Salon Notes: Preliminary Blog

	Unit 1: Folk Knowledge	Unit 2: Oral Knowledge	Unit 3: Written Knowledge	Unit 4: Print Knowledge
Self-directed learning	Midwifery--maybe one of the first times I just picked a topic from the list of options on the seed post. Midwifery could never move from the realm of folk knowledge to any other realm because it is so dependent upon hands-on experience. You can't learn to deliver a baby effectively from a book. Researching for this blog helped me understand folk knowledge better because I realized that even today professionals field rely almost entirely upon shared folk knowledge (again, no doctor gets his expertise from reading a bunch of manuals or going to a bunch of speakers).	My post on The Origin of Language was almost entirely based on the book referenced by Dr. Petersen in her seed post on oral knowledge. Just as teaching something helps you understand it, writing a blog about a topic really does too. Trying to understand Mark Turner's theory on the origin of language gave me better understanding about how we bring story and parable to create grammar--the system of language.	Researching for my post on the letter "C" and how it came to be a part of our alphabet was really interesting and it helped me understand the process of creating a written alphabet from a spoken language which facilitated my learning through this unit.	Researching for The Printing Press and Reading really helped me recognize that the emergence of the printing press brought with it huge changes, changes which you would not expect. The printing press had a huge influence on our culture today and writing this post really helped me see that.
Others' blogging	Kody's post on Prayer really helped me understand folk knowledge. Because a lot of our posts before that were about hygiene (Shuan's post on Showering was one I patterned a lot of my blogs off of, even my midwifery blog was semi-health related) or dating, I think my understanding of folk knowledge was limited. This post helped me look beyond those two categories and really grasp all the things that folk knowledge encompassed	Kody's post "Written vs Oral-the Hittites" was a favorite in this unit. He was so explicit in laying out the function and systems of language in the Hittite culture. Plus, it helped me recognize the importance of precision in preserving a language. He also talked about how emotion is best communicated through oral knowledge than by any other means of communicating.	Ted's post on Greek language was really memorable, and it really highlighted the strengths of written knowledge. Dr. Burton's post on Written knowledge  was really helpful in my learning process because it defined and discussed writing-dependent institutions.	Diane's post on the history of Dictionaries was really interesting. The printing press played a really big role in the emergence of dictionaries because it kind of created the need for them. Very interesting, definitely facilitated my learning and taught me a lot not only about the history of dictionaries but really the reason we have them at all.
Collaborative learning	Teaching my room mate to do French Manicures facilitated my understanding of folk knowledge in a new way: sharing folk knowledge, being that primary source for a skill for someone else, is really a wonderful thing. Folk knowledge has a special value because of the inter-personal aspect it carries that other forms of knowledge simply do not include.	We talked in class about how it's harder to meet with a professor if you email him rather than go directly to him or call him on the phone. This discussion helped me really see the role oral knowledge still plays in my life, and how it is still very important. Oral knowledge was "realler" to me after that lecture. King Benjamin's speech was also great in helping me understand the power that oral knowledge has.	Going to Special Collections in the Library was definitely a highlight in this unit because the lady there really emphasized the role that writing played in a lot of cultures. The tiny tablet she showed us that had a business record on in in cuneiform was so cool, and it really helped me understand that once writing came on the scene a lot of other institutions emerged or became more efficient.	Reading Walter Ong's "Print, Space, and Closure" really helped me see the way print has evolved and the importance of it taking on some of the roles of written knowledge. I don't know why we didn't talk more about "Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation" but that also gave me a historical context, it was easier for me to see the importance of a more-accessible Bible through the printing press in the Protestant reformation
Projects / Activities	The project/ activity for this blog was teaching and learning folk knowledge. I learned about how to make a tattoo. Maybe this is not the most valuable skill I could obtain, learning about the history and art of tattooing helped me understand folk knowledge in a new way because tattooing is almost entirely reliant upon folk knowledge-- in fact, in many situations it is passed down among family members.	For this blog we had a videoed discussion--we had a dress rehearsal and then two days later we tried again. This exercise helped me as I prepared understand the difference between oral knowledge systems and written knowledge systems. For example, you use a lot more self-referencing pronouns when speaking than you would in writing. It is a lot more informal.	The Rosetta Stone project. I have a lot more sympathy for scribes because of that project. Not only was it difficult to copy a text but to translate was really difficult, too. After Kody's post on Scribes, I had this attitude that scribes received more than they deserved. The Rosetta Stone project set me right!	Because the written paper was probably the most formal proof-of-intellectual-growth we have had to provide this semester, I felt like this project really showed that each medium of knowledge transmission we have studied this semester is slightly more formal than the last. This project gave me an added appreciation for typography and the blackletter font.