A plague of tics

I really enjoyed reading David Sedaris a plague of tics. I started reading it as I was sitting in my Econ class. I was laughing to myself as I read through the story. You pick up in the beginning of the piece that the Sedaris has OCD. The tics he was performing were so bizarre I found myself reading through a couple section a second time. What I liked most about this piece was the visual aspect of the writing. As I was reading I could picture Sedaris licking the toadstool on his way home from school, or touching the door with his elbow seven times. He told the story in a way that let you experience his everyday life as he lived it. I sat the down and read the whole story in one sitting, I was interested to the point where I couldn't put it down.

Response to "Ha ha", he said "Ha ha."

"Ha ha", he said "Ha ha" is an article written by Chuck Klosterman about the use of laugh tracks in TV shows. He describes them as "the stupidest things our society has ever manufactured". When reading through the article, I thought maybe he was being a little harsh. I can honestly say that while watching some of the sitcoms he mentioned I didn't even realize there was fake laughter in the scene. In my defense, I tend to think a lot of stupid things are funny.

 I can agree with Klostermans argument about how laughter in general is not always used when something is funny. It was interesting when he talked about being in Germany and how they only laugh when they can't help it, and something is truly funny. It's odd how we use laughter in so many different situations, in casual conversation, or because we feel obligated to.

I decided to compare to shows that Klosterman mentioned that I have seen before, and think both are funny. I can't say that I think a laugh track lessens or enhances either particular one, but I don't know if that just because I never realized the laugh track was being used as much as it was. I like the show The Office because the humor in it is just like Klosterman describes, it's "the humor of humiliation". I think the show is a little awkward and that is was makes it so funny, it makes the characters and the overall content amusing to watch. I also like to watch the Big Bang Theory, I think it is funny because I think the characters are funny and the episodes are usually fun to watch. I never really noticed the laugh track until I watched some clips. Possibly because I'm usually laughing along with it.

(There are links to clips of the shows highlighted in the paragraph)

Research Paper Topic

The topic I want research deals with using technology to facilitate learning. I became interested in this topic when I was encouraged to read an article dealing with online education. As a business education major, technology is an important tool in my feild of study. I want to dig deeper into how much technology has influenced our learning environment and teaching methods. Overall, I want to find out if there are any unique ways in which technology is being used in education, and if it is benefiting us.

Annotated Bibliography

This is my example of an annotated bibliography:

King, Thelma Z., and Beryl C. McEwen. "Teaching Diverse Learners in Online Basic Business Classes." Forum 65.2 (2010): 33-36. Print.

In the article “Teaching Diverse Learners in Online Basic Business Classes” King and Beryl give an overview of teaching methods to use when instructing an online course. Online learning has been on the rise for the past couple years and with the growing number of public schools offering such classes it is important that educators be prepared. There are examples of instructional strategies, how to incorporate these strategies with diverse learning styles, and how to assess your students through online courses.

The authors included a table in their article that displayed how to align learning styles with online instructional and assessment strategies. I found this information to be the most useful and essential advice that the article addressed. King and Beryl have addressed the main focus of their readers and provided it in an organized and understandable manner.

The information found in this article can provide educators with helpful tools that can be used in online education. The methods and ideas could easily be used to construct lesson plans, projects and evaluations for online courses and even traditional classroom curriculum. Both students and educators can find this article to be effective and useful.

Second Post: Article Response

This post is a response to an article called Attached to Technology and Paying the Price written by Matt Richtel. Overall the article talks about how technology has been consuming our lives, changing the way we think and even rewiring our brains to adapt to these changes. The focus is on the Campbell family, where technology is used 24/7. Using them as an example the article continues to talk about how the use of technology has caused stress and distraction not only in the Campbell family but in all people who use technology frequently. Although I agree somewhat this the article, as I read all i kept thinking is how negative it was, the distractions, stress, less focus and so on. I can agree that this can occur with the overuse of technology but not in a normal persons everyday regular use. It compares our use of technology to an addiction, but I think that when used correctly and efficiently technology is more of a benefit than something of a negative consequence. It has really allowed our communication to expand in ways we never imagined. The article does skim over a few positive outcomes of our use of technology but it doesn't expand on the vast amount of positive things that it has provided us with, things like medical advances, teaching methods, all types of communication etc. I did take the opportunity to try out the interactive test that tested your focus. There were two parts a focus test and a test that measured your ability to juggle multiple tasks. It turns out I scored relatively high on the focus test, in fact a scored 100%. The test involved red and blue boxes and you had to watch a flash of the picture and then tell if the red boxes rotated at all. No matter how many blue distraction boxes appeared I ended up being able to focus on just the red ones. The juggle task test however, I didn't do so well on. My reaction time was really slow when the task was changed so quickly. Overall I thought the article was interesting. I do feel however it was giving all our advances in technology a bad reputation instead of exploring them. Technology is a wonderful thing and even if using it on a regular basis has our brains rewiring and adapting and learning, that doesn't mean it's a bad thing.

Introduction

Hi Everyone, for my first post I want to introduce myself!


My name is Hannah Lockard. I am a sophomore at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. (IUP) I'm currently majoring in Business Education and thinking about picking up a minor in Communications Media. At IUP I am apart of IUP Dance Explosion. I love dance and I have been taking classes and performing my whole life. Dance Explosion allowed me to stay involved in dance since I've been here at IUP. Aside from all my school activities I work two jobs. I am a waitress at the Pizza Hut and I am a Dance teacher at Sharon's School of Dance and Gymnastics. I don't believe in all work and no play. In my down time I like to relax and have fun with my three wonderful roommates! I was born and raised a Steelers fan, and this weekend I will be cheering them on to another Superbowl win! GO STEELERS!