I am writing this at the conclusion of Writing, Research and Technology, taken at Rowan University, as a description of my experiences, processes and thoughts on writing, research and technology as experienced through this course.
Unfortunately, the WRITING process I went through to complete projects and assignments in this course was most often painful and disappointing. Painfully slow, painfully jumbled and painfully bad. I have found the simplest tasks, such as posting to Twitter, to be incredibly frustrating, time consuming and ending in dissatisfaction. I started all of the assignments the same way: I sat down with the assignment sheet/description in front of me, thought about what was being asked, or read the assigned selection, and began trying to produce work that would get me a comment or retweet.. I have been taking notes on what is expected, based on what other students have written that has been retweeted, but I found that this approach was not conducive to good writing. . I need to learn to accept the writing as it comes. What I came up with has come in disconnected, disjointed spasms. The most frustrating thing is that I never seemed to dig myself out of this rut. I have attempted to change my location, my process and even my writing style, all to no avail. It has not helped that I have been waiting until the last minute to begin putting my ideas on the actual page.
Through this process I have discovered that the disjointed spasms might be the best method for allowing my readers to understand what I am trying to convey. Not being limited by genre, has made the process much better. If one genre isn't working, I can move on to another, and another, and another and they will all work together to make an awesome final product. I have learned a lot about myself as a writer, particularly that while I may not have recognized it before, I am now sure that I am a writer that requires constant feedback in order to produce my best work. Perhaps a more appropriate phrasing is "to be motivated to produce my best work".
We had to use TECHNOLOGY at every turn. The class has not included a single print assignment. All of our assignments have involved reading something found online and creating tweets, a website, blog posts, and projects based on those readings. We were thrust into this world of technology immediately, and it is my opinion that this was the only way to do it. Some of the things we have been required to do are not unfamiliar to me. I have used twitter for a class, created a website for another and even kept a blog on Tumblr for another. The similarities end there. I was never before required to do all aspects of classwork online on a website that I created for myself.
The use of Twitter was the easy part. I have only used twitter for school, but I have used it previously. Although I prefer to use Facebook, the small amount of characters was not a surprise, and I got used to it again pretty quickly. The only part of Twitter I have not enjoyed is having to make my account public. I have been followed by several people I don't know in the past few weeks, which adds to my concern of how many people are reading this blog and the other things I have posted to this site. In some ways Twitter provides an advantage, especially when I don't feel like writing much. I am forced to choose my words carefully and I can only post so much.
Having created a website previously did not help me when creating this one since they are completely different formats, but I was able to appreciate how simple it was to use this site and I was more aware of what my website would need. I have appreciated creating all assignments on this site because everything I have done for this class is all here in one neat package. All completed assignments are added to my site live and easily changeable if I notice mistakes or just want to improve something I've done at some point in the future. While you would think that putting all assignments online would cause a feeling of finality, it has the opposite effect. Instead of handing in one final paper that cannot be edited once it is out of my hands, I was able to improve upon my assignments all semester.
The most noticeable impact that technology has had on my writing is that I am more guarded about what I write, since I know that many people have access to it. While my audience would normally include my professor and a maybe a few classmates, I now consider that many others (who may or may not know why I'm writing the things that I am) could potentially read anything I write. This knowledge has caused me to want to steer clear of anything that would be too boring or unimpressive. I feel immense pressure with each blog post that I complete. While part of me believes that this is good practice for writing professionally, the part of me that sees this as yet another stumbling block that distracts me from the purpose of the assignments. I cannot tell yet if this has made my writing better, worse or unchanged, but I am sure I will appreciate this aspect of my writing experience much more in the future.
I have had mixed results when creating my Twitterive and Collaborative Research Project. The Twitterive could not exist without technology, but I have also found that it can be a distraction here. I have had trouble finding the right balance of technology and narrative. At first I used too much technology, and now I am struggling to add the right amount of narrative to compliment it. On the positive side, I have enjoyed not having limits on how to express ideas. Instead of just words, I have videos, or screen shots, or sound-clips, or pictures, and the list goes on. I am only limited by what my imagination can come up with. I have been afforded an opportunity that no paper project would ever allow. I only see positive results coming from this, since I will be able to think of various ways to express myself and engage my audience in the ideas I am trying to convey. As far as the Collaborative Research Project is concerned, I have again found myself being grateful for the freedom of the format. My group originally decided to create a video, but when that didn't work out we were able to add the video clips we got to a multi-modal website. This worked well for us, especially since our form of collaboration was mostly hierarchical. We were each able to add to the site without having to consult one another at every turn.
The writing and technology aspects contributed greatly to the RESEARCH aspect. Having read the types of reading selections that we did all semester, as well as responding to them appropriately, prepared us to find appropriate sources and draw appropriate conclusions from them. This was the part of the class that I felt most prepared for. I suppose I was most comfortable because it was the one aspect that was not up for debate within myself. It was interesting to see how research comes together when different parts are done by different individuals. This was the one class that I was not annoyed to have to work within a group in. The load was truly lessened when completing the Collaborative Research Project. I realize that this section is much shorter than the others. This is because it was the concept we dealt with least and latest and as a result it was a much smaller part of the big picture for me.
OVERALL, I feel that the benefits to working exclusively online outweigh any of the discomforts that I've experienced. This experience will be invaluable in the very near future since the use of technology is becoming more and more pervasive in all areas of life. Having to think a certain way when creating assignments is also good practice for this future. I have already begun to change the way that I think about writing as a result of the way I have created assignments here.
Unfortunately, the WRITING process I went through to complete projects and assignments in this course was most often painful and disappointing. Painfully slow, painfully jumbled and painfully bad. I have found the simplest tasks, such as posting to Twitter, to be incredibly frustrating, time consuming and ending in dissatisfaction. I started all of the assignments the same way: I sat down with the assignment sheet/description in front of me, thought about what was being asked, or read the assigned selection, and began trying to produce work that would get me a comment or retweet.. I have been taking notes on what is expected, based on what other students have written that has been retweeted, but I found that this approach was not conducive to good writing. . I need to learn to accept the writing as it comes. What I came up with has come in disconnected, disjointed spasms. The most frustrating thing is that I never seemed to dig myself out of this rut. I have attempted to change my location, my process and even my writing style, all to no avail. It has not helped that I have been waiting until the last minute to begin putting my ideas on the actual page.
Through this process I have discovered that the disjointed spasms might be the best method for allowing my readers to understand what I am trying to convey. Not being limited by genre, has made the process much better. If one genre isn't working, I can move on to another, and another, and another and they will all work together to make an awesome final product. I have learned a lot about myself as a writer, particularly that while I may not have recognized it before, I am now sure that I am a writer that requires constant feedback in order to produce my best work. Perhaps a more appropriate phrasing is "to be motivated to produce my best work".
We had to use TECHNOLOGY at every turn. The class has not included a single print assignment. All of our assignments have involved reading something found online and creating tweets, a website, blog posts, and projects based on those readings. We were thrust into this world of technology immediately, and it is my opinion that this was the only way to do it. Some of the things we have been required to do are not unfamiliar to me. I have used twitter for a class, created a website for another and even kept a blog on Tumblr for another. The similarities end there. I was never before required to do all aspects of classwork online on a website that I created for myself.
The use of Twitter was the easy part. I have only used twitter for school, but I have used it previously. Although I prefer to use Facebook, the small amount of characters was not a surprise, and I got used to it again pretty quickly. The only part of Twitter I have not enjoyed is having to make my account public. I have been followed by several people I don't know in the past few weeks, which adds to my concern of how many people are reading this blog and the other things I have posted to this site. In some ways Twitter provides an advantage, especially when I don't feel like writing much. I am forced to choose my words carefully and I can only post so much.
Having created a website previously did not help me when creating this one since they are completely different formats, but I was able to appreciate how simple it was to use this site and I was more aware of what my website would need. I have appreciated creating all assignments on this site because everything I have done for this class is all here in one neat package. All completed assignments are added to my site live and easily changeable if I notice mistakes or just want to improve something I've done at some point in the future. While you would think that putting all assignments online would cause a feeling of finality, it has the opposite effect. Instead of handing in one final paper that cannot be edited once it is out of my hands, I was able to improve upon my assignments all semester.
The most noticeable impact that technology has had on my writing is that I am more guarded about what I write, since I know that many people have access to it. While my audience would normally include my professor and a maybe a few classmates, I now consider that many others (who may or may not know why I'm writing the things that I am) could potentially read anything I write. This knowledge has caused me to want to steer clear of anything that would be too boring or unimpressive. I feel immense pressure with each blog post that I complete. While part of me believes that this is good practice for writing professionally, the part of me that sees this as yet another stumbling block that distracts me from the purpose of the assignments. I cannot tell yet if this has made my writing better, worse or unchanged, but I am sure I will appreciate this aspect of my writing experience much more in the future.
I have had mixed results when creating my Twitterive and Collaborative Research Project. The Twitterive could not exist without technology, but I have also found that it can be a distraction here. I have had trouble finding the right balance of technology and narrative. At first I used too much technology, and now I am struggling to add the right amount of narrative to compliment it. On the positive side, I have enjoyed not having limits on how to express ideas. Instead of just words, I have videos, or screen shots, or sound-clips, or pictures, and the list goes on. I am only limited by what my imagination can come up with. I have been afforded an opportunity that no paper project would ever allow. I only see positive results coming from this, since I will be able to think of various ways to express myself and engage my audience in the ideas I am trying to convey. As far as the Collaborative Research Project is concerned, I have again found myself being grateful for the freedom of the format. My group originally decided to create a video, but when that didn't work out we were able to add the video clips we got to a multi-modal website. This worked well for us, especially since our form of collaboration was mostly hierarchical. We were each able to add to the site without having to consult one another at every turn.
The writing and technology aspects contributed greatly to the RESEARCH aspect. Having read the types of reading selections that we did all semester, as well as responding to them appropriately, prepared us to find appropriate sources and draw appropriate conclusions from them. This was the part of the class that I felt most prepared for. I suppose I was most comfortable because it was the one aspect that was not up for debate within myself. It was interesting to see how research comes together when different parts are done by different individuals. This was the one class that I was not annoyed to have to work within a group in. The load was truly lessened when completing the Collaborative Research Project. I realize that this section is much shorter than the others. This is because it was the concept we dealt with least and latest and as a result it was a much smaller part of the big picture for me.
OVERALL, I feel that the benefits to working exclusively online outweigh any of the discomforts that I've experienced. This experience will be invaluable in the very near future since the use of technology is becoming more and more pervasive in all areas of life. Having to think a certain way when creating assignments is also good practice for this future. I have already begun to change the way that I think about writing as a result of the way I have created assignments here.