Affinity Space Nancy Tompkins

I chose this topic because I have be riding/working with horses my whole life. Recently I began training a woman’s horse that boards at a Parelli affiliated barn. The atmosphere was completely different. The horses were calmer, more responsive, and all around better competitors than there traditionally trained counter parts. I found this fascinating since it was so different from what I had learned. Needless to say I jumped in with two feet and never looked back. It was amazing to me to see the transformations I have been looking for, for 8 years come in less than 8 months with this training program. It also great to have people surrounding you with one common goal, putting the horse first.

Class Blog Post #10: Digital Teacher Identity

Liabilities: Though I am not a teaching major, digital identity is still relevant to me when I want to consider a professional career or job in the future. I love social media, even though I am not always the best at it. I use it on daily basis probably 2-3 a day. Facebook, Instagram, and applications like SnapChat are my secret addictions. My Facebook account and Instagram account contain personal pictures with friends and family.

Assets: Before being hired, I would definitely remove my Facebook account. I could use my Twitter account after cleaning or “tweaking” it up a little bit to ask questions to future colleagues over the internet. I would never use Instagram for professional reasons because I don’t find it necessary or useful. Ironically, I don’t like when people know my business 24/7 or where I am at or who I am hanging out with, but Facebook keeps me connected with family members from Greece. 

Digital Identity Nancy Tompkins

Liabilities:

I use social media very little. In fact I am almost impossible to get a hold of outside of school. I look at Facebook about 3-4 times a year and I haven’t made an update in probably 5 years. To be honest the appeal of social networking wore off quickly in high school and now I just find it to be a waste of time. When you Google my name you won’t find me, period. Personally I like this but it could be a liability if I needed to be found. I don’t have a twitter(other than for this class that I made and logged into a grand total of once). I am not a education major so not being able to find me isn’t bad or good, I guess it just depends on how you look at it.

 

Assets:

In my opinion it is an asset that I can’t be found. I like that I’m not constantly paranoid about what someone might find if they look me up. I know a few people who have way to much online and have suffered for it. It’s also a bit of an asset that I don’t need to be attached to socail media to function. I could leave it all for weeks at a time and be totally fine. I think by not having all these extra accounts I am able to be present and participate in life. It makes me less stressed and calmer.

My Facebook is extremely locked down. You can’t find me no matter how hard you look. Interestingly I deleted my FB account 3 years ago and found out the FB does not get rid of your page. So I found myself online but had lost access to my account. It was a pain to get it all back but it taught me an important lesson. Once its online its never gone.

Bourne’s Digital Identity

Liabilities:

When my partner googled my name nothing really came up. The only thing i found was pictures of me through google docs. They weren’t bad at all because I use them for my D2L page. Im really careful when it comes to social media and hiding my things. I guess seeing my google pictures made me think about my google account and how i should go look on my page and make sure all my pictures are okay. I always try and monitor everything that i do and knowing that i want to be a teacher makes me monitor it more.

Assets:

I already made a teacher twitter account so that i could talk to past teachers. With my twitter account right now i dont think i want other teacher to look at it, not because anythings bad but because something that my friends might tweet. I just need to go and look through mine and make sure everything is ok. I plan on having a teacher facebook to that i can communicate with my students. This can keep me in contact with them even after they graduate. Some of my teachers do this and i think its a great idea. Another asses i have is my mom. That might sound weird but she is one of Georgia’s top realtors and when you type in bourne her name pops up everywhere. She even has pictures of me and her as well as our family. Her name is really relabel and it makes me look good too.    

 

Transmedia Franchise: LOTR

One of my favorite examples of a transmedia franchise would have to be J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

In recent years, this fantasy epic has completely exploded onto numerous genres. The continuity of this franchise is quite impressive. For instance, you have the three volumes (not including the prequel, The Hobbit)

which were adapted into three movies to cover each volume:

Which, in turn, were adapted into some questionable video games:

and one not at all questionable game:

Come on, admit it. The Lego video games are SO MUCH FUN.

There are also The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle of Middle-earth II, and some more video games which I am probably missing. Not only does this franchise cover print text, film, and video games, but the number of platforms for which the games are available is absolutely ridiculous, as well. I think the video games work a lot in the “world building” aspect because you get to explore Middle-earth through a “first person” (it’s more third-person, but you get what I mean) perspective by playing the game.

As far as drillability, you have this lovely collection of works called The Silmarillion (aka The Book of Lost Tales) essentially the folklore and mythology of Middle Earth. If that isn’t enough, you can read The History of Middle-earth, a 12-volume series relating to, well, the history of Middle Earth. Most recently, The Children of Húrin (2007)– hello, subjectivity– recounts the story of… Guess who?  Húrin’s children: Turin, Urwen, and Nienor. All of these were released posthumously by Tolkien’s son, Christopher.  Also, if you haven’t seen this meme:

You’re simply missing out on the spreadibility train. Another example could be “MY PRECIOUSSSSSS!”

OH, and there’s this beautiful piece of “performance” which is currently collecting dust on my bookshelf:

The seriality, so far, is to achieve complete and total immersion into Middle-earth through multiple genres, perspectives, and history, but let’s face it. Sometimes we have rooms in our houses dedicated to swords, maps, cardboard cut outs, signed posters, chain mail, magical staffs and perhaps one or two stuffed Gollums (source: this room exists in my cousin’s house). Also, “extractability.”

Need I go on? Oh, and there’s this guy who built (“produced”) The Dark Tower (Eye of Sauron) out of Legos:

If you weren’t aware, there are also NUMEROUS Lord of the Rings Lego sets. This one is not included, sorry.

To make yourself feel better, you can buy some pretty cool jewelry:

My birthday was April 23, if anyone is curious. I am still accepting gifts. Thank you.

I FORGOT TO MENTION the action figures and plushies  available!

The Lord of the Rings franchise has taken incredible advantage of transmedia  to the extent where Lord of the Rings is EVERYWHERE. They have expanded their market to the utmost extreme and any genre is an opportunity to exploit the franchise and make money. That sounded cynical, but I actually love buying stupid crap that in no way elevates my quality of life– arguably.

This franchise takes advantage of spreadability in all the cultural references (memes, etc.) and the catchphrases which are perpetuated from Gollum alone! Drillability can be obtained by reading The Silmarillian or The History of Middle-earth. The most remarkable part of the entire thing is the continuity of the ENTIRE franchise. It all works together to build this enormous idea that is LOTR. You can immerse yourself into the world by reading Tolkien produced fiction or fan-made fiction, and you can extract memorabilia to take home with you! You can experience the depth of world-building by immersing yourself in a video game and experiencing Middle-earth “first hand.” You can read novels depicting other perspectives (published by Christopher Tolkien) and bridge all of these serials together to pretend to yourself that Middle-earth is REAL. Or, if you want, you can decide to make your own LOTR inspired novels, bestiaries, Lego creations, armor, or whatever you feel like!

Rachel’s Digital Identity

Liabilities:

The last time that I had ever googled my name was probably in middle school and I didn’t think that much could have changed since then, but oh was I wrong. When I typed in my name and pressed the search button, the first thing that came up was my pinterest page, then my youtube page, next was google +, ancestry.com, my high school’s online magazine, mylife.com (which my hometown address), and finally the Twitter page I made but never used. I was in shock! Then I looked in Google Images and it just got worse. Four of the pictures were actually of me while the rest were either random people that I didn’t know or things that I had pinned on my pinterest board. It’s crazy! I never thought that so much could be out there. Especially when all I’m doing is pinning things that I liked. I had no idea that the rest of the world could view that through google eyes! However, I found it extremely weird that my Facebook page did not come up… I use that social media network the most, however I have more control over my privacy settings for that page. I definitely plan on looking at privacy settings for a lot of websites. Especially any that could provide hints to where I am or what I do. It gives me the chills just to think about what would happen if that got in the wrong hands.

Assets:

While the social media can be a scary thing and full of liabilities, it can also be extremely useful. Teaching students is not what I plan on doing for my future instead I plan to design magazines. Currently, I just accepted the position as Editor in Chief of Kennesaw State University’s magazine Talon. My idea for using social media for my future careers and current position both depend on what can be seen and what should not be viewed. I definitely want to maintain my facebook page so that I can reach everybody that I need to talk to. Also, even after the scary events of my pinterest board being open to the viewers of the world, I still find it helpful to give proper examples of what visuals I have in mind.  Something I want to create though is one or two blogs. One blog can be used by my team. We can keep up with each other’s progress on the magazine without having to meet during our busy lives. Another blog could be used to show my spreads, that way future companies could view my pieces while they consider hiring me. Social media is a must have in my life, especially dealing with publishing. The more my name is out there, the better. However, I do need to make sure that the public should see only what the public needs to see. I definitely plan on keeping things more professional as I continue my career.

Coleman’s Digital Identity

Liabilities:

When I googled my name, nothing really came up other than my social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. While I feel that I have monitored myself close enough where there should be nothing to worry about when it comes to these accounts and the content within them, I did notice something that did concern me. When I did a google image search of my name, I didn’t just see pictures of myself, but photos that I have in someway commented on or liked. While none of them where bad, it makes me really think about what I need to even comment on while I am communicating on these sites. All it would take is for one slip up on my part and I could end up looking real bad. The social media sites are a liability as a whole because not only do they contain information that I post but information that others post as well. That is why I have already started to tighten down on the privacy settings on each account and like I said before, I try and monitor what I even share on there.

 

Assets:

While they seem to be liabilities for the most part, I do think I can use my social media accounts as assets as well. I plan on having a twitter account that I share with students and parents, and even administration that allows me to communicate different things from my class. I will keep it professional and make sure that it is strictly business. Also, I plan on having a “teacher” facebook page that I can communicate with my students on. This can keep me connected to them outside of the classroom, and allow them to seek assistance even when I am not around in person! Lastly, I plan on having a class blog that I can post student assignments on as well as share student work (with their permission). I think all of these things not only can be a professional asset, but can become assets to my students and help them become even more successful in my class!

Digital Identity

So I had never really thought about Googling myself. That might sound  a little strange, but I hadn’t. I have always been so cautious about posting pictures online, and now that I have created a completely new one starting from the ground up, I have been even more cautious. But what else is out there? I don’t use Twitter, I mean I have one, but I don’t even post anything. I don’t have a blog, besides the one we have for this class. What else could really be out there? Well upon doing a little search in class, I see that there are things out in the wide wide web that I was completely unaware of. 

My name is famous. No, I am not trying to sound conceited…my name is really famous, but my face is not. If you were to just type in “Heather Morris” into Google the famous Glee cast member would pop up. She is a tall, blond who has been found all over television, magazines, and blogs all over. Clearly not me. For pages upon pages someone searching for Heather Morris would just find millions of sites based around this dancer turned actress and all the publicity that comes with being a celebrity. Again, clearly not me. The one thing that is alarming though is the various nude pictures that can be found of this actress in GoogleImages. I am unsure how this might directly affect me and/or how I can change this, but these images are out there for public viewing. Even though these are not me, I still should be more aware of what is available just in case I were to receive any sort of comments about these pages. 

If you were to research Heather Morris Georgia, a little more refined search comes up. A few Facebook profiles pop up, but these are not my own. I have tried to keep my own profile pretty private to the public world as best I can, so it is nice to see my profile is not the first to pop up. Through, if you were to scroll down the page, you might see that my athletic profile from KSU pops up along with a site carrying all the times I have ever run in my running career. Kinda creepy huh? But this sort of information will aid my me in my search for a coaching job. Though, this is really the only information available about me. After doing some further thinking, I am aware that I should be doing more to build a positive digital identity for my future career.

For starters, I would like to start building a blog where I what I am learning and doing as I go through college. This means that I write about all the experiences I am gaining through my classes and field experiences and all of the information I am gaining. This can be use strictly for educational purposes and will hopefully aid as an artifact for who ever might be looking into my educational background. I want to use the Twitter I have to stay connected with educational resources that might help me in my future career. I also hope to post the  videos we have done in this class for the public. This will just aid as yet another artifact. 

In making my digital identity even more positive, I hope that my “background” is pleasing to whoever so decides to search for me. 

 

 

Blogpost # 10 Digital Teacher Identity

I have to say that I’ve limited myself when it comes to using digital social media; not becase that I am unable to use them, but because I really dont have an interest for many of them. The only active mode of social media that I have is Facebook and Instagram.I can say that I’ve also kept my social media “under wraps” pretty good since there was only one picture that popped up when I goggled my name.  With the changing times in which digital media is playing a big role within our classrooms as a way of learning, I know that as a future teacher, I have to keep myself abreast on the lastest forms of social media. When I begin to be fully involved with teaching, I know that I may have to change my privacy settings and maybe clear a few photos on the more personal forms of media such as my instagram account, in that I feel that it would be  one of the forms of media that will serve as a liablity to me in my profession.

My Facebook could also serve as a liability for me as well, but I would like my students and also their parents to be able to see a little of my  “life” in order to get a feel of who I am outside of the classroom; with this site, I will also make sure the privacy settings on certain things on my page are set in place.  Inorder to adapt to  the use of social media within classrooms, I know that I will have to become aquainted with and join other social media sites to further my pressence on the web. Sites that I would join would be wordpress, twitter, teacher tube, and google doc (which I am already aquainted with);  in that these types of social media can be considered as assests to my web pressence. I would use these sites as a tool to fututher the learning of the students so that they are able to see posts about assignments, they themselves can post for projects or just to socialize with peers regarding the class, and I can also use them to keep parents and colleagues  informed of whats going on within the classroom. I think  the use of  of scial media in classrooms is a great idea to futher the learning of students.

Natural Hair Care Affinity Space

I chose to do a my Affinity Space on the Natural Hair Care bandwagon that a lot of African American women are jumping on. At the moment I’m messing around and still trying to find the right products and and maintenance solutions for my hair. My project is attached HERE