Category: Unit 3

Unit 3

Unit 3: Artist’s statement – Final Draft

Post author By kaeun
Post date May 18, 2021
No Comments on Unit 3: Artist’s statement – Final Draft

Usually when someone sits down to write an essay for a school assignment, coming up with an interesting topic to talk about is probably one of the hardest things to do. The topic has to be something of interest to you, while having enough content to discuss, while also not boring the reader of the essay as well. I was thinking about what topic to choose, when I remembered an issue that’s been popping up a lot on my social media. On Twitter, I follow a bunch of female streamers who play this game called Valorant. Valorant’s a first-person-shooter game where players run around a map trying to shoot each other down — which isn’t really important. The important thing is that in the game, players within the same team communicate with each other through voice chat, as keeping track of locations of the enemy team is a very important aspect of the game. However, this is where the issues come up. In most games, players will use the voice chat productively to help the team out by calling out the locations of the enemy team, until a female player speaks up. As soon as players realize a female is in the same team as them, sexist remarks start flying in. Many of these female streamers have posted clips showing these misogynistic behaviors of these players in-game, and some of the things that have been said to them are just downright disgusting. Toxic comments are never warranted but toxic comments stemming just from the basis of one’s gender is even more rude and unnecessary. Along with these female players, I have also experienced these behaviors while playing Valorant as well. Playing video games should be an enjoyable activity for all parties involved; however, when I experience things like this, it makes me upset and embarrassed for playing the game.

By talking about this issue, I want other players to be aware of this problem that’s going on — which isn’t just the issue of toxicity in this specific game called Valorant. I want to talk about sexism and misogyny in the gaming community as a whole. These sexist beliefs not only just pop up within these multiplayer games; they exist in the real-life world as well. While researching the topic, I realized that these beliefs carry out in our workforces as well. A large, well-known gaming corporation called Riot Games has been outed multiple times for their sexist practices as well. I want to create a community that welcomes everyone and accepts all genders and the first step in creating change is bringing awareness.

To be honest, if you personally haven’t been a target of these behaviors, it’s hard to sympathize with these players and want to do something to create change. This is why I’ve decided on making a podcast to talk about this and hear the stories of these women that have been affected. In my opinion, hearing the stories from these individuals would have a much stronger impact on the audience rather than reading some text on a piece of paper. Listening, rather than reading the stories of these individuals allows the audience to get a better sense of the emotions and feelings that the person was experiencing during that time, which could allow the listeners to sympathize with them a bit more easily. Also, considering the topic audience, they’d probably much rather listen to a podcast than read an interview or a research paper on this topic. Listening to a podcast is something that can also be done wherever, such as while running errands or while driving, which fits the lifestyle of the young, gaming population as well.

Especially since podcasts can be found anywhere online, even in places such as Spotify nowadays, it could be seen by a large demographic of people all over the world. Even though all these considerations have been made to try to appeal to our target audience, these efforts probably won’t instantly change the attitudes of the people in the community, but it would be a step in the right direction for positive change.

At first the thought of a podcast sounded really fun — until I realized I had no idea on how to approach making the podcast. At first I tried to write a script, like it was some kind of play or movie or something but I thought that would make the conversation flow really “stiffly” so I decided against that idea. After I scrapped that idea, I started fresh and wrote down a bunch of questions for the hosts to ask for the guests. I didn’t really like that idea as well, so I just ended up sticking with a very rough outline of ideas and things that we could talk about as we conversed during the podcast. I liked that idea the best because it gave us at least some kind of structure and topics to talk about, while letting the thing be a lot more free-form and thought it would create more thought-provoking discussion.

The second big problem came up when I realized I had no idea how to lead the podcast and what the host did. Like I mentioned before, I really never watched podcasts before so I had no idea what hosts in podcasts do and how they led their podcasts. I’m also not much of a natural, talented speaker, so leading a talk show was definitely not something I would be particularly talented with. I was contemplating on deciding if I should just rewrite the script again, so I can have something to read off of and to talk without breaking the flow of the podcast, but I ultimately decided against that. This is where I got the idea to have my friend be the host and actually have me be one of the guests instead. This idea actually worked better, as in having females for the guests makes more sense than having guys, due to the context of my topic. It also helped a lot that my friend actually enjoys listening to podcasts regularly, so he knew the way a podcast should flow and knew how to guide it in a somewhat “professional” podcast way. Having me as the guest also allowed me to answer the questions a lot more detailed compared to what anything my friend might have said due to the fact that I was the one that did the research and was more educated on the topic compared to him.

If I could do the podcast all over again, I would definitely change a lot of things. The first big thing would be to educate myself and listen to a few podcasts before I started recording mine. This would have probably allowed me to structure the whole thing better and would have sold the whole recording as a more professional product. Another thing that I wish I could have changed was the open-structure of the outline of the things I wrote down to talk about. Since the outline I created for the podcast was so open-ended, we ended up rambling on about a lot of the stuff and ended up just talking too much about things. Because of this, the podcast ended up being a lot longer than I expected and we had to cut the podcast off abruptly at the end to make sure the listener doesn’t fall asleep listening to the never-ending podcast. Another thing was the technical difficulties I kept having while trying to talk on the show. My mic kept cutting out and left us with some awkward pauses while I was trying to work to get my mic to work. This could probably be solved by editing the pauses out and retrying that particular question or situation, but I lack the editing program and the skills to do that.

Out of the many things we did in the podcast, the thing that I really liked and thought was well incorporated was our little sponsorship ads. I felt that they helped the podcast feel a bit more realistic and helped breakup the podcast into sections. Another thing that I really liked was the dynamic of the entire party. It probably helped as the people that helped me make this were my close friends, but the easy-going dynamic and flow of the podcast probably helped in making the podcast a lot more enjoyable to listen to.

PODCAST LINK (44 mins): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XHtZNeB8t0TtEXfhDbvd7QMNn5CASMxm/view?usp=sharing

Unit 3

ARTIST STATEMENT (Final)

Developing my topic question was a challenge; I ponder different ideas. For example, I thought about the current situation at the border in Texas regarding families trying to enter the United States for refuge. Undoubtedly, that would have been an interesting topic; however, we have thousands of people living in the United States who need shelter. We classified them as homeless, but how did they get to this point. Just think about it we have thousands of people trying to enter the United States for refuge and a better life; also, thousands of people living in the United States seek the same thing. Another way to look at it, living in New York City, you may cross a homeless person on the train, park, or the store. Has it ever crossed your mind how did this person end up homeless? It formulated the question: What are the contributing factors that generate homelessness in the United States? In addition, I worked in a city shelter that provides services for the homeless population. I have noticed each year; the numbers of homelessness increase around New York City. Homelessness is not just, and New York City issues this misfortune of homelessness affects many States. This assignment presented the opportunity to explore some of the contributing factors to the cause of homelessness. Most people will narrow homelessness down to job loss, wrong career decisions, or substance abuse. Homelessness goes much deeper my research presented a variety of issues to the cause of homelessness.

My research proved an abundance of information; most was gear around opinions and an inclusive statement about the growing issue of homelessness. The first article I selected was Homelessness, Poverty, and Social Exclusion by Marybeth, a professor at Vanderbilt University. What is unique about this article it provides homelessness on a global scale. The article proved homelessness data from different countries and displayed the United States as one of the highest homelessness rates. I also obtain information from a Non-Profit agency specializing in collecting data to solve homelessness in the United States. My last resource of data is the YouTube page that gets data and implemented some solutions for homelessness.

I intend to target young adults ages twenty-one to thirty-five. I feel there is a lack of awareness of the homelessness issue taking place in the United States. My research also uncovers that this age bracket (21 to 35) is the highest homelessness rate. Each year the homeless numbers continue to rise. Homelessness is affecting many young adults as they transition to full adulthood hood. My research uncovers policies and the lack of funding from our federal Government are contributing factors towards homelessness. My object is to enlighten and encourage people to get involve with resolving the ongoing issues with homelessness. The age bracket is the new frontier to implement change. The best method to reach this age bracket is utilizing a PodCast. Data supports young adults’ gravitas towards social media, verse the traditional newspaper or magazine for information.

Selecting a PodCast as the best method to reach my target audience starts with a song that tends to catch many people’s attention. The song is an old song; however, the message is solid and transparent. The title of the song is “Wake Up Everybody” by Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes. When the music comes up on the lyrics ” There is so much hatred, war, and poverty,” the open dialogue will tackle my first two topics, poverty, and social exclusion. Funding will is the last item and will lead into the closing song by Aloe Blacc title “I need a dollar.” The reason I selected this song is to encourage people to donate to charities to help the homeless. For example, National Alliance to End Homelessness, Urbanpathways, and Breaking Ground are all non-profit organization that depends on donation to assist with the fight against homelessness. If we all donate a little, no one will have to contribute a lot to generate more funding for homelessness.

In conclusion, doing the Pod Cast was kind of awkward. The most complex challenge was trying to organize the data and present it in a convincing matter. Overall, I think it came out good. If I could couple of things is to have a cohost to take some of the pressure. It was more of a challenge sitting alone in front of a lab top talking to myself and not getting a reaction from my intended audience. Ultimately, I believe my presentation of the data is convincing.

Unit 3 Weekly Assignments

Artist’s Statement (Final Draft)

Post author By Zinaida Zolotnik
Post date May 12, 2021
No Comments on Artist’s Statement (Final Draft)

The future generations are comprised of the children of today; hence they become the greatest determinants of how the future will look like. Parents play a great role in the development of their children, including molding their future. Even though, teachers play a greater role in the lives of the children more than parents. The main reason for the situation is because children spend most of their time growing up in schools more than at home. In most cases, the teachers who create immense impact in the lives of the children are those that encouraged them and showed them the correct way to handle life situations. On the other hand, teachers who kept on discouraging them and mocking their weaknesses also impact their lives, but in this case, it is a negative impact. The education system measures success by the grades the children acquire, and the teacher’s performance, on the other hand, has its measure as the content in which the children have in their minds at the end of different sessions. Performance in both the level of the teacher and the student has its measurement technique as the tests in which the students participate at the end of a specific period. Curiosity is also essential in the lives of children in different ways. There is a great connection between curiosity and exploration. If it were not for curiosity, many of the modern-day innovations could not exist. Normally children learn faster than adults. It insinuates that if children have ample time to satisfy their curiosity, they will have better life results than adults. When children learn various things from the satisfaction of their curiosity, they would often remember the concept for a long time. In most cases, people do not satisfy their curiosity as older adults often shut them up and assume that the children’s curiosity will bring negative repercussions. Children should have the opportunity to satisfy their curiosity at different levels to get answers to different useful things.

Artist’s Statement

I have read different articles that discuss how children use various techniques to ensure that they acquire the knowledge they need with ease. The most striking article I came across discussed how a particular kindergarten school was engaging children in arts, games, and crafts before interacting with the real curriculum of normal subjects like Science and Mathematics. According to the article, the program’s main aim is to ensure that the children explore themselves to find what excites them more than the rest. Looking back at my life, I wished to have gone through a similar curriculum, and I would not have some regrets that I have in my life. I feel like the curriculum would minimize the time that I wasted fumbling with various facts trying to get ideas on what path I want to pursue in life. Growing up, I had so much curiosity, and I feel as if I did not satisfy it enough. In this case, I wanted to interact with the other form of reality on how life would turn out when my curiosity would get the satisfaction it needed.

The main audience of the project is the different school teachers who happen to be the main stakeholders in the encouraging or shuttering of the curiosity of the different students. The main avenue will be through school magazines, where most teachers get their information on what is happening in the school curriculum. Teachers are also people who enjoy reading, and an article would work well as reflective reading is what most teachers value. It is the hobby of many teachers to read and critique various texts as most of them encourage their students to read, and they want to set a good example for them to follow. Pathos will be an appropriate platform for passing the information as teachers are mostly emotional, especially about their work. Logos will also be instrumental in giving the evidence of the proposal and how effective the article is in the educational curriculum. Ethos will also be effective to show the credibility of the points that I will put across in the article.

Numerous articles and newspapers have tackled the situation differently and will be instrumental in my project. I plan to search for all the articles that discuss the faultiness of the current curriculum and those that give appropriate solutions concerning fulfilling the children’s curiosity. Most articles agree with allowing children to explore their life options by fulfilling their curiosity. There is also an emphasis on strict supervision of the children when they are engaging in activities of curiosity exploration. Initially, I thought that short stories would be instrumental in my project, but I realized that I would not cover as much content as possible. I also realized that my target audience is teachers who do not cherish short stories like children. The implementation of the project makes me proud, and I am happy that I am impacting society in different ways.

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