Exploding Envisionment?

Near the end of the article "Made Not Only in Words", Yancey addresses Leu's three sources of deixis in technological literacy:

1. transformations of literacy because of technological change,
2. the use of increasingly efficient technologies of communication that rapidly spread new literacies, and
3. envisionments of new literacy potentials within new technologies.

Source three is illustrated with an example: someone wishes to send an e-mail, but decides to compose it in a word processor. The article makes a point of mentioning that this is an "unexpected" use of a word processor, and earlier in the article Yancey cites Leu, who defines envisionment as using technology for purposes "at odds" with its original intention.

This seems to imply an overly-narrow definition of various technologies. The word processor in question might suggest by its name that it is for "processing words," but its feature set is far more complex than the rather bland label would have us believe. It is fair to say that composing an e-mail from within a word processor was "unexpected," but less fair to declare such a use "at odds" with a word processor designer's intentions.

I agree, however, with the idea that the advent of the Internet and the wider "digital age" allows for this third source of deixis to be practiced at levels heretofore unknown. The number of technologies that exploded onto the scene in recent decades has allowed for unprecedented user-generated creativity and user-defined evolution.

DP, PG, and More

I thought I'd throw this out there: Distributed Proofreaders.

Intimately tied to Project Gutenberg (which has saved me a fortune in textbooks for English classes over the years), Distributed Proofreaders is an organization dedicated to quickly moving public domain books through the post-OCR editing phase and into proper e-book format by utilizing a distributed cloud of volunteer proofreaders. Many hands make light work: a crowd of editors descends on a project and each one edits a few pages at a time. If you have a good eye for detail and occasionally like to do a bit of public service without leaving your chair, this is a fun way to do it. I guarantee that once you get the hang of it, it's addictive.

Also, if anyone is interested in technical writing (I'm an English major, it's technical writing or living in a box, I think!), I found this nifty link that talks a bit about it. It gives an overview of strategies and, most interestingly, some of the differences that emerge in the composing processes of inexperienced vs. experienced technical writers. I admit I've only had time to skim it thus far.

An adorable kitty learning itself a book. We're on this road to knowledge together, kitty!

Introductory Post

How exciting to be joining the blogosphere! I feel just like Cory Doctorow.

Welcome, everyone in English 201, section two. My name is Jennifer Robers, and I'm sure you'll come to know me best through my online writing, which is much more animated, to put it mildly, than my meat-space persona. :) I look forward to getting to know you, as well, and engage with you all on some of the most exciting topics of discourse of our time.