Blog #5 A MOOC?

Focus on project identity! There was a lot of  collaborative work taking place last Tuesday within our group. We are a large group and we really spent our time focusing on getting the job done. Splitting ourselves up into three groups to tackle the different parts of our presentation proved to be successful. Maria and I really honed in on the first part of our presentation, how we come to terms with defining our identity. We feel we selected an amazing Finding Your Roots episode to share with the class that pinpoints several important topics when discussing identity. The episode brings up many talking points. It made us think us think about how we/society define(s) identity, and how we are effected by external factors in our lives that may make us question who we are. It has been awesome working with Maria, doing a close reading of the video, and developing discussion questions that we feel the class will really appreciate and that will allow for some true moments of expression and sharing. We hope it is enlightening and that some people may find themselves connecting with the presentation. 

Now onto the MOOC. I never heard of a MOOC before. I was curious about what it was when it was brought up in class on Tuesday. Thank you Dr. Zamora for providing a link so we can see what an actual MOOC looks like. It seems like a great way to serve the needs for our class. I spent some time perusing the site.  I even watched a few of the webinars. One webinar allowed the panel to reflect upon their experiences engaging in a MOOC, and their feedback was extremely positive. Those who were invited on the panel shared about the connections made between people involved and the positive energy they felt throughout their experience. I know this was an example of quite an extensive MOOC that was more "involved" for lack of a better word, than ours may be, but I really liked that people felt connected. That was the key word for me. It definitely seems like a way to reach out to others who may be invested in our class, and maybe don't it yet. However, being a tech spaz I would like to know more about how to construct a MOOC site and upload our work onto it. How does it all come together? 

Blog #4 Reaching Others

Every week I am moved by the honesty of my classmate's stories shared either through their blogs or "share outs" in class. I mentioned last week how I really haven't had many moments in my life where I felt singled out negatively for who I am, and that the few times I have really sucked. Those moments made me feel small or angry. Being looked at, judged, valued or not, based on one's race or ethnicity day in and day out, and to constantly feel that small or angry feeling that I have felt only a few times in my life, must be challenging. Sharing is powerful. It creates awareness and knowledge. I'm sure there are many people in our school community who would want to share their stories and bring about awareness to the important issues we have been discussing. Is there a way for us to create a safe place for people to do so????

We are definitely not alone. There are other classrooms on many other college campuses where important conversations like ours are taking place. There is advocacy happening. How can we join in the conversation is the question? How do we get our voices heard? One way can be through the use of social media. Social media is lie a living-breathing entity. Everybody uses it. Think about all of the resources we have been finding and sharing in class. How can we open this up so more people are aware of our work?

  One really cool place in the cyber-world I stumbled across was a Facebook page that is raising awareness about microaggressions in our society: The Microaggressions Project  https://www.facebook.com/microaggressions (check it out). This made me think that maybe we could create our own group page and share it out to all of our FB friends and watch it explode. We can update items that we find even after our semester is over. It is an easy and connected way to allow us to keep doing this work and get our voices heard even when we are no longer together on a regular weekly basis.