I have created a Smore flyer to help me reflect upon all my work throughout the course of this semester. I really enjoyed being able to observe my work and see improvements from the beginning of the semester, to the end of the semester. I can really see areas in which I was able to grow as a writer, and a blogger. I hope you enjoy reading it! :)
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The audience of this blog post is directed towards college students, specifically men and women at Rowan University. I direct it towards college students in general by addressing tips for all college students to follow, like making healthier choices at on or off campus locations. I also suggest for students to go to Shoprite or any grocery store and buy healthy snacks or frozen foods. However, I get more specific and address students at Rowan University because I add places at Rowan where you can eat, and I also address Rowan's meal plan and Boro Bucks card. Students at Rowan will learn a lot about their meal plans and Rowan card by reading my blog. I know many people don't realize all the places you can use your card at, and that it's possible to eat healthy at college. By reading my post, students at Rowan University will be able to learn new places to eat while staying healthy at the same time, as well as save and conserve their Rowan Bucks. I used an image of Rowan University that I found on Google images to attract the attention of my audience at Rowan University. I also used a picture of a SmartOnes frozen dinner to show that you are able to purchase them and keep them in your freezer to stay healthy at school.
The blog topic I have chosen to do relates to health and fitness. Fitness is a huge part of my life ever since I was younger. My whole life I have played soccer and ran track, and exercise was always something that I was constantly doing. When I got to college, this became more difficult. I stopped playing sports in college, and my whole lifestyle changed. I went from having a set schedule every day and eating my mom's healthy meals every day, to living in a small dorm room with 2 other people, not having a kitchen or a set schedule every day. Life was hard freshman year. This was the biggest adjustment I ever had to face, and it really took a toll on me. Eventually, I got into the swing of things, and make time for the gym at least 3 times a week. This was not easy, however, since my class schedule was different and busy every day. I also learned around eating healthy. I made these changes to my lifestyle not because I wanted to, but because I had to. I started gaining weight, and I was always down on myself, especially when I looked back at old pictures from before. Whenever I went home for breaks or to see my family, my mom would notice the weight I put on. That's when I knew I had to change my lifestyle or else it would keep getting worse. To this day, I am very big into fitness and going to the gym. I love eating healthy, I don't do all that calorie counting and I am not overly obsessed with eating perfect, as I feel this takes away from every day life. However, I am cautious about what I buy at the supermarket, what I put into my body, and how to eat better while going out to eat. My blog is specialized and different from other blogs that are about fitness because my gears towards college students, If I want to get more specific, I could gear my blog towards the students of Rowan University. I could incorporate different places to eat at Rowan on campus that can be healthier choices, or where to eat that is healthy where we can use our Rowan Bucks. This way, I can show the students at Rowan how to eat healthy, and how to eat on a budget. I can talk about what to buy at Shoprite using your Borobucks to its best ability, and not wasting it on unnecessary things. I can relate to all the freshman here stuck in the dorms who are going through what I had to go through. I want to be able to help these freshman who are struggling to find time to be healthy and active, and who may see consequences because of it. Since there is no kitchen freshman year, which may be more challenging to eat right, I can say what and what not to eat at the cafeteria, since freshman tend to go overboard there. I can also talk about the different places to eat on campus, and healthy options. I can have a whole blog post dedicated to meal prepping, and some healthy recipes if you do have a kitchen. Lastly, I would love to incorporate different workouts these college students can do both in the gym, and at home or in their dorm room. Even if you work out for just 15-20 minutes a day, it is something to help boost your lifestyle. I would like to include pictures of different workouts, or even videos showing how to do these workouts that will help benefit everyone, The specific audience I will address in my niche blogs will be young adults and college students who are living a busy life. They can be both female, and male, however if I include some workouts I do in my posts, they will most likely be addressed to females since males are naturally stronger. However, males who view my site and want to use my workouts are more than welcome to do so, with a little bit of adjusting. I want my blog to be addressed to college students, specifically college students who are struggling to find time in their busy schedules to exercise and eat right. I had to go through this myself, so I want to help these college students live the right way in college before they learn the hard way like myself. More specifically, I can address this blog to students of Rowan University, so I can name specific places to eat here at Rowan. The blogs I have researched are all very similar to the topic I have chosen. They all relate to fitness, exercise, staying healthy, and different healthy foods. Most of them include different workout videos that show exercises for the viewers to follow. Some workouts are based at the gym (The Lean Green Bean), while others are based at home on a time crunch (Fitnessista). I will be adding both workouts done at home or in your dorm room, as well as workouts done in the gym. So, I will be able to get some ideas from both of these blogs to help me write my own workouts. I will be able to use some of their workouts, as well as get ideas for my layout like where to place the images in proportion to the text, or how to use videos to make the workouts easier to follow. The blog Powercakes is aimed to empower the youth and help women love their bodies while finding inspiration through fitness and food. This blog site is very aesthetic to look at, and is very enjoyable to read. There are many healthy recipes included on this site, along with different workouts. I will be able to get some workout ideas, and some foods that I might want to make and post on my blog as well. The way the blog posts are written are very humorous and personal, making it easier to read the posts. This site can help me learn how to put some of my own voice into my blogs to make it more personal and enjoyable to read. Summer Tomato is another blog site that I have found that I really enjoyed. It was created by PhD Darya Rose, who created this site to show others how to make losing weight fun and easy by breaking bad habits and learning to incorporate healthier habits into daily life. One cool thing about this blog is that Darya posts every Friday a roundups of health news collected around the web. This is an extremely cool feature because it informs her followers of the latest and trending news revolving around health and fitness. Another cool feature of this blog site is that she include women's personal journeys, including pictures. I think this is a great idea. I think I would be such a good idea to include other women's stories and journey's, as this will be motivating to my viewers. I would also be praising the women I post, keeping them motivated and excited to keep moving forward. It is a very inspirational blog, and the layout is very pretty. She includes many orange, yellow, and red colors which makes it pretty to look at it. It is very easy to navigate through the page. I like this blog site and how the creator made it for both males and females. Blogilates is a very cool site that I came across. It was created by Casseey Ho, who is a fitness instructor and social media guru. I think it is cool seeing posts made by someone who is specialized in fitness, and teaches other people fitness for a living. She focuses a lot on pilates, and offers a number of free workouts and exercises to target abs, arms, butt, etc. I really liked the layout of this blog. It includes a lot of pink and is very pretty, and is very directed to females. She includes recipes on her site, which i find very helpful because this is something I want to do on my own blog posts. Her recipes will help me create my own blog site. I will be able to see how she laid out all her recipes on her site, under what tab she put them under, how she organized the different recipes, and where she added her pictures to the layout. This will be very useful for me to look at. Her pictures are very vibrant and stand out. The only thing about this blog is that it revolves a lot around pilates. If someone does not do pilates, like myself, some of her blog posts may be unhelpful, and not geared towards every women. The one blog site that I will use heavily to guide me write my own is Tone It Up. This was created by two women, Karena Dawn and Katrina Scott. They worked together to lauch their online fitness resource. I really liked how they offer weekly workout schedules, workout videos, and healthy recipes. These are all things I want to include in my blog. They include a lot of pinks in their layout. The homepage includes a lot of pictures, most of them are real pictures of themselves, and there is a headline under each picture. If the blog post seems appealing, you can click on the picture and it will take you directly to the blog post. I definitely want to learn how to include this in my own blog. I think by adding the pictures it attracts attention, and they make it so easy to navigate through the whole page. They use a lot of moving pictures as their headline pictures and I think this is a great way to appeal to the audience and bring them in. The pictures are all so vibrant and bright, and they make fitness look fun and enjoyable. This site is definitely directed towards women who are trying to stay active. I can use a lot of their ideas to help me create my own blog site that is as fun as theirs. All of the blogs I have read are very informative and very appealing to the audience. They all offer such great workouts, tips and advice, recipes, and pictures. They all differ in ways like their layout, workouts they do, etc. However, they all relate to one another on the fact that they all want people to stay active and healthy to live a long and happy life. I like the layout of the site, Tone It Up. I also like the way Blogilates revolves her site around food, and makes it easy for her audience to find different recipes, whether breakfast, dinner, or different drinks. I can take information from each of these sites to help me create my own blog site, but mine will be different in a unique way. Instead of targeting just females, or just males, I will be targeting college students, especially students of Rowan University. I will be providing a blog post about different places to eat specifically on Rowan's campus. I am also going to be focusing on workouts in a dorm room, or at home if some people do not have the time to make the gym during their busy college schedules. For my digital literacy narrative, I have thought long and hard about my life, and the experiences I have had with digital literacy to produce my literacy narrative. This was not an easy task for me. For some reason, I cannot recall my childhood. There are some parts I remember in school, and other things that my mom has told me about while growing up. But, for the most part, it is so hard for me to remember experiences from my elementary childhood years. Whenever there is a class assignment that involves recmincing about my past elementary and childhood years, I always cringe a little inside. So, when I heard about this assignment for this class, I really thought long and hard about it so that I would be prepared. I have come up with a few different ideas that I could write about to help me form my digital literacy narrative.
One memory I have is from 4th grade. I was OBSESSED with computer class and was very good at typing for my age. I had computers once a week with Mrs. Schumer, and it was my favorite time of the day. My obsession started when my dad got a new laptop for Christmas, and he gave me his old one. I couldn't use the internet or anything, but I would open up Microsoft word and pretend to write letters, practice my typing, or even copying pages from books. I got so good I didn't even need to look at the keyboard. Every week in computers, we would do a typing test and record our scores to give to our teacher. At the end of each month, my teacher would average everyone's scores, and give a golden star to the winner. I won almost every month, and the winner was able to pick the type of typing game to play whenever there was free time for that month. I always picked the same one and all my classmate's got so annoyed. I got sick really bad with a flu for about a week and a half, and missed two computer classes. I ended up not getting the golden star for that month, and I was devastated. This experience showed my love for spelling, and how it has helped me with my spelling and vocabulary in other areas of my life. This is one option for my digital literacy narrative Another memory I have from when I was younger that could be used for my digital literacy narrative is when I got my first cell phone in 6th grade. I remember it was my birthday when I was in 6th grade, and I had to wait until 6th grade because my brother had to wait that long too. Some of my friends got their first cell phones before 6th grade, and I remember I could not wait until my birthday. My first cell phone was a chocolate phone in blue, and I cherished it. I couldn't do anything on it besides call and text my closest friends, but that was fine by me. Even holding it made me happy. I used to text my dad every day just because I loved texting and typing on it, and I got so good at it. This phone was just the beginning of my technological advances in my life, and I will forever remember this phone. It is crazy to see how cell phones have evolved over the years, and how if I were to use that phone today, I would probably get judged. I think my first cell phone has shaped me into who I am today, and is a great artifact to talk about for my digital literacy narrative. The last idea I have for my digital literacy narrative is using AIM, which is instant messaging site that all the kids my age used when we were growing up. It isn't as relevant now because kids can just text or message on other apps like twitter or Instagram. But, it used to be very popular. I remember my friends and I all had crazy usernames. Mine was kixxgirl01xoxo and my friends and I talked on it almost every day. This was before we all got cell phones, and we had to use our parent's computers to talk. We would sit at the computer for hours talking about nonsense, but it made us happy. We would even have a certain slang we used on AIM. We would not spell things out, and say things like "lol", "thx", "ttyl", "lylas", and other crazy abbreviations. It's crazy to see how much we have out grown this language once we got older and more mature and sophisticated. We went from typing "Thx", to "Thank you". AIM is a messaging app that I will always remember, and my friends and I have so many memories from using this app. I believe AIM has had a huge part in my experience with digital literacy, and could be used for my digital literacy narrative. "As the world neared the end of the millennium, both mobile phone networks and the Internet continued to expand on a global basis at an unprecedented rate. The world has changed so much since our grandparents, great grandparents, and even our parents have grown up. There are so many technological advances that are spreading globally to help the world be more advanced. Technology is being used more and more on a daily basis, and all over the world. The United States and other developed countries use technology increasingly more frequently. However, these countries are not the only ones. Even developing countries are using technology more and more. Mobile telephones became increasingly common in the developing world. By 2000, mobile diffusion was 80% or greater in countries such as Morocco, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, and Indonesia. In 1983, the first cellular systems became commercially available. This is crazy to think about for me because 1983 is not too long ago from the era we are living now. Sure, it's almost 40 years ago, but 1983 is a year that my parents were living. For some of their life, they had no cellular systems. It was part of their lives when these technological advances came to life. It's crazy to think my parents, and their parents did not grow up with the technology I grew up with. I was born into a technological time period, and never knew what life without technology was. At first, mobile telephones were used primarily for calling and voice communications. By 2001, text messaging was introduced and had become increasingly popular. Again, this is crazy to think about because texting was always around when I was growing up. Never did I ever stop and think about what life was like before texting and calling while I was young, because I was only focused on the present and the future. Now, after reading this article, I can actually sit back and reminisce what life was like before technology was so popular in the United States.
New developments in information and communication technologies during this first decade of the 21st century enables many different positive outcomes. Technology helps people keep in touch with family, colleagues, and friends from around the globe with an ease and speed that had been impossible prior to this time. This is so important to my family. My mother was born and raised in Japan, She lived there her whole life, until she met my dad who went to Japan for a business trip. They fell in love, got married, and my mom moved to the United States to live with my dad and start a family. She had to leave everything behind; all her memories, her childhood, and most importantly, her family. It was really hard for my mom to live here with no family members, so it was so important to her to keep in touch with her mom and sisters. At first, my mom would call them using an internationally phone line, but this cost a lot of money. She would call every day to keep in touch, and it was extremely hard, especially with the huge time difference from here to Japan. With all the new technological advances, my mom is now able to facetime her family all the way from Japan. This is crazy!! Instead of paying a lot of money to hear a voice over the phone, my mom is now able to hear AND see her family from thousands and thousands of miles away.....and for FREE! Whenever my mom goes to visit her family in Japan, we communicate through an app called Line. This app allows us to text and call on wifi, for free, instead of being charged for international phone fees. If it weren't for this app, it would be very difficult to keep in touch with my mom while away. Technology is really amazing and something that is going to keep on getting more advanced. While growing up in elementary school, technology around us was just beginning to dominate the world. I was in school when we had to hand write everything, and teachers used chalkboards to teach lessons. I was also in school when things like chrome books, laptops, and smartboards were just beginning to get put to use. As students during a technological change in the society, we had to learn how to adapt and use this new technology. It was frustrating at first, as something you don't quite know always can be frustrating, but after some practice and getting used to, these technologies became something so amazing. They really helped the classroom run more efficiently, and it definitely made learning more engaging and fun. In modern classrooms today, it is almost rare to see a black chalkboard hanging up, and even more rare to not see a smartboard placed in classrooms. The students who moved from their homelands to different countries in the 90's can relate to how important this is. Starting all over in a foreign place to them can be so difficult. With all the technological advances, these students were able to keep in touch with family and friends from miles and miles away. Technology has also provided ways for these students to successfully learn while studying abroad. Digital literacy has become to important to these students, and is something that was new for them to learn. Now they are able to globalize the different ways of learning from one place to another, making it easier to adapt. The first piece of technology I ever received was my first cell phone. I remember I wasn't able to get a cell phone until 6th grade, just like my older brother. He didn't seem to mind because everyone in his grade got phones around the same time. But as time went on and there were more advances with technology. more and more of my classmates seemed to be getting phones earlier and earlier. My best friend got her phone in the beginning of 5th grade, some even earlier than that. I remember I could not wait until November of 6th grade, as this is when my parents finally decided to get e my first cell phone. I was ecstatic, even though the use of this first cell phone was so minimal compared to the use of phones today. But, I didn't know otherwise. I got got an LG Chocolate phone in light blue, and I was never so obsessed with something in my life, Even just holding it made me feel happy and secure. I was only able to call and text on it, and my parents blocked out all internet usage. I was only able to text certain people too, as my parents worried that this phone could start some social issues with classmates. I didn't care though, I was just so happy to finally have a phone to call mine instead of pretending my dad's old flip phone actually worked and was mine. The evolution of cell phones have changed drastically in the past decade. Now a days, children are receiving their first cell phones in elementary school, 4th grade even earlier!! Not only that, but they are IPHONES!!! This is what is wrong with society today and why technology is being used for the wrong reasons. It's crazy that children are being allowed to use not only cell phones, but iPhones as well as young as they are. There is so much an iPhone can do, and without proper parent supervision, things can go so wrong. This aspect of digital literacy reflects upon the beginning of my discourse community. I was finally able to be like the rest of my friends who had cell phones, and join the technological community. I was now able to communicate with friends and family through this little device, that would soon be outdated. Now, almost 10 years later, I am still connected to friends and family through a cell phone, But the only difference is how much cell phones are advancing. If I were to use my first phone today, I would most likely get judged. This cell phone started my knowledge about technology. Now, I am 21 years old, and have many different sources of technology that I use every day. However, I would not be where I am today if it weren't for this first cell phone that I received for my birthday in 6th grade. All the excitement and joy this phone brought to me will forever be in my memory. I remember how excited I was to be texting my best friend Nicole...when we were literally right next to each other. It didn't matter though because it was so fun typing the buttons and pressing send. I would even text my parents all the time just for fun, So many times that my dad had to cut me off and I was only able to send 5 texts per day. By reflecting on these stories from my past, I am able to see the importance of digital literacy today, and how much it is improving in society. As a future educator, I am able to get a glimpse of the identities and futures that students today want for themselves, and I can do this by incorporating digital literacy in the classroom. "The future of digital culture- yours, mine, and ours- depends on how well we learn to use the media that have infiltrated, amplified, distracted, enriched, and complicated our lives." This quote is what starts of Rhinegold's introduction, allowing the reader's to wonder what the rest of the article will encompass of. There is so much meaning behind this little quote, and so little words that represent a huge topic. Digital culture is becoming more and more relevant today. It is extremely important to learn mindfully in cyberculture, and that people learn to use the new and advanced technology that is being used more and more every day. New media can influence the way those media end up being used and misused for decades to come. After reading this article, I thought long and hard about whether the digital culture surrounding this world today is a positive thing, or a negative one. Technology and digital culture have taken over this world in the past couple of decades. It's crazy to even imagine life before technology. Life before cellphones, computers, iPads, social media websites, and TVs. Digital culture is something so norm today that if you don't use it, you seem like the outcast. Technology definitely has one huge positive to it; its use in the workforce, especially classrooms. Before, classrooms were filled with chalkboards, pencils, and paper. Everything had to be hand-written, and was very old-fashioned. With all the technological advances today, classrooms are able to run more efficiently and more successfully. Children today are fortunate enough to be given laptops to use in school, and smartboards used for teaching. In my most recent field experience for education, I was placed in a 5th grade classroom. There were 19 students, and each student had their own google chrome book they were able to use in the classroom. The students were able to play math games on there to help with their multiplication facts. This is an advantage for them because when I was in 5th grade, in order to practice problems, I needed my math textbook, a piece of paper, and a pencil.... BORING, These chromebooks allow students to learn in more engaging and interesting way. Students also used the chromebooks to write stories, and revise and edit them as well. There was so much technology used in this particular classroom, and other classrooms all over the world. Although technology has really helped improve the classroom environment by making it run more smoothly and more efficiently, there are also some negatives to how popular technology is becoming. I used to work at an Italian restaurant in my town. Families would always come in to eat. However, it was so sad seeing the things I used to see. Children today are so attached to their electronics that they are missing out on experiences that I was fortunate to have while I was growing up. Families would be out to eat, and there would be no conversing. The children would all be texting or playing games on their phones, while the parents watched them. It was truly so heartbreaking. And the amount of times I have been asked for the Wifi password at this restaurant from little kids, I couldn't even count on two hands; SO MANY TIMES. What is happening this this society? Technology is being abused and used for the wrong reasons. I miss the old days where families looked forward to sitting down together and eating dinner. This is supposed to be the time where everyone talks about their days, not the time for playing games on phones. We need digital culture. It's something that is so important and crucial to today's society that there is no way to just get rid of it. Technology and the digital culture in today's society is going to keep improving and getting more advanced as time goes on. However, we need to all learn how to use technology wisely, and for the right reasons. We must combine our individual efforts, and enough of the right know-how could add up to a more thoughtful society as well as enhance those individuals who master digital network skills. Those who understand the fundamentals of digital participation, I am going to leave off with a quote that I found very powerful. "Today's digital literacies can make the difference between being empowered or manipulated, serene or frenetic. Most important, as people who are trying to get along day to day in a hyperscale, warp-speed civilization that seems so often to be beyond anyone's control, digital literacy is something powerful we can learn as well as exercise for ourselves and each other. " Digital culture has definitely taken over society today. But, the question is for the better, or for the worse? That is up for you to decide. Personally, I believe the digital culture surrounding us today is so amazing and advanced that we cannot live without it. However, I believe everyone should be taught how to use technology for the correct reasons in order for society to run smoothly.
The part that really stuck out to me in Situated Literacies is when it said, "within a given culture, there are different literacies associated with different domains of life". This quote is interesting to me, especially since it is very true. We begin with the home domain and everyday life. This article states that the home is often identified as a primary domain in people's literacy lives. This is accurate for me. When I'm home, whether it be my family home or my school home, this is where I do the most talking. I interact the most when I am at home, especially since it's a comfort zone for me. There is always something that is being communicated with my family members, or my roommates. The article also says that the first step in reconceptualizing literacy is to accept the multiple functions literacy may serve in a given activity. Literacy is so important to every day life, as it can replace spoken language, enable communication, solve a practical problem, or act as a memory aid.
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AuthorMy name is Sarah Miller. I am a Junior at Rowan University. These are my blog posts!! |