Media Portfolio

My relationship with nature has developed over the entire course of my life, with each new experience the relationship changed. 

The first spark spans back to early childhood when I developed a strong affinity towards natural bodies of water. I learned how to swim at age two, my parents would take me into the lake with them and just let me attempt to keep myself afloat, if I needed help they were always there but I learned pretty quick how to do it on my own. Growing up I had a strong connection with natural bodies of water, I always preferred swimming in lakes rather than commercial pools but as an adult my relationship with water changed wherein it became a source of calm in the busy and stressful life of an adult. In the past few years I have connected with my heritage and recently spoke with an indigenous elder who finally gave me the answer as to why I had such a strong connection to our natural waters, in indigenous culture water is considered to be a medicine specifically for the mind, so through all those stressful times as an adult that is why water calmed me. 

Between the innocent childhood feelings towards nature and adulthood I found a love for nature photography, I was never a professional using a fancy camera but I found the beauty in a tree that looked different than the rest or a pink and yellow cotton candy like sky and began a collection of what I considered nature photography. For many years, I added to this collection through photos mostly taken by the camera on my phone, occasionally I was allowed the use of my family’s camera to take some beautiful nature shots. I still continue with this passion of nature photography as I will show in the consequent photos. 

Later in life I found through work experience that I really enjoyed working in the outdoors in addition to spending my leisure time camping. I spent two and a half years working part time for the city as an outdoor maintenance student spending my entire summers and occasional weekends fall through spring. The last spark I found was especially speaking toward nature interpretation as it was during my job this past summer working as an assistant program facilitator at RARE Charitable Research Reserve. There I got the opportunity to become a nature interpreter as even though there were key points we had to discuss on each of the different hikes each week, nature being nature there was always something different to discuss. One particular event was when we witnessed a chrysalis become a butterfly in the matter of an hour, I have included a photo of the butterfly just after it hatched. This last experience in the workplace is what has driven me towards this nature interpretation course and furthering my relationship with nature. 

The prototype of our app’s image can be seen in a previous post with the caption: “Save our city Guelph app”.

Our group project idea was to create a blanket wifi for the world, with this endeavor comes a hefty price tag, so we developed a course of action to get our project set in motion. At first, the idea of pitching our idea to investors such as those on “Dragon’s Den” came to mind however, knowing investors they would want to get profit out of their investment and with this project it may not be possible. So, I came up with the idea of making our project publicly funded, the first step towards this would be to start a Go fund me page as people are more likely to fund something that they will get an advantage from. Other aspects of our business plan for our project include using many different social media platforms in order to get as much reach to the public as possible. Our final product would require engineers that could produce satellites strong enough to produce the wifi signal anywhere in the world as well as possibly very expensive materials to build the satellites and a method of getting our products from earth to space where it could project the signal therefore, the estimated budget for start up of this project is around 5 billion dollars. The idea of allowing wealthy countries to own the satellites also came up, but with this it may change our idea of making this blanket wifi free. The idea behind this project was to give access to the internet to everyone no matter their socioeconomic status as well as improving education opportunities for third world countries. I believe that this project would be overall beneficial to everyone no matter where they are from or their socioeconomic status because it would prevent everyone from ever having to purchase large expensive data plans that many people go over their allotted data and therefore are charged more money. Also, our idea to be able to get the wifi signal in underground transit (subways) is crucial due to the fact that a lot of times we are unable to get cell phone service (and therefore data service) underground and if you take a long commute on a subway train you want to be able to use your phone for internet access. I strongly believe in our project due to the fact that it is a universal idea that most people (especially those similar in age to myself) would want and be willing to fund the project in order to get it started up as the reward would be great.

I used the wiki mostly to organize myself in this class, knowing which articles were to be read and discussed for each class as well as corresponding with my fellow classmates for our hosting night.  However, I did also participate in the some of the group discussions about course content. “I have a big love/hate relationship with [Facebook]. It can be a fantastic tool when used correctly: you can connect with friends and family that live far away (especially with changing cities for university for us first years we can still connect with people back home) and it can be a good mode of communicating information ( i.e. the university major groups and discussing related topics). However, it can also be a detriment to learning and a huge waste of valuable time. How many times have you spent time just scrolling through the endless newsfeed? I know I’ve done that and it’s one of the things I hate most, I end up wasting so much time doing such a mindless act. For me, as much as I’d like to think that I’m using Facebook, I know that it is also using me: the fact that I can’t just ignore checking Facebook when I get that notification that I got a message or a notification and the fact that my suggested posts show various athletic wear and shoe websites. Facebook is using me because it is addictive and it is constantly collecting information on me so that companies can attempt to sell me their products. However, I am also using it for my own purposes, I connect with my friends who live farther away and I use it to connect with friends and classmates for school purposes. Therefore I see both the merits and disadvantages of Facebook as when used efficiently it can be a useful tool but it can also be a source of distraction.” Another point to add on about Facebook use is that it is now used by employers to help in the decision making process for hiring; this is why I make so much of my Facebook profile very public, from the fact that I use a picture of myself, to using my real name to sharing all my personal biography information publicly; I want my future employers to find the accurate representation of me and not another person’s profile with the same name as me.

“This may be one of the toughest assignments yet since my music taste is so eclectic.... ( I love music from most genres and from many different eras (though mostly 50's to present))1. Muse2. Stone Temple Pilots (my favourite album is Core)3. X Ambassadors (Please listen to more than Renegades... Unsteady, Love songs drug songs, or the version of Gorgeous found at this link: https://youtu.be/Hr9TaQw-L-M )4. The Black Keys (The album "Brothers" , "Turn Blue" or some of the songs from "El Camino" like "Gold on the Ceiling")5. Arctic Monkeys6. The Zombies (From the 60's and still awesome!)7. Pat Benatar (Heartbreaker is my favourite song of hers, the guitar solo her husband does at the end is awesome!)8. System of a Down (depending on your taste in music there are some intense songs like "Toxicity" or "Aerials" and some less intense like "Lonely Day")9. Evanescence (or songs that Amy Lee is featured in like "Broken" by Seether)10. Adam Lambert. I started my list with the artists that I've listened to most recently, though there are so many more that I would like to add to this list (but if I did that it might end up being a novel)... If anyone has the same music tastes as me feel free to message me or talk to me in class, I love talking about music!” As I had indicated before there are many, many more artists that I could add to this list and with my statement of the top bands that I had been listening to recently, that has changed from when I posted this on the 26th of January to now at the end of the semester. A major change that I found in my choices of music in these past few weeks has been that often I find myself looking up a 3 hour or more compilation of music that one would listen to either in a yoga setting or in a spa: I believe this change has come from the fact that by listening to this music it helps me cope with the stress that the last few weeks of school brings and the fact that it isn’t quite as distracting as music with lyrics that I want to sing along to.

Shoes are a technology, humankind has created that many of us take for granted everyday. Everyday before we go to work or school we slip on a pair of shoes, thinking nothing of it but that it is part of our daily routine; but has anyone thought of where we would be without shoes? Our shoes protect our feet from the elements: in the winter they protect our feet from the cold winds and snow, in the spring the rain, in the summer the rough pavement that urbanites are so used to and in the fall declining temperatures and wet weather.

Due to the fact that my mother was raised by two professors she developed an elevated use of the english language and therefore transferred that to me. I believe that my linguistic abilities have been greatly impacted by my family as improper english and slang terms such as “ain’t” were never accepted in my household. When I was young, if I pronounced a word incorrectly or if I used a short form or slang term that could not be found in the dictionary I was immediately corrected; if ever there was a debate about the legitimacy of a word we would break out the webster’s dictionary and either prove or disprove the authenticity of the word. Another reason why I believe that I speak in a more eloquent form of the english language is I will frequently use more descriptive words than necessary; one could use the word transparent as a descriptive word, however I would use a word like diaphanous. As outlined in the paragraph above are the reasons for which I believe that I have a great command of the english language and I have never felt particularly self conscious about my speech and language. However, my speech in other languages that are not my native language (English) such as french I have not always had as much confidence with. In Canada, when communicating with others who have learned french along side me my confidence in understanding and being able to communicate with them is fairly high, however when I travelled to France it was a different experience. Speaking with people who’s first language is french is very different, than speaking with people who have learned with you; communication must go at a faster pace and there are times in which I was thinking in english then trying to translate to french. Therefore, the only time that I may have been slightly self conscious about my speech and language is when I was communicating in a different language which I had not known since birth. 

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The idea behind my privacy story did not come from a personal experience, however it does come from an unease that it could be possible for it to happen to me. My privacy story defines what cat fishing is and some ways of avoiding it. 

To begin, I discuss my personal views on the idea of cat fishing that I believe it is a growing concern in people’s lives due to the increase in interest in online dating sites and apps. However, cat fishing can even occur on other social media platforms: Facebook, twitter, Instagram etc. Within the first few shots of my story I define what cat fishing is by showing someone online messaging with someone, then when they meet the person they thought they knew is not... Typically when people think of cat fishing, they think of older people doing it to younger people however, I think it is also entirely possible that an older person such as a university student could be cat fished by a younger person such as someone in high school therefore I decided to represent this unconventional idea in my video. I also go on in the video about strategies that could potentially aid people in avoiding cat fishing: one is to verify their other forms of social media, for example if you have someone you don’t really know on Facebook check out their twitter or Instagram accounts to make sure it all matches up. Also one major indicator of a cat fisher is the lack of a lot of photos of themselves on their social media platform of choice or if the person does not like certain apps that show real time footage or photos such as snapchat or Skype. Above all though the best way to protect yourself from cat fishers is to avoid talking with people that you don’t know in person online.

     In the second last class I shared my experimentation with an aspect of social media: my Facebook page dedicated to my favourite band. When I started it up I didn't have much direction on how to build it up, I only knew that I wanted to be able to create an online community of people who shared this interest from all over the world. With experimentation and growing of the page I discovered different ways of expanding my reach and I gained a direction that encouraged community building. These included sharing my personal experiences (video and photos) and encouraging our subscribers to share their photos and stories to be officially posted to the page. Though I may not have the largest of fan base for this type of fan tribute page I believe that we are a tightly knit community that has great discussions on the page. 

The video that described copy write law was very interesting as it used clips from various Disney films but the clips were short enough that they did not violate the copy right law. When I first started watching the video it seemed very disjointed but as I watched it for longer it started to blend together and make sense. 

Next, the activity that we did at the end of the class where we did a tableau of different words was interesting because there were so many different interpretations of the same word and many of those interpretations were very creative. The value of this activity was to view the different perspectives of the same thing and also because all the words were positive words, when reenacting the words in tableau it allowed us to connect with them and therefore leave the class with a positive attitude.