Ethnic Arts Festival

I attended the Ethnic Arts Festival at Luther College. I found it very interesting. there were many booths set up on different countries with people who had either visited there or lived there. As I walked the hallways looking at different stations it was interesting to see so many different cultures juxtaposed. One booth I found particularly interesting was the South Africa Booth. I talked to someone who traveled there with a class over January and learned all about the Apartide. He told me about it and about what he saw on his travels. I also stopped for a while at the Brazil booth because I know someone who lived in Brazil for a year and I like to hear about other peoples' experiences there. I think the Ethnic Arts Festival is a great event at Luther. It lets many people tell about their cultural experiences and many more people learn about different cultures. When I was there it was not very busy and I think a lot of people missed out on this great opportunity.

Vagina Monologues

I attended the Vagina Monologues at Luther College. I think what they were raising money for is a great thing. All of the proceeds go to a battered women's shelter. There were many mixed messages throughout the show. Some of the monologues were very sad about women who were abused and some were about funny things. This was a nice contrast however I wasn't sure what to think about some the message of the show with so much variety. There was one monologue about a girl who was seduced and molested by a lesbian when she was a child, but the story was told in a funny and charming way which I thought was horribly not tasteful. There was also a monologue about how short skirts are not to show off sexy legs, which I found self-righteous and hypocritical. Most of the stories were charming and entertaining but I thought a few were unnecessary.

Does the internet and technology offer promise and hope for education and learning or does it just create additional problems?

I think that in many situations technology can make things easier for everyone. Teachers using it for grades, communication, and getting information off of the Internet are all productive things, but I have been in a classroom where the teacher could not get something to work and wasted time trying to figure it out. I have however been in more situations where a teacher has effectively used technology to increase learning and create a change of environment for the students. I believe technology should be used in classrooms of all sorts to advance learning. I find when problems happen it is because the teacher attempting to use it is not knowledgeable in what they are trying to do, so I find the fault not in technology but instead the user. A good solution to this is to require teachers to be more educated in technology when achieving a degree and have workshops for them so less class time will be wasted fiddling with gadgets instead of learning.