In his article “What Would Socrates Say?” Peter W. Cookson Jr. states that world-wide revolution in learning has shifted the conventional schooling to a new electronic learning environment. With this change, people globally are able to get genuine knowledge through internet technology as Cookson points out Google’s mission “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” (par 21). As we are moving forward to accessing knowledge through the immersive technologies, ideally, we share knowledge freely. In Cookson’s example of the “Water for the World” project, he is surely right about with internet technology, “something educationally revolutionary would happen: Students and adults would connect in a global, purposeful conversation that would make the world a better place” (par 28). Basically, his vision is that if teachers and students around the world would be able to learn, share and discuss issues and or exchange knowledge in a concrete and productive way, we more likely to increase our chances to find solutions for the future generations. Most of us can agree this world moves forward peacefully only if people can work as a team. I admire Cookson’s idealism and positive attitude. In fact, in a perfect world as he is hoping for, learning, discussing and sharing knowledge without boundary is definitely possible. Technology empowers us to communicate so effectively no matter where we are in this world. If we can use the tool that is available to us and use it carefully, we will benefit from it enormously.
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!
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
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I really enjoy your enthusiasm in this post! I never really looked at all of this in a positive light and your essay has definitely pointed that out to me. If we're going to make things better for now and the future we definitely have to start working and communicating together in a better way.
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