Ideology

After reading Wikipedia's definition of Ideology I can some what agree with most of the information posted defining the word. In all honesty the definition still appeals to me as being alot of words with little significant meaning. Or in other words the definition can be altered into simpler terms. But we will get to that later.

Lets start off with the one main component of the definition I strongly disagree with. The very beginning of the text states ideology as being "a set of aims and ideas, especially in politics", this to me couldn't be more incorrect. Ideology is a term that should be used when referring to a world or life view much more broader than just politics. A person's ideology could heavily influence his/her position when it come to politics but not fully determine it. A present day example can be found with the ideology of our past election. I don't think that since U.S. citizen might be African American that doesn't mean his ideology would of directly make him vote for Barack Obama. His ideology he/she has acquired from being African American could influence him to vote for the democratic party but not make the person. Everyone evaluates life everyday, our ideology shapes how we evaluate life and make decision.

I think ideology connects to a theory used in communication terms. The idea of Standpoint Theory means "a person's position in society shapes his/her view on society". This theory proves true to me when talking about ideology. If you think about it our position in society is another way to describe the type of ideology we assume. For example if our role in society is a poor maybe homeless individual than our ideology will be that of a unfortunate person. The ideology or outlook on the world this type of person would probably not be too positive because of his/her social status.

Now my last bone to pick with Wikipedia's definition comes when it states "a way of looking at things with common sense and with philosophical tendencies". My argument is the idea than can't common sense and philosophical ideas be determined through society and culture? I would think that ideology is determined through common sense and philosophical tendencies, I don't agree that these things are derived from our personal ideologies.

Ideology- The outlook a individual assumes when analyzing information based on his/her culture, environment, and social status.

Above is my personal definition of ideology. Its shorter than Wikipedia's but still broad in content like any definition for the word ideology should be. Ideology to me is more of an idea than a concrete term. I don't think any persons ideology on life is exactly the same as any other persons ideology. Ideology is unique to the individuals personal character and upbringing. A persons identity reflects their ideas how they arrive at those ideas and in a world view their ideology.

Response To Welsch Lecture

When this assignment was given during class I really didn't look forward to it at all. I glanced at the text and media and my first thought was that it was going to be boring and far from interesting. I couldn't be more wrong. This guy gets it in my opinion. He understands how in to days society media plays the lead role in just about everything. Also his ideas on how students interact with information (in a classroom setting) has changed drastically in the past ten years and couldn't be more correct. He see's that the world we live in is always advancing and evolving and its our jobs to keep up and try and exploit its new convenient ways of sharing information.

After watching just about ten minutes of the lecture I saw how it related to our English class. He supported connecting with students by incorporating more advanced ways of communicating such as blogger, face book, wiki's?, etc into the classroom setting. That away students feel more like their school work is more connected to their everyday lives and then feel more subjected to stay connected and interested in the information. This is directly shown in our English class. We use Blogger to do just about everything. We share information, relay information, submit information, etc. The great thing about this is it can all be done from one media source; the internet. Also by having the class structured like this students feel the class is a little more personal at least more so than the only thing that differentiates you from the next person on essays and assignments is the name on the paper. Using this type of tool to have a class interact is brilliant from a professors point of view and it just makes the class more meaningful and enjoyable for the students. (At least I would say so)

Back to the beginning of his lecture I thought it was very interesting when he talked about when he analyzed his own classroom and the result he found. He found by simply asking students questions that alot didn't enjoy school, but yet wanted to learn, and he found that ways of relaying information in the class wasn't that effective. Students admitted that they didn't read 49 percent of the readings that were assigned also they only thought a third of the information they were supposed to retain had any real-life meaning. These kind of ideas make it seem that college classes are losing their relativity. Should that be the case?

College classes aren't losing there relativity, the way in which the criteria of the subject is being communicated is losing its effectiveness. I personally believe that alot of what people learn in school they don't find to be interesting to them. I also believe that people will learn easier and more efficiently when studying something they have personal interest in. Therefore what should be done to connect these two ideas. Its obvious to me that connecting the medium in which a class is communicated through to a students personal interest would directly trigger their attention. Therefore more attention would produce more involvement and more involvement would reflect better understanding of the criteria.

Overall I found this lecture could be very important to any kind of educators knowledge. This could dramatically help the effectiveness of their class especially if they are still caught up in the more old fashioned ways of class teaching. Basically the world is evolving and advancing in every which way and I think if its to our benefit, we should evolve with it. By acknowledging the guidelines in this lecture I think professor are doing just that......