mfaulk

Week 9 Discussion

The Margolis article really struck home for me. It states, “this may have been an important ingredient of the “secret sauce” of ECS—passionate, creative teachers who are interested in the problem solving of computer science, with a variety of secondary subject credentials” (64). To me, this is the largest barrier to diversity in CS. The CS… Read more Week 9 Discussion

Week 8 Discussion

The Zimmerman paper briefly mentioned a design principle called “heads up” that I found very innovative (80). This design goal aims to engage users in an evenly distributed amount of screen time and environment time. As users interact with the screen, they are prompted by real life objects and scenarios in their environment that support the science based… Read more Week 8 Discussion

Week 7 Discussion

The Zhang reading indirectly highlighted a very fascinating issue about how the Internet facilitates the achievement gap. Zhang states, “highly educated adults were more likely to use the Internet for personal development, while adults with lower education levels more often were online for gaming and social interaction” (11). As a result, “the digital divide in… Read more Week 7 Discussion

Week 6 Discussion

“Writing in the Wild” came to powerful conclusions yet caused me to question the application in practice. Currwood et al. argue that contemporary affinity spaces include a passionate, public audience for content. However, this caused me to question the negative and perhaps unwarranted criticism that could arise from this passionate public audience. Sheena mentions that she… Read more Week 6 Discussion

Week 5 Discussion

When playing video games, there appear to be two major pillars that foster cognitive engagement: representation and interactivity. In The virtual census, Williams et al mentioned that the “absence of portrayals should lead to a feeling of relative unimportance and powerlessness” (820). This comment was powerful. When discussing the sources of stereotype threat for minorities,… Read more Week 5 Discussion

Assignment 1

Game: Lady Popular Website: ladypopular.com Focus: Virtual world Age: Teens Description: Browser-based fashion game set in a virtual fashion world. As a user, you set up a personalized avatar and explore the fashion career path through various quests. Megan Faulk – Assignment 1

Week 4 Discussion

The discussion of morality regarding robots was fascinating and raises a lot of questions regarding other forms of moral literacy and how children develop this moral capacity. Kahn et al mentioned “most children believed that Robovie deserved fair treatment and should not be harmed psychologically” and additionally that “participants attributed some level of moral accountability to… Read more Week 4 Discussion

Week 3 Discussion

In Families Matter, Takeuchi concludes that most media was originally designed for adult use and later adapted for children’s cognitive capacities. This design process becomes alarming with the trending normalcy of content streaming. Takeuchi reveals “children’s internet use is monitored or limited in 97% of homes…only 3% let their kids freely surf the web” (24). However, new… Read more Week 3 Discussion

Parasocial Activity

Alicia Keys : Growing up as a mixed race girl, I didn’t identify with almost any real-life people in the media. When I was around 10-11, my aunt said I reminded her of Alicia Keys. After that, I became obsessed with her! She also played the piano and I was learning the piano at that time.… Read more Parasocial Activity

Week 2 Discussion

Alper mentions the unproductive generalization of today’s children as “iKids” or “digital natives”.  She claims these assumptions ignore a few core problems in the way today’s children must navigate new media literacy. First, the “transparency problem” or “the challenges young people face in learning to see clearly the ways that media shape perceptions of the world.” Second, the “ethics… Read more Week 2 Discussion