Tag: writing

Writing directly on the web

Post author By Rachel Bronk
Post date October 19, 2009
No Comments on Writing directly on the web

I usually type my posts in MS Word and then paste them into Vista. Like you, I like the familiarity of the program but in addition, I like the “safety” of writing in Word. I know that my work will be saved within my own computer and only when I am really ready to unleash my thoughts on the public, will I paste into Vista. When I was in highschool, I used to always write my drafts on paper and then, when I was finally ready for the final product, would I type into MS Word. I see these two approaches as similar. I think the concept of a blog is changing this for people…. the idea that writing can exist as a direct stream of consciousness onto the web that is not necessarily polished is making it easier for some to go right to the endpoint in order to write. Social Media/Web 2.0 is taking a lot of the formalities out of writing in both a good and a bad way. Bad in the sense that many students seem to be losing grammar/spelling skills because of all of the online lingo but good in the sense that the process of writing itself is actually becoming easier for some students because they are so accustomed to pontificating on the web. The web is not the official place of formal writing but rather the place for anything and everything!

Tags word processing, writing

ETEC 540

Writing spaces

A quick thought as I read through Module 3…. Bolter posits that “no technology, not even the apparently autonomous computer can ever function as a writing space in the absence of human writers and readers” (p.17). For me this sentence really brought some unity to the methods of writing cultures that we are exploring. From a generalized point of view, the writing tools and writing canvases change but the involvement of humans in the physical reading and writing has always remained constant. However, we remain as concerned with the foundations set in the past as we do of the pathway to future and in that regard, how will our definition of a writing space change in the absence of human readers and writers? If we can program computers to recognize words and read them and recognize voices and write (ie. Dragon Speak, Kurzweil 3000), then does Bolter’s statement still stand true when the computer is doing half of the work?

Tags Bolter-Writing Space, writing

ETEC 540

The nature of writing

I remember my school days of “rough copy in pencil, good copy in pen” which was not very conducive to revision, editing and evolution of ideas. I feel that technological tools enhance our ability to write because of how easy it is to manipulate words and build upon ideas. I remember writing English papers in the senior years of high school and every time I went through a draft, I had to start all over again to create the “lastest version”. The affordances of word processing leave our writing foundations intact and allow us to continuously build instead of starting from the ground up each time. Computers definitely don’t take away from our intellectual facilities…. that is, until the day they can tap into our brain and pull the thoughts out automatically!

Tags text technologies, writing