discussion reading shipka answers

2. Using your newfound understanding of the aforementioned theory, let's say you were a teacher. How would you explain to a student how this theory works? Give an example of a creative assignment or project that would allow room for students to make their own choices and negotiate objectives, rules tools, materials, conventions of specific communicative genres, activitity system or discipline.

I would try to teach the students by making them do a project in which they try to come up with creative ways to teach other students regarding this topic by researching it themselves, and of course I'll provide some background as to what this topic is about. It is because I am of the belief that if one can be good enough to teach others, then they'll have to know the topic really well. Apart from this project idea though, I genuinely think that teaching them directly in class would be the best idea (and testing them), because it will force the students into studying and learning the material this way; those creative projects are merely excuses for the lazy students who are not willing to study (at least the way I see it)...

podcast analysis

i listened to a story about "switched at birth" from "this american life." it was a really good story about how the daughters of the millers and mcdonalds were switched at birth, and the truth was not revealed until 40 years later after such a switch has happened. the podcast went by first reading the letter from the millers to mcdonalds, and then they did sort of interviewing format where they asked each of the party invovled to talk about what their perspective was. and the characters tell about how after they found out about the truth, they all thought that it had to be, because for some reason the daughters had different characteristics as the parents or even their siblings. apart from this interviewing format, some other elements of composition i noticed was the switch in music and stop in the talking once in a while to indicate that there will be a switch in the person talking, or some kind of development in the story.

i enjoyed listening to the radio. i thought that the story was poignant, because i also know someone with a story similar to this one.

photo essay response-s

sushmita- apparently playing poker, i suppose... her idea was to show the progression of a poker game and possibly the emotions invovled with it... some grim expressions, some surpised faces, some seriuos faces, some happy faces, and so forth. it is stimulating in the sense that it makes me want to guess what is actually going on...

rasheena- so it seems like one person is color blind while the other is not and there is some kind of contrast going on between the two... i THINK the black n white is baby's perspective.... and color is someone else (probably an adult, seeing how there are two shoes... one big one small... and thats just about what I have noticed).

raquel- those that are under construction versus those that are not as we walk around the campus... a progression of developing and not... or may be what she sees as she is going home every day from class...

nick-a drive around the suburban town....? a view from the car...

megan- a walk around the apartment and of the outside view... i thought that the pictures were visually pleasing... and the story was probably a walk...

dan- walking through library and looking at books? i liked the photos, they were well taken and at the right perspective... it was cool how the lights were turning on and off...

crystal- i thought that it was interesting how there were so many types of images, and after explanation it seems more clear that it is about a train of thought regarding our lives...

aaron- i feel like im in a beach... it is just refreshing to see the nature... i want to go kuala lumpur again!

discussion question answer reading four

2. Do you hear that? [Pause] Sound is all around you. Take a moment to pause and type out all the different sounds that you hear. Describe them as acutely as possible.

Yes I hear. I hear the sound of people typing on keyboard, as if I can tell what they are typing (by the way, different keys do produce different sound frequencies... random fact, haha). I also hear the sound of air conditioner roaming, sound of my breathing, heart beat, and very faintly that of people around me as well. I also hear my flip flop slapping against the bottom of my foot and my fingers fretting and rubbing against each other as I think about what I am going to type next. May be because this is library, I'm not hearing anything more. Oh yeah. Mr. Stone was talking just a few moments ago, and someone is asking questions, generating a lot more sound than before. I hear the footsteps and the mouse clicking. I'm not too sure what else I hear though- I bet I could hear the computer running and of the electrical signals flowing through the wires if I had hearing of a bat- which I don't, unfortunately...

And that's all I hear, at least the ones that I can identify.

discussion question reading four

1. Name a site that you go to on web (that has some kind of sound). What purpose do you think the sound served on the particular website? If you ever made a website of the same theme, would you use same/similar kinds of sounds? Why/Why not?

2. How much do you think aural/visual elements are correlated, if at all? How do they interact with each other (What impact do they have on each other)? Do you think that it is possible for us to perceive them serparately when we are watching, say, a flash movie?

3. "Listening for silence is complicated because it involves listening for an absent presence,
what is there and not there." What are some cases in which the absence of a sound can make a point in presentation of a media?

sequential art project

link to my web album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/hyungkyoon.kim/WeAreTooFull#

I had no idea what I was going to do; and even in class, I was just spitting out whatever I had in mind at the time. But as I just chilled and thought about what I was going to do, the idea of theme of "Death" was a little too plain; in fact, I could just stick some random pictures together and call them "My vision of Death" or something like that. So, I thought I'd pick some other topic that has always been bothering me, which is the fact that us humans are never satisfied with what we have. No matter what situation we are in, we want more of something (and everything), and we always have complaints, not content about what we already have. I titled my album "we are too full" precisely for that reason.

Basically, my idea was to put together pictures of those protesting, and of those who are starving, but for different reasons. The first five pictures are those protesting for democracy, Vietnam war, Somalian war, Chinese human rights, and Gaza war, respectively. The next five pictures, which are supposed to form contrast, are those who are protesting for animal rights, a mockery of world peace, some random web figures, MTV and against illegal immigrants, and especially in the last picture, the fact that the people are laughing is absolutely outrageous. Old supremacists who have nothing better to do but to laugh at the efforts of the immigrants, who came to United States looking for some hope of achieving a decent life. The next five are pictures of those who are dying from starvation due to lack of food, such as those north Korean kids, African kids, and those who were starved by concentration camps during holocaust. The last five, which should form contrast, are people who are anorexic, who reject food that are abundant in the society, and cause problem by encouraging those around them to be like them as well, harming their health in the process. Models and those actions of sticking finger down the throat are truly shocking, especially compared to the previous five pictures of people who die because they don't have anything to eat.

The readings so far have not really affected what I wanted to do or the way I wanted to do it; may be only thing that I really took away and applied to this project from the reading was from the comic strip we read, where it talked about how everything is considered to be "icon." I thought that these pictures could be considered as "icons" too- icons for humanity that will never be satisfied with what is already with them. Some will argue that this is how our civilization has advanced- our hunger to have a better life, and I agree. But at the same time, doing stupid protests for causes that do not really advance human civilization, or starving oneself for no reason do not really have any justification based on such argument.

All in all, I enjoyed doing this project- it was first time that I got a chance to try to make an argument with sequence of pictures, and I must admit, it was kind of cool.

discussion question fourth reading

1. In McCloud's reading, there's a section that mentions how when we are driving, the car becomes an extension of us. Do you agree/disagree with the author's argument? Can you think of something else in life that could also be considered "extension" of us?

2. Do you think that the authenticity of paintings really matter? The technology these days have developed so much that such things (I don't think) really matter anymore... The experience we get would be same whether we see original or the replica, pretty much (agree/disagree?)

3. "Words are the absolute abstraction." Is there a "higher form" of abstraction than words? If you think so, why so? (What I'm trying to imply is that I think there's higher form of abstraction than words, of course)...