Getting started is a simple process. MAKE SURE YOU CHECK YOUR KENT EMAIL. Each of you should have received an invitation to your Kent email address at this point that will allow you to start participating. If you follow the links provided in that email, you should be ready to blog in no time!
A couple of important things to keep in mind at the beginning of this process:
1. You may need a Google mail account to register for the blog. This can be done for free at mail.google.com
2. This blog is intended to be an enjoyable experience, but that does not mean that you shouldn't observe basic rules of courtesy. That means I expect you to use language that you wouldn't be afraid to turn in for a grade. Additionally, do not use the blog as an opportunity to attack one another. It is perfectly legitimate to respond to or critique one another in your posts; it is not okay to criticize your classmates or their points of view personally .
3. The expected due date for blog posts is one hour before class. Please give yourself enough time when composing these blog posts to generate something that demonstrates thoughtfulness on your part.
4. A missed blog post will result in a 10% reduction of your total blog grade. Make sure you participate in the blog!
That should be it! Email me (gsabo@kent.edu) if you have any questions or run into any problems. Once you've done that, you should make your first post to this blog as an answer to this question:
What experience, if any, do you have with writing electronically? Do you blog yourself? Twitter? IM? Email? Do you think your writing changes when you use an electronic medium as opposed to when you have to use a pen and paper? If yes, why do you think that is? If no, what do you think this says about the process of writing?
Remember, I expect your posts to be at least 500 words in length and to be completed an hour before class. Good luck!
The only experience I have with blogging electronically is emailing someone and using facebook. I think that my writing does change when I write electronically because I usually just write to a friend and I don't always write out the whole word and I abreviate a lot of things. This is not a good habit to get into especially if you have a job that you need good writing techniques or just for a writing class or just writing to your professor. When you write and use pen and paper you think out what you want to do and write rough drafts. When you write an email to your friend you just type what is on the tip of your tounge. When you write emails to your friends you don't think out or plan out what you want to write and you use things like "k" and "sup" you can't take an extra minute to write out Ok or What are you doing. Your friends don't are what your writing looks like and we have adapted to read that type of writing. Even though it's wrong we still do it. This is not a good habit to pick up because if you would write and email like that to one of your professors they would probably just delete it or not even respond and you wouldn't even understand why. Your professors and your boss want you to sound professional when you write them an email not to sound like their your bestfriend. They don't want you to sound immature and not know what your talking about they want you to sound experienced and know what your doing. Your boss does not want you to act like your talking to a friend they want you to be professional and say to whom it may concern or dear mr. or mrs. Not what's up or what are you up to. I think that your writing changing significally whether you want it to or not depending on who your talking to or what it concerns.
ReplyDeleteReally I do not have a lot of experience with blogging electronically except for emails and using facebook. I blogged in my high school English class, and to be honest, I hated it. I think that my writing changes dramatically when I am writing electronically. We are in the day and age of texting and informal writing. When texting or on facebook, we come up with our own words or abbreviations for words. The spelling is a little sketchy, but no one really thinks to change it. We all assume they will know exactly what we meant, which they usually do. When writing on facebook or writing an email to friends and family, being informal is allowed. A "What's up!" is appropriate. That is not the case in the everyday business and professional world. When writing in pencil and paper, I feel like it takes me back to school when I learned to write the "right" way and I become very aware of the capitalization and punctuation, even the correct spelling of words that I usually do not realize when typing on facebook or emails or just talking to my friends online. I feel like this generations is kind of shooting themselves in foot so to speak because we are so used to informal writing and misspellings that a lot of people do not even realize the way things really are supposed to be anymore. They have become so intact with the way things are in texting and online talk that they could not write a real paper if they wanted too with al the right grammar and usage, me being one of them. Now that I am older, I have to try and train myself to always write correct, especially when emailing a professor or fellow student. In today's generation, I feel like we have come up with our own language- the texting language, and forgetting about the correct ways to do things.
ReplyDeleteNicknamed the digital natives, there is no denying that the vast majority of our generation is incredibly technological and computer savvy. For that reason, writing electronically is exceedingly common during this day and age. Although, I personally have no prior experience with the electronically writing form of blogging, I have been using the computer to communicate and express my thoughts in a casual format since elementary school. During that time in my life I would sign on AOL Instant Messenger to correspond with my peers. It was at this young age that I started to form slang and abbreviation for words, this lingo created out of laziness remains a curse in my current informal communication. Currently I write electronically thru Face Book, E-mail, papers, and text messages. I believe that it is not the form of communication that changes ones writing style as much as it is to whom they are addressing. When exchanging words with a friend my knowledge of spelling is disregarded, and grammar rules are long forgotten. The idea of using a comma or capital letter thru Face Book chat or a handwritten note is about as likely as Bin Laden being elected the next president. Indisputably, this form of casual writing can hinder ones intellect and writing ability but it does in fact occur both on paper as well as electronically. Putting in the extra effort to send a text using correct punctuation and slang free is just as possible as it is when writing a letter. Regardless, if it is hand written or typed, when an individual is addressing someone of higher standard they are going to take the time to spell words correctly, and plan out their thoughts so that they appear in the most intelligent and impressible manner as possible. Like most things in life the process of writing is what you make of it and changes depending on the significance.
ReplyDeleteI have a lot of experience with writing electronically. I’m on the internet constantly between my laptop and my blackberry responding to emails or some type of social electronic networking system. I have a blog that I’ve kept since I was 13 years old in the eighth grade. I still to this day write on it at least once a week. Writing has always been a very big part of my life; it helps me let things out. I also have a twitter account that I use daily, a lot. It helps me with promoting the musical artists I like and keeping in touch with them. In my English class last year we had a student teacher who used a blog for assignments like this blog. I enjoyed it a lot because it gave me a chance to look at my classmates responses. Many of my classmates hated it though and my full time teacher did not like the idea of blogging for assignments and made the student teacher stop eventually. I think for many people, including me, using an electronic medium has caused for their writing habits to change. In particular this generation, technology is such a big part of life now. When I first started writing in my blog, texting, and using IM my sense of vocabulary and spelling became very messy and incorrect. Using abbreviations really impaired my writing abilities. At the time it felt like using ‘brb’ for be right back and other words like that saved a lot of time. Using those just set me back though. Writing with a pen and paper for me is the same thing. I put the same amount of thought and effort into both. I don’t think it’s about what you’re using to write it’s about what or who you’re writing for. I eventually realized how ridiculous it was to use all those weird abbreviations and misspellings when correct grammar looked a lot better and made it a lot easier to stay consistent with my school work. I’ve also been an editor of my high school’s newspaper and it is amazing how many kids have no idea how to use correct grammar. With the way people use bad grammar these days it’s really hard to try and get good grammar through to some people because it’s not as easy and they just don’t care. The use of electronic language has severely affected people’s grammar skills and I have a feeling it will continue to do that.
ReplyDeletePrior to this class I have had limited blog use, and when I say limited, I mean I have only experinced blogging in response to maybe four promps for a Honors English class. Personally technology and I do not get along, so normally I do not like using computers for much of anything. Classes nowadays incorporate a lot of online envolvement which tends to make me nervous and angry. When I type online (facebook, not twitter I dislike twitter)or through text messages I get agitated easily with how much of a hassel it is to type, where I would rather just talk to an individual. Technology today, when i say this I mean the internet and text messaging has become every impersonable and detaches us from emotions. Now people have begun to shorten words or grouping of words to type faster, which I find to be a neglect of the proper written language. I am aware that the written word has evolved over the years from, "where for art thou" to, "where are you" and has now dwindled away to abreviations such as "brb". Sadly this is very depressing and highly annoying, and a complete disservice to education in general. Obviously I have negative opinions about writing with technology.
ReplyDeleteAlthought, I may not have high hopes for writing through technology, I do appreciate the written word. On days of high emotion for me I normally write poems, journal entrys, or songs. On paper it is a safe place to release feelings that normally might have to be surpressed. I am a person who doesn't tell people how she really feels and I wear my emotions on my sleeve...so writing emotions comes normally to me where as uttering them doesn't come so easily. When expressing myself through writing I love to play with words and rythmes. The personal touch is very imperitative when one gets a hand written paper, or letter to express the feeling or vibe. Sometimes some letters may even be tear stained, and the pain/love literally seeps through to the heart of the writing. On rare occasions a lucky individual may be permitted to read my written words and I feel as if I am letting them see a side of me people rarely see, and that lifts a considerable amount of wait off of my chest. I may not be a Shakespeare but writing is a release for me as well. I hoping that one could conclude my differences I have between my loathing for technological writing compared to the personal touch of hand written work.
I personally do not like blogging, and do not have a lot of experience doing so. I have experience in writing on mostly Facebook, or to professors and to family and friends. Not so much that I would consider a advid writer though. Writing itself is a big part of my life becasue i am very interested in music and songwriting and online is the best way to get your stuff out there. So its not that i do not enjoy writing I just dont keep a blog. I have always looked into a blog but maintaining it would be the reason why I would not keep one. I very rarely would constantly update it, and eventually just stop altogether. I am very active when it comes to social networks, such as facebook and twitter. I like the online scene just not so much as me making one. I enjoy reading others blog and comment on theirs, becasue i love to see how i can relate to people and there situations but would not consider making one. And to me it is a very big difference in electronic writing then writing with pen and paper. Online i very rarely spell everything out and may use addreviations or the brb's, lol,and so on. To me it is easier to online write because you dont neccesarily have to worry about grammar or making sure your periods and commas are always there. But now I am experiencing more and more online writing and starting to like it.
ReplyDeleteMy electronic writing experience has pretty much been limited to writing email, microsoft word and powerpoint, im , facabook and that is about it.
ReplyDeleteAs for blogging i really dont do it mostly because i dont have much to say.
My writing definately changes when i have to use a pen and paper if i find a great idea i find it easier to write as opposed to typing it out on a pc or a laptop. But it also depends what i am writing about say if i was writing fiction it is much easier for me to just chug out a bunch of things out on paper than it would be to type it out. But on the other hand if im writing a paper on nonfiction its much much easier for me to just type out a few pages and be done with. I think the change occurs between the two mediums because with fiction there is a creative process and to compe up with ideas and then put them up on paper and realize they dont work seems harder than just erasing or getting a new sheet of paper. Writing nonfiction is easier because i can just eaily look up facts interpret them and then form what i need what to say and type it out very quickly.