Swimming In The Internet

The world wide web is the ocean and “Designing for Effective Change” is a tiny gulf no one has heard of.

Let me start again. I don’t think our class reflections would be any different if, say, they were posted on a private compass page where only we could read them. I agree, Joe, anyone wielding the internet could read this. I really don’t think anyone outside our class is. The world wide web offers the chance for our written thoughts to be internationally public, but I’d say this facet isn’t being utilized here.

Still, the simple fact of having our reflections online, international or not, may have an effect on how we face our job of writing.

The world wide web, being a source of near-instantaneous, often accurate information, makes fact-checking an almost mindless exercise. This fact is the writer’s boon as it offers quick and easy access to correct information (I just looked up “boon” to make sure I was using it correctly,) and his bane as it forces him to dissect his arguments more thoroughly, anticipating an audience capable of the same quick and easy access (I changed “mostly accurate” to “often accurate,” not wanting to tangle with Wikipedia’s shaky status as a source of correct information.)

(Actually, that latter one is probably also a boon. Thorough argument dissection should produce more accurate writing.)

Hyperlinks are another advantage of online writing. I haven’t used any at this point, but I can see that many students have introduced links to other websites within the text of their reflections. Again, this offers both b-words to the writer: his reader will have immediate access to information he deems pertinent to the writing, but he risks losing his reader altogether to another page before they have finished reading his work. In fact, I’d put distraction as the number one problem facing online writers.

The online nature of our classwork can be seen more as a “networking” situation: it facilitates sharing of reflections between the students of the class and allows for outside sources of information to be woven smoothly into our writing. To answer the “are we taking full advantage of our online capabilities,” I’d say yes. It’s true, we try more worldwide publicity, but what’s the point? I’d say these reflections of are the most use to our fellow classmates, and the only comments I care about are from people involved in the class. In this regard, putting our reflections in this small gulf off the main body of the internet ocean is completely beneficial to our course.