Mars is Heaven! (or hell?)

rather enjoyed the transition away from academic pieces. As interesting as academic articles are they tend to get a little dry sometimes and it is good to get a dose of creative writing. Which I must say this piece is incredibly creative and interesting to see the spin Bradbury puts on reality. I have read this piece before and it is more enjoyable each time I read it. I believe turning this story into a radio show would be a great idea because it is short enough, compelling enough, and captivating enough to interest radio listeners. There would not have to be much editing or changing that would need to be done to make this piece a radio program. If I where changing this into a radio show I would change the story into a screen play with multiple characters voices and an announcer to handle the narrators job of alliterating the situation and setting through words. Bradbury does a magnificent job in bringing to life the settings and situations he portrays in his story. For example when Captain John Black's troops see all of their dead relatives and friends he describes the setting as "A brass band exploded in the sunlight, flinging off a gay tune from upraised tubas and trumpets. There was a bang of drums and a shrill of fifes. Little girls with golden hair jumped up and down. Little boys shouted "Hooray!" And fat men passed around ten-cent cigars. They mayor of the town made a speech. Then, each member of the crew with a mother on one arm, a father or sister on the other, was spirited off down the street, into little cottages or big mansions and doors slammed shut." This is a spectacular job of alliteration and I do not believe these words would have to be changed too much by the narrator.

Shifting too a different genre does not always involve a huge set of changes, especially switching from a written to a spoken genre. It helps too when the author has as much talent for writing as Bradbury does. However changing the deliverance method of something does not necessarily change the genre completely. The change from a academic to a fictional genre will change a story very fast. Fictional genres let the imagination run wild with crazy ideas while an academic genre is a little more down to earth and factual. Changing an written academic piece to a spoken academic piece would be much more difficult and painful due to the need for mass amounts of information that need to be delivered in an interesting and captivating way.

Reaction to "Disrupting Intellectual Property"

The connection between "Disrupting Intellectual Property: Collaboration and Resistance in Wikis" and the research I am completing with my group is relatively obvious however a little more in depth about a certain topic which is discussed within this piece. Vie and deWinter discuss the way new technologies cause problems with the supposed ownership of a specific document. They state "wikis bolster the view that no individual can "own" ideas-there is no solitary author." While wikis may bolster this view it also raises many questions about who is the creator and owner of work published on the Internet which different people can change and manipulate. My project concerns copyright and the protection of ideas created by an author. I believe that there is more to the protection of intellectual property. While it is good to collaborate on works so they are more truthful and correct I also believe producing your personal writing and having your personnel tone, flow, style, ideas, beliefs, and values be reflected in your writing should be protected to an extent. I can see the need and use of collaborative writing and pooling of ideas with sites such as Wikipedia, however, I believe in some cases your original and creative ideas should be left as they first were published with your own personal style and ideas.

Something in this piece which surprised and interested me was the discussion concerning the creation of an audience for the student to write to. It is true that students view their ultimate audience as their teacher and in turn create their writing to appeal to and impress the teacher. However when creating a Wiki or adding onto an already existing Wiki the student must then tailor their writing to not only appeal to their professor but also to a much larger and more diverse audience. Also writing within and for a specific discipline is difficult to achieve when your professor is your audience and not actual people who study and are beneficiaries of information which are created by students studying gaps within the discipline.

I believe not only the authors of this piece but most authors who collaboratively write encounter problems with intellectual property and the protection of their personnel ideals and contributions to the writing. It will be interesting to see the extent to which the class and more specifically my group will be able to cope with these problems or if these problems will exist at all.

Reaction to Wiki Lore and Politics in the Classroom

Before I read Martin & Dusenberry's essay and previous to this class I had come into contact with Wiki's due to my enrollment in a previous media class. Some of the topics discussed in Martin & Dusenberry's piece were topics which both, where discussed in class and became actual problems. In particularly students reactions to the Wiki. I recall being hesitant on using the technology when it was first introduced, that feeling passed as I realised it is fairly simple to operate the Wiki program. The problem I encountered which caused the most confusion was the writing style which should be used for such a public environment which is also considered an educational place. Should you keep your writing professional as you would a short educationally tuned essay and leave the slang which is often used in most public pieces out? Or should you write as you would in private documents which are intended for piers where much slang is used and a more of lackadaisical style of writing is acceptable and more relevant to the conversation? Dusenberry comments that "students articulated both their excitement and frustration at continually having a public audience to consider when they created documents." I have chosen to follow a more formal path of writing for the education related documents I post for public view on the Internet.

One thing that surprised me in Dusenberry's piece was the relevancy of the style of writing used by the student when the Wiki was to be graded. It is interesting to me because when I am writing for public view on the Internet I tend write in a more lackadaisical and somewhat cynical style than I would if I were writing a traditional assignment to be turned into a professor. I now see the need to write in a more professional tone when writing a document for a grade.

I also now see the depth to which distinguishing intellectual property can be a problem which needs to be addressed. I am excited to research and elaborate my personnel as well as my groups ideas concerning intellectual property.

multimodal composistion

After reading the two texts "Thinking about Modality" and "Why We Blog" it seemed the theme and ideas behind "Thinking about Modality" stood out to me more. "Why We Blog" is simply an observation on the motivation people have to blog and the content of peoples blogs. The similarity between the two pieces i saw was the discussion, or lack of discussion in "Why We Blog", of blogging for educational or academic purposes. It seemed the majority of people who blog write in a lackadaisical manner. While blogging is a personal medium of communication I believe there was a lack of attention to the communication skills required to be able to "write" a blog in the first place. "Thinking about Modality" discusses quite frequently the lack of need for composition teachers because they teach a traditional and dying form of rhetoric. I believe comp is not a dying form of rhetoric but a founding form which gives writers the basic knowledge and ability to write and use "all available rhetorical means of communicating effectively." If you did not have the basic writing skills to appeal to and persuade your audience in the beginning you would be sunk trying to write a convincing argument no matter how many forms of multimodal communication you choose to use. Yes, there is much meaning to be had by using sounds and pictures to illustrate a point but if you do not posses the ability to first organize and interpret an argument than what are you illustrating but a bunch of pictures. In response to "Thinking about Modality" I say why get rid of or downplay a composition teachers role when it is the first step to being able to use as well as interpret multimodal composition? So the world is changing and we need to adjust to the new technologies which are becoming more and more prevalent in our time but that does not mean the basics of writing rhetorically are becoming obsolete or useless, mearly more important in giving students and other writers a foundation in rhetoric.
Some of my favorite collegiate classes I have taken include comp 150 and 250. While I am an old man in a sense that i prefer written assignments (despite my horrific handwriting) and bound texts it is inevitable that multimodal texts are becoming more popular and much more use full and can improve as well as add a little spice to your writing. But hey that's why I am taking an interactive media production class. Despite how traditional you like to be you must stay current with the technologies of our world to stay on top of all of the new and upcoming composition (which is currently me) but that does not mean you should forget everything you learned in comp because that is the basis of your multimodal composition.
The phrase that keeps popping into my head every time this conversation comes about is "is the movie better than the book?" I say NEVER! But you must respect motion pictures as a legitimate form of communication just like written word, spoken word, song, or pictures. Reading these pieces has shown me that my love for composition will not only apply to but greatly assist me in creating multimodal arguments and using them to help illustrate an idea and create a better understanding of my work to my audience.

Response to "Expanding the Concept of Literacy"

Elizabeth Daley lays out her four main points of discussion as (1)Multimedia language being " films,television, online games and music" has become the current vernacular, which means the main form of communication, which i believe is somewhat true on more of a macro level as to say companies and industries communicate with the public through multimedia language. While i also believe it is very common and easy for complex and convincing plots and meanings through the use of multimedia i do not believe it is used to such an extreme as is implied by Daley. It is easy to see the use of such things as sex appeal and other common advertising strategies and just because the advertising staff of a company is keeping up with the advancing ideas of their department does not necessarily make them manipulators of the public. Dayes statement differentiating multimedia from text is an observation more than an idea however adapting to this observation is what is the big concern or concept of this piece. I agree full heartily that multimedia is a new and useful tool that should be taught and actively pursued by both students and professionals looking to better their understanding of the new technology which is looking to become the most accepted and used form of communication of our time. As for how this argument could affect us? It already has!!!!! We are sitting in a multimedia production class and if you have not taken a media literacy class yet the corporations could still be controlling your mind!!!!!!!

Three things that are my vision of students today are that your future, for both education and occupation, lie in your ability to navigate and appropietly use technology.

Most of the classes I am currently attending have moved away from traditional bound books to e-books and have also moved quizes and homework assignments onto the web.

Now with mobile technology becoming so advanced you can access the web from almost anywhere which in turn means you can access your reading material for class or even take a quiz from anywhere your phone gets service.