Keeping It real
Blog Post #1:
Q: What skill(s) are you training for? What have you learned so far this week? What challenges and celebrations did you encounter? What are your goals for next week? Any surprises?
A: The skill I'm training for is learning to use unity and how to program VR worlds. I have learned how to create a project on unity and I have learned a little bit of coding (C#). Some challenges I have faces are C# is a hard language to learn and it is going to take a while to master. Some celebrations are I finally can get started on unity and creating worlds for the VR experiences. My goals for next week is to get more familiar with unity and the programming you must master to use it. A surprise for me was how difficult unity is to use.
Q: How did our study of propaganda and doublespeak impact your thinking about reality? What questions did this study raise for you?
A: Learning about propaganda and doublespeak makes me question everything and try and analyze everything to see if it is just propaganda or doublespeak. Some questions would be does every company or organization do this and whats the main usage of propaganda, like threw watching TV, reading the news paper or a magazine, or social media.
Blog Post #2:
Q: What was the most disturbing prediction in the singularity reading and why?
A: The most disturbing prediction was when the reading said that we will only use bitcoins instead of paper money. I think this is crazy because i can not imagine not using real money, just money that is online.
Q: In what way was the job fair/interview process authentic? How could it be made more authentic? What did you learn about yourself through this process?
A: This job fair was authentic because I had never really had any practice for a job interview and this activity gave me a good understanding of what a job interview is like. I think if it was done a little more professionally it would have been better. Like put people in offices and have them ask deeper questions.
Q: Does advertising shape or reflect our society? Should there be stricter regulations on advertisers? If so, what restrictions should there be?
A: I think advertising affects our society somewhat but not a lot. For the people that have a TV or read magazines it might affect them, but for the people who isolate themselves and don't read magazines or watch TV, they are not affected at all. I don't think there should be stricter regulations because companies should be able to advertise how ever they want.
Blog Post #3:
Q: What is working well so far? What problem have you noticed so far in this project and how would you fix it?
A: What working well for me so far is I enjoy learning about VR programming and I feel like I am learning a lot. A problem that I have noticed throughout the project is the whole money part of the project. I think we are more focused on getting the most amount of money instead of focusing on the learning part of the project. Even though we probably can't do this, I think we should just git rid of the paying people and the budget.
Q: What strategies do you find helpful when trying to work in a distracting place?
A: I usually just plug in music and that usually block out all of the distracting sounds and noises.
Q: How can words be used by those in power to influence our choices?
A: People in power can use things like propaganda to make us think something is true or real but in reality it isn't. People can also make things seem better than they really are, which can influence our choices on matters like politics.
Blog Post #4
Some celebrations that I have for this week is that I finished my common app essay and I finished my first application to Santa Clara University.
A time I felt cognitive dissonance was when I tried to import one of the models that we are using for our group project and the model would import wrong every time no matter what we did to try and fix it.
My opinion of hashtag activism changed over the course of this week by now I think hashtag work because they do spread the word and create awareness for certain topics that need to be addressed.
Blog Post #6
Q: How can we share our VR worlds at the Maker Faire on Dec. 3? Be specific. How will you succinctly describe the process of developing VR content? How will a passerby experience our VR worlds? What can a participant take from our booth that would help them develop their own VR content? How will you communicate the bigger picture issues you investigated? E.g. what is reality? How do we develop/recognize biases?
A: I think we could have a booth with the google cardboard, oculus rift and the vive so each participant can get an idea of what VR experience is more accessible to them. We can maybe show the participant the different programs that where used such as Unity and Destinations. The passerby could use something like the google cardboard and if he/she liked it then they could use the vive and oculus. Everyone thinks that VR is very expensive but we could show them that the google cardboard is not expensive at all and it is available to everyone. We could have info on the side that demonstrates the event that we are trying to portray in our VR world.
Q: Provide a brief summary of Dewey's ideas. Where in the VR project do you see Dewey's Ideas being implemented? Where could they be better implemented.
A: Dewey's ideas essentially talk about how instead of teaching kids how to just memorize and take test, we need to teach kids how to learn and use the information they learn in the real world. These ideas are being implemented in our vr project by using a hourly based money system to determine the final grade of the project. I think this gave me a good idea of how jobs are done in the real world and gave me good kills to use in the future. I think these ideas could be better implemented by maybe having us sell our vr projects for fake or real money.
Q: Provide a brief summary of Pink's argument about motivation. What would this look like in the school setting?
A: I think it would look something like the vr project we are doing now. I think if we are given the freedom to work on what we want, we do more thought out and polished work.