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      Before reading Clark’s book and writing the paper, I considered technology and the human body as two things clearly separated. However after reading that even the language we are using is technology, I find a little confusing to define the relationship of human and technology. Instead of simply stating that human invented and is controlling technology, I’m thinking that technology has also become an inseparable part of human and defines what human are.

         I also like the idea that instead of hoping the computers would do everything for us and  worrying about computers defeating human in the future, we should work with computers to solve problems that we are unable to do our own. This reminds me of the program I learned last year in my intro to computer science class. I saw fascinating works designed by human and realized by computer. It is almost impossible to finish such a work only by human or by computer. I think technology is becoming our shoes, helping us to run faster and jump higher.

I mentioned in my small group that I felt like since being in this course and reading Clark's views on technology in society that I have found myself actually wanting to pull away from technology. Prior to the class I was the biggest activist on technological advancements and how more efficient, faster, and improved mannerisms have been discovered and have altered our society. I mentioned that there's no limit to what technology does and what we allow it do and eventually it just might take over.

Mirella brought up a interesting point that was then touched upon in the video clip also. which was that most people are skeptical about technology because of our internal fears of the advancements. This is a control issue and sometimes we humans feel the need to control all aspects of our environment. I really like the quote, "It's not about technology vs humans, it's how humans using technology can do great things".

I think Tuesday's class helped me to rediscover my love and appreciation for technology because honestly if used correctly it can do so much good. I found myself briefly resenting it in away because I thought it was sort of taking away from the value of childhood, communication, and in-person interactions but I now think we are more powerful together.

Here. 

from Tuesday's class has now been scanned and uploaded on Serendip. You'll find it listed in (and accessible from) our protected reading file as SilentDialogueScanned. Might we all read through it, looking in the comments (and the spaces between them!) for some guidelines to help us all flourish here...?

Writing my first paper (actually writing a traditional"academic paper": printed, double-spaced, 12 pt font) made me remember a whole bunch of questions that came out of a Serendip class that I took last semester. (Literary Kinds) In this post, I lamented about my "lack of media literacy" and how I was so frustrated with not being able to present information multimodally. But then I wrote this paper as my final for that same class where I really interrogated what it meant to be multimodal, and how this affected the genre of the academic paper. What I never did (and what I hope to really question and push throughout the course of this semester) is to link back my assertions in that final paper to my assumptions that I wrote about in that post.

Last class, we had "goal of education: make technologies more visible" written on the board.  I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if we tried to do the opposite instead.  Instead of making technologies more visible, what if we tried harder to integrate them into the classrooms or students themselves as invisible.  I'm not so sure that there is a clear answer of which one would be more beneficial, but it’s something interesting to think about.  

Making technologies more visible would be directing students to look back on old technologies, some that they take as givens and some that have become seen as outdated, and going back to their sources to seeing what they are missing, what has gotten lost along the way as these old technologies have evolved.  Making new technologies less visible would mean integrating them more into the way students learn, think, and exist.  It would mean not having to work around the projector screen that is blocking the blackboard, but rather working with it by learning and teaching how to use it well enough that it too becomes invisible. 

Following our class discussion on Andy Clark's ideas and their application to the classroom, I attended my Religion, Sex, and Power class in which we had just read The Cyborg Manifesto  by Donna Haraway. Weird coincidence, right? Now, in this other class, we were looking at the concept of a cyborg through a feminist lense and discussing the differences between a cyborg and a goddess, as the auther eventually states that she "would rather be a cyborg than a goddess." How is it, we wondered, that a cyborg is a stronger figure to which women should look than the goddess? After debating for quite a while, we eventually concluded that one imporant aspect of the cyborg is that her inner knowledge is fused with the knowledge of the external world as well (I had to mention the "skinbag" concept at this point....). This contrasts with the image of the goddess that comes from within us and "is us." 

Since these two class discussions, I've been trying to think through how some of these contrasts between goddess and cyborg might related to the clasroom. Or do they? One thought I had is that maybe our classrooms should continue to emphasize the activity of reaching outside ourselves and to the larger community to help faciliate our learning and growth. 

I came away from reading the first three chapters of "Offending Women" diametrically opposed to Alliance as a program--with all the unfair, hypocritical, awful practices that were described, I was astounded that Haney was able to remain (relatively) calm and objective about the whole thing as an observer. Frankly, among the young women imprisoned (and I do use the word "imprisoned" intentionally here) by the directors who called these captives "their girls" and presumed to speak of rescuing them, I'm surprised that they were so restrained, that only Maria escaped (so far as Haney reports, if my memory serves). I found Rachel Brennan in particular to be teaching in a way that seemed, after our class discussions of the past few weeks, misguided and even malicious. She taught by and enforced codes that her students were unfamiliar with, that did not fit in with what they wanted in the classroom (being able to keep their children with them, for instance). Her "I know best" attitude and penchant for changing classroom expectations and plans just because she could was infuriating! Her self-congratulatory, smug attitude was counterproductive to listening to her students or improving her techniques, as she was sure that she was teaching her students the value of performing a given task for a monetary reward through her ridiculous, patronizing "Brennan Bucks" program.

Sorry for the rant. I could go on about my frustration with this program, but I'd really like to hear what others have to say, both here on Serendip and in class on Friday. 

As I made my observations today I found myself wondering about the scientific classifications of the plants I was seeing. I decided that it would be interesting to be a little more informed about the flowers I was looking at.

Using this site as a reference (http://www.mywildflowers.com/) This is what I came up with:

Flower 1: Great Blanket Flower (Gaillardia aristata)

Other common names: Blanket Flower, Common Gaillardia

Family: Asteraceae (Sunflower)

Height: 2 to 4 ft.

Blooms: July to September

Leaf Type: smooth

Bloom Size:  2 in. (typical)

Flower Description: Individual flowers, Regular blooms, 8 parts

Notes: stems and leaves hairy; petals have 3 tips

Flower 2: Thin-Leaved Sunflower (Helianthus decapetalus)

Family: Asteraceae (Sunflower)

Height: 2 to 5 ft.

Blooms: August to September

Leaf Type: toothed

Bloom Size:  2 in. (typical)

Flower Description: Individual flowers, Regular blooms, 10 or more parts