Thursday, September 26, 2013

Kentucky Virtual Library

I have been reflecting on our class and I was trying to recall when I saw the first bit of "digital writing" in my learning. Then I started thinking about where I saw digital writing for the first time. That brought me to remember the Kentucky Virtual Library (KYVL). When I was in school I remember using this tool very much. We would use it for research, looking at articles, finding books, and giving useful search engines as well.

From this I began to consider how people will get their information in say 10 years. Will everything have switched to digital versions or will we still offer hard copies? Where will the pivot be that causes us to go digital? Personally I like the digital because it makes a book searchable and I can find what I want that much quicker. Not to denote actual books, but it is great to find something that quick especially in a textbook.

I think that we will have paper for some time, but I am sure that I will witness the transition to the all digital books and our libraries of books will be virtual!


Sunday, September 22, 2013

Handwriting: Then and Now

After we talked about cursive and handwriting in our last class, I began to think, will handwriting ever die out? I truly do not think that it will. Like literacy it is one of those things that is engrained into us. We will forever write things down and the notion of a personal note will still remain relevant as well. I think that there is something about a handwritten note or letter that signifies importance and that you care.

We still do not view a document as "official" with out a signature. Something about that hand written name makes the document official, even more important. It signifies that the person writing felt that it was important enough for them to take the time to sign their name. Now, it means even more to me at least. Now companies use a digital signature that has been made into a JPEG image and put it onto the paper.

I think handwriting will remain apart of our lives for years to come. It is not just an important social thing but important to developing out critical thinking skills.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Live Tweeting an Event, Yes or No?

I will have to be honest, Tweeting is something that I have had to train myself to participate in. When I first got my account, I really just enjoyed all of the snarky things that people would say or the clever ways people would put something in so few words. I also used Twitter as a constant source of news and information of what was going on but hardly participated in the conversation.

To me Twitter was something of a feat. I felt and still feel that you have to constantly Tweet to remain relevant or what you say will just get lost in the other information that is being put out and broadcasted. This is where I had the most trouble with Twitter, I did not want to be a constant flow of information, good or bad. I have found that it is fun to Tweet during an event. You can quote a speaker, give a shout out to people you see there, I have even participated in a national TweetUp with PRSSA this past August. This was really interesting, it was like a giant conference over Twitter that anyone could see by simply following #PRSSA. There is a TweetUp planned for one of my classes this semester as well.
So to the whole, Live Tweeting and event, from movies to concerts, I say there is a certain etiquette that must be followed. Should you Tweet during a broadway production, probably not. Midnight showing premiere of a movie, I'm going to have to go with a no on that as well. What about a concert? YES! Speaker? Go for it! Class? We do in writing in the Digital Age!

To me, Tweeting is like taking little notes and sharing them with the people that follow you. It a sweet simple message and if it is coined right can be retweeted time and time again. Then again everything that is retweeted is not always that great, but that is social media for you.

So all of you Tweeters, go and Tweet you hearts out about what is going on around you!

Monday, September 16, 2013

Weaving Two Styles Into One

Well here we are yet another shooting tragedy in the United States this morning. While this is a tragedy, it struck me how the story was reported on WCPO's website when I went to read about what exactly was going on at the Navy Yard in D.C. First, I am not dismissing this tragic event, rather I am looking at the style of reporting that occurred.

When I began to read the article that the Associated Press had published, I scrolled down to find something interesting, hashtags. The entire reporting scheme was laid out in a Tweet timeline



Personally I really enjoy when two mediums come together to create a story, I think that it gives the writing layers to go by and lets the reader see different writing styles. Just like incorporating pictures, adding the Tweet timeline gives the story just a little more to go on.

Adding Twitter, video, tumblr, or any other medium amplifies the story for me. I think that it add more character to the piece and shows other sides to writing as well, but delivers the facts.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Techno Genius: That’s what they think!

Technology has been intertwined in my life since I can remember. We had a computer since I was at least five and have had one ever since. With that, I have, well we as a generation have been targeted to know everything about technology. But guess what, we don’t! Novel idea, yeah I know! However, it is the truth. I do know a lot, but not everything about technology. We have entered a transitional stage though. We have gone from a paper pencil society to a screen and touch screen. 

Many view these changes as negative and think that they are hurting our children and they won’t learn as much. I will have to say that I am skeptical, but I know that children are actually learning more tablets and interactive readers than I did as a child. A prime example is to look at what children are expected to know when they leave kindergarten now versus when I was in school. We are from an age where kindergarteners blog, tweet, and are learning with more technology than ever. My mom, who is a kindergarten teacher, had a student come to her during free choice time who couldn’t remember what her blog password was and wanted to blog during free choice. Holy cow! I didn’t even know what a password was at five, let alone a blog!

While I think that technology is wonderful, I think that we should still encourage kids to play imaginatively and not be in front of the “boob tube” as my grandma use to call the television! However, we have to embrace technology and what it can do for us, especially writing. Technology potentially can improve how and why we write because now our audience is not just the teach or class that is critiquing our work, but potentially the entire world if we want. 


Technology will forever be changing our lives and has forever changed our lives, from pencils, to chalkboard, now computers, technology has always been apart of our lives. Technology has made our lives better and worse in some respect. 

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Where Science and Art Meet

"Just as scientific formulas may be elegant and beautiful, artistic creations may be informed by science or technology." This is a small excerpt from Not a Cosmic Convergence. This one line says a lot in just a few words. The beauty of something can be lost in what people perceive it to be. Some see formulas for math and science as very geometric and not flowing. However there is elegance behind the connection of numbers and what they stand for and are made in to. The same goes for writing, that some works of art, including writing are background with science or technology.

Writing is intertwined so much into technology and science. Technology would not exist without its own languages, C+, C++, Adobe, HTML, etc. This writing is an art form as much as it is a science. It took a lot of creativity for code to be developed and science too. Writing is happening more than ever today than ever before. Through Twitter, Facebook, texting, and e-mail, almost everyone is doing one of these things once a day, if not more. 

Writing can also be considered a science because there is a process. It just doesn't occur, there is a process behind how and why it happens. We think about what we want to write before it happens same with science. Heck, I would say that writing is more of a science, anything can happen, there is no law of writing that says everything you write will be successful or that writing success happens if you do "A" plus "B" and you will get "C."

Writing is in a new era, you can take it or leave it however you'd like. Just remember, that Tweet you send, status you post, it is all writing... 


Tuesday, September 3, 2013

I'm hyper on information!

Many of us, well at least I say this, "I am a gauntlet of useless information." I know a little about a lot of may different things. Why? The internet and the constant and instantaneous access to information. I will have to admit that like Michael Ridley says, I do not always process the information that I come across. I just store it and have the information take up space in my head.

I think that Plato was onto something when he said that our memory would be diminished by technology, which for him was writing and literacy. It is true, apparently we remember 50% less now than we did in the Shakespearian times. I read that somewhere, how's that for useless information that is now relevant! Actually a friend told me that...

This is how I feel on information overload!

We are constantly being told to memorize this, don't forget that, no wonder we are on information overload! We live in an instant gratification society. To some degree I don't think that is that we can't remember as well as we once did, but that there is so much more information to know. As a high school student I never saw the point in memorizing certain factoids, but I knew why I remembered others (most multiplication facts). I always was bull headed and would think if I ever went into a field, chemistry or history what have you, I could always look up the information that I needed.

“Long-form thinking looks the way its does because books shaped it that way. And because books have been knowledge’s medium, we have thought that that’s how knowledge should be shaped … But now that our medium can handle far more ideas and information, and now that it is a connective medium (ideas to ideas, people to ideas, people to people), our strategy is changing. And that is changing the very shape of knowledge.”

I do not think that I could say this better than how David Weinberger did in Too Big To Know (2011). We are still teaching and trying to be literate to what was the cutting edge years ago. We are moving into a newer age of literacy, the 2.0 alphabet, where knowledge is changing and how we access and learn is too. Knowledge today is not what it was even 10 years ago. We have finally surpassed what our brains are capable of, but we do not know how to harness what we have created and synthesize all of that information.