"Put on a dress!"

"Don't sit like that, be more ladylike!"

"Look more ladylike."

"A woman must look nice to attract a man to look after her."

"All those gays are going to Hell!" 

"Find yourself a nice man."

"Be more normal!"

            The rise in popularity of social media networks such as Facebook in our generation has sparked a lot of discussion amongst people about its potential for breaking down barriers of self-expression, especially when it comes to gender identity and exploration. As one study quotes, “Online media was cast as a potential agent of social change with respect to gender oppression and discrimination on a number of levels” (Bailey et al. 4). People talk about having the freedom to customize their Facebook profiles to portray the person they believe themselves to be, or aspire to be. It also seems in many ways to be a great avenue in which to explore and express gender identity. I myself have found that I love using my Facebook profile to express my continuously changing gender identity. Though I identify as a woman and have never changed genders, over the past few years the way I express my gender identity has certainly altered. By uploading photos and making posts on my Facebook profile, I have found a way to proudly express my identity to my “friends” as it changes. I even have a good friend who transitioned to a gender-neutral identity over the summer, and they used Facebook as a way to make people aware by changing their name and pronouns on their profile, followed by an open statement about it in a post to clear up any confusion. With all of these positive experiences, it would seem that Facebook is an ideal playing field for social change.

I had a really interesting and unexpected personal experience when presenting our anti-self portraits to the class. I really loved creating mine and I thought it showed a cute and happy little snippet of my private life and the things I love (yes, I do sit in my room naked playing the ukelele frequently). I was really excited to present it in class because I thought it represented the person I was very well. However, when I got to class and started looking around at all of the other anti-self portraits people made, I began to feel really insecure about my own. So many people had created these amazing, beautiful portraits that showed a deeper, sometimes darker part of who they were or the things they have experienced, and I felt like my happy little video was inadequate and superficial. I felt really self-concious about it and was really worried that I had messed up the assignment and should have done something to represent some deep dark part of me that no one knew about. Then at the end of the class when Laura Swanson mentioned mine as a happy anti-self portrait (in a way, validating it for me), I realized that I had chosen to do a happy portrait for a reason, though I may not have realized it at first. I am in general, a perpetually happy person down to the core no matter what, and though I don't often acknowledge that out loud, it is something I see in myself and I guess subconciously felt the need to represent in my portrait.

So far in my placement I have made contact with the student from Ghana and we have set up a time for us to gchat every week. This initial contact is very important and S (my pen-pal) seems nice and just as excited as I am to finally get started. We have agreed to talk via Google chat Monday afternoons. In the placement group we have talked about what kinds of questions we are going to ask our pen-pals.

Our class discussions on the structure of the e pen-pals has been a little confusing but I think we have been getting better at figuring out the expectations for the placement. Our Google Doc and having a point person to lay out our path has been helpful.

At this point now I think it is important for everyone in the group to make initial contact with their pen-pal and set up times to talk. I think it is also important that we continue to talk about what we discuss with our pen-pals so we are on the same page. We should also discuss with our pen-pals how they access the internet to understand what they do on their end to talk with us. 

Our group managed to set up a meeting with Ms. S to discuss some questions we had regarding our schedules, and the project that we are planning to do. Ms. S managed to give us a good idea of how this project might work, and she helped rearrange times for us to go to the kindergarten to observe the classroom and kids for a bit. We all went to observe at different times, so we can have a good idea of how their day works. I went to the kindergarten from 8:45-10:45am and observed the first part of their day, which consists of kids choice, recess, and snack time. The kids get to choose what they want to play with, among a good number of activities such as painting, reading, playing doctor, and etc. 

We are meeting up again this Sunday to start planning our project and lesson plans, since by then all of us will have observed different times of the day and have a pretty good idea of how the kindergarten works. We're using google docs and google calanders and also sharing them with the Kindergarten teacher and Ms. S so that they can always comment, suggest, and help us out with our project. But our project is centered around the idea of "growth," and is divided into four parts. We are also hoping to be able to contact an elementary school at Ghana and collaborate with them. For now, we want to have a final end product of an e-book, a hardcopy, and a video. The e-book will be the one that we will be constantly updating, so everyone can follow the project along the way.

NEWSWORKS has a story about The Quiet Volume:

My group and I have yet to go to our placement, but I think that we will be able to start next week.  As we work past this hiccup, I need to remain patient and keep in mind that teaching is an extremely demanding and time consuming profession, with or without technology to help ease the workload. 

In the meantime, we'll continue preparing for our placement: figuring out logistical details and determining our own personal goals for the placement. Because the classrooms we'll be working in heavily incorporate iPads, my group and I are going to explore the devices' functions and capabilities. 

This week our group has been trying to figure out the logistics of our placement visits. We're so excited to get involved in the classroom. 

Right now I'm just feeling excited to actually get involved. I think our group has a solid framework set up for how we want to navigate our placement, so we're now just waiting for input from the teacher. I can't wait to get started.

what:

One of our group's goals for this week was to learn how and where our pen pals were accessing technologies in order to have our conversations each week. My partner said that he currently borrows his friend's computer to talk, but his friend will be going to Denmark soon and Adam will have to then pay to use internet at an internet cafe in nearby Tamale. Our group also was hoping for each of us to set personal goals with our pen pals as well as expectations. Adam and I established that we would both like to learn more about each other's cultures and education systems. I told him that in America, we usually graduate high school around 17 or 18 years old. He informed me that there in Ghana, due to lack of funds, one can push back their high school graduation until their mid to late 20s. In fact, he graduated a few months ago at the age of 27, took his examinations to get into college, and says he will get the results by December or January. He has been working as an administrator for a local youth association for the past few years and wants to study government.

so what:

Now that we have started our back and forth, I feel that the ice is broken more than before and I have a clearer idea of his day to day life and the timeline of his education so far. 

now what: