Harry Potter

Reading:

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past decade you have heard of Harry Potter. Before reading about the Potter wars inConvergence Media I was only somewhat aware of the conflict between Warner Bros. Studios and the fan writers. The fact that these fan writers were in middle school and yet were writing novels is an incredible achievement. One of my best friends from middle school was very much into fantasy and he has been writing a fantasy trilogy, though I think he would be in the minority. The point that I’d like to make though is there was no Harry Potter or any other type of writing fan club at our school and yet this could have been very beneficial to the students. What I especially like about the writers fan clubs is that not only were these teenagers absorbing fantasy through reading they were also creating new entertaining content, challenging the studios and conservative church groups, and teaching themselves valuable skills not taught in the classroom. I wish that more schools would pay attention to convergence culture and try to integrate it into their curriculum. One thing that I have valued about my education is how much project based learning I have done. I feel that the classroom in traditional schools, and in many of my classes at Sonoma State, is a stale environment without creative interaction and learning taking place in groups. Also, project based learning requires the students to form group roles, set deadlines, and keep each other accountable. These are the same sort of skills required in the work world, your boss isn’t always going to tell you when to finish a project or what to do outside the office to prepare for an important meeting.

iHike:

Our group made good progress in our meeting. We nailed down what elements we want to have in our app and we assigned detailed roles for each group member. Before our next meeting I am going to find out how we can get access to Apples Developer Kit as well as research how we can get help from the IT center and computer science department.