Erienne's Final Reflection

I have to say that this is by far one of the best courses and most favorite that I have taken in my entire college career, especially because of its major relevancy in my everyday life and aspirations. I could not have taken Digital Literacies at a more opportune time, given the stage of my publishing and writing career that I am currently working toward with web applications and authoring.


I really appreciate the overall mission of this class, which united proficient users and newcomers alike. Even moreso, the class material and assignments definitely encouraged and challenged the interaction of technology (stereoptypes, theories and assumptions), socially and purposefully, commercially and intellectually, granting one one of the most earnest convictions of visual and verbal engagement via digital assessment.

Engaging with social media for class discussion was a great reinforcement of my daily work schedule, where I use Twitter, Facebook profile and fan pages, blogs, and YouTube for promotional materials. I really enjoyed refreshing my mind with these applications and platforms, significantly with the reading/viewing assignments that introduced the metaphor of the text via page layout and metaphor of the cinema via screen organization. These analytical concepts completely expanded on my own experiences and conflicts of writing for the web, where traditional notions are remediated with modern layering and elaboration of text, as per Stroupe, and relationships between image and text are forged, transformed, and destroyed. Because time is a critical dimension of digital writing as it closely pertains to information unfolding over time and space, linear order becomes based on the discretion of the writer and design becomes a facilitator of composition.

Aside from brushing up on previously acquired skills, which I exercise professionally but personally as well for own freelance projects, I am so grateful for learning about new internet browser gadgets as StumbleUpon, which I have every intention of using just to navigate and indulge in my interests n my free time and for Zotero, which I can utilize for annotating and archiving my web research into one collective unit. I am enthralled about all the knowledge and actual use I have gained with downloadable programs like Jing, Windows Movie Maker (though I always had this pre-installed,I never used), Digital PhotoStory, Wix, Animoto, and Prezi. These applications I guarantee to incorporate into my poetry brainstorming processes and creative representations for new material and even for breathing life into old drafts; I want to continue working with visual poetics and playing with physical form and delivery through the supplemental aid of photographs, audio and video components.

I want to thank Professor Peele for being so informative, helpful and cooperative with me this summer. I am incredibly inspired! It was hugely fulfilling to be able to share my passions and obsessions and have them translate to the computer screen.