“The Pedagogy of the Oppressed” reading, by Paulo Freire, presents two teaching styles and the effects it has on student learning. The first one is called the banking concept of education. This style of teaching works like a depositing transaction at a bank; the teacher delivers his lesson and deposits it to the students and the students simply accept it and store it like a depository. This style of teaching is not very effective and Freire states that it’s dehumanizing our society. “The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of the world. The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited to them (Freire pg. 396). In simple terms, he is saying that because we are not learning to critically think about everything that is presented to us we will never be independent beings. We are always going to allow others to think for us and we are always going to accept their views whether it’s right or wrong. Freire suggests that to prevent this from happening educators need to change their style of teaching and try to intellectually challenge their students more. The solution is using the problem posing method of education which involves student and teachers to exchange ideas, contradict ideas, and the opportunity to learn from each other and not just from the instructor. (The learning communities at NCC is a good example of using the problem posing teaching style). This second style of teaching is definitely more effective because it helps the students prepare themselves for the challenges they may encounter in society; they will be able to freely and independently choose what to accept or not to accept. This ability will always help them be in control of themselves.
Indirectly, the problem posing method of education is like hands on learning; it gets the students involved. That's how our approach of teaching Second Life Presentation should be based on... hands on learning....instead of a presentation that consists heavy lecturing to make it interesting/effective.
This is how we can incorporate Frieire’s ideas to the Second Life workshop.
-Have the students sign up for an account
- Customize their own avatar according to their individual preferences
- learn how to get your avatar to do different things such as teleport, fly
-In the end we can ask their opinions about the program of whether they liked it or not and why?
-We can ask them why they think this program has gained so much popularity and why people are so willing to spend so much time and money to create second life on this program.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Demo OR DIE!!!!!!!!
Demonstrations are a way to show what is going on in a moment of time, simulating through real time or through speed increase or speed decrease. A demonstration is a way for people to get a greater understanding of a situation how it works. “The demonstration, or “demo” has become the defining moment of the digital artist’s practice at the turn of the millennium.” (p13). By having demonstrations it is easier for people to follow along with presentations making everything visual instead of auditory.
The obvious reason why a demo is used so regularly is it complies the basic components of what one is suppose to take out of the presentation, or work that an artist has given and gives the audience an idea of what the work will contain. It involves being brief and concise grabbing the attention of the audience making them want to further their knowledge in the area of work that you are presenting. “Artist and designers rarely send out original work to curators or cart it to meetings with commercial clients. Instead, they make reproductions, either in portfolios or as slides. The advantages of the portfolio are its success at reproducing print work, its impressive physicality and its obvious stability.” (p16). Through different advancements in technology demos are much easier to access. The World Wide Web is the largest advancement that allows people to access data. Demos, slides, pictures and or all of these can be accessed now where ever the internet can be accessed making work for an artist or a presenter much easier.
Throughout time, demos have made their way through different presenters proving a point to thousands of people at a time, “In the decades that followed, certain figures emerged as masters of the demonstration (or “demo gods”)…” (p18). Steve Jobs was one of those people that came up to show that demonstrations can be very useful. While giving presentations to people he would have his computer crash, then pull up his debugger and fix the problem in front of thousands of people at a time. He would fix the problem in front of everyone in the audience showing how easy his computer system actually was. With out a visual display of showing how easy it is to debug a computer, one might just might throw out the information that is given and not believe. With a demonstrations showing how easy it is to debug an Apple, people witnessed and believe getting a fuller and richer understanding of the whole system.
A demonstration does more then just show people how to work a piece of soft ware it helps turn away techno-anxiety, “For one, the techno-anxiety engendered by the demo or die era is not a free – floating nervousness about technology.” (p23) later goes into saying, “It is a nervousness that can in now way be termed neurotic” (p23). With the aid of a demonstration it will help ease the nervousness that comes with using technology. Showing step by step process is encouraging to people and leaves them with the feeling of not being left behind.
A demonstration gives the presenter now a look of being a cyborg. The cyborg imagines is caused by the use of an extension that will help aid in the presentation for people to get a fuller understanding. Since a cyborg is an extension then what is the bare minimum in the aid to help, it would create most of economics into a cyborg economics, this is because many people when presenting a point or a new idea to the public involve the public with some type of demonstration to make sure that there is a fuller understanding when trying to learn a new topic.
With my understanding of the article I completely agree with the author of this article. Demonstrations are such a powerful tool in a presentation to help the audience get a fuller understanding on what the presentation is about. At the same time, I have seen many of times that demonstrations do not go out to plan and can actually work against the presenter. These types of demonstrations are usually unoriginal or very slow in the process that they go by going into way to much detail for the basic understating of the subject. In other cases, when trying to learn a piece of material for the firs time it can be very helpful for a demonstration to aid you in a step by step process.
For our group it is important to make the presentation have examples and different points to show how “Second Life” is going to run in front of the class. Demos are a great way to do this. By having a basic concept that we bring to the class to teach them the basic over view of how the game works is the most effective way that the class will learn about the game.
Ways that we should look at demonstrating the game is, to take the class into the game as if they were to know nothing about the game. On all the computers in the computer lab will have “Second Life” on it and so will the main one with the projector in the front. From creating an account to all the way through the orientation we will show them step by step on how the game should be played and how to advance in the knowledge that is available. By only showing the basic concepts with out going into to much detail it would help the students by grabbing their interest and hopefully if they ever wanted to play the game again, they would know enough to start up and play.
Power point with written instructions and showing what the group is trying to accomplish would help as well in the beginning of the presentation. Giving the audience a auditory check list to help them stay on point will also help the class have a timeline of what needs to be taught in the matter of 45min. Within the power point presentation screen shots from the game would be a great tool. Screen shots could have written instructions on top of them showing a still frame of what the game is suppose to look like a certain points, this could also help out with teaching making confusing parts of the presentation less confusing.
While demonstrations are very important to help with people gaining a fuller knowledge of what presentation is about, it can also work against you. One must make sure that the demonstration stays on point and coveys an appropriate tone for the audience to keep their attention primarily to the presenter.
The obvious reason why a demo is used so regularly is it complies the basic components of what one is suppose to take out of the presentation, or work that an artist has given and gives the audience an idea of what the work will contain. It involves being brief and concise grabbing the attention of the audience making them want to further their knowledge in the area of work that you are presenting. “Artist and designers rarely send out original work to curators or cart it to meetings with commercial clients. Instead, they make reproductions, either in portfolios or as slides. The advantages of the portfolio are its success at reproducing print work, its impressive physicality and its obvious stability.” (p16). Through different advancements in technology demos are much easier to access. The World Wide Web is the largest advancement that allows people to access data. Demos, slides, pictures and or all of these can be accessed now where ever the internet can be accessed making work for an artist or a presenter much easier.
Throughout time, demos have made their way through different presenters proving a point to thousands of people at a time, “In the decades that followed, certain figures emerged as masters of the demonstration (or “demo gods”)…” (p18). Steve Jobs was one of those people that came up to show that demonstrations can be very useful. While giving presentations to people he would have his computer crash, then pull up his debugger and fix the problem in front of thousands of people at a time. He would fix the problem in front of everyone in the audience showing how easy his computer system actually was. With out a visual display of showing how easy it is to debug a computer, one might just might throw out the information that is given and not believe. With a demonstrations showing how easy it is to debug an Apple, people witnessed and believe getting a fuller and richer understanding of the whole system.
A demonstration does more then just show people how to work a piece of soft ware it helps turn away techno-anxiety, “For one, the techno-anxiety engendered by the demo or die era is not a free – floating nervousness about technology.” (p23) later goes into saying, “It is a nervousness that can in now way be termed neurotic” (p23). With the aid of a demonstration it will help ease the nervousness that comes with using technology. Showing step by step process is encouraging to people and leaves them with the feeling of not being left behind.
A demonstration gives the presenter now a look of being a cyborg. The cyborg imagines is caused by the use of an extension that will help aid in the presentation for people to get a fuller understanding. Since a cyborg is an extension then what is the bare minimum in the aid to help, it would create most of economics into a cyborg economics, this is because many people when presenting a point or a new idea to the public involve the public with some type of demonstration to make sure that there is a fuller understanding when trying to learn a new topic.
With my understanding of the article I completely agree with the author of this article. Demonstrations are such a powerful tool in a presentation to help the audience get a fuller understanding on what the presentation is about. At the same time, I have seen many of times that demonstrations do not go out to plan and can actually work against the presenter. These types of demonstrations are usually unoriginal or very slow in the process that they go by going into way to much detail for the basic understating of the subject. In other cases, when trying to learn a piece of material for the firs time it can be very helpful for a demonstration to aid you in a step by step process.
For our group it is important to make the presentation have examples and different points to show how “Second Life” is going to run in front of the class. Demos are a great way to do this. By having a basic concept that we bring to the class to teach them the basic over view of how the game works is the most effective way that the class will learn about the game.
Ways that we should look at demonstrating the game is, to take the class into the game as if they were to know nothing about the game. On all the computers in the computer lab will have “Second Life” on it and so will the main one with the projector in the front. From creating an account to all the way through the orientation we will show them step by step on how the game should be played and how to advance in the knowledge that is available. By only showing the basic concepts with out going into to much detail it would help the students by grabbing their interest and hopefully if they ever wanted to play the game again, they would know enough to start up and play.
Power point with written instructions and showing what the group is trying to accomplish would help as well in the beginning of the presentation. Giving the audience a auditory check list to help them stay on point will also help the class have a timeline of what needs to be taught in the matter of 45min. Within the power point presentation screen shots from the game would be a great tool. Screen shots could have written instructions on top of them showing a still frame of what the game is suppose to look like a certain points, this could also help out with teaching making confusing parts of the presentation less confusing.
While demonstrations are very important to help with people gaining a fuller knowledge of what presentation is about, it can also work against you. One must make sure that the demonstration stays on point and coveys an appropriate tone for the audience to keep their attention primarily to the presenter.
Hirsch Reading - Cultural Literacy
"The complex untakings of modern life depends on the cooperation of many people with different specialities in different places. When communications fail, so do the undertakings." (Hirsch 438) Hirsch's argument in the article is that in today's society most people are literate enough to communicate well. He describes that this is a process that should be started young and that we are overlooking what it actually takes to be truly lieterate.
Basic commmunications require people to be able to to connect to the world around them. There are basic functions that we must be able to perform to be able to communicare with others and have them actually understand what it is that we are saying. Hirsch says first that we must know the background information of the materials to be able to understand the underlying issue. Such as when we wake up and read the newpaper, the newspaper is assuming that there is a common reader that has a certain level of understanding of the situations that are happening in the world.
Hirsch further explains that we must have a common language to make sure that communication is freely transmitted. The common language this common language allows everyone to be on a level playing field and that there are no mixed signals coming out. Without the common language there is a disconnect, where if you use one word expecting that everyone knows what the meaning of that word is. But in reality there could be more than one definition of the word and then people are confused.
He talks about a cultural literacy where people would be well versed in many things and be able to communicate them freely to others. By creating a cultural literacy we are creating a shared knowledge between everyone. In often times college students have fell into places where there are gaps bewteen what they are trying to say and what the person they are talking is actually getting out of the conversation. We do not all learn the same things, and we should not expect everyone to know what we know. But by teaching people then we are able to create a common knowledge and there will be less confusion in discussions.
So for Second life I have come up with a few things that we could use to create the types of things that Hirsch is speaking about.
Basic commmunications require people to be able to to connect to the world around them. There are basic functions that we must be able to perform to be able to communicare with others and have them actually understand what it is that we are saying. Hirsch says first that we must know the background information of the materials to be able to understand the underlying issue. Such as when we wake up and read the newpaper, the newspaper is assuming that there is a common reader that has a certain level of understanding of the situations that are happening in the world.
Hirsch further explains that we must have a common language to make sure that communication is freely transmitted. The common language this common language allows everyone to be on a level playing field and that there are no mixed signals coming out. Without the common language there is a disconnect, where if you use one word expecting that everyone knows what the meaning of that word is. But in reality there could be more than one definition of the word and then people are confused.
He talks about a cultural literacy where people would be well versed in many things and be able to communicate them freely to others. By creating a cultural literacy we are creating a shared knowledge between everyone. In often times college students have fell into places where there are gaps bewteen what they are trying to say and what the person they are talking is actually getting out of the conversation. We do not all learn the same things, and we should not expect everyone to know what we know. But by teaching people then we are able to create a common knowledge and there will be less confusion in discussions.
So for Second life I have come up with a few things that we could use to create the types of things that Hirsch is speaking about.
- Background Information: Telling everyone about the game, the point of the game, the end result of the game, different places to navigate, basic knowledge of the game
- Common Language: common key strokes, different buttons to push, terms most used in the game, hand outs
- Cultural Literacy: teaching the class the basics of the game, make sure that everyone knows how to get to places, easy instructions so that everyone can then tell others about the game
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