This TED talk connects a whole lot to my last entry about kids and learning. It's not realy on the same specific subjec but the mindset is alike.
Saturday 22 December 2007
Tuesday 18 December 2007
Not eaven close
Today has been a very unproductive day. I've spent several hours just looking at my screen, expecting the portfolio to magically appear out of thin air, and to my discontent it didn't. I cleaned up the two cells that I have used to work in during the semester just to have something to do.
At lunch, however I saw a debate show rerun on svt and it was actually on a quite interesting subject: Swedish school kids are using their cellphones to videotape their teachers behaving badly or themselves messing with their teachers. Of course the footage travels directly to youtube for all to watch, I guess the flicks are spread trough Playahead, the Swedish early-teen community above all others these days. The debate was flawed, as usual since nether teacher, pupils nor politicians involved took the much needed step back and tried to see a larger picture. They mainly discussed if cellphones should be banned during class or not and if there should be a law about it. The problem is of course not that the clips are made and that they get distributed online, that is just a symptom. Uploading your footage is an act of discontent, just like we tagged restrooms and walls with graffiti, and set fire to the occasional billboard during our school time. Therefore a law about it will do nothing, in very much the same way as an aspirin won’t heal a broken leg. And touching the topic I wrote about yesterday the kids already live outside the law, why should they respect a new one that clearly just works against them and does nothing but limit their personnel freedom.
And for the teachers who feel that their privacy is violated: think about that before voting for more surveillance friendly parties next election!
Now I'm going to attempt to point out the real problem, it’s likely that even I won’t be able to take enough steps back.
The kids today is a bunch of spoiled brats. They act up on elders, don’t respect morale or authority and their culture is turning further and further away from the community. They rather spend time in Azaroth then with their family, who is working late anyway. When the urge to leave home and explore during evenings and weekends arise there is nothing to do for them except some shopping. All of them can always communicate with each other in a way neither parents or teachers can identify with, making their friends not only more important then family but also their tribe. Their main loyalty will always be to the tribe, and none of us can get into it. The tribe is disgraced, feared and ignored by the adult society and the Tribe has decided that they make their own rules, since the existing rules only apply to a world that don't give a shit.
A few summers ago I worked on a after school facility (Fritids in Swedish), I and about half of the other employees could get across to the kids and actually communicate with them, teach them something about the world in the best days, just checking to see how they felt on most days. One day I found the only older employee who had a real connection with the kids sitting down with a few of the kids who had what we sometimes call behavior or attitude problems. Officially he was teaching them to read since their teacher in school had failed at this, but there was not much reading going on, they were sitting down and talking like equals. I asked him what thy where doing "I'm doing what their parents should have done, I'm raising them." he replied.
And that is what we all should do, that or get ready for the revolution. Everyone older than 19 will be shot. Persons who represent power and ignorance will be molested, and then shot. And we all deserve it.
At lunch, however I saw a debate show rerun on svt and it was actually on a quite interesting subject: Swedish school kids are using their cellphones to videotape their teachers behaving badly or themselves messing with their teachers. Of course the footage travels directly to youtube for all to watch, I guess the flicks are spread trough Playahead, the Swedish early-teen community above all others these days. The debate was flawed, as usual since nether teacher, pupils nor politicians involved took the much needed step back and tried to see a larger picture. They mainly discussed if cellphones should be banned during class or not and if there should be a law about it. The problem is of course not that the clips are made and that they get distributed online, that is just a symptom. Uploading your footage is an act of discontent, just like we tagged restrooms and walls with graffiti, and set fire to the occasional billboard during our school time. Therefore a law about it will do nothing, in very much the same way as an aspirin won’t heal a broken leg. And touching the topic I wrote about yesterday the kids already live outside the law, why should they respect a new one that clearly just works against them and does nothing but limit their personnel freedom.
And for the teachers who feel that their privacy is violated: think about that before voting for more surveillance friendly parties next election!
Now I'm going to attempt to point out the real problem, it’s likely that even I won’t be able to take enough steps back.
The kids today is a bunch of spoiled brats. They act up on elders, don’t respect morale or authority and their culture is turning further and further away from the community. They rather spend time in Azaroth then with their family, who is working late anyway. When the urge to leave home and explore during evenings and weekends arise there is nothing to do for them except some shopping. All of them can always communicate with each other in a way neither parents or teachers can identify with, making their friends not only more important then family but also their tribe. Their main loyalty will always be to the tribe, and none of us can get into it. The tribe is disgraced, feared and ignored by the adult society and the Tribe has decided that they make their own rules, since the existing rules only apply to a world that don't give a shit.
A few summers ago I worked on a after school facility (Fritids in Swedish), I and about half of the other employees could get across to the kids and actually communicate with them, teach them something about the world in the best days, just checking to see how they felt on most days. One day I found the only older employee who had a real connection with the kids sitting down with a few of the kids who had what we sometimes call behavior or attitude problems. Officially he was teaching them to read since their teacher in school had failed at this, but there was not much reading going on, they were sitting down and talking like equals. I asked him what thy where doing "I'm doing what their parents should have done, I'm raising them." he replied.
And that is what we all should do, that or get ready for the revolution. Everyone older than 19 will be shot. Persons who represent power and ignorance will be molested, and then shot. And we all deserve it.
Monday 17 December 2007
Portfolio, they say
So, I’m spending the last few days of this semester (and most of the Christmas vacation, I suspect) working on a portfolio. It’s a bit more challenging then I thought it would be at first, a lot of the other people in class also seem to think this. Perhaps it’s a bit too early for this module. I don’t feel that I want to brag about stuff that i did in the first few modules and I can’t pun anything from the class site in yet since were still making it.
So right now it’s hard. However I didn’t sigh up for an easy education and I’m quite sure it will work out in the end but right now my bath is quite dark and unclear.
In other news i watched a speech that Isak posted on My daily Bread. It deals with copyright, user generated content and states the fact that a lot of us are living outside the law right now and have come to consider this normal. As a self claimed expert on pop culture and a very unofficial spokesperson of the youth today may comment is (and yes, you may quote me but only if you use the whole quote, or of course remix it with something else to a new content): "We live this way because it’s the only way we know of. Not remixing and redistributing as we see fit makes us feel like prisoners or the un-free population under a dictatorship. We do not consider ourselves as criminals, we consider ourselves as free. We claim that the law is not only outdated, it’s downright wrong. Taking what is and redesigning it to fit our purposes says more to our audience then original, brand new content would. Take for instance segments where G.W.B. and Blair lip-synchs to various songs (the gaybar version is my favorite). They are political comments containing a message that is easy to understand and take part of and expressing the same themes in another way would be al lot harder to get across in traditional writing not to mention the much smaller target audience, none of us consider this a violation of Electric Six song nor the footage used. Outlawing it is like outlawing literacy."
Reality is what we make it be, why not rewrite the broken parts.
So right now it’s hard. However I didn’t sigh up for an easy education and I’m quite sure it will work out in the end but right now my bath is quite dark and unclear.
In other news i watched a speech that Isak posted on My daily Bread. It deals with copyright, user generated content and states the fact that a lot of us are living outside the law right now and have come to consider this normal. As a self claimed expert on pop culture and a very unofficial spokesperson of the youth today may comment is (and yes, you may quote me but only if you use the whole quote, or of course remix it with something else to a new content): "We live this way because it’s the only way we know of. Not remixing and redistributing as we see fit makes us feel like prisoners or the un-free population under a dictatorship. We do not consider ourselves as criminals, we consider ourselves as free. We claim that the law is not only outdated, it’s downright wrong. Taking what is and redesigning it to fit our purposes says more to our audience then original, brand new content would. Take for instance segments where G.W.B. and Blair lip-synchs to various songs (the gaybar version is my favorite). They are political comments containing a message that is easy to understand and take part of and expressing the same themes in another way would be al lot harder to get across in traditional writing not to mention the much smaller target audience, none of us consider this a violation of Electric Six song nor the footage used. Outlawing it is like outlawing literacy."
Reality is what we make it be, why not rewrite the broken parts.
Tuesday 4 December 2007
All I can do is read a book to stay awake..
I apology for the lack of updates lately, there is however a good reason for it. Since my arrival at Hyper Island I've spent a whole lot of time in front of my laptop. I worked on it all day, went home with it and spend the night watching different TV series, playing games and sis some heavy facebooking. After a trip to Stockholm a few weekend ago I realized how free I felt without my computer with me at all times. Then i started to leave it in school, staying for maybe an hour or so later the days i felt like watching some show or playing some game and it made me feel so much more like a real person again. However the blog has been suffering since I regularly update in the middle of the nights when the insomnia just keeps me going and going and going like a dammed Duracell bunny...
We are acting like a design agency for another group right now and I'm doing a lot of odd jobs, I started as Copywriter (and I still am) but have ventured into the strange land of Interaction design and I helped the graphical people with a few lesser tasks during the last week. It's quite good but I’m getting a bit fed up with the project. I just want it to be over with and start with the next module.
We have had really great time management and is all but done with two days to deadline. So it’s easy street all the way to Christmas Eve.
A few days ago I got my copy of Guitar Hero II and I’ we spent some nights rocking away with it, since I know a guy who makes custom electric guitars came with the brilliant plan to turn a real guitar into a controller instead of the small plastic one that comes with the game. We'll see how it works out in the end.
About the new season of Nip/Tuck: What the hell is going on? Have some of the staff writes from Days of our lives taken over the show? The supremely cool and smart shock-soap(tm) has turned completely bonkers. Sociopathic übersmart blackmailing schoolgirls, sexual exploits for the sole purpose of getting a pair of tits mote into this week’s episode, turning one of the main characters into a male prostitute, characters changing the way they work (witch into he beginning was Nip/tuck's biggest strength) as often as regular people shower... The list goes ever on.
Get it together!
We are acting like a design agency for another group right now and I'm doing a lot of odd jobs, I started as Copywriter (and I still am) but have ventured into the strange land of Interaction design and I helped the graphical people with a few lesser tasks during the last week. It's quite good but I’m getting a bit fed up with the project. I just want it to be over with and start with the next module.
We have had really great time management and is all but done with two days to deadline. So it’s easy street all the way to Christmas Eve.
A few days ago I got my copy of Guitar Hero II and I’ we spent some nights rocking away with it, since I know a guy who makes custom electric guitars came with the brilliant plan to turn a real guitar into a controller instead of the small plastic one that comes with the game. We'll see how it works out in the end.
About the new season of Nip/Tuck: What the hell is going on? Have some of the staff writes from Days of our lives taken over the show? The supremely cool and smart shock-soap(tm) has turned completely bonkers. Sociopathic übersmart blackmailing schoolgirls, sexual exploits for the sole purpose of getting a pair of tits mote into this week’s episode, turning one of the main characters into a male prostitute, characters changing the way they work (witch into he beginning was Nip/tuck's biggest strength) as often as regular people shower... The list goes ever on.
Get it together!
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