Reflection Digital Media Project

For my digital media project, I created a video clip on the background information surrounding Great Expectations, a novel by Charles Dickens published during the Victorian Era. This video is used to accompany my unit plan for my Engl3391 Teaching Literature to Adolescents class. The purpose of the digital movie is to get students interested in Great Expectations and at the same time learn background information about the Victorian period that will be useful to them when we study the novel.

The process first began with the script, and then 195 slides were created for every different image that will be seen in the movie. At the same time, I also recorded my script. This was the second most tedious part, as I played back recordings, after finding them not usable, I had to restart the paragraph all over again. There were at least 20 takes per paragraph, for a total of 8 paragraphs. On the other hand, I can say that I can remember the script in my sleep after recording its contents. The next step would be making the movie.

As I have never used Windows Movie Maker before, I first tried to import the PowerPoint presentation onto the screen. To my dismay, it didn’t work. Eventually, I changed to another movie editing software, called Sony Vegas Pro. Before placing all the slides in, I had to use PicPick, a software that allows me to cut certain portions of the screen and use it as an image. After doing that about 198 times, since I had to redo some of them, the graphics were ready. The second paragraph gave me a hard time, as it took me a million years to get the “Background Information of Publication” heading to match the voice. As I progressed through making each split second of the movie, I learned that with headings, I have to listen to syllables, and mark down the times when they are enunciated and end. The timeline, of course, had to be adjusted to really tiny segments. As mentioned before, showing the typed-out letters on the heading was the part that gave me the most gynormous headache ever. Compared to this, the monotonousness brought on by the recording process seemed like nothing at all. On a positive note, this was a learning experience.

From start to finish, the movie took a tremendous amount of time and energy, but when it was done, I was so proud of myself, as I’ve realized that each millisecond on a digital movie took contains much sweat and labor. I will come to appreciate all the hard work done by the professionals who make digital movies, especially this one. The wonderful part is that this movie was created with my unit plan in mind, meaning that I can use this to engage student learning and to introduce them to the canon.

“Her Story, Your Story;” Video Clip as Text

Behind-the-Scenes Rationale

Teaching context:

This assignment is to help students grasp the concept of different elements that make up a story. As indicated in the worksheet, this will help them better understand the text since they have messages to convey to the audience when drafting their stories. The standards require them to know what various elements of a story are, and by completing this assignment, they are applying this to their daily experiences, making this meaningful to them. This assignment involves the writing process, and also applies to the text they are reading, Hole in My Life. To help students understand elements of a story, I may bring up the common television shows students watch. This is, overall, a fairly simple assignment to carry out.

I chose this commercial because it tells a great story in less than five minutes. It is very to the point. Also, since “elements of a story” is a part of the standards, this commercial is a great embodiment of it. This commercial is very touching, and I think students will enjoy the story. In tweeking the setting of the story will let students get creative with the writing assignment.

Standards:

ELA9RL2 The student identifies, analyzes, and applies knowledge of theme in literary works from various genres and provides evidence from the works to support understanding. The student

a. Applies knowledge of the concept that the theme or meaning of a selection represents a universal view or comment on life or society and provides support from the text for the identified theme.

c. Applies knowledge of the concept that a text can contain more than one theme.

ELA9RL4 The student employs a variety of writing genres to demonstrate a comprehensive grasp of significant ideas in selected literary works. The student composes essays, narratives, poems, or technical documents. The student

a. Demonstrates understanding of significant themes in specific literary works.

b. Supports important ideas and viewpoints through accurate and detailed references or allusions to the text.

Memes: an Introduction and its role in Education (Postman 4)

What is a meme?

A meme is any idea or concept that begins with a person, event, or situation, and then evolves as the idea is passed from a person to another. Most of the time, pending on the medium with which the meme is transferred, the concept is altered but the fundamentals of the meme stay the same. The survival of a meme also depends on its consistently evolving; this is how memes survive. The consistent changing of a meme, or its survival, depends on how it relates to a person’s background, beliefs, worldview, culture, and etc. Thus, memes reflect our conception of the world around us, as well as how we reflect on the world around us. While the philosophers of ancient China, Greece, and Rome used metaphors to reflect on the world in which they lived by means of abstract language (Metaphors), in present day, with the help of technology, memes spread like wildfire as our understandings of pop culture, beliefs and other references are made clear with the evolvement of each meme.

First of all, the concept of a meme is completely new to me. It is a fairly interesting subject, as every meme that has actually spread and evolved have stood the test of time and therefore has shown their worthiness of being remembered and passed on. In a respect, this makes memes similar to classic novels that have survived up till present day. Of course, there will eventually be a time when a meme wears off, whereas a classic novel will always be a classic novel. Also similar to a classic is a meme’s characteristic of reflecting on society’s values, as shown by the Dog Poop Girl meme that began in Korea. This meme is characteristic of scarlet lettering, as it starts with a disgraceful action done by someone and is looked down on by everyone else in that society. In cases such as these, the person who started the meme is also the one whom the audience direct their responses to; eventually, the person gets ostracized by society in which he/she lives and has to apologize, as in the case of the Dog Poop Girl.

Exploration with Numa Numa

The meme which I explored, as selected from Postman, is the Numa Numa Dance. This was started by Gary Brolsma in 2004, a 19 year old who recorded himself singing the song “Drogostea din Tei” by O-zone, a Romanian singing group. This video featured Brolsma singing along to the song with a catchy tune and waving his arms energetically as he follows the beat. It was first posted on the internet, and before he knew it, a number of people downloaded the video and took their own spin on it. Gary Brolsma’s performance appeared on South Park, American Idol cartoons; there is even a Spongebob Squarepants remix about the Numa Numa dance and song. Despite all those variations of the same meme, not many know what the lyrics actually mean, because the song is not in English. A translated version of the video shows that the song lyrics reveals a message that is cheerful and sad at the same time-a girl decides to leave a guy, who is getting over it by singing this song to cheer up.

Reception?

Gary appeared to be at first embarrassed about getting attention from starting the meme, but later made a site dedicated to this video. He made news on agencies such as CNN and NBC. However, not everyone liked the publicity Gray was receiving, including himself. First of, for those who have watched the video can see that Gary is overweight. And, after searching the video on Youtube, I’ve found people commenting on Gary’s obesity; comments such as, “this shows fat people can dance without having a heart attack.” To me, this is a very insensitive comment, even though I am (frankly) underweight. What’s wrong with being overweight? As long as you enjoy life and think you are healthy, that’s all you need. Brolsma probably saw many comments about his video, both good and bad, which led to his feeling embarrassed. Someone also posted on the Numa Numa site that his singing appeared gay during the video. Once again, another insensitive comment unless the author of the statement is gay.

Personally, I like the video, and I think Gary Brolsma can dance better than a lot of people. This video is what being in America is all about: being yourself; in your element; but allowing yourself to be under the scrutiny of everyone who sees your video? What happens to privacy? Is there a way for authors to approve or disapprove comments submitted by people who view the videos? People who are skinny like me also have their own problems, and to me, an insult like the comment about Brolsma being fat in the video is as much as an insult to him as is to me. This also raises question as to the openness of memes, and how fast ideas and comments in the read/write web circulate. The video maker is the one who creates a message that is open for all to comment, thus creating a conversation open to all, but some people are just so rude and insensitive that they think they are very hilarious. Of course, there will be people who will laugh with the jokes that could offend, but there are also those who would feel offended. By looking at the variations of memes and how they spread, as well as people’s reactions to them, is a great way to open students’ eyes to think critically about information which they receive over the internet, no matter who created it. As a matter of fact, it is because a person first created an idea, it is open to scrutiny in the public eye everywhere on the web.