MIDTERMINATION...

1. After studying media for eight weeks in this class, what have you learned? Please be specific.

In studying media these past eight weeks I have learned that media are so integrated into our day-to-day lives that we barely even stop to think about what it could be doing to us as humans. We are changing the way our brains process information. Google is, in my opinion revolutionizing the way we work, we no longer have the need to pour over large amounts of text, we can instantly find the exact snippet of text we want to reference or examine. Some articles argued that Google is making us stupid whereas I think it is making us more powerful, in the article he claimed we no longer process the information which I think is untrue, instead we explore the idea later and with our peers.


2. What is the most important thing you have learned about yourself as a critical reader, a writer, and a thinker in this class so far.

I have learned that I am unable to process a large amount of prose, unless it is a narrative. I am easily distracted when reading or writing but I have learned to use these distractions as time to ponder what I am reading/writing about and gain inspiration from the world around me.


3. What's one thing you would do differently this first half of the semester if you were to take this class again?

I would have spent more time getting used to Blogger as I am still a little unfamiliar with it and would like to become a better blogger. I would also, in reading the material again take notes while reading to further instill the ideas in my long term memory.


4. What's one thing you would like me to do differently this first half of the semester if you were to take this class again?

I would have liked more films or youtube videos of good examples of media (not to say yours weren't good but I know you showed something similar to this video which I think is really interesting and poses some good topics for discussion)


5. Please comment on the usefulness of the power tools, our quizzes, the course blog, your personal blog, our films and our books (Amusing, Feed, Media/Society) as learning tools?

I enjoyed the quizzes at the beginning of the semester more than the power tools ones, the ones with facts and numbers etc as it was really interesting to find out that 6 corporations control 95% of the media...which probably explains why certain stories are withheld from the public. I understand the principle behind the personal blog but I am just not really a fan of blogging (partially because of the internet interface, I would prefer it in a standalone application but I don't know if that's possible.) Feed was by far my favorite book because it was a narrative but still got an important point across, I definitely took the most away from Feed and will no doubt read it again in the future.