Sunday, March 22, 2009
Bullying Video 4
We finished the credits off with a quick song me and Kahlout wrote, so we would avoid copyright problems we had decided to do something of our own to avoid the complications and the crediting and etc. We grabbed a guitar off of Ms. Mandy's music room and wrote and composed a song in about 5 minutes, and recorded it on Mr. Jones's laptop. This wasn't as big of a problem as I thought it was, it only took one try to get the thing done and we were happy with what we had. With the credits finished off, we played the song during this and fixed up some transitions and scenes. All that's left is our narration.
Bullying Video 3
A final scene was added, where Hend is the victim of verbal abuse when she walks into the girl's bathroom. Holly and Doaa are seen talking about people, and Hend walks in when they suddenly go silent. They start sarcastically complimenting on their appearance, obviously trying hard not to laugh in a sarcastic attempt to be polite. As soon as Hend is seen walking off, Holly and Doaa are seen talking about her and commenting on her appearance, in a loud tone so that Hend hears it. Like the other two scenes, there are no bystanders and no scene that shows the same situation going well. Still, no real frustrations but I found that rather than using movie maker, iMovie saved all of the video files so we would not be losing any videos in the process of making the video. I was relieved to see this wasn't going to be a problem as this is my biggest issue with Windows Movie Maker. We also added a part with the text talking about what to do, for both the victim and the bully. We finished things off with the credits and will use the next lesson to put everything together finally.
Bullying Video 2
Today, we added an extra scene where Holly is seen walking in the foyer, where she runs into Hend and Doaa, who push her down and knock down the books she was holding. The camera then shows her pick up the books and walk off, saying nothing to the bullies and with a depressed look on her face. This is also a clear case of bullying because Hend and Doaa are seen laughing as they high-five each other as Holly looks down at the books she had dropped. This is a case of physical abuse, and again no bystanders interfere and Holly isn't helped. Again, the scene was put together well and we hadn't run into any real problems. We added some transitions and titles, but never put much effort into the transitions because that was something we wanted to save for the very last, as we wanted to get the hardest part out of the way first. Still no problems, and we're not having any frustrations.
Bullying Video
There has been a slight change of plans, and rather than working with my partner to complete my Digital Access project, I am now working with the group that is composing a video to support anti-bullying, Hend, Mohammed, Talal and Doaa have all recorded different videos and scenes of moments that portay serious verbal or physical abuse. What I had to do was help them take their recorded pieces and put it together as a final product/movie that would teach people that bullying was bad. We first took a scene, where Doaa is seen pointing a remote control to a TV, to show a television program with the word "Bullying" crossed out. This then cuts to each member of the group saying the words "Say no to bullying!", and it cuts to a scene where Kahlout is the bully and Talal is the victim. He pushes Talal around for his amusement, and it shows Talal continuously being bullied by him with no one interfering or helping. That is what we have so far. So far the project is going successfully. We haven't run into any frustrations and are so far being productive with our time.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Digital Access
Amna and I have been assigned a task to do a research project on Digital Access, which is a topic that talks about how some people will have certain access to technology that other would not. It also discusses the limitations of people who cannot afford to be able to use such technology, as well as organizations that work past this such as the One Laptop Per Child organization. We have collected our research and composed a page of information which can be found here:
http://digiteen09-1.flatclassroomproject.org/Digital+Access
This project is going very smoothly, and I believe I am caught up to work and the deadlines aren't challenging. I have not come across any frustration in completing the project.
http://digiteen09-1.flatclassroomproject.org/Digital+Access
This project is going very smoothly, and I believe I am caught up to work and the deadlines aren't challenging. I have not come across any frustration in completing the project.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Growing Up Online
1. Living Their Lives Essentially Online
This chapter introduces the topic, and talks to a few people of our generation, they mention that the internet can be 'addicting, a great way to speak to your friends,' but they also talk about a girl who mentions she's a 'completely different persona' on the internet.
They talk about how about 10 friends set up camp in a basement to throw what is called a LAN party, where they get together and play different video games together for excessive amounts of time, using a lot of caffeine. It then shows a bunch of children watching different videos on the popular video website YouTube. They also mention MySpace, a social network program. She explains how MySpace works, and they talk about another social networking program that usually much younger kids use, called Club Penguin.
They also talk about how the internet can be an outlet for complaining, self expression, and a means to connect with each other. They talk about how dangerous it is to let our children live a virtual life out of the reach of their parents. They are 'living their lives' online, one woman says. She talks about how the digital world and technology used to be something that was dominated by adults, and now its something thats definetely become a 'province for teenagers around the world.'
"You need to have the internet on because everybody uses it, it's like a currency. If you don't use it, you're at loss."
They talk about a teenager called Greg, who lives with his parents and they talk about how he'd have a better chance at getting his attention by emailing him rather than calling him, because then he knows for sure he will see it. They also mention how Greg is constantly texting his friends when away on holiday, and refuses to be 'out of the loop' for more than an hour.
Greg's parents once tried monitering his internet use with the AOL parental control program, but Greg could tell when his dad was tracking him so he could mak eit look like he was, in his words "researching monkeys, when I can just go off and do whatever I want and he wouldn't be able to see it."
2. A Revolution in Classrooms and Social Life
"We have to cut through that Media, and get their attention."
A school talks about how they have to use all kinds of technology, with making every single computer have an LCD projector, and use smartboards, and the teachers would even use podcasting so the students can then revisit the lectures and classes later. They mention that walking into a classroom that doesnt have all of that technology must be like walking into a desert. A teacher talks about how the technology makes her feel like "a dinosaur." and how she is a little confused about technology because her students would walk into the classroom knowing more about what she's doing than she is, so she'd just let them take over.
"There are more students who struggle with the ability to focus than there were 30 years ago. They are so over-exposed to the quickness of things, and the immediate responses. It's just all at their fingertips."
They mention Sparknotes, a quick study guide that'll get you the summary of any book, and you'll have practically read the book in a matter of pages. These kinds of websites are not allowed to be used in both our school and theirs, and I'd imagine it to be the case with a lot of schools. They talk about how alot of teachers try to avoid having their students cheat by making them write the assignments actually in the classroom, which is something even students at Qatar Academy do, it's so that they can't go online and borrow other sources. For certain assignments, students have to sumbit their assignments to turnitin.com, which is a website that checks any assignment for plagiarism.
This chapter introduces the topic, and talks to a few people of our generation, they mention that the internet can be 'addicting, a great way to speak to your friends,' but they also talk about a girl who mentions she's a 'completely different persona' on the internet.
They talk about how about 10 friends set up camp in a basement to throw what is called a LAN party, where they get together and play different video games together for excessive amounts of time, using a lot of caffeine. It then shows a bunch of children watching different videos on the popular video website YouTube. They also mention MySpace, a social network program. She explains how MySpace works, and they talk about another social networking program that usually much younger kids use, called Club Penguin.
They also talk about how the internet can be an outlet for complaining, self expression, and a means to connect with each other. They talk about how dangerous it is to let our children live a virtual life out of the reach of their parents. They are 'living their lives' online, one woman says. She talks about how the digital world and technology used to be something that was dominated by adults, and now its something thats definetely become a 'province for teenagers around the world.'
"You need to have the internet on because everybody uses it, it's like a currency. If you don't use it, you're at loss."
They talk about a teenager called Greg, who lives with his parents and they talk about how he'd have a better chance at getting his attention by emailing him rather than calling him, because then he knows for sure he will see it. They also mention how Greg is constantly texting his friends when away on holiday, and refuses to be 'out of the loop' for more than an hour.
Greg's parents once tried monitering his internet use with the AOL parental control program, but Greg could tell when his dad was tracking him so he could mak eit look like he was, in his words "researching monkeys, when I can just go off and do whatever I want and he wouldn't be able to see it."
2. A Revolution in Classrooms and Social Life
"We have to cut through that Media, and get their attention."
A school talks about how they have to use all kinds of technology, with making every single computer have an LCD projector, and use smartboards, and the teachers would even use podcasting so the students can then revisit the lectures and classes later. They mention that walking into a classroom that doesnt have all of that technology must be like walking into a desert. A teacher talks about how the technology makes her feel like "a dinosaur." and how she is a little confused about technology because her students would walk into the classroom knowing more about what she's doing than she is, so she'd just let them take over.
"There are more students who struggle with the ability to focus than there were 30 years ago. They are so over-exposed to the quickness of things, and the immediate responses. It's just all at their fingertips."
They mention Sparknotes, a quick study guide that'll get you the summary of any book, and you'll have practically read the book in a matter of pages. These kinds of websites are not allowed to be used in both our school and theirs, and I'd imagine it to be the case with a lot of schools. They talk about how alot of teachers try to avoid having their students cheat by making them write the assignments actually in the classroom, which is something even students at Qatar Academy do, it's so that they can't go online and borrow other sources. For certain assignments, students have to sumbit their assignments to turnitin.com, which is a website that checks any assignment for plagiarism.
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