Blog+Selections

=Blog Selections=

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 * Discussion: This was an early blog entry about thinking together. I am never very loquacious, but this is notable for its extreme brevity. It reflects the difficulty I was having in navigating this digital medium. It was actually even shorter in its original version. I added the last line late at night when I was frustrated and tired. "Je n'ai plus de pensees ce soir." I don't have any more thoughts. Of course, I had more thoughts. They just weren't fit to blog about.**=====

July 23 blog entry

How many times does it take?
====I took one picture, then I pivoted 180 degrees and took the next. How does this link to what we are learning here amongst the green hills of Vermont? I am finding that I have to read about multiliteracy ideas and concepts (Kern chapters, hand-outs,the syllabus) at least twice before I begin to have an understanding about them. So even a singular individual can have a dialogue. The person starts at point A, reads about one perspective on literacy, thinks about it, reads another perspective (dialogs with the text) thinks about it, “rereads, rethinks, reframes, redesigns” (kern) her ideas. In the process of pivoted perspective-taking the person starts to see the whole picture, not just one part. There is never really a Point B; it’s about the journey.====

====**Discussion:** I feel that this blog entry shows a progression in my digital literacy and my understanding of the multiliteracy. It shows that I now know how to upload pictures onto my blog, so my navigational skills are improving. The content of the blog reflects a refinement of my thinking about how people interact with texts.====

Selection #3 The following blog entry was made at 4:00 am on July 28th
July 28th

Reflections The following quotation speaks to me. It was part of a blog entry from Peter Jones’s The Tao of Languculture blog: “This was found in In a keynote address at AILA 2008, Kramsch further argued that we not only aim at languacultural competence as an outcome of successful language learning, but also symbolic competence. Symbolic competence entails the use of cultural forms to produce one’s activities in accordance with one’s purposes in relation to what those forms afford, these in turn in light of both the speaker/actor’s culture of origin and the target culture, as well as one’s particular sensibilities. A symbolically competent speaker/actor is not limited to becoming a member of the target culture, nor of being a perpetual learner rooted only in their culture of origin, but rather, can exploit a third place”, using the language’s forms in ways that native speakers may not.” Kramsch’s address can be heard here: [] Reflecting on the past 3 weeks, I have these observations: 1. Trying to wrap my mind around the ideas of Kern, Agar, Bakhtin, Cazden, Gee and The New London Group, not to mention Blake, Eisner, and Wiggins and McTighe has made my head hurt at times. 2. I can navigate with some degree of proficiency in the virtual territories of Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, Facebook, Seesmic, googledocs. and webquest. 3. I know that La Revolte can take many forms, from the elderly Stephen Hessel’s short short book about indignation, to a Truffaut film about a childhood made difficult by disengaged adults, to a Moliere play about a middle-aged man who mistakenly thought he could control a young woman. I understand that apathy is the opposite of indignation and revolt, and that the latter two are actually evidence of positive thinking, the belief that things can and should change. 4. At breakfasts, lunches,and suppers at our cafeteria table, in our dorms late at night and early in the morning, on walks, in classes, on a picnic, in dispair, with delight, incitefully and sometimes not, often agreeing, sometimes not, speaking in Spanish, French, and English, sometimes all three at once, we MATSL summer session students have discovered a community of learners, thinkers, supporters, friends. 5. Come to find out True North is not far from Bennington. It is a financial services company. Read their mission statement below: According to google, there is also a True North snack shop, a True North fire fighting gear company, and a True North community church. It seems that everyone wants to stake their claim at True North. The Wikipedia definition of True North, if it is to be believed, starts with the word geodetic. So immediately you have to pause to look up that word. Which leads you to geodesy… What this says to me is that the trek to True North is a long and winding way, and it’s not entirely about True North; it’s more about the journey and the fellowship of travellers. That’s one of the more important things that I will take back to my classroom.
 * “Life Is a Journey**We all travel hopefully, taking our own paths and striving to reach our own personal milestones. Family, home, career, travel and retirement are just a few of the destinations we move toward. As with any journey, your financial voyage requires a map and a plan - and sometimes you will need a guide.