WEEK SIX

 WEEK SIX POST

Crook (2012) got me thinking. More and more, we see the concept of "digital native" coming up. While I still have a serious gripe with the WHAT of social media, I can see, better now, the value of the HOW of social media. I must admit that I loved to engage Destiny and the ACA on X and YouTube. I did learn a lot. However, these examples seem outliers to a data population devoted to lunacy and debauchery. But, if one seeks to find value in the new order, one can see that immersion is a good thing. 

As we immerse ourselves in social media and all the concurrent advertisements for the new sawdust hamburger, garbage clothes, plastic food, etc. product that promises to fill your anxiety (it won`t), we at least have the potential to change our ontology to augmented beings living in an interconnected reality. Hail the Matrix. 

I also enjoyed seeing the plastic fruit you are all eating (I live abroad. Haha). I recall the social media posts that exposed China (sorry if it is not inclusive) for doing the same ages ago. While social media connects the two instances, and globalization brings it to you, I wonder, since it was known to be in China, why has no one noticed the issue until now? 

Were you scrolling? Perhaps, the ontology that social media is infecting is not of an augmented being, but augmented ignorance and passivity. 

• Crook, C. (2012). The 'digital native' in context: Tensions associated with importing Web 2.0 practices into the school settingLinks to an external site.. Oxford Review of Education, 38(1), 63-80. doi:10.1080/03054985.2011.577946

BLOG MAKEOVER

 Challenge Accepted

Yes. My blog was ugly. Por guy looked like this: 

Now, bro looks like this: 

Incredible what some fillers and a new haircut will do. 

I changed the background to the main color, added a home picture, and enabled the most viewed widget, and added links. I do not see Blogger as a very user-friendly platform, and I am not too keen on the general look. I would love suggestions for better platforms. 

My future Self changed his address.

    The Ship of Theseus is a philosophical paradox that explores the nature of identity and change. It asks whether a ship with all its components replaced remains fundamentally the same. The thought experiment begins with Theseus' ship being gradually repaired by replacing each wooden part with a new one. Once all the original parts have been replaced, a question arises: is the ship still the same ship Theseus sailed? Furthermore, if the old parts are reassembled into a new ship, which of the two is the true Ship of Theseus? This paradox delves into questions of identity, continuity, and the criteria that define an object's essence, challenging our understanding of what it means for something to remain the same over time.

I love the idea of sending a letter to my future self. I would love to encourage him and let him know he can do it. However, IS he my FUTURE self? 

Can you step on the same river twice? The point of life is to grow in mind. After enough discrete differentiation, qualitative differences will occur. In that manner, the future qualitatively different selves may not represent the current ones. 

It is an accomplishment to get to a future point in life and, despite hardships and mistakes, to not want to change anything because that would have changed who you are. I love the idea, but it is folly if you assume you will grow, as you should. 

WEEK FIVE REFLECTION: MERLOT and SOCIAL MEDIA

                   

I found this module interesting. Merlot was amazing. I found courses and, most importantly, assessment materials on different subjects. I loved the neuroscience and the history sections. Between these OERs are such great finds that enhance acessibility and enrich education. The part about social media and intellectual attributions was relevant. I recalled a funny social media (Instagram and YouTube) fight between two creators over a song. 

One perspective is that, even after removing the plagiarized song, Peyton Parrish is still successful. He built his social media fame with unattributed songs and only took them down after he had millions of followers who did not care about the more minor creator Peyton plagiarized. The attribution would have been meaningless as he did change the song. 

It seems that social media is a place designed to provide content only measured by the demand of the audience. 

New Vulgar Acropolis: Social Media in the Classroom

 

The idea of bringing social media into the classroom is interesting. On the one hand, if in a physical synchronous setting, social media would not be too useful as discussions can be done in person. In a synchronous and/or remote setting, this would be more interesting. Social media can be used to expand classroom discussions and fodder practice opportunities. In my experience with the literature on pedagogy, communities of practice that focus on social constructivism are optimal for learning. Especially nuanced and skill-heavy endeavors. 

I had a teacher in my freshman year use social media to our advantage. It was a philosophy class that met three times per week for 45 minutes. However, I remember spending hours per day engaged on the blog. We would have lengthy discussions. People would suggest videos and articles. We had some grievous wars between the liberals and conservatives (under different banners). It surely made the class memorable and helped me recall, apply, analyze, and synthesize information much better. I will never forget it. 

Intellectual Honesty

In the digital age, protecting intellectual property is challenging, especially on platforms like YouTube, where original content is often reposted without permission or proper credit. Creators frequently struggle with stolen content impacting their revenue and brand reputation, and the process of reporting these violations can be slow and cumbersome. One such fight has been very entertaining. Miracle of Sound is a musician who sings Viking songs that he wrote. One of his significant songs, Valhalla Calling, was initially sung with his former friend Payton Parrish. 

VALHALLA CALLING by Miracle Of Sound ft. Peyton Parrish - OFFICIAL VIDEO (youtube.com)

As the song grew in popularity, Parrish made his own version. Which became more famous than the original. Then, he was seen as the author who resurrected a Viking chant. All not true. In his video, Perrish does not attribute Miracle of Sound in any way. As of today, I cannot find his video. 

I am ambivalent about it. On the one hand, Perrish made the song MUCH better, and his video is incomparable. On the other hand, if I created something, I would like to be attributed. Especially when this has income implications. 

However, it seems like silly pride. Even creators and artists who will never make a penny with their creations want their contribution. This is especially rampant in academia, where most of the value is fictitious anyway. 

IS there an original thought? I must have missed Plato attributing Pythagoras. I surely missed Pythagoras attributing the Egyptians. I surely have heard the Christians and Hellenistic Jews denying the Greeks. But the chain of transmission is undeniable. 

Nothing is new under the sun. Unless what you created is groundbreaking, when all will know your name anyway, get over yourself. There is a major difference between Kant and the TikTok bikini dancer or the social "scientist." 

The Paragon of the New Age

                   REFLECTION: WEEK 4

Very interesting week. The theme is the egregore that emerges from collectivity and inclusion of opinions. We tend to fill our flaws and lacks with the presence and opinion of others. We can use this for our advantage in crowdsourcing or incur the consequences of it in context collapse. Like all in life, balance and wisdom are in order. I witnessed this process while researching the Atheist Experience. The community and its leaders crowdsource ideas in their open-mic show and use them as teachable moments for the community. However, many report the context collapse when they are "outed" as an atheist at work or school. The reliance on external fodder and validation bothers me. As social creatures, we may not transcend this, but the old values of community, real ones, and formal study have produced the greatest geniuses so far. What did we get from social media? Trump?