Courtney's Blog Corner

This week was all about making digital content more usable, accessible, and inclusive. Basically, it’s not enough for your site or writing✎ to look good, it needs to work for everyone. Usability is about how easy something is to use. If a site is confusing, takes too long to load, or is hard to navigate, people are going to bounce. We learned that web users mostly skim, so it’s important to keep things simple, clear headings, short paragraphs, and content that’s easy to scan. Accessibility takes it a step further. It means making sure people with disabilities can access and interact with your content. The WCAG guidelines break this down into four areas: your content needs to be Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust . That includes stuff like alt text for images, keyboard navigation, and enough color contrast. Inclusion is about making everyone feel welcome: regardless of ability, age, or language. We read how using plain language and avoiding slang or technical jarg...

This week focused on how digital writing can influence real-world change🌎. In Public Writing for Social Change , Holmes says that writing in the public sphere means being aware of what’s happening around you👀, social issues, politics, culture, and using that to create timely, relevant content. It’s not just about your message, but how it connects to people and invites them to act. Rheingold adds onto this idea by pushing us to be active participants online. Even small actions like liking a post or signing a petition, what some call clicktivism💬,  can lead to real offline engagement. Whether people call it lazy or not, it still spreads awareness and brings people into important conversations.🙀 We also learned about social capital , or the value we get from our connections. Bonding capital is about close relationships, bridging connects us with new people, and linking ties us to institutions. These networks, through platforms like LinkedIn, TikTok, or Change.org, can help us ac...

This week, we focused on digital and visual rhetoric,  basically, how design choices affect the way people read, react to, and understand our writing online. We’ve already talked about the rhetorical situation (audience, purpose, message), but digital writing adds new layers, like layout, images, and interactivity. Hocks talks about three key ideas: audience stance , transparency , and hybridity . These basically mean that writers should know how their audience will interact with the site, make the experience smooth and easy to navigate, and blend visuals and text in a way that feels natural. It’s not just about saying something smart, it’s about designing a space where people want to listen. Carter’s article reminded me that online writing doesn’t follow a straight path like an essay. People click around, follow links, and explore. That means we have to treat pages like rooms and hyperlinks like doors. Our job as digital writers is to guide the reader so they don’t get lost. Foss ...

This week’s module focused on participatory culture , virtual communities , and what it means to develop a public voice online . Reading Chapter 3 of Howard Rheingold’s Net Smart really expanded my understanding of how engagement in digital spaces isn’t just about clicking “like” it’s about becoming part of a community. Rheingold explains that participation helps shape digital culture, and that when we actively engage by creating content, responding to others, and contributing ideas, we’re not just using the internet. One part that stood out to me was Rheingold’s Power Law of Participation . It shows how online engagement ranges from low-level interactions like tagging and liking to high-level leadership actions like moderating or writing.  I realized that even though I scroll a lot and occasionally comment, I’m more of a lurker. To really participate, I need to be more intentional about joining conversations and contributing original content, especially as I build my blog. Rhein...

This week focused on three core types of literacy that are essential in today’s digital environment: information literacy , digital literacy , and media literacy . Each of these plays a different but connected role in how we search for, evaluate, and use information online. In “Googlepedia: Turning Information Behaviors into Research Skills,” Randall McClure highlights how most students start their research with Google instead of academic databases. He writes that “nine out of every ten students begin the process of searching for information on the Web” (2011, p. 221), which shows why information literacy is more important than ever. Information literacy helps us identify what we need, find it effectively, evaluate it for accuracy and credibility, and use it responsibly. Digital literacy builds on this by adding the technical skills needed to navigate online tools and platforms. It includes everything from knowing how to search databases and use online collaboration tools to unde...

This week we focused on digital authorship :  how writing online transforms not just the way we write, but who we are as writers. One idea that really stood out came from Sean Michael Morris, who wrote that “digital writing is action.” He explains that once something is written and shared online, it starts to move and evolve without the author’s control. Readers become part of the process, and authors don’t get to keep full control of what their words will mean or how they’ll be interpreted. That idea connects to Barthes’ Death of the Author , which basically argues that readers create meaning, not authors. It’s the audience’s job to interpret a text and digital writing makes that interaction even more visible. Blogs, for example, blur the line between writer and reader. In Adlington and Feez’s article, they explain how blog comments help shape future posts. In that way, readers actually co-author content. It made me think about how I’ve responded to online content before, and how...