Standing Ovation: Reading Response 3

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Reading Response 3

In the article “Digital Nation,” the producer’s Rachel Dretzin and Dougles Rushkoff say that technology is in everything we do today and a way of life. We use it to multi-task in our work environment, play video games, and use it to train our military. Rushkoff is surprised by the way the virtual world is moving, from the life style of yesterday to the present and how it affects us today. He asks, “What is the price of gain?” IBM Innovation uses a program called “2nd Life” to meet at your work stations. You do not even have to show up anymore. IBM built a multimillion dollar building and they don’t even use it, the employees are either at home or on business trips when they work. Even though they save billions in travel, they believe “Technology will bring us back again.” Dretzin uses some examples of students that don’t read books anymore or that they connect in internet cyberspace through War craft, Bubbe, and to meet people. A student at one of the schools read Romeo and Juliet in 27 minutes on the internet; that they just looked it up. Back east, one school is experimenting with computers to keep school students engaged and focused, where normally attendance is down and the students do not want to go to school. Rushkoff and Dretzin went to Korea where the government had to establish “internet rescue camps” to deal with their addictions to their gaming and show them how to live again. Korea is the first nation to have a “falling out” with the virtual world. In the United States of America we have the Wi and Xbox, but the majority of people use War Craft to meet people and to escape reality. What about our government? They are experimenting with kids and people in the virtual world from interacting with unrealistic things to eating, and trying to make it seem real. Technology is just another stepping stone in life and another way of evolving and improving life.

In my life I play video games, use computers to work on essay’s, email friend in other states, and get recipes for dinner. I use a balance with it all. I do not let it affect my life style negatively. I do not Twitter. I Don’t Facebook. I don’t have internet at my home, but I might get it some day. I like having my privacy. I do not wish to know every single minute of everybody’s life. I like how the internet gives you information quickly and you can look up everything to words, art, even keep track of bills. I like challenges and learning something different. It keeps my mind engaged. The way technology is going these days, is just another way computers are our way of life. I believe it is a positive experience, as long as you balance it all out.

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Welcome

Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Standing Ovation”! The title of this blog refers to the audience of active readers we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with 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! I 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. I 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!