Anna's Blog

 When talking about the digital world's intersection with learning two terms arise; digital natives and digital immigrants according to Prensky. Digital natives would describe me and my age group well. We are equipped with the language that comes with the rise of the internet, social media and the digital age. We are used to reading, writing and communicating online. Digital immigrants on the other hand, are less familiar with this technology and communicating style. They have been raised learning from physical material, processing and answering sequentially. This is often what causes a divide between an older professor and their college aged students. When I think about my own learning as a creative writing major, I realize we often utilize methods and strategies from digital immigrants. Instead of editing a poem in multiple ways in one revision, we are often trained to complete a revision with one snippet of feedback at a time. We also usually print out and mark up an actual text...

     When thinking about drawbacks and positives of social media, I think of the two I have primarily used over the years: Instagram and Snapchat. Where Snapchat can be a lighthearted way to communicate with friends, I have found Instagram to offer what feels like an overload of information. I think this is the drawback of a platform designed more to look into the lives of others versus communicate with others. Instagram has the potential to create a lot of anxiety in the way it shows highlights of people's lives. Feelings of missing out  can build causing anxiety that leads to depression and sleeplessness. Instagram is now inherently connected to capitalism and promoting goods, which can feel overwhelming. I think for me a key factor in my choice of what social media I use depends on what makes me feel connected versus simply overstimulated.           I believe that the community one has online affects whether social media can be anxiet...

Hello! I am from Portland, OR and am now living in Corvallis. I'm studying Creative Writing and Education, as well as earning my ESOL endorsement and Adventure Leadership Certification. I am hoping to work in education, either as an ELA teacher in middle/high school or in outdoor education.  In my free time I like to hike, learn line dances and am cracking into the world of mountaineering. I also love spending time with my cute cow cat Georgia. A fun fact about me is that I am a heritage speaker of Czech - it is my family's native language.  I am curious to learn about how communication has evolved over time, especially post pandemic. I feel this is vital to my future work as an educator. I was curious to learn about internet safety, as well as how much of our data is private versus visible and how this relates to social media.  I primarily use some social media as well as email to communicate online. I have never taken a communications course and am curious to see what o...