Introduction
The world is evolving at a very alarming rate. Seemingly every single day is a new dawn for a new idea. Virtually all spheres of life are changing. A change from what everyone is used to, to a different version. Writing is not an exception. Writing is going through its equal share of evolution.
Precisely to say, writing remains to be the most trusted and profound form of communication. For instance the most preferred means of committing critical transactions such as writing examination and signing of bills, to mention but a few, mainly relay on writing. Therefore the significance of writing cannot be understated (Hedges 8). The evolution in writing had its genesis in utilization of signs in the old age then developed to translation of vowels to readable letters and now it has heavy visible presence and evidence in the digital world.
This paper tries to elucidate the essence of fundamental processes of writing for individual writers and the effect it has on a group. The papers goes ahead to discuss the matter of whether the writing trends shall adapt to this emerging issues. And essentially what will this mean to the upcoming generation. Shall this be a stepping stone to greater heights or shall this be a stumbling block?
The changing times
Vitally to mention the older writing forms had their time and have thrived in those years and now it’s giving birth to newer ones. A new breed of writing is around us and it is taking its place significantly. Silently there is a battle between the old writing approach and the new style. Notably the contest rages on to touch and affect both the writers and readers. One school of thought prefers the older syllabus and at the same time another group throwing its weight behind the emerging trends.
Prompting the question, between the two divides, who is commanding the lead? Who has the greater influence? Is there a possibility of someone been dethroned? Apparently, these questions are signs not of division but of growing concern in the future of writing (McCloud 593). The good news is that the same purpose of writing remains at the core of writing. And the concern of where writing is taking us is becoming a dear to many. And indeed the future of writing is getting brighter and intriguing by the day.
Beyond any shadow of doubt and clear to minds of both writer and readers times have changed. Evidently, days of deep reading and analysis of books, is a thing of the past, so to say. The deep reading that was a sign of academic prowess and pride is now a thorn on the flesh for most people.
he norm is now inclusion of multimedia content to deliver information and achieve communication. It is now a common knowledge and concern that the main source of information is streaming from the internet (Peterson 596). If statistics are anything to go by, then this generation wealthiest source of knowledge and information is the internet and with a special mention of social media forums. This fact has triggered most entities with key interest in sharing information to invest heavily in online services.
Extensive time is now spent online surfing and searching internet databases for purposes of study, information and entertainment. Writers have easily picked up this behavior. The long hours used in turning papers to the left have been replaced by clicks and scrolling up and down internet pages.
After few Google searches, writers have access to more than what they need to compile their work. This new order of conducting business has to be discussed holistically, in order to deduce its positive and negative impact on writing. This emerging trends has directly reduced the amount of time spend reading. Books have been left to stay at shelves as everyone is scrolling their screens whether on personal computers or on mobile devices.
How the future looks like
As it is, different people have come up with different explanation about the future of writing especially in the awake of different means of accessing information. Some have proposed that it is high time writers conformed to the new working means or else they shall be rendered obsolete.
As they say if you cannot beat them, join them (McCloud 595). However not everyone buys this idea, some have chosen to remain conservatives and let not of their old ways. The big question of discussion at this particular juncture is evaluation and examination of the impact of the new technologies and how they affect the core purpose of writing.
According to Carr Nicholas, et al, in the book ‘Is Google making us stupid’ the internet is becoming undeniable force of information storage and exchange. It is the unlimited conduit for imperative information streaming to the mind. He goes ahead to state that pages of World Wide Web have proved to turn into programmable and unified database accessed through computers. New approaches such as social media are providing endless opportunities for networking and interaction of information.
The same view was repeated by Marshall McLuhan, the 1960’s media theorists, who stated that the media must not to be just inert feeds of information. The sentiments expressed by Nicholas hold avalanche of truths and underscores the deteriorating trend of over dependence on the internet at the expense of reading (Carr 155). This trend if allowed to persist then will automatically negatively impact the culture of creative reading and writing. The point to ponder at this point, I believe is how to use what is working, to work for the betterment of our generation.
On the Web
If you look around the internet, great tools of writing do exist. One of them is Web-Quest. The idea of Web-Quest cannot be ignored in this discussion. Since its inception, the Web-Quest model has greatly contributed to the availability and utilization of information among learners. The Web-Quest model continues to change.
Over years, the numbers of high-quality Web-Quest continues to increase. This platform provides many education courses and staff empowerment effort around educational spheres. Web-Quests stand out in services provision because of its well informed status to its end users. Similarly with search engines databases a quick search on the Web-Quest avails hundreds of examples (Dodge 10).
In a summary they are five guiding principles that not only ease the search but increase the precision of finding answers you are looking for. These principal include finding great sites. One differentiating aspect between a good and a better Web-Quest is the quality and number of web sites it uses.
The answers exhibited vary depending on the needs of the user. Two great pointers in this section is one the art of mastering a search engine and two probing the deep web. Research and analysis of human behaviors have showed that most people do their search by just typing a few words or phrases in one search engine and then turn over to a storm of irrelevant sites. It is highly recommended to learn better search techniques.
For instance one web page that has been of great help is the “Seven Steps Towards Searching”. Also researchers have found out that although billion of web pages exist for surfing only a few surface on the standard search engines (Peterson 159). This means that the remaining portions is hidden only to be revealed by the ‘deep web’ surfing. Deep web surfing is vital especially for specified information that otherwise shall not turn up on the standard search engines.
Worth to note at this particular point is that it is practical wisdom not to lose the information found. Arriving at any information consumes a lot of time and effort. Therefore once got, information ought to be stored in ways and means that shall be easy to retrieve when called upon. For instance most learners work from different places and sometimes using different machines.
A shift from one place or machine may mean losing vital data or slowing down the learning process. Smooth continuity is therefore an important factor of production in the sense that it saves times and effort (Higbee 6). There are several measures to counteract this; this includes doing regular backups of the data. Another useful methodology is using facilities such as bookmarks which are readily available on most office applications as well as browsers.
The second principle for writing a great Web-Quest is to orchestrate resources and learners. This principle seeks to address the challenge of scarcity of resources. This is achieved through sharing of the available resources. At the end of the day, every computer and other resources are well utilized and everyone has useful work on their desks.
Thus resources are optimally utilized. To achieve this one has to organize resources equitably and sensibly. A good example is a single computer machine can be used to coordinate the whole class discussion while the teacher does the explanation. At the same time, one to ten computers can be utilized as learning base for students to run round while others can actually work offline.
If accessibility to the internet is issue then well orchestrated programs need to be designed and implemented (Dodge 5). Another key performance indicator to the success is organizing the people involved. Well organization of learners saves a lot of time. This is a great contributor to coming up with a great Web-Quest. Deep and Profound knowledge of cooperative learning is a clear recipe for designing and developing a successful Web-Quest.
The success or failure of cooperative learning can be determined by the following factors. The first is undeterred positive cooperation and unfading interdependence of students. Learners highly upheld one another and most have the perception that without each other they cannot succeed. Therefore positive interdependence is a critical ingredient to successful cooperative.
The other factor is one on one interaction. As students work together and compete over assignment they end up creating positive competition which is healthy for their development intellectually and also corporately as a group. Thus encouragement of promoting interaction is a vital unit to succeed in environment of cooperative learning (Peterson 155).
Group and individual accountability is a critical attribute to cooperative learning. Essentially speaking the group is held accountable for finishing the assigned task on time and with precision and accuracy. And through the process the individual are rated according to their contribution. The other important attributes and that needs to be cultivated is encouragement of small group and interpersonal skills.
Working together is a skill most people lack in the present world. Therefore possession of these skills means a great plus to the learners and also to the teachers. The last but not the least attribute to successful cooperative learning can be termed as group processing. Improvement of group efficient and effectiveness is a step towards the right direction.
The other important principle to designing great Web-Quest is challenging the learners to think for themselves. We are living in a time and age where standardized tests are the order of the day in most of the American education institutions. A outstanding Web-Quest does not lust contain a list of United States leaders and presidents and their accomplishment.
Instead it seeks to provide an engaging multifaceted backdrop that conveys riches of understanding that if not would not be captured in a coherent and understandable manner. Challenging learners to think can be achieved through taking the learners to task. And this basically is all about asking learners to own information and reproduce results based on the information gained. The other element is designing. For instance, the subject of Canada can be treated as a task to design a Canadian Vacation Web-Quest (Dodge 7).
The task specified to the learners is to develop a timetable through the nation that would suit a family of four, with each having attention in different portions. Web-Quest can also be developed based on a journal-istic methodology in which a student picks on a persona and develops news account. In addition another distinguished approach is the utilization of valid controversies about the world as a means to classify the theme of study.
Utilization of the medium is the other vital principle of creating great Web-Quest. Important to note and mention is that a Web-Quest is not limited to the use of the web. A good picture to portray this could be the imagination of a ‘BookQuest’ in which a compelling question and problem is stated and the solution is created by processing and dividing the information in various books spread throughout the classroom (Dodge 4).
In situations where a teacher has only one computer can sometimes use the alternative of printing out the needed Web pages so that students who cannot access the computers have something to read. But this is a concession and doesn’t completely use the media. A picture of success is a Web-Quest that is not accomplished easily on paper.
The last principle of creating a great Web-Quest is to scaffold high expectations among the learners. A good and perfect Web-Quest is the one that challenges the students to do what they might ordinarily not do or get committed to it. This brings up the spirit of exceeding expectations by striving to do more that it is required. There are three types of scaffolding; they include receptions, productions and transformation (Dodge 5).
Receptions assist the chance to allow learner to familiarize themselves with resources. The process of transformation explores the learners to convert what they learnt into a new model never done before. At the same time production necessitates the learners to produce articles they might have never generated before. The creation approach of the duty can be gibbeted by giving students models, multimedia devices thus prompting the points to writing.
The future of writing definitely lies in the new order of doing things. The unavoidable presence of the internet in our lives is a reality we cannot beat (Hedges 7). Major discussions are now held and stored on the internet. Therefore to avoid a situation where we are fighting a losing battle it is only logical to know how best to maneuver and make the best out of this new wind of change.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it is clear that the future of future of writing is changing. The older forms of writing have given rise to newer ones. And the newer forms are greatly influenced by the changing trends of technology. This has squarely affected the sound writing process for individual as well as a group. The question of adaptability of the writers to the new environment is a subject of discussion.
The deep reading that was a sign of academic prowess and pride is now a thorn in the flesh for most people. The norm is now inclusion of multimedia to deliver information needed whether done through audio or video channels. The long hours used in turning papers to the left have been replaced by clicks and scrolling up and down the internet papers. After few Google searches, writers have access to more than what they need to compile their work.
According to Carr Nicholas, et al, in the book ‘Is Google making us stupid’ the internet is becoming undeniable force medium of information storage and exchange. The five guiding principles for creating Web-Quest, according to Dodge, are finding great sites, orchestrating learners and resources, challenging the learners to think for their own, using the medium, and scaffold high expectations (Dodge 10).
The Web-Quest model continues to change. Over years, the numbers of high-quality Web-Quest shall continue to increase. From the above discussion, the next generation shall have the strong force of emerging trends to face and put up with. The reality of the internet becomes a norm that can no longer be ignored.
Works Cited
Carr, Nicholas. Is Google Making Us Stupid. New York: W.W.Norton & Company Ltd, 2010. Print.
Dodge, Bernie. Five Rules for Writing a Great Web-Quest. Web.
Hedges, Chris. Empire of Illusion. Web.
Higbee, Kenneth. Your Memory. How it Works and How to Improve it. Web.
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York: W.W.Norton & Company Ltd, 2010. Print.
Peterson, Linda. The Norton Reader 13th Edition. New York: W.W.Norton & Company Ltd, 2010. Print.