Naturally, while deciding what online community to join, I tried to keep in mind the qualities that are most important to my completion of the MMP, as well as other values I have as an educator.
First, I wanted a community that has a relatively large membership and one that has many people posting discussions every day. These insure that any advice I would need for the project would be quickly addressed and that I would receive input from multiple people.
Second, I wanted to make sure that the community had the sole purpose of promoting Science education, and emphasized the importance of research based methods over pushing for some political agenda.
Third, I wanted to find something that someone I know is a member of and that they have found helpful for getting new ideas for their classroom.
Oh... and it has to be free.
While considering all of these things, the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) seems like a reasonable place to start. In quickly browsing some of the discussion posts, I saw that many of them were updated earlier that day, and that there were many members online as I was looking. It was also recommended by a co-worker of mine who I know is an innovator on using multi-media in her science classes, and she has attended a few of their conferences as well. Also, where they do have online courses and professional development options that cost money, community membership as well as many other resources are free.
While I don't have many details on how I want to incorporate multimedia, I know that I want the process to be very student centered and somehow stem off of a lab experiment.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Blog Entry #1
I want to start off by saying that as soon as I read the commercial title for :Volkswagon: The Force," I immediately started laughing because I remember it as being my favorite commercial from the Super Bowl last year.
Analysis: In its most obvious and simplest form, Volkswagon paid millions of dollars for the ad time in hopes that it would get people to buy their vehicles. Of course, because it was during the Super Bowl, this is not only meant to be accomplished by people passively watching the ad, but also because they want people to talk about the commercial as well.
Audience: Taking place during the Super Bowl, this commercial may have had one of the widest and largest American audiences of anything televised during 2013. Again, the most obvious answer to who VW intended the commercial for is anyone who is of necessary age and socioeconomic status to purchase a car. Where the commercial would be enjoyed most by Star Wars fans, I feel that the character portrayed by the kid in the ad is one that almost all Americans at least have an idea of who he is. Digging even deeper, what grown up has not at some point in their childhood wished or imagined that they had special powers?
The commercial is portrayed both through the eyes of a kid pretending/trying to be Darth Vader as well as his/her parents. In this case, having both perspectives is important so that the audience understands what the child was doing building up to the car alarm going off, as well as the parents so that they understand how it actually worked.
Representation: It seems that the commercial tried to portray a stereotypical American family, where the child is at home playing with the mother at home and the father is at work. While the mother appears to be doing housework, the father is wearing a suit when he comes out of the car, which says something about his social status. Having this type of family in the commercial, while it may not be an accurate depiction of all families in the audience, it may be most familiar to the intended audience. Obviously, families who do not fit this mold, such as where both parents work, where just the mother works, where they have retired, as well as many other circumstances are not being represented.
Design: Although I am not an expert in marketing, I feel that the commercial was brilliant from a video production and entertainment standpoint. There was suspense created through the music as well as the actions of the child, and the commercial ended on a comical note. I think that using the character and fictional family unit that they did appeals to a large audience, and airing the ad during the Super Bowl was an excellent way to make sure that the audience saw it. I truly feel that a video without the music, or a magazine ad without the video would not be able to communicate the same message.
Analysis: In its most obvious and simplest form, Volkswagon paid millions of dollars for the ad time in hopes that it would get people to buy their vehicles. Of course, because it was during the Super Bowl, this is not only meant to be accomplished by people passively watching the ad, but also because they want people to talk about the commercial as well.
Audience: Taking place during the Super Bowl, this commercial may have had one of the widest and largest American audiences of anything televised during 2013. Again, the most obvious answer to who VW intended the commercial for is anyone who is of necessary age and socioeconomic status to purchase a car. Where the commercial would be enjoyed most by Star Wars fans, I feel that the character portrayed by the kid in the ad is one that almost all Americans at least have an idea of who he is. Digging even deeper, what grown up has not at some point in their childhood wished or imagined that they had special powers?
The commercial is portrayed both through the eyes of a kid pretending/trying to be Darth Vader as well as his/her parents. In this case, having both perspectives is important so that the audience understands what the child was doing building up to the car alarm going off, as well as the parents so that they understand how it actually worked.
Representation: It seems that the commercial tried to portray a stereotypical American family, where the child is at home playing with the mother at home and the father is at work. While the mother appears to be doing housework, the father is wearing a suit when he comes out of the car, which says something about his social status. Having this type of family in the commercial, while it may not be an accurate depiction of all families in the audience, it may be most familiar to the intended audience. Obviously, families who do not fit this mold, such as where both parents work, where just the mother works, where they have retired, as well as many other circumstances are not being represented.
Design: Although I am not an expert in marketing, I feel that the commercial was brilliant from a video production and entertainment standpoint. There was suspense created through the music as well as the actions of the child, and the commercial ended on a comical note. I think that using the character and fictional family unit that they did appeals to a large audience, and airing the ad during the Super Bowl was an excellent way to make sure that the audience saw it. I truly feel that a video without the music, or a magazine ad without the video would not be able to communicate the same message.
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