Media ecology is defined as the study of media as environments, and the media ecology of UGA and my high school differ greatly. I think it’s mainly because the drastic size difference. I graduated in a class of 89 people. The small class size made it easier for students to communicate with their teachers personally and rendered websites like eLC and Emma practically useless. If you needed to talk to a teacher or do an assignment, it was much easier to doit in personally or over email than use some special website.

The main similarity in my high school and UGA’s media ecology is the use of email. I talked about this in my last blog, but if I had to communicate with my teachers outside of school or turn in an assignment, it was usually via email. One reason being that this was the fastest form of communication, and another being that my high school wasn’t very technologically advanced to where we had various websites to use. I also used GroupMe now similarly to the way I did in high school. It was mostly for clubs or a group project.

I went to a public high school, so I think it was important to the teachers that every student have equal opportunity and making something be turned in electronically wasn’t always fair to every student. Some didn’t have computers or wifi at home, and I think that was a major factor in choosing to not have a lot of media used at my high school. You were able to use the technology if you had it though, which is similar to here. Not every teacher allowed technology, but most tried to be as modern as possible and allow it.

When I first came here and tried to grasp the multiple websites I had to use, I was overwhelmed, and I’ve grown up using technology my whole life! I mean seriously, I’ve never had a phone with buttons on it, just touch screens. After getting used to it, it’s not that bad, but I wouldn’t mind if all my classes used to same website. Not the five different ones I have to check daily.