How do I even begin, I hate to sound a little corny, ok a lot corny but there are some things in life that I believe present themselves to you for a reason much bigger than intended at first. I’m a graduating senior, in fact this is my last class both for my general and English major requirements. I needed to fulfill this requirement as soon possible. As many of you know, the summer courses at CCNY are limited, and due to scheduling conflicts I was not able to register for the only course I could take this summer. After a couple of disappointing visits to the English department I was bummed, it seemed that I was going have to fulfill this requirement in the fall. However, on a final attempt less than a week before this class began, I was given some hope. There was one other class that I could take, it fit my schedule, fulfilled the requirement, and from what they can see there was one opening. I was delighted to learn this, specially when Professor Peele was nice enough to let me in his class, and the rest is digital history as they say. Soon thereafter I began this course eager to learn anything I could on the digital world, specially from an English language perspective. Well, needless to say I was in for big a surprise. Not only would I challenge my views on language and literature, the use/ purpose of these new technologies, but exactly where did I stand in this growing digital world.
First of all, I seemed to have always kept a distance between verbal and visual language. Visual discourse was not really literature in my mind, and I kept my real love for the written word tucked away on dry land. Surely it could not be out in cyberspace. Obviously, this was a biased of mine, specifically of the kind Porter speaks of in his article “ Visualizing English”. But sooner than later I began to realize they need not be exclusive. The visual and the verbal do meet, and if we are literate in the various forms of web/ digital authoring tools we have more choices to tell our stories. In fact design has always been part of writing, as we pointed out in class. The way I portray language is always considered designed, depending on what and who I'm writing to my choices of formatting, spacing and even fonts I use are considered.The most important aspect of this transformation was when I began to realize that all the reasons I loved literature and the written language remained in the new platforms of the visual and verbal coming together, as Stroupe suggests. Peruvian writers Mario Vargas Llosa wrote in an essay “ The early obituary of the book” that literature and writing “ has been, and will continue to be, as long as it exists, one of the common denominators of human experience through which human beings may recognize themselves and converse with each other, no matter how different their professions, their life plans, their geographical and cultural locations, their personal circumstances. “, something I believe is carried over into the new forms of digital writing.
There is a lot of garbage out there in cyberspace, but there is also amazing pieces of digital rhetoric where writers have worked really hard at creating their works. Not only do writers rely on their writing skills to become web authors, but have also probably slaved over the format, the color, hyperlinks, pictures and even videos included in their visual stories, at least I know I have. In many respects, visual rhetoric is clearly harder than just writing for a static piece of paper, since it requires such a varied set of skills. Not taking digital writing on the web seriously because of all the bad writing out there is like not reading a book, because of all bad romance novels at supermarket checkouts. I have a lot more respect for writers putting themselves out there, and utilizing all these new digital tools. My respects to all those with great looking blogs and articles it’s not easy, we are all still learning and with new technologies coming out everyday we probably never stop. On the other hand, our other option is being left “out of the revolution “ as porter suggest. This is not an option for me, I have a great deal to learn and I want to participate along with millions of others I’m bored of being an observer and I look forward to being a prosumer.
Moreover, I have learned a great deal from all my classmates. I was fascinated to hear their stories on how they have incorporated technology in their personal and professional lives, but also I was glad to feel we shared a great deal of the same frustrations with new technology. Furthermore, it's exciting and empowering to have experimented with so many new digital tools, some are extremely useful like diggs and igoogle and can only make my web experience more efficient. Other tools and platforms like twitter, youtube and imovie will come in very handy in my desire to be a prosumer. I plan to use these tools both in my personal and academic life. In addition, I have found a very rewarding and useful purpose for all things digital. I am convinced that I can make a difference in the lives of others with the help fo new media. The internet is a powerful source for online activism, but it also heightens the power to bring people together in person.
Lastly this class has also given me more confidence to share my voice. I had overcome being exposed to other people’s opinion of my writing in workshop classes, but publishing my thoughts out on the web for anyone to see and respond to was very different. I fought hard to overcome it, and a couple of weeks into class I was posting regularly. I now have a blog on tmblr which I plan to keep up once in a while, so I guess you can say I'm cured.
Thanks everyone I really enjoined your presentations and I was inspired by all your creative choices. Deb your piece was very captivating specially the audio part with the black and white text scrolling on the screen, Erienne your piece showed me how poetry can be even more emotional when it combines audio, video and text.
Gracias,
Bertha Arenas
After this class
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