The chance to explore

Growing up this was always my favorite thing to do. Explore. Whether it was on our bikes pretending to be cops, or in the unfinished basement acting like superheroes, I always found myself exploring everything around me. As we grow up we tend to forget how much fun it can be to discover the world around us. Through this semester we've taken a different look at our learning in our digital civilization course. This is my final reflection post on that adventure.

photo by Håkan Dahlström

Sometimes we can get caught up in the everyday without realizing that there are many opportunities to explore all around us. If you've followed this blog you've noticed that we've taken a new approach to learning and studying. We've taken subjects like nationalism and the industrial revolution and delved deeper to learn about the enclosure movement and the agricultural revolution. We've been let loose by our professors to explore the creative internet and consume as much as we could about topics that interested us, like the atomic age.

Being able to explore in my own learning has been fun. I've gained a new appreciation for what learning really means and instead of just relying on my professor to instill their knowledge on me, I've learned that I can take the reigns and explore on my own. I've loved the class and I hope to keep this blog up as I document my exploration. Who knows where it will take me next.

Great things can be done by ordinary people

Check out our blog!

 Are you still looking for ways to be more effective with your time on the web? You really have to check out our sites. We've made a lot of progress over the last few days. Not only do they look a whole lot better, but they're great places to find information! We've been working on getting up as much information as we can on both sites, and we're playing with the aesthetics and functionality as well. Check out both sites and let us know if you like the wiki format or the blog format better. Also if you have any suggestions let us know.

Check out our wiki!

Digital Revolution

Thursday the 9th of December we're going to have our final presentation to show off some of the cool things that we have learned this semester. We've got a big room reserved on campus for anyone interested to come learn all about digital civilization and some of the fun things we have done with our learning.  

Our group has been working hard on getting our two websites up for evaluation. We decided we would get opinions during our presentation on which format would be best for our website. We've been looking at a blog format as well as a wiki and each seems to have its good and bad features. Hopefully we can get each one to look the way we've envisioned it so that it will truly reflect what we have in our minds. Most of our time so far has been put into organizing the digital labs that our fellow class members have done so that we can show them off on our sites. Our hope is to introduce you to the incredible tools of Web 2.0 and help you learn of new ways to consume, create and connect with others. We're really excited because we think the site will be a great tool for anyone interested in learning what they have at their disposal.

(Image credit: Andrew DeWitt)

Agricultural Revolution

photo by swisscan

A lot at history through the eyes of modern inventions can give us an interesting view on how things develop. For my class we've been assigned to research different technological advances and how they've affected us today. I decided to do my research on the agricultural revolution and see how that is continuing today.

This site gives an overview of the agricultural revolution in England and some of the advances that came from it. As technology continued to improve, men became consistently more efficient at farming. This allowed more people to develop industrial jobs and led to an influx of migrants to the big cities.

photo by Stéfan

Now a days the revolution continues to make our farming methods more efficient as people discover new ways to gather resources. The machine below is  new machine developed that takes cow manure and converts it into usable energy. Not only does this make farming more efficient, but now farmers can be completely self-sufficient. Check out this article to learn more about the machine.

Lost?

Have you ever felt like you should be able to do anything with your computer but you seem to just be using the same things over and over? Well our group's final project is just for you.

Photo by Stèfan

We're compiling a list of tools that we think will be perfect to help you with any project, any assignment, or even just to have fun with. Our plan is to put this list on a web site where you can find them anytime! We're also planning on making it possible for anyone to add a great tool they have found as well. We hope this will be helpful to anyone who wants to learn what is out there. This will be a great resource for students, teachers, professionals or anyone looking to increase their proficiency with the computer. If you have any suggestions for us or things you would like to see let us know!

The Creative Internet

Google has created this great presentation that shows off a lot of interesting things that have been done with the web. Professor Zappala introduced me to this and I thought I should share it. A lot of things in this are really cool. Check it out and feel free to play around with them!

Technology in Exile

In our digital civilization class we've been connected with blogs from all the different students. I've been assigned a short review of one of those blogs. Kristen has done a blog called Technology in Exile. She has done really well in her blog to connect with the different historical elements we have been talking about in our class. Her blog is well put together with different feeds and widgets and she's been connected many of our assignments to her work in Tibet. She's done a great job of displaying digital tools we've learned about and her blog feels very personal.I enjoy seeing the contact she has in Tibet and it has inspired me to try and reach out a little more. If you've never seen a Prezi she has a good one that she made about her ideas about digital literacy for Tibetan students. I've really been impressed with Kristen's blog and you can tell she puts a lot of thought into her posts. If you're looking for a good blog to follow, hers is definitely one to look at!