Are we at war?

Well, I ammost days. Not in the sence that I originally took this topic to be in, but yes, I am at war. I'm at war with myself on some days. For example, today's war was: I want to come to class but I don't want to leave my room. Yesterday's war was: tell my friend her essay was... less than what I know she can write, or keep it in and spare her feelings. I think teenagers like myself are at war with something or someone most days of their lives. Not wars over terrorism or econony or oil, but things that perhaps seem to be a huge deal to us today, and yet mean nothing to us tomorrow. Things that may seem to be life or death problems in our lives. The truth is, recently I've discovered there are more important things than these stupid little wars with ourselves, and out parents, and our friends. Compared to some, my life is a walk in the park. I think I need to think about other peoples wars, the important ones. The ones about real things, not about teenage drama. So I ended today's war by going to class, and I'm going to try really hard tomorrow to not have another stupid war.
-Emily

National Media Education Week

According to a website I recently looked over, media education week is when ‘Educators will focus on online behaviour, encouraging youth to "Think Critically, Act Ethically."’ It also asks the question “who can teach media literacy?” The website responds with, “You can.” We are all essential in the process of making everyone “media literate.” And what can we do? Well, I know I can start by learning more about media myself (which has been helped greatly by the availability of this course ). I’m sure many of us enjoy talking, I know I do. We can all talk to at least one person about what it is we see in the media, how we feel about different messages being put out there, and how we can make a difference if we see something we don’t agree with. I know this would probably be an easier task if we were all parents or teachers or people with some authority, but most of us are just teenage students who are probably a little hesitant about bringing up certain concerns with our peers. If we would all just learn how to look at media, and determine the message being given to us, I think it would be a lot easier to spread the word about media literacy.
-Emily

http://www.mediaeducationweek.ca/

Net Neutrality

Hmm, is the internet public or private? I think it should be a little bit of both. The main issues, I think, are probably things like kids giving out too much information on the internet, copy write laws, easy accessibility to “inappropriate things” online. Now, why should the internet be more of a public forum? Simply because it has become the most accessible place for students to gain knowledge for projects, assignments and other school related things. Why should it be private? Because kids don’t know when enough is enough. I mean I am a self proclaimed facebook-aholic, but I know it’s not a good thing to put your phone number, address, etc. posted on facebook for a world full of creepers to see. I see kids going into high school with their entire lives available for anyone to view with one click of the mouse. Certain things should be made private other things should be public. There will never be a medium that is acceptable for both sides because the more you look into one perspective or the other, the easier it becomes to pick out more and more good and bad points for public and private internet.
-Emily

OWD

How has the internet changed my life? Well I don’t know if it has really changed my life because most kids my age have grown up with the internet growing as well. It has, however, given me opportunities that my parents never had when they were my age. Over this first semester of university the internet has helped me to keep in touch with my friends and family and makes it seem like nothing ever changed. Rewind a little farther back, maybe a year back. At that time the internet was helping me research to make one of the biggest decisions of my life, where I wanted to go to school. Without this great tool there’s a good chance I would have ended up at a university a little closer to home, and a little less suited for me. I was able to discover some great things about Guelph, share them with my parents, and even brought a few friends onto the bandwagon with me. That’s probably the most important thing the internet has helped me with in my entire life.

-Emily

ps. Guelph was a great decision, in case anyone was wondering =)