Week 2 Blogging

From Pencils to Pixels

All of the articles for this week had to do with the advancements of technology and how these advancements effect communications between people, as well as how texts are read and knowledge is learned.

In Dennis Baron’s piece, From Pencils to Pixels, it was surprising to me that a pencil could cause such uproar and be viewed as an untrustworthy object when it came to writing and creating records. Since the invention of the pencil, technology has expanded to pens, printing presses, computers, iPads, etc. And just as the pencil caused controversy, so do these inventions.  How people communicate, learn, and perform day-to-day task are being “taken over” by technological advancements.

Baron also discusses the integration of computers in the classrooms and what difficulties the instructors had with the technological transition.  The thought that teachers used to have a fit over students using spellcheck before handing in a paper is beyond me.  It is a tool that may not necessarily help students understand how to spell a word, but if used often enough, they could become familiarized with the correct spelling. (This wuld b a nice feetur for FB statises!! J) Spellcheck has become essential for many students as well as those who are in search of a job and need to ensure that everything on a resume is spelt correctly.

Technology has become a vital piece of how we communicate with family members, friends, educators, and coworkers…unless, of course, you are a member of The Lead Pencil Club.

History Now

The libraries at my high school hated Wikipedia with an absolute passion.  We would be scolded if they caught us on it, and if we tried to reference it in a paper it wouldn’t be accepted.  So, I still tend to think that Wikipedia is an unreliable source that can’t be trusted. 

History Now got me thinking…

After reading the article, I see Wikipedia more as an interactive encyclopedia, or blog, that people share information on.  Is it correct information? I don’t know.  But those who take the time to write summaries of topics and subjects on the site most likely know a thing or two about what they are writing and “become active on their own impulse.” Which is encouraging, but I still don’t think my high school librarians would approve.

“…Wiki does not inevitably lead to chaotic contents because for each person who deletes contributions or writes nonsense, there are several others who cancel or improve the change again.”  This statement is reassuring, but what if you’re the poor college student who waited until the last minute to write a final, 20-paged paper and some bored middle-schooler *revised* all the information minutes before you opened the site an no one has popped by to fix it yet?

I feel like Wikipedia is a good place to get started when scoping out information, but that other sources should always be used to decipher if the information is true or not, which should normally be done anyways.

The article also explained the changes of how users of Wikipedia are communicating and interacting, which seemed to resemble a blog-type atmosphere, which I had never thought of before and encourages it’s users to interact with the text in a uniform, yet at the same time, diverse way.  This thought reminded me of Whitacre and his virtual choir.

IText

“Texts provide shared visions around which joint work can be organized.  In this role, texts serve to stabilize knowledge, a function that is important, for instance, in establishing intellectual property.”

This quote made me think about Facebook and the kind of role it plays in our society.  Facebook is a joint work.  It is organized to bring people from all around the world together, in one common “place” on the web.  It stabilizes many different types of knowledge to others who look at ones page.  Things like family members, friends, location, emotions, relationship status, birthdate, and the list goes on.  Facebook has brought about a new way of stabilizing personal knowledge about people and their lifestyles.  Facebook “groups” have become a way of one to establish an intellectual property with people who sharer similar interests and are also members of the social group. 

Facebook, as much as it can be looked down on for intruding privacy and other accusations against the site, helps us “get to know” one another in ways never thought possible, and in all reality, shows a person’s true identity to the world more so than in-person meetings can do.

The Database and the Essay

While reading this piece, I was interested in the fact that the author described writing as a social act, rather than individual.  A description that I think fits writing and the writing process very well.  In my creative writing course this last semester my professor encouraged us to give suggestions to each short-story author in our class, as well as to her.  So we would edit and revise each other’s works and the author could either take or leave them.  This kept the author with the authority of the piece but also gave each piece the influence of the social interaction and influences from other authors.

This piece also suggested that meanings of words come from other words before them.  Without “school” there would be no “teachers”, or “class” nor would there be “students”.  This goes back to the idea of intertextuality and how each and every piece of writing (or given situation) is dependent upon what came before it and inspired that writings creation.

Video Blogs.

I thought that these videos accurately portrayed how many students feel about school and education: “We love learning.  We hate school.”

Today’s college students have more technology available to them than any generation before had ever dreamed of having.  Within arm’s reach I have a laptop, printer, cellphone, TV, DVD player….which I’m sure is a limited supply compared to some other college students out there.  But it’s still a lot.

I agree with Wesch when he says that “walls no longer mark the boundaries of our classrooms.”  Who could even expect to have a marker for boundaries with the world being accessible through our fingertips?

Students are able to research topics outside of their classroom, school, hometown, state, country, and even into other galaxies.  On their own, students are exploring the world and what interests them all throughout their day and during their spare time.  I think that it is important for teachers to become aware of this and to use technology as a way to encourage and inspire student learning and involvement in the classroom.