Catherine Makofske

Kate's CSEM Journal

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Reflection: week of 12/9

Sagelets!

It seems strange to be writing a reflection on a class that I took, because it's hard to see the Sage as a class. When my mom asks me about what I'm doing at Bryn Mawr I say "Oh, you know. Studying, hanging out.." and can't resist adding, "..writing for a web magazine." Suddenly, "Ooooh, wow Katy. Really?" For some reason, I have a hard time calling this thing a C-Sem. I love the fact that we've been developing this neat, techie, geeky, artsy publication. To call it a C-Sem, well, I don't know, it just doesn't sound as cool as the "Sage."

Recently, I've been checking out the web magazine Salon -- Deepak linked us up to it earlier in the year. It shows you just how many possibilties there are in an online magazine. You can have articles, links to articles, authors e-mailing in their personal essays, news stories, and interactive forums where people can post messages to each other about many different topics. Now, I'll admit right now I'm a little high on Salon because one of my favorite authors writes for it, but the articles I've read from it -- even plain old news -- seem freer than the heavily edited bites in the papers. I hate reading off a computer, but the information and stories I have found on this site is really unique.

I think we have this kind of freedom with Sage. It is clear from the responses we've recieved to the magazine that people are reading it. Hopefully, we can keep it up next semester and get some new writers on the staff. There's a lot to write about, and a many more default pages to set in Guild.

Proofreader's Comments

Issue # 7 Caffeine Diaries

It's so late. Raining in blasted cold drops, forming amoeba-shaped puddles on my hand. The bits of nebulous shadows on my hands, colors from chain store lights...green for the subway shop, red and yellow beams from the McDOnald's sign. I walk down this crazy SUV laden Lancaster Ave, I need to study. Can't do this well in the dorm--too many distractions. I'll go to Dunkin's--like my friend Zunera, and get coffee.

Darting back and forth in my stinky pea green jacket. An old coat warms the stressed out skin but smells bad from the city and rain. Frantic. Its not so visible now and I am trying to avoid the inattentive teenagers and speed demons on the road. They whir by, don't even look up to see their next victim. So I wait, uptightly, religiously until a glowing pearl-colored man appears on the signal. There's too much traffic for this time at night. Where are all of these people going? The boys in the car laugh at me, honk at me to pass them by, but I do not care. I continue to stand for another ten minutes. I will wait and pray for safety.

12:15 pm, earlier that day: A long thin drop into the pool. Dropping like a pencil. A light flaky dive. Pensel. Once, during a sleepless night, I read a book. "SPEAK MALAY IN THIRTY DAYS. I can only remember how to say pencil and no. Tidak. Or does that mean yes? The chlorine absorbs into my skull. As I walk to the donut shop, I unleash my curled hair from its elastic, releasing the soft, clean chemicals onto my shoulders.

The smells released from the scent vents in the parking lot are alluring. (A conspiracy has been revealed about the donuts, purely speculative, but one can only wonder.)It's like being at an amusement park and smelling fried dough. The drool collects in the crags of my teeth..d-o-n-u-t. Hope. Hope for my studies, and sweet powder fluff and spice.

The leaves on the ground are the colors of old bananas- yellow, tea stain, decaying brown and black. They stick stubbornly to the tip of my shoe and I kick them. You see them like this, the abundance of them, glued together by mud and raindrops and begin to imagine that they've been meeting like this since the beginning of the school year. They have PTA meetings for their kids in tree schools with lady bugs and the worms. Those banana-colored leaves, and their kids.

Kicking and tearing apart the leaf people, shifting shoes over their stems and webs. Yellow blocks of light shine from Erdman, follow them.

Proofreader's Notes

end of article

TECH IDEAS There is so much we can use technology for. There is all this information, and all of these interesting ways to present it, and connect to it. Yet, we are becoming increasingly disconnected from those concepts which we have so much access to. This is a common argument for sure, but when it applies to education, as opposed to suggested social disconnection, it should not be passed off Technology in the classroom is supported.

I have stated that during the presentation, it is doubtful whether or not much of the information is being absorbed. This is not the only issue though. The information itself lacks depth. Presenters read what is off the screen, the bullets, the little bites, and get away with it.What you end up with is an outline at best. However, students are able to get away with this I think becuse the technology is so new, and this is often their first time using it no one pays attention to these details.

Even after the presentation, the lack of proper or any citation during what is disguised as a formal research project is a bit distressing. Often during student Powerpoint presentations, there is no final bibliography. It seems that half the information, if it were necessary, could have been downloaded before class. In highschool, sources were always a major part of the project. I was usually instructed to use no more than one internet resource, because it was not reliable information and even had my grade lowered one letter for improper citation. It is ironic that when I am in college, because of the desire to incorporate technology into the classroom, there is so much less to do for a research project. A ten-minute speech is replaced by 5 frames of Powerpoint, and chopped down into undeveloped bits of information. Its like reading a research paper in abbreviations.

What makes us believe it is anymore reliable now?

There are excellent electronic databases available through library systems but these have been used rarely in comparison to Yahoo pages or Google finds where there is little, if any, way to monitor the credibility of the information provided. As much as we have been blessed by technology, isn't it time to really think about its effects, as opposed to just patting ourselves on the backs for using it? Powerpoint is interesting, and may be very effective for some things, but I believe it should be reconsidered in classroom settings.

Proofreader's Notes

SAVE but do not post- ideas for tech article below, attempts

It has become so that schools are placing technology into a kind of mission statement. The typical catch phrases are used. We are becoming part of the "the 21st century,"

Maybe has has more to do with our sheer astonishment of the technology. We are seeing it as an instrument of intelligence, the weird toy that we can learn from. However, there are few who have a deep understanding of what these machines can do,how they are fiber optically connected, why they ever even became so populer in the first place---what we do with out them.

THough I am part of the "generation tech," I am almost certain there was life without pc's. But now that we have them, it is

In a class where students gave power point presentations, almost no one cited where their research had come from.

I remember back to highschool when they only let us have one internet source, or none at all. That was back in the old days--the internet was not to be trusted.

My question is, why do we trust it now?

If an intiative at Bryn Mawr is to incorporate technology into the classroom, who can decide what information being presented is credible and what information is not.

I have benefitted from electronic databases, organized by the library before. For the most part though, it is easier just to check out a book to do research. At the moment, powerpoint technology is one of the quickest, hippest, and easiest ways to present a research project. Especially if you're a computer buff. No messy paper, no mandatory amount of speaking, just a beautiful visual boasting the amazing technological innovation. You can play music for your friends, show a video clip of a someone else's speech, and make letters and images bounce all over the nylon scrim.

You may not even have to do much research.

Of course you might have to do some fact-finding. At any given moment there will be a few students paying attention. But don't worry if you haven't actually gone to the library, you deserve a pat on the back for using technology.

Remember that this is an educational experience. The presenters in this story have benefitted from quick, all-knowing, ever-ready information of the computer. It is quite possible that they have downloaded this information and paraphrased it half an hour before class.

It's a little ironic, isn't it? Today you've logged on to Sage, whether by choice or by opening internet explorer in the computer labs to the default page we've set it to, and have, I thank you now, checked out the new technology issue.

Just to give you an idea of the technosapien I've become (or been forced to become), here are a list of things I've done recently on the computer.

1) Checked e-mail 2) Downloaded a paper topic for philosophy 3) SAGE stuff 4) Worked on a power point presentation for Spanish 5) Checked the online syllabus for Spanish 6) Took an online quiz 7) Workbook pages with audio files 8) Made an entry into my little Doogie Howser journal

Oh, and I'll be viewing the Gilmore Girls tonight on my friend's bigscreen pc.

Isn't technology amazing?

In our geeky, artsy, web-friendly college seminar, we've been creating a little site for your viewing and learning,and have discussed quite a few issues in this electronic forum. We've discussed war and women, fashion, Ramadan, and Zunera's hallucinations of purple cows eating shorts.

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