The Evolution of MyAmerica: Part III

For my last metapost of this year, I decided to make a Word Cloud (from the website, wordle.net, which Mr. Bolos showed us earlier this year) of all the writing on my blog.

When I look at this visual representation of the most commonly used words on my blog, I feel like it is a completely accurate summary of my entire year in American Studies. Though some of the words might not seem as important as others, I like the fact that every little concept I thought about this year is represented. For example, if asked to describe the main things we discussed in American Studies, I probably wouldn't think to mention the word "iPhone" anywhere in my summary, but when I saw it on the word cloud as a commonly used word on my blog, I realized that it represents part of the technology we discussed many times throughout the year.

One of the words that sticks out to me the most is "friends". I think the inclusion of this word is really meaningful because it shows how, through this blog, I was able to merge the worlds of school and personal life together. In previous discussion-based classes, I only thought about the class material for the 40 minutes of time allotted to that class period or while completing homework for that class. My experience in American Studies was very unlike these past experiences. This blog allowed me to always subconsciously think about the discussions from class and relate them to things I see in the "real world". Now, it is just a natural reflex for me to be hanging out with my friends and somehow end up finding a parallel between whatever we are doing and a concept from American Studies. I think this is an invaluable skill I will appreciate for the rest of my life and always credit it back to my American Studies class during my junior year of high school.

**The blog post I would like you to grade is The Food Revolution**

2011

As I was checking my blog out this morning, I looked at the sidebar on the page that says how many people have visited my blog. Today, I have had 2011 views of My America. Not only is this awesome because it just happens to also be the year 2011, but it's really amazing that so many people have seen what I write. So, thanks to everyone who has visited My America!

My Artifacts

At the beginning of the school year, I wrote a blog titled "American Artifacts" about what the main things that will represent our society in the future if we were all to disappear. Now, as I work on completing my junior year, I've decided to think about the artifacts that represent the past year of my life.

1. My Facebook page- Though parents often complain about Facebook as an unneeded distraction in teens' lives, I think Facebook is a great way to record ourselves during different times in our lives. Not only is it a virtual photo album, but it also saves our conversations with friends so in then future we can remember who we were friends with and what we used to like talking about.


2. My iPhone- I am one of those crazy people who saves every text and writes down every appointment or event in my iPhone calendar. In 20 years I will be able to look back and see my exact schedule for getting ready for prom or what times I worked during the summer.

3. THIS BLOG!- Out of all the things listed above, I think this blog will be the most telling artifact about who I was during my junior year of high school. Each blog entry represents exactly what I was thinking about when I wrote it and what things stood out to me the most
during that week. I can't wait to look back and read this blog in 10 or 20 years and remember
exactly what I thought as a 17 year old.

Now, after writing this post, I see that all of the three artifacts I chose are forms of technology. I think this shows what a technology-based society we are. Technology will definitely help us remember our lives with more detail than possible before. Do you see this as a good thing or an invasion of privacy?

Conscious Thinking

While surfing AOL's homepage tonight, I stumbled upon an article about a new study done about sexism. I clicked on the article just to see what it was about and if it had to do anything with any of our previous class discussions. It did. Instead of relating to class in the obvious way though, it related to the concept of our class as a whole. In one part of the article, a researcher stated, "If you document [sexism] and are confronted by a group of instances of sexism, then people start to see the unseen." This idea reminded me of my thoughts after a few weeks of American Studies class. I kept thinking that, after talking about an idea or writing a blog about a topic, I would notice things having to do with American Studies all over my life. In my meta-post for the first quarter, I even talked about this concept, writing, "About halfway through the quarter, I started seeing blog posts in everything. I even had to edit down my ideas because I would end up with 10 or 12 after one weekend because I was thinking about it all the time." I think this is true about anything in life. If you document something, you will be more conscious of it in your everyday life. Have you ever experienced this in your life?

The Evolution of MyAmerica: Part II

     After re-reading my recent blog posts, I realized the thing that has changed the most this quarter is that I realized I have an audience outside of our AS class. I first realized this when I got a couple of random comments on my Miley Cyrus blog. It was right around the time of the Miley Cyrus bong scandal and someone had obviously been googling her name and came upon my blog. The comments didn't have anything to do with the overarching topic, but used many profanities to describe Miley and her father (which I had to delete to keep my blog PG). After this incident, I found the "stats" button on the blogger homepage and saw that I had viewers in the Philippines, Latvia, and a bunch of other countries. This new discovery changed my style of blogging by making me write more directed to a general audience, not just people who know exactly what is going on in our class. I think it also makes blogging a little more rewarding because now I know my ideas are being heard by people around the world.

      Another thing I noticed when I looked back at my blog this quarter was that I hadn't blogged as frequently as I would have liked to. Though I think this was mainly because of winter break and the stressful week of school before the holidays, I was a bit disappointed in myself for not keeping up on my blog. Now, after spending some time on my blog before the end of the semester, I realized again how cool this assignment is. I really enjoy that our teachers have embraced modern technology and given us a public forum to discuss the things that we don't have time for in class.
 P.S. The blog I would like you to grade is "Exempt By Association?"

Think before posting

          Today, one of the students in my class brought to our attention some extremely inappropriate and hurtful  comments that were written on his blog. After discussing his specific situation for awhile, a bigger question came up- when, if ever, should the right to freedom of speech be breached (in cases involving the Internet) in order to ensure the safety of an individual?

          Though censorship doesn't seem like an American ideal, I think it is necessary in certain cases to keep violent or malicious Internet-writers in check. In the past, our government has deemed it necessary to censor newspapers and other types of media for the benefit of the country, so they should have the same right with the Internet. If anything, the Internet is more dangerous than the official media because anyone can write anything they want online. Another factor that makes the Internet dangerous has to do with its easy anonymity. When a person is saying something in person, their conscience effects them and they censor themselves to not say anything that would cause offense to their listener. On the other hand, when a person is sitting in front of a computer screen, typing their thoughts rather than saying them out loud, they feel free to say exactly what comes to their mind no matter how hurtful or offensive it may be. I think having some restrictions in place would cause people to think before posting, which would definitely be for the better of the Internet as a whole. Do you think there are any other solutions to this problem?

*for additional information about Internet censorship and how other countries have dealt with this issue click here