Writing In & For Digital Environments

Part I:

What is Digital Writing?

The development of modern technology has challenged educators to rethink what good academic writing is to consist of. As digital environments become more omnipresent in our modern society, the line between traditional academic writing and multi-modal digital writing will continue to blur. While professors of older generations remain bound by the belief that academic writing and writing in digital environments are entirely different entities, the fact remains that the implementation of digital writing in academic curriculums will benefit students living in this modern world.

The multimodality of digital writing makes it inherently difficult to pinpoint a singular definition of this rhetoric that challenges the norms of traditional academic writing. In her article, “Keeping Up With Digital Writing in the College Classroom”, Andrea Baer defines digital writing as “writing that is composed-and most often read-through digital environments and tools” (Baer 2013). However, it is clear that digital writing encompasses far more than this simple definition. Baer goes on to discuss how digital writing is wholly multimodal, and how the incorporation of images, video, and audio not only supplements the author’s text, but also “interact with one another to create new meanings and multiple potential interpretations” (Baer 2013).

The definition of digital writing can be expanded further. In her article, “Consider the Audience” Jen Rajchel explores the different ways in which writers can manipulate a digital platform to best suit their needs. Rajchel explains digital writing on two levels: “at one level, web writing is about writing on the web: the flexibility as a multimodal piece, the ability to nimbly circulate, and the capacity to create a network of texts. At another level, the practice is about writing for the web and situating ourselves as readers and writers within its evolving architecture” (Rajchel 2014). Rajchel’s piece not only focuses on defining the multimodality of digital writing, but also stresses the importance of online writers to utilize this multimodality to add a critical lens to their arguments and engage an online audience.

Ultimately, the multimodality of digital writing can lead to an incredibly vague definition for what it actually encompasses. In his article “Digital Rhetoric”, James Zappen states that digital writing is “an amalgam of more-or-less discrete components rather than a complete and integrated theory in its own right” (Zappen 2005). Zappen explains that the development of digital writing is challenging how traditional writing is composed. In particular, he notes that digital writing is transforming traditional notions of rhetoric as a mode of persuasion into a mode of “testing one’s own ideas, a contesting of others’ ideas, and a collaborative creating of ideas” (Zappen 2005).

Why is Digital Writing Important?

It is clear that digital writing has become incredibly important to the academic experience of this generation, and will continue to be for generations to come. Across the country, professors are modifying their curriculum to prepare students for life after academia. Leigh Wright’s “Tweet Me A Story” shows how using the social media application Twitter to supplement traditional learning methods in her journalism class can teach students to quickly and concisely compose their thoughts in order to become part of a social media conversation. In addition to teaching students how to compose thoughts quickly and concisely, Wright utilized Twitter as a way to teach students teach how to develop their voice online for the purpose of writing leads and live tweeting events.

The idea of addressing a particular audience is an important part of how digital writing helps students shape their voice online and develop writing styles that best suit their academic needs. Rajchel stresses the importance of teaching students how to address their online audience and how to determine the appropriate platform to address this audience. She says that students must “be prompted to become critical users who delineate the context, content, and circulation for each platform” (Rajchel 2014), and that it is important to develop an understanding of how to make their writing appealing to their target audience.

In addition to teaching students to create voices and writing styles that best suit the platform they are using to create digital writing, digital writing encourages participation, collaboration, and community building that can extend beyond the classroom. Zappen discusses these ideas in the section of his article regarding the formation of identities and communities, stating that digital communication and writing is not only used to persuade a reader, but also to foster “self-expression for the purpose of exploring individual and group identities and participation and collaboration for the purpose of building communities and shared interests” (Zappen 2005).

Rajchel also discusses how participation and collaboration through digital writing are an important part of the modern academic experience. She compares the skills gained from implementing digital writing into academic curriculum to skills learned in seminar style courses: “reading across disciplines, developing expertise, and delving into discussions. Students learn to challenge each other, but more importantly, themselves” (Rajchel 2014). Online, students learn to compose writing that encourages thoughtful discussion and collaboration of ideas in order to develop their ideas and share them with a given audience.

Leigh Wright’s use of Twitter as part of her class’ curriculum fostered this participation, collaboration, and community building as well. While her live tweeting exercise was designed to develop quick and concise thought by her students, the exercise also allowed students and other members of the Twittersphere to engage in discussion on the event they were covering. This open discussion in turn developed the open lines of communication between other Twitter users and students, and provide a key example of how digital writing can enhance the academic experience of students.

However, despite the fact that digital writing should be a part of the modern academic experience, there are academics that believe that traditional writing and digital writing cannot coincide within the academic arena. In “Set in Stone or Set in Motion?”, authors Hudley and Holbrook give examples of teachers and students who believe that academic writing and writing online are entirely separate, and that the latter should not be a part of a student’s academic experience. In turn, these individuals fail to recognize digital writing as a development of academic writing. The article points out that the inclusion of digital writing in their curriculum merely supplements these traditional learning methods, and that there is no “either/or” dividing the two; traditional academic writing and digital writing should be taught side-by-side (Hundley & Holbrook, 2013).

The goal of these educators (Rajchel, Wright) is still the same of traditional academics: to teach students how to become better writers. While traditional academic writing skills will always be key to academic development of students, the study discussed in Hundley and Holbrook’s article states that teachers like Jen Rajchel and Leigh Wright should recognize the importance of finding ways to utilize digital mediums to make their courses relevant to students of a modern generation. If educators “can embrace the twist of technology while giving students the tools to develop their voice, tone, and unique writing style” (Wright 2013), students will better develop the digital writing skills needed in the modern world.

Part II:

As a college student living in a world of rapid technological advances, the importance of courses focused on writing in digital mediums has grown exponentially since my arrival on campus. iPads and digital writing platforms have become widely implemented in curriculums across the academic spectrum, and the ability for students to utilize them as an academic tool has become an important part of our learning experience at Dickinson.

As a Policy Management major, a major that focuses on the creation of organizational policies and initiatives, I believe that the college’s decision to implement this technology into students’ learning experiences will be beneficial to the academic experience of students now and in the future. While almost everyone who attends Dickinson has a smart phone or some form of modern technology, the classes that teach students how to manipulate this technology in order to use it productively in an academic setting will provide students more than just a basic understanding of this technology. I see our class as a great example of this. Everyone in our class had a basic understanding of the iPad technology prior to taking this course. However, after learning how to utilize apps like Feedly and WordPress to create and analyze writing in digital environments, students have gained the understanding of how to compose the multimodal literature using the technology that has become commonplace in our modern society. While this class has not necessarily promoted the ideas of quick, concise thought found in “Tweet Me A Story”, this class does encourage students to project a voice that is in accordance with the subject matter discussed in our blogs found in “Consider the Audience”.

I have seen the use of digital writing employed in courses prior to this course. In my freshman year Civil War History course, our teacher assigned weekly 500 word blog posts designed to have students summarize and analyze each week’s readings. While these blog posts were only a supplement to assignments for this course, it still provided me early exposure to digital writing that has helped me throughout my academic career at Dickinson. This experience taught me how to express my ideas and thoughts in a concise manner. In a world where technology has forced us to be straightforward with our ideas (since there is so much information readily available to us), this class taught me how to formulate ideas in a way that allowed the reader to quickly understand the points I was trying to make.

As students like me graduate from college and enter the work force, companies are searching for students that have adapted to and mastered the use of the digital mediums these companies expect employees to use. Companies are rapidly adding divisions within their organizations to focus solely on their social media content and digital marketing strategies, and students with a background in digital writing will be much more appealing to these companies. Students who have had exposure to academic environments of both Rajchel and Wright, who sought to create through their use of Twitter as a means to teach quick though, concise writing, and collaboration, will be far better off than a student who has been subjected to the linear approach of traditional academic writing.

Works Cited

Jen Rajchel, “Consider the Audience,” in Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning, ed. Jack Dougherty and Tennyson O’Donnell (University of Michigan Press/Trinity College ePress edition, 2014), http://epress.trincoll.edu/webwriting/chapter/rajchel.

Zappen, James P. “Digital Rhetoric: Toward An Integrated Theory.” Technical Communication Quarterly: 319-25. Web. 21 Oct. 2015. http://homepages.rpi.edu/~zappenj/Vita/DigitalRhetoric2005.pdf

Wright, Leigh. “Tweet Me A Story.” Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning. University of Michigan Press at Michigan Publishing. 2013. Web. 21 Oct. 2015. http://webwriting2013.trincoll.edu/engagement/wright-2013/

Baer, Andrea. “Keeping Up With… Digital Writing in the College Classroom.” 2013. Web. 21 Oct. 2015. http://www.ala.org/acrl/publications/keeping_up_with/digital_writing.

Hundley, M, & Holbrook, T 2013, ‘Set in Stone or Set in Motion?: Multimodal and Digital Writing With Preservice English Teachers’, Journal Of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 56, 6, pp. 500-509, Education Research Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 28 October 2015. http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=8cf26b30-8c76-4cf0-95c0-47de6914a2fc%40sessionmgr120&hid=111&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=85862587&db=ehh

What comes to mind when we hear the word penmanship? Does our mind jump to a  scene from a documentary where puffy-collared writers show their expertise with quill and ink? Or perhaps we imagine the skill of writing neat cursive letters. Both mental tangents retain an important part of the truth. Penmanship is the art or skill of writing by hand. But in an age where more and more people are typing their words rather than applying pen to paper, does penmanship still matter? I argue it does, so long as the word penmanship can be alternatively understood as the ability to [write and] produce compositions with skill and versatility.

I’m confident in saying that, on a daily basis, my number of words typed far exceeds the number written. A debate among many modern authors and writers world-wide, as writing and reading evolve past ink and paper, how can a new generation of penmen show their skills in a fresh form and without discarding the classic one? Digital writing is new, yes. But is it so new that the ability to simply write well will not withstand a wave of multimodal visuals and organic forums that keep conversations open? I, and likely most of my classmates, don’t think so. Because when you learn about what digital writing is, you also learn about how it really works; it’s fluidity, and how its organic form and speedy circuitry make it accessible to all writers, whether you are a wordsmith or a novice, natural-born writer or toilsome worker.

Talking and Talking back

To better understand how digital writing can be taught or learned, let us look at Shelbie Witte’s article, “That’s online writing, not boring school writing”. In this piece Witte explains The Talkback Project: an activity created by Witte when she was a middle school teacher working as a liason for the NWP (National Writing Program). What the Talkback Project did was it took young writers into the digital framework of blogging in order to help them understand the usefulness of digital literacy and connecting with the world via internet. It gave them a voice, but did so in a way that selected peers (called preservice teachers) [and Witte] could provide critical feedback.

“The preservice teachers worked hard to develop questions that allowed middle school students to make text-to-text, text-to-world, and text-to-self connections” (Witte, 94)

Witte wanted this project to “serve as an example of how schools can shrink the technology gap and better prepare students to become citizens of a global society.” (96) by relying on blogs, rather than only a traditional education system. As I have learned in my digital writing class, educating someone about online writing is the best way to improve their skill with it.

A project like the one Witte conducted is usually interactive and engaging enough to have more than one aim, and certainly a couple advantages to it. By web-publishing their writing, Witte’s students began a conversation, firstly with their preservice teachers, and secondly with the world. It is important to know your audience at all points during your writing. As a writer, things like tone, diction, rhetoric, and format are chosen and dictated by a key factor, your audience. Whether you are writing for your personal blog, making a caption on Instagram, or finishing an autobiography, considering who will read the work is going steer they way you create and package it.

In order to understand how to consider our audience(s), let us first learn about why we must do so. There are several ways to look at why you might want to consider your readers before your fingers mire the keyboard. To make my case, I looked at Jen Rajchel’s article, “Consider the Audience”, as well as a TED Talk called “Where Good Ideas Come From”. In Rajchel’s article, she conveys her own thoughts on how to approach/ get engaged in digital writing, articulating the differences between writing for and on the web, and what they entail. Like many of us, Rajchel was unsure how to approach web writing at first. Technology is constantly growing, like a bottomless tool belt being fed newer and more complex instruments by the human hand. For the most part these tools (i.e. word processors, forms of social media, or ) are designed and updated to expand the opportunities and capabilities of all who surf the net looking to make dialogue, pen in one hand, bottled message in the other. But so much innovation that’s being constantly updated can seem intimidating to anyone. A major thing to consider, as our author points out, is knowing your audience.

“Audience is perhaps the most difficult negotiation of web writing, especially as we manage the circulation through various social platforms and code-switch for several interested parties. Audience is also the most exciting.” (Rajchel)

Another example of how knowing your audience positively contributes to your work can be found in the video, “Where Good Ideas Come From. Speaker Steven Johnson explains to the crowd that doing something well without taking into account who you’re doing it for can sometimes prove futile. People working within a aid-project called Design That Matters made incubators out of car parts and sent them to less developed countries with the idea that if the incubators were to break, they could be fixed by the locals themselves, as car parts and mechanical know-how were more easily accessible than expertise or spare parts for advanced electronics. This type of innovative and adaptive thinking shows taking your audience into consideration will make your end-work that much more meaningful.

And what else…?

Skilled writers know more than just how to appeal to their audience, however. When writing or creating dialogue, we employ what are called rhetorical strategies to convey certain stances or viewpoints. Digital rhetoric works on the same principles, but may be applied in new ways. James Zappen, in his piece Digital Rhetoric: Toward an Integrated Theory, attempts to carve out the separate issues pertaining to digital rhetoric such as identity, affordances & constraints, and self-expression. Rhetoric in itself is both critical and eloquent, meaning that in our multimodal, digital age it has various approaches and applications, as well as susceptibilities to personal ethical issues that stem from an individual’s sense of identity/community. The way around these issues can be understood by structurally formulating ideas and joining an awareness of audience with the awareness of self (expressed through rhetorical technique). The structure I argue is most effective is seen here in Simon Sinek’s talk on great leader and inspiration. He calls it the Golden Circle. Why we write something, online or on paper, is more important than what or how we write it.

Good Writers and Skilled Writing

Now writing is an essential skill in just about every discipline. And although the penmanship accredited to a biology student differs greatly from that of an english major, the bottom line will be that writing well is essential for most people who take the path from higher education into the world. The ability to write well generally coincides with being well-read and well-spoken. A student like myself, aiming towards a degree in East Asian Studies and hoping to go to Taiwan to find work in urban ecology, has to be proficient in reading and writing. But is that why I write; why I was excited to start my own blog project? I am no expert in any area of writing, be it historical, political, or the like. What I am, though, is a person with a voice and with ideas and need to be heard. These things are criteria enough to pick up a pen and make my mark. And how fortunate an age I live in, a digital one, in which the simply wanting to join conversation online is all one needs to make it happen.

Nevertheless, it would be unjust to remove my academics from the entire context of penmanship. I may not have to come to college with a burning desire to better my writing, but being a part of this kind of liberal arts education has certainly changed my communication skills for the better. Through this essay, I want to get on the point of what skill in writing means today, and how one might go about improving it. So what does it mean to be skilled at something, and where does it come from? Skill is either innate, requiring little-to-no refinement whatsoever, or it is the product of hard work. I would like to use one of my favorite accounts what hard work leads to, in order to give my readers a bit of context for what I’m trying to get at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdkJGqsDcNA

The gist of the clip is that hard work and discipline will result in some sort of skill. It is my belief that these factors, when combined with an awareness of your audience, good rhetorical strategy and an understanding of why you do what you do (such as write online) result in the modern, technology-infused, definition of good penmanship.

Works Cited

James P. Zappen, “Digital Rhetoric: Toward an Integrated Theory”. Technical Communication Quarterly; Summer 2005, Vol. 14 Issue 3, p319-325, 7p.

Jen Rajchel, “Consider the Audience”, Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning, ed. Jack Dougherty and Tennyson O’Donnell (University of Michigan Press/Trinity College ePress edition, 2014).

Rob Minkoff, The Forbidden Kingdom, downloaded. Starring Jackie Chan and Jet Li, (2008, Lion’s Gate Entertainment). Youtube.

Shelbie Witte, “That’s Online Writing, Not Boring School Writing”: Writing with Blogs and the Talkback Project. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. Vol. 51, No. 2 (Oct., 2007), pp. 92-96.

Simon Sinek, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action”, TED Talk. Sep, 2009.

https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action? language=en#t-994912

Steven Johnson, “Where Good Ideas Come From”, TED Talk. Jul, 2010.

http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_johnson_where_good_ideas_come_from? language=en

Part I: the Revolution

Technology has lately become the closest human kind has to a physical manifestation of God. No matter we are, regardless of we are doing, we cannot escape it; it is an omniscient and omnipresent force. Whether we are toiling away at work, scribbling notes in the classroom, or relaxing at the beach or in the park either ourselves or someone around us is using some form of technology or is carrying it on their person. The internet and the electronic devices meant to utilize it are every day changing the way we live and interact with one another, and it will inevitably alter the way we learn as well. Aaron Hess, Assistant Professor of Communication at Arizona State University explains in his article titled, “You Are What You Compute (and What is Computed For You): Considerations of Digital Rhetorical Identification”, that, “Technology has progressed to the point where everyday users carry around and have access to massive amounts of data in their very pockets… Consequently, we have become more than just “attached at the hip” with our digital devices; we have become one with them,” (Hess).  As a result of this, we are witnessing one of the most momentous changes in how writing is created and distributed since the rise of the printing press. With a few strokes on the keyboard and the click of a mouse, anyone anywhere can change the lives of people around the world in places they may not even know exist through their writing. The future of writing lies not in the bound book, the magazine, or the newspaper but on online platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and in blogs like this one.

The question now becomes not whether we should integrate this technology into the classroom, but how? Many classrooms are already going online, especially those dealing with topics such as writing and journalism. As Mary Hocks tells us in her article, “Understanding Visual Rhetoric in Digital Environments”, “With access to digital technologies increasing (or simply assumed) in our college writing courses, interactive digital media have increasingly become part of what we analyze and teach when [instructors] teach writing,” (Hocks 631). As technology becomes more and more a part of the classroom and the world at large, drastic changes in writing will inevitably take place as well: “We would argue that we are in the very late age of print, well into a world of writing and document distribution that primarily happens digitally,” (Digirhet.org). Students across the curriculum should be prepared by their professors to have the skills necessary to communicate effectively online, lest they be left in the dust by their more tech-savvy peers. Gone is the old world of academic discourse in which intellectuals would publish their thoughts in journals and books. Scholarly discourse can now take place in an online chat room or in a Google Hangout in front of large audience from around the world. This new arena also affects how ideas and arguments are written, as the audience for an article published online is global. Due to the fact that, “Networked devices create a new kind of writing space, and this space changes not only writing processes, but also communication dynamics between writers and readers, and between writers and the devices themselves,” writers must be able to write not only for their peers at their university or in their chosen field of work, but for those on the outside looking in (DigiRhet.org).

“April: Technology Industry Update.” Bia-sjsu.org. N.d. Web. 29 October. 2015.

If and when instructors teach their students to be ‘digitally literate’, that is, equipped with the proper skills to fully utilize new forms of digital technology, this new crop of writers will be able to take advantage of the most immensely powerful tools the internet can provide: the ability to make their stories, articles, and manuscripts multimodal, that is, to integrate images, texts, sound, and even video into their writing in order to enhance the experience of their readers. Not until now, “have writers had at their fingertips the tools to almost seamlessly integrate text and graphics… and to dynamically publish and widely distribute the products of that convergence to virtual spaces,” (DigiRhet.org). Suddenly, online authors have the opportunity to engage their readers with videos and sounds that can illuminate the topics about which they are writing like nothing ever has. If a writer doesn’t think he or she can quite explain the subject matter well enough to his or her audience, he or she can simply insert a video onto the webpage of someone who can. Or if an author thinks he or she will have trouble keeping his or her readers’ attention, he or she can take a few seconds to insert some colorful images or graphics that make the subject matter more palatable for his or her audience. Online authors can use and are using these multimodal tools to transform writing as we know it.

Part II: Obstacles

There are, however challenges we must face when attempting to integrate technology into  the classroom as well as the rest of society. In his article, “Digital Rhetoric: Toward an Inegrated Theory”, James Zappen, Professor of Communications and Media at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, explains that while the advent of digital writing is exciting , there are difficulties that will have to be dealt with in, “adapting a rhetorical tradition more than 2,000 years old to the conditions and constraints of the new digital media,” (Zappen). It will be a very long and arduous task for writers and writing to adapt to the digital age as it is the most monumental change in written communication in the millennia of their existence. Another consequence of the new world that the internet has given us access to, along with the anonymity provided by it, people often develop new identities when writing online. This online identity may end up altering a person’s real-life persona, or it may develop into a kind of separate personality altogether. As Zappen writes, “a complex negotiation between various versions of our online and our real selves, between our many representations of our selves and our listeners and readers,” is constantly taking place on the internet (Zappen).  Writers in the digital realm must be careful not to lose themselves online as they could find themselves so caught up in writing for their worldwide audience that they lose focus on what their message or topic was in the first place. Sherry Turkle, Professor of Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT, goes on to say that, “Tethered to technology, we are shaken when world ‘unplugged’ does not signify, does not satisfy. After an evening of avatar-to-avatar talk in a networked game, we feel, at one moment, in possession of a full social life and, in the next, curiously isolated, in tenuous complicity with strangers. We build a following on Facebook or MySpace and wonder to what degree our followers are friends,” (Turkle 88). At the same time that we think we are making personal connections with people we also feel alienated from them as they are miles and miles removed from us. Online authors will have to figure out how to deal with being alienated from their readers and how to balance their writing between their peers and their global, digital, audience.

“Addiction to technology may cause a disconnect to nature”. Tctimes.com. 14 November. 2014. Web. 29 October. 2015.

The advent of the internet is not the first major revolution in the history of writing. Other massive changes in writing in history such as the invention of the printing press have led to gargantuan alterations in culture and the course of human development. How will the digital age change us and our ways of writing about and thinking about the world? Only time will tell.

Part III: Perspective

As an English major, digital writing affects my academic life greatly. This goes beyond books and other assigned reading being transferred onto sites like Moodle and being able to go online to check which assignments are due when. Since my major leads me to pursue a career in writing in one form or another, it is an inevitability that I will have to be ‘digitally literate’ if I want to have a good chance at landing a job in the future. However, this is mean more than just basic Microsoft Word or social media skills. I will have to know how to write for an audience of people who, for the most part, has been a part of the online world for most of their lives. I will have to know how to integrate multimodal aspects into my writing and know the ins and outs of how to spread what I write throughout the web. Having a class that teaches me how to write for digital environments and audiences, or any class including an online writing aspect in general, is important to me because it can help me be prepared for the job market that I will have as a writer in the future.

“American College of Management and Technology”. Justdubrovnik.com. 30 June. 2012. Web. 29 October. 2015.

Luckily for myself and other students, there are courses offered in my major that can equip with the skills I need, a prime example being this one, ‘Writing in and for Digital Environments’. The case is much the same for students in other departments at Dickinson, as friends of mine who take classes in the sciences do nearly all of their homework with the help of a computer. Doing things like molecular modeling or writing about their lab experiments online are helping students become properly equipped for the job markets of the present and future. One can only hope this upward trend in digital literacy continues so that the next generation of workers help spur on the digital revolution and perhaps even start the next one.

Sources Cited

1. DigiRhet.org. “Teaching Digital Rhetoric: Community, Critical Engagement, and Application.” Pedagogy 6.2 (2006): 231-59. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.
2. Hess, Aaron. “You Are What You Compute (and What Is Computed For You): Considerations of Digital Rhetorical Identification.” Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric 4.1/2 (2014): n. pag. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.
3. Hocks, Mary E. “Understanding Visual Rhetoric in Digital Writing Environments.” College Composition and Communication 54.4 (2003): 629-56. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.
4. Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
5. Zappen, James P. “Digital Rhetoric: Toward an Integrated Theory.” Technical Communication Quarterly 14.3 (2005): 319-25. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

In the past few decades, technology and more specifically digital media have been evolving in such a fast pace that often people cannot follow. These new technologies are affecting our daily lives in so many different ways, that’s why we need to and must adapt to technology and everything it embraces, keeping up with changes it brings.

If we consider schools and worldwide education, not much has been done to include these changes in a new and evolved environment even if students are way more comfortable with it than anything else: “these young people are among the first to grow up with an expectation of continuous connection: always on, and always on them” (Turkle 92). Even though, nowadays, digital media are so important in students’ lives we still need teachers to guide them through these new possibilities, and class blogs are the best way to do it: they help communication, education, and social relationships.

Schools and the whole education system do not believe or trust in these digital technologies, but we are actually in a “new age” where knowledge must be widened to digital media too, because it is a means to learn, read, and write in a different – not wrong – way. However, there is “hope” and this is thanks to the National Writing Project (NWP) which is a United States professional development network that serves teachers of writing at all grade levels and which has as its aim and mission to improve student achievement by improving the teaching of writing and improving learning in the nation’s schools (DeVoss, Eidman-Aadahl e Hicks 15-16).

During thirty-five years of hard work, the NWP improved the quality of learning and writing in American schools. In particular, one of the last book conceived by the NWP is specifically about writing through digital media, Because Digital Writing Matters (2010). It focuses its attention particularly to the irreducible importance of writing in this new changed and always evolving environment. The previous edition of this book was about writing in general, Because Writing Matters: Improving Student Writing in Our Schools (2006): after just four years it needed a slight editing because as the authors states “much has changed in the landscape of what it means to write and to be a writer since 2003. Social networking and collaborative writing technologies have taken hold, if not always in our schools, certainly among our students” (DeVoss, Eidman-Aadahl e Hicks 1). It’s also clear from this text that “young people today have an unprecedented level of access to a wider range of content and connectivity than ever before, yet access [alone] does not ensure that reflection and learning take place. Student writers still need thoughtful and well-prepared teachers and mentors. Computer will not replace teachers, nor should they” (DeVoss, Eidman-Aadahl e Hicks 2). The importance of teachers and their mediation are the key for the students, teachers still have and have to keep their role as guides through the learning process. After the relationship between teachers and students towards the digital environment, the authors focus their attention on another important relationship, that between parents regarding digital writing. Through different charts and surveys, they demonstrate that “families are interested in seeing schools take advantage of new digital tools to help students learn and compose. But parents are not interested in students simply being turned toward technology indiscriminately, and they are sometimes conflicted about whether these tools help or hurt” (DeVoss, Eidman-Aadahl e Hicks 9). They also give a very concise and pragmatic definition of digital writing that sums up and even clarifies parents’ doubts: “Digital Writing is not simply a matter of learning about and integrating new digital tools into an unchanged repertoire of writing processes, practices, skills, and habits of mind. Digital writing is about the dramatic changes in the ecology of writing and communication and, indeed, what it means to write – to create and compose and share” (DeVoss, Eidman-Aadahl e Hicks 4). Now, they also exemplify by showing different approaches on how or what digital writing might look like in the classroom, one of them is about regular blog postings on a school-hosted social network, commenting on their peers’ blogs, and participating in peer response. This example not only stimulates students to have fun while studying, but also allows everybody to “see new opportunities for creating, collaborating, communicating, and especially learning; and with these new opportunities come new challenges in supporting students to navigate the digital landscape wisely and well” (DeVoss, Eidman-Aadahl e Hicks 11). Digital writing finally matters because, as Henry Jenkins found out in 2006, “participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to community involvement. The new literacies almost all involve social skills developed through collaboration and networking. These skills build on the foundation of traditional literacy, research skills, technical skills, and critical analysis skills taught in the classroom” (DeVoss, Eidman-Aadahl e Hicks 11).

[youtube_sc url=”https://youtu.be/A8yQPoTcZ78″]

From another point of view is Margaret C. Hagood’s New Media and online literacies: No age left behind focuses. She focuses her attention on four major issues, concerning primarily the reading and the research in this new environment. In “Issue 1. Who is affected by new media and online literacies”, the author explains why new media and online technologies are not to be considered just for youngsters’ lives anymore, “because new media and online literacies are part and parcel our day-to-day lives, reading researchers and educators need to begin to view them as central aspect of literacy research. This means that new media and online literacies can no longer be considered only what youth do to the exclusion of what adults do or as an add on to the field of reading” (Hagood 387). She also wants to make clear that we need to evolve our way of thinking and go beyond our limits because “these literacies and their related practices should be recognized as literacy venues that have evolved concurrently with broadened definitions and understandings of terms such as texts and reading in the field of reading and in relation to other disciplines that study reading behaviors, including media and communication studies and cultural studies” (Hagood 387-388). In “Issue 2. Affecting the researched and the researcher”, Margaret Hagood compares the old way to the new one in order to exemplify how forms and functions of these new media are propelling changes for the way the research is conducted. “In short, the shift toward views of media and online texts as dynamic and indeterminate have forced researchers to begin to examine both production and consumption of texts in order to understand better how media and online literacies assist readers to facilitate particular ends” (Hagood 388).In “Issue 3. Conceptualizing the medium in the media”, she notes that “literacy educators have begun advocating for and researching an expanded notion of text that extends beyond traditional print-based reading and writing. These more expansive views of text and of reading have in the past decade or so become more central to the field of reading research and literacy studies” (Hagood 389). Finally, in her last issue “Crossing fields and media”, the author simply concludes her statement by noting that “in an age when adults and youngsters are concurrently learning how to use new media and online technologies, research on the topic needs to address multiple perspectives of users and uses” (Hagood 390).

What is actually digital or web writing about, though? “At one level, web writing is about writing on the web: the flexibility as a multimodal piece, the ability to nimbly circulate, and the capacity to create a network of texts. At another level, the practice is about writing for the web and situating ourselves as readers and writers within its evolving architecture. […] Web writing is about more than [simply] writing for the web—including the flexibility of multimodal pieces, the ability to nimbly circulate, and the capacity to create a network of texts. Web writing is also inherently about seeding the development of more opportunities to circulate student work while still foregrounding the difficult navigation of the public/private that accompany them. ” (Rajchel). Jen Rajchel in his Consider the Audience gives an exhaustive explanation on what digital writing is and also makes it clear through his own experience. He also writes about the relationship between the students and their audience: “Audience is perhaps the most difficult negotiation of web writing, especially as we manage the circulation through various social platforms and code-switch for several interested parties. Audience is also the most exciting” (Rajchel). To make his own students realize the audience interaction, he then added Twitter to the class as an experiment and “for the first time, everyone in class talked, and for the same length of time. We began to consider the economy of a medium that allowed for a variety of voices and how such a constraint could helpfully influence engagement. The flow of replying and attributing became conscious, and the act of thinking aloud stimulated the collaborative shaping of an idea”. He made his point! But as he states: “There will never be a perfect schema for writing for the web. Interfaces are reconfigured regularly. Platforms wax and wane. From one day to the next, the conventions of how we interact online from reading and writing to connecting with friends, family, and employers rapidly shifts. Fortunately, liberal arts students […] are well-positioned to push the boundaries of their own scholarship and to become sophisticated readers and writers of the web” (Rajchel).

After Rajchel’s experiment, we saw that the bond between Twitter (social media) and an average college class just increased its students’ participation, interests, and learning skills. Now, what about blogs? But first, what is a blog’s function? In Blogging- It’s Good for You, Jessica Wapner, freelance writer, simply exemplifies that blogging (but also writing in general) is a way to self-medicate: “scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery” (Wapner). But, still, is it academically speaking worth to be add in a class? Journos and Bloggers: Can Both Survive? is actually an online article (more similar to a blog post) written by journalist, writer, and editor Staci D. Kramer. In this text, Kramer reflects upon the nature of journalism and blogging, if one can live without the other or if one is more important than the other. She concludes by stating that “journalists who write about blogging need to remember that a single blog or a kind of blog doesn’t represent all blogs, just as one journalist or media outlet doesn’t represent all journalists. And we all need to keep in mind that whether we are bloggers, journalists or both, our readers, viewers or users will judge the rest by what we do” (Kramer).

According to my personal experience, now, I can tell that I never had the chance to be in a participatory environment where blogs, social media or digital media were used in class since this semester. In my past, I always found myself dealing – or struggling – with books, notes, and books again. I never actually realized how easy studying and learning could have been by simply using, watching, studying, or reading media contents. In one of the class I’m taking, the professor asked us to write a blog about what we wanted or liked most. So we did, we are just at middle of the class so I can’t tell yet the final results of this “personal” project – because it actually becomes your own personal journey, something that belongs to you but, at the same time, a personal challenge. But, still it is an amazing adventure from which you never stops learning. When you write on a class-based blog, your first reaction is “I can’t be honest with my self, or with my audience because the Professor will be judging each attempt I’ll make” but, as a matter of fact it isn’t like this: it is actually a safe environment. You learn day by day new things, improve your writing skills, address your posts to an audience which you forge by simply using a topic and a style (of writing), you then learn how to relate to these particular readers, and finally you grow as a person through other peers’ point of view: sharing, commenting, and giving their own experience to you.

Works Cited 

DeVoss, Danielle Nicole, et al. Because Digital Writing Matters: Improving Student Writing in Online and Multimedia Environments. Wiley, 2010.

Hagood, Margaret. “New Media and Online literacies: No Age Left Behind.” Reading Research Quarterly 38.3 (2003): 387-391.

Kramer, Staci D. “Online Journalism Review Focusing on the future of digital journalism .” 12 November 2004. USC Annenberg: School for Communication and Journalism. 21 October 2015 <http://ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1100245630.php>.

Rajchel, Jen. “Consider the Audience .” Dougherty, Jack and Tennyson O’Donnell. Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, n.d.

Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. Basic Books, 2012.

Wapner, Jessica. “Blogging–It’s Good for You The therapeutic value of blogging becomes a focus of study.” 19 May 2008. Scientific American. 21 October 2015 <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-healthy-type/?print=true>.

http://digitalwritingw350.wikidot.com

It is fascinating to think about how social media impacts our world today. It is everywhere- we cannot escape it. The Internet has become our new encyclopedia, where we can acquire information on literally any topic that comes to mind. It is our generation that has witnessed digital media grow exponentially and rapidly become a significant part to our everyday lives. In particular, college students are using the Internet for practically everything. This is shown through students utilizing the Internet for current events, communicating with our peers, and college professors integrating web writing into their curriculum. Digital writing allows students to more flexible in their writing. It allows students to approach what they write as a learning process, not writing something for perfection.

So, how can digital writing in an academic setting be important?

It is quite common for students to say “I don’t want to go to class right now, I would rather be in bed”. I am guilty of saying this statement myself. I find this statement rather sad because college is an amazing period of our lives, and we should be eager to take advantage of all the wonderful opportunities college has to offer. A way to fix this predicament is to start integrating what students are passionate about into daily learning. Since, the Internet is so prevalent in student lives and typically a popular interest, I suggest that incorporating digital writing into academic settings is a way to heighten a student’s interest in class. To delve further into why this may be the case, I explored two chapters from the book Web Writing: Why & How Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning called “Tweet Me a Story” and “Sister Classrooms: Blogging across Disciplines and Campuses.” The two chapters convey how web writing is an integral part of the classroom and how it is useful to our academic world.

Before reading, “Tweet Me a Story”, I never considered Twitter as a source for completing academic work. I merely thought of it as a website where people follow celebrities, news reports, and post funny quotes. However, Leigh Wright believes that Twitter has the potential for much more. Leigh Wright uses Twitter to connect digital writing and social media to her classroom. She states that she has used Twitter to teach her students

“To write concisely, how to think quickly, and how to take the social media conversation, weave it with their own narration and craft a social media story on a digital platform”. (Tweet Me a Story).

Twitter enables her students to do this because it has a limit of 140 characters, which pushes them to write clear and concise messages. Though it is vitally important for college students to know how to write a well-articulated thesis, Leigh Wright has found numerous ways in which knowing how to “Tweet” well is also helpful in an academic setting. Wright had her students form a Twitter account for class purposes and followed her students’ tweets through the hastag “#Wright294”. Wright believed that having her students set up Twitter accounts was a fun and trendy way for her students to be engaged in both the classroom and social media. To get her students tweeting, she sent them out to a basketball game. Wright required her students to publish a minimum of twelve tweets by the end of the game. There, the students true colors and interests where revealed.

With a plethora of varying interests, Wright read a wide variety of different tweets from her students. For example, the sport enthusiast students tweeted about the game and the score, while other students who were not sports fans, would tweet humorous jokes about the way the fans cheered. They tweeted that the crowed sounded like they were chanting “leggo” instead of “lets go”. Students also showed their different interests through tweeting about the different outfits game watchers were wearing. Live Tweeting at the basketball game was a great way for students to practice writing clearly and concisely for an academic environment, while being actively engaged in social media. It was a way for students to express themselves. Wright explains that they made for more of a diverse and colorful class twitter feed.

It is clear that Twitter enhanced Wright’s students and pushed them to be more creative. She shows that Twitter is an excellent way for student’s to interact with each other and provide feedback. This is also shown through her Twitter scriptwriting assignment, where they were provided with a scenario and students had to tweet back and forth developing the story. Throughout the scriptwriting assignment, students were constantly interacting with each other and developing their imaginations.

Wright’s students using Twitter for her class!
Image taken from “Tweet Me a Story”

Students often feel very much restricted in essay writing. Twitter allows students to get over that feeling. For me personally, I too feel restricted while essay writing. Being engaged with social media definitely relieves that feeling and allows me to be more creative.

Image taken from
Kate Combs
http://www.katemccombs.com/panda-memes-as-relationship-communication-tools/

In addition to Leigh Wright using Twitter in her classroom, Mary Knudson, a graduate professor at Johns Hopkins University, also requires her students to use Twitter in her class. In Knudson’s medical writing class, she requires her students to Tweet about a scientific conference. She states “Not only does Twitter teach students to write concisely with its strict limit on the length of posts, she said, but it also enables them to share valuable information”. Notably, Knudson was not always the biggest fan of social media, for she thought it destroyed student’s ability to spell. But as she started experimenting with Twitter, Knudson quickly realized all of its benefits. She uses it as a “writing tool- encouraging students to write concisely and in a way that’s engaging enough to retain readers”. This means that it encourages students to engage in dialog, share ideas, ask questions, and provide feedback.

http://finishlineonline.com/social-media/social-media/attachment/6-creative-social-media-campaigns-to-learn-from/

How are blogs powerful teaching tools?

     Web Writing: Why & How Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning’s chapter “Sister Classrooms: Blogging across Disciplines and Campuses”, is so relevant to the importance of digital writing in an academic setting. Authors Amanda Hagood & Carmel Price describe this as “course blog can create a uniquely powerful learning community that invites students to learn through writing, rather than using writing as a means to prove mastery”. Writing digitally allows students to gain and provide feedback, therefore coming up with new ideas and modify and expand on what they are currently writing. Through this digital writing process, students are able to learn from one another as a whole and teach one another. Hagood and Price describe this process as “In performing each of these functions, students can begin collectively to teach one another new concepts without having to take on the authoritative role of the expert”. This enables students to learn from their peers, instead of solely from the professor. It also pushes students to think about what they write, from a different perspective, for they are constantly learning throughout the entire writing process.

Hagood and Price are big supporters of digital writing. They explain that writing digitally allows students more time to write, reflect, and articulate what they are posting online. They argue that the extra time writing digitally provides to students, enables them to write well rounded responses and push them to take more “high sophisticated risks”. They even argue that digital writing teaches students that writing well is rewarding. A well-written blog or eloquent comment on a blog post can even spark a class discussion, which in turn helps an entire class, learn as a whole. Overall, together throughout this process, students are continuously learning and building their writing skills.

Why does digital writing matter in education?

To explore this question, I read “Why Digital Writing Matters in Education” by Jeff Gabrill. Jeff Gabrill highlights two compelling reasons as to why digital writing matters in education.

• Digital writing challenges what counts as writing and reveals the gap between how writing works in the world and how we teach it in schools.

2 Digital writing platforms and services are ways to innovate instruction and learning.

Overall, writing has always been important, whether it is done in the classroom or not. It is a skill that is essential to have no matter your job. Due to all of the computer networks students are writing more than ever. Gabrill argues that since technology has developed significantly over the years, digital writing has become more “networked” and even “deeply collaborative or coordinated”. He gives the example of Wikipedia, and states that a website like “Wikipedia” would not be possible without a computer network. He also talks about “Facebook”, which is one of the largest collaborative writing platforms in history. Collaboration is significant because it allows for new ideas to come about, critiques to be made, and information to be spread.

Additionally, with everlasting digital technologies being developed, it has made writing in different fashions extremely easy, for we can use different modes of writing, videos, and images. Digital writing is also becoming more important because it is important to success in life. Well-developed digital writing skills have the ability to help people earn jobs and promotions. I completely agree with Gabrill’s arguments. Digital writing adds something new and exciting to classrooms and sparks interest amongst students. It provides students with many platforms in which they can do research. Most importantly, digital writing allows students to see how writing works in the real world.

Be smart about what you post. Be aware of the dangers. This will help you be more successful

http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-think-before-you-post-8/

With digital writing increasingly becoming incorporated into academic, work, and social settings it is vital that we are cognizant of what we post online. Jen Rajchel’s, Consider the Audience, provides an excellent argument for being cognizant of what we post online. Everything we post to the Internet is public, even if we privatize something, anyone can see it. So, it is important to be careful of what we post and comment. To bring in another factor, Rajchel notes that blogs have an increased possibility of plagiarism. Rajchel pushes her audience to consider questions such as:

1. Think about how someone from your internship might read this?
2. How might that differ from your professor?
3. Will you be sending this to family and friends?
4. A potential employer? A scholar whose work you cite?

…. Before posting a blog or anything to the Internet. Rajchel’s arguments are helpful to incorporating digital writing into not only a classroom, but also life in general. The arguments bring to light helpful hints of what to consider before posting something. Through doing this, I would argue that it leads to a better and more successful digital writing. It leads to a more successful writing because it helps students become more thoughtful and knowledgeable while writing digitally.

A link students may find helpful in digital writing, is called

A link students may find helpful in digital writing  “10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics”. It is extremely helpful because it provides guidelines for appropriate posts.

What do I think about digital writing?

I believe digital writing has a lot to offer the classroom. It fosters engagement among students, creativity, thoughtfulness, and consistency. Currently, for a project in my English class, we are working on individual blogs. We are allowed to pick our own topic, which is amazing because it enables to write about something we are passionate about. For me personally, I am writing about running. It’s really exciting to blog about running because it allows me to share my passion for running with our online community. In addition, it allows me to learn and be in conversation with my peers in class, since we all subscribed to each other’s blog. This process has helped me learn and rearticulate my ideas. I am more creative because blogging enables to write about many different topics. For example, I blog recaps from my meets and blog about why running is special to me. Blogging also enables me to comment on other students writing, and push me to write in a more sophisticated manner. Our class blog supports me as a student at Dickinson College, because it is constantly encouraging me to become a better student and writer.

I believe, my blog for class, is highly relatable to the arguments posed by “Tweet Me a Story” and “Sister Classrooms: Blogging across Disciplines and Campuses”. Though I am not using twitter, I am still pushed to write concisely. Through reading other blogs and writing my own blogs, it is important to write concisely rather than dancing around the topic. Even if your blog is written in an alternative format- through a series of comics etc, it is important to have a main idea behind your blog. My blog for class also takes strongly to “Tweet Me a Story” and “Sister Campuses” because I am learning from my classmates, and don’t feel as restricted in what I am writing. My blog is encouraging me to be better writer. It encourages me to be a better writer, because I am getting feedback from my peers, seeing what my peers are writing, and constantly getting to revise my blogs. This is because digital writing allows me to be more flexible in my writing, so I am constantly able to learn throughout the entire writing process.

Digital writing has also pushed me to discover new interests. Since, starting a blog and reading numerous articles on digital writing in the classroom, I have been considering applying for internships in advertising, such as working for a magazine. I am interested in utilizing social media to promote products for companies. Going forward in my job search, though intimidating, I feel more confident in knowledge and abilities in digital writing. Dickinson’s magnificent liberal arts education has enabled me to explore the world of digital writing and push me to better writer for it. The digital writing I am doing at Dickinson, and in particular English 212, will ultimately be helpful for potential advertising jobs, because I would have prior experience in the digital writing world. Most importantly, I recognize the importance of digital writing cultivates- creativity, flexibility, consistency, and thoughtfulness. Overall, digital writing has been a learning process- a process that will follow me wherever I go, no matter the class or the job.

Works Cited

Kinzie, Susan. “Some Professors Losing Their Twitter Jitters.” The Washington Post 2009: Academic OneFile. Web. 29 Oct 2015.

Gabrill, Jeff. “Why Digital Writing Matters in Education.” Edutopia. George Lucas Educational Foundation, 11 June 2012. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.

Rajchel, Jen. “Consider the Audience.” Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching  and Learning (2013). Web. 29 Oct. 2015.

Gulliver, Katrina. “10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 09 May 2012. Web. 29 Oct 2015. <http://chronicle.com/article/10-Commandments-of-Twitter-for/131813/>.

Hagood, Amanda, and Carmel Price. “Sister Classrooms: Blogging Across Disciplines and Campuses.” Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning. Michigan Publishing, 15 Sep 2013. Web. 29 Oct 2015. <http://webwriting.trincoll.edu/communities/hagood-price-2013/>.

Wright, Leigh. “Tweet Me a Story .” Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning. Michigan Publishing, 15 Sepember 2013. Web. 29 Oct 2015. <http://webwriting.trincoll.edu/engagement/wright-2013/>.

Education on What’s Really Important 

Digital literacy and writing has become increasingly important throughout the pass two decades in several different aspects in the modern world such as in business, government, social settings, etc. The place in society where digital literacy and writing is the most important, however, is in education. There are two main parts to the important connection of digital writing and education. The first part is more obvious; the digital platform is an incredible resource that students and educators can use in order to have a wide array of information at their fingertips. It also provides a connection unlike any other that links the world together and even further unifies a classroom. Modern education teaches the modern student how to be a productive audience member for whatever the Internet might hold. The education system must teach the modern student how to read digital writing.

“Renee Regent’s Blog.” Reneeregent.com. N.p. N.d. Web. 21 October. 2015.

The second important connection is that today’s education system should not only teach a student to be an active audience member and reader, but also teach them how to be an active and effective writer in the digital world. The idea of digital writing is taught similarly to classic writing in some ways, but vastly different in others. While it is still important to include the classic basis of writing, such as proper grammar and useful vocabulary, educators must now include pieces such as changing writing forms based on the online platform, how to include multimodal aspects, and how to be aware of the privacy of online writing (or lack there of).

Active Reading

Many students in the American Educational system are taught how to research topics on the Internet in order to include them in an essay or research project. They are taught to scan through and only use “reliable” sites such as sites that end in .gov, .org, or .edu. In addition to this, students are taught how to properly source and give credit to whomever provided the information they are using. While both of these skills are important, there needs to be further steps taken to help students be successful in their reading of digital writing and use of the digital world in general.

It’s important for students to hone the skill of sifting through relevant information on the web. This shouldn’t stop at finding websites deemed “appropriate” based on the ending of their web address, but also finding sources that don’t necessarily fit the classic, educational frame. There are millions of resources existing in the cyber world that offer useful and reliable information in the forms of blogs (and vlogs) that don’t resemble an educational site. These blogs can offer personal experiences, first hand knowledge, or even just a conglomeration of information on a specific subject, as if someone else already did all the research. The skill that students need to learn and practice is recognizing when these alternative sources are reliable and thorough enough to pull from. It’s not as easy as telling students to search different subjects: “millennial students are technology-savvy, rely on search engines to find information, are interested in multimedia, have a short attention span, and multitask on everything. Needless to say, having access to so many different modes of social connection and communication may serve to over-stimulate students” (Paige).

“The Consequences Of Living In An Overstimulated Society.” Prepareforchange.net. N.p. 11 August. 2015. Web. 27 October. 2015.

To overcome this overstimulation and create effective online reading habits, students should be educated on how to focus their research.

There’s many ways to help students focus their research. Even simple lessons on search engines can improve the information their taking in ten fold. Many times, as mentioned above, students are taught to simply search a topic and use “reliable” sources indicated by the end of their web address. Education on specific search engines that will return only scholarly articles, what exactly to plug into a search engine to receive relevant results, or how to easily disregard sources that are irrelevant without even clicking on them will better serve the student populous than simply allowing them to research blindly with vague instructions.

Outside of scholarly research, educators should have the responsibility of guiding students through Internet usage that they are faced with daily in the modern world. Teachers should start to explain to children from a very young age, how to be aware of what they are possibly be reading on the web. Much of what is present and available to the general population can be extremely persuasive yet extremely misinformed: “Anonymity encourages experiments in self and gender identities, but it also problematizes notions of authorship and ownership and encourages ‘flaming’ the hostile expression of strong emotions” (Zappen). Since anyone can post their ideas and thoughts on the web, it is crucial for the modern citizen to be able to filter through what is real versus what is opinion. Even if something is opinion, being able to understand whether or not that opinion is well supported by outside information and not simply pulled out of thin air.

Whether it’s for educational research or just processing posts thrown up on the web daily, it is imperative that students of any age have the ability to read and comprehend the content presented to them.

Effective Writing

Just as it is imperative for students to be conscious of what they are reading on the web, it is so important for them to understand how to present themselves well through writing. In addition to this, there needs to be an understanding of how large of an impact their digital writing could have on their entire lives. The world is changing and the Internet and its connectivity are catalyzing most of this change. The present and future generations of our world need to know how to have a positive presence in the online community if they want to keep up with these changes; therefore, they need to be taught how to properly represent themselves online.

“Kid and iPads: Some Suggestions for Wise Usage.” Urbandaddies.com. 30 September. 2011. Web. 25 October. 2015.

Being able to write well digitally opens up doors everywhere. It allows for ideas to be heard and connections to be made that would have otherwise been impossible: “Digital writing is more than just a skill; it is a means of interfacing with ideas and with the world, a mode of thinking and expressing in all grades and disciplines” (National Writing Project). Digital writing is crucial for not only success in academia and careers, but also for development of the mind. Digital writing provides such a service to students and citizens everywhere, that it would be a crime to deprive them of this privilege due to a school system’s inability to improve upon their decades old, educational plans: “Educators, community members, and policymakers must work together to promote technology development in schools to create learning environments that support digital literacy” (National Writing Project).

Educating students how to write digitally, however, is not enough. Students also need to be educated on where their writing is being seen and what the expectation of privacy is. While the Internet is a great source for connection, it doesn’t allow for any kind of barrier. What is posted on the Internet, stays on the Internet and is accessible to anyone with an wifi connection and a device: “reach permits communication among multiple participants in an array of media and thus the development of communities of interest on a global scale; however, it does not include the benefits of gatekeeping” (Zappen). Students need to know that not only can they post their ideas on a worldwide platform, but also that they can never take those ideas back. It’s important for them to know not only how to write well on the web that allows them to become part of a bigger audience and speaker complex, but to do so in a way that has only positive impacts on their lives.

All in All 

The approach to this kind of education should be encouraging and positive rather than an approach that induces fear. There should be less blocking of “non-educational” and “distracting” websites, and more lessons on how to use said websites to improve upon educational goals: “supervision of computer use is far better for educational purposes than simply shutting down useful websites

“Social Media in the Classroom: Beyond the Hype.” The Notebook. 25 July. 2012. N.p. Web. 28 October. 2015.

completely” (Walthausen).

By attaining digital literacy skills, students are given tools that allow them to better themselves and their chances of succeeding on several different levels: “fortunately… students who graduate with an understanding of historicized technological shifts and who are encouraged to recognize their experiences as part of a larger and longer framework of media change, are well-positioned to push the boundaries of their own scholarship and to become sophisticated readers and writers of the web” (Rajchel). Weaving general digital knowledge with an emphasis on reading and writing into the educational system will not only improve students’ academia, but their futures as well.

My Experience and My Take

Even though I took this writing class to fill a distribution requirement, I am so happy that this is the writing class I ended up in. Though being able to write well in general is maybe the most important skill a person can obtain, being able to write well digitally is quite possibly becoming even more crucial in this day and age. Writing digitally allows a writer to reach potentially a larger audience than they would by publishing a physical piece. Not to mention a person can publish immediately through their own accord rather than relying on (and perhaps getting rejected from) several different publishing agencies.

Being able to present one’s self well on the web through writing in addition to being able to thoughtfully process the immense amounts of information presented on a daily basis is an essential skill; so, it is shocking to me that I wasn’t given any kind of an education to do either of these things until my sophomore year of college. In high school, and in my other college classes up until this point, I was taught how to research for essays and projects in a very specific way. I learned how to find only scholarly sources to support my argument. When it came to writing online, I wasn’t taught much other than to fear the permanence of anything posted. While this is a legitimate concern to keep in mind, it shouldn’t deter me, or other students, from posting my thoughts.

I believe that classes as young as elementary students should be educated and well versed in the online world. Before entering college, students should know how to productively search the web for sources that are both explicitly scholarly and not explicitly

“3 Terrible Realities Facing Today’s College Students.” news.yahoo.com. Yahoo. 1 July. 2013. Web. 27 October. 2015.

scholarly. They should be able to read through a source and deduce whether it was reliable. Additionally, outside of academics, students should be able to read a post and form their own opinion of it based on whether or not it was well written and well supported. This will help them further their own opinions and join the discussion.

Social media should not be seen as merely a distraction, though it often can be as such. It provides connections and communities that would not be formed otherwise. Instead of teaching kids how to avoid these platforms especially in class, they should be taught how to use them effectively. This means gaining new ideas and new perceptions that were deeply thought about as well as adding the conversation that is happening: perhaps building on ideas or giving someone else building blocks for their own ideas. We need to teach students how to actively listen and speak in the cyber world. That’s how new ideas come about and that’s how the world is bettered.

Sources

• “What is Digital Writing and Why Does it Matter?” National Writing Project. NWP, 25 October 2010. Web. 20 October. 2015. <http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/3310>
• Abe, Paige and Jordan, Nickolas A. “Integrating Social Media Into the Classroom Curriculum.” About Campus. ACPA, April 2013. Web. October 20. 2015. <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/abc.21107/epdf>
• Rajchel, Jen. “Consider the Audience” Web Writing: Why & How for Liberal Arts Teaching & Learning. N.p., N.d. Web. 20 October. 2015 <http://epress.trincoll.edu/webwriting/chapter/rajchel/>
• Walthausen, Abigail. “Schools Should Be Teaching Kids How To Use the Internet Well.” The Atlantic. The Atlantic. 14 February. 2014. Web. 20 October. 2015. <http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/02/schools-should-be-teaching-kids-how-to-use-the-internet-well/283807/>
• Zappen, James P. “Digital Rhetoric: Toward an Integrated Theory.” Technical Communication Quarterly. N.p. 2005. Web. 20 October. 2015. <http://homepages.rpi.edu/~zappenj/Vita/DigitalRhetoric2005.pdf>