Do you think that Google is making us stupid? I think the opposite, I believe that Google (as well as other search engines) has given us many opportunities to learn things we would have never found the answers too. If Google wasn’t around then there would be many things I would have never bothered to look up. But now, if I’m curious about something I can simply just Google it, and usually get a pretty good answer to what I am looking for. In Nicholas Carr’s essay titled, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” he has many valid points from both ends of the argument. He states, “For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for the most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many, and they’ve been widely described and dully applauded.” (pg. 2). I think he has a good way of illustrating that people today don’t want to spend hours finding something in a book if they can find it on the web in 5 seconds. People today are about being efficient, and accurate. There just simply isn’t enough time in a day for a lot of people to do the things they want to do, especially not always enough time to read half of a book to find the answers your looking for when somebody has already written it on the web for you and all you have to do is, “Google it”.
Many people have admitted that they have almost completely stopped reading books. The internet makes it so there is almost no point to going out and buying a book. We can buy things like the Amazon Kindle and read on that if we really want to read a book. Kids today will never read unless they have too, and even when they have to they can find all the answers they are looking for in the novel on the internet. I think that within the next 15 years book sales will be slim to none and newspaper companies will by falling right and left.
Carr goes on to say “It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstract going for quick wins.” The internet is just easier and more efficient. In my opinion the most interesting thing that Wolf says is, “Reading is not an instinctive skill for human beings. It’s not etched into our genes the way speech is. We have to teach our minds how to translate the symbolic characters we see into the language we understand.” I think that is a very good point. Reading isn’t natural to us, its not one of our senses but its still such a huge part of our life.
Welcome!
Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversations Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
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