Blog #1 – August 29, 2017
The idea of having an online video chat with people from all over the country came into practice for me this week. This first class I attended was on Thursday, so I really felt grateful that this class can be recorded. I have gotten a better understanding of the basis of where to start for this class. I think this class is especially relevant with what is happening with conflict in America, so finding a topic will be better than I thought it would be. History does indeed repeat itself. Before the class, I was thinking automatically about the white supremacy rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. It is very close to home because it is about two hours from me, and my sister is going to UVA this year. Virginia is full of so much history, but since I have lived in Virginia my whole life I have been taking the historical places and history for granted. I have been really enjoying my American Studies and Sociology classes to see how patterns for social characteristics become the way they do. It was only 50 years ago that interracial marriage was legal and it happened in Virginia. The movie “Hidden Figures” was talking about the still relevant division of race in all aspects. I was a little interested in the school system concerning race and economic class. The high school I went to was very obvious in having certain groups, and then there being a correlation to the budget given to the school. In Prince Edward County, Virginia they closed down a school for predominantly African Americans. They did not change it for years, and there was a lasting impact for the students. I could see it with a lot of schools in Virginia as I did more research. Kailee and I were talking about doing something related to the Virginia school system, and so we will get more research on it. Virginia does have a lot of conflict, which I do not know if that is a good or bad thing for this class, so Kailee and I will be sure to find a topic.
As for the online blogging section of this class I feel a little more comfortable. I have taken a digital studies class and digital storytelling class at my university. Fortunately, I used WordPress to create a blogging website to showcase my work. I really will work on it more intensely the next week. What I did this week is add this blog post, but also I changed the theme of the website. I also took away some of the sidebar options to make it more simple for the time being. I am not entirely sure where the “add themes” button is, but I was able to find it for the past websites I was able to. I will work on that as well. As far as the plan for the next weeks I will try to figure out which is the best way to lay out my work. Thank you!
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Hi Alyssa, looking into conflict and attempted ways of resolving it in a Virginia school system could be a really interesting project, especially if you were able to narrow it down more to look at a specific school with a lot of resources available. It’s worth looking into!
If you’re looking for additional themes to change your blog, COPLAC is actually just limiting your choices down to the 13 themes you see when you go to “Appearances” and then select “themes.” They’ve done this because these 13 generally work well across multiple devices and have lots of Q&A on the WordPress Codex, so any issues are well documented and there are lots of resources for figuring out how to change things within that theme. Hope that answers your question; if not, let me know!
Hi Alyssa,
I’m glad to hear that you have gotten a better understanding for the course requirements in this class. I too was a little lost toward the beginning, and actually over the entire summer. I wasn’t sure exactly what they would be asking of us compared to our other classes. Now that I have an understanding of the requirements I look forward to learning more about how to narrow down and focus my interests as well as beginning a research plan.
I think you have some really cool ideas! I took a class called Culture and Education or the Sociology of Education and it was all about the achievement gap and the discipline gap in education. In retrospect, other than heavy theory in the beginning, the entire class focused on the inequalities in education. I think this is a very good topic because there is a lot out there on it. My favorite professor/author/speaker on this topic is Dr. Pedro A. Noguera, he speaks in a very interesting and easy to understand way. Many of his articles provide a well rounded response to the problems in education. I think watching some of his videos on YouTube or researching some of his articles would spark up some thoughts on your project.
If you need anymore information, sources or sources on this topic – or want to run anything by me please feel free to do so !!!
Peace & Love,
Abriana Robinson
Hello Abriana! We are actually honing in on desegregation in the schools specifically! Kailee and I would like to talk to you about that!
Thank you!
Sure you can contact me anytime!
I would like to hear more about where you are going with your project. 🙂
Peace & Love,
Abriana
arobi8@uis.edu
Also, can you tell me how you went about clearing up your side menu? I definitely want to do that!
Thanks!
Hey Abriana,
I clicked on “Appearance” when you first log into WordPress. I then clicked on “customize”, and then it brought me to what my website looked like.
I then clicked “widgets” on the left side, and then clicked “sidebar”. It will then allow you to add or delete the side menu! Sorry for the late reply! Good luck with your website! 🙂
Thank you !