I really enjoyed the project presentations this week. Some of them were creative and helped with some grammatical issuses I was having. My favorite was by Becca, which involved a cloud. There are still a few presentations left and I’m looking forward for them.
There were some questions in regards to the project last class, and I think most of them were cleared up. As far as the approach I wanted to take, I think I took a good stand. Other’s it seemed, were having difficulties choosing a good approach to in regards to the Generation name.
At first I took a completely different side to the discussion, but as I read my first draft, I knew I was straying to far from the topic. It was frustrating having to start over when I already had 1000 words. At least I caught my mistake before turning it in. Overall, I like the project so far because it makes you go out of the norm Instead of just relying on your opinions and preconceptions, you have to think critically and develop a good case to support your ideas. Of the three projects we’ve done, this is my favorite.

Dots; http://www.stumbleupon.com/s/#1wZDx2/www.athey-educational.co.uk/games/game5/game5.htm/

I remember playing this game with pen and paper as a child. I remember having to tediously draw every dot, just to play a single game. I remember how content I felt when I finished making the game board, I didn’t even need the satisfaction of playing. Now as I click the link and play against the computer I feel nothing. This isnt satisfying at all, just merely another thing i’ve stumbled upon, cared about for a minute, then threw away. I moved on to the next thing never giving it a second glance.

The internet is ruining the small things in life. One by one. Everything is internet based now. You can digitally raise fish, create an entire farm, play poker for real life money, anything. The sad thing is, I find myself getting dragged into it. There’s no way I’ll go to class without checking Fishville on Facebook, but I’ve found myself sitting in my morning course thinking “darn, I forgot to feed Elmo”. Elmo is my real life betta fish, a bright red, living, breathing creature. How is it I can forget about a real life living creature? It’s not as if I don’t care for Elmo. I love all animals, especially mine. I blame it on the internet for consuming my life. Somewhere I’ve picked up that it is necessary to stay digitally involved with everything and everyone.

Reality vs. Virtual Reality: The Battle.

As I take my third stab at writing project 3 I seem to be running into the same walls that confronted me the first two times. I cannot seem to get past the possibility of a previous generational influence on our current generation. However, what I keep coming up against is exactly how previous generations influenced this now called “Google Generation”. The only link that I have been able to come up with so far is the possibility of an elder, parent like influence from what are known as the “Baby Boom” generation. It is almost a reverse effect in that the children of this generation are trying to do the opposite of what their generation did in their time by embracing all of this technology instead of looking at it a means of destruction. However, that is the limit to my research and it is bringing me to the conclusion there is nothing more to the topic and I am struggling to come up with a new one. I think the main problem is that I can’t seem to put my finger on exactly what the assignment is telling me to do. It makes its claim to write a critical thinking essay that defines our current generation or critiques a current label of this generation. That is clearly the line in which I am struggling with. I guess more brainstorming is in order.

The topic of this project can be interpreted in many different ways. On my first draft I’m pretty sure I interpreted it the wrong way. But I feel like in my 2nd draft that I got a little more on topic and it was hopefully more what Prof. Z was looking for. My first draft was way off topic, and my second draft is almost completely different. I found the project kind of difficult in some ways because it was hard to find the actual real research that this project requires. I found a lot of opinions about our generation and how people felt about us, but none of the people were of scholarly importance. I did however find this project interesting. It was eye-opening learning about what makes our generation us and also how we abuse technology. As far as the paper itself, the process has been rather long and drawn out. And I am again, still having trouble with the annotated bibliographies. I don’t know what it is about them, but I just cannot seem to grasp them. It was also hard for me to find credible sources on the library website as well as the rest of the internet.

We talked about how the google generation is like a culture, rather than just a group of people. We also talked about how Facebook and Myspace is becoming a chores to check and how Myspace is targetted to highschool students because it’s “all about them”. People last semester in Professor Z’s class were “addicted” to Facebook and couldn’t pull themselves away. Facebook and Myspace may be just a phase like Furbies and naked Trolls. We also discusses defective Furbies. Also, we talked about texting VS. phone conversations. There are different times and places where texting is more appropriate than calling or vice-versa. Multitasking creates a “superficial” level of friendship, learning and engagement, which could cause a short attention span We talked about how you can address big social things on a national level, but it’s hard to have people come up with solutions for spending hours on social networking sites because that comes down to an individual decision. We talked about Snopes, you should go google it.

Trevor made the comment “A knife under the bed cuts the pain in half when having a baby”, that made me laugh.

We discussed how lots of researchers keep citing other researchers that have found information they agree with (which is a variation of the band wagon affect). We talked about how before the internet students had to learn how to use the library and use the dewey decimal system. Now we don’t have enough training how to find good, credible sources. Most people don’t go past the first page of google to find information. Whereas using the library can teach you how to use keywords. People use technology for bad things instead of helping them.

Also, we read some of our opening paragraphs about the “Google Generation” and had a peer review, and Professor Z showed us her Google Generation essay.

(Please pardon my terrible spelling)

This week I have been working towards finishing my second draft for project three. Professor Z’s comments helped me understand how to make my draft better and once I knew what she wanted, my writing became easier. I think the annotated bibliographies were easier than I expected. It was actually pretty simple for me to do them, so I guess I learned from my mistakes during project one. Some of the sources I found using the library database were helpful, but I also thought the articles in artifacts gave a lot of information. Since we already used articles from artifacts for project one, I thought it was easier to site and annotate them.

One thing I need to add to my second draft was primary research. To include this, I interview a few students that live in my building. From what I research, I found that many of them have the same opinion on the Google generation. Most of them admitted to their laziness, as well as their obsession with facebook. It was weird to see how many of them shared the views and it was interesting to actually hear what they thought. I also interviewed a couple older people that weren’t so into technology. They believed that cell phones and social networking sites were ruining the country. As I interviewed these people, it was fascinating to see the different opinions people had based on what generation they fell under. Although not everyone shares the same opinion, it was easy to tell which people belonged to the older generation and which belonged to the younger one.

I don’t think I have ever been so embarrassed in my life. My first draft was revolting. Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-abuderol baby. I had bronchitis, sinusitis, bad allergies and an ear infection all at the same time. Drugged up on a z-pack, abuderol and prescription nasal spray, I ATTEMPTED to write a paper that mad absolutely no sense at all. That’s what i get for waiting until the day of to write my paper! The funny thing was the whole time I was writing it I thought… yea! This paper is so awesome. Hardly the case. Ms Z even thought about asking me if I’d been smoking the wacky tobacky and was relieved when I told her I was high on prescription meds. Ouch. Haha. Well, this draft should be MUCH better. I hope. So… I’m with Trevor. This paper has been a bear on me. And poor Ms Zephyrhawke who had to read it.

At the start of the project I found myself comparing and contrasting the different labels for the generation under discussion for this topic. I found one book in particular that held some interesting information about the generation and his person label of it as “The Dumbest Generation.” After reading his work I found that perhaps he withheld some information to present his data in a way that supported his label and skewed the reality.

The book “The Dumbest Generation”, by Mark Bauerlein made me wonder about not only the students who could not answer the question about World War 2 allies, but also about the students who could and did answer correctly. Were the students who didn’t respond more specialized in information known? Were the ones who could answer the question full of general knowledge or specific knowledge of history alone? What are the causes of the variances in knowledge from student to student? Is it just one technology (the internet), or is it many technologies that impact Generation Y?

My paper will be written in the hopes of answering a few key questions. Is it only one technology that has made us “dumb?” And are we actually “The Dumbest Generation,” because we may be to others from a different generation based on opinion, but what are the facts? Hopefully this will all be explored…

Even though there’s an ample amount of work to be put into this project, I come to find that I really don’t mind it. Project 3 is becoming more interesting as I get a little deeper into finding new information about the “Google Generation.” There are so many opinions and facts to consider into the paper, it’s a little challenging to find a point to start from. I’m focusing my paper on how technology may be good for this generation, it just depends on how the people use it. I also really enjoyed interviewing some of my family members and finding out their views on the “Google Generation.” I’m definitely going to incorporate their ideas and thoughts into my paper! Overall, this project was actually enjoyable and it brought out my curiosity about not just the “Google Generation” but previous generations as well.

We reviewed our in class essays about virtue and certain students were asked to five some of their examples that they wrote about. Also, we talked about the effects of Vitamin D and how people in the North have more disease than people closer to the equator. We talked about people being sick, VS. people being “well”. Lots of researchers cite each other making their research look “correct”. A reason that families could get sick is because the’re always together and they’re so close. Then we watched the 10th dimension video, which went like this :

- 1 = a line
- 2 = a split
- 3 = a fold
- 4 = a line
- 5 = a split
- 6 = a fold
- 7 = a line
- 8 = a split
- 9 = a fold
- 10 = a point?

The video was a bit confusing. Oh well…

We watched a video about Reason TV. It showed that young adults care about social networking. We get diverged by cell phones, laptop, and video games. Also, you’re friends aren’t going to give you a good vocabulary. The only way to get a good vocabulary is to read and inquiry about the world. We talked about the “Google Generation”. Also we talked about how Sarah Palin is not quialified to be vice president or president.