PaperDraftBlog

Thesis: Due to current developments in technology, cursive will shortly become obsolete. I got the idea for this paper the other night when I was scribbling my name on paper in (very sloppy) cursive, realizing the the reason it was so sloppy was because I never use script anymore. Then I wondered if they even still taught handwriting in elementary school (which I then found out they do) and figured that it might be a dead subject to teach in a couple years, seeing how quickly technology is converging.
One article I chose to include in this paper is The Curse of Cursive; Penmanship, like hieroglyphics and the IBM Selectric, has lost its purpose. Let's erase it for good. The article argues that teaching handwriting in schools is going to be considered irrelevant...the article also comments on a book which makes points to support the importance of teaching cursive in schools.
The other article I want to use in my paper is High Tech Note Taking, and it goes into detail about how, with new technology, you can now write on a "tablet PC" and transfer your handwritten notes right onto your computer...which would essentially obliterate the need for pen and paper. I got the idea for this paper the other night when I was scribbling my name on paper in (very sloppy) cursive, realizing the the reason it was so sloppy was because I never use script anymore. Then I wondered if they even still taught handwriting in elementary school (which I then found out they do) and figured that it might be a dead subject to teach in a couple years, seeing how quickly technology is converging.
One additional article I used for research is called If U Cn Rd This . . . and it discusses how penmanship skills are diminishing and that technology is to blame. It also discusses that "warnings" are being issues about the sloppiness of handwriting. It's an interesting article because it also mentions how the same thing happened about a hundred years ago...people were concerned about the growth of technology and they also issues "warnings" telling people that technology was the culprit and the reason for people's sloppy handwriting skills. This ties in perfectly with my thesis because now not only does it support what i'm saying but it also addresses the issue from a societal and historical angle.
Another reference is entitled Handwriting: Is It on the Wall? and it basically details current handwriting-to-computer technology and the reason for its growth. The article says that handwriting is now so poor and sloppy that it is the perfect time for software giants to market handwriting-to-computer software and hardware tablets. This article helps my thesis in that it helps to somewhat predict the future of handwriting as well as the technology that will facilitate this fate.
The two additional articles I have chosen to support my thesis are "Handwriting - A Forgotten Skill?" The article is by Jane Medwell and David Wray, and it details several studies that are trying to prove that handwriting should be considered "more than just a motor skill" and that it is an important part of a child's text composition. It examines the situation of current teaching of handwriting in England and considers why handwriting efficiency has been neglected. The article goes on to identify a variety of studies and experiments related to special needs and psychology which re-evaluate the role of handwriting. These studies suggest that handwriting is “more than just motor skill” and may actually be an important contribution to children's text composition. Existing research into the way handwriting efficiency affects composition indicates that additional research and better handwriting evaluation could aid a children's writing progress and might positively affect the progress of the many children who struggle with writing during their elementary school years. The other article is entitled Hooked Up or Just Hooked by Patrick Tucker. The article explains the impact of technology on the social life of teenagers in the U.S. It also references data from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) which states that teenagers are important consumers of technology goods and content. It is said that the want of teens for new products will grow as they continue to be exposed to a technology driven world. It is also stated that cell phones and computers have become essential to the life of American teenagers. The article also references a report from the Irish State Commission which revealed that text messaging use among teenagers was having a negative effect on their writing and reading skills. Both articles deal with my thesis, in slightly different ways. The first one focuses more on why people think the teaching of handwriting is important as well as points of view from people who think it is a dying art...the second article will help support my thesis in that it is detailing how dependent we are on technology and how it is causing handwriting to fall on the back burner.

Blog #8

The 2 additional articles I decided to add to my final paper are as follows: The first article is called "If U Cn Rd This . . .;" and it discusses how penmanship skills are diminishing and that technology is to blame. It also discusses that "warnings" are being issues about the sloppiness of handwriting. It's an interesting article because it also mentions how the same thing happened about a hundred years ago...people were concerned about the growth of technology and they also issues "warnings" telling people that technology was the culprit and the reason for people's sloppy handwriting skills. This ties in perfectly with my thesis because now not only does it support what i'm saying but it also addresses the issue from a societal and historical angle. The link to this article is HERE.My 2nd article is entitled "Handwriting: Is It on the Wall?" and it basically details current handwriting-to-computer technology and the reason for its growth. The article says that handwriting is now so poor and sloppy that it is the perfect time for software giants to market handwriting-to-computer software and hardware tablets. This article helps my thesis in that it helps to somewhat predict the future of handwriting as well as the technology that will facilitate this fate. The link to the article is HERE

Blog 6

How the Web Polarized Politics

1. What does the author mean by political polarization?

When the author talks about “political polarization”, he is referring to the often extreme opposing views of different parties. Meaning those who are democrats are strongly rooted in their beliefs, and those who are republicans are just as strongly tied to theirs...with almost no chance of one part influencing a member of the other party to change opinions.

2. What are your thoughts about the statement, "Governments feel they are royalty to some degree"?

I agree with the author on that thought. Governments are there to make and enforce laws and policies and don’t expect us to question it or oppose it. They feel that it’s their job to know what is best for us and act upon that knowledge regardless of how much opinions might vary on their policies.

Do you agree/disagree with the statement, "We've literally experienced an information tsunami-but more information does not mean better decisions"? Why?

I definitely agree with this statement. Over a short period of time, every piece of information that’s ever been published (and plenty that has not) has all of a sudden become available to us in a very direct way in an easily-accessible environment. We have been bombarded with endless amounts of information from every which corner of the globe. But just because we have all this information doesn’t mean someone will use this information to make better decisions. In fact, this information will most likely just help support the decisions that an individual has already made, helping enforce his or her beliefs in one direction or another.

The author states that "the very technology that is meant to solve problems merely makes people more emotional-not more reasonable". Give an example of a real life digital convergence that can be viewed to make people more emotional.

In giving an example, I’m going to use the Author’s topic of politics. Let’s say the example of digital convergence is that a political candidate (republican for example) makes a speech and puts it on youtube or some other public online video forum. And let’s say that both republicans AND democrats are watching this video, and that the website allows any individual to comment or post to a common message board. If you were in your own home watching a broadcast of this speech, you would most likely have only a couple people in your household with which you would discuss this. However, in an open forum such as a video website, all of a sudden you’d be looking at varying opinions from people who are hardcore republican and people who are strong democrats. This now creates a forum where people can easily get out of hand, where looking at opinions that are different than yours can cause you to get agitated with each and every comment that doesn’t go along with what you believe. So, instead of being at home and having a constructive discussion about politics with whoever is around you, you are now having a mass argument on a large scale with multiple people at one time, and it is causing every party involved to speak their mind with no inhibitions.

Digital Future of the United States: Part 1--the Future of the World Wide Web

The Web has been a platform for the creation of a wide and unanticipated variety of services. Name one of the commercial services and how you apply the service to your daily/weekly routine.

One commercial services I use is a website called www.mint.com. Mint is an online budgeting website. You sign up (for free) and give them the account information of any account you have. I have entered in my credit card information, my student loan information, my checking account information and my savings account information. You then put in a budget for different aspects of your spending for the month (for example, I allow $40 for groceries a month, $70 for my cell phone, $50 for gas, etc). It then, daily, taps into all your different accounts and gathers information on how much you’ve spent on each account, your spending trends, your account balances and transactions, etc. I use this every day to help budget my money so I can start saving my money.

What does the author mean by "Semantic Web"? How does this effect the future of convergence?
I am a little confused on the idea of the Semantic Web. It says that it would enable any individual that puts information on the web to link them to other pieces of data using standard formats. Aren’t we able to do that already? Or is it referring to ANY piece of data we put in the web? Like if I type an email to my friend about Tennis, I can link pieces of my email to information about tennis? I’m a little unclear on this subject.


The future of the web has created substantial privacy challenges which are barely addressed by our current privacy laws. What are your thoughts on new data integration? Is the thought of this legal?

I think the ideas behind data integration are good, and I believe it at first would only be implemented with good intentions, for the benefit of others. On one hand think it would pose a huge privacy challenge, but on the other hand, if people are putting information on the internet to begin with then it’s already in the public domain and could be subject to any data-gathering.

Blog #5

I have reviewed some more articles for my final paper, and as of right now my thesis stays mostly the same but I have tweaked it slightly to be more specific and less redundant: "Due to current developments in technology, cursive will shortly become obsolete". The two additional articles I have chosen to support my thesis are "Handwriting - A Forgotten Skill?" The article is by Jane Medwell and David Wray, and it details several studies that are trying to prove that handwriting should be considered "more than just a motor skill" and that it is an important part of a child's text composition. It examines the situation of current teaching of handwriting in England and considers why handwriting efficiency has been neglected. The paper goes on to identify a variety of studies and experiments related to special needs and psychology which re-evaluate the role of handwriting. These studies suggest that handwriting is “more than just motor skill” and may actually be an important contribution to children's text composition. Existing research into the way handwriting efficiency affects composition indicates that additional research and better handwriting evaluation could aid a children's writing progress and might positively affect the progress of the many children who struggle with writing during their elementary school years. The link to this article is HERE. The other article is entitled "Hooked Up or Just Hooked" by Patrick Tucker. The article explains the impact of technology on the social life of teenagers in the U.S. It also references data from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) which states that teenagers are important consumers of technology goods and content. It is said that the want of teens for new products will grow as they continue to be exposed to a technology driven world. It is also stated that cell phones and computers have become essential to the life of American teenagers. The article also references a report from the Irish State Commission which revealed that text messaging use among teenagers was having a negative effect on their writing and reading skills. The link to this article is: HERE. Both articles deal with my thesis, in slightly different ways. The first one focuses more on why people think the teaching of handwriting is important as well as points of view from people who think it is a dying art...the 2nd article will help support my thesis in that it is detailing how dependent we are on technology and how it is causing handwriting to fall on the back burner.

**You may need to log in to Rider's Libraries database to view the links to my articles. The links to my PREVIOUS 2 articles are HERE and HERE.

Blog 4

The topic I chose for my final paper will be on how I feel that handwriting and cursive will be obsolete with the introduction of new technologies. My thesis statement would be that "Cursive will shortly become obsolete and there will be no need to teach script to students in the near future".
The two articles I chose to include in this paper are: The Curse of Cursive; Penmanship, like hieroglyphics and the IBM Selectric, has lost its purpose. Let's erase it for good. The article argues that teaching handwriting in schools is going to be considered irrelevant...the article also comments on a book which makes points to support the importance of teaching cursive in schools. The other article I want to use in my paper is High Tech Note Taking, and it goes into detail about how, with new technology, you can now write on a "tablet PC" and transfer your handwritten notes right onto your computer...which would essentially obliterate the need for pen and paper. I got the idea for this paper the other night when I was scribbling my name on paper in (very sloppy) cursive, realizing the the reason it was so sloppy was because I never use script anymore. Then I wondered if they even still taught handwriting in elementary school (which I then found out they do) and figured that it might be a dead subject to teach in a couple years, seeing how quickly technology is converging.

Blog #2

Chapter 1 of Convergence Culture talks about the CBS show "Survivor" and the internet community of "spoilers" that try to find out as many secrets about the show as they possibly can. The article Media Lullabies: The Reinvention of the World Wide Web discusses the theory of convergence in more detail, more specifically how new technology is related to old technology. Some key ideas in the readings are the ideas of new technology being built from old technology, the ideas of online communities, and spoiling. The Media article talks about comparing the radio to TV and TV to the internet and how while you can compare them, they aren't separate entities but rather metamorphoses of each other. Convergence Culture discusses the idea of internet communities, groups of people who communicate for one reason or another. It talks about groups called Spoilers and how they work together to achieve a common goal. As far as spoiling is concerned, Convergence culture talks about this in detail, and in this case it is specifically referring to the show "Survivor", and how fans try to find out details about the show before it airs and share it with their community of other spoilers. The most difficult concept for me with the readings was probably delving deep into the online communities and just how consuming they are. In class this week I think we should discuss some other online communities and the effect they are having on our society. Online communities relate to the "real world" or my life mostly because I am online all the time and there are many things that i know myself and other individuals around the world relate to. There is a book series I am very into, and it is hugely popular around the country and with just one google search i know i can find multiple online communities discussing it.

Link to in-class project:http://strategicplanner.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/understanding-convergence/

Blog #1

The Cultural Paradox of the Global Village elaborates on ideas from Marshall McLuhan's philosophies on technology/mediums, making real-world connections to his theories. The article also compares the relationships we have to television versus the ones we have with the internet. In a nutshell, our relationship with television brings the outside world in...it often sucks us in and draws us into it's pull. In contrast, our relationship with the internet takes us out of our homes and into cyberspace; it exposes us to vast amounts of information in limitless amounts of space and time.
Three clear ideas within the readings are 1) That the internet puts us into a world where we can be any version of ourself...ideal, unrealistic or even fantasy versions of ourself (our digiSelf) 2) Convergence is inevitable and 3) We help to move convergence forward by taking media into our own hands.
The first idea is mentioned in the online reading...the article explains that our digiSelf is a very intimate version of ourself which we are putting online for all to see...and that we feel violated when we are victims of any cyberbased crime (identity theft, etc). It also says that "manifestations of our identity exist on the web"...this can be through blogging, where someone is jotting down their every opinion and thought on a subject (ranging from mundane to controversial) or through avatars, where a person can assume an identity that is more ideal than the one they realistically inhabit, or even through creative projects that are posted on the web. Putting ourselves on the internet in a digitial way has many effects, from being able to exhibit creativity in a way we could never do in the real world to becoming so engulfed in our digiSelf that we ultimately cause our body harm (or potentially death). Then there is also the question of ownership of our digiSelf...do we own all rights to this manifestation of ourselves? Or once it is put out into cyberspace does it become open to manipulation from whoever and whatever wants a part of it?
The second and third idea is from the "Convergence" textbook. The author goes into much detail about many aspects of convergence. But something I came away with as a central thought is that convergence is inevitable...and it's happening already. And as we as a society are helping this movement forward (via internet, multi-feature cellphones, gaming consoles or MP3-players) both society and media conglomerates are simultaneously scrambling to figure out how to transition from medium to medium in a way that keeps everybody together. The book reads "Convergence describes the process by which we will sort through those options. There will be no magical black box that puts everything in order again. Media producers will only find their way through their current problems by renegotiating their relationship with their consumers."
The third idea is from both readings, and ties into the other two ideas. The thought that we are helping to move convergence forward is illustrated in our extensive use of all media outlets and our abilities as consumers to gobble up new technology as it becomes available. Both the article and the book mention that we have unlimited possibilites with the mediums that are put in front of us, and it's our growing curiosity and willing to PARTICIPATE in technology rather than USE technology that is forging convergence ahead. The article mentions that more and more movies are marketing on the internet (Blair Witch Project as an example) and as consumers we are interacting and even participating with marketing in a way that we never have before. The book mentions the "yellow arrows" and their website, which facilitates communication between groups of people and allows us to share ideas with people that we never may have communicated with in the first place.
I had some difficulty understanding the online article when it mentioned how the effects of the internet can be disorienting. Unless I was understanding it incorrectly, I think it would only be disorienting to people who are resisting change or who are from a different generation and are past the point of trying to understand new technology.
I think some good topics for discussion this week would be 1) What can we do as a culture in order to more smoothly facilitate convergence? (The book said we have trouble working together). 2) Discuss some ways in which we as a society participate in marketing using new technologies or mediums and 3) Discuss hiding behind our digiSelf.
I found it very easy to connect the real world to this week's readings. A couple things that stuck out at me are things I can relate to as a 23-year old, and they are things you don't think about until they are analyzed. The first is when the article mentioned that marketing for the Blair Witch Project was done almost completely online. This made me think of when the movie Cloverfield came out about a year ago. The first trailer for the movie was about 30 seconds long and was VERY cryptic...just by watching the trailer the audience would have no idea as to the movie title, its plot or premise, the cast, the production company, etc. In order to find out more, there were hidden links online and it became a scavenger hunt in a quest to find out more information about the movie. Their marketing tactic is what's known as "Viral Marketing". The production company was skeptical about using this technique to market the film, fearing it would have an adverse effect...contrarily, it smarked immense amounts of curiosity. TV shows and internet bloggers went back and forth on what the plot or title could be and visitors of seemingly unrelated websites were suddenly given clues to more information about the movie. (Side note, various websites and critics compared this marketing technique to that of The Blair Witch Project).
Another example of convergence (and marketing gone wrong) in the real world occurred to me when I read about the "Yellow Arrows" and how they are left in various places throughout cities. This made me remember an incident that occurred in Boston in 2007, when Turner broadcasting held an outdoor marketing campaign for Aqua Teen Hunger Force (a cartoon on the Adult Swim portion of Cartoon Network) by placing lit up boxes (picture a lite-brite depicting characters from the cartoons) in various parts of the city. Instead of being a successful campaign, police were called to investigate it being a potential terrorist or bomb scare. I actually watch the cartoon and knew it had to do with a television show and not a bomb threat...but not everyone in the same culture would get the reference...I guess this can tie in to the fact that the marketers and the consumers are not always on the same page when it comes to convergence.

*You can see a picture of the Boston boxes HERE

*You can visit the Cloverfield site HERE and HERE (i'm not sure exactly how, but both sites in conjunction with each other contained hidden links to give consumers clues to movie information)