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!

Monday, May 9, 2011

Why should we care?

In his essay titled “What would Socrates Say” Peter W. Cookson Jr.’s main argument lies in his belief that the outdated educational system is failing today’s students.  He boldly states that adding technology to educational tools would be too little too late.  He claims in his article that “technical fixes to our outdated educational system are likely to be inadequate.”  A Band-Aid effect that would fail to fully cover and change the current problems facing learners he suggests that instead of merely throwing technology onto education, we must instead blend it with the current teaching methods already in place. 

Facing problems today we must offer a united force by including students in a more hands on, effective manner.  By supplying the needed tools, such as Skype, student made websites, and teamwork on a global level we can better solve common problems.  Cookson claims that by collaborative methods better solutions are offered.  Given what happens when a problem is looked at from all sides by the suspension of fanciful ideas and replacing them with logic students and teachers alike can offer more effective problem solving solutions.

Today we are seeing a lowering in the standards put into place by the educational directors.  Students are receiving extensions, smaller tests, and easier assignments in class.  If working together means higher testing grades, better communication between students, and more knowledge being spread them people should jump at the chance.

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