Oh, the Places Technology Will Go!
Oh, the Places Technology Will Go!
{A short recap of the semester and a look into a concept of digital education}
Hannah Lincoln
English 150 Daniel Anderson
Imagine if there were a way to access every single student’s work from around the world. Every paper, project, presentation, etc. that every student has created was accessible to researchers, other students, and everyday civilians. Making this educational work into public information would not only benefit other people’s research and ideas, but it would also increase the likeliness that the student would include the proper citation and credit where it is due. When a student turns a paper into a professor, they might not have been extremely careful with their citations, because the professor might not notice. When information is gathered and uploaded to the World Wide Web, the citing becomes that much more important, because it is free to the public, and it becomes much easier for it to be considered plagiarism.
Students would also be able to better quantify the significance of citations. Every one of their original thoughts or ideas would be significant to them, and they would easily see why it is so important to give credit to other authors’ works and ideas.
In creating my e-poem, movie review, and portfolio video, I really was able to better understand the displeasure I would experience having my public ideas and information used without credit to me. I believe that technology in the education field provides us with an opportunity to expand and refine the properties of fair usage.
Textual Literature
Types of Textual Literature
In the class, we covered several types of literature. We began by looking at several works of poetry and their different themes and poetic devices. We were assigned one essay throughout the semester on a poem of our choice. After scrolling through the optional poems listed on our class website, it was interesting to see the differences in poetry. Some poems only consisted of four lines when others might have up to one hundred lines.
We also looked at several short stories after our unit of poetry. Short stories are a bit easier to read than poetry, but they have just as many themes and underlying meanings.
Another very different form of literature that we explored was the graphic novel, Watchmen. This type of novel is very different than what most people would consider a novel. Because I am a Comic Book enthusiast, I really enjoyed reading this novel.
Although novels are not my favorite form of literature, my favorite piece that we read was No Country for Old Men. I really liked McCarthy's style, and I found it very hard to put the book down.
Poetry Essay
While looking through the different poems, one in particular stood out to me-The Lanyard by Billy Collins. The poem had a very humorous tone, but it also held a lot of meaning.
Below is a copy of the original poem in which I accessed at http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2008/01/26
The Lanyard
The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that's what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I , in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
I felt that the poem was remeniscent of the Dada Art Movement due to its outlandish juxtapositions, so I connected Collins to the visual artist, Hannah Hoch. Below are links to my first draft, second draft, and final essay:
Collins's main goal is to make poetry more accessible. He pushes the boundaries of poetry, and he allowed the Sundance Channel to put his poem, The Lanyard to animation. This idea of adding animation to poetry is very similar to our project involving e-poetry
Digital Literature
A Minor Bird E-poem
A poem that has been created through the use of digital media is considered an e-poem. E-poems make poetry more accessible to people, because it can reach anyone who has internet access. I decided to use a different poem, A Minor Bird by Robert Frost, for this particular project. I created an exploration between humans and nature through clips I found on Vimeo.
A Minor Bird E-poem (original)
A Minor Bird by Robert Frost from Hannah Lincoln on Vimeo.
A Minor Bird E-poem (revised)
"A Minor Bird" E-poem (revised) from Hannah Lincoln on Vimeo.
No Country for Old Men Film Review
Another form of digital literature is film. We were asked to create a movie review comparing McCarthy's original novel and the Coen brothers' film adaptation of No Country for Old Men. I spent most of my time comparing the movie script and the novel. It was interesting to see the two texts side by side and notice the differences among them. It was even more eye-opening to see how the Coen brothers interpreted McCarthy's original text in order to put it on the screen.
No Country for Old Men Review
No Country for Old Men Review from Hannah Lincoln on Vimeo
Accessing the Materials
After the e-poem project, we were asked to complete a video that discussed our processes in creating the original video. Many students in the class not only talked about their editing decisions, but they also discussed where they accessed their materials and why they used them. I talked a bit about how I made adjustments to my videos, but I spent majority of this "walkthrough" video to talk about how I came about my information.
E-poem Walkthrough
E-poem Walkthrough ("A Minor Bird" by Robert Frost) from Hannah Lincoln on Vimeo.
After several classmates had created a revision of their E-poem and their "Walkthrough" Video, Dan assigned the class with a second video called for citation purposes. He asked us to create a deeper exploration into our resources and materials.
Citation Video
E-Poem Citation Video from Hannah Lincoln on Vimeo.
Effective Feedback and Posts
From the help of Dan and some of my peers, I was able to effectively revise my projects throughout the semester. Their comments on my work helped me to tweak areas in need. By commenting something positive and something critical, it can make it easier for another student to create the changes necessary in their work. Below are some examples of comments:
Twitter is also a very reliable source for reflection of material. Dan had the entire class add the hashtag "#ilit" to every tweet that we posted about the classwork. I really enjoyed reading the other classmates' posts on twitter about their project progress or their overall feelings towards the class projects. Below is a compilation of my tweets from this semester.
Bittersweet that my Camtasia Tutorial ends tomorrow. I really enjoyed using the video editing features, but it crashed every hour! #ilit
— Hannah Lincoln (@bahahahannaha) May 3, 2016
An example in which literature has held more meaning than the authors' intentions. I experienced this when reading "The Lanyard". #ilit
— Hannah Lincoln (@bahahahannaha) January 25, 2016
Surprisingly enough... Collins describes his poetry as "suburban", "domestic", "middle class"...... #ilit
— Hannah Lincoln (@bahahahannaha) January 25, 2016
According the Poetry Foundation, literary critic John Updike describes Collins' poems as "more serious than they seem"....... #ilit
— Hannah Lincoln (@bahahahannaha) January 25, 2016
I think I'll study "The Lanyard" by Billy Collins. I love how Collins is humorous/playful while still effectively connecting w readers #ilit
— Hannah Lincoln (@bahahahannaha) January 25, 2016
Williams Carlos William's poem, "This is Just to Say" is so relatable... is that bad? #sorrynotsorry #ilit
— Hannah Lincoln (@bahahahannaha) January 21, 2016
Oh, the Places Technology Will Go! Video
oh the places technology will go from Hannah Lincoln on Vimeo.