mpennell's blog

 Perhaps it's my new found love of the iPhone or my teaching writing in electronic environments this semester but this article was interesting: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/science/17map.html. Also, a student gave a presentation yesterday on the changing role of cellphones and she touched on issues raised in the article.

 Well, I hope this doesn't turn into a "What I read in the NYTimes" blog, but this article on trolls was interesting: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html. When I have students work online, inevitably we run into troll-like characters. Recently, a group working on Wikitravel ran into a fellow wikitraveler that, while maybe not a troll, gave students insight into many of the characteristics and activities mentioned in the article. 

From yesterday's NYTimes: "Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?" This article seems to be the first in a series on "The Future of Reading." Perhaps "The Future of Writing" series will follow and readers can debate how IM, texting, email, etc. are changing writing. These types of investigations are, as the title indicates, always framed as "debates."