DISCOURSE COMMUNITY PROPOSAL

When you meet someone whilst you're in college one of the first things you're asked is, "What's your major?"  Every time I reply with "Outdoor Recreation Education," they either look at me like "whudja say?" or just say something like "Damn! That's sounds hella easy, I should be doing that." Although it is indeed "hella" fun, it is in no way easy.  I found out after being an Outdoor Rec & Ed major for three years that there is an entire discourse community connected with outdoor recreation.  I think to generalize this and to determine the goals of this discourse community I will tell you my opinion of people of the outdoor recreation education; the one goal that unifies every last person, from climbing instructors to Yosemite tour guides, is that they all want to serve a variety of people and show them the beauties of the outdoors, whether it be from a tree or a river.  Another may be sharing information about the outdoors, not just the environment, but also techniques to complete goals like trail maintenance, or a reverse sweep in a kayak.  There are many ways our discourse community communicates, many blog, or have websites to comment on, there are also specific organizations which hold meetings and gatherings, but I may be getting ahead of myself by talking more specifically about genres.  Many of these sources are great for giving and receiving feedback on work, or just having educated conversations among peers.  There are plenty of different genres which take on my perception of outdoor recreation education being a discourse community, just to name a few; raft guiding, Challenge course helper, SCUBA diver instructor, mountain bike tour guide, caving instructor, etc.  Among these genres are a vast set of technical terms which the educated community would recognize some examples would include "Buoyancy Regulator," "V-Brakes," "Eskimo Rescue," "Juglans Nigra," (Black Walnut) "CEBA," and thousands of other terms.  These words and phrases are not always directly linked to one genre such as climbing, but can also be applied to the vast definition as well, I'm sure most anyone who claims to be an outdoor recreation educator understands the term and organization Leave No Trace.  After naming all of these organizations, genres and terms it is sad to admit that there is a very small threshold for actual outdoor recreation educators.  Because it is such a great field to become involved in many people have decided get involved with this beautiful community.  This is a field that I have been interested in and have been informally training in for all of my life.  I love being outside and I absolutely love teaching people things about nature, it's something I feel very passionate about.  I believe that if you love what you're doing, happiness will come to your life by itself.  It is both wonderful and terrifying, though it expands the field in which I love and play it also brings up more competition and more difficulty finding a job.  Either way this is a great discourse community to be a part of. Since I am an Outdoor Recreation Education major I have a tremendous amount of resources to site for any type of research I would need for an essay about my discourse community.  A few texts I have been able to get familiar with is "Outdoor Leadership," "Damn Bunch of Cripples," and "Leisure in Your Life."  These texts depict leisure theories, levels of perceived freedom, a hierarchy of leisure, many types of leadership and many other interests relevant to my discourse community.  Since I have had many of the same professors for different classes, I have been able to create relationships with most of them which would really help me find someone to interview that would have many helpful things to say.  The first person I would ask to interview is my favorite teacher here at Ohio University, Matt Vosler.  (Sorry, you're in the top 5)  Matt Vosler has had a lot of experience in the recreation world and has facilitated many recreation trips for the school.  He also has been a professor here for two years and has one of the nicest personalities out of anyone I know, he always likes helping people out.  One other person I would be interested in interviewing from this school is Dr. Bruce Martin, because he has written a book for our discourse community and has had years and years of experience teaching in and out of the classroom.  He helps with anyone who is looking for more information about his field, this is because he is also incredibly passionate about this discourse community.  With these resources in mind, I believe I can write a great paper about my discourse community. 

This one is totally POST 10, not like that other one. which wasn't post 10.

When you meet someone whilst you're in college one of the first things you're asked is, "What's your major?"  Every time I reply with "Outdoor Recreation Education," they either look at me like "whudja say?" or just say something like "Damn! That's sounds hella easy, I should be doing that." Although it is indeed "hella" fun, it is in no way easy.  I found out after being an Outdoor Rec & Ed major for three years that there is an entire discourse community connected with outdoor recreation.  I think to generalize this and to determine the goals of this discourse community I will tell you my opinion of people of the outdoor recreation education; the one goal that unifies every last person, from climbing instructors to Yosemite tour guides, is that they all want to serve a variety of people and show them the beauties of the outdoors, whether it be from a tree or a river.  Another may be sharing information about the outdoors, not just the environment, but also techniques to complete goals like trail maintenance, or a reverse sweep in a kayak.  There are many ways our discourse community communicates, many blog, or have websites to comment on, there are also specific organizations which hold meetings and gatherings, but I may be getting ahead of myself by talking more specifically about genres.  Many of these sources are great for giving and receiving feedback on work, or just having educated conversations among peers.  There are plenty of different genres which take on my perception of outdoor recreation education being a discourse community, just to name a few; raft guiding, Challenge course helper, SCUBA diver instructor, mountain bike tour guide, caving instructor, etc.  Among these genres are a vast set of technical terms which the educated community would recognize some examples would include "Buoyancy Regulator," "V-Brakes," "Eskimo Rescue," "Juglans Nigra," (Black Walnut) "CEBA," and thousands of other terms.  These words and phrases are not always directly linked to one genre such as climbing, but can also be applied to the vast definition as well, I'm sure most anyone who claims to be an outdoor recreation educator understands the term and organization Leave No Trace.  After naming all of these organizations, genres and terms it is sad to admit that there is a very small threshold for actual outdoor recreation educators.  Because it is such a great field to become involved in many people have decided get involved with this beautiful community.  It is both wonderful and terrifying, though it expands the field in which I love and play it also brings up more competition and more difficulty finding a job.  Either way this is a great discourse community to be a part of.

not post 10

so I looked at my view-stats and apparently over 65% of the people viewing my blog are from Russia this month... :/ why? There's nothing fun on here.... This is why I date a Russian girl, to find out more about you freaky Ruskies.

POST 9

In the article, "from pencils to pixels" our sweet Mr. Baron discusses the transformation of technology in our world, not just the technological changes for the utilization of writers but also changes made throughout history to help the betterment of mankind.  He brings up these changes to compare technology of today and to show that some people who believe technology is destroying what we love about writing may be wrong about that assumption because there has always been technological advancement.  In this section of the reading Baron states that Thoreau is not as against the advancement of technology as Henderson is trying to let us believe.

"And it is true that some well-known writers have rejected new-fangleness. Writing in the New York Times, Bill Henderson (1994) reminds us that in 1849 Henry David Thoreau disparaged the information superhighway of his day, a telegraph connection from Maine to Texas. As Thoreau put it, 'Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.' Henderson, who is a director of the Lead Pencil Club, a group opposed to computers and convinced that the old ways are better, further boasts that Thoreau wrote his anti-technology remarks with a pencil that he made himself. Apparently Samuel Morse, the developer of the telegraph, was lucky that the only letter bombs Thoreau made were literary ones.
In any case, Thoreau was not the complete Luddite that Henderson would have us believe. He was, in fact, an engineer, and he didn’t make pencils for the same reason he went to live at Walden Pond, to get back to basics. Rather, he designed them for a living. Instead of waxing nostalgic about the good old days of hand-made pencils, Thoreau sought to improve the process by developing a cutting-edge manufacturing technology of his own."
 (425)

 You see here that he is not against technology but actually condones it.  It is my belief that he is a man of many talents who knows of technologies evils, and its goodness too.

post 8

It seems to me that it hasn't been until the past decade or less that most public schools have truly started integrating computers into their educational programming.  As a young Vinnie, we had a computer in our living room that I wasn't allowed to use but I sometimes watched my mom clack away on, I didn't really care much for computers. When I was in elementary school, education had a more traditional approach.  We never used computers for anything until we reached about 4th grade and still at that point they were used about twice a year just for some sort of computer quizzes and puzzles. It wasn't until 7th grade in middle school that we started taking mandatory typing classes.  We had to learn typing skills, how to surf the internet, how to delete cookies, how to work Microsoft word and other basic computer necessities.  I didn't pay much attention to the teacher in those classes because they were fairly straight forward things to do, mostly I would just look up Garfield comics.  After 8th grade I wasn't required to take anymore computer classes, but I did take two computer classes my junior year which helped me learn a lot about computers and messing up the system at the school.  I learned about photoshop, excell, some sort of newspaper program, how to design a basic website, and other intermediate skills.  The most important skill I learned from that class was not taught by the teacher but by one of my friends who had a game called Unreal Tournament on his flashdrive.  He gave me a copy for my flashdrive and we ended up putting it on every computer in the school, creating LAN games across school networks, and really making the computer technician hate his job.  These skills helped me very little outside of school because it wasn't until the end of my senior year that I even had a computer to use.  In 7th grade my step dad bought a computer and then told everyone that it was only to be used by he and my mom, which was fine with me.  When I got a computer of my own I decided it would have to be great for gaming, so I have a laptop which holds a great capacity for new age games.  Since I rarely use my laptop for schooling assignments besides writing and reading online I would have to say my education with computers and schooling has a good amount of contrast, this could also be due to the fact that I'm an Outdoor Recreation major.

post 7

In Brandt's article, she talks about literacy in terms of a economical stand point.  She explains literacy as if it was some sort of currency or better yet a service or good you would trade for currency.  I think that she has a pretty interesting point of view.  Brandt says that sponsors are the teachers, elders, or military officers who have some sort of knowledge or higher discipline or credibility that makes them suitable to be sponsors.  She says that in most every case a sponsor also has something to gain from being a sponsor.  I think that this could be true just because she also explains that sponsors lend their skills and resources and even sometimes their credibility to the ones they are sponsoring.  To me this means that if they are willing to risk something like that for someone that they are able to gain.  It seems as though these people are able to gain something because they are also losing a small something too, they give and take, eventually they are able to gain more than they give. 

Wikipedia Article Reflection

After we were told that we had to write upon wikipedia, I became very excited.  Writing up a wikipedia article is something I've always wanted to do but have never had the motivation or determination to actually accomplish.  It's an entertaining idea to have enough information to add a noticeable amount to something everyone in the world has access to, it's like you become part of something bigger than yourself.  I think it's part of human nature to want to rattle off information one knows.  You see it in everyday life, someone telling a random fact, something they learned in class, possibly just the weather for the next few days.  There's just something about teaching people or reporting information to people that just feels fulfilling.
I think that part of the report to want to reveal information to others is, in a way, to boost one's own ego.  Not in the same way that someone would go out and chug down whey protein and pump iron 8 days a week, but in a subconscious way, just making you feel a bit more confident in your credibility or ability to converse and trade facts.  This makes me think that there is a link between giving information and Donald Murray's article on every part of writing being autobiographic.  He states that even the most formal writing, like a scholarly journal, can be called autobiographic.  I truly believe that the same can be said for every wikipedia article online.  Even though wikipedia is strictly an informational resource, there are many hints showing people's own personal work. 
I certainly felt as though I had a personal investment within the article I was editing.  After days of research and years of gaining personal interest and information I could really feel the article coming together before I had even written anything down.  "My war stories are constructed of what I experienced, what I heard later, what the history books say, what I needed to believe to survive and recover..." (College Composition and Communication 76)  In this quote Murray tells us that what he says about the war is not only from his own experience, but from the information he has gathered around him.  I think this is the same way most wikipedia articles are made; someone has to have some sort of initial interest in the subject in which they are creating a wikipedia article about.  That is personal investment.  I don't think that any one of the students in class picked an article that they very truly dislike or have no liking for at all.  The point I would like to make by bringing this up is simply that even something as formal as wikipedia articles can be found as autobiographic.  People are merely showing their interest in a subject by adding to the mound of knowledge of it online. 
This brings me to another subject brought up in the readings that I had noticed whilst writing my article draft, errors.  In The Phenomenology of Error Joseph Williams talks about what you can consider an error, and who has decided what these errors are.  He also states that most people who talk about these errors being some horrible thing end up making the very errors they are talking down on.  As I wrote my first draft I felt very confined on how I should word things or how I should present a bit of  information.  It made me think about the guidelines of formal writing and who decided that when we write an article it has to have these set boundaries to make it a legitimate piece of work for your peers to even consider reading. 
The fact that I had to make sure I was staying in the boundaries set before me made it very hard to concentrate on the content of the article.  As Joseph points out, errors can sometimes distract a reader, not allowing them to read what is being written, but see what has been done wrong.  With this in mind I was careful of my spelling, grammar and sentence structure.  I made sure I wrote down everything I wanted to put in the article on paper first, then I could read it over and rearrange things I didn't like and go back and see what I changed later.  Even after writing the article and looking through it again after having a day to be away from it, I still feel as though I've missed something or made some type of error I can't see.   Even with the stress of trying to make every aspect of the article as ship-shape as I could, I really liked the project.  I would definitely try it again on another subject, only if I had to for a grade though....