I think the most important part of research is asking the right questions. A correctly-worded question can incite creative ways to finding answers.

I am excited to learn how to refine the questions I ask from fleeting thoughts into real questions with researchable solutions. As humans, we think many thoughts a day, and many at the same time, but being able to organize the information in your head and bring it alive properly on paper, I think, is one of the most difficult parts of research. Another very crucial method to research is writing. I believe writing is essential in every step of research, from brainstorming and forming initial points of interest, to deciding which route to take to obtain answers, to managing data, and finally to publishing results and conclusions: writing efficiently is a must.

Technology changes the way the world runs, from social interactions, to government procedres, from harvesting agriculture, to learning a new language, every aspect of the human world is effected by changes in technology. Examining changes in how humans interact with the world around them as well as how they interact with eachother in conjunction with changes in technology is very interesting. For example, the Arab Spring came about in 2011 through the use of Facebook and Twitter. Large masses of people were able to gather for a single cause against their government using social media sites: a gathering like this would not have been possible before. With information from all over the globe availabe at the touch of a keyboard or a swipe of a screen, the way humans see communities changes. You no longer have to be part of a physical community to be part of one - online communities are rampant. I am very excited to learn ways of learning about people’s interactions with other people has changed and is changing with the advancement of digital technologies. Random aside: I love people watching.

Appropriation and Transmedia Naviagtion are very important digital literacies to understand and implement. Nothing we create is entirely from scratch or entirely new. You may say that producing an original writing is unique, but where did you get the convention of writing left-to-right from? Where did you get those letters from? Those words you’re using, did you invent them? The keyboard you’re tapping away at, I’m sure you invented that as well. The sentence structures, the grammar, the ideas - we construct things from other things in every facet of creation. So limiting the ability to use content online to create new content drastically limits the amount of content the world is going to be producing. Being able to both create new content and being able to read and understand content made of differnt media both contribute to the ability for humans to CREATE.