Peer Review

I have in the past used peer review for other papers and other classes.  What I like about this form of editing is the feedback you gain from people who very well could be the audience you are writing for. The challenge this tool faces is the tendency people have to be nice and not say too much negative feedback.  While negativity is not always constructive, the feedback pinpointing your weaknesses in a paper can be.  With our process we had some good leading questions to follow when reviewing others works.  this helped me realize that I had forgotten to post about my name, and needed to explain why people may choose to use Second Life even though I do not.  If there was one other way the exercise could have benefited us, perhaps it would have been by asking each person where they see their Second Life this time next year.  This would lead to an interesting dialogue, and give us some good insight as to why or why not people might choose to experience this world.  When reading the work of my peers it was nice to see why other people may enjoy it.  Since I did not, I liked seeing the views of those who did.

Media Writing

I have had a limited amount of writing for media in my life.  Most experience I had was in high school when I took a web page designing class.  Those sites were all very basic and were never really accessible on the internet for public viewing.  Some of my other experience comes from writing for classes which is mostly limited to things like power points for speeches or other informative projects.  What my strengths do for me as a writer of any media is an ability to relate to and write for my audience.  I can see that this ability will help me no matter what I am writing.  The big challenge my strength will face is my tendency to be wordy.  If I were writing captions or short script this could be a tough issue for me to overcome.  All in all I know that I will more than usual have to consider my audience when writing.  This will dictate my voice and at times the length of my prose.

Infinitely Writing

I find Riordan's quote very interesting when you think about it as a writer.  I personally have hardly any talent for writing web script, but I do admire the people that make my favorite sites go.  With that being said, I am sure this quote speaks to their everyday struggle to relate to people like me that need simpler interactions to use a website.  If they could write a site for just creators, I am sure that I would be hopelessly lost.  This need to consider and relate to your audience is the core to every successful writers toolbox.  If you are writing for high school students, yet only use words you learned in grad school, then you run the risk of losing your directed audience.  The flip side to that coin is to not dumb yourself down too far so that you pander to your audience and they don't feel like it's worth the time to read.  Which is another problem we see as writers now.  Time is getting more and more precious due to the number of options people have to dominate their intelligence.  It's easy to lose someone to an iPhone if you can't properly engage your reader.  Even though we have an infinite choice does not mean people are infinitely listening.  Engage your reader with the choices you make and write for their attention.

Second Life

What is there to say about my Second Life experience?  I was at first hesitant to try it because I never wanted to get involved in an experience like this one.  I am already busy enough, and I don't really want a virtual life keeping me from experiencing things in my own life.  That being said, I did my best to dive in and find out what it was all about.  My first thought was how poorly the world operated on my computer.  I have a laptop, and I think a desktop with some power would be needed to run this world properly.  I was also struck by how basic the world looked.  I do occasionally play Xbox, and am used to much better graphics.  I did my best to navigate the worlds and talk to people, however I found it difficult to relate.  For the most part I accomplished my tasks for the class and got off of the world.  I can understand why some people might choose to use this in their lives.  People need enjoyment, and whatever safe thing that brings them that is okay with me.  I personally enjoy motorcycling, sports, music, and the gym.  I did have one moment I enjoyed, and that was jumping the Jeep I was test driving over a hill.  I was also able to drive it under water and I thought that was a funny experience.  Other than that though I can honestly say I hope that I never have to experience Second Life again.  I will forever and always prefer real life human interaction. 

Why find an E-Voice?

To be frankly honest, the biggest reason I took this class was the fact that it fit my schedule.  I seemed to be only able to fit a very select amount of classes into my limited time, and this was the winner.  However, I did hope that it would be something I could apply to my chosen profession for the rest of my life.  As the world changes it becomes clear that more and more students will be doing stuff online in addition to in class work.  Eventually I would guess that tablets will be the norm in classrooms.  I hope that I will take away some new and challenging ways that I can integrate online interaction with my students.  My strengths for this class will actually be somewhat limited.  I am constantly finding new tools and learning or sharing devices online that I know nothing about.  The internet keeps evolving and I have not been able to keep up.  Fortunately I am a quick learner and should be able to adapt as long as I can keep abreast of the newest technology.