e20211amleidhecker

4. Narrate and Evaluate the Final Essay:

Please tell the story of your research process, referring to specific posts in your blog whenever possible. You might tell: what helped you begin your research? How did you expand, narrow, or refine it? What was most difficult for you as you developed and drafted your synthesis essay? Where does your final essay best show your ability as a writer? Finally, where does your essay show your ability to create movement and connections between your research sources and your own ideas, observations, insights, or arguments? How well do you feel your essay shows your ability to incorporate your sources: to introduce sources and to paraphrase, quote, summarize, and cite internally and how would you rate your ability to create a Works Cited page or a final bibliography? How would you rate it in terms of Content, Organization, Mechanics, and Revision (On a 10 pt. scale, 10 being the best).

For me, the easiest part about the research process was finding a topic. I knew I wanted to incorporate music into my essay, as it is one of, if not the most important aspect of my life. The technology side had to be incorporated due to the content of the class. The topic of my research, the musical development of children, has been something that interests me for a long time, as I have first hand experience with it. The most difficult aspect of the research was trying to sort through the dozens of sources I found with attempts of finding relevant information to my topic. It was a lot of reading, skimming, outlining; all of those left brained ideas that I’m just not so good at. I think the final draft of my essay turned out pretty well; I feel that I covered all the topics I wanted to cover, and my thoughts and research came out in a organized, effective fashion. In terms of content, I would give my paper a 9, Organization a 9, Mechanics a 10, and Revision a 9. I felt comfortable with my rough draft in such a way that all I had to do was add some things to make it a final draft.

3. Reflection on the Digital Dimension: SEE this recent article: How Reading is Being Reimagined

Use of networked computers, the web, and databases are a requirement for conducting 21st century research. But it is not an IUP-wide requirement that English 202 be taught in a computer classroom, or that students use blogs for research journals, do group collaborations through a wiki, manage their sources electronically, etc. As you know, the theme and design of this section of English 202 reflects your professor’s concern that you have the opportunity to develop your digital literacy by thinking about and using digital tools. Please write a post that discusses your experience of the Digital Dimension of Sherwood’s 202. What did you learn through the use of these tools? Did they help you in your writing and researching in ways that you can share? Are you likely to use these and similar tools in the future? Would you be likely to recommend the digital dimension of this course to friends and why? What, if any, changes would you recommend to the digital dimension of this class? SEE this recent article: How Reading is Being Reimagined

As I posted at the beginning of the semester, I’ve always been very active with technology and it has always been an interest to me. I think people who are technologically illiterate have a huge disadvantage in this world and need to be accountable for their lack of knowledge in order to be successful in coming years. Technology seems to be the route most aspects of life is going down; it’s hard to find a field or subject that is not technology related. As for the digital aspect of this class, I enjoyed it very much. I liked the ability to keep everything organized via Wiki and not have to carry around a notebook, a significantly less efficient process. Always having assignments and notes posted from classes was also a very big help. Technologically, I can’t say that I learned a whole lot, but I certainly acquired knowledge concerning the subject of the class; writing. Writing and researching with technology is most definitely the best and most efficient way of getting work done. I’ll make sure to keep it a huge part of my life for years to come. I would also recommend this class or teaching style to any of my peers or professors, as I believe it is important and crucial to their success in this technologically based world.

2. Reflection on Draft Revision:

I’d like you to tell me about your revising, what did (and perhaps did not) go well for you? Talk about the progress you made and what helped you most as you worked on pulling your sources together for your own purpose. You can reference your posted revision plan, things we did as a class, steps you took in response to comments and individual discussion, or moves you made on your own. Please try to include specific discussion of at least one aspect of your draft that was improved; you may also choose to disclose things that you’d like to be able to do better in the future as well. (You may also want to specifically reference the draft and final; ideally, both of these documents would be posted to your blog as PAGES.

The revision process was quite easy in my opinion. Since I felt that I had done a pretty thorough job at compiling a decently written essay into a rough draft, revising was only a matter of polishing some slightly dull aspects of the paper, and changing one or two things. It was mostly the addition of more material from sources that I found to be quite useful that predominated my revision process.

1. Reflection on one Process Step:

I’d like to learn more about how you experienced the research process, and in particular, how you were able to use the various steps laid out for the class (brainstorming, identifying conversations, framing a research question, etc.) Please choose one specific blog post that shows that you framed a topic, found, evaluated and made decisions about sources to use. Or choose an assignment that you feel helped you get to know your topic better. Use your own judgment about what helped you most during the search process. Please LINK to that POST, then explain how it helped and why it was a significant step in your larger research process.

The part of this process that has helped me the most is actually compiling my ideas into a rough draft. I was able to get most of the information into a paper, but not have to worry about some of the grammatical or logistical things that would need to be evident in a final draft. Any way of actually getting thoughts onto paper, such as an outline, rough draft, etc. is, in my opinion, the best road to a successful paper. Just trying to write a final draft without compiling thoughts onto paper would turn out to be less organized and successful than actually planning it out.

1. Add more emphasis on musical development
2. Add technology section at end
3. Use of better transitions, take out underlined headings
4. Fix citation errors
5. Revisions here and there

I plan on interviewing as many music educators in the Indiana and Williamsport area about what types of technology they’re using in their classrooms. I’ll also be contacting kindergarten teachers to see what kind of exposure to music they’re giving their students.

Research Proposal
Jeremy Leidhecker
English 202 :: Research Writing
Dr. Kenneth Sherwood

The Musical Development of Children
Jeremy Leidhecker
ENGL 202 (11:15-12:05), Fall 2007

Abstract ::
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the different aspects of early childhood and prenatal musical development of infants; to identify the advantages of prenatal and childhood exposure to music and how this would affect the child’s musical ability in later years, explore the different means of the prenatal exposure to and childhood study of music, and explore the possibilities and different means of doing so that modern technology is starting to offer.

Primary Source ::
n/a

Overview of Sources ::
Thus far, the majority of sources utilized are journal articles. Several books are on order from Amazon.com, but have not yet been delivered.

Bauer, Reese, and McAllister. Transforming Music Teaching via Technology: The Role of Professional Development. 51 (4), 289-301. Winter 2003. October 4, 2007.

• Will be utilized for the latter part of the essay. Mostly based on Technology and how it can be integrated into the music classroom. Gives good background on some programs and ideas on how to use them in efficient ways in the music classroom.

Berger and Cooper. Musical Play: A Case Study of Preschool Children and Parents. 51 (2), 151-165. 2003. October 10, 2007.

• Emphasizes musical exposure to children, and different methods of training children in music. Focal age is 2-5.

Custodero and Johnson-Green. Passing the Cultural Torch: Musical Experience and Musical Parenting of Infants. 51 (2), 102-114. 2003. October 8, 2007.

• Mainly discusses how to be a good “musical parent” and what ways you can influence your children into the musical world.

Hopkins. Effects of Computer-Based Expository and Discovery Methods of Instruction on Aural Recognition of Music Concepts, The. 50 (2), 131-144. 2002. October 9, 2007.

• Focuses on ear training methods for young children, discusses prenatal exposure to music.

Kiehn. Development of Music Creativity Among Elementary School Students. 51 (4), 278-288. 2003. October 11, 2007.

• Based on musical concepts and techniques used for elementary school children, and how to help their creativity in music (and the right brain) thrive.

Sims and Nolker. Individual Differences in Music Listening Responses of Kindergarten Children. 50 (4), 292-300. 2002. October 10, 2007.

• Kindergarten stimulus and response based article. Studies how children react to different musical stimuli.

Trollinger. Relationships between Pitch-Matching Accuracy, Speech Fundamental Frequency, Speech Range, Age, and Gender in American English-Speaking Preschool Children. 51 (1), 78-94. Spring 2003. October 10, 2007.

• A very important source: discusses how musical development can not only develop your musical skills (including right brain; spatial skills, creativity, etc.) but now those developments help the other aspects of your brain and being.

Bibliography ::
Bauer, Reese, and McAllister. Transforming Music Teaching via Technology: The Role of Professional Development. 51 (4), 289-301. Winter 2003. October 4, 2007.

Berger and Cooper. Musical Play: A Case Study of Preschool Children and Parents. 51 (2), 151-165. 2003. October 10, 2007.

Custodero and Johnson-Green. Passing the Cultural Torch: Musical Experience and Musical Parenting of Infants. 51 (2), 102-114. 2003. October 8, 2007.

Hopkins. Effects of Computer-Based Expository and Discovery Methods of Instruction on Aural Recognition of Music Concepts, The. 50 (2), 131-144. 2002. October 9, 2007.

Kiehn. Development of Music Creativity Among Elementary School Students. 51 (4), 278-288. 2003. October 11, 2007.

Sims and Nolker. Individual Differences in Music Listening Responses of Kindergarten Children. 50 (4), 292-300. 2002. October 10, 2007.

Trollinger. Relationships between Pitch-Matching Accuracy, Speech Fundamental Frequency, Speech Range, Age, and Gender in American English-Speaking Preschool Children. 51 (1), 78-94. Spring 2003. October 10, 2007.

I would have to say no. If someone is being “virtually raped”, its easy to stop it. You’re not physically bound by the rapist to follow through with the act. This is a prime example of people making a big deal out of a little subject.

I agree with most of the things Prenksy talks about in this article. Since technology is probably the largest growing field or subject out there, its obviously the right way to go with education. The benefits of technology in education, if used properly, can be innumerable. Older teachers are the ones who are seemingly scared to make the switch, but then again its hard to teach an old dog new tricks. If we could get every teacher, old and young, to start utilizing technology in the classroom, i think the whole realm of education would drive down a new path; a more efficient, desirable, and better-working path.

If you pulled around to the first window after ordering your “Happy Meal” and C3P0 was there to collect your money, would you be startled? What if you were pulled over for speeding only to find out that a piece of machinery with a motherboard was driving the cruiser and writing you a ticket? These are all questions that, if asked 20 years ago, you might laugh at and not be able to answer. With the onset of advanced technology, these scenarios are becoming more and more realistic and in some cases inevitable. With this statement comes the question; is the integration of robots and artificial intelligence into our society a good or a bad thing?

Robots could have a positive existence in our world in many ways, such as making certain aspects of the workforce more efficient and adding companionship to our personal lives. There are many jobs out there that, if replaced by a robot, could be done more efficiently when it comes to both time and money. The unfortunate side of that is the fact that the humans once doing those jobs would then be out of work. There are also many people in the world that could use the companionship of a pet, but are unable to or cannot afford to take care of it. A robot such as Paro, a Japanese stuffed animal with artificial intelligence, could bring happiness to an elderly person’s life.

The integration of robots into our society could definitely turn out to be a very important turn for the human race. There would be problems at first, but they would be worked out eventually just as they usually are. The benefits in this situation overshadow the disadvantages in such a way that robots may soon be a part of our lives.