jhartner – Composition and Writing With Sources

Forensic Science in Virtual Reality

(Ashlyn Weisgerber, Shannon Mcnulty, Abdul Ogembe, James Hartner)

Introduction

Become your inner Sherlock Holmes today!

Our product is a forensic science virtual reality app. This app will give the users a sense of what a crime scene is like and they’ll be able to practice what to do at a crime scene. This app will help those who would like to pursue a career in forensic science. They will be able to get the practice needed to know the basics of crime scene investigation and get the some experience. Jobs in this field like and look for those who have experience in this job. Having this slight experience of a virtual reality app will help people get a job in this field. Professors who teach this subject in college could really use this for their students. Right now, the courts are trying to get virtual reality in there to use for the jurors and for everyone else in the courtroom as well. They will be able to see the crime scene and get a visual of the crime while it was happening to get a sense of the case. There is also a college that has started talking about making an app for forensic science classes.

Learning Outcomes

The objectives for this simulation academically would be to improve one’s skills in the area of forensic science as they continue to learn the skills needed for the job. It would provide instructors the ability to show their students a real life simulation in an environment where there is room for mistakes. This simulation would significantly increase the necessary skills needed for properly assessing crime scenes and allow students to come into the field very prepared and ready for real life experience. This specifically applies to crime scenes and the skills when trying to discover clues and investigate a scene.

The application relates to education as it should be used within schools, specifically colleges, with students in the major of forensic science or criminal justice. It should be used after students have the requisite courses, necessary skills and are pursuing higher level courses that relate previously learned skills into real life experience. This simulation can either be used for practice or professors may choose to use this simulation as an assessment. If used for an assessment, at the end of the simulation a score will be present explaining how well you did in the simulation which would allow professors to grade their students on how well they have applied their skills in the field to a real life experience. However, in this type of situation mistakes are acceptable as it is just a simulation, this allows students less stress as they will be able to get the full experience while they are still learning.

User Experience/ User Interface

The materials/ technologies that we will use is the HTC Vive, which is a virtual reality headset. Virtual Reality crept back up into the public in 2012 after being dormant for so long. Over the course of the next five years, Valve and HTC were joining forces to create the ultimate product. Beginning in 2012, Valve set its mission to create prototype. Valves prototype created a, “low-persistence display was a must. In this case, that meant lighting up a panel for one millisecond and then turning it off for nine milliseconds, in order to prevent ghosting (Souppouris).” In 2013, HTC created a periscope-like Re Camera, which is a mobile camera that does not need a smartphone to use. Soon, The HTC Vive was born.

The HTC Vive has a life like accuracy while in the virtual world is built down to a science. How this thing works is with a few main components like the grid, the angle, the boundaries, the controllers, and the ‘lighthouse.’ The Grid is what the user’s range is, which has a maximum of fifteen feet. The user must stay in this area while playing the HTC Vive at all times to ensure safety and playability. The Angle tracks the user and their motions while wearing the headset. The stations that track every move have to be above the user’s height to effectively work. The stations also need to be faced down at a 30 to 45 degree angle. The boundaries can be in a shape not necessarily to a square as the system can work in any kind of oddly shaped room to your desire. The controllers will be able to communicate with the lighthouse boxes, as the lighthouse boxes uses non-visible light to find the objects rather than using a camera. The HTC Vive also has a ‘sweep’ mechanism which will basically ‘sweep’ the area to detect any other people other than the user on the headset. This will help the safety of playing a game on this. Last, the HTC Vive features a ‘chaperone’ system that will help you or any other user not bump into anything while wearing the headset (Peppiat).

Implementation Strategy

When it comes to selling this product, we feel that this simulation will be very successful as there is limited access to crime scene and forensic science virtual reality simulations. We plan on advertising primarily to colleges and institutions who are training their students for careers in crime scene investigations. Since our target audience is colleges and institutions we plan to have our simulation on the HTC vive as it allows precise measurements and a more interactive experience than an app using google cardboard. Therefore, colleges have the money to afford the HTC Vive and would be purchase both the equipment and our simulation. It could potentially be a huge selling point for an institutions forensic science program as it allows students hands on experience before they enter their chosen career field.

There are currently no virtual reality simulations on the market right now but there is various proposed simulations on the internet. Many of the simulations that are proposed are primarily for reviewing or reliving crime scenes in a courtroom during a trial, which is very different from our approach (Hamzelou). A similar virtual reality simulation we found during our research was one proposed by the nonprofit National Forensic Science Technology Center who partnered with University of Tennessee to create a simulation to train state and local law enforcement officers in crime scene training for those entering the field or anyone who may wish to refresh their skills (Kanable). This is very similar to our simulation, except our simulation is looking to seek out a different audience as we are trying to persuade colleges and institutions to purchase our product rather than training facilities. When researching, we found this program was for those already working for a law enforcement program or those looking to complete a simple training program. Our simulation is for those who already have learned the needed skills and have taken prerequisite courses and need hands on experience before entering the field.

As technology rapidly increases, more people are relying on it. As students move into college they are introduced to new technology that incorporates learning, therefore this simulation will fit into the curriculum and style of learning that students are already using. Technology has come a long way over the years and now students have hands on ways of learning through technology and this simulation is a perfect simulation for forensic science students to use.

We plan to reach our customers, who are primarily institutions and colleges, by going around to those schools that offer forensic science as a major and advertising our product to their deans. We feel this will be the most effective method as we can provide an in depth presentation as well as a trailer of our simulation which will grab their attention. We also will send out pamphlets to schools who could potentially be interested, therefore those schools who offer a forensic science major to their students. We feel that these techniques will be very effective and will grasp the attention of our audience best. We do not feel that we will have a problem selling this product as it is a very important simulation needed for learning before entering the career field.

Long-Term Vision

Most people who go into forensic science start out in crime scene investigation. So, for those who are going into forensic science, the demo is going to be focused on main parts of crime scene investigation that most people will have to know. This includes gathering evidence, photography and measurements. You’ll show up to the crime scene and find all the evidence, take measurements when needed and then photograph the crime scene and all the evidence separately. This will show the basics of forensic crime scene investigation in which people will be prepared for what the job entails. The next phase of development will start introducing different disciplines of forensic science. These disciplines include chemistry and biology to start. These will be more interactive and more school oriented. In 5 years we hope to have more disciplines; blood spatter, toxicology, documentation, etc. This will be more for people to try out different disciplines to practice and see what they like if they want to venture off into something else.

Conclusion

Using this application will give college students and trainees in the field a better understanding of how crime scenes can develop and make them better prepared when they encounter a real one. Crime scenes are in a way a work of brutal art that only people with keen eye can decipher the hidden message in it. Our app will make it easier for students to put themselves in the crime scene and be able to see all the hidden clues inside them. Without any virtual reality simulations like this aimed at college students, this could be the app that could open the floodgates to a very profitable market. Of course, our idea is slightly limited because we want to have the best available one in the quickest time. Having fewer disciplines to start should let us do more with each discipline. We feel that expanding in the future would be better than having everything on release. Our product can help cultivate the next generation of great forensic scientists.

PREZI– https://prezi.com/21afqtse1nww/edit/#65_45341393

Works Cited

Bixby, Jill. “Virtopsy–A New Innovation for Forensic Science.” On the Edge, vol. 16, no. 3, Fall2010, p. 1. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.stevenson.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edo&AN=55202498&site=eds-live&scope=site.

“Forensic Sciences.” National Institute of Justice, www.nij.gov/topics/forensics/Pages/welcome.aspx.

Hamzelou, Jessica. “Virtual Reality Puts Jury in Crime Scene.” New Scientist, vol. 225, no. 3003, 10 Jan. 2015, p. 1. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.stevenson.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=100371321&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Kanable, Rebecca. “Virtual Reality: A Reality for Crime Scene Training.” Law Enforcement Technology, vol. 39, no. 11, Nov. 2012, p. 8. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.stevenson.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edo&AN=83823132&site=eds-live&scope=site

Ma, Minhua, et al. “Virtual Reality and 3D Animation in Forensic Visualization.” Journal of Forensic Sciences, vol. 55, no. 5, Sept. 2010, pp. 1227-1231. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/j.1556-4029.2010.01453.x.

Peppiatt, Dom. “Here’s EXACTLY How The HTC Vive Works.” SciFiNow, 1 Jan. 2015, www.gadgetdaily.xyz/heres-exactly-how-the-htc-vive-works/.

Souppouris, Aaron. “How HTC and Valve Built the Vive.” Engadget, 14 July 2016, www.engadget.com/2016/03/18/htc-vive-an-oral-history/.

“Virtual Reality: A Reality for Crime Scene Training.” Officer, www.officer.com/command-hq/technology/computers-software/article/10812441/virtual-reality-a-reality-for-crime-scene-training.

Virtual Reality and Music Education?

Imagine the future, without music. As we get older, our use of musical instruments and musical education have dwindled dearly. My final project is to introduce music inside of Virtual Reality. The turn away of musical instruments are the prices of what you’re getting for your object of choice. Let’s be honest, getting a quality instrument results in probably over a thousand-dollar bill, or even more, which doesn’t look pretty. With the use of Virtual Reality, our costs of instruments can be cut to less of a charge. This project will teach children how to properly hold and properly play an instrument before jumping to the real thing. This will help save money to families because the families won’t have to keep grabbing a bigger size of an instrument when a child grows. Before breaking a valuable instrument, the child needs to learn the proper stances of a certain kind of instruments, and VR can bring that child into the spotlight as if they’re actually playing for a crowd. Also, with this way, children can express their knowledge of music and have fun and interactable games that bring the child to a reenactment of musical history. With Virtual Reality, the odds are endless. Even with the fifteen dollar model of a VR headset, a student can become part of the music that shaped history.

Virtual Reality Will Help Our Education Dearly

With the rise of technology, our education is ready to evolve. Today, many students and even professors are held back from their selected schools without technology. Some schools, like elementary and middle schools have even banned technology from their students, except for certain lessons. As time goes by though, our education will need to adapt with technology, by mainly focusing on the new wave called, “Virtual Reality.” Virtual Reality is an up and coming branch of technology that puts the user in a new realm, and our education systems on all levels will benefit dearly with this. This new way will help our students see our world inside the classrooms, budgets of schools, and even the use of multitasking further into adulthood.

In Ernst Cline’s novel, Ready Player One, Cline uses the rise of Virtual Reality in the distant future of 2044 to show readers’ what life would be with it, especially in school. In Ready Player One, the main protagonist, Wade, is in high school in the Virtual Reality zone called OASIS there. Cline expresses that with having school online, Wade is able to go to certain places for field trips that no one could afford to go on a daily basis. Also, with Virtual Reality, Cline mentions that Wade’s history lesson witnessed the same place at different times in history as Wade states, ” Mr. Avenovich loaded up a stand-alone simulation so that our class could witness the discovery of King Tut’s tomb by archaeologists in Egypt in AD 1922 (The day before we visited the same spot in 1334 BC and had seen Tutankhamen’s empire in all its glory)”(Cline, page 48, Ready Player One). Virtual Reality will give our education a breath of fresh air as students can actually explore those places. With my experience of Virtual Reality, I used Google Earth and explored Japan. It felt like I was actually there with the headset as it gave me a 360 degree view of my surroundings. It feels like you’re actually there and with the low budget schools have can surely be cost beneficial.

Now, Virtual Reality headsets may seem costly at first, but over the long run, our education of all levels will save money instead of going on field trips. Also, it doesn’t help how run down the schools of today are becoming, so just imagine the future of those schools. Those once new high schools that flourished in your old town have started to crumble and lost its touch. In his novel, Cline mentions while Wade logs into school in the OASIS that, “My virtual surroundings looked almost (but not quite) real. Everything inside the OASIS was beautifully rendered in three dimensions” (Cline, page 27, Ready Player One). In the book, the protagonists reminds the reader how poor and lifeless his school is. It’s very similar to high schools of today. For example, my high school was built in 1980. The school was a clunky mess to begin with, but as the small town of Sykesville, Maryland grew, so did the population size of my high school. Everything came tumbling down as some days the ceiling tiles would leak moldy water. The school had little to no budget so those problems wouldn’t get fixed for weeks. I couldn’t even imagine how schools will look like thirty years into the future like in this book.

Virtual Reality will change our education dramatically in the positive side of ways. Students already face a lot of turmoil without the experience of technology at their hands, and with the use of Virtual Reality, that could all change, especially with multitasking. Without multitasking, our minds suffer from the idea of Attention Blindness. Cathy Davidson expresses attention blindness as the, “Key to everything we do as individuals, from how we work in groups to what we value in or institutions, in our classrooms, at work, and in ourselves” (Davidson, page 4, “Now You See It“). In Cline’s novel, Ready Player One, the protagonist, Wade goes to class in the OASIS but also spends most of his time inside the OASIS being a Gunter and finding James Halliday’s fortunes or the “egg.” After graduating from his online high school, he put his skills to the test and becoming a full time Gunter. Over the course of the book, it showed how Wade multitasked inside of the OASIS and he didn’t suffer from attention blindness due to multitasking. Wade would jump from place to place every second he could, and by learning to multitask with technology at his hands, it was easier for him not to suffer attention blindness. The use of technology, especially Virtual Reality, would help students to multitask inside of school in order for them to advance well into our fast paced society.

Virtual Reality has the potential to change the way our education system is. With the power of this technology at our hands, students will be able to bring out the best of their minds and the best of the experience given at school. No more viewing pictures that were drawn years ago, or reading large page essays about a certain event. Why not experience it yourselves? With Virtual Reality, you’ll be able to. Cline stated that with VR, “… was like having an escape hatch into better reality” (Cline, page 18, Ready Player One). VR can give our education the breath of fresh air that has been long awaited by students.

Yamez

The avatar that I created is the one that I would use in the OASIS. I chose how he looks because he kind of looks like me but I needed a little disguise, so I put the mustache on. You always have to hide your identity in some way. The colors that are on my shirt is blue since my favorite color is blue, and I like the red background with blue. I always felt that red on blue matched very well. My avatar’s name is Yamez. Since my true name is James, people sometimes call me that and I always felt that it fit me pretty well. I was going to make it my gamertag from the consoles that I play but I felt that Yamez would be a better fit. This would be a good Gunter in the OASIS because even when I look like a normal human being, I will have the slight of hand as other avatars would underestimate my strength, if I had any.

Our Education Needs to Adapt!

Education is a serious term in our lives, especially at the college level. There is constant information flowing into our minds every day. Sadly though, not all of that can be processed and/ or handled. When it comes to the education system, professors as well as students need to adapt to the idea of multitasking a better way. Multitasking is the idea that people are better off by doing two or more things at once but in reality, “we don’t actually do more than one activity at once, but quickly switch between them.” (Goldhill, “Neuroscientists say multitasking literally drains the energy reserves of your brain”). When students are crammed with constant assignments from every class, they’ll tend to multitask resulting in some success rates, but other times leading to total failure. The whole school system needs to compromise and adapt to the good of multitasking and not the evil of it.

Students should learn to adapt to their schedules. Multitasking is never the right option when it comes to cramming everything the last minute. Students should learn how to schedule their workload in order retract as much information as needed while multitasking. For me, I have Attention Deficit Disorder, or ADD for short, and I multitask every second I have the chance without me even noticing. It has begun to create a problem, as I am getting older and advancing through college, I used to be able to be on the honor roll in high school by procrastinating till the last minute and then cram all of it out in one night, switching from an English essay to math homework every other minute. Now, I had to teach myself not to do that and stay focus on one thing at a time, as I’ll get so worked up that I’ll have an anxiety attack. I still multitask of course, as right now I am, by writing this essay and listening to music. I think that we should teach students that multitasking is okay to a point. We should teach the students in a college to use multitasking as an autopilot instead of switching to other things. What does it mean to be on “autopilot” in multitasking? Hal Pasler, a psychology professor at UC San Diego suggested it to be something like reading a book while doing laundry (Goldhill, paragraph 5, “Neuroscientists say multitasking literally drains the energy reserves of your brain”). You’re not going to look at the laundry machine for an hour and a half while your clothes are being washed. That’s a total waste of time, but if you were to read while checking on your laundry, aka “autopilot,” it’s not as daunting of a task as switching between two large tasks. With autopilot multitasking, we will be able to focus on two things at once but still be successful and not suffer from attention blindness.

People who argue that not multitasking can lead to attention blindness. Cathy Davidson expressed that attention blindness is considered the, “fundamental structuring principle of the brain… it presents us with a tremendous opportunity” (Davidson, “Now You See It”). With attention blindness, we will focus on one thing or scenario and fail to look for other details around us. There’s positives and negatives towards attention blindness that should be addressed as well. By focusing on one task at hand, we’ll be able to gather more information from that one task then when we focus on two or more tasks. The only problem about attention blindness though is that we won’t get the big picture of everything we should do or see. If we were to teach the students still to keep on an autopilot multitask, they wouldn’t necessarily suffer from attention blindness and will be multitasking. It’s a win-win situation!
Multitasking has also become a huge part of our lives, even when we don’t notice it. For example, you will be reading a paper online and a massive advertisement selling, “The next best thing since sliced bread,” appears across your screen. Well, now your mind is curious and will jump to that page and switch transition into something far beyond what you originally intended to see. Gloria Mark, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, explains that when people will be interrupted, it will usually take twenty-three minutes and fifteen seconds to return to their first task (Godhill, paragraph four, “Neuroscientists say multitasking literally drains the energy reserves of your brain”). College Students should learn to find ways to not click on the advertisement, while college professors should provide strategies to make the students realize. In my English class, the professor, Dr. Licastro, made the whole class tally up every time they would get distracted while reading online for a brief ten-minute period. This little exercise gave the realization to us, the students, that we need to learn to adapt to the pop ups and the distractions around us to pay attention to what we must read.

Now, multitasking can be a blessing in disguise for most people, but for others, it can result in doom. For me, I see both sides in this argument, but when it comes to our education, we should take advantage of multitasking. I strongly urge colleges and their professors, in the future, to learn with the students of multitasking and create a lesson for the students to adapt to this term effectively. I also feel that when a student reads something online for a class, that student should turn off their social life for a little bit, at least until that article is fully read. By turning off their social life, there will be less distractions that can take place and leave the student to wonder off. Last, we should all learn our limits. Multitasking is used differently by everyone, as whether it’s cramming in three college essays all at once or doing math homework while listening to music, multitasking always varies. I feel that if each student figure out their best solutions that gives them success, they should use their most comfortable route. Professors can help show these routes that students take in multitasking, by using lessons centered around the various levels and see where students feel comfortable and where others don’t. The learning to multitask to a point will take some time though, but the future with education is bright and always willing to adapt.

Work Cited:

Davidson, Cathy N. Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. Viking, 2011. (pages 1-21)

Goldhill, Olivia. “Neuroscientists Say Multitasking Literally Drains the Energy Reserves of Your Brain.” Quartz, Quartz, 3 July 2016, qz.com/722661/neuroscientists-say-multitasking-literally-drains-the-energy-reserves-of-your-brain/. Accessed 12 October 2017.

Nowotoj~commonswiki. “Blue Tally Sheet Containing Six Tally Marks.” File:Tally b06.Svg – Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia, 15 May 2007, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tally_b06.svg. Accessed 13 October 2017.

Ritchie, Ryan. “Caffeinating, Calculating, Computerating.” Flickr.com, 21, Mar.2010 www.flickr.com/photos/ryantron/4453018910. Accessed 13 October 2017.

Has The Internet Shaped Our Ways That We Read?

The author of the famous essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” is by a man who technology geeks fear named Nicholas Carr. Carr is an avid writer about technology and the use of electronics in our society and culture. Carr has written for a variety of online data bases that range from The Atlantic, The New York Times, Wired, The Wall Street Journal, and many other small sources. Over the course of many years, Carr finally wrote and published four books including a home run called, “The Glass Cage: How Our Computers Are Changing Us,” (2014) which shows his readers the dependency of technology that we, as a society, have begun to show negative effects from that usage. This author has also written a well set of essays as well. Throughout his writing path, Carr was a writer-in-residence at the University of California Berkley’s journalism school and has written the blog called Rough Type, since 2005 (“Home” nicholascarr.com).

Now, with his essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” the target audience is an array of viewers. The primary audience is the adults of our society ranging from the late twenties all the way to the old age, as they can relate to his arguments and the differences that he faced when researching online compared to the library before the internet was easy to access. Carr also has a secondary audience. The secondary audience is the millennials, as they grew up with this type of technology surrounded by them. Today, everywhere you look, you’ll see a teenager using their cell phone. Back in the day, there wasn’t anything compared to that as cell phones like the ones today never existed or cell phones didn’t even exist at all.

The illustration presented shows how the internet owns our ways we read lately. (Illustration by Guy Billout, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”

Going on, the purpose of this article was to provide the viewer both the advantages and disadvantages the internet has brought us. When it comes to his advantages, Carr provides the viewer with an example as to why he believes the internet has helped. In his article he writes, “The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes.” (Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”) He shows how with the fast-paced internet, he can find research with a click of a button. This has provided a considerable sum of time saved. Now, there is a catch that Carr expresses as well. The author has shown that with the use of Google and the internet, our minds have gotten lazy and will skim read everything they see and not gather as much information as needed. He provides an example, with himself, as how he can barely focus on even a blog post. Carr also finds the use of a friend that has the exact same problem with. In, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Carr quotes Bruce Friedman, an avid blogger who posts blogs about medicine. Friedman says, “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print,” (Quoted Friedman, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”) which shows that even the best of us struggle to now capture the idea of what we are reading online.

The title is has a larger text size to grab the reader’s attention from the barely colorful website. (theatlantic.com)

When it comes to the context, this article was written for The Atlantic in its 2008 July/August issue. The Atlantic is a publication center formed in 1857 to provided us to, “Create a distinctly American voice: to project an American stance, to promote something that might be called the American Idea.” (“History Document” theatlantic.com) Today, The Atlantic is mainly an online news source with topics ranging from business, technology, education, science, or even global news. Now, the essay that Carr wrote for The Atlantic, “Is Google Making US Stupid?” was written like a normal website as it flows with little to no breaks in between except with advertisements. Carr writes this piece (very much like a blog post) as people would view it on an electronic device and expects it to be shared over social media due to the countless, “share,” buttons scattered around. Carr will try to prove his point that many people will just skim read or get easily distracted with the small use of advertisements and pictures in his writing.

These “share” buttons appear at the bottom of the website whenever you scroll down. (share buttons, theatlantic.com)

With the user experience of The Atlantic’s website has a lot of sub-headers that provide the viewer the ultimate experience of documents. With this website, they provide the use of sections with, popular, latest, magazines, sections that are being written on like culture and technology, and areas that give hands on sharing tool. The essay provides an illustration by Guy Billout explaining that speed reading is monitored by the “Internet Police.” Carr only uses one illustration to capture how he feels about the internet taking over how we read. With the website that this essay was published in, colors don’t stand out as it is mainly a black and white surface. It feels like a book with little to no illustrations. It does provide pictures throughout the essay that is almost like propaganda to join the Atlantic.

These are the advertisements that will feature stories written on the website as well. (Advertisements, theatlantic.com)

Carr’s essay is written like a blog post, as it is mainly in Lyon text format, and flows like any blog would. With the Lyon text font, Carr uses this to “POP” the text on the website. His font size is also bigger than normal websites, causing the viewer’s eyes to be more focused on that piece of text instead of the small amount of advertisements. Even the title captures the viewer’s attention with its bold font.

Carr expresses the use of technology as a sin. He has shown that by surrounding ourselves inside of technology, we take advantage of it and will skim everything to go on with our lives. Carr is a trustworthy source when it comes to the argument of technology taking over our ways we read. For example, Carr will provide other interpretations and outsources other people’s work, like Kubrick’s A Space Odyssey to show, “the essence of Kubrick’s dark prophecy: as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence” (Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”). With his background, Carr has expressed technology in most of his books that have won numerous awards like a New York Times bestseller (“Home” nicholascarr.com). His opinion on that the internet is making our society stupid, I find to be a fifty-fifty point of view but being lazy is a different story. Over the years, technology has risen and given our society an easier sense of reality. It has caused our minds to take advantage and only skim for the needed information. Nether less, Carr provides key points, both with stories, and other people’s opinions to the table in his essay of, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” that should lead the idea of if the internet is changing our intelligence or not, to an eventual answer.

Work Cited:

Billout, Guy. “Man with a Book Gets Pulled over by the Internet Police.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/. 24 Sept. 2017.

Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 27 Apr. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/. Accessed 23 Sept. 2017.

Carr, Nicholas. “Nicholas Carr.” Nicholas Carr, www.nicholascarr.com/. Accessed 23 Sept. 2017.

Murphy, Cullen. “History of Atlantic Monthly.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 1994, www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/about/atlhistf.htm. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017.

“The Atlantic.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, www.theatlantic.com/. Accessed 23 Sept. 2017.

The Life of James

During the afternoon of a cool crisp day in Coon Rapids, Minnesota on June 27th ,1999, a boy with two lazy eyes named James was born to Kevin Hartner and Beth Hartner. Growing up and being the youngest of four boys prove to be a struggle at times. I felt like I didn’t get as much attention so I became independent growing up. Due to my father getting promotions in the Postal Service, my family has packed up shop and left to live in Colorado when I turned five and then to Maryland at the age of thirteen. Being the independent kid I was, it was hard to make friends but every friend that I had made seemed to be long lasting relationships that prove to not be fatal.
Over the course of my youth and early adulthood, I had experienced major bumps in the road that dealt with my literacy skills. At the age of four, I didn’t grasp the requirements that a boy my age should know in speaking abilities. The struggles caused me to see a speech therapist usually every Thursday. Walking into the building always turned my stomach around as I was never attracted to strangers and only felt normal around my family. The halls were wide and even after every step I took, the halls felt endless to me. The chipped white paint haunted me as I felt like I was closer to my doom. As we arrived in the therapist’s office space though, the small room was covered from head to toe with pop culture items that made my four-year-old self smile from ear to ear. With pictures of things that I had enjoyed, and enjoyable lessons like sounding out words by using pictures, my therapy sessions seemed to go by a lot easier, in which helped me advance my speaking and reading abilities into school.
In my elementary scholar years, I grew a larger array of reading abilities. During my third-grade year and beyond that, my classes had literature circles. These literature circles caused my reading abilities to sky rocket because the book was read to us and we were to discuss it as a class. It also gave me my first step in the water of using many literary devices like inferring, and being able to paraphrase a text to my own words. These circles caused my knowledge to broaden fast, both with the help of the teacher and the classmates. It also taught me to sound out words that I didn’t know and break those words down to figure out the meanings.
As I got into Middle School, the rise of technology proved to be an effective use inside of school. During my seventh-grade year, my language arts teacher was an avid geek when it came to technology, incorporating any type to every lesson if possible. It was a nice transition as any previous courses I had taken prior to that were filled with boring, and silent reading. With this, I could interact with other resources that actually made the subject enjoyable. My teacher, Mr. Schuster felt like a superhero to me, as he helped show the lighter side of reading and writing and helped guide every student to further the strives for knowledge. It was a time when technology was being introduced into education, and with his help, it was easier to navigate through websites and use the proper resources.
Jumping into High School was a whole different ball game. There weren’t many vocabulary tests, but instead a large selection of writing pieces in almost every class. Some teachers would shoot my ideas down, while others praised them. The one teacher who seemed to enjoy and hate my writing was one of my social studies teacher. I remember one day I received my graded paper back and he said, “I love your writing, but you say too much.” Even though it was a backhanded compliment and I shrugged it off at the time, I felt devastated. I didn’t know how to shorten my paper or any of my future writings. It made me realize though that I needed to learn to be “short and sweet,” and not let my ideas go off the tracks. With that realization, I felt able to condense my papers for future assignments in which it helped me stay on topic without writing about something totally random. It also helped me use descriptive words to my advantage too. Instead of using whole sentences to explain something, I could use descriptive language to get to the point quicker.
Literacy is used in everyday life. Whether it’s in the past, present, or future, events will help you grab onto knowledge to further progress in the abilities to read, write, and speak. I know these events will guide me through a bright future because they have taught me so much. I have a lot to learn but over the past eighteen years, I have learned so much in which I can tackle on the world if I so desired. These lessons have taught me to be a better writer, a speaker, a reader, and listener. With the knowledge I have now, I plan to further use it in my years getting my degree in Applied Mathematics. With this knowledge, I also plan to write my way into the job field as being an actuary or an engineer. Both the English language and mathematics come together to create something wonderful, and I want to be a piece of that. These experiences and lessons have also showed me to express my feelings through the use of language that I never thought I would achieve at such an early age. Without the help from my teachers and the constructive criticism I had received, I wouldn’t be the person that I am today. Every day there is a new lesson to learn, and from now on, I plan to use that to my full advantage. With every lesson, literacy is tied to all of them.

Citations:

Darwinek, Flag-map of Maryland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag-map_of_Maryland.svg (Maryland flag)
Energepic.com Writing https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-hands-woman-pen-110473/ (Woman writing)

Marchini, Leonardo. Colorado, Sign, Welcome, Travel – Free Image on Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/en/colorado-sign-welcome-travel-usa-1279373/ (Welcome sign of Colorado)

The other two pictures are of me as a child.