My utmost goal for this course is to inspire you to READ actively and widely, to equip you to THINK critically, to teach

you to WRITE artfully and persuasively, and to train you to harness the power of TECHNOLOGY to help you SYNTHESIZE

and EVALUATE the masses of information that bombard you daily. 

What's in a Name?

Walt Whitman's poem The Noiseless Patient Spider inspired my theme and logo. Whitman, writing in the 1800's, observes

how mankind ceaselessly seeks to connect, to make sense of the world, to reach out to others, just as the spider

ceaselessly launches forth filament to explore his surroundings, to travel from one place to another, to bridge his world.

The 21st century has highlighted man's need to launch filament, to connect, to question, to muse, to venture, to explore.

The 21st century has launched a social networking revolution enabled by Web 2.0 tools, tools that enable us to connect '

ike never before. We blog, we podcast, we collaborate via wikis, webcams, e-mails, discussion boards, we explore endless

information easily summoned with a few clicks. We are living in the midst of sweeping technological changes that are

reinventing the way we live, learn, laugh. At the heart of this change, however, is the basic spirit of exploration--that

same spirit Whitman captured some two hundred years ago.

I'm passionate about harnessing the power of Web 2.0, about embracing the explorative spirit of mankind, about learning

to wield language to express my musings with style. I hope this class will ignite those passions in you as well.

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