200 countries, 200 years, 4 minutes.

I saw this on Whitney's blog and wanted to share it-  thanks for posting this! :)

Hooray for Smartphones!

I was cruising The Oatmeal website* today, and saw a new comic entitled

Why I Love and Hate having a Smartphone.

Check out the entire comic here (but see below for a quick preview)

There are several cracks about the stereotypical behaviour that we attribute to smartphone users and how they are viewed- and it definitely brings up some good points! I don't have a smartphone myself, but it certainly resonates with the behaviour of some of my phone-addicted friends. I was initially very leery of the smartphone onslaught (example gripe: Why do we need the internet ALL THE TIME?!), but now that I've seen what they can do and - to be honest- the fun that can be had when using one, I'm not so opposed to the idea. However, I think that some of the negative attributes of smartphones brought up in the comic, such as the decline of actual face-to face communication, do demonstrate some of the potential losses that may occur as we move into this increasingly tech-driven world.

But besides that, I also posted this because I love The Oatmeal and if you haven't seen them before- you must:)

* The Oatmeal is a website that posts comics relating to current events, trends, or complete and utter randomness. Some of my favourites include How God is managing the 2011 Rapture, What it's Like to Own an Apple Product, and 7 Things you dont really need to take a photo of.

Bad Vibrations!

This is the comic I created last week in which we took some of the aspects we discussed about graphic novels/visual literacy and combined them with some practicum experiences!

I had a tough battle with cell phones the first couple days of teaching, but once the students realized that I wasnt kidding when I said I'd take their phones away if I saw them during class- they disappeared pretty quickly!

I'm not against cell phones in the school by any means (heck, we can't even stay off them...), but I think it is a symbol of respect when you don't use your phone when someone else is taking the time to teach you something. I have always done that in my classes, and it is something I will expect out of my students. Besides, we can all stand to be disconnected from the world now and again:)

Underwear Goes Inside the Pants...also known as my video project.

This is my video project for my Tech class in which I took a podcast and photos to create a video using iMovie. I read out an excerpt from a 2004 musical project called "Underwear Goes Inside the Pants", which combined spoken word with hip-hop beats. You can watch the original song in its entirety here!