Bianca Dunn-Rydh, Charles Monks, Francois Vandette, Kylie Finlayson,

& Alexandre Robichaud

"Why Academic Jargon Thrives”

Dr. Martin, from the University of Wollongong, works in the Department of Science and Technology Studies and wrote the text I will

elaborate on, "Why Academic Jargon Thrives".

Jargon = language and vocabulary used in particular professions and fields of study Jargon is used to maintain control and status in the academic world Discipline = field of study or subject of interest

Practitioner = professional, specialist Practitioners assert that they are the only ones who have the ability and right to make judgments and decisions in their particular field of study, or to earn a university post. 

No degree?

Get the f*** out. 

"Credentials are central to disciplinary control. A tight, effective discipline will demand that all who enter the field must have degrees in the discipline itself. No outsiders are allowed. Someone with lots of experience in practical psychology or engineering, but without appropriate credentials, is most unlikely to obtain a university post."

Specialists erect walls by utilizing jargon to prevent outsiders/newcomers to oscillate between disciplines they have not spent adequate time studying. 

"Jargon serves another purpose too. It separates academic work from the so-called "general public". Academics may battle among themselves over knowledge, but they have a common interest in maintaining the status of academic knowledge in the eyes of the outsiders. If what academics do is too easy to understand, then it becomes harder to justify comfortable salaries and conditions."

It is all about preserving status and keeping the niches exclusive. 

Knowledge should be accessible, shared, and exchanged. Teaching versus researching is tearing down the walls created by jargon and by those who conceal information.

"The idea that jargon exists just because specialists need to communicate  with each other helps to hide other reasons for jargon. It hides the key role of jargon in struggles by specialists to gain power and status. It hides the way jargon is built into the structure of disciplines, systems of publication and the whole apparatus of credentials."

DC Universe online

MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) which is set in the world of the popular DC comics universe.

What it is:•Players create a character of there own design that is granted extraordinary powers of the players choosing.•Each player is able to choose a mentor who are iconic characters from the fictional universe.•The iconic characters give you missions and simulate training for the player to become the ultimate superhero.•Players can communicate with other online players via real time chat, text, facebook, twitter, and various other methods.•Teams and leagues can be created with other players and you can do battle and save the world with people from across the country.•Each player can be unique as they wish even to the point of creating a character with powers that represent the players own personal tastes.

How it could be educational:•The world created for the players is vast and holds over sixty years of comic book history.•There is a massive online community not just through the game, but also through the official website and social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and online blogs that allow players to interact and communicate with each if other means of social exchanges are hindered.•Classes could be both fun and educational through this online world. It would allow for instructors to give interesting scenarios and problems through a fictional world to help teach students how to solve puzzles and various other situations.•Going to class would be that much more interesting flying to a rooftop and overlooking the vast cities of Metropolis and Gotham City as well as the comic accurate locations hidden around the digital world.•Those who have learning disabilities or have difficulty reading could be more inclined and adept at learning from a simulated world that offers not only simple modes of communication, but also in depth customization.

Technical issues:•Like all new technology the game suffers draw backs from visual glitches to uploading lags.•The PC version has a much smoother download speed and also performs better in game with better graphics and less lag during chat.•The PS3 version has a longer install duration and technical glitches such as frame rate drop and graphical inconsistencies occur more often which can take away from the experience.•The higher the amount of players during a single session the less likely the game will run smoothly and will cause game play to be less enjoyable.•There is no cross platform option which in general means those who use a PC version are unable to join and communicate with players using a console version.

Possibilities of community discrimination:•Like most media this game has the possibility of player discriminationThe term 'fan boys' can be applied to those who are aware of the underlying properties history.•Those who are new to the concept of the comic book back story may find it difficult to engage others in game play.•Some fans tend to like both DC and Marvel characters and 'fan boy' bashing can occur if a 'troll' decides to jump on someone who is uneducated in the history of DC comics.•Players new to MMORPG's will possibly feel uneasy entering the game with others who are clearly very adept at using the game. •More experienced players could target the inexperienced players and make the game less enjoyable for them. •Those who do not have a PC or PS3 will not be able to enjoy the benefits of DC Universe online and also will not be able to contribute to an online classroom.

“Scholarship Boy”

Robert Rodriguez was born into a Mexican immigrant family in San Francisco, California, and spoke only Spanish until age six. Has a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley and has pursued a career in

Journalism.

• Distancing from Family

“Not for the working-class child alone is adjustment to the classroom difficult. Good schooling requires that any student alter early childhood habits. But the working-class child is usually least prepared for the change. And, unlike many middle-class children, he goes home and sees in his parents a way of life not only different but starkly opposed to that of the classroom. (He enters the house and hears his parents talking in ways his teachers discourage.)

[...]Here is a child who cannot forget that his academic success distances

himself from a life he loved, even from his own memory of himself. [...] The boy needs to spend more and more time studying, each night enclosing himself in the silence permitted and required by intense concentration. He takes his first step towards academic success, away from his family.”

• Unintentional Disrespect of Parents & Worshipping the Teacher

“The scholarship boy reaches a different conclusion. He cannot afford to admire his parents. [...] He permits himself embarrassment at their lack of education.”

“I was not proud of my mother and father. I was embarrassed by their lack of education.”

----------------“The kind of allegiance the young student might have given his mother

and father only days earlier, he transfers to the teacher; the new figure of authority.”

“The docile, obedient student came home a shrill and precocious son who insisted on correcting and teaching his parents with the remark: “My teacher told us...”

• Ambition

“After dinner, I would rush to a bedroom with papers and books. [...] I kept so much, so often, to myself. Sad. Enthusiastic. Troubled by the excitement of coming upon new ideas. I hoarded the pleasure of learning. Alone for hours. Enthralled. Nervous. I rarely looked away from my books - or back on my memories. Nights when relatives visited and the front rooms were warmed by Spanish sounds, I slipped quietly out of the house.”

“Disliking Books at an Early Age”

Gerald Graff, PhD in English and American literature from Stanford University. Currently a professor of English and education at the

University of Illinois at Chicago.

"My father, a literate man, was frustrated by my refusal to read anything besides comic books, sports magazines, and the John R. Tunis and Claire Bee sports novels. I recall his once confining me to my room until I finished a book on the voyages of Magellan, but try as I might, I could do no better than stare bleakly at the pages. I could not, as we would later say, "relate to" Magellan or to any of the other books my father brought home; detective stories, tales of war and heroism, adventure stories with adolescent heroes (the Hardy Boys, Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates), stories of scientific discovery (Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunter's), books on current events. Nothing worked."

• What makes a person want to read or not want to read?

• Why doesn't it help to force somebody to read?

"As I think back on it now, it was as if the critical conversation I needed had up to then been withheld from me, on the ground that it could only interfere with my direct access to literature itself. The assumption was that leaving me alone with literary texts themselves, uncontaminated by the interpretations and theories of professional critics, would enable me to get on the closest possible terms with those texts. But being alone with the texts only left me feeling bored and helpless, since I had no language with which to make them mine. On the one hand, I was being asked speak a foreign language, literary criticism, while on the other hand, I was being protected from the language, presumably for my own safety.”

• In past school experiences how many books did you enjoy reading. Do you think the way the material was taught effected the way you read it?

• Does translating books into a critical discussion make the topic more interesting or personal?

"The moral I draw from this experience is that our ability to read well depends more than we think on our ability to talk well about what we read. Our assumptions about what is "primary" and "secondary" in the reading process blind us to what actually goes on. Many ,iterate people learned certain ways of talking about books so long ago that they have forgotten they ever had to learn them. These people therefore fail to understand the reading problems of the struggling students who have still not acquired a critical vocabulary."

• Knowing how to talk about books makes it easier to read them. Is this statement true or false?

Thank you for your attention.

And now, onto Slide Share with Alexandre Robichaud

/dubstep/dance