I have never obstinately resisted technology, per say, but I have never openly welcomed it either. I have never gone out of my way to adopt new technological practices into my routine, using modern technology only when finally necessary, or inevitable. This being said, our first unit in multimedia and digital work came as somewhat of a challenge to me simply due to the fact that it was unfamiliar, slightly intimidating ground.
In our final project for Unit 1, our multimedia narratives, I thought that I would be limited in how I could tell my story by my general lack of experience in the digital field. While this was true, I also found that the field had very little limitations. I had so many choices: my media, the images I wanted to use, sound, text, how to present it all coherently…this lack of limitations, in the end, was the most overwhelming bit.
The object, as a writer, was still the same: to say what I wanted to say, to relay my message as accurately as possible to the reader, transitioning from my muddled thoughts to a piece of lucid work. Traditionally, writers use language as their tool to convey. Now, we have more tools. And an added difficulty opportunity is the selection of our tools.
One might select an axe when heading into the woods to chop firewood, but a small pocketknife might be more effective for peeling a potato. Even better than that would be a potato-peeler. Our stories are like the firewood and the potato. How best do we carve and shape them, make them into our desired forms? Not only do we need to use our tools well, we need to use the most effective tools.
That is what multimedia has taught me. Know your story and know the tool you wish to shape it with. Because we have more options, we also have a greater responsibility – obligation, almost – to choose the best media, present our story exactly as it should be presented. As writers of the twenty-first century, we should know our alternatives and learn how to use the multitude of media available to us. If we choose to peel a potato with an axe, we should do so not out of ignorance at using the potato-peeler, but out of knowledge that the final effect, as well as the process, is the one we are after.
