Bart

The techno-literacy project was a great learning experience for me! I thoroughly enjoyed hearing everyone’s presentations because they brought back many memories. I was forced to think about topics that I haven’t thought about in years such as different games and technologies. I chose to create my techno-literacy memoir in the form of a blog to create a format other than traditional. From this project, I learned that meaningful writing might appear in many different genres. The traditional form usually involves a pen, paper, and a lot of words. Well, maybe today day we don’t use pen and paper since it has been substituted by word processors, but it is still traditional for the fact that it is usually all writing. My techno-literacy blog memoir helped me to expand writing in ways that I had never thought.
 * 1. Reflect on the process of creating the techno-literacy memoir. What did you learn from presenting this project in a mode other than traditional print text? **

The traditional form usually only allows a writer to expand upon a text my writing more, but blogging allowed me to write less and still expand my writing. My blog allowed me to expand upon the meaning of my text by adding pictures, videos, and hyperlinks. The traditional print text essay did not allow me to use multimedia in my writing. Overall, the major thing that I learned by presenting this project in a mode other than traditional is that meaningful writing can take the shape of so many different forms. I believe that traditional writing will always be important, but it is also go to know how to write in other forms to expand writing. Over the last decade technology has advanced so much! Because there have been so many advancements in technology, I think that the future of writing will drastically change in the twenty-first century. Writing can change in both positive and negative ways, but hopefully there will be more positive changes due to technology. I believe that media may make writer much lazier, which may cause writing to become much more informal. For example, one technology media that will change writing in the twenty-first century is text messaging. Text message writing is beginning to occur in writing much more because people text so much. Will text message writing ever be in the same category of formal writing? At this point I can’t answer this question, but I truly believe that text message writing could become formal. I do not believe that text writing should become formal, but I am not sure that anyone can really stop this transition in writing. There are so many different technologies that are being integrated and I think that the same will eventually happen with writing. For example, cell phones have become so complex containing phone, Internet, and music capabilities. I believe that writing will become complex in the same way containing more than just traditional English. If you look back in time writing has evolved from the Shakespearian period compared to today’s writing. Many words that were used during that time period are no longer used. These shifts in English only lead me to believe that one day text message writing could be accepted as standard. It was so much fun to view everyone's web-text projects in multimedia class. I really liked the fact that everyone had something different about his or her project. I chose to do my web-text project using an older paper that I wrote in African American Literature. The paper that I used contained about seven pages, but it was a different product when it appeared on the web. First I had to make a decision about what information was most important because I could not convert all seven pages to web-text. Selecting what information I wanted to use was the most difficult because I thought the whole text was important. Although I wanted to keep the majority of my text I knew that I would have to eliminate some of it in order to make my information web friendly. Eventually, I ended up focusing on key themes in my original text, which helped guide me in converting my paper to web text. I started to really notice a change in my text when I began to hyperlink different chunks of information on my wiki, which is where I created my web-text project. I think that the hyperlinks were so important to my web-text project because they allowed me my print to come alive. Through hyperlinks I was able to add additional text that I did not include, add videos, and other pertinent information that contributed to my revised text. After taking this class, I have learned that writing can occur is many different genres. Writing does not always have to be done traditionally by using pen and paper and it does not always have to be formal. The biggest change that I have made as a writer is becoming more aware of my audience. Sine I have been in college my mind has be conditioned to write in traditional, standard, and MLA format. When writing I have always had one audience in mind, which was my professor because he or she was the only person reading my material. This semester I have been forced to reconsider my audience, for most of my writing has been done on the worldwide web. I have also changed as a writer because now I realize that meaningful writing does not always have to be formal. When I write for an online audience I still try to write with competence, but my writing is less formal. When I write for an online audience my I notice that my personal opinion is much more obvious. Usually when I submit a paper to be reviewed by a professor I try to write according to what he or she is evaluating. For me, blogging and discussion posts really allows me to write freely, which is something that I really enjoy.
 * 2. Make at least one prediction about where new media will take writing in the twenty-first century. **
 * 3. Reflect on the process of creating the web-text. How did the text change in its transition from silent print to the “noise” of cyberspace (and that question can be taken either metaphorically or literally) in terms of stylistic choices and audience concerns? **
 * 4. In what ways have you change as a writer this semester? **

The concept that I found most interesting comes from Bolter’s chapter 8. Bolter writes about the ideas of authorship. He writes that the author is the authority of the text and that people that can write should not be questioned. In this chapter he also talks about how the printing press evolved and helped to become better preserved. In way the printing press was used to give authors fame because it allowed text to be spread around the world. Since it cost so much for authors to become published most author’s writings were not published. So when authors were able to publish their writings many people believed what they had to say.
 * 5. Which theory/theorist have you found most interesting or helpful in the understanding digital media and why?**

This topic is of interest to me because many people today people judge writing by the same criteria. Most authors are deemed knowledgeable based on their educational background or knowledge of a topic. Many years ago people used basic criteria to decide what they would ready, but today it is much harder to decide what is a creditable source. With inventions such as the Internet there is a lot of text on the web. People must really evaluate text to determine if it is accurate or not. I wonder how things would be today if we didn’t have Internet. How would things be if only those with money could have text published?