Skip to main content

Digital Skills

By
My students have been using Wikibooks, a LEGO CAD application, and various DTP tools. I think their skills will translate much better to the workplace than merely learning about writing. Unfortunately, there is never enough time to really teach the skills that matter... and what matters today won't apply to the next generation of software.

I am wondering if I should demonstrate other types of software writers might use. Should I make sure these tools are included in my next writing class? If so, how would I organize the course content? These are questions I might consider over the summer.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Practical Technology Skills

By
This blog is a revision to a column I wrote for Direct Media publications. Normally, I wouldn't repost something I wrote for hire, and I certainly don't wish to anger one of my publishers. However, since this blog is primarily accessed by one of my graduate seminars, I think the publisher will appreciate that I am extending my thoughts for educational purposes. I'm also more than willing to encourage businesses to visit the Direct Media home page . Page numbers seemed to be a half-inch lower on each successive page. I stared at the mid-term paper, handed in to me by a junior at the university, and thought back to my fights with dot-matrix printers. When I was an undergrad, my Epson FX/80 printer jammed often and would sometimes rip pages after the sprockets slipped out of alignment with the punched holes of the perforated paper. Surely the undergraduate author of this paper suffered the curse of a similarly possessed printer, I told myself. “I guess when I changed the ma...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pursuing a University Degree Online

By
Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley February 2008 Issue January 7, 2008 Pursuing a University Degree Online When a star high school student graduates in Tulare County, the difficult reality is that he or she most likely will leave to attend a four-year university. For an eighteen-year-old student, leaving the Central Valley, or at least Tulare County, is part of the educational experience. But, after returning to Visalia some of us find out that our undergraduate educations are not quite enough. For those in education, Fresno State, Fresno Pacific University, Chapman University, and others have offered courses in Visalia for a number of years. This makes it possible to work and still complete a teaching credential or an advanced education-related degree. I have been thankful for the options we have in the Central Valley. But, as others have learned, if you are interested in some fields you must commute to Fresno — or even further. With the drive to Fresno taking just under an hour...
Post a Comment
Read more

MarsEdit and Blogging

By
MarsEdit (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Mailing posts to blogs, a practice I adopted in 2005, allows a blogger like me to store copies of draft posts within email. If Blogger , WordPress, or the blogging platform of the moment crashes or for some other reason eats my posts, at least I have the original drafts of most entries. I find having such a nicely organized archive convenient — much easier than remembering to archive posts from Blogger or WordPress to my computer. With this post, I am testing MarsEdit from Red Sweater Software based on recent reviews, including an overview on 9to5Mac . Composing posts an email offers a fast way to prepare draft blogs, but the email does not always work well if you want to include basic formatting, images, and links to online resources. Submitting to Blogger via Apple Mail often produced complex HTML with unnecessary font and paragraph formatting styles. Problems with rich text led me to convert blog entries to plaintext in Apple Mail ...
2 comments
Read more