Connected Learning

"World Without Walls: Learning Well with Others"by Will Richardson is a call of action to educators to begin incorporating the knowledge and technology of the online world. The article first makes the point that "The Collaboration Age" is about the important networks of communication the internet and new technology allows us to have. It continues on, explaining the importance of establishing a connection to "The Collaboration Age" and learning, and then lays out the possible downfalls, such as the relinquishing of traditional schooling.

The quote, "It's about solving problems together and sharing knowledge we've gained with wide audiences," shows both the importance of bringing the internet into the classroom and also illustrates how beneficial it can be to the students.

I found it surprising that the author acknowledge that when we are restricted from the internet at school, in some ways we are restricted from the things we are passionate about.

In theory I like the idea of connected learning, but I think it is difficult to find a balance of using the internet to improve upon our school work and learning without having too much freedom. But in turn, the amount of freedom we have dictates the amount of knowledge and creativity we glean from the internet. I also think that connected learning won't work as well in practice, because it's relying on the students to guide the learning and participate, and some students may oppose to it.

For the two topics that I would like to learn more about, documentaries and how media affects the american society, connected learning will be very beneficial.

Movie Review

In our last media class, we each read a movie review and annotated it using Diigo to experiment with Diigo and identify possible structure for movie reviews we will do in the future.

I read "'Brave,' Pixar's New Animated Film" by Manohla Dargis, published on NYTimes.com. The review had a paragraph of introduction with a bit of opinion before it quickly tied in a plot summary. The summary smoothly went into an analysis of the animation (which would also be the point of analysis of acting, costuming, and set in other movies) and then back to a little plot to wrap up with the theme. The review was peppered with jokes, creating a playful tone to fit the playful movie.

I think that our quarterly movie review should be very open to creativity. There should be a list of maybe 4 or 5 essential questions that we must touch on, including the 3 aspects of film, and then a following list of 6 to 7 questions that we should pick a couple from to answer. It would be fantabulous to have complete creativity on how we must answer these questions.

Diigo Annotated Movie Review

Introductions

I am Ravyn, a sophomore at Montgomery Blair High School in the Communication Arts Program, and this blog is a part of my media class. I am interested in theatre, baking, ASL, and I am passionate about volunteering. I am interested in the influential role of media on society, and I am also interested in learning about documentaries.
In the past my favorite film projects were at an acting camp where I was in a program called Acting for the Camera, which involved the complexities of adjusting acting to effectively convey through film. In the projects I was primarily an actor and film crew member, and I had very little to do with the actual editing process.
A few possible ways CAP students can use these blogs:
- To connect during group projects for collaboration, editing, and peer criticism.
- To share are completed projects.
- To share resources for projects.

This is a picture of hand decorated plates in a Peruvian market. This past summer I spent most of time time volunteering and learning about cultures around the world. Peru is one of the places I began to have a deep interest in this summer.

image source: Peruvian Plates