- Jul 2017
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www.thisamericanlife.org www.thisamericanlife.org
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What I thought is they were made by robots.
I have assumed this before as well.
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I'm a worshiper in the cult of Mac
Making a point about our cultures obsession with brand names.
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he made the audience actually feel something about that fact.
Our society is desensitized to the fact that many of our products are provided to us through the abuse of other humans.
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I'm not allowed to say.
Already alluding to the fact that there are things which are being hidden.
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31 years ago, Shenzhen was a small town
This shows how quickly the technology boom there happened, warehouse companies turned a small town, into a bombing buisness with more people than NYC in only 31 years. It really puts the entire thing into context and gives a name to a thing what, as they said, is always overgeneralized by just "China".
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silver poison sky
Just a highlight of what companies are duing to our earth with the endless amount of waste coming from their sweatshops.
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until I saw those pictures, it was only then I realized, I had never thought, ever, in a dedicated way, about how they were made.
This hits close to home because I have never really put much thought into where these products are really made. It is not until we are forced that we see the consumerism, he is so in love with technology but he never thought about who was really making it.
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Do you really think Apple doesn't know? In a company obsessed with the details-- with the aluminum being milled just so, with the glass being fitted perfectly into the case-- do you really think it's credible that they don't know?
It's amazing that a company as highly developed as apple produces it's products in conditions like this. It reminds me of the false notion with the gravestones from the article yesterday. People like to think about the gravestones they receive for their lost loved ones being carefully carved and crafted by an old craftsman. They fail to realize the exploitations that occur to make these gravestones. Same with iPhones. These devices have amazing capabilities and are always being innovated. I think people may think that because they are so technically advanced, they are also careful constructed in pristine high tech conditions which is again false. But we don't know about it so we don't see a problem with continuing to be consumers to apples products.
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They look really pissed. And they are carrying guns.
All of this to guard factors that produce electronics. It's evident that these guards and men aren't used to keep people out, it's used to keep the underlying issues occurring inside from getting out.
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because it gave me so much pleasure, if it hadn't been for the pictures
I find it a little ironic and it makes me wonder....from the articles we read and discussed yesterday to this one today, we are more than aware of the issues at hand. So what do we do? Where do we go from here? I am appalled by the articles I am reading, but at the same time I am reading them on the devices that are the subject of these articles.
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is made in China
We know where it's made, but people don't usually understand HOW it's made
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Good question. Anything else I can do for you?
I wonder what would happen if people tried this today. This was done using an iPhone 4s. We are now on the iPhone 7. With so much time passing, and the releasing of articles like this one, I wonder if Siri's answers have changed?
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No one “won” the Second Congo War; it simply collapsed from exhaustion as resources and energy ran out
What an extreme waste of life. Saddening to think what humans are capable of
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He was threatened and then thrown out of his job
This is often times what seems to happen to thosewho try to expose the truth.
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The soldiers stood with their backs to us, aiming their automatic weapons at the tree line, as the blast from the rotors whipped the tall grass around their legs. As we touched down, jeeps and four-by-fours roared up, bringing injured soldiers for evacuation, goods and gear to ship out, then reloading with arriving people and equipment. Yet children stood a few feet from the soldiers, complaining about the disruption to their soccer game.
Images of the movie Tarzan are coming to mind. Bad guys vs. good guys, an environment or species at risk...
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. The profits generated when we go shopping flow back down the chain and fuel more assaults on the natural world, drive more people toward enslavement, and feed more goods into the global supply chain. Round and round it goes— our spending drives a criminal perpetual motion machine that eats people and nature like a cancer.
Even when we think about these consequences, is it enough for us to stop purchasing these items, so called "feeding the monster" ?
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But there’s no secret about the engine driving this vicious cycle. It is us—the consumer culture of the rich north.
We got rid of slavery in our own country, but abuse it in other countries...
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pull our cellphones from the earth, our clothing, our computers, our flat-screen televisions, our cars—it all comes from the earth, ultimately.
Neat thought. Typically we think of food and maybe clothing as being provided to us through the Earth, but there are really a great any things that also take a toll on the Earth.
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We think of Steve Jobs in his black turtleneck as the origin of our iPhones, or imagine a local funeral director carving a loved one’s name into a tombstone
Concerning that an entire body of people could be trained to believe a "reality" that is so far from the truth.
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Cellphones have become electronic umbilical cords connecting us with our children, our partners, and our parents with an immediacy and reliability hardly known before.
I can definitely relate to this. I can't imagine trying to live life without a cell phone at this point. Even something as simple as directions on a road trip seems challenging without modern day technology.
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Our view of cemetery monuments is normally restricted to what we see when we bury our loved ones or visit their graves. If we think about where the markers come from at all, we might imagine an elderly craftsman carefully chiseling a name into a polished stone.
Rhetoric.
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a bribe here and there means local police and forest rangers turn a blind eye.
Is this something that we see law enforcement do in our country as well?
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the quarries themselves are illegal, paying no mining permits or taxes.
So essentially the U.S. is contributing to illegal misconduct in other countries by purchasing their granite?
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Just when the family feels they may have finally found some security, they are being locked into hereditary slavery.
Master manipulators...Very much so "big business" mentality
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See the little girl playing with the hammer?” asked a local investigator. “Along with the child, the size of the hammer grows, and that’s the only progress in her life.
Such a vastly different picture; what is provided for these children vs. American children
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So, like France and many other rich countries, including the United States, Germany imports its tombstones from the developing world.
I did not know we imported our tomb stones. Interesting to think that in an attempt to memorialize our deceased loved ones, we could be killing the loved ones of others in developing countries.
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The markup on tombstones is equally high. The red granite tombstones that sell for $500 to $1,000 in the United States
This reminds me of the mark ups on alcohol. I've worked in a few bars and it is not uncommon for the mark up on liquor to be over 100%. It's like getting away with murder.
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No electricity or running water, no paving on the roads, and good luck if you needed a doctor,
I've lived in a couple places that had electricity suspended at least twice, but just imagining this EVERY DAY... We take these luxuries for granted in this country, even though we work hard and are lucky enough to to just that.
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There is a deadly triangular trade going on today
Does this remind anybody of the Transatlantic slave trade?
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The good news is that slavery can be stopped.
But HOW LONG will it take to stop this slavery?
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But all this normally happens far from any prying eyes. It’s a hidden world that keeps its secrets.
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“See the little girl playing with the hammer?” asked a local investigator. “Along with the child, the size of the hammer grows, and that’s the only progress in her life.”
Early age indoctrination at work here.
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the quarries themselves are illegal, paying no mining permits or taxes.
This makes me wonder about similar operations in the United States. How many legitimate-looking businesses are running back-operations in order to keep up with demand?
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a bribe here and there means local police and forest rangers turn a blind eye.
Sounds like the NYPD.... Money makes the world go round.
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Slavery is a great way to keep your costs down
Quite so, one would say that slavery costs almost nothing. The best way to avoid criticism is to call the slavery by another name.
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Slaves lured or captured from the pool of vulnerable migrants are then forced to rip up the earth or level the forests, completing the cycle
The cycle keeps on repeating itself so it seems like there is no way out.
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other fruits of slavery
All of our luxuries come from the fruit of slavery. Doesn't make it sound very appetizing.
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pull our cellphones from the earth, our clothing, our computers, our flat-screen televisions, our cars—it all comes from the earth, ultimatel
Never really think about where everything comes from. Everything we have comes from the earth and we forget to take of it while trying to attain all of these things.
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Cellphones have become electronic umbilical cords connecting us
Cellphones really have become a part of everyone. We can live without our cellphones it has become attached to us.
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Slavery in granite quarries is a family affair enforced by a tricky scheme based on debt.
Debt passed on from relatives should not be passed onto someone and worked off by slavery. This is terribly sad this is still going on this century. In the U.S we are so blinded by our culture" and ways of living we don't see who was effected in the process of getting what we want.
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Slavery is a great way to keep your costs down
It's hard to believe in this day and age people are still using slavery, especially for reasons like keeping costs down.
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The markup on tombstones is equally high. The red granite tombstones that sell for $500 to $1,000 in the United States
I use to work at a cemetery and I know the funeral business pretty well. The tombstones we would sell were marked up over 50% of the sale price. To make a profit they were charging so much money that some people were settling to just leave a little grave markers for their loved ones.
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In the United States, the average cost of installing those countertops runs from $2,000 to $8,000, but the price charged by Indian exporters for polished red granite is just $5 to $15 per square meter—that comes to about $100 for all the granite your kitchen needs
It is crazy how much we mark up most goods and services. Being from another country I know how expensive anything in the U.S is. But we do this to keep up with our high standards of living
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It’s not because they don’t know that people are going to die; it’s more a product of the complete control the government exerts over death and funerals.
Government controls everything even death
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It’s the most dramatic and yet the most mundane event of a life, something we all do, no exceptions, no passes.
Intense way to think of death. So true and frightening.
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Miners can start with this false debt and then spend ten to fifteen years as a slave to the boss.
I think this highlight how the system is created to keep you in the same place forever, as soon as you make money you have double the debt to pay. It just gets to the point that they give up.
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us
important as since it is our fault, it is also on us to make a change.
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If slavery were an American state it would have the population of California and the economic output of the District of Columbia, but it would be the world’s third-largest producer of CO2
I thought this was a really interesting way to put the impact of this labor in perspective. It not only shows the amount of innocent lives effected but also, the lack of money they recived from the deal AND its effect on the world.
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watching
made me think back to the game we played this week and the way that we had to insure the children never had a break. Made the game seems much more like reality.
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Yours is probably within arm’s reach right now.
Read this article the first time on my phone....interesting and valid point
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The frictionless genius of our creative class, which we see every day in our lives and in advertising, leads us to support environmental destruction and human enslavement that we never see. We want our clever phones, the market needs resources to make them, and getting those resources creates and feeds conflict. It turns out that the foundations of our ingenious new economy rest on the forceful extraction of minerals in places where laws do not work and criminals control everything.
Our drive to always have the next best thing fuels this market. Would we be so attached to our products (cell phones) if we clearly knew and understood the means in which they were produced?
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For the thugs the townspeople are more like stolen cattle; there’s no investment beyond the effort of capture and little reason to keep them alive.
Another example of the disassociation between production and the means of production. The people who produce these products have no humanity to the "owners" and are treated as property, making them disposable.
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“peace”
Ironic. Peace through the exploitation and violence control.
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So far, no country has decided to use this international law to help Congo end slavery, but the tools are there.
What about other forms of exploitation that still exist in America? Ex. Racial profiling, women's equal pay, etc.. Obviously we have come a long way since Jim Crow, and the enslavement and exploitation of the people of the Congo are unbelievable. However, we are quick to judge the horrific occurrences in the Congo, but are we able to say we are above exploitation of one's own people?
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an extraction that we never actually see.
Again, making us mindless consumers and allowing us to think we have no part in the exploitation that occurs
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Our view of cemetery monuments is normally restricted to what we see when we bury our loved ones or visit their graves. If we think about where the markers come from at all, we might imagine an elderly craftsman carefully chiseling a name into a polished stone.
This goes to show the blind relationship we have between consumers and producers. When we purchase a product, we seldom think about who produced them or how they were produced. If we knew the ways and means of the production of the products we want, we may view them differently and may avoid them all together. This blind ignorance between consumers and producers is how capitalism works. By thinking of the products we care for being produced in caring ways (ex. graves being constructed from elderly craftsmen), we don't realize how they are actually produced (through exploitation of resources and people) making us mindless consumers and allowing the exploitation to continue to thrive.
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War has shattered minds and bodies
I thought this article was fitting: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/07/is-your-cell-phone-fueling-civil-war-in-congo/241663/
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tricked local tribes into signing away their lands and lives in bogus treaties that none of them could read.
Sounds like phone companies like Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, and T-mobile
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laws do not work and criminals control everything
Hasn't everything started this way?
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There’s always been a moral case for stopping slavery; now there’s an environmental reason too.
I think slavery should be stopped, but how are we going to get millions of people that rely on their smartphones as a way of living to give that up?
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since the slave master is watching
This reminds me of how big brother watches us through our phones.
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Round and round it goes— our spending drives a criminal perpetual motion machine that eats people and nature like a cancer.
This sentence is really powerful.
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businessmen that sold the tombstones; these men were appalled when they saw footage from the quarries.
I wonder whether this realization actually affected them
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local police and forest rangers
Sounds familiar
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And in India, the most cost effective way to achieve that is slavery.
The cheapest form of labor.
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See the little girl playing with the hammer?” asked a local investigator. “Along with the child, the size of the hammer grows, and that’s the only progress in her life.”
Such a vivid image.
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- Feb 2017
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In the Congo today, just as in America not long ago, there is yet another way
not that long ago
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The frictionless genius of our creative class, which we see every day in our lives and in advertising, leads us to support environmental destruction and human enslavement that we never see.
Interesting juxtaposition
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Local file Local file
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It is not creative labor, nor is it free. It is fascinating that, during a pivotal moment in early computing history, the industry’s foremost electron-ics company represented it that way.
yes
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However, if we look inside computing hardware, we will not see dancing bunny-suited clean room work-ers, happily making chips for free.
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the material conditions that are usually invisible to the user and are necessary for digital media device creation
this is a useful bridge b/w media archaeology and platform studies
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Navajo women did not make circuits because their brains naturally “thought” in patterns of right-angle colors and shapes. They did not make them well because they had inherent Indian virtues such as stoicism, pride in crafts-womanship, or an inherent and inborn manual dexterity. And Fairchild did not employ Navajo women because of these traits. These traits were identified after the company learned about the tax incentives available to subsidize the project, the lack of unions and other employment options in the area, and the generous donation of heavy equipment given by the US government gratis as part of an incentive to develop “light industry” as an “occupational education” for Indians.
In case this isn't clear from earlier.
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In this case, it can be seen how racialization—the understanding of a specific population as possessing traits and behaviors that belong to a race, not an individual—is a process, not a product
good succinct summation
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This is an eloquent illustration of how racialization works; prior beliefs about Indians as unreliable workers unsuited for modern form of labor are trans-formed into assertions of the positive value of “primitive” habits. This shift demonstrates the fluidity and mutability of gender and race stereotyping; Indians were described as careful, docile, and hardworking when it helped their managers to understand and explain productivity through an ethnic lens.
this
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The immobility and vulnerability of the Navajo worker was rhetorically respun into an act of purposeful and care-driven cultural preservation on the part of the corporation
gah
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indigenous electronic workers at Shiprock were pressed into service as examples of the peaceful coexistence and integration of the past and the future, the primitive and the modern, creativity and capitalism. They were cited as evidence that digital work—the work of the hand and its digits—could be painlessly trans-ferred from the indigenous cultural context into the world of technological commercial innovation, benefiting both in the process.
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immigrant women of color were hailed as the ideal workforce because they were mobile, cheap, and above all, flexible; they could be laid off at any time and could not move to look for al-ternative forms of work, while their employers could close plants and reopen them in locales with the most favorable conditions
this right here
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Indian-identified traits and practices such as painstaking attention to craft and an affinity for metalwork and textiles were deployed to position the Navajo on the cutting edge of a technological moment precisely because of their possession of a racialized set of creative cultural skills in traditional, premodern artisanal handwork
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avajo workers were always represented as different from white workers, as possessing innate racial and cultural traits that could be enhanced or rehabilitated to produce chips accurately, quickly, and painlessly
wow
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We were really screwing up the whole societal structure at the Indian tribe. You know, the women were making money and the guys were drinking it up and it was a failure.
eesh
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between 1965 and 1975
temporal specificity
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American my-thologies around Indianness gave these workers a desirable identity as culturally foreign yet familiar
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$6,000 a month
This doesn't seem like very much money.
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- Oct 2016
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theconversation.com theconversation.com
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When does our submission to measurement hit against something we must protect as “ours”?
When we are no longer able to evaluate situations for ourselves
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shifts in our communication infrastructures have enabled large-scale attempts to reshape the very possibilities of social order in the interests of market functioning and commercial exploitation.
Everything we do online is basically a business opportunity
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modelviewculture.com modelviewculture.com
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The role has a hell of a lot of business value.
It's hard for people to realize the amount of effort involved with social media but overall it can really make or break a company because of the possible positive outcomes.
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conditionallyaccepted.com conditionallyaccepted.com
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The death of Mike Brown was not the first nor will it be the last life claimed by police brutality. The uprising in Ferguson was one of the many boiling points we’ve seen Black communities arrive at after enduring endless violence from police vigilante acts. But now that race is being seen as a hot topic in the media, people from everywhere are weighing in.
This has come to be true. Every day I see a new victim but hashtaging these names only brings awareness to the problem and obviously has not solved anything because more names are being added to the list.
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- Sep 2016
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www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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So when I watched the film for the second time, I did so imagining that all the stormtroopers were black.
I'm genuinely curious if the directors intended this or it's just an interpretation of viewers. It's fascinating to consider the possibility that there was a race and political motive behind the film.
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www.edsurge.com www.edsurge.com
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Traditional assignments don’t necessarily empower students when they have to post them in a public space.
When a student is given opportunities to expand their creativity they're far more likely to appreciate the assignment and be proud of what the outcome was.
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www.insidehighered.com www.insidehighered.com
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Specs grading is flexible.
This seems very complicated...
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If your objective for an assignment is creativity, simply provide loose specs of the various ways that students can demonstrate their ability to explain and apply the material
I find that this type of project caters more towards students who are creatively inclined. For me, this is the best type of assignment because it highlights my strengths. For others it may be the opposite, but the idea that a course features options for both types of thinkers will result in happier students.
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Here is an even simpler system with only four bundles of
It's a great idea because it's easier on both the student and the teacher. We would know exactly what we need to do in order to receive our desired grade.
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. Then, at the end of the course, you can give the student(s) with the most tokens something desirable -- perhaps the chance to skip the final exam or a gift certificate for a pizza.
I remember when I was in elementary school we did a token system for a bit and I think it not only taught me the value of money (you know that you have to work for it) but encouraged me to work a little harder.
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www.insidehighered.com www.insidehighered.com
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doing the draft, coming to class, etc
Again, this puts the effort into the students hands. If they apply themselves and work hard they're going to feel like the grade should reflect that and it will unlike if a teacher has a bias grading system.
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putting control of the grade firmly in students’ hands.
This is great but also makes me worried because now its more on my own shoulders. I mean I understand that I am responsible for my own learning experience, but how accountable should teachers be? Just a thought..
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medium.com medium.com
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the student is.
It's great to give more control to the students.
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something that they themselves can reflect upon, not simply grades and assignments that are locked away in a proprietary system controlled by the school.
This is an interesting way of looking at things that I agree about; especially because throughout most of our schooling careers, we're rewarded for good grades solely instead of something that was self motivated.
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- Apr 2016
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ideas.time.com ideas.time.com
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Case in point: the only harsh critiques I saw around Katy Perry’s yellowface were by Asian-American journalists and bloggers, whereas Julianne Hough’s blackface Halloween costume was roundly denounced.
The public only makes a point to be outraged by the racism that has been openly made unacceptable, whereas other more recent cases stand unnoticed in the historical shadow of political correctness.
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But #NotYourAsianSidekick also proves that Twitter is the wrong place to have this conversation. 140 characters isn’t enough to express a lifetime of experiences — both oppressive and uplifting — and to be able to do it in a place where it can be heard and taken seriously.”
The internet is a good spring board to be inspired, however it is a call to duty to pursue activism in a more literal sense.
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- Feb 2016
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www.xojane.com www.xojane.com
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Journalist Joshunda Sanders chronicled the abuse prominent WOC academics and activists endure once they speak out on topics involving race and gender.
In the linked article, one of the first things said is this: "...journalist Amanda Hess describes rape threats directed at her for simply being a woman with an Internet connection. She notes that 72.5 percent of people who reported being stalked or harassed online between 2000 and 2012 in one study were women. For women of color, the online complexities are even worse."
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Everyone’s so different, except they’re not.
"Everyone's so different, except they're not" This really made me stop and think about this for a moment. It really makes sense because everyone takes the SAME type of profile pictures to the point where we expect them to look a certain way. In our efforts to be different, we've become exactly the same.
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www.hastac.org www.hastac.org
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How do we create our selves
I really like how this starts off with this question. It makes the reader seriously think about how we choose to present ourselves to others and the world. We don't realize exactly how much information we give out when we create selfies, and how much people can find out as a result.
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This is a really interesting prompt. I think it makes us question how much of our story is being left out because of how many of us decide to take selfies.
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www.micahmwhite.com www.micahmwhite.com
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And the first aspect of activism that must be rethought is our notion of temporality.
activism needs to be more permanent-hashtags are permanent on the internet.
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While some may caution against immediate action by pointing out that societies often predict perils that never come, what is remarkable about our times is that the apocalypse has already happened.
Today's issues are due largely to the inactivity of generations past, from a belief that the general population didn't have a voice.
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www.speakupforchange.ca www.speakupforchange.ca
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1 in 3 youth activists would boycott a business if it goes against a cause they care about?
This shows the importance of social action and sticking to one's beliefs is to today's youth.
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www.makeuseof.com www.makeuseof.com
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“‘Slacktivism’ is the ideal type of activism for a lazy generation: why bother with sit-ins and the risk of arrest, police brutality, or torture if one can be as loud campaigning in the virtual space?
Are we really that lazy? or have we found out a way to reach the masses?
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In August 2007, designer Chris Messina asked his followers how they felt about using the pound sign to group conversations on the micro-blogging platform, and thus became the first person to use the hashtag on Twitter.
This is an excellent example of how we can "recycle" old concepts and repurpose them for a greater use.
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www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com
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But there's something valuable in making sure you're not surrounded by people who think like you. It helps you understand what you think better. And I appreciate that about Twitter. It's a cacophony of voices. Even when you don't agree, you at least understand different perspectives. The medium itself sets that up.
Social media allows us to connect with people we wouldn't normally and understand more about the way we think based on our interactions with other diverse people.
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But what social media has done is that it has exposed the intensity of hatred in America.
For the first time, confrontations are public, no one can hide behind the mask of stretched truth. The truth is at the world's disposal
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When people think about protest, they think that protest is always confrontation, protest is always disruption. But protest is also intellectual confrontation and disruption.
Instead of making protest something violent and very physical, the future of social reform begs that it be a peaceful, intellectual movement that positively impacts a society of equal citizens.
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So the goal was to be a hub of information. I think the first newsletter that went out had 400 subscribers, and we're at a little bit less than 14,000 now.
Today, while the expansion of web resources provides us with ample information about various topics, there can also be a lot of false sources with biased or distorted information. Thanks to hashtag activism, the right people can be in charge of distributing the most authentic information to the concerned public.
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You are enough to start a movement. Individual people can come together around things that they know are unjust.
Don't be afraid to speak up. Most likely there is at least one other person who has the same concerns, and social media is a good opportunity for those with quieter tendencies to really speak up and be heard.
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The people, in a very democratic way, became the voice of the struggle.
"The people" finally have a way to make their ordinary voices heard by many: social media. It is a lot easier to handle social issues from a collectivist perspective rather than individualist movements from the past. A figurehead is no longer necessary to fuel change: we can all work together and make it happen as a unit.
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If we think about this as community building, and we think of community building as a manifestation of love, and we think about love being about accountability, and accountability about justice, what's interesting is that Twitter has kept us honest.
Technology has the ability to unite us despite our location and social status. People with similar opinions who would not normally associate are now given the opportunity to have those deeper conversations and expand each other's intellect.
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Missouri would have convinced you that we did not exist if it were not for social media.
The institution of editing the news and only telling the stories that certain people want to hear is put to rest with the implication of social media. For the first time, everyone's stories are worthy of being told.
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Mainstream-media figures often portray social media as a buzzing hive of useless outrage.
All too often, social media is viewed as a meaningless outlet to tell the world what you ate for lunch or how you decided to style your hair. Instead, we need to accept, as a society, the idea that there are multiple applications to the same technologies.
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I see myself as a protestor who is also telling the story as it happens.
I think that it is interesting, again...these people that tweet and use hashtags are part of the movement and are able to report live updates.
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We were able to tell our own stories.
Since as long as we can remember, there has always been news companies telling us what is happening, now with a simple hashtag we can go through millions of videos and pictures just because of something with a hashtag and get another perspective of a story.
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He's also used social networks to raise awareness and to organize, by for example creating a text-message alert that informed thousands the instant the grand jury in Ferguson returned a no-indictment verdict in the Michael Brown case.
This could be used for more than that. It could also be used for alerting a neighborhoods of crime or a major storm.
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DeRay Mckesson, who has emerged as one of a number of leading organizers and activists against police brutality, has spoken on his feed about how vital Twitter is for boosting a movement.
I think that using social media can get to more people and can reach a wider audience rather than a protest or flyers.
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conditionallyaccepted.com conditionallyaccepted.com
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The promise and potential of digital popular education is to formulate a means of empowering those on the margins with a means to fight back and organize to build equitable communities.
Public access to a median of communication helps to create a sense of unity with our greater community, as if a small, integral piece in something much bigger.
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It is time for academe to move its research from being “inequality porn” to knowledge in service of the public, knowledge in service of a vision of transformative and restorative justice.
Often times, academia guards its intelligence and resources from the general public because it is seen as "too advanced" or "superior in intellect". It is time that we finally open the door and make academic research more about application instead of theory.
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People across demographics are finding ways to analyze the social issues impacting their lives.
These movements involve more than education; they relate to any and every social issue of today's society. Also, public education is open to anyone, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, financial standing, etc. These are steps to improving communication between all people.
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Hashtags are not only a means to having discussions but also a useful teaching tool that people organize around to distribute popular education. Making scholarship public
Everyone has access to social media, therefore we have a new generation of millennials that are very aware and active in the current social issues that the nation, and even the world, is facing and devoted to understanding and reforming such issues. Authority is finally given to all to have an intelligent opinion on the affairs of today, which was the goal of our founding fathers in the first place: to raise a nation full of scholarly, well rounded citizens capable of caring for the well-being of the nation.
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Popular education is a process that fosters the empowerment of dominated people to take control of their learning process and contribute to building social change, justice, and equity from the bottom up.
Here we see that social media urges "popular education" for all, through which all students have the ability to be involved in current social issues, regardless of class, ethnicity or gender.
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One thing that #BlackLivesMatter has managed to do as a collective movement is highlight the need for the people outside of academe to know what is being said about their lives versus the popular notions that we’ve all been told to believe.
This movement can be seen as a call to higher learning. Perhaps a motivational declaration of certain social issues that need to be currently addressed. In this way, we as a society can become more educated and involved in the social issues taking place today.
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BLM is seen as a movement that gives voice to many Black people, not just in the US but across the diaspora.
It is evident that social media has empowered those who wouldn't commonly feel entitled to have their voice be heard on complex political and social topics today. Its a way of empowering the "average Joe" and giving more voice to the American people.
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elitedaily.com elitedaily.com
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When creating a social media campaign, the approach should be action first, share second. In order to join the Facebook group, you must donate.
This is an interesting point. It is hard to gain support if the cause is not active already.
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While there is no refuting the importance of social media’s role in social change, the impact of online activism, or clicktivism, may be more modest than we originally anticipated.
Online activism is continually growing and the impact is increasing, but at what cost?
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www.washington.edu www.washington.edu
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Effective digital activism employs a number of social media tools.
In order to reach everyone, interest groups have to go to multiple places.
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Digital activism is usually nonviolent and tends to work best when social media tools are combined with street-level organization, according to new research from the University of Washington.
It is actually effective and can be used in positive ways.
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modelviewculture.com modelviewculture.com
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Create community, develop an audience, and develop trust — but don’t ever neglect the data
Not to mention timing. Timing is everything. If you post too early about something, it gets forgotten. Too often, it gets annoying. Too late, it won't be successful.
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Taking steps such as advocating for monetary rewards for labor produced, even at an intern level, is crucial for re-working this predatory system.
This is where society looses me. Why must everything be met with a monetary reward? Why must everything come down to the dollar?
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Buzzfeed
There was a Twitter project that someone has brought to Buzzfeed's attention. They thought to increase the awareness of their project, but didn't necessarily want their own name to the project. Sometimes this free labor is for those that like the anonymity. However, it is clear that this post is about getting the credit and earning the dollar, not keeping anonymity.
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The simple fact is that, even with Aol’s money in the bank, HuffPost [can’t] afford to pay even fifty dollars per post to each of the thousands of people who currently contribute for free. With that option off the table, the choice for the majority of contributors is to either write for free, and enjoy the self-promotional benefits that brings, or don’t write at all
Another site to consider is odysseyonline. Several of my classmates have posted on their just to get their name out there on some kind of site. However, what is the differences if it is just your own domain?
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creativetime.org creativetime.org
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Map
These maps are beautiful. While I am not in the art world and so the words don't really mean anything, the detail and effort that went into them is outstanding.
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www.wired.com www.wired.com
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It’s something of a surprise that Whisper would let a reporter in to see this process. When I asked Microsoft, Google, and Facebook for information about how they moderate their services, they offered vague statements about protecting users but declined to discuss specifics.
I have never heard of Whisper, but it seems like Microsoft, Google and Facebook pride themselves in vague statements whenever anyone writes about them.
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estimates that the number of content moderators scrubbing the world’s social media sites, mobile apps, and cloud storage services runs to “well over 100,000”—that is, about twice the total head count of Google and nearly 14 times that of Facebook.
The amount of man power that goes into scrubbing the sites makes me wonder if it is a multitude of people, or a substantial amount of people that have worked out algorithms to create more sensitive material.
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- Jan 2016
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afrofuturism.net afrofuturism.net
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Music Industry to derail the movement by changing the focus of the music from positive messages, African history and evolved states of being to that of material wealth, violence and hyper-sexuality.
This is highly disturbing. I think I would have a very different view of Hip Hop if it kept its original purpose. It is sickening that the Music Industry thought it would be better to promote such vulgar things, just because they did not like the rise of awareness to another culture.
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Rap is the music of the global youth culture. It is the sound of rebellion and discontent that can be heard wherever the young are gathered and wherever inequalities have resulted in the formalization of destitution.
I feel like the same could be said for rock or heavy metal. It is just that it is to a different beat and style that is more preferable to the listener.
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Hip Hop stands as an exemplar of the effect upon the individual of societal ills
I feel that the main stream Hip Hop songs have come away from this. It is no longer about the affected individual, but about raw and vulgar things that give Hip Hop a bad name that the author mention previously.
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This is the natural path life takes like water, flowing down or up whatever channel presents a path, making one where none exists, or deepening preexisting ways, widening, eroding resistance whenever encountered to open the way for a more intense flow of energy
The language here is very calming for something that is introducing a topic that brings a lot of controversy, where the lack of afrofuturism is taken as "eroding resistance" allowing the normal "elite" to continue on.
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www.insidehighered.com www.insidehighered.com
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With the contract, they get to decide to what extent this is true for them. If one of the things that students learn from using the grading contract is that they value sleeping in several times a semester rather than attending class (and earning a higher grade), I’m happy to help them achieve that self-knowledge.
I know the writer was trying to use humor to convey a point, but I think it went over my head here. Sure, there are students who work hard and proficiently and can self-examine their efforts to grade themselves honestly. But to those who are the polar opposite, how will grading themselves help them? Pardon my language, but a contract such as this would not give those people a kick in the ass they need. It would possibly further inhibit laziness for the most part. Perhaps there would be a few who would be in this position of grading themselves and would come to realize they haven't put in much effort to deserve a certain grade. My question here would be to what extent does the professor have in seeing the reflection and determining the final grade? They have a pretty good idea about a student's performance so do they get a say in that matter? A person who does not attend class or do the assignments shouldn't be honored with the privilege of getting to decide what their grade should be.
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f students learn something, it has to be on their own initiatives, rather than with me acting as a kind of academic “Sherpa.”
This is completely true. We are being conditioned to rely solely on what is given and not to seek and discover on our own.
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my commentary can go to diagnosing the problem in the student’s writing process and focusing the commentary where it might be most helpful.
In most of my college courses, I haven't faced this problem. Most (if not almost all) of my professors had a grading sheet and wrote their comments about what could be improved. They also balance it with what I have done well. And it's not as though students aren't allowed to approach their professors and have them clarify something they are uncertain of or had difficulty with. Not all of the professors are unapproachable. If this is the case with a certain professor, seek advice from another professor in that area of expertise and perhaps they could provide feedback.
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There is either failure or success, with little room in between, success is largely a function of conforming to the values of the system (many of which are opaque and approached tactically), and each success is unrelated to whatever comes next.
Many successful people did not fit into the "system" and separated themselves and succeeded above and beyond the expectations of what any of the schools could have expected from them had they continued with said schools education.
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and a bored instructor is a sure-fire recipe for unengaged students,
Some professors think that a student is oblivious and lacks the desire to learn and then they get stuck teaching in the same way that they have taught for years. But I have found that a professor that wants to truly engage their students and truly motivate them changes or alters their material to the change of time. We as college students are paying customers, we pay to learn and sometimes I think professors forget that. It's not that we lack respect because of this fact but as a customer the supplier of the knowledge (i.e. the professor) must ask the customer the receiver of the knowledge wants or how they want to learn the necessary material.
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nearly 80% of my words were spent explaining what was “wrong” with the student’s work.
I feel like all professors are generally like this. I have found that from coaching that this it is difficult to change and just focus on the positive but it can be done. Currently, I have a professor that says that we start from Zero and earn points instead of saying we start from a perfect grade and fail through no fault of our own. This is how I would like to be taught.
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I’m forcing students to make choices about what matters to them and why. For their entire lives they’ve been told that grades “matter.”
This should help me focus more on learning the class material and relieve stress.
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Without experimenting, I’d get bored
Even for the student, routine can get extremely tiring. Being able to get the experience to try something new excites me.
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putting control of the grade firmly in students’ hands
Personally, I know I will feel like I have more control over my grades if I have the ability to create a grading contract. This way, the responsibility will fall more on myself, giving no room for excuses to not succeed.
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nearly 80% of my words were spent explaining what was “wrong” with the student’s work
The current grading system that we have implemented into most educational institutions fall into a similar groove. What's "wrong" with a students work should never be the focus. It limits learning growth.
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To a large degree, I’ve bought into the myth that my students’ grades were largely a reflection of how effective I am as an instructor.
This fear of being criticized as an educator based on student acheivement, while a plausible concern, is disabling to the free fluid motion of the learning process. Pressure put on educators by the school and possibly their colleagues' performance can lead an educator to rule the classroom as a dictator instead of a democracy, which puts students more in charge of their own learning than the teacher. The student should be the figurehead of the classroom instead of the teacher.
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Ultimately, if students learn something, it has to be on their own initiatives, rather than with me acting as a kind of academic “Sherpa.”
Self-initiated learning is by far more effective than spoon-fed knowledge, which is only a temporary concept. What students set their minds to learn and do themselves, however, will stick with them.
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By largely removing the grade from my judgment, I’m forcing students to make choices about what matters to them and why. For their entire lives they’ve been told that grades “matter.” Each of those little choices – doing the draft, coming to class, etc… - requires students to confront and put into practice their own values.
This idea resonates with me because it reflects the huge flaw that we have in today's educational system. For about thirteen years, students are told exactly what to do and when to do it, never given the liberty to develop wise decision-making skills for themselves. Therefore when the time comes to make a life-altering decision, such as which college to attend, many are completely overwhelmed and confused. Letting students figure out what methods help them to write and learn the best, with a bit of teacher recommendations, would definitely be the best way to encourage student self-sufficiency. Also, sometimes students are more motivated to perform tasks that they aren't forced to do, but would help them out in some way.
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I’ve long known that limiting what they’re focusing on at any given time is a more effective approach.
The bigger the picture of focus for students, the more overwhelming expectations may be. If we worry about every little thing every time, students may become distracted by all the mixed commentaries and discouraged by the negative feedback, their heads spinning so much that they improve little to none. A more focused approach is essential to a sense of progress where each step can build on one another and improve a student's overall quality of writing.
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Sure, summaries lacked focus, were poorly organized, and had messy sentences, but the roots of these problems were clearly found in insufficient engagement with and understanding of the source text. Rather than explaining all those problems, I could zero in on that flawed reading process, and direct the student to our earlier work with understanding and breaking down arguments.
Most often, teachers can get caught up in quantifying student performance rather than qualifying it. If we can put a greater focus on the reason for why students didn't perform as well as opposed to taking off for every time this issue interfered with performance, I think we would have more focused, self sufficient students with a keen eye for problem-solving.
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With the contract, they get to decide to what extent this is true for them
they must show if they care or not because since grades are out of the question, they can easily just not put in any effort, and it will not hurt them in the end as much.
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Contract grading seemed like a potentially useful tool in combating student anxiety over grades by putting control of the grade firmly in students’ hands.
it takes the pressure off of the students and makes the students actually think about their work, and really comprehend what they're working on rather than trying to just get the best grade possible
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I’ve always told students that they will continue to develop as writers throughout their entire lives, which means their growth as writers shouldn’t be centered around me as the instructor, but writing as a practice and a discipline.
Writing is honestly one of the hardest things for me because it always seems like I have more to learn when I discover something new, and it seems never ending. I asked writers about how to improve in terms of writing, and they said that the only way is to constantly practice and learn from your mistakes. Writing styles take a long time to find, so in order to find it you have to discover it yourself through your experiences.
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In preparing for this experiment, I wrote about how this change was forcing me to confront my ego
Confronting your ego is tough because you think you're right, and in doing that you are preventing yourself from looking at things in different perspectives, which blocks yourself from learning further. In a way, it's like having tunnel vision for the rest of your life, and seeing the world in only one way.
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I’m forcing students to make choices about what matters to them and why. For their entire lives they’ve been told that grades “matter.”
I really like how he explains this because students are taught to only care about the grades, but if you don't retain the information, or forget everything you've learned, then what's the point in wasting all that time at school? I mean, you aren't going to keep the grades as you grow older. The only thing that matters in the real world is the knowledge and experiences you gain, and how you apply it to real situations because classroom grades can only help you so much.
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This seemed particularly true for students who considered themselves marginal writers and expected low grades on the assignments themselves. While they often still rated “Below Proficient,” (at least early in the semester), the grading contract provided a path to achievement – by doing additional writing – that many were willing to follow. This also had the not inconsequential effect of having students write more, and with more enthusiasm[2] throughout the semester.[3]
This is true because I have anxiety, so it's crucial that I can be told how to do better, instead of just being told I was wrong. I also think going to the writing center is similar because they explain what you are doing wrong, and how to fix the problems, so that you don't keep learning the wrong way to do things.
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much more of my commentary can go to diagnosing the problem in the student’s writing process and focusing the commentary where it might be most helpful.
I wish all teachers would grade assignments like this because it doesn't burst my confidence when they tell me " You're wrong, but here's how you can improve." This helps me significantly because it helps improve my abilities, and also look forward to future grades for signs of my effort and improvements.
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I like to fiddle with my teaching, particularly when I’m limited to a single course. Without experimenting, I’d get bored, and a bored instructor is a sure-fire recipe for unengaged students, which results in an unhappy instructor, and then we watch the vicious circle turn.
It's true that when the teacher sounds unenthusiastic about their subject, then the students read off that atmosphere and, therefore, feel that they shouldn't be interested in it either. It gives that feel that it's not worth the time to be there, especially if it's morning class where the students are already tired and uninterested.
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and each success is unrelated to whatever comes next.
It is easy to study and work just to get the grade but not to retain the information after the grade has been given.
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I also believe that one of the chief sources of student anxiety is the lack of freedom of choice they perceive when it comes to their own educations
I think this could be translated into not knowing what the professor is looking for. The process and the product itself can b limited to what the student believes will make the professor happy and ultimately get them the good grade.
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leaving the course armed with a flexible, constantly developing writing process adaptable to audience and occasion
Flexibility in the context of education is an extremely valuable tool. Learning is a process that cannot be laid out at the beginning of the semester with no fluctuations.
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“Proficient,” “Above Proficient,” and “Below Proficient”
I feel as if more levels and a greater break down would be more efficient just based on what I have read so far about grading contracts.
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who are thoroughly conditioned to only care about that number anyway.
I throughly appreciate the idea of a grading contract however I feel like it will be an adjustment just for this simple fact. At the end of the semester most students are just worried about what grade is going on their transcripts and not how or how much of the information is actually retained.
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Proficient = B (what would’ve gotten an 84 or higher previously), Above Proficient = A- (90) or higher, and Below Proficient = anything below 84.
I have always had the personal standard that below a B was unacceptable, but that some people needed that C average to feel like they were okay. However, I really like the use of "Proficient" instead of "Average" because it shows that the focus of the grade is on the process and not so much on the product.
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In preparing for this experiment, I wrote about how this change was forcing me to confront my ego and how much control I perceived myself having over student learning. To a large degree, I’ve bought into the myth that my students’ grades were largely a reflection of how effective I am as an instructor.
As a future teacher and with the little experience I have in grading students' projects and assignments, I can relate to the ego and how a student's work feels like a personal attack. However, I also have to remind myself that I am on the student side of the grading contract for this class. But it is still an interesting idea to think about establishing once I have my own class room.
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adjustment period, students seemed to appreciate that the contract privileges their labor as much (or more than) the discrete grade at the end of each assignment.
I can imagine that it will be interesting to not have grades for each assignment set by the professor, but it almost gets you to work hard and you will get what you deserve, if you don't work hard, then you also get what you deserve.
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Contract grading seemed like a potentially useful tool in combating student anxiety over grades by putting control of the grade firmly in students’ hands.
This is a good point because someone who worries all the time about their grades, me, and now students can work on projects and not worry about how it will effect their grade if they work hard but don't get it right.
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When utilizing numerical grades, I’ve grown more and more dismayed over how much of my evaluation time is spent justifying that number. In analyzing my own comments, nearly 80% of my words were spent explaining what was “wrong” with the student’s work. Even when I would consciously try to focus on “process” and provide forward-looking comments, I just ended up writing more and longer commentary that seemed even less useful to students who are thoroughly conditioned to only care about that number anyway.
I can imagine that teachers and professors feel this way with traditional grading styles. I can recall assignments in which I was required to review and grade other student's work. It's hard to truly define every detail of work in a number scheme without getting lost in the shuffle.
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medium.com medium.com
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Instead of focusing on protecting and restricting students’ Web presence, UMW helps them have more control over their scholarship, data, and digital identity.
So much praise! While I'm interested in getting into Domain of One's Own because of it, I'm curious about negative comments. Does anyone not like this initiative?
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hackeducation.com hackeducation.com
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There is little incentive for them to equip us with the critical and the technical capacities to run our own servers, to build our own applications, to use and contribute to open source software, to claim our place on the open Web, and ultimately here, to challenge their business models.
It's hard to remember sometimes that capitalism affects education. This is an excellent reminder.
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Perhaps because academia doesn’t have the resources.
I feel like this sentence sums up the life story of every teacher I've ever had who had a cool idea and no way of doing it.
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ed-tech: it is acceptably behind-the-curve.
I would say ed-tech is unacceptably behind-the-curve! I was lucky enough to go to school in an area that was very high tech so we had smartboards by middle school and they introduced iPads to the classroom in high school. My brother's class had chalkboards and computers that were at least a decade old. While free software is nice to get from Google I wish educators could have access to better hardware across the country, especially considering how necessary it is to know and understand technology today.
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Has Techcrunch written about it?
It would have been more effective to reference a website that is more widely known, I've never heard of this due to the fact thats its most likely just common in the tech enthusiast community.
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learning on the Web and with the Web, learning that is of the Web
This is really general and seems like filler that doesn't really make a point but sounds cool.
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ed-tech: it is acceptably behind-the-curve.
I haven't fully understand the meaning "ed-tech" is it the technology/programs utilized in various academic institutions? and if so, it seems like every class I take the technology and programs being used are constantly changing and advancing so I don't understand how its behind the curve. Maybe this author just expects too much.
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This is innovation. This is innovation.
Saying it twice for dramatic effect?
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Perhaps because academia doesn’t have the resources. Perhaps because of a focus (real or perceived) on theoretical, rather than applied research. Perhaps because of a disregard or distaste for the commercial. Perhaps because academia — some parts of it at least, and some institution
this dude definitely has some sort of personal vendetta against Google. He's definitely right about this, this type of innovation isn't possible in "academia" because individual universities don't have the billion dollar revenue like Google does.
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Dammit, I’m here to talk about the “Domain of One’s Own”!
took him a while to get to it...I found myself thinking..what is this article about again?
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It’s also interesting to consider why some people balk at a “Domain of One’s Own” being innovative and yet clamor over MOOCs as the greatest and newest thing education has ever seen.
did he ever mention what MOOC is or am I just oblivious?
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“Is this idea ‘the next Google’?"
People always hype websites by saying it's "the next google" but we've all seen firsthand that its going to be a very long time, if ever, that any search engine surpasses google. Nice try, Bing.
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What you search for on Google. Your Gmail. Your Google Calendar plans. Your friends on Google+. What you’ve bought with Google Wallet. What you’ve downloaded from Google Play. What you’ve watched on YouTube. Where you head on Google Maps (and by extension, where the Google Self-Driving Car would know to take you.) What you spy with Google Glass. So much data.
Most people would feel that there privacy is violated by this fact, but I don't think I have anything to hide so I've never really cared.
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the number of Internet-connected devices in US homes today now outnumbers the number of people in the country itself
'merica.
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Our social connections mapped. Warrantless spying by governments – not just on suspected terrorists, but on all of us.
Big brother is watching.
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It mines this data purportedly to offer us better products and services and, of course, to sell ads.
My father has a home-remodeling business and he buys lists that give him data about homeowners in the DMV area, like the price of their homes, the last time the home was remodeled, if it they have a pool, what car they drive, etc. These lists provide him with the information he needs to market to those who are most likely to pay for his work. This reminded me of that.
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We agree to the Terms of Service without reading them
The cure to cancer could be hidden in the terms of service and we would never know.
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Jim Groo
the founder?
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And that, if anything, is what’s magic about technology.
I think that is so important because technology has allowed people to connect with others who they never had the chance to connect with before and it's an enriching experience. Not only that but it lets us stay connected with others and to do things we never thought we could before.
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A “Domain of One’s Own” builds literacies so that the technology of the Web is distinguishable from magic, so those who understand how to manipulate its symbols are not high priests or magicians, so that carving out and operating your own little piece on the Web is manageable.
That is really cool because honestly, I use the Web but it mystifies me.
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the number of Internet-connected devices in US homes today now outnumbers the number of people in the country itself.
I do not doubt that at all- I personally have three such devices.
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The “Domain of One’s Own” initiative grows through the hard work of community-building and capacity-building
It seems like this helps people express their individual creativity which seems to be overlooked.
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Google X seeks to be an heir to the classic research labs, such as the Manhattan Project, which created the first atomic bomb, and Bletchley Park, where code breakers cracked German ciphers and gave birth to modern cryptography.
I suppose in theory that sounds good but having read that quote it doesn't leave me worry free.
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And it’s free!
It is and isn't free because if a website for like a business wants people to go to their webpage for their products, they have to pay Google to have their company show up on the first page or even pages depending on price, for certain words or else they could be on the 2,000th page and go out of business because of no sales.
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