My thoughts on writing and technology

As a precursor, I'd just like to say that the format of this blog is not how I will format my paper that I will turn in. I'd like to use the casual atmosphere of blogging to simply get my ideas out, and I will restructure my ideas into an organized fashion later.

First off, I'd like to discuss the idea of the accessability of our writing when it is put onto the internet. Normally, when we need to write a response to something we've read, we type something up and either print it to give directly to our professor or we e-mail it directly to our professor. The idea of blogging a response to a paper, where everyone and anyone can see what you've written, can be a little bit intimidating. It's not so much an issue of strangers reading what I've written that bothers me, rather having my own peers reading what I've written. For the first few blogs I had to write for this online class, I wasn't really worried about them because I knew that, most likely, no one in my class would take the time to read what I had written. However, when we were asked to review other people's blogs, I suddenly realized that the blog my group partners would be commenting on was one that I didn't think anyone would read in the first place! Because of this, I became a little self-conscious of how open I had been in my blog. I think if I had realized others would in fact be reading my blog in advance to writing it, I would have written my blog a little differently with perhaps not so much personal information. This is one of the disadvantages to writing on the internet under the circumstance that one's writing is accessible to the public. The information written may not be as open as if someone were writing simply for their professor's eyes or in a private journal. There are, however, blogs that are private which people use as diaries on the internet. Even this would make me a little nervous because I'd have a hard time trusting that absolutely no one would read what I've written.

While knowing others will read your writing can be intimidating and in effect ruin your writing, it can also have the opposite effect and improve your writing. Many students who aren't very interested in getting an A in a class will write papers that are only half-good. They write just well enough to get them through the class with at least a passing grade. Perhaps for these kinds of students, having to write on a public blog that will be read by their peers would give them a little push to write better. Not because they want a better grade but because they don't want to be embarassed in front of their peers that their writing isn't very good. A perfectly good writer who would have otherwise slacked on an essay would write something much better because they know it will be read by their peers. This sort of positive "peer-pressure" can be very good for students.

When it comes to online discussions like we have had in our English 201 online class, I think that there are many benefits. One of the main benefits is that everyone gets to say something. Sometimes in an actual classroom, there are a few students who talk a lot and a lot of students who hardly talk at all. Perhaps some of the quieter students would say something if the more confident students would stop talking for a somewhat extended period of time. The odds are, however, that a shy student will never talk in a classroom setting because they are simply to afraid to say anything for fear of sounding stupid or perhaps they didn't read and therefore have nothing to say. Having an online discussion allows for each individual to say at least one thing about what they've read, especially if it is a requirement for the grade to post something on the discussion board. This way, each student gets his or her say in the matter. Also, the shy students who would otherwise have chosen not to participate in a classroom discussion will participate in an online discussion because it takes away some of the pressure. As Baron states, “while writing cannot replace many speech functions, it allows us to communicate in ways that speech does not” (75). In an online discussion, there's no one staring you down and judging you. There are simply words on a computer screen that are hardly associated with anyone in particular. I think this is a major benefit of the use of online discussions. I had a class last semester where myself and one other person were basically the only people that ever talked. There were about 12 people in the class, but for whater reason hardly anyone would discuss our readings. There would be long awkward silences and the same few people would fill in the silence with some ideas of theirs, even if the ideas were just made up to fill the silence. In an online discussion, this awkward silence is never an issue; everyone will say something, and everyone will respond to something. It allows a shy student to become an intelligent part of a discussion they would have otherwise opted out of being a part of, had it been in front of peers in a classroom.

Another advantage of the form of digital text is that it can be easily revisited or revised. Printed text can certainly be revisted as well, but not in as easy of a fashion as digital text can. With a few swift keystrokes on google's search engine, anyone can find what they're looking to read within seconds. Printed text is accessilbe if it's on your home bookshelf, but if it's not, then there might be a hunt involved in finding the text one would like to revisit. From the writers perspective, the nice thing about digital text is that it can be revised at any time. It's not like a printed book where it goes through a lot of editing and is then published and is only revised a couple of years later perhaps. Writing on the internet, in a blog especially, can be revised at any time. If a writer decides they'd like to reword a sentence or two, or to completely change their entire work of writing, all they need to do is log on, hit backspace or delete, and fill in their new ideas. All of this happens within a few quick moments.