Important Links

Online Teaching Portfolio (still under severe construction)
http://drdisarro.weebly.com

Geek of the Day Presentation
http://drdisarro.weebly.com/research-interests.html

Investigation vs. Individualization

I think both Jeff and Tess do an excellent job of summarizing, synthesizing, translating, and explaining the “Five Pedagogical Principles” outlined by Hewett and Ehmann. In particular, I really like Jeff’s point about individualization where the preparation of the students and the persona of the instructor (in large part) play a role in how successful a given lesson will be and explain why there are no “one-size-fits-all” pedagogies (in online instruction or elsewhere). Indeed, Jeff’s discussion on this notion of swapping pedagogical techniques amongst colleagues is something straight out of Stephen North’s The Making of Knowledge in Composition: Portrait of an Emerging Field, which describes most of the research of practitioners (i.e. composition teachers) as “lore,” or “…the accumulated body of traditions, practice, and beliefs in terms of which Practitioners understand how writing is done, learned, and taught” (22). This sounds legitimate enough, but North paints this kind of pedagogy (and research) in a negative light because of its unreliability (hence, the need for more investigation with an empirical bent). In relation to online teaching and investigation, I agree that more empirical study is needed and perhaps we as practitioners are the ones to do it, but (as Jeff mentions) the constraints on our time only allow us to investigation through gradual experimentation and implementation of online technology. So, the question then becomes how far removed from individualization is this form of investigation (where the instructor is learning bits and pieces of technology by collecting data from their own classrooms)? Did I misread what you were driving at Jeff? Thoughts?

Personal Experiences with Online Tutoring

The only real experience I have had with online instruction, tutoring, etc. was in the writing center last semester, and it was not exactly a positive experience for me. Although I appreciate the ability to read, comment, and chat with students about their writing in “real time” (as oppose to someone sending me an e-mail attachment, making comments, and sending the document back), there was often such a lag in between communication that the one-to-one interaction (as Casey mentioned in his posting) was laborious or completely lost. For example, say a student pastes their paper into the whiteboard and I start to read (let’s just say). ;-) I ask about the assignment, get the usually short answers like, “It’s a persuasive essay,” and then I continue reading. I come across something I feel needs attention and type, “You said this is a persuasive piece, yet you don’t tell the reader what your position is in the introduction, what points you will use to support your position, or even the importance of your topic…could you brainstorm or answer those questions for me? And then, several minutes later, I will get one of two possible responses: “Umm, not really. Can’t you just edit it?” or some lengthy answer that actually addresses my question; either way, there is a huge disconnect (the former being the student fiddling with other things on their computer, leaving the room, doing whatever – not to mention completely misunderstanding what a writing center does; the latter being the student engaging with me, but the wait-time creating an environment where not as much gets accomplished). So, as Nikki described in her posting, I suppose I haven’t had the same experiences as Hewett and Ehmann. Regardless, I do see the necessity of online learning and tutoring (distance education can be a wonderful thing), but I’m a little reluctant in terms of its pedagogical effectiveness (i.e. how much are students really learning and is anything missing because there is no face-to face communication?)

In-class Discussion on Shipka

Question on Shipka:

After reading/watching Shipka’s text, do you feel that her assignments foster notions of functional, critical, and rhetorical literacy as outlined by Selber?

Answer #1

Shipka’s assignments were open ended but she did provide lots of instruction and examples of what the assignments might look like. While the students didn’t necessarily use technology , many rhetorical skills were needed to figure out the purpose of the “writing” and the modes in which the writing might appear. Selber would applaud her methods.

Answer #2

I was a little confused by some of Shipka’s assignments. In the beginning of her text I liked the discussion about open ended assignments and forcing her students to think creatively. However, I am not all to sure exactly what was going on with some of those assignments. I think there was definitely a lot of critical thinking involved in these assignments, as she notes when discussing students frustrations, but I think Selber would agree with her approach. They assignments worked on the multiple levels Selber talks about.

My Response to the Answers

I suppose I just need a little more background on what Shipka did leading up to the assignments. Did she talk to students about the purpose/use of certain technologies in certain rhetorical situations? Was there any kind of gradual transition the students previous experiences with alphabetic texts to multimodal projects? For the first question I would say yes, to the second, no. It seems like Shipka was banking on the fact that students wouldn’t be comfortable, wouldn’t necessarily know what to do with the assignment, and out of that chaos there would be excellent projects drawing upon the strength of the students.

Shipka and Pignetti

One thing I have appreciated about many of the readings for this class is the variety of ways in which information and research is presented. For this week, the Shipka and Pignetti articles certainly made me rethink what constitutes Scholarship in the field (an essay with streaming video of student interviews and an analysis piece based almost entirely on the deeply personal? The hell you say). In relation to the Shipka article, I was found myself at once inspired and put on the defensive. Her assignments seem so innovative, thought-provoking, and relevant to what students will have to do once they leave the academy, i.e. “Instead of requiring that students produce linear, print-based texts, the framework for composing…provide students with open-ended, inquiry-based tasks that invite students to draw on a much wider range of materials, methodologies, technologies and rhetorical strategies than writing courses have traditionally tended to allow” (Shipka). Yet, aside from my one claim to non-conformity (the multi-genre paper), I have my students produce three “linear, print-based texts,” (a narrative essay, an analysis piece, and a persuasive essay). Why is that? Is it because, as Shipka’s participant Amanda noted, that that type of paper was what we are engrained with since elementary school? Probably. No matter where it stems from, I know my major assignments (and the scaffolding around them) need to change drastically in order to be relevant, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me; however, one thing that put me at ease in relation to Shipka, was that many of her multimodal assignments were not necessarily technology-based (thus, some of my worry about not knowing certain programs for multimodal compositions and not being able to teach said program effectively to students, was subsequently erased).

A brief note on the Pignetti article, it was quite refreshing to read something that was not, say, littered with the “academic speak” of the McClure and Baures article (prose that I myself am horribly guilty of as well). It also made me realize the breadth of possible dissertation topics and how (as a researcher) you don’t have to completely remove yourself for your work. Pignetti seems to skim that line between traditional academic discourse, creative nonfiction, and journalism and I feel that this genre-blurring is something which (although Composition certainly allows for it more than other fields) needs to be encouraged even more.

Library Miscommunication

It is quite ironic that our readings for this week focused primarily on research instruction and the dialogue between composition instructors and librarians; ironic because tomorrow is when I am taking my students to the library for a tutorial session. As McClure, Baures, Peele, and Phipps all express, there are often numerous frustrations on both sides as to what method of instruction would best serve the needs of students who know damn well that they can just “Google it” and find a wealth of information (though not always the most reliable). I am in total agreement with Peele and Phipps that the two parties (instructor and librarian) should collaborate on assignment ideas for students to facilitate a greater understanding of various databases, resources, and what constitutes a “valid source” on the web, partly because I myself have been subject to many a miscommunication with library staff. For example, last semester I scheduled a library session right after introducing the multi-genre paper to my students and, when explaining the assignment to the librarian via e-mail, he was confused as to what the paper actually entailed. The result was him showing art databases, websites for literary journals, etc. because he thought students needed to research visual or creative genres for a traditional thesis-driven paper not create such genres as the basis for the paper itself. Obviously this miscommunication wasn’t entirely his fault. I certainly could have met with him face-to-face, shown him examples from previous semester, or even pointed him to one of the many shrines to Tom Romano (the “founder” of the multi-genre paper).

One thing that the readings also made me think about was how first-year composition became responsible for introducing students to college-level research…? I don’t want to sound cynical (although I am, always have been, and probably always will be), but it seems like it is our job to foster critical thinking, introduce students to rhetorically understanding various forms of communication, establish an awareness of proper citation and plagiarism, and (oh yeah) help them become better writers. Now we have to be the go-between for the library as well? What are the other fields/disciplines doing with their time and their students? It just makes me think/realize/feel that the majority of colleges and universities really do think of composition as service course, that’s all.

Wiki Woes and Collaborative Dissertations

Okay, so I’m planning on doing something with Wikis for my “Geek of the Day” presentation and (although Moxley, Meehan, Loudermilk, and Hern’s examples definitely showed me what was out there) I found sites like writingwiki.org and teachingwiki.org to be rather clunky and confusing. It appears that Moxley designed these two sites for USF students (fine and dandy), but how do I create something similar for my students that looks a hell of a lot better and is easier to navigate? Wikispaces.com appears to be the most straightforward of the bunch, and (at least from a design standpoint) the user has a lot of options to make the various pages look somewhat interesting. Even so, it seems like most of the Wiki sites I’ve been exposed to follow the same stringent design format…is there a reason for this? Or am I just not familiar enough with the possibilities of these web-based programs/editors?

Another brief aside on collaboration…last semester in Dr. Grutsch McKinney’s ENG 601 class we talked briefly about collaborative dissertations and whether or not that notion of singular authorship (i.e. of doing one’s own work) was becoming somewhat outdated considering what we know about knowledge being socially constructed and the emphasis we place as instructors on collaboration. Since many of you weren’t in that class with me (aside from Carolyn), I was just wondering your take on the subject? Should institutions of higher education allow the option for culminating projects (such as theses and dissertations) to be co-written? Personally, my initial reaction is yes, particularly if in our classrooms we exalt the benefits of writing with others (and thus might appear hypocritical if don’t partake in such activities ourselves), but I’m also reluctant considering the prevailing views of the academy where individual scholarship is seen with less suspicion than collaborative work (the subtext being you were either too lazy or too incompetent to complete the article, thesis, dissertation, or whatever on your own). Thoughts?

Facebook Cheating

Here's an interesting article I came across through CNN about a student who used Facebook to create a study group (a collaborative community) and the professor said that it was cheating. Brings to mind interesting thoughts on collaboration, authorship, and socially constructed knowledge. Enjoy.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/03/19/facebook.cheating.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch

Trials and Tribulations with Collaboration

Collaboration is one of those pedagogical issues I seem to struggle with every semester (and by struggle, I mean trying to effectively incorporate it into the classroom). When I first began teaching at the college level in the spring of ‘05, I had absolutely no collaborative writing assignments (aside from perhaps the occasional in-class writing exercise where all of the students would brainstorm ideas for paper topics). I think my reluctance stemmed from my own undergraduate experiences where I was left to do all of the writing because a). I was perceived by my group members to be a fairly decent writer and b). I didn’t want my grade to suffer because of a lazy few. Now, as an instructor and having realized through my studies that knowledge is constructed through the “culmination of a multitude of social forces that push on individuals, that define who we are, what we think is possible, and who we want to be” (Moxley / Meehan), I understand the necessity for collaborative work…but I just can’t seem to completely cross over the threshold. This could be because, as Moxley and Meehan note, that there is a long engrained notion of writing as the undertaking of one individual, locked away in a room somewhere, toiling away (my creative writing background certainly affirms this perception/relationship of the artist and their work).

Last semester I changed my multi-genre paper to a “collaborative” piece, but saying the final product was collaboratively written by the students is somewhat misleading. A more accurate moniker would be a paper that was “compiled.” Basically, each student was responsible for two separate genres (5 – 6 pages combined), then they had to put all of their genres together (in some sort of concise and logical order) and turn in one 15 – 18 page paper; but (in most cases) the genres were not written or designed by all the students working together – it was more like fitting puzzle pieces together. I think my reasoning for this approach was because I was unsure of how to adequately assess such work. Obviously the entire piece should be given a grade, but what about the individual efforts of students? Putting them in charge of their own genres so I could specifically see who did what seemed like the best solution, but after reading Moxley and Meehan I’m not so sure.

Teaching with Technology Haiku

Teaching with laptops,
a student has a flash drive
with nothing on it.

Krause Version 1.0 and 2.0

I thought Steven D. Krause’s article, “Where Do I List This on My CV? Considering the Values of Self-Published Websites,” to be rather intriguing. He makes a convincing argument for all journals and scholarly periodicals to move toward a digital form, allowing the author to make certain additions and revisions as necessary. However, I wonder if any changes (no matter how minute) would need approval from the editors of the publication...? It seems that such a practice might be rather time-consuming, though not necessarily costly in terms of “updating” pages. If this method of editor approval is in fact unreasonable, then I can definitely understand Krause’s point about having a self-published scholarly website with updated versions of articles, reviews, presentations, etc. (though linking back to the original and giving proper credit/citation to the journal where the work first appeared). Also, the “New Examples” of self-published sites (such as wikis, blogs, and content management sites) were quite interesting. I am planning on focusing on wikis as my “Geek of the Day” presentation and to see that there are valid educational ways of using such a medium (with things like online textbooks) that also utilize an interface students already have a rapport with (yes, that dreaded wikipedia), is rather appealing. Speaking of which, does anybody know of any sites (besides perhaps wikinotes) that involves wikis and education?

Krause assertions about blogs as more of an invention device that eventually leads to either scholarship or Scholarship also rings true for me. I feel that any number of these blog postings could yield some sort of germinal ideas for a seminar paper or article. More importantly though, the blog enables me to retrace my steps, my progression, and see possible links that might not be as apparent if I was simply taking notes in a word processor or notebook (not to mention the intellectual community that the blog creates by linking to everyone else’s pages). Good stuff.

Tenure and Promotion

The notion of tenure and promotion has been a concern of mine as of late. I’m not sure if it’s because my brother (a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Iowa) recently secured a tenure-track position at Cal-State Sacramento, or because I feel that steady pull of the years slowly slinking by to when I will need to worry about “selling myself” to some school (a thought that, for some reason, makes me feel incredibly dirty), but I’m jittery as hell. It definitely seems that those with Ph.D.’s in Rhetoric and Composition who specialize in some form of technology (whether it is computer mediated instruction, writing and technology curriculum development, multimodal composition, etc.) are in fact labeled as a “hot commodities” (at least that’s the perception I get from glancing at sites like Higheredjobs.com). If this is the case, then I fear that I will not do well in my search for a college teaching gig. Aside from this class and the ENG 605 I took my first semester of coursework, my experience with technology and teaching is rather limited (a veritable hodge-podge of hits and misses, trials and errors, and mostly informal training). My plans for a dissertation, apparently the factor by which most candidates are labeled, will most likely not have technology as its primary focus. I also have no publications in the field of Rhetoric and Composition as of yet. Eeep…and I’m on the market in a short two to three years. But, as Krause mentions in his article, each institution has different expectations for hiring, tenure, and promotion. My goal is NOT to be at a Research I (or even a Research II) university, so perhaps the experiences I have gained (though not necessarily my focus) will provide me with some sort of an edge. Time will tell I suppose…

In-class Virtual Peer Review (bien), Out of class Virtual Peer Review (es muy mal)

I mentioned in my last post some of my previous experiences with virtual peer review and that I was perplexed as to why I had not incorporated more opportunity for such activities in my class (or outside my class). I think part of my reluctance is simply because of all those pesky technology issues that can arise. I can think of one example from this semester where an ESL student had the Chinese version of MS Word, and when she tried to open her document in class to print it off there was nothing but corrupt file error messages and strange, cryptic computer symbols where her paper should have been. (One brief aside, teaching in a desktop computer classroom usually facilitates students bringing in electronic copies of their papers anyway because they can print them off and not have to waste their own ink – the only annoying part is when they ask for a stapler). Conducting virtual peer review outside of class also makes me a little wary because I feel I would inevitably I get a slue of e-mails from students saying that they couldn’t open their partners papers, they don’t have Word (but WordPerfect), they didn’t know how to save the paper as a .rtf (even though we went over it in class, like four times), yadda-yadda-yadda. I guess, if I required virtual peer reviews that were performed in-class, I would feel like I had better control, could still answer the immediate concerns of students (rather than whenever I checked my inbox), and could mediate technical difficulties that might arise (as best as I could anyway).

Inspired by Nikki - My Experiences with Virtual Peer Review

Up until last semester (when I tutored in the Writing Center), my experience with virtual peer review was rather limited. As an instructor, I always had a few students that were absent on an in-class peer review day and (eventually) they would send me an electronic copy of their draft. It then became my job to give them some sort of critique (it never occurred to me to have the absent student to exchange papers with each other), and I would use the comment function in Microsoft Word to provide feedback, resave the document under a new name, and then e-mail it back to the student(s). I will admit that this method of providing constructive criticism seemed ideal because I didn’t necessarily have to wait until the next class period to “hand back” my comments, but it never really occurred to me to have students to either a). bring in electronic copies of their papers on a flash drive, through e-mail, etc. and have the in-class peer review take place in a virtual environment, or b). have the students exchange papers electronically and conduct peer reviews outside of class. Honestly, I am surprised that I never tried this in my classes at BSU, particularly because every semester I have taught in either a laptop or a desktop computer classroom, but also because my teaching mentor at SCSU actually had students do option A (he was actually the one that pointed out the comment function in Word to me). Interestingly enough, my wife has taken psychology classes with anywhere from 50 – 100 students enrolled and (whenever their big paper is due) the instructor places students in virtual peer review groups (option B). I’m curious what other disciplines might do (aside from just send their students to the writing center). ;-)

Williams and Tollett: Intended Audience

One thing that I think many of us have lost sight of when reading this text (myself included) is its intended audience. We’re reading it in the context of an advanced English course, but I don’t believe it was created for graduate students involved with a writing program that places such a huge emphasis on the training of its instructors in technology and composition (we have a privilege that not many other universities have in terms of the resources we can utilize). Also, many of us have lived the vast majority of our lives co-existing with computers and have been able to achieve some level of novice or semi-pro stature when it comes to notions of visual rhetoric, design, and the Internet. Obviously, some of the concepts might appear to be beneath us, but for many it seems like a valuable resource (I think of my father-in-law who still has a dial-up connection, dated technology, and limited resources, but wants to create a website to share pictures of his grandson with co-workers, distant family, etc, and I feel like we take for granted this little bubble known as the academy with all of its bells, whistles, and blinking lights). Even for me, one of those pesky novice techie-kids, I was able to gain something from the text. For me, the chapter on basic design principles allowed me to critically look at my current website and make note of my “poor design” choices in relation to proximity, alignment, contrast, etc, and have an awareness and a knowledge that (although perhaps intuitive to some degree) can now be considered more concrete. Cheers.

Williams and Tollett: I love the 90's

Much like Nicole, I also had mixed feelings about the Williams and Tollett book. I think the text is a valuable resource for those that have little or no experience building websites, but I designed my first site my sophomore year of high school (circa 1997) using one of the first versions of Microsoft FrontPage and I’ve tried to keep up on various web-authoring tools since then. Granted, way back when I made several poor design choices (one example being that each separate page on the site had a different background color), but as Williams and Tollett note, much of design is trail and error. I did a fair amount of cool things too (at least, they were cool in the mid-90’s) like incorporating MIDI files, web-counters, etc, and I learned quite a bit from just looking at other websites and simply playing around with the program(s). I suppose one key criticism I have of the text is that notion of “play” isn’t emphasized much, instead the reader is given a series of step-by-step mandates (which, again, is wonderful in terms of beginners that need strict guidance to get them started, but I often found myself disconnected because Williams and Tollett were describing procedures to programs that I don’t have in my possession – i.e. Photoshop and Dreamweaver). One other minor irritation was their constant “plugging” of other books (including their own). A few references to useful books on related topics, fine – several references to books published by the same company as Williams and Tollet’s book (Peachpit Press), hmm…

Reproduce more than 10% of this post...go on, I dare you.

Like Elizabeth and Nikki, I have had similar fears regarding fair use, copyright, and students possibly running amuck with images, videos, or music that has not been used with permission. Consequently, as a result of these fears, I have traversed through the three methods of restriction Westbrook outlines pertaining to students and visual production: simple exclusion from creating or using visuals in favor of honing critical reading or viewing abilities through an analytical essay (462); prompts involving hypothetical scenarios and students imagining or describing in alphabetic texts some visual creation that never comes to fruition (462); and the creation of multimedia texts that are purely for the classroom setting and not for dissemination outside of the academy (463). Interestingly enough, I still have students write an analytical essay (I’m actually in the middle of that particular unit right now), and yes I do use the piece to foster critical thinking among the students, but I’m of the disposition that having students view examples of visual rhetoric and engaging with images (whether static or in motion) in a meaningful way will allow them to be more aware of the rhetorical choices they make when constructing the collaborative multi-genre piece at the end of the term (see my February 13th posting for a description of this assignment). Although Westbrook doesn’t seem to demean the analytical essay, he clearly feels it is not enough if it is constructed in isolation (i.e. not tied to future assignments or pedagogical goals)…

But therein lays the paradox Westbrook is trying to illuminate, that the capitalist/consumerist structure of our society forces isolationism upon us and our students, even when we attempt multimedia projects. It is frustrating when I tell my students that what they learn (or hopefully learn) in my classroom can be utilized in their future careers and then have to tell them not to show or post their projects to outside entities. In other words, they know something is rotten. I will say that the BSU library links helped me understand some of the subtleties of using copyrighted materials and fair use (indeed, many of my fears stemmed from receiving various pieces of information and not knowing which tidbits were correct), but even these links seem to reaffirm that the use of copyright materials is restricted to academic settings and secure networks. *Sigh*

Musings from a "Border-dweller"

Of the three articles this week, I found Stephen Westbrook’s “Visual Rhetoric in a Culture of Fear: Impediments to Multimedia Production” to be particularly intriguing, especially since I have been affectionately defined as a “border-dweller” within the academy (also known as a creative writer who enters composition studies and attempts to find how the two fields might inform each other). After Westbrook’s discussion of the conforming nature of creative writing genres, “the big four” (fiction, poetry, drama and creative nonfiction) as it were, I had a sense of absolute déjà vu; I was effectively transplanted back into my undergraduate workshops where we were asked to look at some static image, ascertain some sort of apparent and deeper subject embedded within the image, and then attempt to write metaphorically about what we saw. Westbrook talks about this process extensively when he states that “…most of creative writing’s pedagogical materials, tend to require students to respond to visual art by conforming to the print genres…The dominance of these genres…leads to a positioning of students as primarily readers and interpreters of the visual, who use their writing practices not to combine images and words in their own texts but rather to compose strictly verbal texts” (467 – 468). At the time (and up until about a year ago when I was exposed to “flash poetry”), I didn’t really question this privileging of print; in fact, most (if not all) of my creative writing professors placed a strong emphasis on appearing in print and often snuffed at online periodicals, web-based literary journals, ezines, etc. that published poetry or fiction as the stuff of amateurs or hacks. Like the little lemming that I was back then, I blindly believed them without realizing that many online creative writing outlets are just as stringent (and, in many cases, more so) in terms of their review process and submission guidelines (for example, The Cortland Review), but I digress.

Westbrook has shown me another parallel between composition and creative writing that bears further exploration while simultaneously helping to erode my preconceived notions of what can be considered creative writing, what obstacles students in both fields face in terms of multimedia/multimodal works, and what we as educators have to navigate through – i.e. our fears and expectations in the classroom when we work with visual rhetoric (more on that next time…).

Collaboration and Critical Pedagogy

In Chapter 4, “Collaborating on Multimodal Projects,” Anne-Marie Pedersen and Carolyn Skinner make some valuable and (in retrospect) obvious points about students pooling their resources to complete an assignment that involves multimodal discourse. Two benefits of collaborative work seem to ring particularly true for me are the sharing of knowledge between students (be it technical or otherwise) and the effective use of time and resources. Indeed, the emphasis of students teaching each other (and, in many cases, the instructor) harkens to Paulo Freire and bell hooks notions of critical pedagogy whereby “The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow” (Freire 61). It seems to me that multimodality, or any course with a technological bent, yields the greatest opportunity for a type of problem-posing education simply because of the pace at which technology develops (teachers can’t possibly be expected to have a working knowledge of every new or updated program, nor can students. But collectively, there’s hope).

Also, as I mentioned in my previous post, I teach a multi-genre paper and I recently modified the assignment to be a collaborative work. On the practical level, this change reduced my grading load from twenty-four papers to eight (which is a blessing around finals time if you’re a graduate student), but more importantly it allowed students to draw upon each others academic strengthens and utilizing a variety of technological resources (this was particularly true or groups that had both PC and Mac users). In short, collaborative work is highly recommended from a pedagogical and practical standpoint.

Multi-genre vs. Multimodal

Like many others in the class, I am relatively new to requiring multimodal projects as part of my course. For the past few years my students have had to complete a “multi-genre” paper where they chose a topic and informed, presented, synthesized, etc. the information they found using a variety of different genres (such as print media, visuals with words, a visual display, an informational piece, creative writing, and a structured essay). Despite this multi-genre approach, very few students went so far as to use multimodal discourse, and those that did stuck to relatively familiar programs such as PowerPoint to create slideshows or trivia games (one student, however, did produce a commercial using iMovie). Secretly, I wanted students to generate audio and video essays, but I lacked the necessary technical knowledge (and viable of assessment tools) to facilitate such projects. Selfe’s text provided me with both, a basic technical knowledge of certain programs and techie-speak (particularly in the glossary) and the rubrics. One aspect of the text that I also found inviting was the constant reassurance that what was being outlined (whether it pertained to the types of assignments, evaluation criteria, etc.) could be altered to suit the teacher’s purpose; consequently, such a contention makes me think that, once I noodle with a few programs, I could require one genre of the paper to be completely multimodal or (dare I say) eventually convert the entire paper into a multimodal project.

I will say that, at times, I found the text difficult to read. Not difficult in terms of comprehension, but because (as Casey mentioned in his posting) the sheer repetitiveness of how to utilize multimodality in the classroom. It seems like the type of text that I would pull off of the shelf, thumb through a chapter as a refresher or photocopy certain resources, and then put it back. But I suppose that’s the point…

A short survey

http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=z0kxujq9nxguwi4393364

Tufte, Complimentary Colors, and Color Psychology

Tufte’s chapter on “Color and Information” really took me back to my undergraduate days in a 3D design class. Though there was more of an artistic bent to that course, many of the principles that Tufte described (such as using colors found in nature and the subtraction of color) were communicated to us, but there was one thing I feel Tufte didn’t really delve into: the use of complimentary colors. Although he alludes to it in a few places, including when he talks about the value scale, there is really no mention of what colors work best together, what colors don’t, and the effect those colors might have on the viewer (if memory serves, the complimentary pairings of colors include orange – blue, yellow – purple, red – green, and black – white). Indeed, Tufte seems relatively unconcerned with notions of color psychology in terms of design, instead favoring how color relates to the presentation of information (ex. maps, charts, etc.). I think this is all well and good and clearly coincides with Tufte’s purpose, but did anyone feel like he should have gone into greater detail about how the combination of certain colors will invariably facilitate a certain emotional response in the viewer?

Tufte, Poetry, and 1+1 = Me?

Like many people in the class, I too had a positive reaction to Tufte’s text Envisioning Information and all of the wonderful pictorial examples that he provided. Although there were several things that I found intriguing, his discussion on “Laying and Separation” seemed particularly interesting. The passage that really stands out to me from that section is when Tufte describes the “Visual activation of negative areas of white space… (and) the endlessly contextual and interactive nature of visual elements…[embodied]…in the fundamental principle of information design: 1 + 1 = 3 or more” (61). It never completely dawned on me until after reading Tufte, but this idea of white space creating a “third visual activity” permeates every possible visual medium (I guess that’s why he refers to it as a “fundamental principle”). Aside from examples that I have seen in advertising (such as the “hidden” arrow in the FedEx logo), I began to think about poetic forms like concrete poetry (a good example being Gregory Corso’s “Bomb” or anything by e.e. cummings), how the use of text in some places and the absence of text in others can create either an astounding visual effect that often mirrors what is being discussed in the poem, or a “…surplus (of)…non-information, noise, and clutter” (61). Personally, it’s been a struggle for me to move my verse around the page (first, transitioning from the center – the place where we all put our crappy, sappy high school poetry – to the left side of the page, and now from the left side to, well, anywhere else). I’m not exactly sure why this is. Any other creative writers have similar experiences?

An assortment of ramblings on Wysocki

Of all the articles in response to Kress that we had to read for this week, I found Anne Frances Wysocki’s “awaywithwords: On the possibilities in unavailable designs” to be the most intriguing. I’m not sure if my interest in her work stems from attending the workshop she presented at BSU last year, or if statements like “…were we to consider ‘word’ in this same commonsensical way as ‘image’…limiting it to a particular size and to a set of compositional strategies and means of production, it would be as though we were asking people in our classes to go out in to the world believing that the only writing everyone everywhere ever does is the academic research essay” (58) simply make her my personal hero. In my own personal experience (and I apologize for getting somewhat anecdotal), there has been a lack of incorporating technology and technological awareness until just recently, and even then (with my additions of discussion board postings over paper journals and designing websites instead of final portfolios) my pedagogy for teaching writing always seems to revert back to the standard academic essay. Why? It’s strange that Wysocki mentions “compositional strategies and means of production,” since my emphasis on constant revision, deadlines, and high order vs. low order concerns certainly reeks of teaching a process that will ensure a product; but the product of a standard academic essay? Come on. Students will enter a world involving vastly different forms of writing, reading, and interpretation through a variety of forms and mediums – that much is clear. But how do we as practitioners make this transition? Is it as simple as requiring students to post all of their papers on the web, making hypertexts and links to their sources, and using visuals in a conscious, critical way? In other words, do we still teach the conventions of the academic essay and change the way the product is presented? My guess is that both Selber and Kress would shudder at this prospect. Personally, I thought Wysocki’s assignment of a video essay (which she presented at the workshop) was fascinating and something I would love to try out; but my fear is that I would spend so much class time teaching the program rather than teaching the students about making sound rhetorical choices. Is this fear irrational?

I apologize for the rambling nature of my post. Trying to coalesce all of these different perspectives with my own personal experiences has become a rather rocky undertaking.

"Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here..."

In his article “Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learning,” Gunther Kress reiterates several points that he makes in his seminal treatise Literacy in the New Media Age when he states that “Speech and writing tell the world; depiction shows the world. In the one, the order of the world is that given by the author; in the other, the order of the world is yet to be designed (fully and /or definitively) by the viewer” (16); however, this particular quote also embodies several of the difficulties I have been having in coming to terms with the ideas Kress puts forth. In particular, the notion that speech and writing simply “tell the world” seems to be a rather unilateral statement. Anyone who has a creative writing background has heard time and again in workshops to “Show, don’t tell” the reader through descriptive language, metaphor, etc., and although I realize that Kress is expanding the notion of “…words (as) empty entities…to be filled with meaning” (7), my contention (which is by no means a new one) is that all forms of discourse (including visuals) are empty of meaning and can only be filled by the reader / viewers social, political, culture, economic (etc. etc.) background. As I’m writing this (and thinking back to our in-class discussion of Kress), I don’t necessarily think Kress would disagree with me, but the convoluted (and sometimes contradictory) nature of his texts makes it difficult for me to wade through the pools of his scholarship. In trying to think of what he is attempting to convey, in the simplest form possible, I imagine a non-native English speaker trying to read the language and (of course) the words on the page have no meaning because they are merely signs, or signifiers, or whatever term-of-the-week is being used; on the other hand, an image has the capability to convey some type of meaning to the viewer because (to use a tired cliché) pictures speaker louder than words. Okay, I get it. But the notion that “the world is yet to be designed…by the viewer” seems somewhat absurd to me since (although a viewer has more possibilities for reading paths than, say, a text-based reader) the portal, program, browser, website that they are viewing was designed by someone else; thus, the cultural baggage of the designer and the viewer come into contact – thus, the order of the world can never be fully or definitively designed. Am I wrong in my reading? If so, please help me out here.

Better Late Than Never

Google Document (Assignments for Functional, Critical, and Rhetorical Literacy)

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd3xgm64_05r6rtrdg

Time Versus Space-Based Modes (Nothing New)

In his final chapter of Literacy in the New Media Age, Kress states that “The screen trains its readers in certain ways, just as the page trained its readers in its ways: the latter had its uses and function and purposes, which were the uses and functions and purposes of the society in which it existed. The new form has its uses and functions and purposes in relation to new social, cultural, political and economic demands” (162 – 163). My problem with this statement is that Kress is (to a certain degree) implying that the page never adequately addressed various social, cultural, political, and economic issues, which of course is not true. Granted, I understand that Kress is trying to illuminate the notion of multimodality and that simply by viewing something on a screen (even if it appears exactly the same as it did in print – i.e. scanned books, journal articles, etc.) that there are various societal underpinnings at work, but hasn’t that always been the case with regard to advancements in technology and literacy? The invention of the printing press had huge implications for all facets of life because knowledge (eventually) could be readily disseminated. So, I guess my question is what is Kress bringing to the discussion? Is he simply trying to convey that the incorporation of visual elements (either by themselves or coupled with text) requires a new lens in which to perceive the world (his whole notion of time versus space-based modes)? If so, the point seems rather moot as even he acknowledges that images (although not widely used) were incorporated into texts as early as the Renaissance. Therefore, his time vs. space-based mode of thinking / viewing is really nothing new.

Kress, Richards, and Nietzsche

Much like Jeff, I had issues with some of the assertions Kress makes regarding “images…being full of….meaning, whereas words [are] waiting to be filled” (4); in particular, I had qualms with the fact that Kress doesn’t seem to adequately extrapolate the subjective nature of meaning with regard to the visual (though he does acknowledge the social, cultural, and economic factors that may influence interpretations of meaning). Instead, Kress seems to be implying throughout his treatise that the visual supersedes the written word in terms of allowing a multitude of people to achieve some commonality of meaning, but (again, as Jeff stated in reference to I.A. Richards) there can be no consensus of meaning since our individual perceptions of a word / image / element differ considerably. Consequently, this lack of consensus or truth reminded me of Friedrich Nietzsche’s text On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense where “what is usually called language is actually all figuration” (Bizzell and Herzberg 1169), and Bizzell and Herzberg further explain Nietzsche’s argument “that ‘truth’ is a social arrangement necessitated by the powerful tendency to tell lies…we put our subjective impressions of things into our words and therefore must negotiate their meanings…(while) social pressures reinforce the conventional ways of speaking of things and also encourage us to regard those ways as truth” (1169).

Although Nietzsche is qualifying language as the written and spoken word, his notions of language as figuration (and the resulting lack of universal meaning) can easily be adapted to the visual (particularly with our changing definitions of literacy and language which attempt to include images). As Nietzsche states “Every word [or image] instantly becomes a concept precisely insofar as it is not supposed to serve as a reminder of the unique and entirely individual original experience to which it owes its origin; but rather a word [or visual] becomes a concept insofar as it simultaneously has to fit countless more or less similar cases – which means…cases which are never equal and thus altogether unequal” (1174). Through this lens propagated by Nietzsche, words and visuals, subjects and objects, have no causality, no correctness, no true expression, and any semiotic relationship is reduced to mere aesthetics (1176).

Links for Rhetorical, Critical, and Functional Literacy

http://www.google.com/notebook/public/10651211465049229100/BDQdBIgoQ-ePg1Pgi?hl=en

Did You Know 2.0

I think this is an interesting clip that really demonstrates the growth of technology within the past 20 or so years (though, to some degree, I question the agenda of the people who made it). Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

Selber, Technology, and Constructivism

Although there were several aspects of Selber’s final chapter (“Systematic Requirements for Change”) that I found intriguing, his section on curricular requirements was of particular interest to me. More specifically, Selber mentions the “…wide array of informal channels students use in order to learn about computers” (211), and the examples he provides (i.e. roommates, other students in various courses, discussion forms, and simple trial-and-error experiences) effectively demonstrate that technological knowledge is of a constructivist nature (a veritable hodge-podge of individual and socially assembled information, if you will) primarily because (for example) the knowledge gained from a classroom and a friend are equally valued. Such an observation seems obvious enough (particularly after having been immersed in theories of constructivism since entering graduate school), but for some reason I never quite made the connection that how I utilize and interact with technology is derivative of (say) what my father taught me on a Commodore 64, or the cheat codes I learned from friends playing video games, or (perhaps most important) what I have learned from students – one example being last semester when I required students to make an online portfolio and I had no idea how to help those with Mac’s (fortunately, the more technologically savvy students helped those that had less knowledge of the web design program they were using – including myself). I think my apparent oversight of constructivism in technology stems from (as Selber describes) technology being viewed as something to be use and not something to be questioned or analyzed (aside from perhaps data analysis). Nevertheless, this book provided me with a bit of an “ah-ha” moment.

Selber and the Practitioner

One of the things that I appreciate about Selber’s Multiliteracies for a Digital Age is that he has the practitioner in mind throughout the text, referencing several times how he himself has applied notions of functional, critical, and rhetorical literacy to technology within the classroom, but I wonder if parts of the text are just another example of “lore” being passed off as research. Granted, Selber points out several times and in various contexts that he wants teachers to view his suggestions “...as an imperfect heuristic rather than as a rigid prescription for action” (183), so perhaps it is a rather moot and arbitrary point I’m trying to put forth (since the majority of the treatise is really attempting to contextualize how the approaches of written and oral communication – i.e. literacy – also apply to digital mediums). Nevertheless, I can’t help but think of how I might utilize some of Selber’s approaches in my ENG 103 classrooms, though (as Nikki mentioned in her post) I feel as though what Selber describes is somewhat ambitious, if not unrealistic (and I doubt the examples he provides occurred in a freshmen composition classroom). It’s hard enough to get freshmen to question, well, anything, let alone the political implications of interface design, yet I understand (and value) why such problem-posing questions are pedagogically necessary.

First Post

Well, I suppose this is where it all begins. I will admit that I have a bit of apprehension coming into this class, even though I was one those kids that grew up with technology and my father always pushed for me to be rather literate in technology. I'm not sure what the impetus is for this uneasiness, but I'm sure (as the semester progresses) I'll find out. See you on the back-end of cyberspace.