Emma L.Z. Baker

student of sustainable and organic horticulture, future farmer & orchardist

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website remix emmalzbaker.webs.com

check out my new layout and new posts about #localfood and #organic apples at emmalzbaker.webs.com with lots of new pictures!

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new blog post: 'why i love zingerman's deli'

check out my new blog post! i recently went to zingerman's and was thinking about how great it is to have a restaurant like that so close - they're really moving forward the local food movement in their own unique way

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new website blog post: 'what is the purpose of organics?'

check out the new post on my website! it's all about what growing organic means and why it is an improvement from conventional methods

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cool pic from my new website's first post

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Optimism:)

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Food Corps

Food Corps is a nationwide service project (a sister project to AmeriCorps) aimed at improving the nutrition of schoolchildren and educating them about growing and eating healthy foods. Their fascinating and highly informational website can be found at www.food-corps.org. Everyone interested in sustainable, healthy food systems should check it out!

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How to Negotiate in Any Situation

Collaborative negotiation happens when both sides of a negotiation work together to satisfy both of their interests. It is important to remember when engaging in collaborative negotiation that interests and positions must be separated from people, and that basic interests are important to recognize and actively work towards. To collaboratively negotiate, first identify underlying interests and clearly separate these from the people in the negotiation. Treat people respectfully and always try to understand and validate their feelings. Don’t be afraid to make strong arguments, but don’t attack people. Try to satisfy everyone’s interests. 

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Join the Food Revolution!!

Join the Slow Food Movement: 

slowfoodusa.org - learn about the need for sustainable, local, healthy, and equitable food systems

Learn about the security of your food supply:

foodsecurity.org - information and resources about food systems, food equity, and food regulation

Learn about buying healthier food:

organicconsumer.org - information and resources about buying organic fruits and vegetables

Learn about where your food comes from:

farmland.org - news and information about farming and food

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New Media Genre & Search Engines

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zhangc21:

1.      New media means several new types of media that appears in last few years.  It is more flexible in style than traditional media.  People feel free to share their ideas and information in various ways.

Read More

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Stuck in the "new" media fishbowl

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podcaster:

Podcasters Who Podcast About Podcasting… Bloggers Who Blog About Blogging… Tweeps Who Tweet About Twitter… Year After Year It’s The Same Old Thing Over And Over Again With These Same People Stuck In What They Call The “New” Media Fish Bowl…. Move On Already… Thank Goodness For Tumblr!

- Alex Fenson - Blogger, Podcaster

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New Media for New Professionals

New media is a form of media that can be rapidly spread via the internet. It can be created, altered, and used by anyone with a computer. This makes it very different from old media, which required expensive and geographically bound infrastructure to be created and disseminated. I use new media frequently in my daily life by doing web searches for businesses or information, and interacting with other people on social media sites. I think there is some connection between new and traditional media, because many texts, photos, and other modes that were created in traditional media have now been transformed into new media. For example, reading Shakespeare or viewing famous paintings online. The way many books are now available on e-readers is a merging of traditional and new media, because the mode (a novel) is a traditional media concept, while the media itself (an e-reader) is new media. 

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Top 3 Tips for Writing an Effective Academic Blog - Project Reflection

In my first writing project for my summer writing class at Michigan State University, these are some of the processes I used: invention, arrangement, revision, delivery, and more. Following are some tips for these areas of writing, as well as some of my reflections on this project.

Invention:

1. Do the homework

2. Talk to peers

3. Read and reread the rubric

Arrangement:

1. Try new styles 

2. Add different modes to keep things interesting

3. Simpler is usually better

The most effective type of arrangement that I used was a simple layout with easy-to-read small paragraphs, using pictures and links

Revision:

1: Make titles catchier

2. Make layout more appealing

3. Add connections between different  concepts

The most effective way I revised was by systematically going through my writing and linking concepts found throughout the text. 

Delivery:

1. Make your intended audience clear

2. Include keywords in titles

3. Make formatting and language attractive to your intended audience

The most effective delivery method I used was including my intended audience in my post titles, and using attractive formatting. 

Writing Technologies Used In My Project: 

1. Asus Laptop

2. Google Chrome

3. Electricity!

My most effective use of writing technologies was using my laptop, Google Chrome, and the electricity to power them to access Tumblr to create my blog project.

Media Customs:

1. Keep your blog format fairly simple

2. Keep your language professional/academic (no profanity, no slang)

3. Relate all your writing back to your academic concepts

The most effective ways I made my blog look professional and sound academic were using a simple, clean layout, keeping all my posts relevant, and using correct grammar and punctuation.

Modes:

1. Text

2. Photos

3. Links

I used different modes together effectively by keeping in mind my main concepts and relating each mode back to my core ideas.

Audience:

My posts are intended for college students in a similar class, but another audience I might have could be writing teachers looking at sample student works. I hope to have met the expectations of these audiences by providing posts on relevant topics, presented in concise, thoughtful language.

Purpose:

This blog was intended to intelligently add to the class discussion of the course concepts. I meant to represent myself as a student capable of producing academic/professional caliber writing. I hope that my audience will see the course concepts connected in new and interesting ways, and come away with a better understanding of information/media literacy and/or citizenship.

Situation:

I created this project to improve my writing skills. I responded to this desire by revising my blog posts several times and reading the posts by my classmates.

Sustainability:

In order to sustain my blog, I intend to change it into a personal blog about myself and my career. I need to keep adding posts, and make the topics more interesting to me personally. 

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The Most Important Learning Network: My Family

If a learning network is a group of people that learn from and teach each other through interaction, then there is no more important learning network than a family. Families teach us how to define ourselves and our place in the world - the most important kind of learning. As a child, I learned many important skills directly from my parents like how to brush my teeth, and later how to drive a car.

Much of my learning came indirectly, however. I learned about justice from my mother, who, as a Methodist pastor, works with many local charities to fight poverty and hunger. I learned about strength from my father, as I watched him care for my late grandmother.

These and many other life lessons were a part of my experience with the learning network I call my family. Not only did I learn about how to grow up, but I'm sure that my parents learned a lot about themselves by having a child. This is why I think that the family is the most important learning network.

Literacy in a family is often the simple literacy of shared experience. The ability to relate to each other in terms of common experiences and shared knowledge is critical within this learning network. 

In my family, media literacy is an important way for us to relate to each other. My dad had to learn (slowly) how to text in order to effectively communicate with the rest of the family. We frequently use texting, email, and facebook to relay information and the knowledge of these media is important to our functioning as a learning network. 

I think family networks are essential for learning about oneself, but I also think they are critically important in learning how to be a citizen. Children learn values from their parents that inform their political beliefs, and parents are greatly influenced by the hope for a good life for their children when making political decisions. 

In furthering my experience with networked learning, this writing course will give me a new kind of learning network to discuss media and information literacies and citizenship. This course explores the kinds of literacy that define how to be a citizen. 

Literacy, citizenship, and learning networks are all closely tied to each other. Information and media literacy can define what kind of citizen a person is, and are crucial to functioning within a learning network, which can also influence conceptions of citizenship. These connections are all apparent in my learning network - my family.

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Response to "What Kind of Citizen? The Politics of Educating for Democracy" by Joel Westheimer and Joseph Kahne

I think the three types of citizen are not just different, but come from a progression of understanding. The personally responsible citizen has the least understanding of society, while the justice-oriented citizen has the most understanding. I think that it would arguable to say that the personally responsible citizen, while morally defensible, is the least admirable citizen, while the justice-oriented citizen is the most admirable and important. However, categorizing people into discrete type is always problematic, and many people probably fit somewhere between types.  I also think that there are many citizens who fit none of these categories – there are many people who do not participate in democracy at all. These categories seem to apply only to upper and middle class people, and do not take into account marginalized people such as prison inmates, the unemployed, those below the poverty line, and those incapable of participating in democracy because of immigration status, physical/mental health problems, literacy, or access. Another problem I have with this assessment of citizenship is that it is based in a person’s actions. I personally believe there is quite a bit of structural injustice in the United States, but I do not belong to any social movements that seek to bring about structural change. Therefore I am unsure about what kind of citizen to describe myself as – possibly a justice-oriented citizen by belief, but a participatory citizen by action.

[conza]

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