"We Should Grab a Coffee and Not Catch Up"

"I'm So Totally, Digitally Close to You"

The ubiquitous world of social media we find ourselves in today can be both charming and nauseating. I can barely keep up with what my close friends have to say online, never mind what acquaintances have to say. What Facebook has essentially become for myself and the few people in my close circle is an extended version of e-mail with photos. I don’t have time to troll the news feed and comment on that photo of your newly sculpted fohawk. I do, however, like the “like” button on Facebook. Brilliant idea to give people the recognition they crave without actually having to say anything at all.

In Clive Thompson's article “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy,” he navigates through the phenomenon that due to  constant updating of Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc., we are engaging in short text-message-like conversations with those we have digitally "friended" – to the point that if and when we meet in person, we simply pick up from where we left off. The issue I have with this point is that most of those quick chat-room style conversations aren't worth their salt when thrown in the context that real, verbal communication demands. Those Instagram-enhanced shots of the sushi you ate last night with your girlfriend are not going to drive the conversation when we meet for coffee next Wednesday, believe me. But Thompson suggests that the little pieces of info about our friends that we gather periodically, create the feeling, when we meet, that we haven’t actually been away from each other, despite the fact that we have.

I guess what it really comes down to is personal choice; how much crap are you going to sling online and how much of others’ are you going to allow grab yours. Any expats like me who follow sports back home and like not knowing scores, are probably in the habit of ignoring social media in crucial moments to avoid the endless number of spoilers online. I rather enjoy those bouts of blackout, where I can focus on things in my immediate reach and forget entirely about what people are gossiping about.

Ultimately, the amount of quality things to read, watch and listen to online are ample enough to drown-out the never-ending stream of self-shots (a.k.a. selfies), pointless Tweets, and promotional garbage that clutter my news feed. Like so many other aspects of life, again, I think the key here is balance. 

Couchsurfing Tutorial

This is a quick screencast on how to surf for a couch on couchsurfing. The video quickly shows what to do after sign-up and login have already taken place. The main purpose of the video is to show first-time users a few things to keep an eye out for when doing their initial searches for a place to stay. Notice that there is no audio for this video and that a few important parts of the process are highlighted throughout the video. This is simply a quick introduction, and is in no way a complete tutorial of all of the features that couchsurfing offers. 

"Dude, I Was Totally Gunna Say That"

"Should ideas be considered property?"

Much like the air we breathe or the water we drink, ideas are for everyone and belong to no one. That is my opinion anyhow - one that I am confident has been, at some point in time, likened to the communal properties of both air and/or water or at least presented in a similar fashion. Am I a rip-off for having this opinion? Maybe, according to the principles of intellectual property. But if these opinions were formulated as a culmination of everything I have ever learned, seen, watched or done, then every thought I have is also influenced by those experiences, rendering my entire thought process a total hack job. And so what's next in the progression of owning ideas? Will the thoughts in my own head one day become property of some corporation? Doubtful, but you can see how this has already snowballed and will continue to roll if we don't have a major shift in our thinking paradigm. The good news is, I don't have to feel like an unoriginal, uncreative sack of anti-talent...

According to Kirby Ferguson, "everything is a remix," and I couldn't agree more. His 4 part video series, all of which can be viewed here, are definitely worth watching and shed thoughtful insight on the idea that everything is essentially a remixed version of something else; there may have been some truly original ideas scattered about in our world's history, but true originality is essentially extinct. There is too much connectivity and influence to avoid the subconscious programming that is taking place 24/7 in modern society. I like to think of originality as being the first tree in the forest that grows and dies, ultimately becoming fertilizer for all of the other saplings in the surrounding patch of forest that greatly benefit from the life and death of the first tree. The saplings then grow bigger and stronger than the first tree ever imagined, due to increased nutritional properties of the soil (thanks, deadwood), all the while competing for space, exposure to the sun, nutrients, and water.

Unlike trees, our competition is usually monetarily based - even if the money trail is hard to find, it's still there somewhere - and like the saplings, we are hungry to survive. When ideas start to be considered as property, the nasty side of humanity is exposed. In Ferguson's video, he references a quote by Steve Jobs that demonstrates just how vicious we can be: "I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this.” Thermonuclear war? Really Steve? That's pretty hard core. If you're not familiar with the effects that thermonuclear war have had on the world, I suggest you check this out.

Next Lesson: How To Make a Catchy Title for a Blog About Your Favorite Lesson

 “Share a lesson that you have done that you feel good about. Describe the lesson and explain why it is a favorite of yours. What is the learning objective ("Students will be able to...")? How do the students react to this lesson? Include the name and grade level of this lesson.”

Pulling from the pool of lessons that we share here at Bucheon U., my favorite lesson would have to be where we cover directions, street address, and locations. The main grammar point of the lesson is to practice prepositions of place, but the students really begin to learn the grammar in a real way once you disguise it as being anything other than a grammar lesson. I use an overview map of a sectioned portion of a town – a four square block of town with more going on than times square in New York – yet the students never seem to question the over-development of my imagined city square. Using the map to explain that the Baskin Robbins  is both between the Cineplex and dinosaur museum AND above the bookstore (awesome real estate, right?), students can begin to conceptualize the way we give directions in English. I see the students getting into the lesson more than usual; they begin to compete for the quickest answer, they get excited about naming franchises they recognize, and you can just see their confidence growing with each attempt. It's the kind of lesson that makes you feel great about teaching and reminds you why you do it in the first place.

This lesson is taught to young adults with mixed levels of English, but once we start to piece the town together “going three blocks up and one block over,” even the best students in the class need to dig in and focus to produce accurate directions. The thing that I like the most about this lesson, which I usually break down into two sections, is the real-life application of it. What starts out as a PowerPoint on giving directions could very well come in handy someday when looking for a hostel in Brussels or a specific restaurant in San Francisco. Having said that, when we move on from directions and are expected to teach the different types of clothing, let's just say I reminisce about such meaningful topics. 

How to Avoid Being a Digital D-bag

“Evaluate your online reputation/digital footprint. What steps can you take to sculpt your reputation into one that is more of your liking?”

With so many hiring managers going to social networking sites to dig up dirt on potential employees such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace – well maybe not MySpace but you know what I mean –   it’s more important now than ever to appropriately manage one’s digital reputation.  But how does one accomplish that without giving off an image of themselves that rings false or feels disingenuous? There is nothing more disappointing than reading the profile of someone you know personally only to discover that their online self is not at all similar to their real self.  And to think for a moment that future employers can’t sift through the malarkey is just naïve. My list below isn’t perfect, but I have some key points that I try to stick to when putting information about myself out there on the worldwide web of lies.

1.      Does this photo place me in a situation where I seldom find myself?

If the answer to this question is yes, then don’t post the photo. Resist the urge to reach into your pocket for your iPhone to tag yourself at an all-night rave if it’s your first time going to a rave, no matter how “in-touch” with the universe you might be feeling at the time. There are always going to be isolated incidents in our lives that are better left private, and even if you do “get freak with the booty clubs,” as Benjamin André so eloquently put it, it’s probably better that you just leave that off your profile altogether.  

2.     Am I keeping it real?

I don’t post tons of political stuff online, although I do have some pretty firm opinions that I will hint toward from time to time. No, I don’t write extensive excerpts about the grossly overinflated U.S. military budget or the world’s uneven distribution of wealth, but I will let others speak for me, in a way, by posting credible, yet somewhat controversial videos, blogs or columns on my Facebook feed.  I refuse to pretend that I don’t care about anything and only comment on pictures of kittens – although so many people actually don’t care about anything – but I’m also not going to proselytize.  Additionally, I’m not going to hide the facts that I like to travel and have a good time, two aspects of my character well represented in my digital footprint. Here, the key is balance.

3.     Would my mom like this?

I swear this is the rule that I most strictly follow and probably should have been number one on this unofficial list, but I never said it was chronologically constructed in terms of importance or how staunchly I adhere, so there you have it.  

Like many of us, my mom has discovered the internet. And in her doing so, she stumbled across Facebook; I am one of her 60 friends on Facebook (25 mutual) and that kind of freaks me out sometimes. Simply put, if I wouldn’t want my mom to see me doing something, then either a) I probably shouldn’t be doing it, or b) even if “a” is true, I still shouldn’t post in on the internet for the world to see – and by world I mean my mom and all of her cronies. 

Chasing the 21st Century (blog #2)

"What are some ways that 'digitizing' assignments will improve your teaching, class, or your organization?"

The idea of digitizing assignments is so exciting to me that I would like to start doing it right away - starting with the very next semester at Bucheon University. More precisely, I really want to implement a learning management system into our curriculum to streamline the dissemination of assignments, expectations, attendance records, and anything else that could otherwise be 'lost in translation' somewhere along the line.

Although implementing an LMS into our school is probably not going to be an option anytime soon, that doesn't mean that I can't find other creative ways to connect our classroom digitally. I think that by creating a class facebook page or shared folder in dropbox are two easy ways to hold the students accountable for all of their assignments (regardless of their excused or unexcused absences) and I think it will cut down on time wasted making copies, since the students will be responsible for printing the copies themselves (not to mention the elimination of overprinting). I think the biggest area of improvement for me as a teacher would be in my organization of the class. It would allow me to spend more time working on the class while I am away from the classroom, and would put more of the onus on the students to come to class prepared and ready.

The support that we get from our university to diversify our teaching methods is is virtually nonexistent, which of course is a difficult challenge to overcome, but I do think that the slow, incremental introduction to becoming more digitized would not be met with sheer resistance. It would be a great step forward, in my opinion, to begin implementing a more digitized system of class organization, with an aim to one day catch up to the standards of modernity that we see in more prestigious and well established institutions.

Personal Improvement as an Educator (blog #1)

"In what way would you like to improve as a teacher? How do you think this course will help you to improve?"

There are more ways than one that I would like to improve as a teacher, but in the spirit of answering the question concisely, I will attempt to identify the single most important aspect of my deficiencies and formulate a clear path to grow professionally. I will start by saying that this course will undoubtedly help me to improve as a teacher if for no other reason than the increased exposure and idea sharing with other teachers and  Dr. Katz, who insists we refer to him as Steve. I have always seemed to learn tons by surrounding myself with bright and motivated people, and being in the classroom environment is both stimulating and invigorating.

As a teacher, I have always relied on my social skills to bridge any gaps that may exist between my preparation resourcefulness and the desired result. Having said that, I feel that I can improve as a teacher by pulling from a wider range of available content to create more dynamic, less teacher-driven lesson plans. The double edged sword of feeling comfortable in front of a classroom is the tendency to sometimes rely on my own interpersonal skills to keep the students engaged, rather than to have a free flowing stream of connected activities and assignments for the students to keep busy with. Some of the struggles that I deal with in my current position include a lack of interest on the students part, motivation, and a lackluster textbook. Overcoming these challenges requires a ton of creativity and patience, all of which I am continuing to work on and trying to develop in the pursuit of becoming a more efficient and effective educator.

I think this course will help broaden the scope from which I can plan lessons. The use of more media and online LMS will help me to connect with the class as a whole, and will provide a forum for the students to find assignments and due dates without having to ask a classmate or myself. The keys here are organization and consolidation. I want to integrate an LMS into my curriculum to simplify the dissemination of information to the students and to have a clear record of expected assignments and requirements. I think this course will give me the confidence to implement new things with or without the support of the institution from which I belong.