Toodles

This year we got our word out to the world though many different medias. First we made blogs and filled it with blogs, photography, pod casts, short films, epics, vlogs, digital nation, youtube, and how the media communicates with us. Coming into this classroom on the first day of school I already knew that the media had some control over what we bought and how we lived our lives. I didn’t, however, know just how much control they have.

Something I was most interested in this year was the youtube and digital nation section. It sort of amazed me how so many people opened up to the world through a web cam, a blog, and chat rooms. I think because I was most interested in this that I was a better learner. When we did our epic section though I was most distant as a learner because it seemed to drag on and never end. I became bored with it and no longer interested in it. If we could have done things differently I think that we should have started off with how the media communicates with us instead of putting it in the end.

I think that is what the class should have been about and later brought in getting our own message out. I think it would have been cool to being in making our own short films more. We should have gotten into that and dug down deep, studied how to plan, how to film, and how to edit these movies. Again I think we should have really cut down on the epic movie. Maybe next year pick out a single epic movie and work on that for many two weeks and then move on.

Media literacy is the process of analyzing, evaluating, and creating mass media in an assertive and non-passive way. We need to be able to do this so that we can choose how to live our life on our own terms and not on the terms of four huge businesses. Over all it was a good year, and I did like the class. Just a few minor tweaks and it would have been loads better though. I also think that next year the class should work on talking together as a whole and not beat each other down until no one even cared about it anymore. Leave some room to think and to let other’s get their idea across as well.

book vlog

Food Inc.

This movie was very interesting to me. Basically our food is controlled by a small group of people. These people are doing anything it takes to make our food grow faster and bigger while keeping it cheap. Why keep it cheap? They have to keep it cheap because we "vote" with our checkbook. The animals that we eat for food are kept in horrible conditions and are given hormones to make them grow faster and bigger than they should. It's not just our meats that they control. They control out vegetables too. They can actually own a seed because their product has gotten into a personal seed. They control our farmers with this.

How do we avoid and keep this from continuing to happen? Well there are a number of things that can be done. We can grow our own food. We can buy from local farmers and butchers. We can also stop voting with our check and pay more for organic foods. The companies we buy from do hear us. By not buying the unhealthy food the companies will be forced to adapt to what we want if they want to make money. By eating the unhealthy foods we are paying less for them, but we are paying for them with medical bills. I dare you to send a letter, to stop buying this junk, or to sign petitions. The companies see this. They hear this. And they will eventually be forced to listen.