My experice of being an linguistic

When I was a child, I was kept given the concept that English is an extremely important tool, which can be treated as the key to keep up with the pace of the 21st century. It seems that in my childhood period, the importance of English education has already been well realized in China, as we can see various English teaching institutions were being hold and gaining tremendously profits every year. Children are force to taking that kind of extra-curricular courses since parents are always hoping their child to “win in the start line”.

English has become a required course as soon as I enter middle school, thus if counted, I have already learned English for about 8 years. However, it is not until the time when I come to US did I truly realized the real meaning and importance of owning that skill. Recall the time I was in middle school and high school, for me, the only propose of learning English is just to cope with the exams and gain good grade.

However, for me, English has now become a daily necessity. But thinking my life here, the importance of English is not only the tool which help me live in this foreign country, and what is  more important, it has largely enhance my horizon of seeing this world! By owing the English literacy, I found amazingly that I have gain the ability to get access to information and materials from over the world, instead of only China. Now I could know things from hugely increased sources, and the ability to read English based website and newspaper make it possible to get access to the most authority talk and thought by people. I was surprised to find there can be totally different point of view even when describing the same event between Chinese article and the rest of the world.

Basically, being a linguistic is a great experience since not only I could gain another tool of communicate, but it is also a great enhancement of informatics source and give me the chance to know this world better.

Connection between technology and literacy

Along with social development, our way of communicate has largely enhanced by the improvement of technology, as well as literacy enrichment.  it seems that the technology and literacy has nature connection, instead of developing independently, they always shape and promote each other. 

Recalling to ancient time when literacy is depend on paper-based read and write, the transmission of knowledge is mainly rely on book, which require tons of time to read, and write. People in that age seems living a quite monotonous life, their world is far less colorful than the one we enjoying. Thinking of our own daily life, you will see how great technology has shaped literacy as well as our life. No longer will we struggling in the library in finding a certain book, just by clicking your mouse,the whole world of  information associated will indicated on your computer screen. New developed technology, such as multimedia, has largely enhanced the type of literacy, to make it visualize, interesting, created and also entertainment. The prevalent of internet has changed the way we communicate. Modern people, especially our generation, is  likely to talk on internet, write on internet  instead of in realistic society. 

On the other hand, literacy also gives the direction for technology development. Since the purpose of technology is to satisfy what people need and lead them to live a better life. It must have nature connection with literacy, which almost associate with every element to living in this world. We need our creative idea to be expressed properly, then there comes multimedia technology, we need spiritual relax, then there comes technology innovation like camera, instrument, etc. 

To be brief, the connection of technology and literacy is so close, and they could not simply developed independently without each other.

Proposal of Assignment#4

Finally, it is time to decide the topic of  assignment#4. Actually, I indeed have some thought about it, and I would like to give a brief introduction to my plan here.

I have a friend studying film direct in Germany, she is kind of person love express herself by creative style of arts, such as making a DV record, taking photographs... Remember the first time when I learned the concept of literacy, whose definition is not confined to "the ability to read and write" but can treated as all kinds of assets associate to communicate and understand, she is the person first come into my mind . Isn't her style of life a good example of new way of literacy? Since everytime she make photograph or DV record, she put her own thought and understanding of life in it, which make them special and even become a kind of art. That's her way to communicate and understand of the world!

Recently she went to Greece alone for a short trip. For Greece is famous for its mysterious culture and history, she wanted to gain inspiration  and also get to know about  people living there. During the trip, she made tons of pictures and wrote some words under it in recording some experiences and thought. This gives me the idea that I can use her story in my assignment#4. To be specific, I will copy some of her trip pictures and make them connected ,  adding some words to make it a whole story. These are all Based on the content of literacy blog associate to "picture" I have write before.

As for the genre, I think I will use comic life. Although I am not familiar with this software now, I will certainly take time to learn it.

The kind of media presuasive to me

There are so many kinds of media existed in our daily life, television program, radio, internet web side, etc. I surf Internet everyday and more frequently get access to those media on Internet. however, whenever I open an website, what usually interest me is the thing associate with emotional or creative contents, such as the thing contend interesting pictures ormoving background music.
I am the kind of person prefer more visualize and interesting media format rather than long and logic articles. and if the advertisement can touch me by its idea and also well-designed, I will be definitely impressed. The genre can be various from an advertisement to short video, it does no really matter if it is a format of telling story or just a serious of impressing pictures, it will be persuasive for me if I can find something new or creative idea in it.

Literacy Assignment Self-reflection

During the passed a couple of weeks' of hard work, finally I have finished the literacy assignment, which includes five blog entry and a group map. In this self-reflection essay, I would like to give a brief recall of how works has been done as well as explain my role in our group map creation.

Remember at the first time I heard about the assignment, I completely had no idea what I should write about. The word "literacy" was unfamiliar to me, and it seems that at the level we are talking about, it even has a wider meaning besides "the ability to read and write". I was not sure what is the exactly meaning of it, thus could not decide what literacy I should write about. To solve the problem, I went to Google and Wikipedia. Typing in the word ''literacy", it gave me the idea that the modern literacy is no longer confined to "read" and "write", everything associate to helping us "understand" and "communicate" with outside world can be treated as a literacy. There is also a list of example, such as computer literacy, multimedia literacy, etc. This search helped me a lot when brain storming my own literacy encountered in life, and finally I have choose computer, emotion, multimedia, music and reading as my own life literacy in my blog entry writing.

As for our group map creation, the first thing we considered was what should be on the map. Since the concept of literacy is so broad, it is hard to decide what aspect we should use. so I suggested that we may first draw our own literacy map individually. Since each one has different assets and there also must be some common point between us, we may then get our individual map connected to draw a bigger one by showing these common point as well as differences. However, when this idea went to practical operation, problem comes out. For one may list general literacy such as "sports", "music" while others may concentrate in the extreme detail in a specific field, we find it was difficult to combine each person's map. To solve this problem, we write a temple in the Lab class indicating what type we are about to use, thus every one should follow this type when thinking of his or her own map.

The next problem coming to us is the how to draw the map. I have done a research on internet trying to find some good map temple we could use. The search proved difficult, for the temple I found was either too complex or too simple. I then remembered the map of Disney world which I was traveling during spring break. There are five big theme parks in magic kingdom, each one show its own characters and also have connection with others. Isn't it a good temple we could use? The idea then got totally approved by other members in my group.

In one of the lab classes, we collected each one's individual map and made a comparison to them. After overall considered the landscape of the Disney world map, we finally decided which literacy we should indicate in the map and where to mark them in the map. I am the person in charged of the final drawing of the map. It was not hard, since the blueprint has already in my mind after the group discussion.

During this assignment working, not only have I got a deeper understanding of literacy, but also learned the importance of team work. It is by the contribution of each group members that we finally finish this map assignment!

Multimedia literacy

It is no longer the  time  when literacy is mainly depend on paper-based read and write. Multimedia, which utilizes several different content forms to convey information(text, sound, graphics, animation,video, etc.), has largely replaced the basic literacy of "reading"and "writing", thus greatly enriched the diversity of literacy.

Multimedia can be largely associate with the creation of modern arts. By using various of computer program, many great and creative ideas can be well expressed. Since multimedia has enabled the presentation of many special effect (such as 3D effect) which is impossible to display by man-made painting, it gives rise to a far greater visual impact and infectivity. Giving examples to this,  just think of the advertisement and propagating poster we see every day.

Since the software of personal laptop has become increasingly powerful, it is no longer a dream for normal people to create their own multimedia product. By combining text, sound, images, as well as motion pictures and manage them interactively via a computer, people can make their own creative painting or even make a movie. 

As in our college study, multimedia has also taken an important part. Remember when we taking classes,  the power point used to give us brief outline of knowledge, the video professor shown in class, and even this  blog  entry I am writing for my WRA homework.. all of these are based on the multimedia!  In this modern society where multimedia is so prevalent,  it seems that we simply can not living without it.

Emotional literacy

Having the ability of express emotion is what distinct human from animals. We laugh when we feel happy and cry when we are sad. Living in such a human society, emotional communication is so important. We must know how we feel and communicate them to get emotional support and understanding from others, as well as showing our support and understanding to them. That is also the way we build our human relationship.
Can you easily identify the emotional information of others? Can you precisely communicate your own feeling? However, to be sensitive to those emotional feelings are of great importance when dealing with human relationships.
In temporary society, people tend to hide his or her real feelings by many reasons. For example, when you indeed get angry with someone, you are most likely to just pretend everything is fine to avoid the embarrassing situation. But imagine you are occasionally be the chairman of a big company and the person angered you are one of your employees, how could we expect he or she still has the chance to be promoted? But if he or she realized that you got angry and make remedy in time, he or she will definitely have more chance earn your favor again. That is why being sensitive to emotional change making the corresponding adjustion is sometimes crucial in our life.
Being sensitive to other’s emotional change is what make you succeed in your career and also be a popular friend. You know when to say the right word, do the right thing and when to quit in the proper time. People around you never feel uncomfortable, and they will thought you are rather considerate and intimate person. That is why learning emotional literacy is that important in our life.