On "The New Gatekeepers"

To sum it up in one single word, I must say, “wow!” I can’t help but feel a bit indignant about a social network deciding for me on what information I should or should not be exposed to easily or who should be exposed to me. This is definitely not a good thing. I agree with Eli Pariser when he said that he likes being exposed to conservative friends because he can learn from them and they learn from him too. For example, I myself was born and raised a Catholic. My good friend Janis Mork however, is a Baptist Christian. Every other Wednesday we like to get together at a local Starbucks to discuss a weekly reading. Next Wednesday for example, we will both offer our individual interpretations from the first two pages of the bible. If Janis and I, for example were to have these meetings online, we may find it difficult for us to connect due to all these social networks setting us up with people who think and believe everything we do. I completely agree with our speaker on this being a potential problem in the future. It is imperative for all of us to be exposed to people who oppose our way of thinking and our way of living because it allows us to grow as people and it helps us tolerate that which is different.

On Clay Shirkey's, "Cognitive Surplus and Changing the world."

According to the video “ancient human motivation and the modern tools that allow that motivation to be joined in a large scale,” are the two important keys that allow a culture of generosity. And apparently there is a gap between those doing anything and those doing nothing. I may lack the imagination to come up with a way in which a culture of generosity can be used to improve education, but I’m willing to give it a try. The culture of generosity has a civil duty, their creations are made by a group of individuals but it is created in a way in which large populations can either enjoy or benefit from their creation. In a typical school setting, this can be the equivalent of students and teachers gathering and creating a helpful site that may involve everyone in and out of their community. And it can be anything, so long as civic value is being created to a degree that they will be able to change the world, including education. It is my understanding that when Clay Shirkey says “free cultures get what they celebrate,” he meant that for those who make the choice to do something (create and share for example) get to experience the reward of doing so, while those who choose to do nothing, get exactly that: nothing. Perhaps the most interesting observation that I personally made about myself after watching this video, is that I am still a media consumer. Yes, it was the only thing that has been offered in the past, but now I see the world is changing. While some people highly enjoy the fact that they now have a role to create and share in participation with the media, it is something that frankly scares the crap out of me. I know how to document y personal feelings and how to respond to the world around me internally, but I have a big problem sharing that with others. I have the feeling that my struggle in Education 578 is mainly because I lack the confidence to reach out to others and let others reach out to me.

On my final decision for the 20% project

I have decided to do my 20% project on learning how to make Carnitas en Salsa Verde. It is a pork dish, cooked in a green chili sauce. It is a particularly difficult dish for me to make because I don't eat much pork, but I know my boyfriend would really appreciate it because it's his favorite meal. To tell the truth, I'm not much of a cook period. I get picked on a lot by my family members on what a "horrible" or "inexperience" cook I am. In fact, just last Christmas Eve I helped my Grandma Estela fill up tamales for our annual Christmas party, and many of my aunts, uncles, and cousins pretended not to eat them for fear I might poison them. It would be nice if I can cook up this green chili pork and put it into one of this year's tamales. I am therefore challenging myself to begin with me preparing a meal for my boyfriend. For this meal, I will have to learn to make Carnitas en Salsa Verde, Tortillas de arina (flour tortillas), and a side of beans and rice. To drink, I'd love to learn how to make Agua de Horchata (Horchata water). If I am not too overwhelmed, I'd love to bake a Pastel de tres leches (a mexican cake made of three different milks). I plan to research free recipes on the internet that will give me an idea of what I'll need and then compare them to various You Tube videos that I have already begun watching.There are various examples for each dish I am preparing for this "simple meal." So, I am going to learn how to make carnitas en salsa verde, tortillas de arina, beans, rice, agua de horchata, and pastel de tres leches. I, Nora Castro, who's most extravagant dish as of now is pancakes, will learn to make these 6 things to impress my boyfriend, my family, but mostly myself.

On Googling myself

I can already tell that I have absolutely no web identity as of yet. When I googled the name Nora Castro, all I saw were links to a Nora Castro in Puerto Rico and a 1994 graduate student from Thomas Jefferson High School. Then I tried including my middle name, Lorena. But when I googled Nora Lorena Castro, I was directed to various Nora Lorena Castros on Facebook and to various directories on where I can find Nora Lorena Castro's address and contact information. I then decided to google Nora Lorena, and voila! I finally found myself. One little link. Right underneath it I saw the words, follow Nora Lorena Martinez on twitter, which brought a tiny smile to my face because Martinez is my boyfriend's last name. We had just held a discussion the night before on whether I would take his last name when we got married or whether I will remain Castro. Being the typical Hispanic macho man, I of course said I'd change my name. After seeing Nora Lorena Martinez's twitter account, I decided to google nlorena_2003, which is the username I use for almost all the online services that I am a part of. I was expecting to find something on my yahoo e-mail account, or my facebook account, or even my SDSU information, but instead I found this: storify.com/nlorena_2003/tribes A few weeks ago, my Technology teacher asked us to storify a book we had read individually titled Tribes, it was the only thing that showed up when I googled myself. This only tells me that I am obviously a visitor of the web world rather than a resident. I have so much work to do to create an identity online. I don't understand how people find it so easy, it is so overwhelming!

On the 20% Project

There are so many things that I would consider learning right about now. One of them would be to play the guitar. Nothing too fancy, but I’d definitely feel pretty good about myself if I could learn to play something as simple as “Mary Had a Little Lamb, “ or even better the Birthday song, that way I could at least put my skills into practice every time anyone I know and love was celebrating their Birthday. Another thing I’d have fun learning is to knit. I’ve been interested in knitting since I was a little girl but never really had the opportunity or the patience to do it. If I get really good I may even knit my own blanket for a cozy read. For my own personal benefit, I’d really love to learn how to fish-braid my hair. I know how to braid my hair with traditional braids but I wouldn’t even know how to begin braiding my hair like a fishtail. And perhaps the most ambitious thing I’d love to learn would be to learn how to cook my boyfriend’s favorite dish, “Carnitas en salsa verde”. My sister, my mother, my aunts, my primas (girl cousins) my grandmother, and my boyfriend’s mother are all great cooks and I’d love to introduce them with a recipe that none of them showed me how to cook.

On Daniel Pink's, "A whole new mind"

What is the conceptual age? According to Daniel Pink, the way the world thinks is going through a shift from the information age which is dominated by ‘right-brain thinking’, towards the conceptual age, dominated by ‘left-brain thinking.’ The conceptual age is the age of creators and empathizers rather than knowledge workers. According to Pink there are six senses that help create a whole new mind-set that gears towards the conceptual age: design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and marketing. Why does Pink believe this "Conceptual Age" requires a whole new mind? Pink believes that the “conceptual age” requires a whole new mind because the world has valued left-brain thinking much more to right-brain thinking. Although the left hemisphere is still extremely important for anyone to be successful in the economy and the world of business, he argues that creativity (dominated by the right hemisphere) can determine how competitively successful one can be. The introduction explains this better as it describes that, “the future belongs to…creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers, artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, and big picture thinkers,” it is they which, “will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joy.” Do you agree or disagree with Pink and why? At this point in my life, I am not fully sure if I agree with Pink or not. I guess it is best to say that I have no reasons to doubt that his idea on the Conceptual Age is at fault because I do value creativity immensely. I agree with the concept, I just don’t believe that creative thinkers can have periods of time in which they may dominate the workforce or the world for that matter based on their creativity. Personally, I believe that the world will always need a balance of both left-hemisphere and right-hemisphere dominated minds. What is a great creator without the person who knows how to help him build that creative idea, and what is a builder without a great inventor? Although creativity is being valued more, I wouldn't necessarily say that it is being placed as a higher commodity than left-hemisphere capabilities but rather that it is quickly catching up to its counterpart.

On Communities of Practice

This week’s reading on Lave and Wenger’s theory of communities of practice was something that was particularly interesting to me. I haven’t noticed before how much learning we all do on a daily basis. There are some obvious communities that I belong to as part of a learning community: USD, San Diego High School, and my church for example. And I participate in various forms of learning in each community. At USD for example, I am surrounded by people who have the knowledge of technology in my Edu 578 class and by being in their environment I learn from them and discover a lot of myself as well. At San Diego High School, as a Special Education Assistant, I am the glue that keeps teachers, parents, and students connected. I had little to no acknowledgement of the other types of communities of practice of which I am a part of. I didn’t know for example that by going out dancing with my friends every other Saturday, I was building a community of practice among others who share a same interest as me and who gear towards the same goals: to have fun and hopefully learn new steps during our night out. We share the domain (a shared interest), the community (we help each other and collaborate with one another to improve our dancing skills), and the practice (we know which nights are Salsa nights and which days are ladies nights). The fact that my three girlfriends and I look forward to going out every once in a while and feel the need to go out and about together makes us members of a tribe that unites us under one identity. In my Edu 578 course, we have a PLN check list that we must familiarize ourselves with in an attempt to create a web presence, ideally under the same username. As a class, we get together on a weekly basis but stay connected with each other throughout the week via our PLN activities. Edu 578 is the domain in which my colleagues, professor, and I are currently participating in. The fact that we all have different level of experience with technology and with a lot of accounts on our PLN list gives us a shared community. The fact that we all gather together on a weekly basis, stay connected through our PLN accounts, and work on the same activities and assignments means we share the same practice. According to Wenger, a shared domain, community, and practice is necessary for the communities of practice theory to take its course. When trying to find people or articles who oppose Lave and Wenger’s theory of community of practice, I was surprised to find close to nothing. In fact the one source I found, written by Heather and Phil Hodkinson was merely a constructive critique on the theory titled, “A constructive critique of communities of practice: moving beyond Lave and Wegner. In this article the Hodkinson’s express that they don’t necessarily disagree with Lave and Wegner but rather find their work weak and in need of improvement. A copy of this article can be acquired by going to the following website: http://www.voced.edu.au/content/ngv37993 and downloading it from there.

On what I am passionate about

Growing up, my mother surrounded my home with books. We had bookcases and bookcases filled with movies and books. It wasn’t the typical household that my family members were used to. Whenever I would get bored, I would grab an Encyclopedia and read an entire page. An example of how I would do this for example can be described by one particular memory I have of me when I was twelve years old. I got in trouble for speaking back to my mother, she wouldn’t let me spend the weekend at my dad’s so I was pretty upset. I picked a random page, which happened to have the Holocaust on it. I read the one paragraph description on the Holocaust and wasn’t satisfied with it. I then took down more Encyclopedias to look up other things like Adolf Hitler, Concentration Camps, and World War II. I instantly made a connection to a movie I had watched with my mom about Anne Frank and asked her if I can watch it again. The second time I watched the movie, it made a lot more sense than the first time I read it because of all the information I had acquired during my informal research. This recollection is what I am passionate about. I love making connections with what I learn through books, movies, and lectures with the outside world. Moreover, I love that the learning process can be fun and as informal as a twelve year old girl learning sophisticated concepts simply because SHE WANTS TO and not because she has to. I wish I can say the same about my cousins or even my brother or sister. Growing up my mother was always either reading or watching TV. My grandmother was the one who did most of the housework like cooking and such. I took up after my mom. I am extremely passionate about reading and the learning process. I was the only one of three kids who share my mom’s passion for learning and reading. My sister preferred Barbies and my brother preferred cars. Now, as adults my brother is a struggling mechanic who pays too much child support and my sister is 26 divorcee with 2 young boys. She also struggles to make ends meet. I, on the other hand struggle to make ends meet as well, but that is because I am a college student who has little money to spare after books and tuition rather than to feed two young kids on my own. I guess if I had to focus on one research topic, it would have to be: Informally: what was the difference between my younger brother and sister and me growing up? Same socio-economic status, same household, why the different lifestyles? Formally: is there a possibility that early (and perhaps sophisticated) reading improves one’s choices in lfie? This is just me thinking out-loud though. There is still time for me to change my mind.

On Seth Godin’s Tribes

There were many interesting things discussed in Seth Godin’s book, Tribes . The one thing that will resonate with me for a long time however, is what he mentioned about our fear being the only thing that holds us back from becoming great leaders. In particular how he describes that leaders must have the courage to become heretics due to an incredible faith that they have. It takes courage to confront a set of well-established rules and change the unchangeable (religion). It take courage to be seen as a heretic and to have enough faith that if you are passionate enough, then it will all turn out to be all right in the end. Fear is something that is rarely addressed in our academic world. Personally, I have many fears that I wasn't aware of. The fear of not making it through another two years of school because I am so incredibly exhausted, the fear of not making my family proud, and the fear of being forgotten. Godin, however mentions that although these fears really don’t go away, acknowledging them and being aware of them makes them less likely to deter my progress. Listening to his book was a pleasure, responding to it via 20 tweets wasn't as easy as I expected though. I have this mammoth task ahead of me, that of understanding this world of technology, but I am ready to overcome it.

Tribes  http://sfy.co/l9qb #storify #usdedutribes