PSA for digital wellness

This past week my group and I have been working on a public service announcement for digital wellness.  More specifically,  our psa is about not letting social media determine your self-worth.  Your self-worth is not based on how many likes you get on an Instagram photo or the amount of retweets you receive on a tweet.  I am really guilty of deleting a photo on Instagram if it does not get the certain amount of likes that I want even if I really want to keep the picture up.  Social media can really affect people's confidence and it can cause people to feel inferior to someone else just because they have less followers than the other person.  Our psa is bringing light to this because no one should determine their self-worth from Instagram, Facebook, twitter, or any other social media website.  I have worked on creating a video and the other members in my group our working on building a website and making music for our video.  I am really liking the product of what we have been working on and I'm excited to see what it all looks like when it comes together.  If you would like to visit our website, the link is http://yourselfworth.weebly.com.

Thinking about the future

In class Mrs. Mcneilly had a skype call setup with a former Lake Norman Charter student to talk about what he is currently working on and to really just talk about life after Charter.  The speaker's name was Kevin Beaty and he went to Lake Norman Charter when we only had a middle school.  He transferred to Hopewell highschool and took some film classes that helped him decide that he wanted to go to film school after he graduated highschool.  He attended Boston University and worked with professionals, eventually becoming an expert at what he does through the many internships that he worked at.   I really enjoyed listening to him because he painted a good picture of what life after highschool and college would be like, even though I don't plan on becoming a freelance artist.  He did however, talk about journalism which is something that I'm highly considering doing after college.  He went into detail about how journalist these days can't just write, they have to also be able to work the camera and this was something that I definitely paid a lot of attention to.  I've gone to college summer camps to work on things like backpack journalism and I could understand everything that he was saying about journalism.


One thing that he stressed in his lecture was that after college, no one asks you what your gpa was or the grades you got in highschool, everything is about experience and professionalism.  I really liked that he said this because one thing I tend to tell people who freak out over their grades is not to worry too much about it because one bad grade on a test is not going to ruin your entire future.  That isn't to say you shouldn't worry about your grades because they do determine the places that you get into but after college is over and you have a stable job, no one is going to ask you about that one test that you got a bad grade on.  Overall, I really enjoyed hearing about Kevin's life and how he got to the point that he's at now but I couldn't exactly relate my genius time project to what he was saying.  He was helpful for thinking about my future but not so much spreading autism awareness around the community.  I like that he was very on top of things and  he shows determination with what he does.  He taught me that in order to really spread awareness for my passion project I have to be aggressive  with getting out into the community and contacting people that can help me.

Community Pitch Event

On Thursday, November 5th, our digcit class had a community pitch event where the parents walked around and looked at our genius projects and asked us questions about them.  The event had a great turnout and there was a good amount of parents and students there.  I was nervous about the community pitch event because public speaking can sometimes be hard for me depending on the audience.  After I got comfortable I realized there was no reason to be nervous.  Everyone was really nice and it was easy to interact with the parents and tell them about my project and what my plans were.  There were a few people who didn't say much and it could be uncomfortable when it felt like I was having a one-sided conversation.  However, I think the community pitch event turned out well and everyone did a great job with presenting their genius time project.  The event helped me become more comfortable with explaining my project to people and Mrs. Costa even offered to help me spread awareness around the school. 

Spreading Awareness

Since my last blog post I have come up with more ideas on how to spread autism awareness.  I was so overwhelmed with the idea of the genius time project because I was thinking too big.  I realized that I was trying to start with a much larger audience group than I could handle.  I have to start with my school before I can go out into the community and try to convince people of why they should donate money to an organization supporting autism.  My plan is to pass out pins to people that they can wear on their shirts in order to spread autism awareness.  My hope is that people will see the pins and ask what they're about and it will get the idea in their minds that autism is something that should be recognized more.  I don't think many people realize how many are living on the spectrum.  More than 3.5 million people are living on the spectrum and every 1 in 68 children are diagnosed. I want to bring attention to that.

Planning for Action

This week I have been working on my presentation for the upcoming community showcase on November 5th.  I am starting to struggle with how to get my project going.  I know that my topic is something I am passionate about but sharing my passion with the community is going to be hard for me because it is difficult to find a place to start.  My first quarter goals were to get my plans in motion for my project and I have done that in terms of knowing what I need to accomplish but I haven't put my plans into action yet. Have you ever had a moment when you don't know where to start because you had so many options?

Is technology going to conquer us?

In this blog post I want to talk about the effect technology has over us, especially younger people who have grown up in the digital era.  Technology has changed the way we communicate with everyone whether it be texting our family and friends or having a conversation with another person on social media.  I think younger people have an unhealthy addiction with their cellphones but I also think the dependence on technology and phones stretches across all age groups.  The stereotype that only young kids depend on their phones is very untrue.  Everyone that has a phone for a long period of time is going to feel dependent on it because of how fast and easy it is to communicate with the world.  Even though older people might be able to go longer without using their phone because they know what it's like to not have that access to the internet, after a while they would start to miss it too. For me personally, not having my phone when I'm not with friends can start to affect my mood because I feel alone and I don't have anyone to talk to.  Technology and constantly texting all the time does start to affect our social skills for sure.  Last year I hated talking to people on the phone because I was nervous about having to sustain a conversation with someone and not being able to think about what I wanted to say before I hit "send".  Even calling my extended family, people I have known my entire life, would make me nervous.  This year I have worked on this problem just by picking up the phone and calling my friends and family and talking to them more. I am a lot more comfortable talking on the phone than I used to be and I believe that as long as our society doesn't become so comfortable with being online all the time that we can't call someone on the phone, technology won't conquer us.  If we don't lose the face-to-face connection with people then technology can never conquer us.

Failure vs. Success

This week in class we talked about failure in school and personal life.  We watched a ted-talk by Carol Dweck and some of her points were grading with not yet instead of failure and having a growth-mindset.  Grading with not yet is supposed to be a way of saying "you didn't fail, you just aren't there yet. Keep trying." I really like this idea because everyone takes failure differently and some people give up when they consider themselves a failure. The idea of "not yet" would be an encouraging way to help students get through challenging obstacles.  Her other point was the growth-mindset.  A person with a growth-mindset looks at obstacles and is excited about facing them.  The last thing she said in her ted-talk that stuck out to me was that we should praise wisely.  Instead of praising inteligence or talent, praise effort.  This stuck out to me because it can be hard to watch someone be praised for something that is so easy for them and then no one praises or acknowledges your effort.  Some days when you are tired of facing challenges and you want to give up, you need that praise because it keeps you going.  The class discussions this week changed my views on failure vs. success in school and life because I realized how easy it is to give up and not want to face your obstacles, but having a growth-mindset helps you conquer your obstacles because you know you can improve and do better.