H-Drive from Home

Hello Steven

You asked me today how you get to your h-drive from home.  Go to this site: http://www.rowan.edu/myhome/ and from there add your username, then copy the “your home server” address to the right – go to “run” from your start menu and paste the address in the box.  You should be alright from here – let me know is you have any other questions.  Also make sure you’re connected to Rowan through your VPN client.

Cheers

Lucinda

Reading and Writing are Essential in Our Classrooms

In the article “The Dark Night of the Soul,” By Richard E. Miller, I understand what this author is trying to convey about reading and writing in the classroom, however, I am not sure I agree.   I believe much of the killings taking place in and out of our schools occur because of something much deeper than reading and writing.  Reading and writing are essential and does create deeper reflection about who we are in our society.  Yet just like anything presented to us, some will be effect and others will not.  There are always going to be people who go through the motion as students, disregarding the lessons being communicated.  Then there are others who will genuinely benefit from what is being taught in the classroom.   Pat Schroader argues that children isolate themselves from the world and get over-involved in the magic of technology instead of connecting with others in the real world.  However, as Miller points out these boys who masterminded the shooting spree at Columbine, were very connected to the world. He states,

 Harris and Kldebold, in fact wrote and produced for all different sorts of media, they read a range of material that supported their beliefs, and that taught them how /to put together their incendiary devices; they hung out with like-minded individuals and discussed their ideas.  They rely on writing to post their scathing observations about their peers on Harris’s Website; they composed poems in their creative writing class that their teacher described as “dark and sad”; they created a video for a class project in which they acted out their fantasy of moving through the school gunning down their tormentors.” He ends the paragraph with, ‘They read, they wrote, they talked. And in the end of the process, they tried to kill everyone they could.” 

These boys were connected to the world, but a world very different from our own.  And I think this same statement can be made for many of these young killers in the article.  For teachers to now doubt the presents of reading, writing and great literature in the classrooms because they believe it is not making a difference, would be committing the ultimate crime.  Unfortunately, the problem with these young killers has nothing to do with reading and writing in the classroom. In my opinion, their problems stem much deeper within them.  As discouraging as it must be for teachers to feel their efforts are meaningless, we must continue to expose and motivate students through literature.  Just imagine where we would be as a society without the many great readings and writings create in our culture.  These readings give us meaning into other societies and help us aspirer to be better people – sadly, there will be some we can never reach.

Lucinda

Richard E. Miller’s “The Dark Night of the Soul”

I found this article to be extremely interesting. Miller had so many things to say and I want to point them out. He talks about the tragedy of Columbine and poses the question,

What legal or educational response could be equal to the challenge of controlling the behavior of so many students from such varied backgrounds?

Looking at all the cases Miller mentioned, plus the Virginia Tech incident, it is obvious that each case and each student is different. The similarity though is the fact that in every case there seemed to be OBVIOUS clues to how demented these students were. The poetry, the websites, the writing some students turned in for classes, the histories of mental disturbances. Every time this happens, it seems like a red flag should have been thrown long before the incident occurred but NO ONE noticed. To me, the educational response should be that teachers, administrators, and all faculty in general in a school should report anything unusual about a student right away. Why do we wait until Virginia Tech happens to say, wow that kid WAS disturbed. His writing WAS demented. He DID have mental problems. They knew all this and yet they did NOTHING.

Now in the one teacher’s defense, she did report that Virginia Tech student’s writing, but nothing was done past that.

Going back to Miller, he adds a journal entry from one Eric Harris, one of the Columbine shooters. To view the quote, go here and go down to the second page on the right. In it, Harris talks about how no one but him and the other student should be blamed. He says the school administration is doing a good job and he doesn’t want anything to change. But my question is, are schools really doing that good of a job or protecting students?

I mean look at what happened this week at Rowan. Even with extra security on campus for the homecoming events, we still lost one of fellow students in a brutal mugging.

Later on, Miller states:

If you’re in the business of teachings others how to read and write with care, there’s no escaping the sense that your labor is increasingly irrelevant.

As a Elementary Ed and Writing Arts major, this is a scary thought. I am going to school for just that reason. So is my job going to be a waste of time? Or is Miller just pointing out the fact that reading and writing will not change the psychotic students of the world?

This is a big problem we have to face. I will leave you with the question that Miller posed at the end of his article. He leaves us to wonder:

Is there any way to justify or explain a life spent working with – and teaching others to work with – texts?

~Meg

Tagging?

I know this whole “tag” option is supposed to make our lives easier but I don’t understand the difference between tagging and favorites found on your internet webpage.  I have files there organized in different folders, for instance, under teacher sites are a list of regularly used websites and resources.  This is just one of many folders I have filled with websites relating to each other.  It’s all very organized and right there at my fingertips so how does this differ from tagging?

Please Read

Hey guys,

I am not going to be in class today (which is obvious if you are there right now.) I am not feeling good and I haven’t been absent yet.

Could you let me know what we did/talked about in class? I did all my work and stuff and I am on top of things, but I hate being absent and I want to know what I missed.

Thanks for your help!

~Meg

Porter, DeVoss, and Howard

Hey Guys,

I enjoyed both of these readings because they seemed to be looking beyond the current hysteria concerning internet plagiarism. In Porter and DeVoss’s Computers and Composition 23 they talk about the idea of writing and ownership. On page 200 they say: “the purpose of writing in not to reward the author, or for the author to gain prestige” but they do say: “the ultimate aim of writing lies in its ethical effects: to improve society, inform individuals, expand knowledge, assist communities, and so on.”

In the next paragraph they say: “Whenever you write, you borrow ideas, phrases, images, sounds, details from others – and then you weave those pieces into a new cloth…” I find this argument about intertextuality to be very important because I use the ideas of so many people – from so many sources whenever I write anything. Sometimes it’s hard to acknowledge all of the different sources that we draw upon when we write (or when we speak), but we know that everything that we say isn’t wholly original. In this same paragraph they speak about this nature of intertextuality regarding some of our nations most important culture bearers. They say: “some of the most revered writers and speakers of American Culture – Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, Martin Luther King – could from a narrow perspective, be accused of plagiarism. But we see them, rather, as effective writers – who remix cultural tracks to create significant new compilations.”

This is not to say that we shouldn’t be concerned about the new nature of plagiarism and the Internet. In Howard’s article, Understanding “Internet Plagiarism”, she talks about the British “dodgy dossier”. This was the intelligence paper produced by the British government concerning Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. The paper had in fact been plagiarist from online academic sources. That this information was used later by Colin Powell in his speech before the U.N. Security I found to be very troubling. I think that there is an important lesson in this “dodgy dossier” affair. I think that it’s important to cite the sources of information that we use not for the reward of a particular author, but for the benefit of the reader as Porter and DeVoss state, “for its ethical effects”.

Steven

File-Sharing

There’s no question the internet makes plagiarism enticing to even the most unintentional observer. With resources right at your fingertips in endless amounts, it’s effortless to view someone else ideas or thoughts –but is this plagiarism?  At this point in my life I know the difference between stealing someone words and generating ideas from someone thoughts.  Often times I will read literature and have a difficulty time understand the message or idea being conveyed so I reach out for assistance from what DeVoss and Porter call “file-sharing” or “Fair use.” It’s reading the ideas of others who are knowledgeable in their field, which many times generates new ideas with me.  In the article “Why Napster matters to writing…..” they explain it this way, “Given this sense of aim an ethic of Fair Use based on reciprocal file sharing promotes these broad goals, not a negative ethic of plagiarism and punishment, but a positive ethic that promotes collaboration, sharing, and Fair Use.  Writing is an act of sharing and borrowing as well as of creating.”

 I think this statement holds true that taking someone’s words and claiming ownership is stealing another person’s work and is ethically wrong.  However, to read someone else’s thoughts and ideas on a similar topic that generates new thinking and “…you weave those pieces into a new cloth and onto new fabric and with new threads and that becomes ‘your’ writing.” I am a true believer that there is something to be gained from the collaboration of good writing.

Cheers,

Lucinda

You Tube vs Boob Tube…

The competition the internet provides for other entertainment sources are exciting.  By putting videos on television that do a better job of cornering the market advertising becomes easier.  With the popularity of internet sites like youtube.com the advertising landscape changes dramatically.  The marketing now must compete with the speed and the availability on websites.

Within these changing markets  competition again begins.  This ensure us that capitalism will continue even in a cyber-tech universe.  The status quo as Garfield states is not long for the changing world.  The advertisers and the companies are now at a fork in the road.  They must begin to pull money out of television advertising, creating a drop in prices, and begin to subsidize web designers.  This switch changes many thoughts on internet business vs. corporations or what we knew as corporations.

Reading this article just makes me more aware of the drastic changes we are beginning to discover.  When billionaires seem to be built in about three hundred days and competing companies grow in a free domain.  This area has no rent just opportunity with only time to lose and everything to gain.  This is our future and it is happening right in front of our eyes.

Current Events

I would like to apologize for my absence from class and blogging.  My slight eye infection did a good job of getting into the other eye.  It is not as bad as is sounds.  I just sleep more I guess because I had trouble opening my eyes.

On a more serious note the recent events at this school have been an eye opener for many.  This will change every student and teacher at this University.  Commuters will now fear night classes on this campus.  Kids on this campus now are scared to be near their dorms.  Enough problems now we need answers.

Why?

It’s hard to write a blog this week about something fun and exciting in my life when there’s so much sadness hovering over our campus right now.  As a mother myself, I can’t imagine the anger and despair this family must be feeling over their son’s senseless death.  Your whole being as a parent is to keep your children save and protected from the tragedies in our society.  Then that time comes when you must send them out into the world – hoping and praying they will be safe, happy individuals and the world will be kind to them.  I just don’t understand how someone can then just end another person’s life so brutally without a thought  as to his dreams, his family, his friends – I mean – am I naïve??  What the hell is happening in our society – its just not fair.

Lucinda