Paige's WRT 205 Blog

My first time EVER walking through the bookshelves at Bird Library. I rarely ever go to the second floor.    The book I chose to check out. It was found in the sociology/psychology section of the library. The back of the book--so you can get an idea of what it is about! The beginning of the book. I sat in Bird for a while and read the first few pages to see if I liked it or not.  I took a photo of the book return so I can remember where to put it when I bring it back. I've never checked out a book before and didn't know!     Today I went to Bird Library with my WRT 205 class. I'm not going to lie when I say this was my first time there all year. Bird is not my most favorite place to study, nor have I made use of their resources before. I think Bird smells and it's always packed and impossible to find a table. Even if you are able to find a table, they're usually dirty and have food on them. I'd much rather prefer to study i...

My pitch info-graphic was sent to my audience via email. My target audience is avid YouTube watchers ages 16-24.

My three research questions are (with comments from friends on each question): 1) Should YouTube be allowed to block conspiracy theory videos from users feed? - "Free speech, don't block my man Shane Dawson." - "Isn't YouTube a free space? I mean at least conspiracy videos aren't offensive." - "These days people take offense to everything, conspiracy videos are entertaining, it's like watching a TV show." 2) Should teachers be allowed to make the classroom a non-technology space? - "Even if a classroom is a tech free zone, I will still sneak my phone under the desk." - "At this point, there's no point in taking away technology, we're all addicted to it." - "Some classes technology shouldn't be allowed, like in ETS classes." 3) How should teachers utilize technology in the classroom? - "I guess it depends on the class, but I like when teachers allow us to look up things on ou...

Unit 1 Reflection At the start of Unit 1, I wasn’t out on the hunt for 4 “perfect, credible sources”. In fact, I wouldn’t have minded if I found a horribly false article to analyze. However, I believe all four of my sources are of high quality. Two of the sources I analyzed were given to me by my professor and the other two were off of Google Scholar and the Syracuse Libraries site. It was my goal to use these educational sources rather than simply typing “Writing and Technology” into a Google search box. Just using Google would have most likely given me less credible sources. The only source that I had an issue with was my 2 nd   source. It was about an experiment done regarding technology in a writing course and I wasn’t too pleased with the subject sample. Only 12 students took place in the experiment which took place at Umass Amherst. The author, Susan Kirtley, wrote in her description of the experiment “The group of 12 students who enrolled in the class was ...

Source 1: From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technology   Dennis Baron, author of Pencils to Pixels, uses this project to tell the history of the pencil, a very early on technology. He then goes on to talk about how the pencil led to the development of newer technologies, which are now used to complete the same writing techniques as the pencil. He draws on the similarities and differences of these technological inventions and how the invention of the pencil has impacted our world today. The author provides his opinion on how he has become reliant on technology but also leaves room for the audience to develop their own ideas through the history and knowledge he provides. The genre of this project was very informative as the author uses other academic publications to tell the technological history of the pencil. Furthermore, Baron's project seemed very credible as every source and picture was cited to its original owner.  I found this project to be extremel...

I enjoyed doing this free write because I got to write about one of my favorite topics- IT. I chose to take this WRT 205 intensive because it goes great with not only my major but my passion, Information Management and Technologies. I want to make this course as meaningful as possible by not only strengthening my writing skills but my furthering my knowledge of technology. I think these two topics go hand in hand with one another and I'm excited how this course will interconnect the two topics in my mind.

From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technology by Dennis Baron Link: www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/essays/pencils.htm The Authors Project: The authors project was to tell the history of the pencil, a very early on technology, and how the invention of it led to the invention of today's modern computers. It draws on the similarities and differences of the two inventions and how they impacted out world today. Genre/ How did the project influence the genre:   I think the genre of this piece is an essay. Its very informative and tells the information of the creation of the pencil. It goes into history such as who made the pencil, what it was first made from and how the costs. For example, the author states “writing technology remained cumbersome and expensive.” This essay then goes on to talk about how the creation of the pencil (an early form of advanced technology) led to the creation of modern-day technology and the similarities bet...