Professor David Silver

I was lucky enough to be in David Silver's Davies Forum on Digital Literacy class my last semester at USF. That class is the reason I even have this blog! What I most noticed and appreciated about Professor Silver's teaching style then was how much he asks questions instead of gives answers. Somehow as a student a professor's questions and curiosity empower you to think and learn more... And he's so curious that it in turn makes YOU curious about what he's teaching, no matter how you felt about the subject otherwise. You see his curiosity and you think, "Wow this must be really interesting."

So I was thrilled to interview Silver about his approach and philosophies on teaching, and living in the bay area. If you know David Silver you know that two of his main focuses are: gardening, sustainability, and green; then analyzing, creating and studying media. I had fun editing the video and putting the pieces together because though these are separate concepts, they also fit together very nicely and Professor Silver has made a point of meshing them into one: green media.

Oh, and I could not have told his story well at all without the use of fantastic photos from his prolific, well-organized, creative commons-ed flickr account.

Meet David Silver.

Sutro Baths Then and Now Portrait

Here's a portrait of the Sutro Baths I made for our first assignment in Sam Green's doc class last Spring at USF! Sam gave us a list of places to choose from in the city, and I chose to do a portrait of the baths (named after San Fran's 24th Mayor, Adolph Sutro) because I have always been intrigued by the eerie history of the Cliff House and it's surrounding areas.

For this assignment I was really interested in sound mixing, from sounds found online to the music included and the sounds recorded live at the Baths. Thanks for the Marcus Guenter Sky. Enjoy...

The Best Blog Post Ever

My teacher for our Davies Forum on Digital Literacy class assigned us to do "the best blog post ever." Daunting as it may seem, I was not toooo worried because I knew I would have a lot of inspiration to work with after this last weekend.

Sunday night, just as I was drifting off to sleep in my bed, I awoke suddenly to the sound of a car.
My eyelids quickly jolted open. What was that?!!?
Ohhhh yeahhh, I'm back to civilization, where large moving machines is the norm.
I closed my eyes again with a grumble, appreciating the sweet memory of how nice it was to sleep with only the sounds of nature (and other people snoring).

This past weekend we lived at StoneLake Farm.


We spent time with the chickens who hatched our eggs.



We savored these eggs many times over. This spanish tortilla/makeshift scramble paired with a sweet white Riesling wine was maybe the best meal I have had since studying abroad in France a year ago (Thanks Lulu). So good, and eaten immersed in the wonder of such vast nature, that this was the slowest I had savored a meal since I can remember.



we took our time thinking of and creating these meals. Could the reason this trip felt so relaxing and time went by so nicely simply be the sheer pleasure in spending time to cook and savor our meals?


Perhaps. Or rather, eating is something that all humans share and relate on. With all of the things that civilization usually keeps us busy with taken away, we found ourselves talking and relating about food so much because we all naturally like and need to connect with each other. Besides being necessary to live, food, and cooking it, thinking about it, planning for the next meal, is a simple way for people to connect. The beauty in this is also that food, done properly, can be delicious, something special in itself.


we foraged


and chopped the wood that kept us warm



we appreciated this wood even more when it began to snow


we created very little trash!


and ducklings, hopefully who will survive the food chain and help the summer garden to fruition, provided us with some "fluff"


All of this, in one word is homesteading (check out www.howtohomestead.org) In two words, is the simple life. In ten words, is the most relaxing while simultaneously fulfilling weekend I have ever had.


I'll be back.


For an even better feel of StoneLake farms, view a slideshow of the trip.

Identity Creation: Food for Thought For Facebook Fans

A week and a half ago at USF, Fred Stutzman (his interesting blog is here) academic/expert on Facebook in particular, talked about the Social Networking Site that has come to dominate teen/young adult social life.

I was interested to hear Stutzman speak for many reasons: Facebook is HUGE; identity creation/formation on Facebook has interested me- like how people create what they want people to think of them, like a sort of self- advertisement, which I thought of as a negative thing; and after reading a few blogposts of his I realized how Facebook is different from other SNSs, because it is situationally relevant, since it is rooted in an offline community (that community first being college campuses).

Danah Boyd, academic/SNS analyst (her interesting blog here), talks a lot of about identity formation on SNSs in her article Why Youth Love Social Networking Sites: the role of networked publics in teenage social life, which we read before Stutzman's talk for our Davies Forum on Digital Literacy class. In this article, she says, "...SNSs are providing teens with a space to work out their identity and status, make sense of cultural cues, and negotiate public life." She continues later on in this essay with, "the process of learning to read social cues and react accordingly is core to being socialized into a society...". The act of creating a virtual presence is surely different from creating one through our bodies- the digital process involves self-reflexivity through its articulation. So this was a new way that I thought about identity creation on SNSs before hearing Stutzman speak.

He said about identity creation that we are "writing ourselves into being," making decisions about what is going to represent us, and "creating commonalities," like hometown, interests, etc. He said Facebook is three things: a directory, a social management space, and a time- waster. He broke down the kinds of relationships SNSs create and what they mean. In our human relationships, we have strong ties, and we have weak ties. The strong ties are our family and close friends. The weak ties are our coworkers, acquaintances, etc. Strong ties are important of course, but weak ties are also important, he said.

He addressed the idea of the Social Network "friend." Who are these friends? How valid are our relationships with them? SNSs are changing the idea of friendship perhaps. Boyd says friends' profiles for teens provide a sense of what types of presentations are socially appropriate, and also that SNS friends are not just people one knows, but "public displays of connections. 'You are who you know'."

One issue users encountered with Facebook is that before the controversial introduction of the "mini feed,"users had one idea of what their "friendships" meant, and an idea of what their privacy was. Now, after the mini feed has been introduced, friendship means 'welcome to the stream of my life' (since the mini feed updates a user on the online Facebook actions of all their friends). So now a person would know everything that all of their "friends" were doing all of the time, even if they didn't necessarily want to.

Another issue Stutzman mentioned that Facebook users have is figuring out how to make the transition from college to the workplace, as far as what is appropriate to have on your profile. I am interested in this, as I have recently thought about the idea of "cleansing" my profile in preparation for job navigation. Stutzman said there are all sorts of "social negotiations" going on as we leave old friends and make new ones. Facebook allows for new opportunities for friendships to emerge as there are all sorts of "vectors for connection." This issue of transitioning social situations online and off is interesting too because his research shows when we create content on our profiles, we conceive that it is our close friends who are looking at our profile the most. But then the question looms in the air, 'what if my boss sees it somehow?' Cleansing is a precaution in these cases. But also, more interestingly, what if you are close friends with your boss?

So the whole idea of identity creation Boyd and Stutzman have a LOT to say about. Stutzman asked the questions, "Are we just ourselves? Are we creating new selves?" And Stutzman's company ClaimID lets you control your Google identity. Don't like what comes up when you google your name? Check this company out. Stutzman ended the talk with an eerie thought, "ID is interesting because it's sort of one of the last unclaimed territories." I encourage you to read more at Boyd's blog, apophena - making connections where none previously existed- and Stutzman's blog, Unit Structures.

Delicious Meal, for the most part

For our Davies Forum on digital literacy class, the assignment was to make a delicious meal. I decided to make breakfast. I did my shopping at Trader Joes for this assignment. This first picture shows a main ingredient for the big dish of my meal. What do you think it is?



Correct! "Fresh Ricotta."

Trader Joes has a large selection of eggs. After watching the film by Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Our Daily Bread in Sam Green's documentary class, now I always go for the cage free.

This is another main ingredient in my main dish:Portabella mushrooms!
With these three main ingredients, what do you think I am making?

Correct! portabello spinach frittata! hmmm difference between portabello/a? Maybe Lulu, a fellow Davies Scholar - who interviewed The Mushroom King- knows.

These are the ingredients for another dish in my meal (cinnamon, oats, canola oil, baking powder, nutmeg, applesauce, ginger, whole wheat flour, baking soda, vanilla, pumpkin, and two eggs).


What do you think it is?

Pumpkin spice muffins! I got both of these recipes off of allrecipes.com.



Next up, smashed potatoes! Here are some red potatoes boiling.







When the skin begins to crack on the potatoes, you take them out and strain them








Then, lay them out on a dish towel.

Cover them with another dish towel,





And Smash them! (I just used my palms)






Then you will have what looks like this.




Then using a spatula, transfer the smashed pots to a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper as you wish, and bake at 425 -until they are done-. I think this might be about 15 minutes.





Back to the muffins. I have been searching for the perfect pumpkin muffin: healthy, dense with some oats, flavorful, and delicious. This recipe I found did not have oats, so I added some anyway and took out some flour. All ingredients together mixed, ready to go! bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.





Back to the fritatta. Slice up the portabella, only 3/4 cup





Some reviewers on allrecipes.com said to saute the onions with the mushrooms first, and I took their advice. Then, mix all the ingredients together...

Bake at 375 for 30 minutes





...Et voila!





Et voila!





Et voila!




All in All, the meal was delicious. The frittata was great!
absolutely delicious. No notes necessary. As far as they muffins, I don't recommend and won't make them again. Perhaps, I will do what this woman, Tanya C, said to do. I wish I had seen it before I baked. I have been searching for the perfect pumpkin muffin recipe, and this was not it. It's largely because this muffin was so healthy- if it had not been as healthy it would have been more delicious. Though, I do believe a healthy (by healthy I guess I mean not a lot of sugar or butter), hearty and delicious pumpkin muffin recipe does exist. The potatoes were good too. But, I should have boiled them a bit longer and smashed them more, to enhance the crisp.

Bryan Alexander, Web Wiz

I learned a lot from Bryan Alexander, including how to cut a crusty baguette properly. Baking bread is one of Alexander's hobbies apparently, so he knows what's up. (For the Davies Forum delicious food is a must along with our enlightening speakers, so Alexander shared the spotlight with homemade Chili from this fellow Blake and there was bread to go along with it). I know the bread cutting skill will probably be with me for the rest of my life, and I think some other stuff he said will be too.


At times it was hard to keep up with him, probably because I am new to some Web 2.0 lingo. Which is understandable. Alexander pointed out how Web 2.0 language sounds like Dr. Seuss language (Wiki, flickr, twitter, tweet, blog...).

The first thing that blew my mind was this website twittervision.com. Twitter, and to tweet, are a noun and verb I did not know this context of. Anyone can sing up for a membership on twitter.com and create "friends" like on Facebook, and then "tweet" to their online friends via cell phone or computer all day long. One tweets about anything, like how they're feeling at the moment, or their view on the latest news. And on twittervision, one sees a global map of tweets happening right now all over the world! AKA, someone can log on and see how people are feeling right now all over the world! Yesterday I learned it was raining it Amsterdam. I could have gone to weather.com and looked up the weather in Amsterdam, but why would I be looking up the weather in Amsterdam? I don't know about you, but I think this is pretty cool stuff. The world is changing.

Much of this change is due to collaboration, collective knowledge and research, and connectivism- the idea that we learn in networks. These are all large factors in Web 2.0. Think Wikipedia, blog and Flickr commenting, and things like twitter.

Connectivism is a part of Clay Shirky's very interesting article "Ontology is overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags," that we read last week for the Davies Forum on Digital Literacy. Shirky writes about categorization and the Internet, and he says, "the only group that can categorize everything is everybody." He points out that current ways of categorizing are out-dated in terms of the electronic world. The connectivism is everyone making sense of the Internet together, each having a hand in what it is. This is done in part by tagging. For example, i can choose what tags to put on this blog, and that changes the Internet a little bit. "By letting users tag URLs and then aggregating those tags, we're going to be able to build alternate organizational systems, systems that, like the web itself, do a better job of letting individuals create value for one another, often without realizing it."

Alexander works for NITLE,- a nonprofit initiative dedicated to promoting liberal education. Their organization is "dedicated to advancing learning through the effective use of digital technologies" (www.nitle.org) and it seems like this is what Alexander is all about. Which is pretty cool. He mentioned the Pew Internet Study in December of 2007 about Teens and Social Media ( I think we felt cool telling him we had read this study already, in preparation for another speaker of ours, Mary Madden, of Pew). Anyway, Alexander mentioned from this study how more than half of teens are published authors now. He also said two years ago he thought by now most kids K-12 would have RSS feeds by now. Wouldn't this be great? Their feeds could be full of informational blogs about things they were learning in school. Alexander says he thinks kids don't have these because RSS feeds are "too geeky." I think the reason is that teachers don't even know about RSS feeds, so how would their students?

Alexander is also interested in Alternate Reality Games- computer games that involve real life and online experience to tell and create a story. One example of this is "Blood on the Stacks," a game created by Trinity University and their Coates Library. It was created in order to increase interest in the library and it has worked! It's a mystery game that takes place largely online but is also a real life treasure hunt. People have to be involved online to be able to enact the real life clues.

I asked Alexander how he thinks all of these new web technologies that enhance and multiply connection are changing the world. It seems he is positive about it but also recognizes that there are fears. Two of them are: Undermined traditional authority; and sexual predators. But that's a whole different blog post...

The Internet Connection

Ivan Chew, giving the most engaging power point presentation I've seen


Yesterday's blog would be impossible not to tie into the Davies Forum on Digital Literacy's speaker Ivan Chew and his talk at USF yesterday. Chew, expert blogger (he has 8 blogs- his main blog link is here) and Singaporean librarian, spoke mostly about the connections that can be and have already been created through blogs and the internet. It seems the couch on the street I spoke of is a symbol for the internet! and perhaps more specifically, blogs. I will elaborate.



The most interesting part of the talk for me was his mention of IG (Inter-Generational) relationships in his segment on seniors and blogging. I guess this part was so interesting to me because I do think about the divide between old people and young people. Maybe it is just as simple as that there's no relationship there because the two generations can't relate. But old people have stories to tell, and young people have so much to learn, that it seems there should at least be an attempt at a connection. What if, for example, kids in elementary school who were assigned a project about something that took place in recent history could have the choice to go to the library and check out a book, or to connect with someone who had actually experienced this time in history- through a library hosted blog? I think this would be great.

Some seniors don't blog or may be apprehensive about it because the internet in general is still foreign to them, not to mention that negative view the media can give blogging and the Internet. And also seniors are more private- they come from more traditional times. One thing that does get them into blogging, Chew pointed out, is so that their great great grandchildren can read about them. They usually don't trust the Internet otherwise. Maybe the library hosted blog could remedy this apprehension. If they were to realize that sharing their stories created positive results, and then saw the beauty of newfound connections, they would be more into it. The key is showing seniors the beauty of it. The Internet truly does get a bad wrap in the press- sex stalkers, identity theft, etc.

All seniors have stories, and do have motivation to tell them, they just need to be asked. A guest in the audience, identifying himself as a senior (he was in his late 50s or early 60s), pointed out that also most seniors don't want to write their own stories but dictate them to someone who will type them, or they will sit in a front of a camera- a videoblog.

I don't know, it seems pretty cool to me. I think if when I were in elementary school or high school and could have seen a videoblog of someone talking about what the depression was about, rather than learning about it in a book, I would have been wayyyy more interested. Hopefully this is the future.

The theme of Ivan's talk was -we are so alike-. His ideas may even be so profound to say that if more people used the Internet and connected with each other and realized this idea, there would be less war. He concluded by showing us a video he had made, with his own computer created music too- called, "Dolphins Galaxia." The music was lovely and inspirational and the visuals were a decoupage of visuals of different lights from all different settings (like stars in the sky and the sun and the earth and sun rays in water) so that while watching it I was thinking the lights represented the connections made by the Internet, and the dolphins swimming around represented the innocent bystanders, affected by the lovely connections. Like the couch provides a place for.