This class has definitely been a long ride. There were many struggles because I am not tech savvy but I defiantly believed that I improved as a writer and improved with my technology knowledge. Click on the box below to view my Storify to learn more about my final thoughts about this class!
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Part 1. My blog topic is all about being 100% Italian. My parents are first generation Italians who are immigrants in the United States. They came here when they were in their 20s not knowing any English. My grandparents emigrated from Italy to the US and lived in my house all throughout my childhood. Having a strong background in Italian, it made me have a passion about the Italian language, culture, and lifestyle. I was able to learn the ins and out of literally everything on about being Italian. Since I go to Italy every summer, I am able to learn more about the culture and lifestyle of Italian culture from the country itself. My blog posts are going to be centered on the authentic Italian culture: the struggles and not so struggles of having immigrant parents, how to live like an Italian (how and why value family), and the various ways we enjoy, make, and eat our food by explaining how to eat like an Italian based on Holidays such as Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, etc. My blog is specialized and different from others because my blog has first hand experience being that I have immigrant parents. A lot of the other blogs that I researched, it was either about traveling tips, recipes, fashion, and general lifestyle tips about being Italian. My blog is going to discuss lifestyle and food but it will have a twist. I am going to talk about the embarrassments, struggles, benefits, unknown, value, and weird myths about being 100% Italian. I haven’t seen a blog about this. Other blogs have definitely talked about some funny issues about knowing someone Italian or traveling to Italy, but it was never their own specific experiences. This unique type of post will show viewers and will hopefully immerse them and have them understand about being “100% Italian”. I will write these posts in a fun way/voice to make it more unique as well. The purpose of my blog is to have people learn about these things from my own personal life and try to enjoy these mini narratives so they can possibility relate it to their own family or have them think about another Italian family that does the same thing. The specific audiences that I believe my blog will attract are generally adults living in New Jersey. There are a lot of Italian Americans and Italian immigrants particularly in this area/state. Whether or not they are some sorts of Italian, they definitely have known someone who is Italian. This will be interesting for the audiences because a lot of people in New Jersey know about the typical stereotypes on what it is to be Italian (Jersey Shore definitely has tainted that view with negative labels such as how Italians are overly tan, loud, hot tempered, stubborn, crazy or known as “guidos” or “guidettes”). This is definitely not what an Italian is like. So this blog they will learn about what an authentic Italian is like, not what they are used to. Part 2. I have researched ten websites that have a similar topic to my blog topic. I analyzed them each. Proud Italian Cook: Home Cooking Italian American Style. This blog is centered around Italian recipes that she learned as she grew up from her parents because her parents are Italian American parents. She identified herself as a mother, wife, mother-in-law and grandma. In the about page, she talked a lot about her family and how she's Italian. She also talked about why she loves cooking. On blog, she incorporated these Italian recipes with a American and Chicago feel since she lives in Chicago. The website is very organized and has many tabs that you can see in the picture above. On her Facebook page, she gets about 200 likes per post and 50 shares so it's a pretty popular blog. Her blog website itself has links to Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and email. I plan to mimic her organization as well as having a picture that hyperlinks to her social media, like what I did on the home page. Walks of Italy: Tips and Advice for Visiting.This blog is centered around the country Italy itself. Its about the food that you can try when you visit Italy, things you don't know about certain places in the country, and pretty much just traveling tips. It gives you ideas on what to do in Italy if you visit. It's a travel guide. The website is organized by having many tabs on the top as you can see in the picture above. The columns on the blog are just all the separate blog posts that make up the website. There is a section on the website that you can pay for tours organized by the website creators. This blog has multiple authors/ contributors. It's not only just one author. We don't really know much personal information about the authors. When clicking on the Facebook page, it seems like its a pretty popular blog. About 50,000 people like and follow this Facebook page. There are about 20 comments on each posting on Facebook taking about how they can't wait to go or that they loved that place. This blog has expanded to a blog on New York and Turkey so it shows that they have gotten positive feedback that they expanded. I expect other adults of all genders, hobbies and race to look at this blog. This blog isn't specifically geared towards a specific group of people. It's has more of a broad audience because it can be for anyone. Girl in Florence. This blog is centered on everything you need to learn about Italy, particularly in Florence, Italy. This website is organized from personal travel experiences, places to eat and where to go. The layout is very simple yet very neat. The author identifies herself as a American girl who works in Florence, Italy. She has learn so much about Italy from being an employee there. She calls herself a expatriate.She has traveled so much from being in Europe, not only in Italy which she explained in her blog. She has tips on what to do before going to Florence and while being there. She talks about the various events that Florence holds. This blog is about Italy but mostly about Florence. When I went to the Facebook thats associated with the blog, its clear to me that its not as popular as the previous two blogs that I've researched. It has about 100-150 likes and not so many comments. This blog seems to be very specific to any age or gender who want to travel Florence particularly and a little about other places in Europe. Live Like an Italian. This website is all about how to live an Italian lifestyle. When I first went on the website, I wasn't impressed. I didn't like this blog too much and will not mimic this layout all. The design and layout was too boring and not well thought out. It seemed like the design of the website isn't something they focused on but is something that they should because it attracts the readers. The authors of this blog is the creators of Mazzoni line of wines. So this blog is associated with the company and brand of wine called Mazzoni. This probably would attract the customers of this wine brand to the blog. The blog is centered on Italian lifestyle such as how to open a wine bottle, how Italians celebrate Easter, recipes, etc. The blog is the first thing you see when you go to the site as you can see in the screenshot above. Maybe they could have organized the blog better by separating recipes, wine tips, and lifestyle in separate tabs to make it more organized. You can follow this blog via email and it says that there are 750 followers who see their posts via email. There is a twitter page and they have 204 followers. The tweets don't really get that much feedback or replies on them. This blog seems like its more of a marketing tool to enhance their sales on the Mazzoni wines but its definitely geared more towards adults who have an interest in Italian wine. Easitalian Blog. This website is all about the Italian language and the culture. The blog are centered around learning how to speak the language in blog format instead of learning it through a traditional way from a textbook. It gives you tips, activities, and vocabulary in certain sections and in other sections it gives you recipes and advice on how to cook the Italian way. In another section of the blog, it give you traveling tips and places to go to when traveling to Italy. This blog was a little different compared to the other blogs I've researched. It was a little more unorganized in terms of the organization of the blogs. It was just scattered and the format was hard to follow. There isn't much information on the author but it gives you access to Twitter account associated with the blog. The twitter site isn't as popular because it only has 700 followers compared to the rest of the blogs. This blog is geared towards anyone who trying to learn about the language and culture of all genders and ages. The Italian Dish. This website is centered around tips and recipes on the Italian cuisine. The author is a woman who lives in Michigan and has a passion on cooking and feeding people which she believes she got from her Italian mother. She loves taking photography so she also took pictures of her making the food. The layout of the blog could have been better. It's not as appealing as it should be but its still has tabs to organize everything as you can see in the picture. The font of the text isn't appealing and she has too many pictures that are scattered. The blog is geared towards anyone who wants to learn about Italian cooking. She doesn't have anything linked to social media but you can sign up for her blogs via email. The is something that I don't plan on mimicking since I would want to expand my audience. Overall, this blog is just about cooking and recipes. Valitalia. This website is about how to live like an Italian. This blog is different than the others that I've came across because it's not only about traveling and food/recipes, it also has a section about furniture. It has blog posts on how to have an Italian-style bedroom and how to find Italian furniture. The author doesn't identify him or herself so we don't know about them. The website is designed well because its very organized. It gives you a little preview on what the blog is about, as shown in the picture above. The blog is connected to a Twitter page. The Twitter page has 325 followers and has about 350 likes. One of the sections on the blog it shows the readers about how they have a cafe that opened in Paramus, NJ. Even though the blog is associated to their company, their purpose isn't to advertise their cafe. Their purpose is to just show the viewers how to live in a Italian way. This blog is geared towards adults, particularly woman who would do interior designing and would do most of the cooking in the household. My Sardinian Life. This website's design is the first thing I noticed when I came across it. It was not appealing to my eye because it wasn't as creative as a viewer would want it to be. The author was originally from Canada who now lives in Sardinia, Italy. This blog is more of a narrative type blog. It explained her experiences living in Italy. This blog has a little quirky vibe to it because some blog topics are about hunting wild asparagus in Sardinia and about cats of Sardinia. Her twitter is linked to her specific twitter page. It's not a twitter page about her blog. She has about 1,000 followers on her twitter. She doesn't get much feedback and replies from her tweets from viewers. This blog is geared to any gender, race, age, with the similar hobbies as she has. Its also geared to anyone who wants to live or learn more about Sardinia. Surviving in Italy. This blog has definitely been my favorite out of all the research I've done so far. The author was born and raised in Utah but has a Persian background. The reason why she has a blog about Italy and Italians is because she moved to Italy to study the language and art there but then fell in love and married an Italian man. She has learned so much from him and from living there so thats why she wrote this blog. Her sense of humor in her blog posts is what makes it my favorite blog because I can relate and laugh at things her husband and his family does. She has tabs about fashion, food, travels tips, etc. as you can see in the picture. She talks about the culture and funny things about the Italian culture from an outside perspective since she's not Italian. She also talks about the difficulty of cross-cultural love. This blog is associated with Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter. The Facebook has 2,300 followers and 2,400 like-rs so its fairly popular. I expect adults who has a Italian spouse, who is Italian, or who knows someone who is Italian to read this post. This is definitely a blog I would want to follow. Overall with all of these blogs that I've researched the ones that I plan to mimic is the Surviving in Italy blog that I already mentioned is my favorite out of all the research. This blog talked more about the culture and talked about it in a funny way. I found myself laughing at her blog posts. Since her audience is anyone who has an Italian spouse or someone who is Italian, this is something I plan to mimic. I want to talk about the culture in a funny, narrative style way but incorporating my own personal stories that make it unique since its authentic Italian. Overall, I will add information about family and food as well just like how that author of that blog did. Color Guide Purple Text=what I added Red Text= what I deleted There are many events in my life that came to mind when I was thinking about my life revolved around my digital literacy but I have three ideas that I want to possibly write about for my digital literacy narrative.
1. My first idea that I thought about talking about was when I had a Nintendo DS. It was a small gaming portable system. It was my first real own technology because I have always shared the Playstation with my sisters and my family shared the desktop. I loved it because there was a feature on there where you can go into a chat room with people with a Nintendo DS that are close enough for the signal to reach. My twin sister and I would stay up and just talk to each other when she was in her own room. We would go to sleep so late because of the chat room. 2. The second idea that I thought about discussing was the time when I had my first cell phone. I had to share with my twin sister because my mom said that we were always together anyway. It was a time that caused many issues with my parents, friends, and my sister. It was something that I always wanted all throughout elementary school since my friends all had cell phones when I was 3rd and 4th grade. Since we shared, me and sister thought we texted our mom saying that we were hanging out with our friend but then we both never ended up texting her and we ended up getting out phone taken away. 3. The third idea that I thought of discussing was the time when I was in 5th grade and my older sister had a cell phone so I would steal her phone whenever she wasn't near it and I would play games on it and secretly look through her text messages. When she found out I was using it, she got so mad at me and ended up hiding the phone whenever she wasn't near her phone so I wouldn't look through her stuff. I didn't believe in privacy.
Berry, Hawisher and Selfe stated, in the article Digital Literacies, Technological Diffusion, and Globalization” “Mobile telephones began to be used for far more than voice communications, and by 2001 text messaging (short message service, or SMS) had become increasingly popular, more than doubling from 2000 to 2001” (2). This shows that technology has evolved from simple calling to as complex and convenient as texting. I was lucky enough to have the able to text because some people in my class didn’t have a texting plan. Although my phone is involved with much literacy, this phone has had a major part in the discourse community of my elementary school. This phone went through elementary school crushes, detentions, fights and doing badly in class. This phone had a negative effect on me because of the many fights it caused with my twin sister, due to sharing a phone. It wasn’t common for someone to share a phone with someone else so it angered me. It was a “globalized pattern” to have your own phone by at least 5th grade at the time period when I was in elementary school. My mom’s reasoning for us sharing a phone was because “we were always together anyway” (eye roll). But in reality, it was just a way to for us to communicate to her, not to communicate to half of the elementary school. Overall, my literacy artifact is something that I will never forget about.
A world without digital literacy is something unimaginable. It’s something that surrounds us and we don’t realize sometimes. If you think we don’t need digital literacy, you are wrong because one way or another, you have some type of digital literacy knowledge to know how to access Weebly and read my post right now. In Rhinegold’s article, he talks about digital literacies and why we need them in our lives. He first discusses the issues that come along with digital technologies. It damages us because we don’t know how to use it, we don’t become mindful when using technologies (searching the web, texting, etc. without thinking and going through the motions), and we don’t use it at appropriate times. Technology is something that we need to be mindful of when using technology and be smart when using it. We need to know the suitable time and place when to use technology. “One tool that I do feel comfortable generalizing about is the importance of questioning my own communication practices- recognizing which media and mediated social activities I tend to avoid, which ones attract or distract me, and which lead and mislead me, and reflecting on why I react these ways” (8). This quote stuck out to me the most as I was reading because of the mini checklist it is aiming for readers to think about. I never really thought about this until I subconsciously did this on my own in high school. Instagram is a type of social media where it’s filled with pictures and captions that people can post to their account. These pictures can be edited with filters and then can receive likes or/and comments. This type of social media attracted me because it was something that didn’t require much thinking when scrolling through the feed and it was interesting to look at.
This is important to reflect on because even though having digital literacy is important because of the “attention, participation, collaboration, the critical consumption of information, and network smarts” (5), it is something that can negatively harm a person. Overall, digital literacy is something that people need to be more mindful of and is important because you need to know how to use technology and figure out if it’s the right type of technology for you.
Literacy. A word that we see everyday but do we really know what it means? Barton and Hamilton took a different approach what literacy practices are. A different approach as in a way to explain what the true meaning of literacy practices. I agree with Barton and Hamilton about their discussion of literacy practices. They define literacy practices as “what people do with literacy” (7). Literacy practices goes hand in hand with social practices. That’s confusing right? Because we always viewed literacy is something as boring as just writing and reading. This means with literacy, it comes with social events and practices because when people write, it connects them to their social interactions and lives. For example, there can be a handbook on yoga poses with instructions, which is the literacy practice, but literacy is a set of social practices. Yoga is something that is learned and practiced in their daily lives (social practice). It’s something you can do socially. They can read a handbook which is a printed or written and it can be something that someone verbally shows you from a yoga instructor. When we do our everyday social activities, we are practicing the act of reading and writing without even knowing it. Knowing this information about the relationship with literacy and being social, I realize that everyday I am gaining insight and knowledge on literacy. Literacy comes in all different types. That’s where Barton and Hamilton explain what discourse communities are. First of there are different domains such as the work place, school, home, etc. These domains guide and are associated with discourse communities. Discourse communities are “groups of people help together by their characteristic ways of talking, valuing, interpreting, and using written language (11). People will write, read, and talk differently if there are in school rather than if they are home. I would never use improper language and “slang” as we like to call, or words like “gtg” (unless a teacher calls for slang in my writing) in my writing in school because it wouldn’t be following the curriculum and isn’t proper. However, I would say or write this at home or when I’m with my friends. This is how they shape our literacy practices. The different expectations and the social practices in each discourse communities are what shape our literacy practices. In high school, I was a part of a soccer team. As a child, I used to watch soccer games on the TV (visual) and would practice with my dad every Sunday. This is a literacy practice because I would visually watch the game but would also have to know and read the rules of soccer (written or could be verbal). I would never have viewed soccer as a social aspect of literacy. If it weren’t for the social interactions involved with learning the rules and techniques, whether it was verbally or as a written text, and visually looking at soccer games, I would have never became the soccer player I was. Literacy shaped me into the soccer player I am today because of how literacy is a social practice.
If people knew what the word literacy means, would they tackle literacy different? If students knew that literacy is a social practice, would they be more motivated to work and want to learn more because of the social aspect involved that people are unaware about? I wonder since now I view literacy as a social practice, will I change in terms of the way I work and do everyday tasks? Will I be more mindful? Overall, the big picture here is that literacy isn’t something just as simple as reading and writing. People should know that it’s a set of social practices, which are shaped by different types of communities. |