Reflection on Writing, Research, & Technology
WRT2 Reflection
This course was challenging for me because of the technology, and especially, the requirement to share all of my writing in an open domain: my website. I’ve never considered myself a “writer;” I write, but in the past my writing was a personal expression to be shared only with the folders inside my computer or as assignments to be submitted to my professors. I haven’t been required to write and share it with all of my classmates (and the free world) prior to this class. I was certainly put out of my comfort zone when I realized all of my assignments would be posted on my website.
Now that the semester is over, I realize that it wasn’t as bad as I thought, and it was actually rewarding because using our websites as the medium of expression allowed for greater discourse in the classroom. I feel as though our class got to know one another and share ideas in a way that I’ve never experienced in other courses. As an education major, I feel that our class was a true “learning community.” The way the class was presented, with readings and online responses, helped to foster the community feeling, and it provided scaffolding for those who needed it. I also liked how the class “constructed” knowledge – in the way we came to new “truths” through open discourse. I learned more about “learning community” principles in this class than in all of the education classes I’ve taken – combined. And that, for me, was very rewarding because to be “in” it and witness the modeling of that type of classroom was a great learning experience and will assist me in creating that atmosphere when I have my own classroom.
(Note, all of the links are to my blogs or other assignments on the site and not to the actual readings - as the blogs provide links to the readings)
Writing:
It’s difficult to separate the writing from research and technology for this reflection because the three were intricately woven in this course. I wrote, using technology as the medium: Twitter and my Weebly website. All of our readings were online, and our responses were posted in our blogs. While it was very uncomfortable in the beginning, I really like that all of the coursework I completed is in one place – on my website. The website is an historical record for my work, and for me to use in the future to see changes in my thinking and philosophy/ideology.
Ramblings by D - Blog:
I liked that our blog assignments were left open for us to write about anything we found in the readings. I think that allowing us to pick out the important aspects of the readings, instead of telling us what to write about was a great way to promote independent inquiry. It also allowed us to have those great discussions in class, as each of us found something different in the readings.
Twitterive:
Wow, this was probably one of the most difficult assignments I’ve done for any course. This truly put me far outside my comfort zone because it was impossible to distance “self” from the work – I felt it was exposure on a grand scale! Even though my Twitterive was a fictional piece, when I read it, I see myself in all of the characters. As stated in my Prologue, the first and last elements in Twitterive (the recording of my writing – the beginning, and end) were there to highlight my feeling of being exposed through this project: my writing, my view of the world, and my inner emotions. I blogged several times about my ideas as well as my frustration with Twitterive. While it was a painful experience, I don’t consider it a negative one, though it was painful, it was rewarding in the fact that I feel I have grown as a writer and a person: I learned things about myself in the process.
For the final product, I changed some of the elements in my Twitterive. When I spoke with Mangini about the project, he felt that some of the photos in the beginning were too impersonal. After some thought about how they fit, I decided to remove most of them and leave just the photos of the rain and fog. I felt they were appropriate because they were somewhat impersonal, and it fit in that part of the story to convey a coldness/disconnect and sadness of my main character. I also removed the Wordle in the third chapter and replaced it with a song that I felt worked better for the scene.
Research:
After reviewing my previous blog posts, it is apparent to me that all of our readings could be classified as subtle “research.” For instance, we read Gopnik’s Paris to the Moon, and then later in the semester we read Qualley’s Turns of Thought; when I read Qualley’s piece I couldn’t help but think about how Gopnik’s work highlighted the idea of reflexive thought. He was an American in Paris, and he was able to convey how moving across the Atlantic changed his physical and ideological position, and how it gave him a new perspective. I think that those connections could be made with many of the readings. Anzandula’s reading could also point to the idea of being reflexive, because in order to feel empathy for her plight, the reader had to see the world through her eyes – without that change in perspective, the point of reading her work was lost. Another example of connected readings was, the Native Hill by Berry. It had strong connections to our Collaborative project; it provided background knowledge on the idea of how people, food, and the land, have become disconnected. Though I wasn’t enthralled with Berry’s writing, I actually found him to be somewhat of a drama queen, I think it was an important read for the project at the end of the semester.
Twitterive
For Twitterive, we were required to find connections in our Tweets and locate a theme as the basis of our story. This required us to connect some things that, on the surface, appeared unrelated, but with a little reflection the connections became clear. Again, I felt that several of the readings and blog requirements primed us for this type of research. For instance, we were asked to create the micro-fiction piece using one line from one of the readings, and I believe that the assignment was a primer for creating Twitterive out of our tweets. Also, the found poem (from our Tweets) was a micro-version of Twitterive and primed our writing to find connections within our Tweets.
Oral History:
The readings about truth and narrative inquiry provided background for the Oral History project, and I believe they highlighted the need for critical thinking and understanding that nearly anything anyone says in their interview is merely a perspective on “truth” and not necessarily a universal truth.
From the examples I’ve written about here, and my blog posts throughout the semester, it is easy to see that this entire course was geared toward research practices – even when we weren’t necessarily aware of it.
Collaborative Project
What can I say? I had two great partners and we worked well together. We made quick work of brainstorming ideas and choosing a topic. Shannon was a blessing due to her amazing video making skills! While we did not necessarily work “collaboratively” in the sense that we didn’t co-write our written pieces, we did share our ideas through email, texts, twitter, and class discussions. So, the introduction was co-written in the sense that we all had input, all of our ideas were expressed. I have to say that it was a great experience to work with Andrea and Shannon, it was by far the best cooperative experience I’ve had.
Technology:
My first response to Twitter wasn’t exactly warm. I still am not sold on the medium, but after looking at Shannon’s reflection, I can see that it can be a useful medium for quick communication and responses. I liked it as a medium for this class; however, when I subscribed to the New York Post and other publications, I found that it was too much information. I couldn’t keep track of my classmates’ posts because I had all those other posts clogging up the feed. I quickly unsubscribed to everything unrelated to our class.
Weebly
Oh, Weebly, thou art the devil in disguise! Weebly was beyond frustrating for me. I get that the service is free and meant to be user friendly; however, the way in which elements are added to the site and then “published” is absolutely maddening. At first, I kept forgetting that I had to hit “publish” continually or risk losing my work. I did write things in Word prior to posting; however, when I copied from Word onto the site I found that the formatting was all messed-up, and I would have to go back in and edit and try to make it look decent.
If I wanted to center things, I had to do it eight times before it actually showed as centered. When I put chapter links at the bottom of each page in Twitterive, I had to make them right justified eight times before Weebly showed them as such on the site. I’ve blogged about my frustrations, well; I guess you could say I ranted. As a parting gift, Weebly blew away all of my Collaborative Project pages just as I finished writing the last sentence. Luckily, I had two sites to go to in order to rebuild those pages! Thank goodness for collaboration!
Twitterive provided me the opportunity to use other technologies as well. I found a new technology, Camtasia, which I used to record my screen and create a video for the Twitterive project. I will probably use it again in the future. Shannon also used Camtasia for our Oral History project – it is a handy application.
One final note about my website, after meeting with Mangini I realized that my website was difficult to navigate - not for me, because I tend to think in a round-about, zig-zag, branching all over the place fashion. But, for those who think on a linear basis, the way I had my links and pages set-up was too confusing. So, I did go through and change things, the way pages were linked and especially my home page. I hope it is more clear-cut and that readers can now easily navigate the website.
Blogging
I did enjoy blogging as opposed to writing papers for our assignments. I think the best part of blogging was the ability to see what my classmates were writing and to share my ideas with the class. I think the blogs allowed us to have better discussions in class because we were able to respond to each other’s ideas. I like blogging as a medium for writing, and I see no reason why it can’t be used in the elementary classroom for informal responses to readings. I like the idea of using a blog in place of a journal.
I thoroughly enjoyed this course. I loved getting to know my classmates in a way that I’ve never had the opportunity to do so. I think we created a great discourse community, we got to know each other through our Twitterives, and we became a good source of support for one another. I know that many of us will remain close because of this experience.