Hello, Multigenre Literacy!

Dear Participants of Spring Semester's English 495, greetings.

I believe we are a blessed generation, living on the edge of the twenty-first century. I do believe it was in this generation that mass usability and accessibility to public internet was born. The internet was adolescent with us; we are the first generation as a whole to really grow up with internet-based media, as bumpy as it was. (No one will miss the AOL dial-up sound. No one.) I see this class as an opportunity to nurture the idea of using the internet as an educational tool. 

My first personal blog was created on 2006 on LiveJournal.com. Though it's nothing more than an archive of the hormonal musings of a fifteen year old, it represents a demographic of people who decided to use the internet as a social sphere. I wasn't just recording my thoughts, I was learning to use internet social media (as opposed to the old school method of writing personal letters) to forge relationships over cyberspace with real people miles apart. 

My first student blog was in high school; I remember that my teacher was still unused to the formatting of the WordPress account where we, the students, were supposed to post forum discussions. While the rest of the class bumbled about right along after her, I had already been basic HTML literate for two years. Since then, I have created at least three blogs just as a student, and I see effective use of the technology maybe two of every three times. It kind of depends on how effectively the teacher can use the blog themselves. 

Other everyday educational technologies like Moodle.edu and the miracle of email are probably the two technologies that education has created and adapted to. I do enjoy the ease of the online class profile and forums, and the almost instant (depending on professors) access to grades. It makes the best part of learning - sharing - as easy as an upload and a click. 

What do you think? Is tech literacy a tool for education, or should we stick to the classic methods? Where do you see edu tech in five years? Ten?

Looking forward to this semester with you,
Rose