As you may have already known from many previous posts, we went to California! Every year we go on a big trip, along with this trip we have a theme that’s encompassed around our unit. This years unit was disruption. We focused mostly on the effect and disruption of technology on certain places, people and ideas. To really see in person what technology has disrupted we visited Silicon Valley along with many computer museums and twitter!

Along with this trip we did a project! For this project we were put in groups and told to pick a place where we were going to in San Diego. With this place we could either create a podcast, video, photo essay or puppet show. We also had lots of freedom for this project. The only criteria we really had was to answer the question of what our place disrupted. In the end we chose to create a video at the famous San Diego Zoo Safari Park! I really wanted to do this place because it is really controversial but at the same time, has helped the environment a lot!

At first we really didn’t know where to start for our thesis. Then we really started to research and brainstorm what the Safari Park strives for, how its different and what it’s done. We then compared this zoo to others, and realized that the safari park and many other “conservation zoos” like it are starting to replace regular zoos. Once we brainstormed some more we had a solid answer to the question and new which path we wanted to go down. I really liked our topic because it was really positive and showed growth in our society.

At this point there was about 2 days until we had to leave for California! We put together our outline for our script and cinematography to make sure we were really prepared. We also had to run through everything we had learned about interviewing the past few months because we where hoping for our interviews to be really strong. If I was totally being honest I would have wanted a lot more time to prep for the project and brainstorm but I was pretty satisfied with what we came up with over the course of two days!

Once we got to the Safari park we filmed every inch of it. The whole experience was really cool though! We learned a lot about the purpose of the zoo and what they’ve done for the environment like their biggest success story, the California Condor (you’ll learn about that in the video!). We ended up getting four interviews but one of them was unusable because the microphone jack wasn’t properly plugged in. I loved getting interviews though because every person was genuinely interested in our project and where also really passionate about what they did!

Once we got back home we started to organize the videos and start our script! The script was definitely difficult because it was really hard to organize our ideas and find a focus point for our thesis. I was pretty happy with it in the end though!

As per usual we used iMovie to edit all the clips and Garage Band to create the music! In the end Draft 1 turned out pretty well. The main thing we had to edit and focus on was the interviews. Most groups made the mistake of bunching up the interviews and not cutting up the parts they only needed. What do you think?

For our draft 2 we really narrowed down on the audio. We noticed that since we had recorded so many different clips in different places the tone and balance was really uneven. We decided to pan out the interviews and retouch some of the recordings we took at home, which worked out well in the end!

I think throughout the project we really got to learn about all the different aspects of disruption and how it can really effect everything around it. But the video was just part 1 of this project! After the video project was done we had to write a synthesis essay! A synthesis essay is a little different from normal ones though. It has to incorporate sources and very thorough evidence and not just your own experiences. The topic for this essay was also encompassed around the idea of disruption! The question was, how has technology acted as a disruption throughout history?

Once we where given our question we where given around a week to brainstorm and write out an outline including a thesis, three body paragraphs and a conclusion. Throughout the week we also learned about different types of order throughout essays like order of importance, space and time. At the end of the week I had a solid outline and figured out my thesis, here it is:

“Technology has had a huge role in our history whether it be negative or positive. It has shaped our modern world into what it is today by playing a major role in our democratic system, accelerating the growth of democracy in oppressed countries and giving a platform to terrorists.”

As for my sources I used many articles from CNN, The Globe and Mail, BBC, twitter and the novel Little Brother! The day of the essay I was a little nervous though because we weren’t allowed to bring our outline so we had to memorize it. Since the process was split into two days, the first day I finished three quarters of it and the second I finished the rest and proof read it! Here it is!

Today politics are weaved into every aspect of our life, we learn about it in school, we hear about it in the news, we write about it and we talk about it. The changes and opinions politicians put out in the world effects everybody, and it effects history. When technology gets introduced into things like politics it can be helpful but also very detrimental to our world. Technology in today’s politics has created a platform for terrorism, helped the acceleration of democracy in oppressed countries and made it easier for politicians to be elected in a democratic election.

2001, September 9th, a date everybody has carved into their mind. The day a plane crashed into the twin towers devastatingly killing 3,000 citizens. As soon as that plane hit the two towers the media was all over the event. The story hit every news headline, and just hours after the event George W. Bush made a statement saying “The US was at war with a new and different kind of enemy” (BBC). Many different media platforms got news that “the attack was denounced by governments worldwide” (BBC). Just two days after the attack it was obvious that the whole world had heard of this tragedy all because of the technology that was being used. Unfortunately this was exactly what the terrorists wanted, they wanted the world to know what they could do, they wanted to spread terror. Almost 18 years after the attack politicians and governments are still fighting against this terror. Many teen and children novels like the famous Little Brother book written by Cory Doctorow, have mentioned terrorism and the effects it still has on us. The author briefly mentioned the tragedy a few times, “The headline was set in the biggest type I’d seen since 9/11” (pg. 297).The media and technology are just creating more and more platforms to share their fear on. We are even starting to hear terrorists groups like ISIS trying to recruit young kids to join their forces using social media. “Using social media as a recruitment tool is not a new method for ISIS. In 2015, experts estimated more than 20,000 foreigners were fighting with or supporting ISIS in Iraq and Syria – and more than 4,000 of those had come from Europe, the U.S. and Canada” (The Globe and Mail). Over the past few years this has effected our politics and governmental system by putting pressure on every action they take.

As much as the internet and social media has effected the world negatively, it has also had many positive impacts. A major one that couldn’t have been possible without twitter, Facebook and YouTube is the Arab spring. The Arab spring was essentially a revolution that started in 2011 and its purpose was to accelerate the growth of democracy in oppressed countries. Many countries contributed to this continental revolution, but only few where successful to creating a democratic system. The biggest success story was in Tunisia, where they now have a semi democratic system. The only reason that any of these countries were able to revolutionize their governmental system was because of social media. Arabian countries would use YouTube to let the rest of the world know about their struggle and what’s happening. They would also use other forms of social media like Facebook and twitter to quickly let their friends and family know that there was a rally, riot or meeting. A poll later showed that “Nine out of ten Arabs responded to a poll that they used Facebook to organize protests and spread awareness” (The Globe and Mail). Just a few months into the Arab spring “the use of social media platforms doubled in Arab during the protests-” (CNN). Today there are still many countries attempting to change their oppressed countries by using social media. Without technology none of this would have been possible. Without technology peoples lives would not be changed for the better, and without technology our history would not have been effected.

Finally many politicians, prime ministers and presidents would not have been able to be elected and express their opinions without technology. Just twenty years ago being elected and attempting to run for a seat would be very different. Your campaign would have been made up of whistle top tours (small town appearances), rallies and newspaper articles. Today getting elected is a lot easier. I’m sure that by now you have heard the name Donald Trump. Many studies were done showing that technology greatly impacted his campaign. For example, this study showed the amount of advertisement trump received using social media, “social media company, Social Flow calculated during the campaign trump was getting more than three times more free exposure then Clinton by using twitter. By January he was the most talked about person in the world” (CNN). As you can tell technology has a huge impact in politics over the past few years by helping with things like trumps campaign. If twitter and other social media platforms weren’t here today, you mostly likely would never hear about trump unless you lived in the United States of America. Many even believe technology is the sole reason for trumps election. Regardless, I think everyone can agree that technology has greatly effected the election, effecting our politics, effecting our world, effecting the history, effecting our future.

Whether the technology disrupts terrorism, oppressed country’s and our democratic system it all comes back to the politics some way or another. Even if technology disrupts our future politics, the future will eventually become our history. Technology has acted as a huge disruption throughout history because decisions politicians make change the course of our history. They change the course of our tomorrow.

Since we haven’t received feedback yet I’m not sure how well I did, but overall I feel pretty confident about my essay. I do feel like I could have been a little more focused on just a few aspects rather than lots though. Regardless I was proud of the work I put out their including the video! At the end of this unit I was surprised of how much I learned from different aspects of each project. For example I learned a lot about the difference of conservation zoos and normal zoos and about animals from the video project. I also did a lot of research on politics and famous revolutions like the Arabian spring for my essay! Finally I think this unit and trip has really taught me a lot about out world and how basically everything that you do and others do always has a ripple effect and can always disrupt something!