Jesse Conroy
English 100/0
The video documentary Growing Up Online, from Frontline directors Rachel Dretzin and John Maggio gives a shocking insight into the technological upbringing of kids today. The video goes over several reasons why kids today are growing up different than previous generations because of the technology they use on a daily basis. The video sheds light on the current youths need to rely on computers for social connections by using websites like Facebook and MySpace. Some kids feel out of the loop without technology. Other websites like the Sparknotes.com allow students to obtain all the info they need on a book that has been assigned to them by a teacher. With this information at hand students are not taking the time to read the given assignment. Teachers are fighting the use of these websites as they claim it is a form of cheating. It becomes apparent in this documentary that parents don’t know what their kids are doing online. Some of them have totally separate lifestyles they keep secret. Kids are forming alternate online identities. They are using these online identities to be seen as the person they would like the real world to see them as. High school student Jessica Hunter explains to Frontline, "I just became this whole different person, I didn't feel like myself, but I liked the fact that I didn't feel like myself. I felt like someone completely different. I felt like I was famous."
Kids today are more informed and knowledgeable of technology than most adults. They can access any info they need from a near push of a button. For this reason kids can’t focus. It is hard to hold their attention and teachers have to deal with this new technologically adept mind. Social studies teacher Steve Maher tells Frontline "We almost have to be entertainers”. Technology is here to stay and it is changing the way the new generation is being brought up. For better or for worse parents and teachers have to adapt to this technology to keep kids on the right path all the way through their adolescence.
Welcome!
Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversations Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
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