Texting in Social Situations

Taken from Google Images

Grade Ten Media Arts/Communications Technology

Blog Entry #1

As Ms. Parise waited in line at the supermarket to pay for her groceries last week, she noticed that the woman in front of her was texting as her groceries were being rung through.  The woman didn’t pay much attention to the cashier that had attempted to communicate with her.  When given the sum of her shopping, the woman continued to finish her text before offering her debit card to the cashier. 

In talking to Ms. Parise about this, I informed her that I too had encountered such situations.  While I was out on a boat cruise one evening, many people were texting continuously throughout the night.  As a result, many of the guests were not talking with each other, but instead were more concerned with the texts coming in on their cell phones.  In talking with my sister, she told me about a common friend of ours that was recently fired from their job via text!

Taken from Google Images

In your blog entry, respond to the following questions:

1. What are your thoughts on texting in social situations?

2. Do you find it rude if you’re talking to somebody and they proceed to text continuously on their cell phone?

3.If you had to come up with a list of five etiquette rules for texting, what would they be?

Blogging Safely...

Here is a list of blogging safety tips adapted from Microsoft's Online Safety tips:

- Don't divulge personal information: use your FIRST NAME ONLY, don't give any details with regards to contact information, home address, phone numbers, last names of friends or relatives, instant messaging names, age, or birth date.

- No questionable photos of you or anything else: If you wouldn't show it to your grandma, don't post it on the web! Avoid posting photos of yourself.

- Remember the internet is permanent! Anyone on the Internet can easily print out a blog or save it to a computer.

- Use blogging provider sites with clearly stated terms of use, and make sure they can protect the actual blogs, not just the user accounts, with password protection. (Even so, it's better to assume anyone can see it.)

- Avoid trying to "out-do" or compete with other bloggers.

- Keep it clean and positive: Our blogs are reflective of our Catholic values. Sexist, racist, homophobic, or any type of oppressive and offensive language will not be tolerated!

Welcome!

Hello all you media and comm. tech students! Welcome back to another wonderful year here at Mary Ward! I am already excited about this upcoming year! I am certain that it is going to be a great one! We have lots of exciting days to look forward to and I am sure that you will be as excited as I am!

As part of your media arts / communications technology course you will be required to create and maintain your own media arts / communications blog. Blogging has quickly become a very popular form of communication and online journaling.

Through this course your will be required to reply to reply to six different media / technology issues or topics that will be posted here for you to respond to on your own blog. Each response must be no less than 300 words and should have discussions relevant to media arts and communication technology. You will also be required to respond to 6 other people's blogs with thoughtful ideas and comments. The evaluation for this unit is found in your unit guide. Once you have completed all tasks (which will take you several months) you will submit your unit guide, with a list of the six blogs that you responded to, for evaluation.

Happy Blogging!
Ms. P.

Blog Entry #6: Logo Parodies that Speak the Truth

I'm sure all of you can remember the April 20, 2010 explosion of British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon oil rig. After the initial explosion, the oil continued to gush for 3 long, destructive months, causing extreme damage to the ecology and economy of the Gulf coast. Approximately 4.9 million barrels of crude oil were released into the ocean! This will continue to have detrimental effects to the environment for decades to come.

This henious example of corporate negligence lead environmental activist organization, Greenpeace to organize a logo competition that called for the redesign of BP's pretty yellow and green floral graphic ID. With over 3000 submisssion from around the world, the response was overwhelming. Many of the results are witty, well-designed, and reveal the horrible truth of the dangers of off-shore drilling and BP's deadly legacy left on the planet.

Go through the submissions and choose the one logo that you believe is the best new graphic identity for British Petroleum. In your blog entry, address the following points:


1. Describe the logo using the language of the Elements and Principles of Design.
2. Describe the symbols used in the logo. Why did the graphic artist use such imagery?
3. What does this logo say of BP's coroporate identity?

Be sure to post your selected logo and credit the graphic artist. 

Blog Entry #5: Digital Actors

Recently, my cousin showed me the official trailer for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. At first, I thought, "WOW! They got real actors to do this thing!" I soon found out, that what I thought was a live action scene being played out before me, was in fact, an animation! The figures, from afar, moved with convincing human-like grace. It was only during close-ups that the animated reality became apparent to me. 

We don't have to look very far to see evidence of animated characters starring side-by-side with human counterparts. In Avatar, the use of "performance capture" is one step towards the fusion of animation and real-life actors. Read the following article, entitled Do the ‘Avatar’ actors deserve recognition? and respond to the following questions:

1. Is this acting or is this animation?
2. Do you think that animated character should be eligible for acting awards?
3. Do you think that human actors will ever become obsolete? Why or why not?

Blog Entry #4: From Spray Can to light: Graffiti Revisited

In this blog entry, you will select and post your favourite example of light graffiti and your favourite example of street graffiti (street art using spray paint).

Write a brief description of each image using the language of the Elements and Principles of Design. Finally, you will compare and contrast light graffiti with traditional graffiti. How are they different and similar?

FYI: It's now possible to look like a real graffiti artist using a spray paint can that emits light. Check it!

Blog Entry #3: Mashups and Copyright Law

As personal computing and access to audio and video editing software became popularized in the 1990s, so too did the phenomena of mashups.Mashups are, in the words of journalist LiliAna Andreano, the “digital lovechildren of two or more songs.” Over time, the meaning of mashup has expanded to include digitally manipulated creations resulting from two or more pre-existing works.

In short, a mashup is the creative recombination of text, music, or video to make a new work of art. We see and hear mashups on the web, on TV, and on the radio. Mashups can be considered multimedia collages, which repurpose content to create a new media art work for art's sake, for parody, or for a political or social purpose. They are an emerging form of media art that has been made possible by the accessibility of digital technology. Take a look at the list below of mashup examples:

1. The widely popular television show Glee brought mashups to the mainstream in its Vitamin C and Mashup episodes, which featured the musical melding of Bon Jovi and Usher, along with Sisqo's Thong Song and a tune from the musical My Fair Lady.

2. A Fair(y) Use Tale, a video created by Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University, is a mashup of various Disney cartoons used to illuminate American copyright law in a comedic and ironic way.

3. In 2004, DJ Danger Mouse released The Grey Album, a mashup of vocals from Jay-Z's The Black Album and instrumentals from The Beatles' White Album (if you know your colour theory, the album's name makes perfect sense!). The album gained notoriety and popularity when EMI (the music label that holds copyright for The Beatles) threatened DJ Danger Mouse with legal action for the unauthorized use of the Fab Four's music. This controversy spurred a debate about the current state of copyright law and contemporary creative culture. 

In your blog entry, choose one of the three examples above and answer the following questions as they apply to your example:

1. What is this mashup trying to communicate? Is it technical experiment, social or political commentary, a comedic parody, or an abstract work of media art?
2. Did its creator follow or break copyright laws in its production?
3. Do you think that mashup like this requires copyright permission? Why or why not.