In todays blog im going to talk about why i enjoyed taking English 138 Internet Culture and its unique style of essay writing, the hypertext. So I, like many of the other students in the class i would suppose, chose this class thinking that would simply fill my requirement for Advanced Writing and finish my Digital Age pathway. However after having taken the class, id say it taught me a lot more than fulfilling any requirement ever could. In this class we spent time talking about advanced topics related to technology and the internet, we looked at the effects of social media on political movements, and even explored the universe of virtual worlds with a unit on gaming. As far as content goes, this class was jam packed with interesting information that a technology person such as myself would love.
One of the most interesting things about this class however were its hypertext projects. For each hypertext project we were asked to create a simple website using a freeware program called Kompozer. We used Kompozer to edit html files, adding images and text to our websites on various topics. For our first hypertext we were to construct a Personal Hypertext that explained something about ourselves. I chose to write about what gaming has meant to me growing up through childhood and into adulthood. Id have to say that i throrughly enjoyed writing this hypertext the most because it let me work with something that i loved and research important information about it. The second hypertext we were asked to create was the Podcast hypertext where we were forced to go into our surrounding environment and into the city of Santa Clara to document one place or event that we thought was significant. I chose to visit our neighboring school San Jose State University. Although this hypertext took a long time to complete in the end i was happy with what I managed to put to together. The final hypertext we were asked to create was the Analytical Hypertext, in which we explored an aspect or theme found in the book For The Win by Cory Doctorow. This was also a good project because it allowed me to work with other students in the class in a collaborative effort to create a website.
Here is a link to my website:http://webpages.scu.edu/ftp/Mreed/