Transformative Perspectives on Literature and Digital Culture

ENG 250 has been a transformative experience in the sense that it has been an intellectual journey of the past 10 weeks. In the beginning, like most people, I had a more traditional understanding of literature. The further we got into these readings, the more interested I got in the crossroad of literature and digital culture. The idea of what is literature itself was challenged in traditional definitions of literature and pushed what could be considered literature after new practices and new technologies.

One important concept I took away from the course was the building of digital competencies. Diverging through multiple aspects of platforms, for instance working with class notes using online documents that allowed other students to comment and leave their remarks. Platforms such as hypothesis helps with great tools to have open discussions and while everyone is taking notes at the same time on the same page, but this one seemed to be a prevalent theme in this course. What did you take away from working with the different digital platforms? I feel that one of the biggest take always from this course was being able to build and develop digital competencies. A small piece of that would be using online documents to work on our class notes and an another way would be using different tools like hypothesis to be able to have on open discussion with the rest of the class, while everyone is taking notes on the same page.

Engaging in collaborative note-taking using digital platforms. ( Source : Quora.com )

An illustrated flow chart on how to carry out note-taking on digital platforms.

 

Active Engagement and Participation Reflections

One of the ways I contributed to creating a strong learning community was through Participation in the classroom community. I contributed a lot in our self guided not taking assignments. These allowed us to contribute our thoughts and opinions to the nots of the whole class, helping to learn from other perspective. And also to have other recommended ways that I can think about all the subjects. During group discussions, we all helped each other with the subjects, we also helped anyone who had something to ask, while we were in groups, we can all have a say in helping each other, to help themselves.

Now that I can step back and reflect on my attendance and level of participation in this course, I certainly realized and acknowledged that being engaged in my education is a key aspect of being successful in it. For example, even when I was not able to come to this class in person, I still did my due diligence by listening to the recorded lecture and using the opportunity to engage with the online resources by asking questions or providing comments as any other student in the course would. So, during the times that I wasn’t able to physically be here, I was still engaged in the classroom which allowed me to not fall too far behind and kept that consistency up for the duration of the class so that my learning and involvement wouldn’t taper off halfway through.

Guiding Future Students and Future Implications 

There are many things I would advise to future students in ENG 250, but the biggest advice I would give them is to embrace the digital aspect of this class. Discussing, talking in groups, using digital components and asking for help are a must to success of this class. Moreover, every resource is valuable to a student’s learning experience as in prep groups and tutoring.

Certainly the understanding I have gained from ENG 250 will help me into the future, academically, professionally, and personally. The combination of literature and digital culture has allowed me to learn about some of the ways these two fields can be combined. I now have the knowledge to be able to work in the new and developing field of digital literature, scratching the surface of new maturing melding. When literature continues to form in new ways because of technology it will be interesting to see what a category like literature will really be called.