1/27/2018 1 Comment My ArtifactI feel that I can think of 100 memories and experiences that I have had with this artifact of technology from my childhood based upon a social aspect. Back when I had a slider phone, I was on the travel soccer team in my town of Bloomfield. My best friend who was on the team lived all the way across town, and before my cell phone, I only got to talk to her during practice or soccer games. When I got my cell phone, I put her contact number in right away, and we texted constantly. Every time I would hear the "beep beep' of my cell phone that always smelled like turf field because of soccer to a text from her, my eyes would instantly light up. There was also something incredibility satisficing about the way that my phone would slide up to answer any text messages that I had with friends. I loved that I was finally able to communicate with her outside of soccer as well, and this is what really mattered to me the most. "As the world neared the end of the millennium, both mobile phone networks and the Internet continued to expand on a global basis at an unprecedented rate—a fact not lost on the participants in the study. And while such growth continued to favor many of the wealthy industrialized countries, cell phone networks, the advent of prepaid calling cards, and mobile phone plans had begun to link populations in other countries as well." When reading, quote stood out to me as I read "“Digital Literacies, Technological Diffusion, and Globalization” from the online book Transnational Literate Lives in Digital Times by authors Berry, Hawisher, and Selfe. In this article, it is overviewed that 13 international students were documented, and there interaction with digital literacy/technology and their lives were looked into. They were able to communicate with their loved ones when they were on this journey thanks to the advancement of different technologies. Thanks to the impactful changes that were happening at the end of the millennium that is discussed in, cell phone networks and the internet were expanding greatly in a globalized way. This did not just impact wealthy countries, but other countries as well, which I find to be so important. When I came across this quote, it made me think about how my life was impacted in a positive way when I was able to receive a specific "enhanced" form of technology when I was younger. It allowed me to communicate in an easier way with the people who are important to me, just as these 13 students did with new developments of communication technologies in the first decade of the 21st century. Due to overall expansion of mobile phones and the internet, my life and our global world have been shaped for the better. I am glad that they have (but espically cell phones) been a part of my every day life since I was a young teenager. In my eyes, this is what I could consider to be my first personal experience with digital literacy. This is a picture of my very first pre paid cell phone that I received when I was thirteen or fourteen. I had begged my mom for around two years prior to get me a cell phone so I could talk to my friends more often. Finally, after two years, she finally caved in to get me to shut up about wanting a phone, and I jumped like a kid in a candy store when I received it. I considered my phone a part of me because I never went anywhere without it. The cell phone is incredibility significant to my literacy practices in my domains of friends and school. For the first time, I was able to experience literacy by communicating with friends when they were not "physically" with me constantly, and look up information for projects in school in new ways. My first cell phone meant so to much to be because it was a part of my personal digital literacy for around three years. It truly impacted me in so many ways from the immense amount of literacy that is a part of it. One standout moment with this cell phone would have to be the dance that I went to with my previously mentioned bestfriend. Pictures and videos (that can also represent literacy) are very important to me because of the memories that are behind it. We took a countless amount of photos and pictures of us at the dance. and with every click of my cell phone button to take a new picture/video, I felt such happiness. Honestly, without having a cell phone, I feel that I would not be the person that I am today because I would not have had these significant moments in my life that connected my literacy in a social way. lFrom reflecting back on personal memories with my first form of digital literacy technology in my social life, I was able to ponder about how my literacy practices are embedded into our global reality. First of all, text messaging (the main thing that I used this artifact for) has greatly changed our global reality. It really struck me that text messages have truly changed the way language has been used throughout world in the 21st century. According to Laurel Storm from itstillworks.com, Storm expresses that, "To increase the amount of information they could cram into each message and save time on tapping them out, people started inserting abbreviations, skipping punctuation and using phonetic spelling." (p.1) When I used to use this artifact on a daily basis to text, I constantly would abbreviate writing (simple narratives) in my language/use emojis to get down everything I wanted to say in a fast, easy, and literacy way to communicate with others. People around the world constantly do this, and rely on this as a main source of communication in today's society. Students around the world also use cellphones for the same common goals, to communicate socially and look up different forms of information quickly. Even if this may be true and our society feels more comfortable when they have their phone, some people take advantage of this simple way of interaction. They will forget that there are others ways to communicate and do things, like talking in person, or using paper. To sum up about my artifact, Luce quotes that, "Mobile phones allow people to talk to the world, but they can do so much more. We must teach people how to really maximize the global linkage available to them through their mobile devices, especially if we expect them to be used for any kind of social good."' (p.1) What people do not realize is that cell phones will impact people in our global reality if they use them in the proper way. I believe that I did "talk to the world" with my artifact, but I have learned to use cell phones in so many more ways from this first experience because of the expansion and development of the cell phone.
Sources: https://itstillworks.com/cell-phones-changed-world-1856.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-luce/the-impact-of-cell-phones_b_508011.html
1 Comment
Cindy Kopp
1/29/2018 08:01:17 pm
Hi Victoria! First of all, great job! The best part about this bogpost is that I can tell that you are inspired by the reading and the assignments associated with it. I love how you are connecting with the ideas in the reading and really using the opportunity to say something important.
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AuthorI am 20 years old and am very passionate about working with young children. I am excited to write blog posts for this class. Archives
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