Confessions From a College Student

Photo by Flickr  I got a pretty cool opportunity this semester. I am a preceptor for a class called “Child Art and Visual Culture.” I took this class about two years ago and now I preceptor that class. In that class they talk about the different developmental stages a child goes through when creating art. Recently in class we talked about visual culture, media influence and the influence that toys have on children. We also brushed on how toys influence gender and how girls play with dolls, bears, princesses etc. while boys play with cars, guns, balls, etc. and that’s what influences what they draw. Girls stick to details and pastel colors and boys see the bigger picture and bolder colors. When drawing, watching TV and playing with toys kids tend to play with toys that are targeted for their gender. In our eSoc211 class we got to talk about the different toys we played with as kids. It was fun to revisit the past. In class we also discussed how som...

Photo from Wikimedia Commons  Let’s take it back to middle school or even high school when the answer to all your research papers came right off of Wikipedia. Wikipedia had everything I needed for a paper or project with having to do more research on it. I thought it was the best thing ever until I went to college and all my dreams were shattered. It’s my freshman year and our first research paper was due in two weeks. I was pretty nervous but I knew that Wikipedia had the answers to all my questions so I was less nervous. I remember walking into class confident I was going to do well on this paper when the first slide read “Don’t use Wikipedia, it’s an unreliable source!” I thought it was the end of writing for me, because now I actually had to go search and read through multiple sites, but I learned that the average person can go into Wikipedia and add take away or change facts online. I was shook. I quickly learned a shortcut for research papers so I wasn’t as m...

Photo by Flickr We all know what memes are, I'm sure. I'm 99.9% sure you may have received one from a friend or sent one yourself. Memes are a great way to get a laugh out of someone. I'm sure we all use them on a daily basis as well weather we personally send them or share them on our social media accounts. Have you ever thought about memes in a way communicating? Memes are actually a way of communication. We communicate and connect with each other when sending memes. On KnowYourMeme , they talked about a term called  Memetic Communication. Memetic Communication,  or the use of  memes  as a form of communication, is central to the concept of memetics, it is a  cultural element or behavioral trait whose transmission and consequent persistence in a population.  With the progression of social media the use of memes has progressed with it to the point where the use of memes is actually a form of communication. That's mind boggling, I always thought ...