Reflection - Week of 4/22

We did not have class this week but instead had to watch Slumdog Millionaire on our own. I really enjoy this movie. It's put together very well. I admire the structure of the movie, which is through the use of flashbacks. Some movies have a hard time keeping the story straight with flashbacks but I feel like this one does not have those issues. While they are flashbacks, the flashbacks themselves are in chronological order. Aside from the structure, I feel this movie attempts to address some problems of globalization. Our country is much different than India is and the movie brings this differences to the surface. The one weakness I would say is that while the movie has a happy ending for the two main characters, it leaves the serious questions of globalization open ended. There is no solution for the problems in India-- just a happy ending for the characters. This seems like it is influenced from the Western culture. We like our happy endings and so the movie gives us one. But what about the orphans? The ones sold into slavery? It doesn't present a solution for this.

Reflection - Week of 4/15

This week we had our group media literacy presentations. The assignment was to make a lesson plan/presentation to present to the class. We were to act as if they were our students and we were teaching them. I was in a group with Jovana and Evelyn. We had a pretty good idea, which was to show and teach our students how to create a website. The students would use this website to then complete an assignment that would be relevant to a current lesson plan. It was a little confusing/difficult because obviously the lesson would be what we were teaching, not what we would be teaching it for. I feel like this threw us off a little, but I think we had a good presentation anyway. We got a little flustered/jumbled when the professor said that the class wouldn't be going along and actually making the website with us. Knowing that, I think we could have presented it a little more effectively.

I thought the other groups had good presentations. A few of them didn't actually teach us anything, rather they talked about media literacy. I still think their presentations and information were good, just not what the assignment called out for.

Anyway, we do not have class next week but we need to view Slumdog Millionaire on our own time. I'm excited the movie was switched to this one because I love that movie! I remember when the movie came out I worked at a movie theater and I didn't know much about it, but my mom convinced me to go see it (free movie tickets!). It was definitely worth it, and it deserved all of the awards it won. It really keeps you interested and it brings up some critical issues as well. I'm excited to watch it again.

Reflection - Week of 4/1 & 4/8

Well we didn't have class last week and this week so I don't have much to reflect on. I've been working on the presentation we have on Monday and it's going pretty well. I'm in a group with Evelyn and Jovana. Jovana has been working very hard to get us all on the same page. She was texting both Evelyn and myself to coordinate our sections of the presentation. Hopefully it goes well on Monday. I wish we had a little more time to go over it in class, but I think we can pull it off. :)