Pencils to Pixels

This article makes the point that the computer is the gateway to literacy today. To be digitally literate you must be able to use a computer. This makes sense and applies to us because I do not know of one Auburn student who does not own their own computer, it is a way of life for us. Most of our homework is done digitally. Writing itself, in any context, is a technology. Writing cannot replace physically speaking, but it is a strong way for someone to get their point across. The bad thing about communicating through writing is there is no way to show emotion through writing, like there is when you are verbally having a conversation with someone face to face. Plato did not like writing because he felt like it weakened our memory. Thoreau thought that writing on paper was more effective than electrical impulses. They also state that telephone communication combined aspects of any type of writing and speaking. Baron concludes with the major fact that technology, especially computers, has changed the way we communicate and express ourselves, along with making communicating quicker and easier. They argue mostly that literacy today is defined as being able to keep up with the latest technologies.

Yancey's Writing in the 21st Century

Yancey describes three challenges of writing in the 21st century. They include developing new ways of writing, designing a new curriculum supporting those models, and creating ways for teaching these models. Yancey tells us that in the past, writing was a delicacy because a lot of people did not have that advantage. Today writing is just known as a great sense of labor, which makes people not want to do it as much, especially on their own without anyone telling them to do so. It is not as easy as reading, which is associated with intimacy and warmth. She argues that writing is a lot more intimate, because writing is how you interact and contribute to the material you read, or your writing could be the material someone else reads. Self sponsored writing is defined as the act of writing on your own intensions. Self sponsored writing takes place in more areas than you would think; including: tweeting, texting, posting a facebook status, blogging, etc. This article is so important because the meaning of literacy has changed over the years and teachers and professors should realize this and help contribute to the literacy through writing of students today. This article describes literacy through writing not as only composing on paper, but also on social media and interacting with it.

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

Thompson's main claim he makes pertains to the fact that social media has become a new way for people today to stay in touch with each other through news feeds, etc. News feeds, developed by Zuckerburg,  have become the more simple way to access information without having to individually surf someones profile. This brings about a new way to be digitally literate. Ambient awareness is being so involved on social media or a profile that it is almost the same as being physically close to a person. Anyone can experience ambient awareness by observing facebook statuses or tweets where people are expressing their moods and activities. Most people, including me, find themselves skimming through news feeds and updates until they find a post they are interested in and only read those. This represents our laziness, just as we cannot stay focused on a long narrative for very long, we only skim, due to the simplicity of most information now. This article defines literacy as being able to interact with others and have ambient awareness just from their social media posts.

Gin, Television, and the Cognitive Surplus

What is cognitive surplus? Cognitive surplus is time people have when they are not performing any important tasks; "free time." Shirky's argument in this article focuses on the fact that being able to interact with, contribute to, and make use of the resources we possess to be able to be more literate today is extremely important. He makes the point that during our cognitive surplus, we waste any effort that should be contributed to the resources we have to become more involved and literate on activities such as television. He defines literacy as being able to create new ideas from ideas you have already developed, which is similar to the last two articles we went over.

Is Google Making us Stupid?

Is Google making us stupid? This is Nicholas Carr's question in a very detailed article he wrote titled "Is Google Making us Stupid?" Carr believes that the extremely accessible knowledge we can gain from any internet source at the touch of a finger today has ruined our drive to go to any type of depth to access information. The way he explains how his thinking process is broken down now is almost identical to the subconscious thoughts I was having while I was reading the article. Carr explains that as he is reading a large piece of work, his brain just almost refuses to take time to read every word, and only skims it. Our brains are so used to the simplicity to access information that any type of hard work is just rejected. In "Socrates Nightmare" that we discussed in class on Monday explains literacy as the ability not only to just simply read and write, but also the ability to interact with the text and have your own ideas and thoughts that you are able to share, not just skim through. Carr's argument of literacy is very similar to the other article's definition. They both believe that it is the ability to be able to understand and really pay attention to the text that is being studied. The main claim Carr makes to support this argument is his own personal experience. This evidence is effective, but studied of other people also included would be a stronger argument. So what? People have to take it upon themselves to  make themselves actually, truly literate and interactive.