Personal Musings on an Interactive Writing Career + Goodbye

For me, I think pursuing and developing a career in interactive media writing could be a possibility. As a creative writing major, I am a little bit in the middle of the writing world, with opportunities to venture out in different ways. This could include interactive media writing, technical writing, straightforward creative writing, journalism, and other pathways. Really, it will depend on what sort of job I find myself in following graduation and how I decide to proceed after that.

Currently, I am still deciding exactly whether I will be focusing exclusively on writing or whether I will continue on toward film. I think a mixture of writing and film work would suit me best, however that would happen.

I will certainly continue to develop skills from this course, namely in script work and web writing. I won't continue with the projects I started in this course; rather, I'll use pertinent skills to create projects more geared to my plans. I'd like to focus on using YouTube to publish my creative work. I may look into developing a web series in the near future. I will also continue to get more proficient in the Adobe programs. Lucky for me, I've basically grown up around them with my dad having been a graphic designer. Yay me, haha. ;)

Lastly, thank you to my classmates, specifically my group members. Working with you all has been a blast, and I appreciate the opportunity to get to know each of you better and to learn from your work. I'm glad to call each of you my friend. Peace for now, friends. ♥

Scholarly Article #5 - "What Do Technical Communicators Need to Know about New Media?" by Anne Frances Wysocki

I found this article extremely interesting as someone heading into the world of new media. It's interesting to note how it's no longer enough as a media producer to only write or to only make video. You have to be proficient in all things—or at least, you need to be able to work with all things. Find your specialty but be aware of audience expectations. It's not enough to have a full-text article online anymore. People expect videos, animations, photos, and so forth. And because these people have seen what is possible on the internet, they expect you to do just as well if not better than everything else they've seen.

The possibilities of new media are exciting. The copyright concern is always an issue, but I don't see why it has to be, so long as people are asking for permission rather than just taking. It's easy to take, but it shouldn't be difficult to ask. Maybe creators need to be more available to give permission? I don't know. I know that copyright is becoming more and more of an issue, though. We see it in the major online piracy of movies and music that actually has the potential to financially harm creators. People tend to assume that creators can spare the money, but oftentimes, the actual creators are not the millionaire movie and music stars that we've grown accustomed to seeing. And in the end, people are never a fan of copyright law until it's protecting their work.

Scholarly Article #4 - "Stories that Speak to Us: Multimodal Literacy Narratives" by Cynthia Selfe

I found this article to be particularly fascinating as it aligns with my own personal views of language and writing—that it is through storytelling that we find ourselves and share our culture. Each of us communicates through telling stories, whether it be a creative venture like writing a personal narrative or creating a website or something more mundane like having a conversation with a friend or participating in an argument. Our own literacy narratives give others a way to understand us individually.

I like how the article points out that teachers often don't have the time to know students on a personal basis but that giving students the opportunity to share their literacy narratives allows for teachers to know their students in a more one-on-one fashion. As a writing tutor, I agree with this concept. I see students who come from very different writing circumstances, and those circumstances shape those students into who they are. Hearing what brings students to places like the writing center definitely builds on this idea that our personal literacy is shaped by our culture and learning circumstances.

Scholarly Article #3 - "Gains and Losses: New Forms of Text, Knowledge, and Learning" by Gunther Kress

It's very interesting how this article compared the written word and the viewed image, or rather, the book and the webpage. It seems to me that books are more controlled by authors, who assume that readers will follow a certain order (i.e., on the page, in a chapter, in the book) whereas the creators of a webpage cannot control who visits a website and what the visitors will make of it. Webpages can be accessed through many points of entry in comparison to the one found on a written page. While the internet and multimedia are amazing, I see why some people are concerned about the diminishing of the written word. Our culture has become so fast-paced in the world of social media that many do not ever slow down to read a book. This decline can be seen in the lack of writing skills of the younger generations. We rely on images to communicate, and so we do not learn to actually write. As an editor, I see this in the papers that I review, and it can be pretty depressing. I wish there was a way to make reading a social event—something to be discussed with friends—to rival social media, but with the way we're going, I have little hope that will ever happen.

Scholarly Article #2 - "The Museum of Me" by Ellen Ullman

In "The Museum of Me," Ellen Ullman essentially says that the World Wide Web has led to the deterioration of shared culture by replacing that culture with sharp individualism. In other words, we don't have to deal with middlemen anymore; we can do what we want without the need for travel agents, shop clerks, and so forth. Ullman portrays this as a bad thing, but has it really been different for the advent of any other media? When the printing press came and people learned to read, they didn't have to rely on the pope to tell them what to think. When live television came about, the audience could listen to a president's speech directly and form their own opinions without news anchors telling them what to think. So is what Ullman describes really anything new? No, it's not.

Also, just because the web can lead to isolation doesn't mean it always does. Sure, you can book your whole vacation from your home computer, but you can also jump on Facebook and have discussions with other people. It's simply a different way of sharing ideas. I do think, however, that overexposure to the web can certainly lead to poor social skills. But that's why we have to have balance in our lives. And it's not a web developers job to babysit us to make sure we have social time outside. We have to be accountable for ourselves, not just blame it on the technology for cutting out the need to go outside. Come on! Take some responsibility!

Scholarly Article #1 - The Evolution of Writing

While this article was a little difficult for me to understand, I feel that the main point of it was the idea that new media (e.g. writing, technology, etc.) expands human consciousness. Media gives us the capability to not only understand and gain more knowledge, but also to leave that knowledge in places for others to partake of, such as with books, the Internet, and so forth. From my experience, I think this is true. It makes me think of how I can easily pick up on and keep track of the multiple subplots in a new film while my mom struggles to keep up (don't get me started on my grandma).

Even between just one generation, the ability to understand media has grown. The same is true for what we see on the Internet; people's ability to keep up with multiple sources, such as with social media, grows through their exposure to it. That, I would say, is why we see such computer illiteracy among older generations; refusal to take part in new technologies limits their consciousness, and thus their understanding, from expanding into knowledge. It doesn't make sense because they actually won't allow it to.

Digital Literacy Autobiography

My earliest memories of learning to use a computer are from elementary school. We used the school computer lab to play learning games. I remember that when I finished the assigned activity, I was always excited to play the computer game "Oregon Trail." I don't recall specifically being taught how to use the computer; it feels like I've just always known, even if I know that's not true.

I remember first using the internet much more clearly. My dad first showed me when my little brother and I came to visit him at work. I think that we just used a search engine to look at Pokémon stuff. I remember being so excited about internet, despite it being very slow.

The first social media that I ever used was Myspace; I set up my account in middle school. I only ever messed around with finding cool background images and background music, though. I don't remember ever actually posting much of anything. I set up a LiveJournal account in high school, but again, rarely posted anything. I joined Facebook in my early twenties, but I went for nearly a year without ever using it. I'm not sure what caused the switch, but after a time, I actually began exploring Facebook and posting. I still use Facebook, generally just to share funny pictures. I joined Twitter about a week ago, but only because I had to for a school requirement. I'm more of a social media lurker.

Advantages of getting supplementary online support for this and other courses adds convenience and immediacy. If I need to look up a syllabus, an assignment, and so forth, I can do so on Canvas very easily. I typically don't have to wait for a teacher to give me the material. The disadvantage is that there isn't a human element. If I have questions, I have to wait for an answer, which hopefully makes sense when I receive it. The other disadvantage is being reliant on the internet, which can stop operating if the computer, server, modem, or even just the power goes out.

To limit disadvantages and maximize advantages, both students and the professor need to be diligent about utilizing the online support--no ignoring it for weeks.