I thought the MOO was GREAT! That was probably the most entertaining thing I saw all week.
Of course...I also have the tendency to cackle maniacally when WoW has server downtime and thousands of gamers run around wreaking havoc on temp servers to sate their boredom. Maybe I just have a thing for chaos. Probably. It was most definitely liberating. I felt like the class went by super fast. I didn't experience the headache that quite a few complained of.
Of course, I've been practically living online since the age of 12, so I can understand that I'm probably not in the majority.
Oddly enough I can recall having much more organized and deep conversations with online friends in randomly thrown together chatrooms. We even did a sort of round robin story a few times. That was fun.
We wrote stories. Just because. About whatever we wanted and submitted them to eachother for comments.
Not everyone had the same level of skill, but nobody complained. Everyone contributed and had fun with it. I believe someone edited the format later on.
Our guildmaster (we all met in a game) posted the stories on our guild website along with interesting conversations...not all of which were mature and academic in nature. The longest round robin we ever produced was called Aspentopia... which was full of inside jokes and nerdtastic references...
But it was FUN. And! Of those 10 I know at least 4 plan on being English teachers.
2 are graphic artists. One joined the army. One is studying theatre/acting. And...I haven't talked to the others in about 5 years.
However, I think that THAT worked because we were all very used to sitting in front of the computer for hours and we all knew eachother really well. We were all about the same age with similar interests. We all enjoyed writing. And there weren't as many of us. Probably about 10.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
(7) The Internet and Composition
=( I got confused...I thought EVERYTHING concerning the blogs were due on Monday now... oh well. Here it is anyway!
Let's see...what do I think about the potential of the internet and technology in terms of revitalizing composition? (I tried writing a poem but it was terrible)
I love the internet. I love online games and text messaging and AIM and e-mail and facebook. I would like to believe that it's going to do something major for education in composition. However, in all of my online experience, I'm going to have to say that from a English teacher's presecriptive grammer point of view I've seen nothing to brag about. For the most part, people seem to completely forget anything they knew about grammar, spelling, punctuation etc. etc. as soon as they log on. Economy is valued. Chat rooms...nothing intelligent goes on in chat rooms.
In online games misspelling things is pretty much the cool thing to do. I had a friend once whose screen name was Muro. It was frequently typo'ed as Murp. So he became Murp. Murpy. Murple. Nurp. etc.
Thanks to the internet, I have learned such eloquent phrases as: Stop pwning my doodz noobtard!!!!1111oneoneone ur mom is ftl
I don't think online classes (especially online composition classes) are very helpful or conducive to any real learning. I've taken a few, and because I'm fairly technologically literate, (at least moreso than my professors) I wizzed through them without ever actually reading any material or considering any of the assignments in depth. It was easier, and I was working 40 hours a week.
Which brings up another issue. I think that, as education moves online, people expect things to be done faster. People expect that more of the work will be done 'on your own time.' And because of this, everyone fills up more of their 'work' time...leaving a lot less time to consider any educational material...if that makes any sense at all. I'm feeling a little dazed.
From a more scientific, linguistic standpoint, on the other hand, the internet has some fascinating stuff to offer!
Let's see...what do I think about the potential of the internet and technology in terms of revitalizing composition? (I tried writing a poem but it was terrible)
I love the internet. I love online games and text messaging and AIM and e-mail and facebook. I would like to believe that it's going to do something major for education in composition. However, in all of my online experience, I'm going to have to say that from a English teacher's presecriptive grammer point of view I've seen nothing to brag about. For the most part, people seem to completely forget anything they knew about grammar, spelling, punctuation etc. etc. as soon as they log on. Economy is valued. Chat rooms...nothing intelligent goes on in chat rooms.
In online games misspelling things is pretty much the cool thing to do. I had a friend once whose screen name was Muro. It was frequently typo'ed as Murp. So he became Murp. Murpy. Murple. Nurp. etc.
Thanks to the internet, I have learned such eloquent phrases as: Stop pwning my doodz noobtard!!!!1111oneoneone ur mom is ftl
I don't think online classes (especially online composition classes) are very helpful or conducive to any real learning. I've taken a few, and because I'm fairly technologically literate, (at least moreso than my professors) I wizzed through them without ever actually reading any material or considering any of the assignments in depth. It was easier, and I was working 40 hours a week.
Which brings up another issue. I think that, as education moves online, people expect things to be done faster. People expect that more of the work will be done 'on your own time.' And because of this, everyone fills up more of their 'work' time...leaving a lot less time to consider any educational material...if that makes any sense at all. I'm feeling a little dazed.
From a more scientific, linguistic standpoint, on the other hand, the internet has some fascinating stuff to offer!
(6) Berlin
First, I'd like to say that I skimmed the reading (because the instructions were to skim) and if we hadn't gone over it in class I would have no idea what I'm talking about.
When we broke into groups today in class my group talked about the fact that, although rhetoric seems to be the most appealing way to discuss, create, and teach composition, the other theories are very necessary. They're almost like stepping stones. Albiet stepping stones that you'll still need in the future over and over again.
Rhetoric wouldn't be very effective if no one understood basic rules of composition...In fact, I actually think rhetoric works better and better the more that everyone is on the same page with a good, solid basis of knowledge about how writing in English should be structured. This isn't to say that norms shouldn't be broken, but rather that no one will know that they're being broken (intentionally or not) if they're not familiar with them.
My favorite though, I guess, was the subjective. And that's probably just because that's the way I enjoy writing. It personalizes it more...makes it more interesting.
And I think that this style of teaching is probably going to be pretty important for me in the future, as I plan on teaching at the secondary level. In theory, my students should at leask know the basic objective style. Hopefully, allowing the addition of personality and opinion and such will increase their willingness to participate.
When we broke into groups today in class my group talked about the fact that, although rhetoric seems to be the most appealing way to discuss, create, and teach composition, the other theories are very necessary. They're almost like stepping stones. Albiet stepping stones that you'll still need in the future over and over again.
Rhetoric wouldn't be very effective if no one understood basic rules of composition...In fact, I actually think rhetoric works better and better the more that everyone is on the same page with a good, solid basis of knowledge about how writing in English should be structured. This isn't to say that norms shouldn't be broken, but rather that no one will know that they're being broken (intentionally or not) if they're not familiar with them.
My favorite though, I guess, was the subjective. And that's probably just because that's the way I enjoy writing. It personalizes it more...makes it more interesting.
And I think that this style of teaching is probably going to be pretty important for me in the future, as I plan on teaching at the secondary level. In theory, my students should at leask know the basic objective style. Hopefully, allowing the addition of personality and opinion and such will increase their willingness to participate.
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