In his artice, " Is Google Making us Stupid?" the author Nicholas Carr writes, "Never has a communication system played so many roles in our lives-or exerted such broad influence over our thoughts-as the internet does today." What Carr is saying here is that we have slowly started to rely on the web for more and more things. The rate that this technology is growing is alarming, and we have let it become such a large part of our lives. The internet net as a whole is not a bad thing, it is how we use it, how we abuse it, and how it has taken control of our thought processes that is eye opening. Society has accepted and craved the internet like a kid and his presents on Christmas morning. The world wide web is not the devil step child, but letting it control lives like the way it does for some is just plain scary.
In his article, "Lazy Eyes" Michael Agger fills his on screen article with attention getting tactics to proove his point that, "Humans are informavores. On the internet, we hunt for facts. In earlier days, when switching between sites was time-consuming, we tended to stay in one place and dig. Now we assess a site quickly, look for an information scent then move on if nothing is there." What Agger is saying here is that we are changing the way we use computers and its resources. We used to spend time on the internet embracing it, when it was slow, new, and lacked depth. But now that there is infinate sites on one topic, we often surf the internet only staying connected with it long enough to see if it's what we're looking for. If we dont find it: double click and we move on. The internet has been a useful tool and an amazing display of how technology can grow and how fast we can adapt to it. The tendencies that have been born with more information and faster web speed are not the greatest habits to own. The internet used responsibly can be a useful tool, but we all know how hard it is to stay focused and connected to one thing at a time. Is this the internet's fault? Or is it just a problem we have created for ourselves as we are introduced to new technologies and new ways to learn and take in information.
Welcome to Our Blog Conversations Beyond the Classroom!
Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversation Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + 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. We 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! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
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