Lost track of everything over spring break...

Journal 4-3

Lost track of everything over spring break...

I. In last week's journal I asked some questions about the grant proposal. I wanted to know what we're supposed to do with the money (if we recieve it) if we don't plan to continue on with our project once school gets out. Due to the fact that we have not met with our HIP groups since the last journal...I have absolutely no idea what the answer to this question is. I do remember the "grant guru" saying that the grant is good for a year and is basically non-binding. The question is still open for discussion though.

II. I have pretty much completely forgotten what we did in class the week before spring break. Honestly I'm not even sure if this journal is supposed to include that. None of the class was present (with exception to Gregory) on the last Friday before spring break. Therefore that was a four day week. I know that we got to take a look at what HIP part 4 looks like. It includes: expert reflections, marketing your project, and your edited grant proposal. We also watched more of the film called "Promises", a documentary featuring seven children who lived through the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We finished watching that film this week. Also this week we talked about the guy whose magic show Kaila and Adrienne went to. The last thing that happened this week was we recieved a handout about the World Community Grid. This is some program started by IBM to use technology to solve problems.

"Promises." World Religions Documentary Films - Hartley Film Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2011. http://hartleyfoundation.org/en/promises.

I don't remember much of last week's class, as I already said. Therefore I can not accurately give any feedback. I've enjoyed the film "Promises" for the most part. I think it was very interesting that it was taken from the viewpoint of children. Although you would expect children to be innocent and not take sides, that wasn't the case here. We found that the children who had extremely religious families tended to be more extremist toward their side. The twins, however, came from a less religious family, and they weren't overly obsessed with their side of the conflict.  I thought that talking about the magician (David, I think his name was) was pretty cool. I wish I could have been there for that. I also think the World Community Grid is a pretty incredible thing. If i ever get my laptop fixed, I plan to go register it for that program.

"Today's Fast Company Assignment: Do Cancer Research in Your Sleep | Fast Company." FastCompany.com - Where ideas and people meet | Fast Company. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2011. <http://www.fastcompany.com/1632122/today-s-fast-company-assignment-do-cancer-research-in-your-sleep>.

Something that was breifly mentioned in class that I wanted to talk more about is the portion of the documentary where Faraj was crying because he was going to have to separate from the twins. He feared that as soon as B.Z. left, he would lose all communication with the twins. This basically ended up being the case. I thought it was really moving to see the true feelings Faraj had developed for his friends from "the other side". He was really passionate about their new friendship. I think that says a lot about the innocence of children. We're raised believing whatever our parents tell us to, for the most part. The children on both sides grow up knowing that they shouldn't associate with "the other side", so they miss out on valuable relationships. I upset me that when the filmmaker interviewed the kids two years later, we found out that Faraj and the twins failed to keep in touch.

"Main Negotiation Points between Israel and the Palestinian Authority for Sept. 2 Meeting in Washington | IsraelSeen.com." Israel Seen Radio | English podcasts and blogs from Israel | Israel Seen News | Steve Ornstein Israel | Israeli News | Israeli culture | Israel Scene | Israel Entertainment | Israeli Travel | Israel Information | Israel Tours | Israel Newspapers | Israel . N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2011. <http://israelseen.com/2010/08/31/main-negotiation-points-between-israel-and-the-palestinian-authority-for-sept-2-meeting-in-washington/>.

III. For next week's journal I want to get some more information on B.Z. I didn't come up with very much when we did the background information so I want to research his life a little bit more.

HIP takes off...

Journal 4-2

HIP takes off...

I. In last week's blog I asked the question: how much do cochlear implants cost? After doing research on the question, I found the answer to be...
-The total cost, including the implant, the surgical proceedure, and the post-operative rehabilitation, exceeds $40,000.

Source:

Cochlear Implants Fact Sheet. (n.d.). American Speech-Language-Hearing Association | ASHA. Retrieved April 9, 2011, from http://www.asha.org/about/news/tipsheets/cochlear_facts.htm

 

 

II. This week in class, we started talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After doing some background information, I found that this conflict is between the Arab and Jewish populations living in Palestine under Ottoman/British rule. The key issues are: mutual recognition, borders, security, water rights, control of jerusalem, and legalities concerning refugees. Then we began watching a film called "Promises". It examines the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the perspectives of seven children living in Palestinian communities and Israeli Jerusalem. The maker of the film is a man named B.Z. Goldberg, who grew up in Israel and became interested in the conflicts there. Finally, at the end of the week we focused a lot on the Heroic Imagination Project, which is now taking off full force. On Friday we had a woman come talk to us about how to effectively write a grant, so that we can edit our rough drafts before we send them off.

 

FRONTLINE/WORLD . Israel - The Unexpected Candidate . Additional Resource . PBS. (n.d.). PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. Retrieved April 9, 2011, from http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/israel502/additional.html

 

 

 

To be honest, I don't remember much about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from previous history or leadership classes so I am looking forward to our studies on the issue. I think this is going to be a really cool film, seeing as it comes from the perspective of little children who are living in the midst of conflict. I remember seeing the kids on the bus saying "we never know when a bomb might go off" or "we have to watch for suspicious people". That's highly upsetting that that's how they had to grow up. As for the Heroic Imagination Project, i'm officially very scared of it. The whole grant writing process is very complex and confusing, as well as building a social network. My group effectively split up the work so we got it done in a timely fashion, but there is still a lot to be done. We have a lot of editing to do and corrections to be made. I really enjoyed having the "grant guru" come talk to us though. That was a cool experience.

 

 

ISFD hosts grant writing workshop Jan. 21-23 > UTSA Today > University of Texas at San Antonio. (n.d.). Welcome to The University of Texas at San Antonio | UTSA. Retrieved April 9, 2011, from http://utsa.edu/today/2009/01/grantworkshop.cfm

 

 

 

I think one of the interesting points that was brought up in class was Michael Trentham's question: "So what do we do with the money from the grant if we're not going to recieve it until summer?" This question didn't seem to be taken particularly seriously and was kind of brushed off as being unimportant. I think this is a very valid point, however, because what if we choose not to continue our project past this class? I'm not saying my group necessarily plans on abandoning our project as soon as we leave ethics class...but what if we do? What do we do with the grant if we don't want to continue with the project? I know the "grant guru" commented on this, saying that the grant is good for a year and is basically non-binding. However, I still don't really understand what we will do with it if we actually recieve it and don't need it anymore at that point. I think we should seriously talk about this a little more in class before we send off these grants. That is just my honest opinion/concern.

 

 

III. For next week's class I want to know the answer to my questions in the above paragraph. I want to find out what exactly should be done with a grant if we recieve it and decide we don't need it. Hopefully I can get this question answered somehow.

Completely forgot what we did in class...

Journal 4-1

Completely forgot what we did in class...

I. In last week's blog I said that I wanted to do some research on deaf statistics in the United States. Here's what I found:
-1 in 20 Americans are currently deaf or hard of hearing
-10,000,000 persons are hard of hearing
-1,000,000 persons are functionally deaf

source: How Many Deaf People Are There in the United States? Estimates From the Survey of Income and Program Participation . (n.d.). Oxford Journals | Medicine | Jnl. of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. Retrieved April 3, 2011, from http://jdsde.oxfordjournals.org/content

There are deaf communities in all of the following areas:
-Houston, Texas
-Los Angeles, California
-Michigan
-Nashville, Tennessee
-New York City
-Philadelphia
-Rochester, New York
-Washington DC
-Wyoming
(There are probably more, but this is a small list found on the following site)

source: Category. (n.d.). American Deaf Communities. Deafness and Hard of Hearing - Deaf - Sign Language - Hearing Aids - Hearing Loss - Cochlear Implants - Ear Wax. Retrieved April 3, 2011, from http://deafness.about.com/od/americandeafcommunities

II. This week was only a four day week, and to be completely honest, the only thing I remember doing in class was talking about Sound and Fury. Mrs. Mansfield came in a few times to collect money for the field trip that we're going on. We also watched a part 2 of the Sound and Fury documentary, which showed the family years later. We did some post discussion questions for the documentary, which included questions about the conflicting issues within the film, merits and drawbacks of cochlear implants, considerations to make before surgery, the role that family plays in the decision making, the role that the deaf community plays, and whether or not the circumstances would be different if the issue was something other than hearing. Our Heroic Imagination Stage 3 is due soon...and my group needs to get working on that. I also still need to turn in my Wikipages permission sheet.

disTHIS! - January 2008. (n.d.). April2010. Retrieved April 3, 2011, from http://www.disthis.org/January2008.htm

I really enjoyed the Sound and Fury documentary. Infact, I enjoyed it so much that I offered to go over to Adrienne's house and watch it with her because she hasn't seen all of it yet. I thought Heather's dad was a pretty funny guy, and Matt James and I believe that he will lead a deaf revolution. After watching part 2 of Sound and Fury, I was glad that they decided to let Heather get the cochlear implant. She seems a lot happier with her life now. I think it's awesome that the family has five of its members all successfully implanted with hearing aids. They're being offered a blessing that they lacked for the first few years of their lives. I also didn't expect Heather's mother to get implanted, so that came as a surprise to me.

TerpTopics: HEARING AIDS & ALDs: Introduction to ASL and SignLanguage Interpreting . (n.d.). TerpTopics: WELCOME - Introduction to ASL and Sign Language Interpreting . Retrieved April 3, 2011, from http://www.terptopics.com/HearingAids.htm

One thing that was brought up in class but not discussed is the question about how one family pays for that many cochlear implants. They put five kids and one adult through the surgery, which must be incredibly expensive. I think Lainey shared with the class the price of each implant, which was a whole lot of money. I don't understand how they afforded that, plus the hearing tutor and what not. I guess it was worth every cent though. Giving a person his or her hearing back is a pretty incredible thing. I assume they found a way to pay for it because it was worth it.

III. What exactly is the cost of a cochlear implant? Lainey did say something about it but I don't remember what it was and I would like the know.