Kansas or the ‘Wheat State’
From the very beginning farming was the way of life of Kansas determining its politics, its culture, its social and its economy. However, at the end of the XIX century the economical crack was an inflexion point. Nowadays, farming is the 3% of the Kansas PIB with 101.000 workers, but more than 60.000 farms spread out ocuppying the 90% of Kansas.

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I read some time ago Digital Natives, Digital Inmigrants by Marc Prensky (2001) and it agrees in what is a digital native with the tesxts we have already read such a Born Digital, but it focus on the fact that I think is the most important: the educator are digital immigrants and they must teach people in a digital way. They are still using their immigrant way to teach some of the subjects, and it is no gonna work longer. Prensky also pointed that the first step in order to get teachers developing a digital way of teaching would be to get the support from the administrators, the universities and the government has to think about this issue and promote the ways to solve it. 

According to the texts, I am a digital born just because the year I was born in. However, I do not think that digital native and digital immigrant are absolute concepts. For instance,  I think I am more digital native than my older cousin is but I am also less digital native than my little cousin is. I was born in what is considered to be the digital era, but I have made myself a transition also,  and I guess than everybody has to do that. I mean, technology advances so fast –in fact is getting faster and faster- that every year people start to do something using a different machine or application or software or whatever. 

Basically, it is a matter of learning; you have to be continuingly learning. And that is exactly the reason why I deeply believe that learners in higher education are supposed to be better than just the rest of the people. I mean,  everybody has to learn how to manage technologies and we do it basically by ourselves however I think that a learner of higher education has to dominate it, not just know basics or average level. Consequently, the responsibility relies on the teacher of higher education that has to be a total expert on the topic and be able to make the learners also experts. I guess it is the main but most difficult thing, in the past teachers prepared for a whole life to be the best in something, now you don’t have that time, you have to be an expert of something that has just appeared.

I would like to make my portfolio based on the agriculture topic. Agriculture is a sector that has changed so much in the last decades everywhere. The technological advances and the fact that the other two sectors are getting stronger and stronger each day in the developed countries economy have influenced heavily in the agriculture panorama in the whole Europe. That is one of the reasons why the European Union has an agricultural supporting scheme (apart from guaranteeing the environmental sustainability). The idea is made a photography book of agriculture activities in United Kingdom that would show the machines that they use, how many people actually work in, in which farming they are specializing in, and so on. Taking advantage from the beautiful landscapes I would made my photos more attractive for the audience.

So, probably my main audience is young people who are continually exposed to images,  but who are not really interesting in agriculture anymore and think that is stuff from the past, and don’t realize how important it is in fact.

Hopefully, the audience will be interested due to the attractive of the photo. As it is said in the texts, we young people all read visually and pay attention just to the things that really get into our eyes.

This page helped me witht the research about the agricultura in UK

https://www.gov.uk/protecting-rural-landscapes-and-features/funding-and-cross-compliance

And this work of Dorothea Langue http://www.shorpy.com/taxonomy/term/120?page=9 that shows the agricultural devastation meanwhile the great depression of united states. What I like of this images is that you are watching the people who fork in the camp at the same time that you see the machines or the farm itself, so it gives you a complete idea of the confitions of the agriculture at that momment.

Other project that has influenced me is Furtivos from Vicente Paredes, a spanish photographer. Available at http://www.vicenteparedes.es/documental/huertaurbana

Also I have been influenced by the cinematography of some films such as Straight Story (whose cinmeatographer is Freddie Francis). It is a David Lynch film in which you cannot stop being delighted with the agricultural landscapes.

I have chosen this topic because it allows me to travel through UK, meet people, and enjoy the nature. The problems I will probably have to face are: I really have to investigate deeply about the locations as I arrived just a few months ago. Moreover, the weather will be probably an issue for me as I am not used to deal with grey sky and our deadline is before spring starts,  but hopefully I am learning some Ps techniques in this module that will allow me to fix it.

As an extra, and depending on its results, the research will probably provide of a reason of UK not getting out of the
European Union -that is a current political debate.