Technology & Pedagogy

Discussion of AIM Meeting

2006-11-24T16:24:00.000-05:00

A meta-discussion of our discussion, a ramble if you will (even if you won't) about the medium, benefits, and drawbacks seen upon my reflection about our Tuesday class discussion. ALSO: note that I found a free server that provides 2GB of storage for files such as these. I've moved all of my podcast files to that directory. So far as I know, the links are as follows. Any problems, please let me know:

http://bergspace.110mb.com/podcasts/courses/crd704 - home directory of the podcasts this plus the filenames below should take you to them:

/pc-112406.mp3 - today's
/pc-111006.mp3 - Nov. 10
/pc-117.mp3 - Nov. 7
/berg-1024.mp3 - audio from 10/24/06
/berg-1024.mov - vidcast from same.

--Chris

Assessing the product

2006-11-14T20:17:00.000-05:00

Here I respond to something Adam and Chris said about assessing the product when your students are as knowledgeable or more knowledgeable in a technology you're using than you yourself are. I bring in my own experience teaching professional writing to ask some questions about the ethical implications of this.

Communication and Technology

2006-11-13T17:50:00.000-05:00

In this podcast I briefly review the readings for this week with past discussions in mind. You may want to fast forward to the end to hear the questions for the iTunes/iPod focus that I have contributed this week.

Starting from the ground up

2006-11-12T17:54:00.000-05:00

Since I'm doing this so late, I decided to make my audio thoughts be a bridge between our discussion last week and the upcoming readings for this week. In it, I tried to provide us with a foundation that we can hopefully use to move forward on as we try to successfully integrate technology into our classrooms.

-Adam

CXC Response

2006-11-11T00:12:00.000-05:00

This is a sort of free-flowing response to the topics we addressed as a class - not so much about the readings, but about the questions and discussion we had.

-Chris

Digital digs: an archeology of the future

2006-11-10T17:26:00.000-05:00

The link above is to Alex Reid's blog. I have been keeping an eye on this blog since my second year at Michgan State. Early on he had done some work with podcasts around the time I was working on my own portfolio based podcast. A variety of topics are explored. In partcular you will want to focus on the ongoing comments on iTunes U.

Here are some of the specific posts:
2/7/06
6/1/06
6/9/06
7/3/06
9/7/06
9/14/06
10/6/06 (morning)
10/6/06 (afternoon)
11/3/06

Critical awareness

2006-11-10T17:18:00.000-05:00

In considering both the podcasts and some of the posts here I wanted to echo an interest in critical awareness of technology among students. Christian addresses some of the visual aspects that remind me of a conversation I had recently. The premise is something like this.

As an instructor I do not consider myself and expert in the variety of technologies students are interacting with. Considering that my knowledge and credentials focus on increasingly specific areas, how can I bring the type of critical awareness many of the readings this past week seem to encourage? In other words, do we need expertise to ask our students to explore various technologies in educational settings?

I think this question connects very well with some of the educational environment discussions we have had. For example, what type of classroom does the notion of expert instructor encourage? Just some of my thoughts. Going to post here soon with the link to the blog I mentioned.

Reflection on our discussion Tuesday

2006-11-09T16:22:00.000-05:00

Early on in our time at Mitch's we talked about visual communication and productive citizenship, in relation to the Duffelmeyer & Ellertson piece. I don't remember the details of our conversation, but it relates to what Adam and I both addressed in our podcasts. While Ellertson teaches basic skills in visual communication production using Flash, the more important aspect of his teaching is the visual literacy that it instills in the students. They may or may not spend much time creating highly visual pieces of communication (I think that for most people email, with possibly some pictures as attachments, will persist with little significant change for quite a while), but the enhanced visual literacy will be very important. Note, for example, the Vernon Robinson TV ads during this past (thankfully) election cycle. Ellertson's assignments help his students see how unrepresentative a selection of images can be. Take Robinson's images of purportedly illegal immigrants burning the American flag and making obscene gestures. How many viewers will take those as representative of immigrants or Hispanics in general, not recognizing the careful selection and arrangement of images from among probably thousands of possibilities? Quite a few, unfortunately. DeVoss and Selfe discuss on p. 439 the "[s]hifting notions of literate citizenship" that complicate teaching with technology in K-12 classrooms. The increasing visual nature of our culture, discussed in many of our readings, necessitates that we prioritize the teaching of visual communication as early in a child's education as possible, which, of course, requires more than a couple hours a week in a shared computer lab or an assigned time at a common classroom computer. Will there be a time when computer classrooms will be the norm? Alas, probably only when it's seen as contributing to productive citizenship, in terms of economic productivity, rather than just plain citizenship.

ECAC responses

2006-11-07T09:11:00.000-05:00

Here I do some short responses to the previous posts for this week, as well as adding a few thoughts of my own.

Audio thoughts on the ECAC articles

2006-11-07T02:07:00.000-05:00

This week I really couldn't develop any grand unifying thoughts on the articles, so I decided to just give some overview thoughts on each article individually. One idea that did come out of the readings though was that it's going to take a lot of work to implement technology into the classroom. I end my podcast wondering where the primary responsibility for that work and effort lies.

--Adam

Comments for 11/7

2006-11-07T01:19:00.000-05:00

In this podcast I comment on the highlights of and connections between our readings for November 7, Electronic Communication Across the Curriculum. - Chris

CAC & Technology

2006-11-07T00:41:00.000-05:00

In this podcast I ask one question and consider two other directions from the reading for the course. What might the Spellman grant look like today? Continued work and continued challenges. Revisiting the classroom diagram.

Meshing practice and theory

2006-10-30T18:04:00.000-05:00

In this weeks podcast I talk about how Bolter’s frame of Practice/Theory apply to the other readings. I review briefly the details of Bolter’s argument related to why the humanities found theory an important part of a disciplinarily important approach to New Media. With the Practice/Theory frame in mind I address each of the other readings as by and large examples of combining the two endeavors in interesting ways. Though I don’t find Bolter’s overall impression to be accurate today, I do think part of the reason for that is my own interests combined with development overall in the humanities.

Blog Reflection

2006-10-30T00:15:00.000-05:00

I considered doing a podcast to share my thoughts on my blogging experience in this course, but then I thought I would somehow be sending the wrong message by using a different medium.

Anyways, in general, I think the blogging in this class was one of the smoothest experiences I have had to date when it comes to educational blogging. Blogger made it very easy for all of us to post our thoughts and view them.

However, despite the ease of use, I still have some concerns that we can consider for future educational blogging experiences:

1) It took me a while to get into the mindset of this being a blog dealing with academic discussions. Because blogger is mainly used for personal reflection and thought, it was tough for me to view it as different. It may have been especially difficult for me because I read another blog that uses the exact same background as this one, but he talks about pop culture and other mundane items.

2) I agree with Dr. Anson's thoughts on trying to have the blog be more dialogic. It felt as if we were posting for the sake of posting without putting a whole lot of thought into what everyone else had to say. Certainly by communicating with each other on the blog, we have the ability to enrich each other's thoughts.

3) Along those lines, the way the text is structured, it began to seem as if it was one voice speaking. There was not enough structure to give the reader a good sense of who was talking and on what. Part of this problem is that blogs are typically authored by one person. Each new post is only going to be made by that author. Perhaps a bulletin board would be better for a classroom situation. Not only would it encourage more dialogue between students, but it would also do a better job of classifying which posts apply to which week's topic.

4) One thing to consider if you're thinking about using a blog in a classroom with undergraduates is the idea of when they'll read new posts. I know many of us used RSS readers to alert us when new posts were made, but I wonder how many undergraduates use them. And if they're not using them, they would have to actually visit the site on a regular basis to see if any new posts have been made. I have my doubts about whether students would be that proactive.

5) Finally, I'd like to talk about the response aspect of blogs. Dr. Anson mentioned in his vidcast about how much easier it was to take notes from the blog than an pod/vidcast in order to provide appropriate response. I'm not sure about the ease of notetaking, but what I am finding is that I'm more eager or inspired to respond to the podcasts than I was to the blog posts. There something about hearing the author's tone and inflection that makes me want to respond with the same passion. I felt that when I read the blog posts, I read them to get the nuts and bolts of their thoughts. Right now, I'm seeing podcasts as being more motivating to produce dialogue than the blog was.

--Adam

Flattening of Classroom Hierarchy

2006-10-29T23:55:00.000-05:00

My podcast this week covers a key role that I see new media playing in the classroom; the role of structuring the classroom hierarchy, or lack thereof. The Wood and Fassett article go into detail on how the power dynamic of the classroom changes with the incorporation of technology. I focus a lot on that article in trying to discuss how far instructors will be willing to sacrifice power for technological alternatives.

--Adam

Various Reflections

2006-10-29T21:48:00.000-05:00

Here's a vidcast with some ramblings about recent posts and podcasts.

Using Instruction in New Media to Create New Professional Genres

2006-10-28T22:19:00.000-04:00

The question I eventually get around to asking is how should new media affect instruction in professional writing classes that deal with fields that are slow to adopt new communication technologies? Is it the place of the composition instructor, especially at the undergraduate level, to inculcate new communication techniques on students in these fields if the field as a whole has not adopted it? Can we play a role in the adoption of new media in other fields by sending out students versed in these new technologies, or should we continue to devote our time to intensively training them in communication techniques that are already well entrenched and will need to be mastered when the student fully enters the field?

Response: Blog Forum

2006-10-24T13:48:00.000-04:00

I have used collaborative forum posting in coursework before; however, I feel as though the experience with this course blog was different. First, the interface, whether web-based or via e-mail, was much smoother than that of WebCT, Wolfware, and Web-Course-In-A-Box. Most of those systems have an ugly, unreliable interface that inhibits active involvement. The blog form is more easily customizable: had I taken the time to format the sidebar, we could have seen better organization in terms of topical heirarchy and responses, we could have an interesting links section, etc. As far as readability is concerned, this format is clean and enjoyable.

Our class is unique in that we are a small group of advanced students, comfortable with one another after fourteen graduate hours taken together, who don't need much prompting to pontificate. Within our group particularly, who may have a higher comfort level with digital media in general, I think that this is an ideal format for class discussion and reflection. We joke about our respective "roles" within the class; however, I think that this is an important indicator of our comfort level with one another, something critical when writing reflective or critical essays for public consumption.

I feel that with undergraduates, this sort of forum would have to be far more structured and instructor-supported; personally, I feel that a "scaffolding" support structure would be best, in which the instructor starts out heavily involved and gradually backs off as the class becomes
more comfortable with the format. Some may feel uncomfortable given the public nature of the blog, in which case it would be best for an instructor to perhaps limit the syndication and linking of the blog in the "settings" pane.

The format of the weblog, while it allows for posts of any length, encourages brevity; thus, while impractical for formal assessment, it would provide an excellent method for determining student engagement with the material (are the posts superficial? do they touch on the
material and draw conclusions you were hoping for?). My own use of blogs in the classroom this semester ended disastrously; however, my experience with this blog (and my reflections as to WHY mine ended in disaster) will help me to create a more structured, supported system in
the future if I choose to use them again (which I will).

--Chris

Blogs for class discussion

2006-10-24T13:31:00.000-04:00

I found blogs very helpful in sorting out my own thoughts in preparation for class. As a tool for teaching I can see how students might benefit from blogs in much the way a reading journal might work. However, I think there are also some structural challenges to keep in mind. Within 704 it seems that dialog among blog posts was minimal. The small amount of cross posting or connections between posts I think may be part of the personal reading journal style the posts seem to take. Thinking about how to structure blogs as also a discussion tool, might be something to think about more in detail. Are there specific ways instructional approaches need to be set up for using blogs?

That particular question is really what I came away with after using the blog for discussion. As a student I am always sort of left with a bit of curiosity about exactly what my posts should do. Though I think the act of posting helped me when it came time to meet in class, I am unsure of where the posts fit in the larger picture of the class. I think as an element of process – a blog can be very helpful. The chance to either write a post quickly or to compose in a word processing program and then copy and paste make posting flexible in important ways. It seems thought that these different options might be thought about more from the larger class standpoint – how does posting fit in to discussion? I think this sort of question may follow throughout the different discussion formats we make use of.

Sense of helplessness

2006-10-24T01:17:00.000-04:00

Well after a lot of frustration and aggrevation, I finally figured out how to get this podcast uploaded. Sorry it's coming in so late. Ironically, frustration is the key word related to my thoughts on this week's readings. Having a listen to hear my thoughts on the problems we face identifying this new role of the teacher.

For Comparison

2006-10-23T23:08:00.000-04:00

My response post this week comes in two formats (for purposes of our comparison): I created a vidcast, then stripped the audio for a standard podcast (mp3 format). They would've been up sooner, but I've been wrestling with NCSU's servers for about two hours. Nonetheless, I think that this would be an interesting comparison. Below, I link to each:

Vidcast: http://bergspace.110mb.com/podcasts/courses/crd704/berg-1024.mov

Podcast: http://bergspace.110mb.com/podcasts/courses/crd704/berg-1024.mp3

-- Chris

Adopting technology

2006-10-23T18:45:00.000-04:00

In this podcast I talk about how Rodger's different stages of adopting technology can be thought of as more of a cyclical process. I also consider how some of the other reading reflect these processes.

Response to blog forum

2006-10-23T14:14:00.000-04:00

Christian F. Casper

CRD 704

October 23, 2006

CRD 704 Response 1: Blog

My response to using a blog as a class discussion forum is colored somewhat by previous experience because we used a similar forum in CRD 701, and as a medium it’s similar in some ways to the discussion boards in a package like WebCT Vista, which I’ve used in my own ENG 333 classes and have observed during my training to teach ENG 333 last year.

I think the blog has been a useful forum, although I’m still undecided about how much structure is needed in terms of what is expected from the students. On the one hand, it’s common to expect students to write one substantive post per week, but in my experience this often results in superficial or unthoughtful posts that aren’t terribly interesting to read (present company excepted, of course!). On the other hand, offering a forum like this as a place to post when one feels like it, perhaps for extra credit, results in most students ignoring it altogether. I suspect the reason for this is that students view their scheduled class time as delimiting the time that they need to be engaged in the class, except for their homework. Posting a reading response in an online forum feels, in a genre sense, like class discussion, so it violates the conventions of the genre in that it comes outside the time designated for it.

Another important point is the public nature of the blog. Discussion forums like this are often touted as alternative forums for shy students to use if they don’t like speaking up in class. I see some validity to this – and I speak as one of those students – but I don’t think any forum can completely eliminate the nagging feeling that a student might have that her or his contributions don’t measure up to those of her or his classmates. Still, it does permit students who don’t like to throw out half-formed ideas in class to put their thoughts down in writing in a more deliberate, reflective fashion. Furthermore, in our case the blog is available for anyone to view, whether they’re part of our class or not. I realized this over the weekend when Anne and I were putting together a family blog (“Casper the Friendly Blog”), also on Blogger, and I realized that if I use the same account for the new one that I use for the 704 blog, then it will be possible for visitors to the family blog to link over to the 704 blog. I was uncomfortable with this idea, so I’ve decided to create a new account so that the two blogs aren’t associated with each other. (Currently Anne and I have a joint account that we use, but I think we might go to individual accounts instead. In that case I’ll still create a new one for myself.) If I were going to use a blog as a discussion forum in ENG 333, say, I would try to make it as private as possible, which is an advantage of WebCT, since only class members can access the discussion boards. I don’t think undergrads should have to worry about their posts being publicly viewable.

Overall, the blog seems to be most useful when the posts are private (for classmembers’ and instructors’ eyes only) and understood to be short and supplemental to in-class discussion. Best practices in web writing always discourage very long-winded entries in favor of shorter bits of text because of reader fatigue or the possibility that the reader won’t read the text at all, determining after glancing at it that it’s just too long. In fact, I think I might be running into that problem with this entry. We’ll see what it looks like when I post it!

Power in the classroom

2006-10-21T18:33:00.000-04:00

Christian Casper's audio post for 10/24.

Videocast

2006-10-20T17:47:00.000-04:00

OK, I've tried to post a videocast to the blog, which should open with Quicktime. See if this works. --CA

Community vs. Collaboration

2006-10-18T10:14:00.001-04:00

If this audio file works, you will need to listen to it for about 30 seconds before it begins. [CMA]

Collaboration and constructivist learning

2006-10-16T22:23:00.000-04:00

Teaching Digital Rhetoric: Community, Critical Engagement, and Application (click the link for the podcast in you are not subscribed).

As a collaborative effort…

Revisiting my perspective…

Also featuring "our lives change," by Tryad (www.tryad.org) Creative Commons License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Collaboration rises above the medium

2006-10-16T21:29:00.000-04:00

Having explored the idea of collaboration in the online environment for my masters thesis, I felt as if I had read all of these articles before (although that may not neccesarily be true). Reading over the selections for this week, I began to get that familiar feeling of frustration that I had as I worked on that thesis.

To me, there is not one form of communication that lends itself better to collaboration than anything else. I'm not saying collaborating online is better; nor am I saying collaborating in person is the superior method. Based on my thesis work and the time I've spent teaching Small Group Communication, I truly believe that the success of a group's collaborative efforts is based solely on the group itself. If the group is a good, cohesive unit, they will have the ability to collaborate their efforts in any medium that they use. Likewise groups that struggle to work together will have difficulty being collaborative, regardles of the method they choose.

I think the article that really resonated my thoughts was the Hoag article. She seemed to pick up on the lack of difference between online and face-to-face environments. She also posed some additional questions that we, as researchers, should be more focused on. There are two things that we should be focused on in an attempt to have better collaborative efforts from groups: First, there needs to be more of an emphasis in the classroom on the group formation phase of group development. Instructors need to inform students of both how to choose complementary team members, but also how to communicate effectively so that the team's goals are clearly understood by everyone. The other thing that should be addressed is an idea that probably won't be well liked by educators. Teachers must work harder, now more than ever, to stay up to date with all the potential collaborative technologies. Strong groups should be able to work together, regardless of the environment. However, it is up to the teachers to make sure they let their students know of all the potential options they have to choose from when it comes to collaborative methods. This, unfortunately, means a lot more work placed upon the instructor. I can't say for sure, one way or the other, how willing instructors would be to take up this additional task, but they may not have any other choice if they want their groups to be successful

(P.S. Sorry this didn't come in blog form. I just ran out of time and energy to put these thoughts in audio form).

Adam

About Time.

2006-10-16T21:00:00.000-04:00

I may have read the Ede & Lunsford piece before; I'm not sure. However,
I often find myself discussing many of the exact same ideas that they
address in this piece. I find it amusing that we ascribe authorship of
"The Death of the Author" (Roland Barthes) to an autonomous individual,
an independent agent; despite the blow to "author"-ity that the piece
claims. I cite it myself, frequently with no thought until later as to
the partial absurdity of my claiming authority of a piece discussing the
practical absence of our socially constructed "author." We /are/
trained - in English at least - to ignore personal contradictions when
engaged in our favorite pastime: theoryspeak.

The inside world of the academy is a confusing morass to outsiders - and
the inside world of humanities studies must be even more so. Our
day-to-day work - the instruction of students, departmental affairs,
"ordinary" clerical and administrative tasks - these we do not describe
as "our work"; instead, we discuss some piece of academic triviality
that we haven't researched, let alone written about, for weeks. The
most maddening practice to those outside our little world must be our
insistence on "single-author books" as the sole means for securing
tenure. Collaborative work - the heart of the Ede & Lunsford piece - is
ignored or degraded by the established practices of humanities scholarship.

Chris

Collaboration and authorship

2006-10-16T14:15:00.000-04:00

Ede and Lunsford's discussion is important for those of us who assign team writing assignments in our courses and then have to assess them. I know of instructors who try to assign an individual grade to each member of a team that produces a single collaboratively produced document, but I've never found a scheme that effectively breaks down the contributions of each collaborator. (They tend to rely on individual evaluations of teammates, which I don't necessarily trust.) The biggest problem here, in my experience, is that students don't like working in groups (and I sympathize) and they tend not to think it's fair to be graded on work that is partially done by someone else. I'd like to see some literature on assessing collaborative projects.

My other thought as I read these pieces is that they reminded me of some work I did two semesters ago in a philosophy of science class that I then applied to my 701 and 702 papers. We read some work by Helen Longino on the construction of objectivity in scientific work by collaboration and peer review. Essentially, her point was that individual scientists aren't objective, but the objectivity of their work can be enhanced by criticism by others, most obviously in the form of peer review. In that sense, no work can be maximally objective unless it's been subjected to some sort of collaboration. We're beginning to see forums, such as the e-letter in the online version of the journal Science, that allow commentary to be posted along with the published article, essentially converting the article from a finished piece of work to just part of an ongoing, living document. It seems to me that this is the future of scholarly publishing and those of us teaching academic communication to students would do well to try to create projects to address these new genres.

Hybridity

2006-10-15T21:54:00.000-04:00

I like a lot of what has emerged here concerning distance and
hybridity in courses, especially in interaction like this. It
occurred to me that, from an instructional perspective, different but
related skills are at work in "leading" a discussion in a class and
online; and different skills are at work in different discussion
modes in both forms. For example, leading a discussion on a blog like
this allows for a lot of time to reflect on the posts and see
relationships between and among them, then craft questions or further
statements to shape the discussion, which proceeds sort of like a
loris moves--one claw at a time. In faster modes, such as IM or chat,
the interaction is more like a typical classroom, and there are
different orchestration skills needed. In classrooms, there is some
control over discussions on the basis of what students do: what
prompts they're given, whether they report out in specific episodes
(which slows everything down and allows for reflection), and so on.
But there is also an immediacy in FTF interaction that is removed,
somewhat, in electronic interaction. It's no less challenging, but
just different . . . a different order of necessity and pedagogical
skill.

Hybridity

2006-10-15T21:50:00.000-04:00

I like a lot of what has emerged here concerning distance and hybridity in courses, especially in interaction like this. It occurred to me that, from an instructional perspective, different but related skills are at work in "leading" a discussion in a class and online; and different skills are at work in different discussion modes in both forms. For example, leading a discussion on a blog like this allows for a lot of time to reflect on the posts and see relationships between and among them, then craft questions or further statements to shape the discussion, which proceeds sort of like a loris moves--one claw at a time. In faster modes, such as IM or chat, the interaction is more like a typical classroom, and there are different orchestration skills needed. In classrooms, there is some control over discussions on the basis of what students do: what prompts they're given, whether they report out in specific episodes (which slows everything down and allows for reflection), and so on. But there is also an immediacy in FTF interaction that is removed, somewhat, in electronic interaction. It's no less challenging, but just different . . . a different order of necessity and pedagogical skill.

Chris M. Anson [Web site]

Professor of English
Director, Campus Writing and Speaking Program
Box 8105, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-8105
(919) 513-4080

Other concerns with distance learning

2006-10-10T09:12:00.000-04:00

This topic fits well with the area I'm reasearching for my 704 paper: hybrid courses and instructional technologies for asynchronous communication outside the classroom such as WebCT. The readings today addressed many of the concerns about distance learning that I've found in my reading in the literature, but there are a few that were left out.

First, while several of the readings addressed the increased faculty workload that online learning brings, they didn't do much to address some of the implications of that. The most important, I think, is the effect of the "shelf-life" of the material. Because an online course can't be as easily modified as a more traditional classroom-based course, the material needs to be able to last longer without major revision. A consequence of this is that material in online courses can often be more superficial than classroom instruction. This can be overcome in hybrid-style courses that allow classroom time for active learning, but in purely online distance courses this is hard to overcome.

Ragan and White gave us a nice analysis of good communication practices by instructors, but we were left without much analysis in these readings of non-verbal feedback between communicants online. Some of the readings I've looked at for my paper examine the difficulty that instructors have in finding that "deer in headlights" look in students when they're interacting online rather than face-to-face. In hybrid courses the fact that the students and instructor meet periodically helps, but it can also cause problems for the student by throwing off their communication cues when they have to switch back and forth between face-to-face and online learning.

Anyway, without writing my term paper here, these are a few of the concerns we can add to our list to discuss in class.

Are we getting ahead of ourselves?

2006-10-10T01:14:00.000-04:00

Reading over the articles for this week, I found myself torn. On one hand, I thought all of the authors brought up some really interesting points and I tended to agree for the most part with their suggestions for how to handle online education in the future. However, I also had this nagging feeling that something wasn't right here. Going through all of these readings, I got the sense that these authors feel online education is an inevitability and we should all start preparing for it. That to me, is a bit presumptuous.

There are a number of problems which weren't being addressed in these articles which need to be dealt with first, I feel, before we can worry about how we will teach online. I think the biggest issue is getting all instructors to agree to this in the first place. We've harped on this issue a lot in class, but it deserves to be said again; there are going to be some faculty at each university who will resist using technology in their classroom. Unless they are mandated by the university, some will refuse to learn how to use the technology.

Let's say though that we somehow do reach a point where all education takes place online. In my research, I have yet to find any proof that shows distance education flattens instructor effectiveness. In other words, those that are likely engaging teachers in person will likely be engaging, somehow, online. Those who aren't as engaging won't be online either. So if there is no difference in teacher effectiveness, why make the shift to distance education. Unless the plan is to eliminate un-engaging instructors because fewer teachers are needed in an online environment, but I don't think the industry would allow that.

Right now, we are still in the infancy stages of distance education. To me, it seems like we are trying to push the cart before the horse by writing articles focusing solely on what the instructor should do in an online environment before learning what the future of distance education is. If this article, Can Internet Communication Sustain Us?, is any indication we may soon see a decline in the desire to do all of our communicating through a computer.

Adam

More on identity online

2006-10-05T15:19:00.000-04:00

I stumbled on to some very interesting blog entries from an instructor at Ball State. I have linked her blog through the title above, but basically she is teaching 100 level English class using Second Life. A pretty interesting idea and it seems some great thoughts on identity are developing. Just sort of another thing to think about in relation to the reading and discussion we've don.

Interdisciplinarity

2006-10-04T14:39:00.000-04:00

I was just thinking about our conversations in class about interdisciplinarity in light of the readings the past two weeks and I'm wondering about what direction this might take administratively in the academy. The sound readings from a couple weeks ago and the Knadler (Spelman) and Hess (faculty webpages) readings this week brought up the blurring of the boundary between communication and English departments. These studies were done mostly in departments of English, yet they bring in these other modes of communication that we normally associate more closely with communication departments. (Remember that we really wanted to see the web portfolios in the Knadler piece.) As I recall this is kind of where we left the conversation, perhaps with the unspoken assumption that we might see some of these departments merging at some schools (which, of course, would just reverse what happened back in the 1920s and is already happening some places). But with the new emphasis on interdisciplinary studies that take place across departmental boundaries is it even necessary to merge the departments? Might we be able to carry on just as well cooperatively rather than as a single body? Our own program is demonstrating how this can be done productively. For example, I think of myself as belonging more to the "English side" of our program, but I have yet to take a course here with "ENG" in front of it. Might we see this trend tricking down to the master's and undergraduate levels? Could someday an undergrad receive a degree in English by taking the core sequence in English and taking all of her electives in the COM department, or vice versa? Maybe it's already happening somewhere. But someday we'll probably all design our own programs anyway.

Test Podcast

2006-10-03T15:24:00.000-04:00

This is a test for podcasting for the next discussion format.

Identity...

2006-10-03T15:00:00.000-04:00

This is more of an idea post than anything else. In all the reading on identity I was also thinking about online courses. Though I'm a big fan on meatspace classrooms, it seems that an online class might really be able to consider identity in interesting ways. What would a class look like that played with identity? Would such a class be possible considering the other readings we looked at?

IP and University Websites

2006-10-03T10:16:00.000-04:00

I'm planning on discussing the Hess article first, and one idea he
brings up that I feel is very interesting given the IP discussions we've
had in other venues is that of University claims to ownership of faculty
websites: specifically, how can the university claim ownership when it
forces page owners to /disclaim/ university involvement (e.g., that
little blurb that NCSU wants at the bottom of all hosted sites on the
www4 network: "The material located at this site is not endorsed,
sponsored or provided on or behalf of North Carolina State University.").

Hess also offers some interesting ideas on self-representation in the
visual, something else I want to discuss.

Chris

Identity in the online classroom

2006-10-03T08:37:00.000-04:00

I see a connection between the readings today and the article that I posted to the wiki on Friday. We see from several of the readings that students who are members of underprivileged groups struggle to maintain their identity with their ethnic background, gender identity, what have you, in the freer, more anonymous space online. Whereas the predominantly white, male users of the Internet in its early days celebrated its anonymity and the freedom to create new identities, others who have to fight every day to have their identities recognized and respected struggle against this trend. In the article on the wiki, the authors explore through autoethnography the way that power is made distributed, embodied, and malleable by communication technology in the classroom. In our new electronic classroom, students share power with the instructor (whether the instructor wants it or not) and, it seems, have their identity blended with the instructor's as well. In Knadler's classroom his African American female students used their web portfolios to reaffirm their identity as African American women rather than to explore new, alternative identities that we often see in white users of the internet. Could it be that this was a reaction to the blending of their identities with that of their white, male instructor? More likely it's a reaction to the white male environment of the Internet in general, but I do wonder how much Knadler's own identity played a role in their choices.

Different technology = Different identity?

2006-10-03T00:48:00.000-04:00

I considered doing a podcast of my thoughts on this week's readings on a somewhat trial basis as we prepare to transition into a new method of doing our pre-class discussions. However, as I began to think about what I would say on my podcast, I began to think to myself, "Gee, whatever I say here, I'll end up repeating in class". Doing a podcast would take away the thunder of the insights I would hope to address in the classroom.

I haven't felt that same way in doing discussion on the blog and I think the features of the technology play a role in that. On the blog, things are more formal. Trying to do a long post would be fruitless because the reader will lose interest. You have to edit yourself and format your comments in a more succinct manner. I don't feel those confines when I do an audio recording. I would talk on the podcast in the same rambling manner that I would in face-to-face situations.

So I guess I'm left with two options: 1) I could work on edit my oral thoughts and have my podcast be more formal so as not to repeat myself once I get to the class. 2) I could go on with the more loose, rambling format and hope that it generates enough interest from listeners so that they can respond and still produce a fruitful conversation in the classroom.

If I choose choice one, then what advantage is there to do a podcast over a blog post? If I choose choice two, I run the risk of no one being able to respond to my thoughts and then I'm left with nothing new to say in the classroom.

I'd like to hear what everyone else feels and if anyone else sees a change in identity as you change technologies.

- Adam

Some things to think about

2006-09-26T14:07:00.000-04:00

I have linked through the title Bound by law? Tales from the public domain (2006), by Aoki, Keith; Boyle, James; & Jenkins, Jennifer. The work pursues the boundary between public domain and intellectual property. This issue is related to one of the things I hope to discuss today in class. I will be brining in a short film style short that I made that violates several issues around copyright, but that I think could be seen as its new intelectual work. The use of media to create and think about new ideas is one that I think the powerpoint music video assignments we read about deal with. However, as Porter and DeVoss point out enforcing copyright seems to structure students works in particular ways. Including different types of media in our future classrooms are likely to continue to deal with many of these issues.

A Bit of the Music Geek

2006-09-26T12:45:00.000-04:00

Carter's article was interesting - if a bit too associative for my taste. I particularly enjoyed "The Hustle": the emphasis on the "so who?" question rather than the "so what?" question. I've always thought in terms of association: it is an invaluable tool for understanding, and one that I think is underemphasized in entry-level courses. Teaching students to make that jump, to see the developmental chain rather than a box of information, is teaching them to understand the knowledge that we are trying to impart. Within the chain of association, we can see the dissidents, the advocates, the interaction and mediation of ideas, and ultimately, how they evolved into their present state.

I must admit - I also loved that he mentioned The Who - possibly the greatest rock band of all time. When I saw mention of the band, I paid closer attention, and noticed that he left out John Entwistle. Given the nature of the piece, and my love of associative thinking, I realized this morning that this was a great error. Think of the important facets of composition in the contemporary era: with Townshend, we get music and lyrics (sound and text), with Daltrey we get singing and lyrics (orality and sound), with Moon we get rhythm (the rhythm of speech, even when written). What was Entwistle's purpose? Bass is certainly underappreciated, but his contribution to the band was much greater than that. John Entwistle was the artist behind many of the posters and album covers: most notably the design for Tommy, Quadrophenia, and The Who by Numbers. Without John Entwistle, we lose the visual piece of the art.

-Chris

Podcasting and Plagiarism here at NC State

2006-09-25T19:22:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure how many of you are following this, but this is an article from the Technician about our own Dr. Schrag who began posting podcast versions of his lectures for sale on his website. About a week after it began, the dean had him take the site down due to some confusion over the intellectual property/copyright issues that surround this.

I see this being a big issues in the years to come in the educational world. Should a lecture podcast be treated the same as a published journal article? Is it right to charge students to obtain these recordings? Does paying for a podcast clear up the copyright issues or make matters worse? Frankly, I would love to see more professors offer these as a free service. I'm sure most will disagree with me due to the issues I addressed above, but I think the value of this technology cannot be ignored or bogged down in the cumbersome intellectual property debate.

Adam

Reflection on our discussion today

2006-09-19T17:04:00.000-04:00

Here are my ruminations on/summary of our discussion today at Mitch's. We touched on some important issues, including the possible roles of machine scoring within the course sequence and within the writing proces, some rhetorical issues, and the possible technological issues still to be overcome. I found it significant that, as with Dr. Miller's survey, we really couldn't disengage the rhetorical issues from the technological hurdles. As Adam's MSNBC article from yesterday indicates, the technological issues are trying to keep up with a rapidly moving target, so there's a lot of work to do.

I particularly enjoyed our discussion of the roles of machine scoring within the educational process. As Chris pointed out, there are different issues with different classes, and perhaps machine scoring might find more of a place earlier in a student's career, but I think we all agreed that there are significant hurdles to overcome for the technology before that would happen, since that's the most critical part of a student's career for the development of their writing skills. Adam suggested that the use of machine scoring would have to be universal because of differences in scoring by machines and by humans. The transition from using primarily one to primarily the other will bring up pedagogical issues that we might not even imagine yet. I liked Adam's suggestion that perhaps machine scoring would be useful in the drafting stage. This might avoid some problems with the rhetorical situation that we tried to address and might also avoid some of Chris's concerns about machine scoring turning writing into a product rather than a process. Chad rightly pointed out potential issues with structure and organization that would have to be overcome. A slightly tangential discussion that I thought was interesting was Chris's idea of using machine scoring to defend against claims of ideological bias on the part of the instructor.

As I mentioned at the beginning, it's exceedingly difficult to leave out technological issues and discuss only the situational and audience issues that machine scoring raises. It's clear that while we might be pushed by others to move in this direction, significant questions remain on many fronts before we make machine scoring a standard tool in our classes.

Automated Assessment and the Rhetorical Situation

2006-09-18T15:44:00.000-04:00

I want to start out tomorrow thinking about how automated assessment affects the rhetorical situation for the student. It seems reasonable to say that those of us who teach professional writing (which in this group is probably only me) can only approximate the rhetorical situations for the genres that we teach, but we do the best we can. Those of us who teach academic writing and speaking possibly are able to more closely mimic the rhetorical situations and exigences that students will see down the road -- but correct me if I'm wrong here! In any event, it seems clear that the presence or absence of a human audience, or perception of such, has a tremendous effect on the approach to and execution of a communication task by our students. Let's start with some of questions similar to what Dr. Miller used in her survey, with which I assisted her: Are there any situations in which is would be acceptable to use automatic assessment for student writing? Of student speaking? Are there rhetorical issues that affect your answer to either of these? In her survey, she asked respondents to assume for the purposes of their answers that all technological issues had been worked out and that such assessment would be reliable, but many of the respondents simply couldn't get past the technical difficulties they predicted couldn't possibly be overcome, including several that appeared in the Anson piece in our readings. What significance does that have for our teaching and assessment of student writing and speaking?

What is the worth of words?

2006-09-18T14:49:00.000-04:00

Here's an article I pulled of MSN today which talks about the impact our growing multimedia environment is having on our literacy skills.

Adam

Test

2006-09-12T09:59:00.000-04:00

OK, I'm trying out the email send process.

So here are some things I'm wondering about with respect to copyright issues.

Are these copyright issues?

Placing something from YouTube on a personal blog.

Cutting some code from a Web site for design purposes and using it in one's own.

Sending a photo image from a Web site to someone via email.

Using an image of a football player at an NFL site to create a wallpaper at one's own site.

Using a recorded song as background music at a blog.

Requiring students to send their papers to TurnItIn.com, which will own the papers for eternity, or the death of the company, whichever comes first.

Sending the recorded lectures of a teacher to other students as compressed files over the Internet.

Placing a video clip on YouTube of a professor lecturing.

Sending an article to a friend which you've located by logging in to your university library.

What's fair use? What's a violation?

Hypertext today

2006-09-11T19:20:00.000-04:00

I really enjoyed Slatin's article on "Reading Hypertext" because I was impressed with how perceptive he was regarding the implications hypertext has had on reading and writing. However, I also was able to see how the modifications and advancements in hypertext writing have changed over time.

One of the points Slatin makes is that hypertext lends itself to three different types of readers; the browser, the user and the co-author. I would argue that we could add another type of reader today; the editor. Hypertext has become such a malleable medium that we have the ability to not only add on to what someone has written, we can now change what they originally said as well. This capability allows readers to consume information in a totally different way. At the very least, the ability to edit should alter the way we define the reader as a co-author.

While the ability to edit someone else's hypertext is appealing, it prevents authors from having any accountability. If I make a claim in my writings on hypertext, the audience has one of two choices; 1) accept what I wrote as true or 2) edit my claim to make it a true statement. This changing nature of fact creates as Stephen Colbert calls it, wikiality. To see him describe it, watch the video below:

The other interesting thing about hypertext is that I see a lot of parallels between how Slatin suggests we approach it and how instructors are approaching new educational methods in the classroom. It used to be that instructors had to create a well defined "beginning" and "end" to get students to understand the concepts being taught. Technology is the classroom, however, has enabled a more free-flowing approach. Students can reach the same conclusions about the material being taught from a number of different perspectives. Some may be visual learners and need visuals to grasp concepts. Other are very literal and can understand ideas by reading them from text. It would seem that just as Slatin says hypertext authors have to predict how the audience will respond to the information being posted, teachers must try and predict what methods will be best for getting the most out of their students.
-Adam

Plagiarism & Narratives

2006-09-11T16:54:00.000-04:00

One of the strongest points in the Adler-Kassner et al. piece (echoed
somewhat by Selfe) was the focus on narrative binaries in the rhetoric
surrounding plagiarism. I fully agree that the mainstream media's focus
on plagiarism is a dualistic either/or portrayal somewhat along the
lines of students either as "duplicitous cheats" (4) or as "naive
innocents" (4) who don't understand what plagiarism is. As a corollary,
Selfe's article states that "the rhetoric associated with national
literacy projects serves to exacerbate the dangers that they pose"
(422). Our mainstream media - as it frequently does - takes an issue
that is always surrounded by multiple contexts and circumstantial
factors and condenses it into a sensationalistic diatribe aimed at
selling more ads.

Last spring, I attended a workshop on plagiarism led by Drs. Anson &
Dannels, one that really added some perspective to the issue: it placed
some of the responsibility for plagiarism directly upon the instructors,
something rarely seen. We, as instructors, have a responsibility to our
students to design assignments that force them to do their own thinking,
"plagiarism-proof" assignments. If you design unique, course-specific
assignments, it removes much of the opportunity students have to plagiarize.

Now for my own narrative/assignment. For the ENG 101 section I
currently teach, I assign a summary paper for one of four scientific
articles of my own choosing (all of which appeared within the past few
months). There are several supporting assignments built in, including a
paragraph that summarizes the basics of the article, which forces them
to choose only the most important information, which they then present
to a peer who read a different article. If the peer can understand the
basics of the report, then the student did well... I got a number of
comments from students telling me how helpful this assignment was in
constructing their papers. Before any work was done, students completed
a workshop about plagiarism.

Now for the "plagiarism proof" part. Because students had to use one of
four articles of my choosing, I was able to become quite familiar with
the articles. Because they had to further condense the article into a
single (3/4 page) paragraph, they already knew what was most important,
and had a good basis for a non-plagiarized summary. All of these made
the single instance of plagiarism disgustingly easy to find.

A student copied phrases and sentences directly from the article,
inserting them in the middle of paragraphs, into key support statements,
etc. Because of the nature of the assignment, it was far too easy to
spot his plagiarism and call him on it (apparently he was desperate and
late). He was decidedly nervous when handing this in - he knew what he
had done beforehand... Comments?
-Chris

Technological literacy

2006-09-11T16:34:00.000-04:00

The readings for this week address how new developments in communication
technology have heightened the importance of teaching literacy as an
understanding of the social implications of communicating in various
media, rather than as competent performance in those media. Selfe
outlines the social issues in demographic terms, while Slatin addresses
the new relationship between author and reader brought about by hypertext.
(One could hardly teach a hypertext genre in the classroom without
addressing this.)

Baron writes about the pencil as a communication technology (nothing
terribly new here), but he raises indirectly the question of why are we
now so interested in technological literacy, with the spread of computers
in the classroom, when we've been using communication technology for
thousands of years. What took so long? Maybe it's just my ignorance of
the literature that gives the illusion of a gap, but the questions that
Selfe raises could have been applied to writing versus speaking centuries
ago -- although, in fairness, Plato approached writing in a way that's
similar to Slatin, even if their value judgments on their respective
subjects differ.

The pieces on plagiarism illustrate nicely the implications of this notion
of literacy. Plagiarism and "fair use" can be understood only in terms of
the spirit of the law, rather than the letter, which requires a deeper
engagement with the issue, taking into account the source, context, and
purpose of the discourse and the medium. I teach my students in ENG 333
about plagiarism and ethical conduct near the beginning of the term. How
I approach this in the future may be affected by my deepening
understanding of the media in which I'm teaching them to communicate.

Christian Casper

School of the future

2006-09-11T11:24:00.000-04:00

This is a CNN article that talks about the "School of the Future" opened by Bill Gates in Philadelphia this year.

This school has completely changed the educational process; from the way teachers write on the "board", to how students obtain resources and information. Even the cafeteria is different than those found in most schools.

I think it will be real interesting to study this place and how its using to technology; both from an educational perspective and from a sociological perspective as well.

Adam

A collection of sorts...

2006-09-10T16:41:00.000-04:00

First, a paper I was reminded of after the readings this week. Second, online word processing software that might be interesting our next discussion technology. As such, I'm working on my post for this week using it and seeing how/if the public document stuff works.

Update: So after some trouble with the web based word processor being slow I was able to get it working today. Might not be the best thing for us to use, but it did work for me to finish my post.

Technology in the writing classroom

2006-09-06T10:14:00.000-04:00

My initial thoughts are related to Chad's discussion in class on
electronic genres and social action. In the paper I did for CRD 703 I
characterized communication by scientists in electronic newsgroups as
lying at the mediating point on the activity triangle, whereas print
genres (which, I would contend, includes the electronic editions of
journals) lie at the object point. Currently in ENG 333 we teach almost
exclusively object genres: research reports, reviews, oral presentations,
and posters. If I were to consciously teach communication in electronic
media in my course, it would imply that I would have to shift my focus
from exclusively object genres to include more mediating genres such as
email and discussion boards. Therefore, including electronic genres in my
teaching would require a dramatic shift in the focus of the course, from
looking at how to take "finished" work and present it to different
audiences to looking more at the communicative practices involved in the
ongoing *process* of research. Practically speaking, this would be
difficult, because not every student is currently involved in research,
and it would be difficult to simulate that experience for those who
aren't. I see this as substantially different from Lunsford's discussion
of the writing courses at Stanford, because I don't see her acknowledging
the substantial difference in social actions from an activity theory point
of view that can exist between print and electronic genres.

Digital Divide Separates Students

2006-09-05T23:52:00.000-04:00

Here's an article that was just posted on CNN's website today which shows that elements of Selfe and Selfe's article are still applicable today. It appears that things are better than they were when Selfe and Selfe wrote their article, but we still have a long way to go.

P.S. Click on the title of the post to read the article.

by Adam

Technology?

2006-09-04T17:48:00.000-04:00

Together, the readings for this week help frame a focus on technology in Composition - which I hope will remain the subject of our discussions for the semester. The CCCC statement forms a context that we can hopefully use as a foundation for discussion that will hopefully be supplemented with insight from Communication. From the statement I see the two questions forming; (1) Technology for technologies sake? (2) Technology for pedagogy? It seems clear that we are basing our exploration on the later. But I will often throughout the semester find it helpful to return to these questions in my excitement toward technology.

Self & Self (S&S) along with Poster further help to guide my passion for technology with some important analysis. S&S work to expand cultural/race/ethnic/gender awareness of technology as a system. Though the discussion itself is dated technologically speaking, it does lend great weight to our second question: technology for pedagogy? So what might we think about from S&S when using blogs as a tool for teaching Composition?

First, notice the way the posts enter your reader or appear in your web browser. Are specific relationships encouraged by the technologies? Clearly we have more control over these built in relationships, but the types of critical awareness that S&S argue for are still useful. Poster would similarly have us focus on the way we relate to blogs. Do blogs encourage disciplinarity in a way that might be valuable in the classroom? I know I tend to draft – as I am now – my blog posting for a class in a way I do not do otherwise when using blogs. What sort of practice does this reflect? With the several questions and observations posted here, I am looking forward to reading and hearing everyone else’s thoughts.

--
Chad O'Neil

Addressing the Implementation of Technology in the Classroom

2006-09-03T16:17:00.000-04:00

As I read over the articles for this week's class and as I recall other
writings related to this subject, it would seem that their are two
outcomes that always arise when instructors attempt to implement
technology into their courses.

1) Instructors (usually younger ones) are so impressed and excited with
technological advancements, they look to find ways for technology to
completely replace existing educational methods.

2) Instuctors (usually older ones) acknowledge the changing landscape of
education and add technology to their course to complement existing
educational methods. These instructors provide students with the most
basic instructions in order for them to use the technology.

Neither of these approaches fully utilizes the technology's possibilies
for the classroom. Both scenarios involve using technology as a tool
instead of the way I feel it should be used, as a form of creative
expression.

The instructors in scenario 1 disregard proven educational tools with
reckless abandon in favor of technology. There is a reason why certain
methods have been used in the classroom for centuries; it's because they
work. To simply expect technological tools to be equal replacements is
irresponsible. Instructors should look to find way to complement
technology with existing educational methods.

The instructors in scenario 2 begin to do this, but do not take it far
enough. Their method leads to the use of technology becoming as stagnant
and uncreative as completing assignments using pen and paper has become.
The best example of this is the cliche that powerpoint presentations have
turned into. What was once a great tool to visually enhance one's speech,
is now being used by students like a cookie cutter. It's rare these days
to see a powerpoint presentation that you remember five minutes after it's
over. You can see these concerns regarding Powerpoint expressed in the
Lunsford article on p. 176.

Selfe and Selfe seem to understand this point as the refer to computers as
achieving "great good and great evil" (p. 484). However, their critque
explores the problem with technology as it relates to culture and race.
My concern comes from the failure to use technology as a creative
enhancement of one's work in the classroom. As instructors, we should
strive to get the best out of our students. We need to begin to look at
how technology can help us do that. This may difficult at times as it
would require instructors to have a more advanced knowledge of the
technology than the students. Difficult as it may be, we need to continue
to explore this subject if we hope to have technology benefit in the
classroom.

Sorry for the long post, but hopefully it will produce some good
discussion in the class.

by Adam

Mapping a 12-Year Gap - Selfe & Selfe

2006-08-31T15:27:00.000-04:00

Selfe and Selfe provide an interesting - and increasingly common - map-based metaphorical lens through which they examine what is now frequently called the "Digital Divide." The map is a useful rhetorical tool: an icon of cultural narrative that serves as a representative of control, one particularly suited to this area of discussion. I do feel, however, that their discussion is somewhat dated. I found myself really having to stretch to see the contemporary relevance of some of their statements, and in at least one instance, I found myself wondering if they, too, were reaching to make a point.

Their taking issue with the graphical user interface as an example of cultural imperialism by embodying the "corporate culture and the values of professionalism" (486) was probably the first point at which I truly felt that their examples were strained, if not downright classist and racist. As alternatives, they give the kitchen counter top, the mechanic's workbench, or a fast-food restaurant (486-87), which would be completely inappropriate considering the type of work for which computers are most frequently used. Kitchen counter tops are used to prepare food, not documents, spreadsheets, or graphics. Presumably, most university students - even freshman students from minority families - understand that at some point during college, they will have to use a desk to study, write, or perform some other form of schoolwork. (PS - The pointer on a Macintosh has never been a "white hand," it's always been a black arrow).

Many of the other issues they state are now anachronisms: the default language of the computer world may still be English (490), but almost every major software package used in universities worldwide has hundreds of linguistic options. Interface design incorporating heirarchical builds may be interpreted as oppressive (492), but it can also be interpreted as a response to a logical request for organization: search through eight thousand documents for the one you need without some form of organization and see how long it is before you find yourself clamoring for a file folder or directory.

The digital divide may still exist - as strongly as ever - but the lens that Selfe and Selfe provide, while powerful in 1994, needs to be repurposed to reflect the new nature of the beast.

--Chris

Interesting article

2006-08-30T12:37:00.000-04:00

Burns, Philip J. "Supporting Deliberative Democracy: Pedagogical Arts of the Contact Zone of the Electronic Public Sphere." Rhetoric Review 18.1 (1999): 128-46. [Available through JSTOR on the NCSU Library website]

Burns's interests lie in enabling students' participation in democratic deliberation and culture through writing, using web-based technologies. The Intercollegiate Electronic Democracy Project (IEDP), of which he is a member, focuses on three topics important to pedagogy in the electronic world: computers and writing, public discourse (especially deliberative rhetoric), and multiculturalism (via "contact-zone theory" and pedagogy). The article discusses the pedagogical implications of the convergence of the three.

I've read this article before, and cited it in at least two papers about deliberative political discourse; however, the pedagogical arguments that Burns makes are equally strong. It might be a useful source for us to look at during the semester.

- Chris

An article I helped with that might be applicable

2006-08-29T17:22:00.000-04:00

I posted a link to an article on the wiki I thought might be helpful.
Not sure where it would fall yet in the course.

Test Post

2006-08-29T17:07:00.000-04:00

This should work as the first post.