In a documentary that aired on PBS titled “Growing up Online,” directed by Rachel Dretzin and John Maggio, it is suggested that the internet access that originally belonged to adults is now a domain of teenagers; roughly 90% of kids are online. The kids will admit that they are addicted to social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook; they create online identities that are more of themselves than they are in real life. For example 14-year old Jessica Hunter was bullied in school and didn’t have friends. She discovered the online world and created herself an alter-ego, Autumn Edows. As Autumn Edows, Jessica would post provocative pictures and soon enough she had a following of “friends.” Although Jessica’s new online life made her happy, others were not so supportive about it; a parent of another student at Jessica’s school called the principle to complain and who then called Jessica’s parents to inform them of what their daughter was doing behind her closed bedroom door. Jessica’s world was taken away; “If you have something that is that meaningful to you and to have it taken away is like your worst nightmare.” Even though what she was doing wasn’t appropriate for someone her age, it made her happy. For every parent the idea of online predators is one of their biggest fears. What parents don’t know is that kids are more aware of what situations they should stay away from than they think. According to Anne Collier, author of Unraveling Myspace “Most kids aren’t looking for trouble; the vast majority are just socializing with their friends at school. And when theses weird guys send them a message, they just delete them.” Truth is that, yes, kids do engage in risky behavior online but they engage in a lot riskier behavior offline. If anything the children that get involved in the “sexual predator scams” are more of participants than victims, the majority of kids know what could happen when they meet up with someone they met online but they go anyway. Researchers show that 1 in 7 kids said that they have been sexually solicited online but they also found that most of those solicitations were mild, much like a 19 year old flirting with a 17 year old. For most kids the internet is a safe haven where they can connect with other kids their age who are just like them. For one student, Sara, it is where she talks and finds “inspiration” for the anorexic eating disorder she has. Sara’s online life is a 180 degree difference from the life she leads at school and with her family. Sara is a lot like other teens who use the internet to express themselves. Others use the internet to post pictures and videos of them and their friends and some use the internet to bully kids.
As a teenager living in the 21st century I have grown up online since I was about 12. To me the images portrayed in this documentary are true for some kids who abuse the freedom of the internet but for most it’s just a way to connect with friends and classmates. Since I was in 6th grade I have belonged to a variety of networking sites from msn messenger, to Myspace and Facebook, and Skype. Most of which I use to keep in touch with everybody that is in my life. The internet is not as dangerous as some perceive it to be; it’s all about how we are using it.
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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