As a writer I find technology to be extremely useful. Writing papers and stories is so much easier when you have a keyboard to use. Often times I will be out places and a thought or idea strikes me with inspiration. Very rarely do I have a piece of paper or a pencil to write said idea down on. I do, however, always have my smartphone on me. I use this to write my ideas down in a notepad app or tweet them to my followers on twitter. Writing is a quicker process with the use of technology. Research is also very much easier to accomplish. I work in a library and help people do research all the time. Card catalogues of olden days are long in the past thanks to internet access and online database collections. Search engines quickly find and present information pertaining to your search query rather than scanning shelves of books to find a similar topic.
I would definitely have to say that I am a digital native. I have had computers in my house for as long as I can remember. When Macs first came out my father went out and bought one immediately. I had to have been around five or six maybe (honestly, I can't remember). It was just always there. We went from one computer in the house to now, including smart phones and tablets, having ten digital devices capable of using the internet. In the learning environment it is both easier and harder to focus on work while on the internet. I find myself constantly drifting through the internet on websites such as stumble upon.com or pinterest.com rather than doing homework that I know needs to get done. In the past I was never like this, but now social media and entertainment has crept into my educational time.
As a writer I find technology to be extremely useful. Writing papers and stories is so much easier when you have a keyboard to use. Often times I will be out places and a thought or idea strikes me with inspiration. Very rarely do I have a piece of paper or a pencil to write said idea down on. I do, however, always have my smartphone on me. I use this to write my ideas down in a notepad app or tweet them to my followers on twitter. Writing is a quicker process with the use of technology. Research is also very much easier to accomplish. I work in a library and help people do research all the time. Card catalogues of olden days are long in the past thanks to internet access and online database collections. Search engines quickly find and present information pertaining to your search query rather than scanning shelves of books to find a similar topic.
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In Lauer's article Modes are defined as "ways of representing information, or the semiotic channels we use to compose a text." Such modes would be words, sounds, videos and pictures. Media is the source of the modes, the "tools and material resources" that are used to create modes, such as books, articles, voices, music, television and computers. Multimodal would be the collaboration of words sounds and images. Multimedia would be using a book, a news paper and clips from the television together in the project. Modes that I am most comfortable using are written, sounds, images and possibly videos. Media that I am most comfortable using are articles, music, photographs and videos.
I am most comfortable using these forms of media and modes because this is a blog related project. On the internet it is relatively easy to find music or video footage of interviews to put together into the project, and the internet itself is a great media for use in the election. I think the most persuasive modes in politics would be still and moving images, and written word (especially now with the widespread use of social media in politics). I think I will be using the tweets of the Gay Rights and the Freedom to Marry twitters. I would like to incorporate a kind of Fairy Tale, maybe a list of things to do (I am obsessed with lists). I also would like to incorporate a personal letter and images and/or testimony from an website run by someone who used to p Maybe I bit off more than I could chew this semester. I have been so busy with this God-forsaken Aesthetics class that all of my other classes have fallen behind. I didn't think it would be too hard; last semester I took the same amount of classes with the same amount of work and I got five A's and a B. My GPA is a 3.8. I even went through recruitment for greek life and it was my first semester here. Why is this semester so hard? Maybe its because of my crappy personal life at home. Maybe I just have Senioritis. Maybe I'm just making excuses. I don't know, but I do know this:
I hate writing papers. That might sound weird because I'm a writing arts major but writing a paper is entirely different from writing a story. Annotated bibliographies might possibly be the best thing that I have ever had to do for a paper I've written though. An annotated bibliography is a bibliography (where you write all of your sources and whatnot) but you have a summary underneath every source you list. At first it seems like extra work to summarize the articles that later you'll have to write a paper on. However, once you do the summary, you have the summary to use for your paper. My annotated bibliography saved me time writing a seven page paper last semester and I am very thankful to have to had done it. In a few hours (possibly by tomorrow) I should have some of my annotated bibliography to post on here.
So I decided to do my project on the freedom to marry and where Obama and Romney stand on that issue. So far I've been searching through Twitter for tweets from Obama, Romney or the freedom to marry official twitter account. My only problem with this is that I still don't completely understand twitter (ridiculous, I know. I swear I'm not totally computer illiterate.) I want to look into news articles but I'm afraid that I won't be able to judge a true story from a false one. I don't trust pretty much anything I read in the news so it's hard for me to judge anything anyone says. I don't know if I'm far behind, or behind at all, or if I'm just over-thinking this. Does anyone have any suggestions for me, the typical non-believer?
For quite a long time I avoided watching or reading the news. Who wants to see and hear bad things? I never know about current issues when others are talking about them. When Michael Jackson died I found out hours later at work through other people. After reading these articles, knowing that the government chooses what is wants us to see by paying the news teams to run certain things (especially during an election) I see that I had the right idea to avoid the news. The article on sensationalism specifically explains my issue with the news: the running of highly emotional stories that often have no relevance to every day life. News corporations use emotions to sway the viewer or reader to believe in something, for instance running stories on shootings in Philadelphia to make the audience more sensitive to gun violence and weapons and possibly sway them to vote against gun laws.
In the article "You Didn't Build That-Or Say It" the idea of taking quotes out of context is presented. When a part of Obama's speech was taken out of context it was made to look like he didn't support small business owners. What he was actually talking about was the fact that other people as a whole built up the country, be it through roads and bridges or otherwise, to get it to where it is today. I think that a lot of what is in the news and online is taken out of context to fit the needs of the person using it. Think about Facebook: a lot of people use quotes from songs as a status update. Taking a portion of the song out, whichever part they think fits the best, and writing it for the world to see. Did the author of the song write it specifically for the needs of the person who used it, or is the song about something else entirely? This is only a superficial matter, think about what happens when someone takes something you said out of context. Were you joking with your friends? Did someone walk up in the middle of your conversation and only hear the inappropriate joke or comment you just made? That person thinks differently of you know. Where does this end? Where do the lines blur? As of now I subscribe to some LGBT news feeds on Twitter for our upcoming assignment. These feeds attach news articles related to the campaign and the equal rights movement. After reading and digesting all of these articles I have to carefully I used to be against Obama. Of course I knew nothing about him, I was just a typical teenager who hated something if everyone else loved it. Today, however, we took the VoteMatch quiz and I learned a great deal about him. I am extremely pro-gay rights and equality for marriage. I got to the Pride parade every year in Philadelphia with my friends (who are in fact homosexual) and I have cousins who are gay. I see nothing wrong with it. Growing up I always considered everyone equal, and I didn't actually think that same sex couples couldn't get married. So naturally, the freedom to marry is a topic very near and dear to my heart.
Upon completion of the quiz I found that I was matched with Obama. In his responses to the questions on the quiz he says very bluntly that he supports same-sex mariage. I like the directness of his response, no skirting the topic, no non-answers, just a simple yes. I also like that he believes being gay or a lesbian is not a choice. I have seen so much in the way of hate crimes on homosexuality. Protesters stand out side of the Pride festival and tell each and every one of us that we'er going to hell, regardless of if we're gay or support being gay. I look forward to researching more of Obama's stand on equality for gay couples and posting more of i I don't follow much of politics. I wasn't old enough to vote in the last election so I never bothered to read up on it. Of course back then I wasn't big into Twitter and Facebook. However, the recent growth of social networking sites may change that. In Kathryn Vasel's article "The Election's Real Battleground States: Facebook and Twitter" the internet is said to play a big role in the upcoming election because it is "free" to use and it reaches a large group of people instantly. (I use the term free loosely because Romney purchased a "trending topic" on Twitter so that his messages will be high on news feeds) I would have to agree with this because more people are on the internet than ever. People used to sit and watch elections on television; now people sit on the computer to watch television. Even if you were to miss something billions of people update to inform you through social media sites. The younger generation, the newest voters, are a key group of voters online. Mining the social media sites for young voters is a potential goldmine for candidates in the elections.
Okay, I will be the first to admit that I was a skeptic. I've hated Twitter since the day I created my account almost three years ago. I didn't see a point in it, so I just let it sit there. After reading the articles we were assigned I must say that I see the benefit in class. I find it hard to participate in some classes, especially with more people in them. I am in no way a shy person, but sometimes it's hard to voice your questions or opinions. I like knowing that I can tweet a question or a comment and not embarrass myself by saying it out loud. A lot of people think that by limiting your text you create bad habits for writers. How is this true? One of the first things I learned as a Writing Arts student was to cut the "crap" out of your writing. Throughout high school I knew plenty of people who would write nonsense in their papers just to meet the length requirement. What would you write if you had something desperately important to say but could only use a few words to say it? I think this forces writers to get their point across very clearly, and concisely. No one wants to read a long drawn out story. We want to know: what is the point you're trying to make? This is a technology driven world now, and people want their information as quickly and easily as possible.
I think the idea of personifying characters on Twitter as an assignment (mentioned in the first article, "5 Unique Uses of Twitter in the Classroom") is a brilliant idea. Students who aren't Writing Arts majors but still have to take writing courses don't want to write boring papers. I think the idea of adapting a new personality based on a book you read is a great way to embrace a class. It's a great conversation piece, and as the student you would have to know and understand your character and defend his or her actions and thoughts that you present to the Twitterverse. Well, my name is Alexis Karas. My friends call me Lexie, my mom calls me Pokie, my sorority sisters call me Batman. My ex boyfriend calls me other things, but he isn't worth the blog space. I'm newly single for the first time in three and a half years so the world is kind of new to me. This is my second semester at Rowan and I graduate in the Spring so it's bittersweet. I have family issues on the slightly extreme side so my home life is rough most of the time, but I don't let it get in the way of school. My sister is a heroin addict and a thief, and I help my mom take care of her three children. But on to lighter topics!
I love to read, more than anything else in the world. Well almost, I love music more but I gave up being a music major. I work in the Camden County Library in Voorhees as a computer Page. What that means is I help imbeciles get onto the internet (no really, they're just too lazy to click the button, they know how). Most of the disgusting people that come in use the computers to watch porn and it makes my skin crawl. I spend most of my time at work on Good Reads looking for new books to read, although I'll have to slow down now that school is starting up again. My favorite color is blue, and I love to dye my hair purple. Makes no sense really but I can't explain it. My best friend's name is Rachael and I've known her since Kindergarten. My Big's name is Sarah and I've known her since last semester when I went out for recruitment. I love my friends and my family and my life |
AlexisMaster of Fine Arts from Vermont College of Fine Arts, Rowan University alumna, sister of Theta Phi Alpha, and future YA author extraordinaire. Archives
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