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CCBEU Unit 8: The Real Me

          The mutual relation between teenagers and technology

             As the generations are passed, the costums of each era changes according to the society development. Since the technology became a popular way to talk, to buy things, to search for anything(basically to do anything), almost everything that used to be done in a direct way has now become “digitalized”(I mean, these things have obtained this capacity, but they still happen directly, of course). 

            Thus, some stuff like social interaction has been largely changed by our teenagers, thanks to the use of technology, which pratically began to regulate the social means(regarless of being in a good or a bad way), and helped people who aren't good at interacting with others thanks to apps to chat indirectly with them, something that was able to comprove the influence the technology has not only among teen, but with almost everyone from this era.

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CCBEU Top 4 - Unit 6: Education

                            How video games can help with education

             Many people still believe video games are bad influences and prejudicial for us and our health, right? I mean, it’s not like it’s completely wrong, but they can actually be the opposite of this: They can help with your brain’s development and train your sight and perception. Besides that, they’re able to develop in ourselves new abilities related to many areas, such as patience, insistence, reading, and even learning new languages (such as other entertainment media, like animes and music). And because of that, I can detail you how they’re able to help with the education of future generations.

            As older video games (such as Pong and some other Atari games, like Space Invaders and Galaga) didn’t have enough technology for a complex production, they were basically focused in getting the highest score, which isn’t a bad, since it was able to make you more competitive among other players, which motivated people who played it to learn by their own mistakes and always improve more and more. Besides that, these games were capable of stimulating the attention among the younger players, helping them with concentration problems, because of the time necessary for obtaining higher results in some games, like Pac-Man.

            Nowadays, since games have evolved, they have become richer in quality in general, something that be used in our own benefit, for creating educational and realistic games where students can walk around a big city talking to other people to suceed in some special missions related to a specific subject, such as history, geography and even languages in general, like they’re experimenting a new life and a new world inside their own computers, for example. Yeah, it’s not like the 90s didn’t have games like this, but its games weren’t able to reproduce something with this kind of thematic, but the programmers only had the technology to make low quality and very simple games, with even wrong details about some knowledge area. The game "Mario is missing" can be used as an example. It’s an educative game where Luigi has to find his missing brother(Mario) by solving geographic problems to get information about him. Even though the game is intended to teach its players Geography facts, it has almost an entire website page about wrong facts, such as misspelling problems and many sizes and ages errors from various places, something that could hardly happen in newer games from this era, since information means are more accessible for the worldwide population.

             Besides being able to simulate another world, as I said in the previous paragraph, the games also have the capacity of teaching new languages through cooperative activities and games, where the players are encouraged and stimulated to communicate with their partner actively, making them learn, without even noticing, other languages communication skills, something that should be used more usually in language courses.

             Another interesting fact about the use of video games in education is that some of them can make younger people, in general, develop moral values by themselves. As an example, we can look at the story of GTA 3, considered to be a very polemic game, because of its violence. In this game, we begin as a man who has just been released from jail, and you need to figure out how to “make a living”, but the only people you know are criminals. During the story progress, you may even end up fighting or killing other people, but you don’t have to. This way, the game offers you many choices you can do, which makes you rethink about your own life and apply what you’ve concluded with the challenging problems you deal with in the game in your daily life (Obs: Since the game is age restricted because of its thematic, it should be applied only for the ones above some age in that the person is already mature enough to play it, and it shouldn’t be played by younger players, ok?).

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Recursion is teaming up with DreamHack, SteelSeries, and tomtoc to give away over $2000 in prizes for the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate!

Go to http://recursion.gg/giveaway and reblog for a chance to be 1 of 20 total winners!

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Hello there! Enjoy this video i’ve made for expressing my opinion about how video games help with communication!

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Problems about living in Tokyo

                                        (Unit 3- Bright Lights, Big Cities)

                Although  most people in the world still think the Japanese capital is a perfect place for anything and everything (which is not wrong at all), there are some aspects of this city that are pretty worrisome to talk about. Just for you know, besides Tokyo having such a great education system, you can still see some prejudice they have with people from other countries, and they have difficulties in understanding people talking to them in Japanese if he/she doesn’t have a very, very good pronunciation. So, let’s see what a stranger may find different or pretty awkward when beginning to live there;

1-  The language problems:

             Due to the fact the Japanese language has big differences in fundamental grammar and syntax compared to the English, it's too complicated for either a stranger learn "proper" Japanese or a Japanese learn "proper" English. Besides that, if your pronunciation isn’t exact, people in Tokyo won’t understand what you’re trying to tell them in their language. This may end up in a big communication problem involving Japaneses and strangers.

2-  The natural disasters:

             Since Japan is practically located on a tectonic plate and in an area very prone to hurricanes, natural disasters are common things there. Because of that, the population always receives training for protecting themselves from a situation like earthquakes, tsunamis, mudslides, etc. Anyway, even with preparation, people from other countries may still not know what to do in such situations, something that can cause panic for them.

3-  The prejudice:

             Although having such a great education system, the prejudice against foreign there is a remarkable thing. In Tokyo, it’s a very usual situation to see a Brazilian (for example) working in lower posts than that of a Japanese citizen. Besides that, we can say that the view people in Tokyo have about Brazilians is too “screwed up”, just so you know, there are signs in some shops that are in Portuguese especially for Brazilians, since we are considered loud and “dangerous” people.  

4-  Food:

             The food there has a big diversity. It may happen, for example, that you end up asking a food that you don’t even know what it is made of. Some people may even eat something that they’re allergic without knowing and having to go to the hospital. Another problem is that people from other countries may have difficulties in changing their eating habits when starting to live in Tokyo, since they (eating habits) vary a lot, depending on the places we put as “reference points”.

5-  Location:

             Tokyo, along with most Japanese cities, is divided into a lot of blocks with numbers and names, that are created only for navigating instead of street names. Besides that, the map of this city may make foreign people very confused with direction, and getting lost there is very easy for them. The why is because the Japanese maps are not based in the North, like how it is in the West and many other places. They’re oriented in the direction you are facing with a little compass icon to indicate orientation. Despite its map being a pretty hard stuff to learn, it becomes convenient for you when you understand it.

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CCBEU Project: Communication

                           How video games help with communication.

                Video Games, besides being able to entertain people in various ways (like letting people do things they couldn’t do in real life, like killing people and have fun with superpowers), they also have a positive social function, which is: helping people with communication. The why? Simple! Because, with them, people who have difficulties talking to other people are able to, easily, get involved with other people in events, championships and friendly matches, since starting a conversation about what is happening in the gameplay and discussing ideas about it is a pretty easy thing to do. This way, they can get new friends by, simply, doing something they like (playing video games).

                Furthermore, playing video games help people to forget many problems, something that contributes a lot to a good communication. When you´re playing a game with other people, such as fighting games, the only thing that really matters is your in-game skills. That is, it would then be correct to say that they (video games) also help people of the most different races, ages, opinions, likes, dislikes, genders to understand each other and level according to their opponent.

                As an example for what I’m trying to talk about, I chose a top professional Super Smash Bros. Player: His name is Jason Zimmerman, also known by his gamertag “Mew2King”. Mew2King's extremely methodical style of play, as well as his knowledge of frame data in Super Smash Bros. Melee, has earned him the nickname “The Robot”. He is considered one of the “Five Gods” of Melee, for his skills and influence in the game.

                Although being such an important person in what he does, he is diagnosed with Aspenger’s Syndrome, (It’s a developmental disorder characterized by difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication). Along his career, he even has suffered from “periodic depression”. Thanks to the Smash community, Jason hasn’t only improved his communication, but also his social interaction, making him become able to get a lot of friends and fans only by doing what he loves to, since 2006.