The Tammy G

  As I've gotten older I've started to already watch Disney movies from a different lens as far as paying attention to character races, social classes, gender roles, etc. Growing up as a black girl from a low income household it was never easy to find self representation in Disney Films, yet, I always loved them! I still loved the songs and the dances and the aspect of "all your dreams can come true when you discover and believe in yourself". However, not gonna lie I loved seeing more races being shown as movies like "Mulan", Pocahontas", and "Aladdin" . And I was quick to claim that the movie "The Lion King" took place in Africa although the majority of it's voice actors were white. I was able to witness Tiana become the first black Disney Princess which was amazing!! But now, here I am watching Moana from a different lens after reading  Rethinking Popular Culture and Media  :"Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us" by Lind...

When reading the Rethinking Schools text, I selected the chapter, "Why I said no to Coca Cola". I initially chose this text because I am a soda drinker ( although I have been cutting down a lot more over the past few months) and I wanted to read about how technology and Coca Cola tie in together. I was also hoping that this text would also give me another reason to put done the soda can! This chapter goes on to discuss marketing and how companies go on to target schools as students are easier to target as they are much easier to influence with simple messaging and a lottttt of visuals. The author of this chapter, John Sheehan even mentions that in 1990, out of all 17 consortium's board members to vote on Coca Cola being advertised and put into Colorado schools, he was the only one to vote "no" which is alarming.  Growing up, school lunches were never the best, as they tried to incorporate "healthy" food into our menus. Not saying that healthy food doe...

  Hey everyone, going to do a little tutorial for an app that I've been using for awhile now, Duolingo!  MY TUTORIAL

I'm not 100% sure yet on what I want to do in regards to the "Change" portion of the project yet. I guess I'll just brain dump whatever's in my head now on here in hopes that I end up finding something good to write about!  Well as most of you know by now I am an After School Site Coordinator so I'm not in the traditional "teacher" role. However, I do feel as though my job still supports youth in learning...just in a non traditional school curriculum sort of way! Throughout my time being with youth after school I've truly gained a appreciation for student creativity and letting the after school space be a space where students can come to experiment and "test the waters" and this space has definitely been a space where I've seen the most learning happening! So in terms of a "change" I'd like to see in my after school programs would be giving the youth more autonomy in the decision making for after school program options...

 After watching the Ted Talk,  Build a School in the Cloud  I really resonate with what Sugata Mitra had discussed. He talks about learning and how it almost obsolete in the manner that it's not necessarily dying but its not really a discovery anymore when ones learning something because technology takes care of all the hard parts! He talks about future careers and whether or not students who are currently in school really learning something that will benefit them for the jobs to come in the future (or are they even really learning at all if I'm going based off Dr. Wesch's article). Sugata ends his discussion  referring to his dream of developing a "School in the Clouds" in which it is a school "where children go on intellectual adventures, driven by the the big questions that their mediators put in".  In his "School in the Clouds" he mentions that he'd like for students to collaborate and help build it with him. That he won't just tell...

       After watching the Ted Talk,  Connected but Not Alone  done by Sherry Turkle and read,  Anti-Teaching  by Michael Wesch, I see their discussions going hand-in-hand with one another as they discuss new media and technology.      In Connected but Not Alone, Turkle discusses the disconnect in human interaction that has came into existence as technology has become more advance. How throughout lectures, meetings, classroom presentations, family dinners/ and friendship gatherings, the constant theme occurs. More texting and less communicating between human beings!  In Anti Teaching, Michael Wesch discusses how learning has changed (to almost non existence) as technology has advanced. There's no genuine interest to learn anymore as the old ways of learning (reading books) are no longer effective. Students are finding that they are wasting time and money on books that they never read because they've learned to Google any an...