Throughout my four years in high school and my first two years at Duke University, I competed at the national level in both Varsity Cross-Country and Track. Running has, and always will be, my passion, my love, and my obsession in life. It affords me time to clear my head, a means to stay in shape, and an outlet to release any frustrations, aggression, or competitive sentiments. Some of my fondest memories were made both on and off the track within the sports context, but unfortunately, so too were some of my worst. It was also during this time period that I suffered from an eating disorder, and to make matters worse, I simultaneously had to watch as countless members of my team struggled to battle similar conditions. Through our collective experiences, I have seen life at its lowest points; I have seen the depression, the anxiety, the exasperation, the exhaustion, the perfectionism, the obsessive compulsive tendencies, the self-loating, the diminished self-esteem, the injuries, and the countless other physical, psychological, and emotional deleterious health consequences that come as a result of these eating disorders.

While I did not include this particular diagram in my prezi, I thought I would include it here as it nicely outlines the thought process which led me to develop the flow of my digital essay.

As you can see, while eating disorders are a problem within the general population as a whole, female athletes reportedly live at increased risk for the development of these disorders (both clinical and subclinical conditions). What’s more, recovery rates remain dismal, and far too few individuals receive the adequate intensity of treatment that they need to ultimately achieve successful recovery. Thus, better prevention, intervention, and treatment is necessary if we are to truly help these women.

Obviously, there are multiple dimensions to prevention, intervention, and treatment, many of which can only take place within an inpatient or hospital setting. However, recounts from recovered individuals, myself included, emphasize that the factors that helped them most was the help and support that they received outside of these strictly defined medical settings. For example, coaches, teammates, friends, family, and other related sports personnel are all perfectly placed to identify symptoms of disordered eating in female athletes early on and to help these individuals to approach and deal with these disorders in numerous ways. There are also multiple measures that female athletes struggling with eating disorders can take to help themselves to cope and recover. Everyone just needs a little guidance and insight into how these things can be done. This is the purpose of my digital essay, “Realization Space.” Realization Space is meant to be a collective site of information for coaches, teammates, friends, family, and struggling female athletes themselves to gain knowledge, to become inspired, and to ultimately work towards more successful change and recovery. Realization Space is also, partly, my story.

Digital Divide talked some about wikipedia pages as a good example of digital writing because the pages are compilations of many people’s efforts. Anyone can start a wiki page, and then anyone who wants to add to the page may do so. When I was browsing the web for further examples of digital writing, I came across this wiki site and thought it was awesome because it takes the “collaborative” wikipedia idea one step further. The wiki page is actually a collective work generated by a writing class at Indiana University. Like our class, their aims were to identify 1) what digital writing is, 2) how people and online communities use things such as social networks, blogs, and wikis to convey rhetoric, and 3) how figures, images, links, etc. are used to enhance and move written pieces.

Since these were the things that we also looked at in our class, I thought it would be worthwhile to mention this site in case future classes wanted to contribute/add to it! I think it also introduces a brilliant idea for other classes to implement. Any other sort of research, writing, or theory class could help enhance the population’s knowledge by publishing their collective findings from the semester. Coming from an accredited university, the research would be held in much higher regard than any individual’s own uploaded research alone.

The links that are featured at the bottom of the wiki page are also notable, because they delve into certain examples regarding the various topics of writer, audience, message, and genre, and how these topics differ in the digital writing world!

Subject/Slant: Since their discovery in 1970, eating disorders have continued to puzzle and perplex clinicians with their complex, multidimensional, and highly individualized characteristics. While great strides have been made in the identification of causal risk factors, as well as in the specification of interdisciplinary mechanisms of effect, recovery rates remain relatively dismal, and death tolls, especially for individuals suffering from anorexia, remain unacceptably high. To date, little systematic research has been done analyzing first person accounts and recovery narratives from those who have recovered from eating disorders in the past, despite the fact that these sources often contain more intimate, personal, painful, and realistic details of the recovery experience that 3rd person accounts and experimental or clinical studies often cannot or fail to provide. Minimal research has also been conducted on the identification of factors that either inspire or inhibit an individual struggling with an eating disorder’s will to recover, despite the now well-known fact that the biggest roadblock to recovery is the anorexic individual’s own resistance to and ambivalence about the treatment process. Female, collegiate student-athletes, for many reasons, live at increased risk for the development of eating disorders; they are also the perfect at-risk population to target for prevention, intervention, and treatment techniques because they are constantly exposed to a university-provided, and thus cost-effective health care team. For my project, I want to create a central focal point for all personnel struggling with the identification, prevention, intervention, and/or treatment of athletes with eating disorder – i.e, a place for eating disordered individuals, coaches, teammates, friends, parents, and health management teams to go to learn more about causal risk factors, ways to enhance prevention, ways to more effectively identify eating disorders, present treatments, and suggested means for enhancing treatment based on information goldmines (personal accounts; motivation/inhibition studies) that tend to go overlooked.

Format: I want to create a Prezi for my project because I think the format is most fitting for the way I want to present my presentation. I am going to have various sections (as I mentioned: risk factors, “red-flag” indicators of eating disorders, prevention strategies, etc.) and I like the idea that people will be able to enter in at whatever section they would like to learn most about or that they would find most useful.

Materials: I have already done a lot of work with eating disorders in the past, and I plan on doing more research on eating disorders in athletes, specifically in the various areas of importance that I have specified in the last 2 sections. I also want to use excerpts from personal narratives and evidence from scientific studies and experiments.

Questions: If personal narratives are already featured on online websites, am I allowed to quote those or use them anonymously?

While I agree with some of Keen’s arguments in his essay “web 2.0: the second generation of the internet has arrived and it’s worse than you think,” I would argue that some of his points are largely exaggerated and a little too overly dramatic. Keen begins his essay by drawing a parallel between the French and the Russians’ inability to resist the seduction of utopian societies and our present inability to resist what he refers to as the “seduction” of the Web 2.0 phenomenon. Thus, he doesn’t make it far into his writing before I come to disagree with him. Keen seems to think it ironic that the man who created web 2.0 – i.e., the man responsible for creating a technological platform that democratizes media, smashes media elitism, and builds an authentic online community – sits rich and pretty in his own elitist spot within society. However, I don’t think it fair to equate this entrepreneur’s work to cultural Marxism; he didn’t seduce us into using web 2.0, we all took hold of the platform and created it into something of our own collective making. Sure, he created a platform in which everyone could have a say (i.e., the democratization) and is now a rich man himself above the common person, but someone had to invent it! I don’t think this invention, nor our collective agreement to take part in the phenomenon, makes him any sort of hypocritical figure.

Keen later goes further into detail regarding the characteristics of web 2.0. He mentions that it “‘empowers’ our creativity, ‘democratizes’ media, and ‘levels the playing field’ between experts and amateurs,” yet he presents these qualities like they are bad things. While I understand the argument that he is trying to make, in that, with so many authors and contributors, we are actually doing our culture – our literature and our arts – a disservice. I agree, to a certain extent, that there needs to be some form of an elite mainstream media to help preserve the true legends and prodigies of our eras, but these may be growing (or else more frequently recognized) at the speed in which our society as a whole is growing. I don’t view the extreme point that he is making, though, to be true… I don’t think that all hope of history, what we “discover, nurture, and reward” as elite talent, is lost. He supports his claim stating that current artists’ work is pirated all the time; however, there have been great measures taken in recent years to protect against this and encourage payments for online sources. Therefore, I do not agree that a “cultural flattening” is taking place. I think the overabundance of authors can be viewed as a good thing – a supplement to elite media sources. While newspapers may be on the decline, online versions are on the rise; while their stories may be getting shorter, I think people still look to the sources they’ve always deemed credible before they look to amateur uploads. To me, elite media is changing platforms, but it still exists. And now, the common man has a chance for interconnectivity in a way he never did before. This place for the common man encourages creativity and growth in my opinion, and thus I must disagree with Keen’s argument of the contrary.

While I thought Jenkins made some interesting points sporadically throughout his essay “love online, ” I can’t say that I didn’t disagree with his core argument, or at least come up with multiple counterarguments of my own along the way. Jenkins makes the statement that “focusing on the revolutionary aspects of online courtship blinds us to the continuities in courtship rituals across generations and across media.” He compares the online interactions between two 15-year-olds, Henry and Sarah, who begin (and remain for some time) as strangers to one another, in terms of actual in-person relationships, to long distance lovers separated by distance or circumstances and are thus forced to communicate via love letters.  He also suggests that physical artifacts of love and affection, like rose petal imprints, photographs, and even someone’s voice over the telephone, gain deeper meaning when they are exchanged between individuals trapped within the confines of an online relationship. While I agree that there is some mysterious allure in the unknown, and probably even more so in something that is somewhat known but yet still out of reach, I can’t agree that these mementos of affection are gaining a deeper meaning because of the birth of online relationships. I don’t think that we can really consider online relationships, collectively, as an extension of the history of love and courtship because there are too many situations in which this is not the case.

While it may be true that 1 in 5 couples meet online, according to this NBC news report, so too is the statistic that 1 in 5 children are pursued by a sexual predator while participating in online chat rooms or Instant Messaging. In order to investigate the reality of this phenomenon, Dateline NBC structured an experiment. Researchers designed false online chat room profiles, pretending to be young teenagers whose parents were out of town. In 2.5 days, 18 men (yet the researchers say that they could have had 3x that number) suggested that they wanted to meet the teen they were speaking with to have sex with him/her, then proceeded to show up at the address that the “teenager” gave to them. When the predator arrived at the house, he was greeted by a researcher, along with the NBC TV crew, and confronted regarding his intentions. One of the predators was even a NYC firefighter.

While online dating targets an older crowd, who is to say that this is any safer? Sure, dating websites allow single individuals to sort through hundreds of prospects within minutes, but who is to say that these prospects aren’t liars, sexual predators, or even murderers hiding behind innocent virtual identities? According to a featured article in The National, True.com is one of the few online dating websites that actually run background checks on its members. However, most people think that all dating websites run such scans. Additionally, while I’m sure we’d all love to think that every candidate on a dating website is also looking for true love, there’s no guarantee that the person isn’t simply look for a dinner date or a quick hook up instead.

It’s hard for me to justify online dating, especially at the young age of 15, with arguments like “there were slim pickings at school” or “he could communicate more like himself online”…the dangers to me just seem to overpower the potential benefits. Even sending pictures or video chatting seems sketchy; anyone can send fake pictures or manipulate a video somehow. Jenkins even mentions in his essay that Henry “almost didn’t recognize [Sarah] since she was so different from the single photograph she had sent” (163). To me, dating should begin just as it always has, face-to-face…in person…or maybe online if it’s initiated through family or friends. Chatting with strangers online poses serious risks, and while we tend to hear that some of the online couples work out in the end, I doubt that we hear about all the ones that don’t.

During our class last Tuesday, I was very impressed with Ellen’s final digital essay that was cited as an example, and as such, I decided to explore some of the other Prezi projects online. I came across this, a link to the Coca Cola Company’s prezi regarding their international management plan. Since I am not particularly interested in their international management plan specifically, I liked the way the information was displayed. It brought a fun and interactive twist to a more serious subject matter. I like that Prezi enables the user to scroll as fast or as slow through the artistically arranged display of slides, however, I would have liked to see a little more use of incorporated youtube videos and such (as is included only at the end). I think it would also be useful to be able to skip around the slides on one’s own, but overall, I think the display and layout is very effective and adds a cool spin on any project that you want to present.

In his essay entitled “do they really think differently,” Marc Prensky introduces the predicament that present-day teachers are constantly faced with- that of their inability to reach students in the same way that they used to. A “digital divide” has formed between those whom Prensky refers to as the “digital natives” (i.e., current students skilled in the technological arena) and those whom he calls the “digital immigrants” (i.e., older generations of individuals, including teachers, parents, etc.); the “immigrants” are quickly beginning to recognize that, in terms of educating the more technologically advanced population of “natives,” the traditional methods of teaching are becoming progressively less adequate. The next question to address, as Prensky suggests, is therefore how to deal with this divide and, thus, how to formulate better strategies regarding how to more effectively reach this “native” population from an academic standpoint.

In response to this inquiry, some researchers have suggested “digital game-based learning;” while these engaging and interactive programs have far from generated unanimous support, proponents argue that, if designed correctly, these online games do actually result in learning. While Prensky gives multiple examples of contexts within which such games were, in fact, successful in increasing participants’ score, I had a few questions regarding the widespread applicability of the programs.

First of all, I wonder whether or not such online learning games may be more effective in teaching certain cohorts of students. I would hypothesize that they may work better for kids from younger age groups, not because younger kids necessarily play video games to a greater extent than do older kids, but more so because the complexity of the material that younger children learn is less intense. This brings me to my second question – whether or not these learning games would teach some subjects more effectively than others. While I can envision math- and reading- improvement drills being incorporated into a variety of game contexts, I have a harder time imagining that online games would be able to teach history or philosophy with the same breadth and effectiveness that text books or class lectures provide. Therefore, I would like to see more research done on the effectiveness of digital game-based learning on both a wider variety of kids from different age groups and on a wider array of subjects before I wholeheartedly accept the effectiveness of these programs.

For my r3, I commented on a New York Times article called Wonder Dog, which details the challenges faced by a young, Russian boy, Iyal, and his adoptive family. Iyal was born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, yet his disability was not diagnosed until around the age of 3. His parents did everything they could to find help for his fits of hysteria and rage, yet it was not until they went to 4 Paws for Ability (4 Paws) that they actually found anything that worked. 4 Paws is a non-profit organization that provides children and adults who have disabilities with a trained work dog. Chaser was the name of the dog assigned to Iyal, and the bond between the two individuals was immediate. Chaser successfully helped Iyal mediate and cope with a world that, up to that point, came across as confusing, scary, and altogether too much to handle.

This is the comment that I posted in response to the article (the status of which is still pending):

“Should Dogs be Considered Primates?

The title of this post may strike you as completely bizarre and ridiculous, but hear me out. Reading this article, the dog’s name Chancer brought to mind my knowledge of one of the world’s most famous border collies, Chaser. In a 2010 study, Pilley and Reid investigated the ability of Chaser to ascertain receptive language skills. The dog successfully learned the names of 1022 objects, demonstrated the capacity to differentiate between nouns and commands, and was, according to the researchers, capable of learning words through inferential reasoning by exclusion – a strategy utilized by children in their own language acquisition. Throughout the history of scientific study, researchers have stressed the importance of studying primates, due to the fact that they are the closest relatives to humans. However, I would argue that such recent and groundbreaking work with dogs suggests another arena for further investigation. Researchers at Duke University are actually doing such work at Duke’s Center for Canine Cognition as we speak. If dogs can make inferences, reason by exclusion, and understand and anticipate human actions, while it may be too extreme to ask if dogs should be considered primates, it could be very interesting to explore why they have, in some cases, demonstrated an ability to interact with and communicate with humans in a way that is far more sophisticated than that which is demonstrated by primates.”

For this response, I tried to implement Johnson’s advice about “saying the wrong thing” in my title so as to capture the reader’s attention and encourage him/her to want to read more. Obviously dogs should not and will not ever be considered primates, but the title may be just absurd enough to peak the reader’s interest or spark his/her curiosity. While dogs should not be considered primates, they do have certain cognitive and behavioral abilities that call for further investigation if we want to put their capabilities to further beneficial use. Since my title was abstract, I tried to keep the rest of my post simple and to the point. I also tried to paint a mini picture of the experiment that was conducted with Chaser so readers could understand the exact capabilities that the dog had.

While some people are blessed with the gifts of wit and humor, I have been forced to accept the fact that, despite my best efforts, I am just not one of them. However, it took me some time to come to this realization. I spent many a family dinner growing up sitting across the table from my family, cracking jokes and hissing with laughter at my own statements, while the rest of my family just sat and rolled their eyes. My dad’s routine comment of, “Well, at least you think you’re funny,” always sent me into another fit of giggles. Now, don’t get me wrong; I still think I’m funny… I just don’t typically try to use my sense of humor as a tool to strengthen my writing in case others don’t agree. So, when I first learned that this class would entail blogging, I’m not going to lie, I was a little nervous. When I think of blogging, I think, again, of writing stylistics that incorporate wit and humor. However, I will say that reading Johnson’s Microstyle put me at ease a little bit.

In his first chapter, Johnson mentions both ways in which to write clearly as well as ways in which to branch out from clarity as a stylistic approach or as a way to present information. Rather than ranking one as better or more highly esteemed than the other, Johnson mentions that they are both equally useful and appropriate, and that the decision of which to use merely depends on the mood and the message that the writer is trying to convey.

As I was browsing the web, I came across a blog titled “Cupcakes and Cashmere,” and I feel this blog utilizes what Johnson refers to as the “just-the-facts-ma’am” approach. Instead of trying to be “punny” or clever, Emily, the author, simply uses straightforward titles like “outfits,” “recipes,” “how to,” and “at home” to direct her readers exactly to the information that they are looking for. Thus, I get the impression that the short and concise headers act as a powerful tool to generate a body of readers who know exactly what they are looking for and where to find it.

Another chapter of Microstyle that I found to be particularly interesting and helpful was chapter 5, entitled “Evoke Specific Situations.” For a while, I was struggling with what to write as my tagline for my blog, which is called “A Crazie Obsession.” Since it is supposed to be an exploration of the workout classes in Wilson Gym, among other scattered health topics, so as to get Duke students excited and inspired to workout, I wanted to create a tagline that captured that energy. However, what I had was “you’re a devil…so bring the heat, and appreciate feeling the burn,” which didn’t really clarify that the blog was not about basketball (as was somewhat suggested by the word crazie in the title). Using this technique of evoking specific situations, I think I have created a better tagline (check it out)…one that I hope will awaken in my readers the same sentiments they feel as Cameron Crazies in the Cameron Indoor Stadium.