ENC 1101-B3 & B4: Writing for Discovery

I just put up a Blog Checkout Sheet link in the course calendar for this week. Since I won't look at your work before the weekend anyway, I also changed the due date for your Final Portfolio to 5pm on Friday.

By now, I'm sure that everyone knows that the revision assignments for the Exploratory drafts are not optional. You should know that you will not be permitted to revise further a sequence of Exploratory drafts for your Portfolio Draft unless you have first properly completed the revision assignment.

I've had to cancel class today. No meeting for Thursday, November 13. Instead, you should respond to your group members' drafts online.

Later today, I'll post the revision assignment for next Tuesday.

Given our discussion in class today, I thought some of you might be interested in this news item from c|net:

Napster, the song-swap pioneer that's now an online music store, is expected to announce a deal with Penn State University to offer its newly relaunched music service for free to tens of thousands of students, sources familiar with the matter said Wednesday.

More information on it today from Yahoo! News.

There is indeed a gap between generations on comprehending and using the technology we have today. Every day, we use something that our parents, grandparents, and perhaps great grandparents didn’t have when they were in their youths. The computers, Palm Pilots, and cell phones that we own and carry are our gateways to ride the technological superhighway. Do we always appreciate how efficient and easy today’s world is for us? When I see my parents and other older members of the former generation attempt to delve into digital forms of communication, I know that we can take the technology for granted at times.

I found this article, Growing Up Digital, by John Seely Brown to be very interesting. It directly relates to me and probably a lot of other kids all around the world. Our generation is the first to start with this kinda of “Growing up Digital”. I mean, I remember back in the day of elementary school we started to make the move to computer labs in the elementary schools with little things like “Oregon Trail” game and “Word Munchers” as some of you may remember. It’s probably not that big of a deal when you look around and see all the neat stuff that’s out now, but back then I believe that was pretty revolutionary.

Brown has a point that this generation does learn differently and I don't blame us for the transition. Though previous methods were effective in getting most points across they were incredibly boring, and boring equals a lack of attention, which later leads to a lack in understanding. Thats is why today's youth tend to be more hands on. Brown mentions this in regard to a fifteen year old and the reading an instruction manual. One reason they may be so reluctant is because they're young and mostly people around this age learn by trial and error. It is also a fact that when a person is engaged in a learning activity and making logical connection on their own they tend to remember and store more than when being dictated to.

In John Seely Brown's Growing up Digital he supports the notion that this generation is learning and developing far differently than others before.

I was surprised with the novel idea that in my ENC 1101 class I would not be doing any writing, but I would be doing a whole lot of typing. It surprised me because throughout my life English classes have been associated with long and boring essays that nobody but the teacher read. To surprise me even further I wouldn’t be turning in a disk with my assignments on it, but I would be submitting my essays to a webpage.

As discussed in class yesterday, are next drafting assignment will be a short story. The only additional requirement for the draft, other than the normal length requirement, is that it is to be written in 3rd person.

Note that the draft is due on Thursday next week as Tuesday is a holiday.

Shortly after section B4's class meeting yesterday, I was able to discern that one of the sticks of RAM in the server had gone bad. It's been pulled and the server seems to be running fine now, although a hair slower because I haven't replaced the RAM yet.

So any other access problems you might be having to this site are courtesy of the FSU network

Okay I have lots of questions to ask about my paper. Of course, I procrastinated to the last minute so it may seem a little thrown together. For the next draft, I plan on researching a little bit more on the subject of abortion. This will help incorporate Ethos into my paper because the reader will understand more from where I am coming from and acknowledge my credibility.

Your revision assignment for Exploratory C draft 1 is to write another essay for draft 2 which argues well the opposite position from the one you took in draft 1.

If you are not really familiar with the opposite view point, you might want to do some quick research and find a few sources.

Note that a minor correction was made to yesterday's and Thursday's assignment. There is no draft due until Thursday