is why the test show a difference in appearance and although I agree that their way of thinking is different, do not in anyway believe “their brains” are different.

Introduction to a Catastrophic Bifurcation

            The other reading was very interesting to me. The over all idea is that books, like hieroglyphics, scrolls and stone tablets, are being made obsolete. Similar to the tape cassette and DVD, it’s gonna take some time before they are replaced completely, but they will be replaced just the same. The internet is the reason things are changing so quickly according to the reading. The introduction, among other things, talked about the coloration between revolutionary ideas and tragic historical events. Something I had never considered.

Do you think there is any connection between how quickly things are changing and the decline of our economy? (look again at pages 13-16) – Is page 17right… Are changes coming too fast to allow recovery time? Is it causing us to be less organized and less independent? Which Indian philosophy to we fall under? Sthula or Sukshama?



9/10/2012 03:01:20 am

breakdown #1
i tried to print the reading documents from a school pc. i could not open the "dropbox" because it's not installed on these machines. i went to the website and tried to install it, but did not have an administrative authority so i used my phone and e-mail. i opened the documents on my iphone and sent them to myself and then opened the documents and printed them.

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benfogg
9/10/2012 03:06:30 am

breakdown#2
i tried to start another 'blog,' but could only figure out how to comment on the one i made in class with heathers help.
My solution is to just make this comment and hope you guys can see it.

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9/15/2012 08:10:37 am

Ebert brings some upsetting thoughts to light in his article. The book, like other modes of reading that came before it, is becoming outdated in our world of new technologies. Even to someone who is an avid reader and lover of the paper book, the flaws in this format are starting to become more apparent. Less people are reading novels because they spend all their time reading short-form prose on the internet.

Personally, I don’t think the economy was the main cause of the decline in books. I think the dwindling attention span of the average American is more to blame. When it is so easy to go online and read stories (or sometimes shorter prose) that can be downloaded in an instant, most don’t want to take the time to get a book. The atmosphere of instant satisfaction is breaking the book market. I still go to a bookstore or the library to sit with the books and take time to pick one out, but for every person like me there’s someone who clicks one button on their Kindle and downloads a book in a minute or two.

As a side point: Sthula and sukshma are not separate philosophies. They are two different types of matter. Sthulu is a physical matter, something that can be experienced. Sukshma is “subtle matter” or something that is more visionary, perhaps found in dreams or inside of ourselves. In my mind I made this distinction – the books that we hold and read are sthula and the intricate scenes in our imagination that are created by reading those books would be sukshma.

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Cate McCall
9/16/2012 02:32:22 am

I agreed a lot with what Prensky had to say and how he categorized Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives. I used some of his suggestions in my questions for my interviews. I myself can't be fully categorized as either one of those groups, I feel, because though I'm not fully up-to-date with all the new technology and such, I am slowly trying to because I have to because of school. I personally don't care to be 100% up to speed with everything. I like some of the old ways of doing things, and unfortunately technology is taking that away from us. When I look ahead into the future, and especially when I start a family, I'm afraid of what's going to be out there. Nowadays, schools are considering taking out Handwriting because everything can be done on the computer. I'm going to be a teacher, and that is one thing I will not stand for in my classroom.
Some of the new technology is fine, I'm not saying all the new technology is bad. I'm just basically saying that we can't throw everything away because we can just use technology in anyway we want and there's no need to use certain things such as a textbook, or pen and paper. We need to make sure everyone knows how to do things without the use of technology, in case for any reason, anything were to go wrong with technology and we have to go back to the old ways.

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Catherine Anzano
9/16/2012 08:25:31 am

I really enjoyed reading Prensky's article, and have actually read the article in another class. I would consider myself a digital native because compared to my parents and older cousins I know how to work technology well. However, my younger brothers are much better than me and they would truly be considered a digital native. My youngest brother (he is twelve) uses ipads and mac books in his classroom. He knows how to work the computer better than I do and whenever I need help I go to him. My dad is extremely good with technology (he is an electrical engineer), this made me realize that your age does not determine whether or not you are a digital native/immigrant it is based on how well you are able to use technology.

I think that the internet/technology is changing the way we think. If you need information you can get your answer in a few seconds and have thousands of articles at the tip of your fingertips. No longer do we need to search through books and wait for an answer. In my opinion people are much more impatient these days because we are so used to getting answers right away with the click of a button or click of a mouse.

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