Midterm Reflections - A Rob Well Done

If you asked me to define "media" a couple months ago I probably would have said,
"Music,duh."
However, Media and Society classes have shown me the truth. Media is more than simply music, media is the culmination of storytelling mediums that we experience every day in almost every facet of life. 21st century media have progressed over decades, societal factors influencing it's development. I've also learned how different mediums impact media as a whole. For instance, the legitimized news blog is beginning to put printed newspaper out of business.

So far, I've come to realize that I don't read nearly as critically as I should. I tend to scan over text without processing it, because I don't ask myself questions as I read. I've also learned a few things about myself as a writer. My first personal blog was weak because I didn't grasp the appeals that make a blog post successful as a medium. By my second blog post I already feel like I made a huge leap in quality. My critical thinking isn't quite up to scratch, another thing I realized when reading our textbook. After I was done with a chapter, I realized I had barely analyzed anything I read...this ended once we started having quizzes.

The one thing I would do differently from the get-go of class would be drilling the power tools. It was a while before I took them seriously, a big mistake. The power tools are a huge part of understanding the media we study in class, allowing me to better pick apart and analyze media.

I would have liked Rob to perhaps more clearly explain our personal blog posts. It was unclear for a while how the posts should be constructed, especially how we are supposed to integrate the power tools into our post.

The power tools have been infinitely useful as learning tools. They've shown me necessary questions to ask when I'm experiencing media in addition to explaining the different processing centers in the brain that respond to media. The course blog is perhaps one of the best tools employed by Rob. Assignments are available in a clear presentation, in addition to our submissions being in the same place, making it easy to take care of business. It's a way for us to tap into class information without being in class. The personal blog is fun and educational, too. By trying to form relevant and interesting ideas on a new medium, I've been learning about entirely new forms of information sharing. Not to mention...I'll take blogger over Angel (AKA the devil) any day of the week. The in class quizzes keep me in line and make sure I'm keeping up with work. They also show me what information I should be gathering from the readings. The films are always great demonstrations of our power tools and how they relate to all media. Watching them helps me apply the tools and understand media more thoroughly. The book is pretty good, but a little thick. The chapters are soaked in so much information that it makes it difficult to absorb anywhere near all of it.