How can this assignment be used in a Secondary Classroom

    Having completed my own Media Diary, I can see how this assignment can be easily be adapted for a Secondary School classroom.  One possibility would be to have the students chart their media usage for one week on a bar graph.  From that bar graph they are to pick one of the media outlets they used most often and write an essay pertaining to the history of that company and the influences they have (ie: what other companies are they affiliated with).  This will give the students insight into what is going on behind the scenes and realize that all of these media outlets have their own agenda's.

  However, I believe teachers need to be careful when they bring media into the classroom.  For example, this week one of my private trumpet students came into his lesson and was very down about school.  When I inquired as to why, it turns out he had failed an assignment because he did not understand the instructions. The assignment was to read a short story and write a Twitter feed as one of the characters. This student is an ELL student recently arrived to this country, he does not use Facebook or Twitter.  From what he could understand from his peers, Twitter was a search engine.  I believe the language barrier was a problem in this instance.  As an ELL student he not only had to grasp the English language in this assignment, he also had to grasp the complexity of Twitter's idiosyncrasies.  Hashtags, @ signs and abbreviations such as ROTLFMAO (rolling on the floor laughing my ass off), YOLO (you only live once), IDK (I don't know) and NM (never mind) which are synonymous to writing a tweet in 140 characters, it must have been overwhelming.  Therefore I believe it is important for teachers to present media in the classroom as an option.  The students should have a choice between a media based assignment and a more conventional assignment, both of which can achieve the same goal.  We cannot assume that all students are proficient in online media.

TV/Radio

   The Beat 94.5fm is a local Vancouver radio station which plays primarily top 40 pop music.  I'm not really a fan of the music, but I enjoy the morning show.  It is filled to the brim with advertising directed towards those in their 20's.  It's full of laser hair removal ads, teeth straightening ads, how to lose weight ads and the DJ's banter primarily focuses on popular entertainment stories.

   In 2011 The Beat was sold to Bell Canada.

  The Peak 102.7 is also a Vancouver based radio station.  This station focuses on promoting local and independent acts.  It is still full of ridiculous ads, but they're a little less frivolous.  This stations ads seem directed towards men and women in their 30's.  Ads include those for Futureshop, BestBuy, Long & McQuade and The Bay.

  The Peak is owned by Jim Pattison, a Canadian Business mogul.  The Jim Pattison Group is the largest privately held company in Canada, and owns businesses such as Save-On-Foods, numerous car dealerships and radio stations across Canada and even Ripley's Believe it or Not!

  I use Netflix every day on my PS3.  I don't watch TV as I don't have cable.  Netflix is a publicly traded company which is owned by Jay Hoag's Technology Crossover Ventures. Jay Hoag's portfolio is extensive, including such companies as eHarmony, Facebook, Groupon and Expedia.  For a full list of companies see the following webpage:  http://www.tcv.com/team/index.php4?23

Informative Media

   Like most post secondary students, after completing a lengthy paper, I often sit back and think to myself "What the heck did I do before Wikipedia?".  I remember when Wikipedia was first gaining momentum and it was banned from being used in any research for our papers, as it was not a reliable source.  How things have changed.  Today I use Wikipedia for academic papers, as well as finding out the name of that actor, you know, the one with the brown hair who was also in Die Hard?  I can't imagine a world without Wikipedia.

   Wikipedia is run by a non-profit organization called The Wikimedia foundation.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Wikipedia accepts no funding from the Government, nor any other corporate investors, rather it is strictly run by the people for the people.  This actually led me to make a small donation to the website.  It is nice to know that there is no agenda behind the site, and is upholding their non-biased rule themselves, by not accepting any outside corporate or government funding.  For more information visit:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ/Overview

   I am fairly new to Reddit.com, but I have become hooked.  Reddit is a social news and entertainment website.  Users post news stories or silly pictures and others are open to post comments or commentary on the stories.  It is also an outlet for politicians and celebrities to communicate to the masses.  Often these people of importance will tweet that they will be on Reddit.com for the next hour answering questions, at this point their fans/voters can go onto the website and interact with the "famous" politician or actor.  It's a really cool idea.

  Reddit was created by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian in 2006.  Reddit.com currently operates as a separate subsidiary of its parent company Advance Publications.  Advanced Publications owns many credible news papers in the United States.

   I, like many people, use Google every day.  I doubt there is anyone in North America who doesn't use Google on a regular basis.  One thing I find a little bit scary is just how big Google has become.  When researching who owns various companies they are nearly all affiliated with Google in some way.  For instance YouTube was bought out by Google in 2006.  I recently watched a documentary on the search engine and it is scary the power it has.  We can see our houses from space using Google Maps, and somehow whenever I go to search something Google seems to know what I'm looking for before I finish inputting my search.  It is also interesting to note that every single search you have ever done or will ever do is saved in Google's database in California for LIFE.  Think about that the next time you go to Google something.

   I also use GMail as my primary email provider.  I noticed that whenever I received or sent an email, a new ad would pop up on the side of my browser that eerily pertained to something I had just wrote in an email or received in an email.  This leads me to conclude that Google is definitely selling our information to other corporations.

  The search engine was created by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1996 while they were PhD students at Stanford University.  Google is now a publicly traded company, with big time investors such as; Kleiner Perkins Caufield &Byer, venture capitalists who also have a hand in Amazon, Electronic Arts, Netscape and Segwey, to name a few.

  Google is also partners with companies such as; Microsoft, Nokia, Fox News and the NASA Ames Research Center.  For more information visit:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google

Social Media Use

    Like most of my peers my age, I spent an obtuse amount of time on Facebook.  I use Facebook primarily for keeping in contact with my friends overseas, as well as overall snooping.   One thing I have always found a little discomforting are the ads on the side of Facebook's news feed.  The ads are always somehow reflect what I have been looking at on the internet, or posts I have commented on.  It is no secret that Facebook releases your personal information to outside sources, it is however, amazing how we all seem to be completely compliant with this fact.

   Facebook became a publicly traded company in 2012.  Facebook's creator, Mark Zuckerberg, still owns the majority of shares, (28% valued at 24 billion dollars).  The second largest investor (10% stake valued at 8.5 billion) is a company called "Accel Partners".  Accel partners also invests in a number of other companies, including the online slideshow website "Prezi".  As the investor list goes on, it appears many of the investors are former and current employees of Facebook, all under the age of 40.  For a complete list visit this website:  http://whoownsfacebook.com/ .

   I use Twitter nearly every day to interact with other Trumpet players and teachers around the world.  I find twitter to be an invaluable resource for connecting with like minded people.  Although Twitter does have a learning curve (learning all the hashtags, @ signs etc) once you understand it, it is quite handy.  Aside from using Twitter for professional development, I also rely on it as my main news source.  I follow "News1130am", "TheProvince" and "GlobalTVNews" to stay up to date with current events. It was actually how I learned about the recent earthquakes up north, and the pregnancy of Kate Middleton.

   Twitter was created by Jack Dorsey in March of 2006.  I was shocked to learn that the top investor is actor Ashton Kutcher through a company called A Grade Investments.  I knew Ashton Kutcher was the first person to gain a million followers on Twitter, now I know why he fought so hard to be the first, HE HAD MONEY ON IT! Craziness.  For more information visit the Twitter Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

    Unfortunately many people use Twitter to take extreme liberties with their freedom of speech.  Often tweets are insulting, nonsensical and useless.  I find this website that tracks how many times slurs towards homosexual and transgendered people is used.  It is updated live and is quite disturbing.  You can view the website here: http://www.nohomophobes.com/#!/today/

Allow me to leave you with this Christmas exercise plan...

Source: mommysavers.com via Patricia on Pinterest

Final Post

This will be my final post, as my assignment is due tomorrow (eep!).  Right now I am sitting in my Inquiry class watching the movie "Elf"...which is chalk full of Coca Cola product placement.  Although having said that, I guess stuff like that works because our potluck lunch is full of coke products haha


During the course of these three days, I've noticed that I use a few media sources more than others.  My primary sources of news comes from twitter, facebook and reddit.  Almost all of my information comes from Wikipedia.  My entertainment comes from facebook, pinterest, reddit, youtube and Netflix.  I also use my PS3 everyday to watch Netflix.  I rarely watch TV, therefore I'm not exposed to all the useless advertising, instead I seem to rely on my own research to decide whether or not to purchase a product.  Though marketing is everywhere and I know it is still yielding some influence.  I never watch the news (I don't believe in depressing myself).

Hopefully I've collected enough data to write this paper!

Top of the Mornin' ...er....afternoon...to ya

Thus far, I have used Google quite a bit this morning to track down some views on Musical Philosophy to use for my class syllabus assignment.  I then used Google to research proper citations and some music books.  After that I used Gmail to e-mail my syllabus assignment to my instructor...  All while watching Star Trek: The Next Generation on TV, where I have been bombarded with advertisements for Zantac, Futureshop, Best Buy and all that other jazz pushing consumerism for Christmas... I think tonight I will find out who the heck owns Google anyway...as it pretty much runs our lives right now.... I'm surprised I haven't used Wikipedia yet....

I am now about to embark on finding some eLinks to some journals on UBC's library website for my 307 final paper.  Only a few more days of school... definitely in need of a break!