My name is Esther. I'm a second year M.A student in Critical Studies in Literacy and Pedagogy in the Rhetoric and Writing program. I earned my B.A degree in Literature and Sociology and my M.A in African Literature from the Univerisity of Nairobi many many years ago. Before joining MSU, I had worked for four years as probation officer in Kenya!! While I was really really nervous making the transition from workplace to the academia, I have been surprised how much I borrow from my past work experience. This has been helpful in helping me bridge workplace literacies with academic literacies, particulary at the writing center where I have been working as a tutor for the last one and half years. This has been a very exciting experience.
My research interest revolve around global hiphop cultures/ literacies. My current research is on Kenyan Hip-hop, particulary its unique, hybrid language called Sheng. I'm taking this course because I think I'm always behind when it comes to technology and I need a little catching up to do. More importantly, because I see myself going into teaching in the near future, I want to be able to apply the latest technologies in my classroom teaching. I'm sure the technologies will also come in handy as continue doing my research. I look forward to participating in this class and learning from each one of you.
Thanks,
Esther
Cool! Any YouTube vids you can share to show us what Sheng is like?
ReplyDeleteHello Esther,
ReplyDeleteLike you I was VERY nervous about making the transition back to student life. I am still slightly nervous, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of things (at least I hope I am).
I have never heard of Sheng before. I can't wait to hear more about it. I look forward to learning from you as well!
This is a sample comment to show Esther what it should look like
ReplyDeleteblogger, why are you frustrating me?
ReplyDeleteYay! I cant believe finally am able to post comments after days of being frustrated by blogger. Bill, I tried using Mozilla Firefox instead of internet explorer- Do you think changing the browser did the trick? While this is such a relief, I want to reflect in a line or two what I have learned from this experience, particularly in relation to the affordances of blogger as an artifact/technology. First, I wonder if there was a "real" problem in the first place or whether it was just me 'perceiving' blogger as having some negative affordances! What I found more frustrating was that as much as I wanted to play around with it to figure out what the problem was, I feared that I would interfere with blogger's "proper" or "preferred" affordances. For example, clicking the wrong button or (un)intentionally deleting certain features may result to what Costall calls sanctions resulting from deviations from using the object in ways in which it was not intended- leading to damage of the "real" functions. I'm looking forward to exploring all the affordances of this technology and the others we will be reading or dealing with this semester.
ReplyDeleteShenika, Bill- am glad you want to hear more about Sheng- I will share with you(class) when we meet.
Hi Esther,
ReplyDeleteYes, it likely was a browser compatibility issue. Glad you stuck with it and tried another browser!
I like the word "sanctions" used here - it retains a sense of responsibility on the part if those making design choices rather than conferring that "error" to the user or imagining consequences as part of inevitable cost/benefit tradeoffs.