Prezi is almost like giving a poster presentation along with a power point presentation. It allows a person to take a single word and make it move. In class, we talked about how text moves. Several examples were given were the author made the text move like the object they were talking about. One story was about an elevator and the author positioned the words to move up and down like an elevator. Prezi allows the author to make the words move and come to life. For example, in our project we talked about how the color scheme can be loud in certain social media websites. We took the word “loud” and made it bigger and gave it a bold color and zoomed in quickly in and out to portray the meaning of the word.

Another great thing about Prezi is that an individual can work on different elements of a project and then link it all together. This is an amazing feature because when a person initially starts a project, his or her ideas can be scattered and is probably still in the brainstorming stage. Prezi allows the person to put down all their random thoughts and then link ideas together, which will then help, create the main thesis.

Growing up I had to do several poster projects, and if I messed up or envisioned an idea, I could not really just play around with ideas without starting over. In Prezi, I can change the color scheme, play with different fonts, link parts together and then unlink them if it did not worked. It is a great tool when presenting to an audience because it keeps their attention and it enriches your presentation and allows the audience to come to a clear understanding of the topic than say a regular poster board.

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However, recent events has led me to see the great downfall of our generation: Slacktivism. If you were on the internet about a month ago you probably know about and saw the STOP KONY campaign video. Now there are many things wrong with this campaign and the top-down development, non-profit, Invisible Children. However, that is NOT what this blog post is about. You can read about why the campaign and non-profit is not worth supporting here, here or even here.

Within hours my Facebook and Twitter pages were overtaken with the video. The idea was simple, watch this video and stop Joseph Kony. But How is watching this video going to stop a notorious terrorist thousands of miles away? The narrator did tell the young people to video to contact their senator. But how many actually did? I don’t know the numbers and I can’t find any on how many kids actually wrote to their senators. But I would be willing to bet a lot that most of the kids who posted the campaign video did not write their senators. I know more than half of the people that came up on my Facebook and Twitter supporting this cause did not do anything else besides posting the video.

This is just the most recent and widespread example. (You can read about the different forms of slacktivism here.)  It seems to me that social media has created a problem of inactivity. This is where technology, the internet and social networking is a problem. We can find out multiple sides to an issue, read about the right way to go about social change and then we can post about it on our Facebook. But then what? For our generation, it stops there. What do we do next? Our generation needs to understand that social change can start behind the computer but we must get out behind our computers,get out there and create action.

Thanks again for a great semester! Maybe I will see you all in other English classes in the future!

Our Video

     As an English and Philosophy major, I am always bombarded with pages after pages of reading. I always prefer that I print my papers or have a textbook where I can highlight, underline, star terms, and draw little illustrations to the side. I also have this habit of constantly turning my pages to see how many pages I have left. At first, it was frustrating to read text online because I would have to take a separate piece of paper to take notes. Later, I realized that some of the digitalized text allowed me to annotate on the computer. I took Human Nutrition and Food over the summer and my textbook was online. The greatest benefit that I had was the fact that I could search the entire book for key terms. When studying for the exams, I did not have to re-read entire chapter because with the click of a button, the key term that I was looking for would be highlighted.

     The article mentioned Eric Schulz who made an “interactive, digital version” of the Calculus book written by William Briggs (Eisenberg). This book included “650 interactive figures, including graphs of functions, derivatives, and integrals” (Eisenberg). This is a great tool in teaching as each student learns differently. As an R.A., I have to tutor residents. I find that some students can easily understand what I am discussing while others need me to draw diagrams and charts. Sometimes, I need to do a combination. I believe that teachers have to do the same thing when they are teaching. I find that the professors who had multiple ways of presenting information helped me to remember that information the best. If these textbooks that the author is presenting becomes more of a use in schools, it would do the same thing as if a teacher used multiple ways to teach. This is a lot better than just pdf files that are simply scanned in without any interactive tools.

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So let’s keep in mind that Apple’s mentality is MOE (money over everything). Now one of the biggest things Apple is known for is their sleek and simple design. Therefore the king of book covers is moving to the front shelf of the store. Anne Eisenberg discusses design techniques in her “Making Science Leap From the Page” article. She talks about the evolution of textbooks and the incorporation of more videos, visuals, etc. In the article she states that these new digital books have “pizzazz.”

The fork in the road is split in two: design and substance. The battle, which is common decision, is looks vs. personality. Sure, you can sit there and with your sleek and sexy iPad, but can you hold a meaningful conversation with it? Can you learn something from it? When you want to take things seriously, is it there to help?

The answer seems simple. But it’s so easy to say, yet tough to do. Apple, I’m talking to you. If you’re going to dip into the educational system, you need to be serious. You need to swim to the top of your money pool and take a deep breath. You have to realize that we’re dealing with the future of education, not a new iPhone app.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/business/online-textbooks-aim-to-make-science-leap-from-the-page.html

The process certainly would not happen over night and in all honesty some schools may not even be apart of the ‘movement’.  In reality, what I’m hoping for may not even be all that realistic.  But some college classes are making a move in that direction.  This class for instance (ENGL 303) is all done digitally.  Even though I never got one, it was suggested that the students go out and buy a tablet because all of our work and assignments are seen and accomplished through our website and other things done digitally.  I can’t recall if we have handed in one piece of paper this semester.  Don’t be fooled though, we have accomplished a lot of work this semester.

Tablets are such a smarter way to approach school.  I have a bunch of space being taken up because all the books I need for school.  My backpack is heavy and becomes annoying to lug around.  My backpack isn’t nearly as bad as it was in high school though.  We had to have so many books that the back pack was literally at capacity.  Lugging around heavy loads on your back for hours a day can also be said to result in back injuries too.  I would really like to try to purchase a tablet and use it for as many classes as I can next semester without buying the expensive textbooks.  The good part about these online textbooks is that you have that text for even longer that just that semester, so buying that digital version may very well be worth it.  I think these iPads and others tablets are capable of a lot and can open a lot of doors.

Thanks to that purchase, I was able to download nearly all of my textbooks in digital form, saving hundreds of dollars. Although there are some things that I do miss about print textbooks, the money factor wipes that away.

Nearly all of the textbooks that I was required to purchase for my classes were available online in PDF form either free of charge or for a low fee. Not only am I able to carry these books with me everywhere I go, but I can do so without the weight of five or so different printed books on my shoulder.

While I haven’t used any of Apple’s new textbooks, I do believe that a digital textbook would be more beneficial. Imagine a math textbook that could act as a teacher while we work on homework assignments, working out an example in an embedded video to help us solve that one hard problem that we just can’t seem to understand. This seems like a winning innovation that can’t really be argued. How could this be a bad thing?

Although textbook publishers might find it difficult to make the jump to digital, this jump is probably going to be required in coming years. If digital media has already begun to kill print industries such as magazines, bookstores, and newspapers, what makes textbook publishers believe that their print industry will be exempt?

It’s time that publishers let go and adjust to the digital media world that we are now living in. There’s just no fighting it – digital is king.