In the beginning

Call for Proposals - 2012 Graduate Research Network (GRN) at Computers and Writing

2012-01-18T13:41:00.000-05:00

The Graduate Research Network (GRN) invites proposals for its 2012 workshop, May 17, 2012, at the Computers and Writing Conference hosted by North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC.

The C&W Graduate Research Network is an all-day pre-conference event, open to all registered conference participants at no charge. Roundtable discussions group those with similar interests and discussion leaders who facilitate discussion and offer suggestions for developing research projects and for finding suitable venues for publication. We encourage anyone interested or involved in graduate education and scholarship--students, professors, mentors, and interested others--to participate in this important event. The GRN welcomes those pursuing work at any stage, from those just beginning to consider ideas to those whose projects are ready to pursue publication. Participants are also invited to apply for travel funding through the CW/GRN Travel Grant Fund.

Deadline for submissions is April 25, 2012. For more information or to submit a proposal, visit our Web site at http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/writling/GRN/2011/index.html or email Janice Walker at jwalker@georgiasouthern.edu.

Doorstops, Bed Posts, and other Nonsense

2011-12-21T10:41:00.003-05:00

My university was nice enough to loan me a MacBook to play with--both so I could do some things I wanna do for a research project I'm working on and so I could be a bit more knowledgeable about Mac "stuff" (I am admittedly Mac-illiterate) so I can help students/faculty.

So I brought it home for the break to play with, but unfortunately the "powers that be" have it set up so that I do not have administrative privileges. So, I try to access my home wireless network to connect to the Internet and it asks for administrator login info (which of course I don't have), so I can't download and install the programs I need (which will also probably require administrator logon info). So, I figure I'll play with iMovie, but when I connect my Flip and try to access FlipShare, the silly thing again wants administrator info.

WHO in the world decided that technology which should be in support of faculty endeavors should be so SECURE that it will only work as an expensive doorstop??? OK, so if all I want to do is type papers and save them to a USB drive, this thing might work..... Blccch.

And, of course, since it IS the break, IT people aren't responding to my requests for help. Their idea of a "break" must be NOT working; my idea of a "break" is time to try to do some of the work I don't have time for during the semester.

Is this any way to run a (research) university?

Can you feel my frustration??!

Luckily, thanks to a friend, I discover there is a quite easy way to change the administrator password and get in. So, what's with all the security that isn't secure after all?

We are moving ever closer to a world where nothing the individual does will be private in any sense of the word; however, the individual will be limited to doing/using only that which they are allowed to do/use. Cloud computing, while a lifesaver in many ways, can also be used as a means of control.

For many, many years I have warned/forecasted that we will again see the days of "dumb terminals" instead of full-featured PCs (or Macs); instead of accessing programs on a mini-computer, however, we will access them online. Many universities and companies already do this, of course, saving on software licensing fees and making more programs available to more users.

But think this through: when ALL software is accessed online (probably with concomitant online storage of our files), then not only would it be possible to track our every use (and keystroke--no, I'm not paranoid....much), but it also, well, keeps us honest. That is, we will no longer be able to pirate, er, I mean borrow, copies of software from friends; we will not longer be able to create our own software packages (or hacks); and we will no longer be able to decide for ourselves even when we want to keep using old (unsupported) versions of software rather than upgrade.

In "The Coming War on General Computation" (http://events.ccc.de/congress/2011/Fahrplan/events/4848.en.html), Cory Doctorow says, "The coming century will be dominated by war against the general purpose computer, and the stakes are the freedom, fortune and privacy of the entire human race." All I can say is, "Yup."

GRN Is Scannable!

2011-10-08T07:59:00.000-05:00

Scan the QR code with your cell phone app to be taken directly to the GRN Web site! Post it to your Facebook or Google+ pages, tatoo it on your--well, someplace visible, wear it on your t-shirts, or, well, just scan it!

Look for more exciting news from GRN. And don't forget to donate to the C&W/GRN Travel Grant Fund and Ride2CW!

My First WPA Conference

2011-09-01T15:06:00.001-05:00

Day One:
I really didn’t want to eat hotel fare my first night in Baton Rouge, but as I wandered a bit away from the hotel, I realized it probably was not a good idea to be out alone, so here I sit.

Day Two:
WPA breakfast. Sightseeing. Old friends and new ones. At the WPA banquet, I admired Amy Kimme Hea’s beautiful necklace—beads—so she GAVE it to me! (Hey, gee, I really like your computer!)

I discovered there wasn’t much open at night or on the weekend around the hotel. The downtown area was pretty much closed up when the workers in downtown businesses go home. That plus much construction work going on in the area made for slim pickings. However, I did manage a bit of “fun” sightseeing on this lonely day, when I hadn’t yet run into anyone I knew who wasn’t busy. I found the old State Capitol building, and took lots of amazing pictures (well, amazing for me—even if my photography skills stink).

Day Three:

I enjoyed attending all the sessions. Lots of fresh perspectives and very interesting questions!

Day Four:
Exhausted. But my flight out isn’t until tomorrow morning, so after the half day of sessions, I ventured out again. Found some more “fun” sightseeing things to do: a casino that thinks it’s a boat (but doesn’t go anywhere), a planetarium/science museum (didn’t allow pictures), an art museum (I didn’t take pictures because most art museums don’t allow them, so I didn’t even ask), and a ship/veteran’s memorial (yes, I took pictures).

Day Five:
Finally, I’m home.

All in all, WPA is an amazing conference, but somehow I felt “out of the loop.” I did know many of the people in attendance—and I’m going to be hosting the WPA conference in 2013—but perhaps since I don’t usually attend the conference, or perhaps because technically I’m not a WPA, I really didn’t get the warm/welcoming/nurturing feeling that I expected from a conference of this (small) size. Everyone seemed to be too busy, too otherwise engaged, or whatever. It just is NOT the kind of conference that welcomes “newbies” with open arms. Sorry, but that’s the feeling I got.

I’m glad I went for two important reasons. One, since we will be hosting the conference, it’s good to have a sense of it, of the expectations and needs of the attendees, etc. And, even more important (to me), I really did get a lot out attending the sessions. There are some very smart people out there in WPA-land!

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

2011-04-01T12:33:00.002-05:00

April 15 is the deadline to submit proposals for the Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy!

The Georgia Conference on Information Literacy invites proposals across disciplines for workshops and presentations that will consider, extend, or otherwise address information literacy in K-12 and postsecondary settings.

http://ceps.georgiasouthern.edu/conted/infolitproposals.html

2011 Graduate Research Network at Computers and Writing Conference

2011-02-16T14:14:00.000-05:00

The Graduate Research Network at the 2011 Computers and Writing Conference invites you to join us! We need presenters and discussion leaders. GRN discussions are informative, exhausting, and not to be missed. Please spread the word! http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/writling/GRN/2011/index.htm

Follow the links for information about the CW/GRN Travel Grant Fund as well. Apply for a Travel Grant, or donate to the fund if you can.
Hope to see you there!

Sample Video - LILAC Wiki

2010-09-29T21:51:00.000-05:00

Sample Video - LILAC Wiki

I have posted some sample Research Aloud Protocol (RAP) video links to YouTube. The links are available on our WIKI. Let me know what you think.

Writers Talk: Cheryl Ball

2010-08-19T12:29:00.000-05:00

"Cheryl Ball is an assistant professor in the Department of English at Illinois State University. She teaches classes in multimodal composition, digital media, composition theory, and digital publishing - known as "New Media Studies." She also serves as the editor of Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy.

"While visiting Writers Talk, she offers insight on the use of digital technology in the classroom, illustrates how different media can work together to reach new audiences, and shares her prediction on the demise of the internet."

http://www.ohiochannel.org/multimedia/programs/media.cfm?file_id=125254&program_id=107792

Online Publishing and Malleable Texts: When Do Digital Publications Become "Permanent"?

2010-06-07T10:32:00.001-05:00

At the 2010 Computers and Writing Conference at Purdue University (May 2010), I was privileged to be part of a roundtable with Michael Pemberton (Georgia Southern University), Kathleen Blake Yancey (Florida State University), and Nick Carbone (Bedford/St. Martin’s). Following is (mostly) what I said, just in case anyone is interested.

Traditional citation formats have focused on print sources which, once published, have remained relatively stable, and most online scholarly publications have retained this model. However, as scholarly publishing online allows—or even encourages—more malleable (literally, “to beat with a hammer,” according to Dictionary.com) texts, what kinds of challenges will this create for citation practices?

In his presentation on “E-Book Rhetoric” at a recent symposium at the Georgia Institute of Technology, L. Andrew Cooper discussed a custom e-book initiative between Georgia Tech and Bedford/St. Martin’s. Students purchase a 5-year subscription which, to use Cooper’s words, “evolves with the book.” That is, as long as the student’s subscription is current, the e-book s/he accesses online is continually updated, so that the “book” the student reads today may not be the same “book” s/he read last month. Of course, changes are probably not drastic or frequent—but they COULD be.

Traditionally, as Michael Pemberton noted, errors or updates in books, newspapers, magazines, journals, or other print media are noted in subsequent editions, often in fine print. Of course, even if errata were to be published in bright red, engorged font on the front page of a subsequent edition, when our students (or, for that matter, when WE) access articles in print or online, we usually don’t read subsequent editions to determine if there have been any amendments or corrections!

While allowing for edits to “published” work in online venues can help to ensure that scholars are accessing correct and up-to-date information, this could also wreak havoc on citation practices. Do we cite the date published, the date last modified, or the date of access—or all of the above? Will we have access to historical publication information (such as the “history” in WIKIs and shared Google docs, for example), or will we take a researcher’s word that the source USED to say thus-and-so? Will subsequent work that relied on the information ALSO need to be amended, and so on and so on and so on? And, of course, multimedia—video, essays, etc.—create further complications. (I believe it was Nick Carbone who further problematized this with the concept of “reflowable textuality,” for instance, reformatting various media to fit small screens.

Obviously, the date that information is accessed is essential. Unfortunately, styles such as APA eschew including online publication information for information accessed through online databases that the researcher BELIEVES to be the same as print editions (ouch!). APA does now encourage scholars to include the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for sources, which is MUCH more reliable (and realistic) that what MLA has done, of course. MLA now thinks we should just Google online sources rather than include a URL (MLA 182) so, even though they DO encourage scholars to include the date of access, I don’t think that’s enough if we don’t know which site the scholar may have consulted in the first place.

We’ve all seen what happens when we Google a source that is no longer available -- Google offers up a cache-memory copy. And the WayBack machine stores lots of no-longer-available sites. Many sites are mirrored, and even information in online scholarly databases may be available through different means (try Google Scholar versus EBSCO Host versus CompPile, for instance). In other words, it is entirely conceivable that multiple versions of an article may exist, such that the “googler” may end up with an entirely different (older? Newer?) version. If one site is amended, are all of these copies also updated?

So, here are some of my questions for scholars and for editors of online publications:

Include “errata” notices/corrections ON the original “page” for online publications.
When that is not feasible, retain historical documents and include links to these historical publications, perhaps with editorial or authorial notes about the necessity for amending.
Offer citation suggestions for authors that specifically note which “edition” (corrected or not) is being used, including the URL where feasible, or, even better, the DOI.
Ignore MLA…. (or at least turn our backs on it!)

Grand Unified Citation Theory: Response to TechRhet Thread

2010-05-26T15:58:00.003-05:00

Michael Wojcik writes, " the real problem [with creating a new citation system] would be getting other people - notably journal editors - to accept it." But actually, having created a citation format of my own way back when, the challenge isn't with the journal editors but with getting teachers to use it.

Michael Salvo is correct that citation formats aren't really all that different—they use the same elements, but join them in different ways and forms. In The Columbia Guide to Online Style, I attempt to define those elements and to explain (at least briefly) why there are different ways of emphasizing them by discipline: the COS-Humanities Style, designed to work with styles such as MLA and Chicago, for instance, focuses on the author of the work (ethos based), while the COS-Scientific Style, which works with styles such as APA and CSE, follows the author/date system, whereby the date something is published is often of primary importance.

That said, I think we (not I, but WE) could actually design something that works—and which would work better with bibliographic software which, quite frankly, does a lousy job with citing anything that is not standard print books/journals/newspapers.

For me, as a teacher, I think it is more important to help students (future scholars!):

Identify the TYPE of source they are using, and
Identify the ELEMENTS they need to record

Then it's actually not so difficult to put these together (using bibliographic software, or a style sheet or manual) as needed.

I actually LIKE what APA has done by encouraging/requiring the inclusion of DOIs in citations. These Digital Object Identifiers are better than URLs even for accessing/locating documents. MLA? Well, see my MLA rant at http://mywabbit.blogspot.com/2008/09/mla-rant.html.

I think it's very interesting (okay, remember, I have a very sick sense of humor!) that:

MLA couldn't figure out that the "URL" created by online databases wasn't a real URL, so, yeah, it was ridiculously long and unwieldy and didn't work outside a particular database anyway, so they just gave up and decided to just say "Web" (even though items in library databases aren't actually ON the Web, just accessed FROM it). And excluding URLs (or other identifiers) for items that are on the Web—we can just google them??—is the utmost in ridiculous-ity!
APA released their new manual with PAGES of errata—they finally released a new edition of the new edition, of course, which corrects those errata, but the damage is done….

I think the Columbia Guide still works (although the latest edition is 2006, so new models might be useful), but as Charlie Lowe continues to prod me, we can take this further.

But the challenge is to get people to listen to us—and remember that K-12 teachers learned MLA in first-year comp classes, then learned APA to use in their education classrooms, then they use whatever book is foisted upon them which usually includes MLA for their students to (not) learn.

Many first-year composition teachers are also given textbooks chosen by committee—many of the members of which are literature-trained (can you say "MLA"?). So here we are.

And our own textbook publishers, who once DID actually include Columbia Online Style have given up on including it since no one (outside our small group) knows what it is anyway—so no one bothered to look at it.

So, am I saying we can't change the world? Not at all!

We can:

Develop a bibliography generator that will actually work (knowing what we know about the elements of citation and identifying the variety of types of sources that researchers actually use).
Work with librarians, educators ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES (this isn't something we, as writing teachers, can do ourselves), editors, and publishers to develop formats that can be easily generated, and that help to ensure the sustainability of links/identifiers, such that the potential ephemerality of digital scholarship is addressed.
Teach our students (and demand that our textbook publishers include) whatever we come up with.

Maybe someday, everyone will do as I did in my presentation at the Computers and Writing Conference last week, when I said I believed we should "just turn our backs" on MLA (um, if you weren't there, I was wearing a black denim jacket with a very bling rhinestone skull and crossbones on the back!).

GRN and Travel Grant Submissions

2010-04-29T20:40:00.003-05:00

We have just discovered a problem with the online submission forms for the Graduate Research Network and the Computers and Writing/GRN Travel Grant Fund.

According to our IT folks, a spam filter patch is the culprit. They are working on the problem, but in the meantime, any submissions posted after 9pm on Monday, April 26, 2010, were NOT received. I don't know at this time if they are recoverable or not.

To be on the safe side-and for those who have waited until the last minute to submit-we are extending the due date for submissions until Thursday, May 6, 2010.

Please submit the required information via email to jwalker@georgiasouthern.edu.

You can see the required fields online:

Broken GRN Submission Form: http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/writling/GRN/2010/submit.html
Broken Travel Grant Application Form: http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/writling/GRN/2010/application.html

Again, please do NOT use the forms. If you have any questions about whether or not your application(s) have been received, please email me at jwalker@georgiasouthern.edu. We apologize for the inconvenience!

CCCC 2010 Preview Notes

2010-04-20T15:08:00.004-05:00

http://iamdananderson.net/screencasts/cccc2010

"I'm a Map I'm a Green Tree" from Daniel Anderson on Vimeo.
Daniel Anderson's presentation for the 2010 CCCCs conference.
At the conference, he strips the voiceover out of the video and delivers it live. Using the "I'm a Mac I'm a PC" commercial clips against the "I'm a Map I'm a Green Treet," he shows the confluences (word?) of the word and technology.
What I find interesting in this video is how he accessed information in the video, using:

flickr
google/google books
Wikpedias
scans of a book
Scan of a scholarly journal
Macmail/email
Pandora radio site
Photoshop and sound mixer

LILAC questions: So, are WE (scholars) using these tools to locate and access information (are we? I do!). If so, what are we (or should we be) teaching our students?

2. http://stevendkrause.com/scholarship/cccc-2010/

Steven D. Krause, "RIP-ping, Mixing, Burning: A Remix Manifesto as Research Writing" CCCC 2010 presentation.

Presentation shared pre-conference as a blog using flickr photos (which he created as slides of course in iMac), movie trailers (video from YouTube about patents, books, and music…. Sampling, remixing, scholarly journals, data—research and then remix to make something new—transformative uses?) Krause's point seems to be that students might be "chicken" to reach beyond the 5-paragraph essay, for a variety of reasons:

"First, despite the notion that incorporating new media/popular culture like movies, music, and more into our classes is a good idea because it is what the "kids today" are into and this is the "digital native" world they know, I once again found in my students a surprising amount of ignorance and apathy. And I found this especially among my "true freshman" students, as opposed to the sophomores, juniors and seniors who found their way into first year composition for various reasons. I'm not entirely sure what the cause of this ignorance and apathy about what should be their contemporary culture is all about, but it certainly seemed to be there."

"Second, and perhaps this is one of the causes of their ignorance and apathy, there is the problem of the assumptions and inevitable compartments about "school" versus "life." SImply put, I think a lot of students have in mind stuff we do in school and stuff we do in life, and there is a bright and uncrossable line between these two realms. This is one of the problems I've seen about incorporating things like Facebook into my teaching, and I think it extends to an extent here. I think students' default positions are often to see things like remix culture– all the stuff that GirlTalk was doing and most of the things discussed in RiP– as being distinctly in the "life" realm and they are uneasy about that crossing the border into "school."

"Finally, and this is where the chickens thing comes from, I think that students are often very leery of leaving the confines of the cages of convention that they have been raised in. As I understand it, even when so-called "free-range" chickens are raised in humane conditions (and they often are not, of course), they are reluctant to leave their cages and certainly not their source of easily obtained food. They are, after all, domesticated animals. I think that a lot of students are in this sense "chicken:" too scared and too dependent on an educational system designed to domesticate them to think outside of "the box" even when the assignment explicitly asks them to do so. In fact, after going through all of the cage-breaking tricks I tried throw at them with these exercises, a disappointing number of them retreated to the old and stale school genre they are most familiar with."

Does this relate to LILAC? The video certainly relates to IP class!

Rhetorical Reflections: Borderless Communication in a Multimodal World

2010-04-12T08:59:00.004-05:00

I was delighted to attend the symposium Friday, April 9, 2010, hosted by Georgia Institute of Technology and Bedford/St. Martin's on "Rhetorical Reflections: Borderless Communication in a Multimodal World."

The symposium featured a roster of fantastic speakers, including Andrea Lunsford, Ron Balthazar, Robin Wharton, Michael Neal, Michael Pemberton, Rebecca Burnett, L. Andrew Cooper, TyAnna Herrington, Mike Palmquist, Joanne Harris, Manuel Perez Tejada, Letizia Guglielmo, Laura McGrath, Janet Bean, Christy Desmet, Karen Gardiner, Angela Hall-godsey, Amy Kimme Hea, Roxanne Mountford, Daniel Vollaro, Andrea Wood, Paulette Richards, Candice Welhausen, Jared Johnson, Matthew Paproth, Danielle Lawson, Nirmal Trivedi, Lee Odell, Susan Katz, and Bedford/St. Martin's own Nick Carbone, Leasa Burton, and Karita France dos Santos. If I left anyone out, I apologize profusely. It was indeed a cornucopia of ideas!

In addition to the speakers, the symposium featured a roster of Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellowship poster presenters. The projects were astounding, and the conversations that ensured were lively and well-informed. I came away with so many ideas and so much to think about!

The symposium was held at the historic Academy of Medicine in Atlanta, GA. The building is on the historic register and has recently been ceded to Georgia Tech. It will soon be undergoing renovation, but in the meantime, it was a wonderful location for a symposium bringing together rhetorical reflections from the Agora with the 21st century classroom!

Kudos and thanks to Georgia Institute of Technology and Bedford/St. Martin's for sponsoring this event.

Call for Proposals: 2010 Graduate Research Network

2010-02-28T09:57:00.003-05:00

Make your plans now! We invite proposals for work-in-progress discussions at the 11th annual Graduate Research Network at the 2010 Computers and Writing Conference, May 20, 2010, hosted by Purdue University.

The C&W Graduate Research Network is a FREE all-day pre-conference event, open to all registered conference participants. The GRN consists of a morning session composed of round-table discussions, grouping those with similar research interest with discussion leaders who facilitate the conversations, and a workshop during the afternoon of special interest to participants. We welcome those pursuing work at any stage-from just beginning to consider ideas to seeking venues for publication.

Submit your proposal online at http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/writling/GRN/2010/submit.html

Small travel grants may also be available. See details at http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/writling/GRN/2010/awards.html

DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS IS APRIL 30, 2010! Early submissions are welcome!

For more information, visit our Web site at

http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/writling/GRN/index.html or email Janice Walker at jwalker@georgiasouthern.edu

Kill the Apostrophe

2010-01-10T09:34:00.001-05:00

Sorry, but I couldn't resist linking to this one: http://www.killtheapostrophe.com/

Hmmm, this might actually be useful for a class learning how to use apostrophe's (or is that apostrophes???). OMG!

Not my comrades

2009-10-17T13:47:00.000-05:00

At the corner of Main and Main in Statesboro, Georgia, stands the Bulloch County court house. I try to avoid going to downtown Statesboro because standing on the court house lawn is this statue that perturbs me greatly. You can't see the top of the statue in this picture or read the inscription (sorry), but I know what it is--and worse, I know what it says.

The statue is of a confederate soldier. Now, I can (sort of) understand southerners wanting to remember the "late unpleasantness" (as it was once euphemistically termed) during the "War of Northern Agression" (yes, I've spent years in the deep south and, believe me, there's nothing "new" about the New South, unfortunately).

What bothers me about this particular inscription, however, is that it says "Comrades."

Now, of course, southerners are anti-communist (almost laughably so, sometimes)--so they don't mean it in that way, I'm sure. But, I'm sorry, get real. Confederate Soldiers were never MY comrades. I may live in the south--I have always lived in the south--but I don't identify with southerners. (OK, by "south" I mean Miami-Tampa-Atlanta, except for the last 10 years here in Statesboro). At any rate, I think this monument to those who declared war on my country is ridiculous.

It's almost as ridiculous as those who still fly their confederate flags next to the United States flag. I'm not sure how they justify this--being a rebel (traitor?) AND a patriot at the same time--but then logic seems to have little to do with it.

Okay, venting done. Well, for now anyway.

Notes from the 2009 Georgia Conference on Information Literacy

2009-10-01T09:11:00.001-05:00

Georgia Conference on Information Literacy
September 25-26, 2009
Coastal Georgia Center
Savannah, GA

Many of the sessions at GA CoIL seemed to agree that we need to do a better job teaching information literacy skills to students (and faculty). Of course, we’re doing plenty (we think) now, but students keep going back to Google, no matter how much instruction we give.
Following are some of my very, very rough notes from sessions I attended at the conference. Luckily, many of our presenters have agreed to make their presentations available on the Georgia Conference on Information Literacy EagleSpace site. Visit it at http://eaglespace.georgiasouthern.edu/jspui/handle/10518/1893 for far better details on these and other presentations at this year’s conference. (You may enter keywords in the search box or you may browse for the desired presentation by subject, title, or author).

Friday, September 25
Panel 6
“Teaching of Intellectual Property as Part of Information Literacy: Still a Challenge,” Jeannette Cox. “Catching ‘cheaters’ is not the approach to teaching students life-long learning skills.”
“Tips for Writing Information Literacy Best Practices for Publication in a Publish or Perish World!” Betty J. Morris. Meet editors at conferences; volunteer to serve on advisory boards, as peer reviewer. Good advice!

“Rearranging the Horse and the Cart: Using Citation Analysis for Pedagogical and Curricular Reform of Writing Programs,” Sandra Jamieson. The Citation Project: http://citationproject.net Plagiarism: deliberate; patchwriting: poor paraphrasing/summarizing. Students confused about secondary information in publications. Failure to adequately/accurately cite information and ideas (as well as quotations). Confusion about how to paraphrase and about WHAT to cite.

Panel 11
“Why Digital Does not Equal Daunting: The Role of Information Management Tools in Supporting Faculty Research through Topic-Specific Library Workshops,” Liya Deng and Stan Trembach. Citation management, Refworks, google forms for assessment.
“You’ve Been Poked: Using Facebook as a Way to Engage Students while Teaching Basic Research Skills,” Alicia Howe. Facebook assignment: working in pairs, write a bio of each other a) based on FB profile, b) use that to ask questions. Could also use Ning instead of FB if you prefer (or if your school has decided to block FB—shades of MOO?)

“The Effect of Library Instruction on the Information Seeking Behavior of Undergraduate Education Majors,” Jason Martin. (My question: How do you reach ALL of our students? Library instruction, embedded librarians, tutorials, etc. – limited reach?) http://library.ucf.edu/Presentations/2009/GCIL Where do students look for information for a class? 72% Internet; 28% library. Found no significant difference between students who were taught “academic research instruction” and those who weren’t in what type of sources they choose to use.

[me: are we asking students to do too much too soon? I just (finally) trashed my senior-level undergraduate papers (and I was an English major), and I LIKED my papers as I re-read them. So did my professors—well, mostly. They garnered mostly A grades with “very well written” type comments. But I had never heard of “peer review” and I had no idea what a scholarly journal was or how to go about finding one until the first semester of grad school. Instead, I culled information from such sources as newspapers and magazines—I simply LOVED the old print Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature as an undergrad in the pre-digital era! Now, of course, the Internet has made garbage, as well as valuable sources, easily available to our students and, since online databases make scholarly sources easily available, too, we suddenly seem to think that first-year students should be using them. Unfortunately, even when students DO try use these sources, they are usually written at a level that students can’t understand. In other words, we have access without accessibility.]

Panel 18
“Using iSkills and SAILS to Assess Information Literacy: What Do We Know and What Do We Do Now?” Shawn Tonner, Marina Slemmons, and Jennifer Campbell Meier. My Question: Even though students in ENGL 1102 did really very well in SAILS (http://www.projectsails.org) testing, what happens to these students when they progress in school? Answer: iSkills (http://iskills.org) – test in research methods courses in majors. Of course, a distinct problem with iSkills is that it seems to confuse/conflate technological literacy with information literacy skills. IL as QEP goal (SACS accreditation) at NGSCU.

Workshop 4 Assessing Student Learning
“Assessing Student Learning,” Julie Housknecht, Adrienne Button, and Pete Bursi
Learning Outcomes ENGL 1101 (Information Literacy) – Student learning objectives: SurveyMonkey (assessment). See also polleverywhere.com (without clickers—free for less than 100). NGCSU Outcome Measures (Menu – type of instruction, time, ACRL standard). Scaffolded learning (the menu can be an aid to this). Assign narrated “movie” documenting, w/annotated bibliography, rubric, etc. (ME: Try a “mockumentary”?) . Four class sessions for project.

Saturday, September 26
Kathleen Blake Yancey, Keynote Speaker
In her keynote speech, “Creating and Exploring New Worlds: Web 2.0, Information Literacy, and the Uses of Knowledge,” Yancey makes the argument that we have been teaching writing as process, but, if we do not teach content, we may have no processes to teach. Assumptions: Sources = materials, materials = verbal, visual, multimedia; use of the materials of others; creation of materials. Information literacy, to Yancey, think of the use of the material of others and plagiarism. Also, how do you create your own materials? Knowledge is constructed very differently than the way we have seen it in the past. Traditional library as “cathedral of knowledge.” A la Thomas Hardy class structure. This model still exists all too often. But it is no longer the only version. The Web has made “the library” available 24/7. We can go to the library, we can have materials “delivered” to us, we can access full text—and even download materials (within certain guidelines/restrictions). JStor allows for “export citations” – after login. Are we teaching these kinds of skills? No. Students want a physical and intellectual map of the physical library; they also want a “map” of the online library. Scavenger hunts don’t have a lot of “sticking” power; that is not the way we remember. BUT, our information ecologies are incomplete: 1) library 2) popular(?) and 3) “alternative” (blogs, National Enquirer, etc.)
Alternative sources may be valuable, but they are not usually included in our information ecologies (we generally focus on “canonical” sources to the exclusion of much valuable and credible material). Assignment: why something is credible and why it is not. (First question: Is it plausible? THEN is it credible!) “Filter and then publish vs. publish and then filter.” AAC&U Value Project (Association of American Colleges and Universities): Set of scoring guides for 11 categories of inquiry (including information literacy) to evaluate student work inside electronic portfolios.
· Determine the extent of information needed
· Access the needed information
· Evaluate information and its sources critically
· Use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose
· Access and use information ethically and legally
www.aacu.org/value/rubrics/pdef/InformationLiteracy.pdf
Omits content—and not necessarily attuned to 21st century information ecology. Technology and composition, as well as Information Literacy, are areas often assumed to have no content. But that is about to change with regard to technology. New framework for 2011 high school – writing is composed on computer! Duh! New framework for technology – areas where students have to practice tech, but with content included (“how technology has interfaced with culture over time”)!! What we know about transfer of learning – what you learn in one setting you can carry forward into another setting and use appropriately. “How People Learn” book by John Bradsford (?) et al. – CONTENT MATTERS. “Without content, students operate on a GPS device.” Sam Wineberg – the making of knowledge in history: 1) corroboration (fidelity) 2) sourcing (authority) and 3) contextualization. Student assumption that textbooks are the most authoritative sources. Students do not understand primary and secondary (or even tertiary!) sources.

Tasks:
Case Study: How Do They Compare?
Analysis of an Encyclopedia Entry and Wikipedia Entry= an opportunity to consider how a given term is defined in two spaces purporting to provide information of the same quality; intended to help us understand how they are alike and different and what one might do in creating a Wikipedia entry. (Yancey)

Case Study: A Blogging Map of a Community
Raise a question you really care about; look at 15 blogs (and NO other sources). Community created through breadcrumbing the blogs—consider the credibility of the information . Modified – blogs may lead to more “traditional” sources.

Question in Google: Do Parents Influence Children Behavior? Results: range of sources, not necessarily with the same answers! Consider credibility/authority (sourcing/filtering).

Case Study: What are the Sources
Backsourcing a NY Times editorial: what are the sources the editor/writer must have consulted in order to produce this opinion piece?
What’s the role of content? 2 modest proposals
1. Include the logic of research practices (For example, 5 principles governing citations (Walker & Taylor) From slots to logic:
a. Access
b. Intellectual property
c. Economy
d. Standardization
e. Transparency
2. Identify key terms that together are information literacy: for example “Circulation”
a. For example, citation index--Citation maps (who has cited who? Any article is in the context of other articles.
b. Circulation—old/new “The Story behind the Story” – for example, how propaganda becomes information
Prior knowledge/post knowledge: iterative process. Threshold concepts: credible; corroboration; circulation (AND plausibility). Critical incident theory—case studies as staged critical incidents (e.g., investigation when an airplane crashes). Missing components

Panel 33 Saturday 9/26, p. 14
“Rhetorical Information Literacy in Professional Writing & Rhetoric: How Current Scholarship Can Shape University Infrastructure to Enhance Curriculum,” Michael Strickland and Paula Rosinski

Professional writing and Rhetoric (PWR) major (Digital media minor – check this) at Elon U. More robust version of rhetorical worldview in PWR – getting things DONE. Shapiro & Huges: IL is “a new liberal art that extends from knowing how to use computers and access information to critical reflection on the nature of information itself.” Functional, critical, and rhetorical computer literacy – Stuart Selber’s Multiliteracies. Such courses as 271 writing technologies; 282 CUPID studio (Center for Undergraduate Publication in? Design); 312 visual rhetorics, beginning with integration/introduction of digital I.L. initiative in first-year writing. Logic of citation (e.g., Walker & Taylor).

In 1101 – Digital Literacy initiative:
1. How search engines/databases search differently
2. Metadata as knowledge management
3. Naming files/folders/etc. as facilitating knowledge management & collaboration
4. Google docs, google scholar, books
5. RSS feeds, etc.

“Knowledge mgmt. is truly a growth industry and exploding as an outgrowth of information literacy connection/sinternet connections” (Strickland). Even helping students to organize data on hard drives/USB drives etc. – “computer sanitation” – ways of organizing information in the same ways as databases, in essence!

ENGL 212 Multimedia Rhetorics
Computer science students learn that rhetoric can inform their practice; writing students learn supposed distinction b/w science and humanities blurs in digital texts.
“With traditional & digital information/texts:
· Understanding audience is crucial
· Visual components carry persuasive power
· Organization & textual conventions affect access, meaning

“Tell a story” project: tell 1 store in 4 different mediums & reflection (clay, pencil & paper, word, multimedia) .

“Blog Postings: Reputable or Risky?” Patrice A. Williams and Ronda Zents.
Using online postings or blogs as sources of information. Short story by Larry Fondation, “Deportation at Breakfast,” using “Points to Ponder,” assigned students to write an analytical response (1 page). One student found the work of a former student who had posted her work to her professional blog. The student then used it rather effectively! Rhonda Zents using expert author blogs. Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea. Response to—after writing a rough draft of their response, students then incorporate what they find on the author’s blog.

Panel 38
“A Web –based Bulletin Board as Edward Soja’s ‘Thirdspace’: ESL and LGBTQ Students Claim Home Turf,” Patricia T. Price and Reuben HayslettPowerful slide show from Clothesline Project behind the speakers helps contextualize the discussion. (Note to self: the color coding of t-shirts as visual rhetoric.) “Loss of corporeality in cyberspace” (Price). {Me: Is there such as loss?). “Establishing a sense of home” – What material objects do students bring to campus from home? Explore relationships—body image and feelings of displacement. Price connected 2 classes in Georgia View, one in Women and Gender Studies and another an ESL class. Students read and responded to each other’s work without any f2f contact. Hayslett’s very powerful story of same-sex domestic violence and the campus’s response to his plight were powerfully presented (and published in a campus publication). Analysis of ESL student responses without f2f contact (e.g., sans “body”). Combining Pratt’s contact zone with Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development=”Contact zone of proximal development” (suggested by Mark McBeth, an audience member

Interesting Online Journal

2009-09-10T15:15:00.002-05:00

I know it's been a while (a LONG while) since I've posted anything here, but I just came across an online journal with some really good articles. Well, that's not entirely true, I just came across the journal AGAIN, because I'd visited it before and totally forgot it existed until now.

Arrrggh.

So I thought I would post a link here so maybe I won't forget about it again. Well worth a read!

Journal of Usability Studies at http://www.upassoc.org/upa_publications/jus/

"Tenure in a Digital Era" in Inside Higher Ed

2009-05-27T08:01:00.003-05:00

"Among the "horror stories" Rosemary Feal has heard: Assistant professors who work in digital media and whose tenure review panels insist on evaluating them by printing out selected pages of their work. "It's like evaluating an Academy Award entry based on 20 film stills," said Feal, executive director of the Modern Language Association." digital / 26 - Inside Higher Ed

Shared via AddThis

Call for Proposals - Graduate Research Network

2009-05-25T12:20:00.001-05:00

Reminder! The deadline to be listed in the GRN printed program and apply for Travel Grant funding is May 30!

We invite proposals for work-in-progress discussions at the tenth anniversary Graduate Research Network at the 2009 Computers and Writing Conference, June 18, 2009, hosted by the University of California Davis. The C&W Graduate Research Network is an all-day pre-conference event, open to all registered conference participants at no charge.

We need both Discussion Leaders and Presenters! Presenters may also be eligible to apply for Travel Grant funding.

For more information, visit our Web site at http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/writling/GRN/2009/index.html and follow the links for the online submission forms for the GRN and for Travel Grant funding, or email Janice Walker at jwalker@georgiasouthern.edu.

Notes from CCCC 2009 (Finally!)

2009-05-13T15:44:00.004-05:00

I entered this note in my cell phone some time during the conference: "World Wide Wall" – graffiti (instead of World Wide Web). UC Berkeley guy from NCTE Press Conference – Jabari Mahiri. I liked that so much!

The press conference was a one-hour gathering before lunch at the CCCC Executive Committee (captive audience?) about the upcoming (and very exciting!) Day for Writing. For more information, see http://www.ncte.org/action/dayonwriting.

Overall, the conference was a success, of course—I always return home exhausted and exhilarated, with all kinds of new ideas for research and teaching. But I do want to take one moment to vent: presenters, I believe, should be able to assume that, at minimum, LCD projectors will be available in every room, and we need to be doing more to ensure greater Internet access will be available for those presenters who need it. Of course, the CCCC Executive Committee is considering these issues, but hotels are charging outrageous fees for even minimal technologies—and often, because of union issues, they even charge set-up fees when we bring our OWN equipment and do our OWN set-up—but I still believe we can do more, beginning with negotiating with hotels or other conference facilities and, perhaps, choosing alternative venues when possible if we cannot get the facilities we need. It's a long-term project, one with, perhaps, no easy fix, but let's keep asking anyway!

Some scattered and sporadic notes from the conference follow. I might have more to add later, although I've waited SOOOOOO long to finally get around to posting these notes, so I may not…. Ya never know! Anyway, here goes.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

"Methods, Ethics, Labor, and Imperatives: making Material Waves in Ethnographic Study"

Chair: Alanna Frost

Speakers: Alanna Frost, Tabetha Adkins, and Kate Warrington.

Speaker #1 presented a fascinating tale of collecting stories from first nation people in Vancouver, Canada. I LOVED when she discussed the challenges dealing with the "evil IRB form," which she found awkward and unwieldy. Also, history of these first nation people with signing their names made the required IRB forms even more problematic. Argue for a multiplicity of ethics, following Horner.

Speaker #2 did research which included interviewing members of an Amish community in Ohio. Theories of ethical ethnography have led to problems in her own research design. "Did the dirty deed of obtaining IRB approval." Informed consent forms geared toward medical studies are problematic for some populations.

Speaker #3 –continuum from autobiography to ethnography. Believes these may not be opposite ends of a continuum at all. Some self discovery/autobiographical awareness required to do critical ethnography. Also, impossibility perhaps of 15-week semester for critical ethnography, especially for some diverse populations. College a time for "forced self discovery" for students at her small Methodist private liberal arts college. Assigning ethnographic research in general education courses does encourage students and offer "avenues" to learn about others unlike themselves and to learn about themselves in the process.

"Making Waves through Writing: Food Memoirs, Argument, and Recipes as Protest"

Chair and Respondent: Janice Walker (hey, that's me!

Speakers: Lynn Houston, Risa P. Gorelick, and Heather Eaton

Speaker 1 discussed a student assignment about cultural memories. Questions from students: What if they didn't have an "ethnic" cultural background? Through this assignment, students discovered a heritage/background against the mainstream anyway (i.e., cooking in your underwear!). Green vs. industrial agriculture ("eat locally, think globally"). And more. Fascinating presentation

Speaker #2 claimed that Americans now spend more money on fast food than on maybe ANYTHING else. Argument writing class, using such materials as Fast Food nation. Using Toulmin logic. Newspaper articles as they occurred during the semester, etc. For students in thematic (food-based) argumentative writing course. Differences in grams of transfat in, say, a McDonald's meal purchased in America as compared to the "same" meal purchased in Europe (3x as much?!)

Speaker #3: relationship between slow food and feminist pedagogy. Eating an "ecological and political act." Alice Waters' restaurant [not to be confused with Alice's Restaurant of Arlo Guthrie fame—or the (in)famous Alice B. Toklas cookbook…). No, Alice Water's restaurant features organic, local, and sustainable foods. Arguing for cookbook/recipe writing. Teach, using Waters' writing—description, definition, metaphor, claims/opinions. Like writing process—flexibility, ingredients.

My response: Interestingly, even though Heather's paper related "slow foods" to feminist pedagogy, as I was preparing my response, I couldn't help remembering the eating scene in the old Tom Jones movie (I guess I'm giving away my age here!). I had no idea what I would talk about in this response before I heard the presentations—what do I know about food after all? So I decided to avoid thinking about it and read a book, which turned out to be Joanne Harris' Five Quarters of the Orange. From the back cover:

When Framboise Simone returns to a small village on the banks of the Loire, the locals do not recognize her as the daughter of the infamous woman they hold responsible for tragedy during the German occupation years ago. But the past and present are inextricably entwined, particularly in a scrapbook of recipes and memories that Framboise has inherited from her mother. And soon Framboise will realize that the journal also contains the key to the tragedy that indelibly marked that summer of her ninth year.

As Lynn Houston talked about her student assignment, I realized that, in the book, the memories are entwined with the recipes, the tastes, touch, and smell of food, the receipes which are her mother's legacy and which Framboise recreates, thereby reliving the experiences and memories they bring back to her conscious mind, helping her to understand her own childhood history from the vantage of an adult and of her mother.

Food represents our heritage. In my case, my grandmother knew how to order in deli, and my mom knew how to open cans, but even the taste of delicatessen fare or canned green beans bring back familial memories. Against the grain of "mainstream"—where most of my friends' food memories include "mama's home cooking."

Joanne Harris is the author of six other novels, all seeming to deal with food, including Chocolat, and Blackberry Wine, and two cookbook-memoirs, My French Kitchen and The French Market.
So, I tried avoiding thinking about this response by turning on the TV and watching a movie. The movie? What else? Tortilla Soup! In this movie, food is family relationships, memories and dreams, seduction and sex (shades of Tom Jones again?). A Retired Mexican-American chef, Martin Naranjo shares an L.A. home with his three single, adult daughters. Though he has lost his ability to taste, he still loves to cook incredibly lavish dinners for his loved ones and serves them in a family-style ritual at traditional sit-down meals. Although the women humor their father's old-fashioned ways, each of them is searching for fulfillment outside the family circle. College student Maribel is growing increasingly frustrated with the singles scene and wants a steady man; gorgeous career woman Carmen is fed up with her boyfriend and his wandering eye; meanwhile, eldest daughter Letitia, who has suppressed her own romantic longings, senses something missing in her life. Things take a turn for the romantic when Dad, a widower, meets a vivacious divorcee on the lookout for a mate, and each of his daughters, in turn, finds someone. But they'll all discover that the recipe for happiness may call for some unexpected ingredients.

The next movie on tap was the 2007 film Waitress by Adrienne Shelly, a "charming and bittersweet tale of a pregnant small-town Southern Waitress (Keri Russell) hoping to win a pie-baking contest and leave her boorish husband." The movie depicts the pie baking in delicious detail, and the sexual innuendo steams as the love interests crush the berries and pour the chocolate (not to mention the bananas!), singing, "Baby don't you cry, gonna make a pie, gonna make a pie with a heart in the middle."

So, I turned off the TV and decided to read something more serious. It turned out to be Al Gore's book, and I can't help now but relate it to Heather's paper—green food. Okay, well, I guess the food doesn't have to be green—it might be a carrot or an apple—but you get the point!

By this time, I finally realized that food is everywhere—in our families, our cultures, our memories. Why not in our classrooms?

Friday, March 13, 2009

Digital Interventions in Composition, facilitated by Dickie Selfe

This trial session featuring poster presentations related to technology and the composition classroom was an incredible success. The poster presentations ran the gamut from presentations that were pro-"electronic-submission software (such as Turnitin)" to information literacy collaborations. The room was crowded and noisy, which I think added to the excitement. I really enjoyed the chance to have one-on-one or small-group discussions with each presenter, and I found the posters and accompanying handouts provided by most presenters informative and useful. A great way to attend a large number of presentations during one session! I vote we continue doing this, and thanks to Dickie for facilitating it.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Rocking the Boat: Using Blogs to Challenge Traditional Notions of Academic Identity"
Chair: Collette Caton
Speakers: Collette Caton, Jenna Allen, and Bettina Ramon

While scheduled very late in the program, this panel was well worth attending. Speaker #1 discussed the myth of objectivity in academic blogs and how they allow space to challenge traditional academic identities. See the "Academic blogs" list on KairosNews for some examples. How female academic bloggers are reconceptualizing academic identity (embodiment—pregnant body; baking (cakes?); interpersonal). "Perhaps our notions of what it is to be an academic," she argued, "are too limited." I couldn't agree more!

Speaker #2 argued that feminist pedagogy in the postmodern classroom is increasingly prevalent. What happens at the intersection of feminist pedagogy and blogging? Can extend the boundaries of feminism beyond the composition classroom. Barriers such as large class sizes can shut down conversations; blogging can provide a solution. Akin to journaling in some respects. Allow both academic and social identities of students [in blogs] into the classroom. Motivating factor encouraging individual participation.

Speaker #3: Not only sexuality, but also exploring queer blogs, challenge heteronormativity assumptions. Reevaluate how sexual identity is discussed—or ignored—in the classroom. Blogs still primarily used as alternative to journaling in the classroom, as opposed to "academic" writing. Students more comfortable with blogging, blurring the boundaries between traditional academic writing and personal writing they may already be doing outside the classrooms. Allow students to be "polyvocal." Socially constructed identity—can engage students with reading and writing, share dialogic relationship. The way language constructs identity. "Queering" the classroom via the integration of technologies. Literacy—about gender and sexuality/sexual identity.

Call for Proposals - 2009 Graduate Research Network

2009-03-28T10:23:00.001-05:00

We invite proposals for work-in-progress discussions at the tenth anniversary Graduate Research Network at the 2009 Computers and Writing Conference, June 18, 2009, hosted by the University of California Davis.

For more information, visit the GRN Web site at http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/writling/GRN/2009/index.html or email Janice Walker at jwalker@georgiasouthern.edu .

Don't forget to check out the 2009 Travel Grant Awards information, too!

The deadline to be listed in the GRN printed program and apply for Travel Grant funding is May 30, 2009, but early submissions are appreciated.

Please help pass along this information. And, if you can serve as a Discussion Leader this year or would like to contribute to the Travel Grant Fund, please follow the links from the GRN Web page.

LaRue Nickelson on YouTube

2009-02-24T18:25:00.002-05:00

Books Gone Wild: The Digital Age Reshapes Literature

2009-01-26T10:52:00.004-05:00

Couldn't resist posting this link to a Time Entertainment section article by Lev Grossman:

Modern Book Publishing and Book Culture - TIME
Source: http://www.time.com/
"The forces of a new century are shaping a new kind of literature. It's fast, cheap and out of control."

Should be interesting reading.

Richard Miller's YouTube Broadcast

2009-01-16T09:43:00.002-05:00

This Is How We Dream Part I

This Is How We Dream Part II

In case you're wondering

2008-12-28T11:30:00.003-05:00

I've moved some stuff, specifically my "Online Utilities and Courseware Test Page" stuff, to a Wiki. I'm hoping someone will want to help me organize and test out stuff, so, if you're interested, let me know! I THINK it's all at http://mywabbit.pbwiki.com/, but if that doesn't work, well, then, your guess is as good as mine! Oh, yeah, and there is a long list of stuff that still needs to be added. See http://mywabbit.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_archive.html for more.

Final Thoughts from 2008 NCTE in San Antonio, TX

2008-12-11T12:05:00.003-05:00

We finished the Executive Committee at NCTE a bit early (Thanks to Cheryl Glenn for keeping us on our toes!)., so Michael Day and I decided to take a boat ride down the river. As I was waiting for him in the lobby of the Marriott RiverCenter (remember, this is San Antonio—TEXAS for Pete's sake!), someone walks by wearing a t-shirt that says:

1/20/09: The end of an error!

Hmmm, sounds like a "bush-ism" to me!

Anyway, it was a beautiful day for sightseeing and listening to our narrator/boat-driver/steersperson (whatever you call him) in an almost surrealistic/Disney-esque ride. Michael got some GREAT pics (I'll just post one here. If you want more, well, you'll have to ask my twin!).

Then, after a bit of shopping at the River Center Mall (where we all kept running into each other!), I joined Michael, Mike Palmquist and Carolyn Handa for dinner. The guacamole was made to order right at our table! And I decided to enjoy my first ever mojito. Hey, good friends, good conversation, good eats (and drinks). What can I say??

The next morning it was back to the real world. On the way to the "real world," however, I noticed one of the flight attendants who—I SWEAR this is true—was a Sarah Palin look-alike! (Or maybe it WAS Sarah Palin? After all, since she can't be president…). Anyway, I had a very scary thought: is her hairdo and "look" now "in" with republican women? I'm old enough to remember the Kennedy era, when women throughout the country began sporting Jackie's hairdo and style of dress. And of course Hilary Clinton has made pantsuit-wearing an art. So… Eeek.

Well, my students are waiting for their final exam, so I guess it's time to get to work. Until next time….

More Notes from NCTE 2008

2008-12-11T11:46:00.001-05:00

Hmmm, my twin, Michael Day, and I must make quite a pair. Someone at the conference likened us to the character "Day Walker" from the movie Blade. Ok, so now I have to admit I have never seen the movie, but I think I need to see it now so I will know whether this "likening" is, well, something I like or not!

While Blade didn't win any awards from NCTE, President George W. Bush most certainly did! He won the 2008 "Double Speak" Award for (are you ready?): "aspirational goal." Go, Bush!

Oh, yeah, and Paul Matsuda, editor of Research in the Teaching of English, told the group that they needed submissions. So, if you're considering where to send your work for publication, don't forget this very important journal! (Hmmm, ok, so I need to get my LILAC paper in order and submit it!!).

The Executive Committee Retreat began at 1pm Sunday, led by none other than our own Chuck Bazerman. For strategic planning, he said, we need to identify issues we (may?) be able to make headway on in the current climate (political, professional, economic, personal).

We spent about 30 minutes (or so) on the first question: What are longstanding or emergent concerns of our organization (or subgroups thereof)? What needs need to be met?

My group (Group #3) came up with the following list of concerns (in no particular order):

Technology for presenters/attendees at conferences should be assumed
Assessment and accredition: "outcomes-based" decision making
Mandates for such things as dual enrollment/credit, e.g., high school-to-college
Research, research, research! We need research on just about everything, especially longitudinal studies on assessment, etc. Of course, we also need funding for such studies…
Internationalization—pressure to internationalize, but often without sufficient knowledge and greater awareness/change to writing programs in this country as well as directing writing programs in other countries.
Public discourse—what place does it have in our classrooms and in our lives and in our scholarship and beyond?

So, other groups composed their lists as well, and we used GIANT sticky notes to list them all on the walls of the room. Here are some of the lists from other groups:

Group #1

Economics
1. Equity – space, technology
2. dual credit/enrollment
3. adjunct and hiring issues
4. course load/workload issues
Defining the field
1. basic writing "issue"
2. defining first year course
3. under siege (for instance, dual credit enrollment)
4. how to make ourselves relevant (avoid business model)
5. authority issues
6. globalization/internationalization
7. building our credibility as a field.
access
1. Tuition
2. access to higher education

Group #2

Conditions are eroding
1. Adjuncts
2. "Master" core syllabi (standardization of courses)
3. Raising course caps
4. We need research (longitudinal studies) to convince the "powers that be" to do X (public discourse)
Dual enrollment issues
1. Integrity
2. Research
3. Etc.
Conferencing strategies to meet the needs of younger or "poorer" or whatever members
1. Equitable professional development for all (not just for those who can afford to come to our annual conferences)

Group #4

Relationship between comp/rhet and English as a language
1. Mono-linguistic assumptions
2. Where is comp/rhet located?
  1. Organizational chart
    1. Contingenet/adjunct labor
Working conditions
1. Adjunct faculty
2. Workload issues
3. (Research – impact on student learning?)
Assessment/accreditation
1. Teacher preparation
2. Second language learners
3. Dual credit

Everyone there pretty much agreed that we need to do a better job representing "us" to the public. PR – public (mis)perception(s). Makes this a good time for:

Research: because of mandates that affect US: our teaching, our courses, our field. Era of outcomes-based decision making. Public climate that (may) be willing to engage in rational conversations? Public funding for research?
Conferencing, professional development, access, etc.: Economic situation; "green"; ubiquitous technology (the technology is here NOW to make it happen)
2^nd language issues
Globalization: 3 and 4 go together. Because of the global nature of our population and the internationalization of business, we need to be more concerned and better prepared.
The first-year course as a "sub-prime mortgage" idea – d ual credit/enrollment/AP score exemptions; adjunct faculty reliance; class size; workloads; freezes on new hires; research on effectiveness, definition, etc.
PR – why NOW?

NCTE will be sponsoring The National Day on Writing, October 20, 2009 (see http://www.ncte.org/action/dayonwriting for more information!). NCTE will host 21^st century literacies, local as well as national spaces.

[Don't ask me why I thought of this as we were discussing the Day on Writing, but it's in my notes: I thought about doing a "how to write a FaceBook profile" project with my 1101 class in the Fall 2009 – the next time I'll be teaching first-semester comp. I could invite my students to pick a theme/topic and write about it. For instance:

ENGL 1101 Fall 2009

How to Write a FaceBook Profile

Technological how-to
What kinds of things to include/exclude. Why?
How to attract…? (what does your profile say about you?)
Lots more things to think about here!]

Anyway, that was all I wrote down about the retreat, but it was a lively afternoon!!

NCTE Sunday General Session, November 23, 2008

2008-12-03T14:56:00.001-05:00

Kathleen Yancey, Presidential Address "The Impulse to Compose and the Age of Composition: Four Quartets"

From the Declaration of Independence drafted by "thirteen white men" to the election of Barack Obama (and his many writings from books to text messages) "by a landslide," writing is an important part of the political landscape, as Yancey makes eminently clear. Yancey used a split screen for her presentation, and I couldn't help but notice that the Declaration of the Independence was on the screen to the audience's left, while Obama was on the screen to the audience's right. (I actually mentioned this to her after the presentation, suggesting that perhaps many of us would think this was a reversal of the "proper" order! She responded that she always found it interesting to consider the multiple ways the audience "reads" these kinds of things; while she was presenting it as chronological, some of us were intent on "reading" it as political. Heh.)

At any rate, Yancey presented the forecast of English composition as a social problem: "We are literacy educators," she asserted in four quartets:

An impulse to write, tested
An impulse to write, scaled and experienced
An impulse to write, processed, and
An impulse to write, electrified, networked

In Quartet 1, then, she discussed the history of "writing," from an emphasis on teaching children penmanship, with the focus on children as readers and listeners. As Deborah Brandt notes, writing was labor intensive (messy ink smudges, penmanship, manual typewriters that took LOTS of muscle to pound).

Citing Mark Richardson's recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i11/11a04701.htm if you have an account), Yancey discussed the old Harvard writing exams and the birth of our current writing curriculum, which was note even based on anything to do with writing per se, but instead of ensuring that students could discuss literature in a "paper."

Thus we come to Quartet 2 (okay, okay, I'm leaving out so MUCH good stuff, but these are notes, for goodness' sake!). Science and progressivism reared their heads and "writing became a phenomenon to be measured," beginning, says Yancey, in 1909 with measuring ratings of, what else—handwriting! At any rate, the tests "tested pupils, but they also tested teachers." (Sound familiar??). In 1935, NCTE developed a proposed curriculum, and there was something about a "Report: Testing Unfair, Unwise" by Robert C. Small, Jr., Assoc. Press. (Okay, these are ROUGH notes. Whaddya want? You should have been there in person to hear Yancey speak for yourself!)

The 1930s-40s saw the influence of science and the absence of theory in composition. "Teaching behavior and responsibility through composition" rather than creativity and critical thinking. Hmmm, this reminds me of the many, many, many texts that were used in my old typing class in high school (as well as the many typing tests that were administered to job applicants) WAY back in the 60s and 70s) that didn't just provide text for typing practice/testing, but that actually were about writing business letters or business etiquette or other "professional" practices in the work place.

In response, of course, we later began to see research in the field (for instance, research into composing processes leading to the process movement, NCTE's statement on student's use of language in 1974, etc. And of course, portfolios…. (now genre, activity theory, situated learning).

So, what was left? Teacher as examiner—a model still in effect today.

Transformative: personal computer (even before the Internet) as desktop publishing can inspire creativity, visual composing, etc.

So, Kathleen Yancey included "Beebo" in her list. I was seated next to Michael Day and neither of us had ever heard of this term, so I looked it up in Wikipedia:

Bebo is a popular social networking website, founded in January 2005. It can be used in many countries including Ireland, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. A Polish version was launched recently, which uses a different user database. There are plans for French, German and other versions. Founded by husband and wife Michael and Xochi Birch, Bebo had a major relaunch in July 2005.^]

It was bought by AOL on March 13, 2008 for $850 m (£417 m).

"Bebo" is an acronym for "Blog early, blog often".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebo

So, now we've come to Quartet 4: Enter digital technology and Web 2.0 – and writers are everywhere. Students are sharing; they are both creators and recipients for news. We have what Deborah Brandt terms "self-sponsored writing" and what Kathleen Yancey terms the "Age of Composition." A new era – digital technology.

Yancey makes it clear that students now want to have at least some control over their learning: she tells the story of the AP exams where students used social networking sites to join forces (over 30,000 strong) to write "This is Sparta!" (crossed out so it wouldn't count against them) somewhere in their AP exams! Posted to Wikipedia (but removed about a month later), this story deftly illustrates the power of social networking (among other things!). So, asks Yancey, "How can we build on" students' knowledge of composing in a digital, connected era? Web 2.0 allows for "communication, conversation, connecting, and community," she says (is this, I wonder, a possible new meaning for CCCC?).

"Today," says Yancey, "if you're writing at the screen, you're writing on the network." Noone is writing alone anymore. "Through writing, we are." This brings us, then, to

"A New Agenda, A New Composition" – a new kind of citizenship – with

New models of composing and composition (apart from testing!)
New audiences
New definitions of "writing" (is it a verb or a noun?)
And new models for teaching (heh, she used a "wordle" for her slide!)

In conclusion, she stressed, "We need to become serious about helping students become (citizen) writers instead of good test takers." Amen (or is it "ah women?") to that!

YouTube and Turkeys

2008-11-21T10:58:00.001-05:00

It's that time of year, when people start talking turkey. Well, some of us do anyway, especially when our minds turn to food. So, I'm talking with a friend about plans for Thanksgiving dinners past, present, and future (it was almost lunch time, and we were hungry!), and she tells me that turkeys are actually very stupid birds.

"They are so stupid," she says, "that they stand out in the rain with their heads up and almost drown!"

"Heh," sez I. "I wonder what would happen if you crossed a turkey with its head up in the rain with an ostrich with its head in the sand."

Her reply? "A really cool YouTube video!"

Day Last at the 2008 Georgia Conference on Information Literacy

2008-11-12T14:11:00.001-05:00

The day began with a keynote address by Dr. Carol Simpson of the School of Library and Information Sciences at the University of North Texas. In her address, entitled "Can You? Should You," sponsored in part by Linworth Publishing, she discussed the "current fair use climate and the raging battle between those who think educators should force educational fair use to the wall, and their oppornents who advocate a more conservative approach." While she didn't present anything new for those of us who have been following IP issues (albeit, in my case anyway, marginally), nonetheless much of the information she presented was new to many in her audience. Her presentation was clear and well put together, using humor in the right places and in the right proportions. I especially like her use of the David Pogue video on RIAA at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF7cHmyEJ-c.

I also attended Panel 35, beginning with "Just Google It: Bringing Students' Information Literacy to the Composition Classroom" by Susanna Coleman. I thought she had a very interesting spin, using text messaging skills to help students figure out keywords for Google and/or library database searches (so long as the students learn to spell the words out instead of "txt-ing" them!). She also showed a comparison of Google Advanced Search screen with an Ebsco database search screen, arguing that we can help students learn to navigate the admittedly complex world of scholarly databases by helping them see how it is similar to what they already know. Unfortunately, of course, in my experience few students use the advanced search feature in Google….

Thomas Ferstle next presented "Information Literacy the WIKI Way," in which he likened WIKIs to participatory, democratic (and fun?) forums, arguing that such forums enhance students' writing to each other and therefore tends to be "better" than students writing just for the teacher.

The panel ended with "Blogging, Information Literacy, and the College Classroom" by Catherine Ramsdell. She discussed how blogs have gone from early beginnings (c. 2000?) to mainstream in 2008. Students are excited about writing, she says, especially when they get comments from real readers.

Wow, there's SOOOOO much more I could have said about the great presentations and the wonderful people at this conference. But then, people might think I'm a bit biased since I'm one of the conference's organizers….

Ah, well, maybe those people will just have to come and see for themselves!

Georgia Conference on Information Literacy

Savannah, GA, September 25-26, 2009

Or, as they say in this neck of the woods,

"Y'all come!"

More Good Stuff from the 2008 Georgia Conference on Information Literacy

2008-11-05T15:18:00.003-05:00

Panel 19

Lars Soderlund's presentation, Access and Competition: Profile of a Digital Information Literacy Business" was particularly interesting, I thought. Not only was his content interesting – an "information literacy contest," actually a business that learns from its contestants how people learn information literacy skills—but his presentation took the shape of an audio file. Why do I think playing an audio file to a live audience at a conference interesting? Well, maybe because there was a live person (Lars) sitting at the front table while it played so that, when it was done, he could answer questions. Ah, technology. How will "conferences" look in 10 years? Or will they all be virtual?

Amy England presented "Confessions of a Neo-Luddite, or How Changes in Access Have Changed my Attitudes toward Technology," which I thought was a definite turn-around from Lars' presentation. Only it wasn't really anti-technology, of course. Amy's discussion of access, however, was an appropriate foil. That is, access, she argued, is still not a "given." As a result, she continued, there is increased reluctance to use any but the most basic IT. The investment necessary to use IT is not just in dollars, as she so rightly pointed out, but in time and frustration as well. Is it worth it? (Well, to me, of course it is, though I have to admit that, given the frustrations of workload and time, sometimes I find myself backing off from learning things I'd like to learn or, even worse, "playing" with things I'd like to play with in the classroom.)

Workshop 3

I decided to attend Judi Repman's workshop on "Using Web 2.0 Tools to Teach Information Literacy in the School Library Media Center." What a good decision! I'm so proud of myself! There was standing room only for this well done workshop.

Judy was joined by two of her students, Lucy Bush and Diane Griffin, who discussed their use of Web 2.0 tools. Diane talked about creating a classroom resource WIKI page which students can add to throughout the semester (including a dictionary or glossary of key terms, a study guide, and many more valuable resources). Lucy talked about the use of Google Pages for a Virtual School Library.

Voice threads, twitter, microblogging, lions and tigers and google, oh my! So much to learn. So much to play with. Exhilarating! Exhausting! My department chair happened to be sitting next to me during this workshop, and I watched her furiously making notes. Maybe some of the barriers that Amy England talked about in her presentation (Panel 19, above) can actually be breached someday. J

Panel 26

I rounded out the day by attending "iPods, Inquiry and Information Literacy: Developing a Program for USC Upstate's First-year Students," presented by Louise Ericson, Brenda Davenport, and Andrew Kearns. They promised to address the important question of "What would a comprehensive information literacy program for first-year students look like?"

They had been introducing students to the library and its services with a tiered approach not unfamiliar to most of us:

library orientation
"You be the expert" - annotated bibliography assignment
Career exploration worksheet

Then, they said, they had an "Aha!" moment (I wish I could have one of those!). They re-created their library tour as a podcast, following ACRL standards as the basis for instruction. Their handouts for the presentation are available on the conference CD (visit the Georgia Conference on Information Literacy Web site at http://ceps.georgiasouthern.edu/conted/infolit.html for more information).

They also incorporated a cell phone search and ACRL information literacy standards identified by students. I'm really not doing this presentation justice, of course. I have seen other libraries attempt to move their orientation and information sessions into podcast-land (visit iTunesU and I'm sure you can find some examples), but most of them are not interactive (yet). At any rate, visit their Web site at http://www.uscupstate.edu/library/ and you can find more information about their project.

Stay tuned for tomorrow!!

2008 Georgia Conference on Information Literacy

2008-10-21T12:38:00.001-05:00

Another conference has come and gone. The 2008 Georgia Conference on Information Literacy took place October 3-4, 2008, at the Coastal Georgia Center in Savannah. The weather couldn't have been more perfect, Oktoberfest celebrations were in full swing on River Street, and yet the conference sessions were packed, a testament to the high quality and timeliness of this year's presentations!

I wish I could have attended all of the sessions, but, of course, I'm one person and could only manage to be in one place at a time. Once again, I took some VERY rough notes, which I'll post here, but I hope if anyone has notes about the sessions I missed (or can add to what I've got here) they'll post them somewhere for us all to see. Luckily, too, a CD that collects some of the PowerPoint presentations in advance of the conference each year is also available. Visit the Conference Web site at http://ceps.georgiasouthern.edu/conted/infolit.html for more information (and to see the CFP for the 2009 Conference!).

So, here goes:

Panel 10

"Information Electracy: Developing a Category System for the Image" presented by Sean Morey, University of Florida. Morey presented alternatives to Aristotelian logic in an imagic age à la Greg Ulmer (whence the term "electracy," a term I distinctly dislike, by the way, even though, like many people in the field, I hold nothing but high regard for Ulmer and the important work he's done in the area). I thought it was really appropriate that Morey's presentation was actually a movie—yes, he sat there in person while we watched the movie (hmmm, wonder if I can get a copy of it? It was a really GOOD movie/presentation). Of course, he didn't address the intellectual property issues that might be involved in his use of several movie clips (real movies) included in his movie/presentation, so, hmmm, maybe I better not ask…. Ya never know!

Ionut Emil Iacob (Georgia Southern University) and Kevin Kiernan (University of Kentucky) then presented "IBX: Image Based XML for Digital Projects in the Humanities," which is a project they are working on that uses image-based XML (IBX), an image-based tagging system, to create a searchable database of images/artifacts (exigesis?). You can see more about this project at http://www.eppt.org. I hope we will be able to get them back next year to see how the project develops!

Marcia Ribble from the University of Cincinnati completed the session with her presentation of "Teaching Media Literacy: How Can It Fit into Teaching Composition?" Students, she says, are not just purveyors, but also creators, of images. The textbook for her class, Media Literacy by James Potter, approaches the topic from the standpoint of production. Historically, our field has looked at the reception of text rather than at its creation. Her class approaches production from the vantage of media (including text, of course, but also images and other media). [Our field has, of course, historically analyzed text (and images)—and taught our students to analyze literary artifacts—even while we have purported to teach production. That is, we teach our students to write, yes, but often what we are really teaching them isn't to write at all, but to analyze works of literature (in writing). Now we see a distinct shift in our field, as we teach students to analyze texts, images, and other media that they find in such spaces as FaceBook or MySpace instead of "great works." ]

Panel 12

"When Does Information Become Proprietary? The Link between Quotation and Attribution" presented by Carol Simspon, University of Texas, was a great way to round out the first morning of the conference. She presented some tried and true suggestions for helping students to avoid plagiarism. With her background in law, I found her written information for students particularly helpful since she was careful to define her terms and be explicit—very useful! I was a bit thrown off, however, when she said students might sometimes be guilty of unintentional plagiarism because they don't know how to make good "note cards." Do people REALLY still teach note cards?? Can you say "20^th century!!"? I would also argue with her about the ethics and/or usefulness of using a plagiarism detection service, such as TurnItIn.com, but her presentation did make great use of examples and audience involvement in looking at some of the problems that these types of services may raise in even identifying plagiarized passages to begin with. All in all, a very good session.

More good stuff to follow. Watch this blog!

MLA Rant

2008-09-25T19:33:00.002-05:00

Okay, so just when word processors finally made the process of footnoting and endnoting easier, MLA decided that was not the way we should cite sources. Instead, we should use parenthetic notes and the list of Works Cited.

Okay, so we did.

Now, Word includes an automatic bibliography generator (I know, I know—it kinda sucks; all the bib generators kinda suck and they are all GIGO—Garbage in, Garbage out—but anyway, it’s there). So what does MLA do in response? They change all their formats.

Now instead of underlining, they’ve finally read their own book and they are using italics. And now—sheesh, are you ready—we have entered bizarro world.

Now we have to include the medium of publication (like APA, only worse)—even for BOOKS and journal articles (the medium for these, by the way is “print”). For journal articles accessed through library databases, we no longer need include the library information (which was silly anyway)—but now the medium is designated as “Web” (even though, technically, the library databases aren’t on the Web, but accessed through a portal FROM the Web (usually—anyway, go figure).

There’s even more silliness. You GOTTA be sitting down.

Once again, MLA has decreed we don’t need to include the URL for Web sources. MLA has decided that, heck, you can use a search engine. So just providing the medium (Web) works.

So, if the file happens to be in some format other than html or print, the medium gets, well, complicated (according to MLA anyway), so you have to designate Microsoft Word document, jpeg, television, radio, DVD, CD, LP (do you believe it!?), .PDF, etc. In other words, you have to know a lot of things that most of our students (and many of the rest of us) don’t know about a given source—and often don’t need to know.

Oh, yeah, and make sure you only include ONE space after a period (not two).

The 3rd edition of the (infamous) MLA Style Manual includes all of these changes and more.

Yet another reason to ignore MLA and adopt the 2nd edition of The Columbia Guide to Online Style instead! http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-13210-7/the-columbia-guide-to-online-style .

Oh, yeah, but in case you were wondering: in the few instances where MLA does include a URL in their citation format, they still advise us to turn off hyperlinking so we can designate text that should be hyperlinked with (Gasp!) those silly angle brackets….

Are we having fun yet?

Using Word 2007 to Post Blogs

2008-08-01T11:26:00.001-05:00

Well, this isn't exactly earth-shatteringly new (I used to be able to write and publish blogs with Word 97-2003), but it's much easier now in Word 2007.

Simply click the menu button in the top, left-hand corner of Word, select "New" and then "blog post." You'll have to register your blog, of course, in order to publish it—and the picture publishing stuff seems to me to be a bit clunky and unclear (why isn't Flickr an option??), but other than that, it's pretty easy.

For more information and help should you need it, visit "Help with Blogging in Word" at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA101640211033.aspx.

I've got a new blog!

2008-06-19T13:12:00.002-05:00

Yeah, okay, so the last thing I need is another blog NOT to keep up-to-date. But somehow, having three blogs now makes me want to actually do more.

So I wanted to check out WordPress and, quite frankly, I'm impressed with it. Of course, my "Squirrel Splat" post is still here in this blog, so I'm keeping this one, too!

Anyway, if you're at all interested (then you are probably insane), but check it out: http://janicewalker.wordpress.com/

CCCC 2008

2008-04-08T10:34:00.003-05:00

Okay, so I think that about half of the passengers on the Atlanta to New Orleans flight on Tuesday were going to Cs. Everything went smoothly (at least relatively so), and on time! I actually started writing this blog entry (are you ready??) with pen and note paper (really!) during my flight. Yes, yes, I know, but....

I lucked up at the airport and was able to share a cab to the hotel with Kathy Yancey, Sandra Jamieson, and Rebecca Moore Howard. My roommate, Risa Gorelick, Chair of the Research Network Forum, had arrived earlier, so I was able to join her and her friends for dinner as they each celebrated new jobs/positions.

I spent Wednesday in an all-day CCCC Executive Committee meeting, which actually went by much faster than you would think, especially with Cheryl Glenn riding herd over us to get our work done! But I noted something interesting during my bathroom break: A sign on the back of the women's bathroom door, that women could not help but notice as they left the room, reminded us: "Warning--drinking alcoholic beverages during pregnancy may cause severe physical and mental birth defects." Of course, I agree this is an important warning, but I just HAD to know what (if anything) was posted on the back of the men's room door. I ALMOST went in to see, but I though better of it, and I got my "twin" Michael Day to check it out. There was the exact same message--so women would know not to drink during pregnancy, and men would know to make sure women didn't drink during pregnancy (although, actually, the sign could be misconstrued, I suppose). Hmmm. Okay.

We also enjoyed a very "New Orleans" (and very good) lunch together at Mulate's before we resumed work for the afternoon. Michael and I walked back from lunch at Mulate's through Riverwalk, which meanders up and down different levels back to the Hilton. We walked as far as we could outside, enjoying the view of the river, before the "walk" forced us back in to see the food court and shops. I thought it was interesting that, the closer we approached to the Hilton, the more "upscale" (e.g., EXPENSIVE) the shops became....

Now, no CCCC experience would be complete without the de rigeur "elevator stories." If you've ever been to a CCCC, you know exactly what I mean. So, one of the elevators in the bank that went to my floor was an outside elevator with a beautiful view of, well, of another building and an alley with dumpsters and such. Go figure. At any rate, when the usual bunches of us entered the elevator we noticed that several buttons were already lit, but, undaunted we lit up some more, pressing the buttons for our separate floors. The elevator began its ascent and the lights in the elevator went off (I discovered later this was to allow a better view of the dumpsters outside). It caught us all a bit off guard, I think, but, okay, it was just a light, right? However, at each floor we stopped at, ALL of the buttons for the floors we had pushed went out, too. So, of course, we pushed them again. But at one floor, someone got on and pushed a floor below us--and the elevator went back down with all of us wanting to go up (well, almost all of us).

Being rhetoricians, of course, we stayed on the elevator (well, everyone except Nick Carbone, who, since he works for a publisher, had better sense and extricated himself in search of a different elevator), and tried again, pushing buttons, until we finally did actually arrive where we wanted to be. Ah, elevators.

So on Thursday morning, early, I went to set up the booth for the Rhetoric and Composition Journal Editors, a group that doesn't really (officially) exist, but that has a booth in the exhibit hall at CCCC every year anyway. Basically, we're just a bunch of journal editor types who decided a few years ago to make information available to people as a service to the discipline, and we all pitch in to pay for the space at the conference and take turns volunteering to staff it. I always coordinate it, so I needed to set up the space. Everything was going fine until I realized I forgot to bring a notepad in case anyone wanted to write anything down. Ya never know. I never realized just how difficult it could be to find a notepad at a conference of writing professors.... Finally, one of the publishers actually came through with some pads of "sticky notes"!

MORE LATER (maybe). :)

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: 2008 Graduate Research Network

2008-03-08T18:38:00.003-05:00

Computers and Writing 2008 announces the ninth Graduate Research Network, a forum for discussion of research projects and work in progress related to Computers and Writing. The C&W Graduate Research Network is an all-day pre-conference event, open to all registered conference participants at no charge.

Roundtable discussions will group those with similar interests and discussion leaders who will facilitate discussion and offer suggestions for developing research projects and for finding suitable venues for publication. We encourage anyone interested or involved in graduate education and scholarship--students, professors, mentors, and interested others--to participate in this important event.

The GRN welcomes those pursuing work at any stage, from those just beginning to consider ideas to those whose projects are ready to pursue publication.

The Graduate Research Network is free to all registered conference participants. For more information, see the full Call for Proposals at http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/writling/GRN/2008/index.html or email jwalker@georgiasouthern.edu.

Notes from the Georgia Conference on Information Literacy

2007-11-14T14:48:00.000-05:00

Okay, I’ve been told that I need to update my blog. I mean, sheesh, isn’t once a year enough??

Well, maybe not. So….

Anyway, there’s an old Chinese curse (or so someone somewhere once told me) that goes “May you live in interesting times.” And the times have definitely been interesting for me (no, I’m not trying to make excuses for only blogging once a year—well, yeah, maybe I am, but ANYWAY….).

This year’s Georgia Conference on Information Literacy is history, and we’re gearing up to get ready for next year’s. Once again, the Conference was deemed a success according to the surveys of attendees, and those kind of markers, but, more importantly, I truly enjoyed all of the wonderful presentations I attended.

A few I want to mention especially:

Anthony Atkins and Robert Searcy of the University of North Carolina,Wilmington, presented “Writing the Image in Composition: Student/ Teacher Collaboration,” in which they discussed having students analyze and produce visual texts. I have to say I was blown away by the multimedia projects the students at both the graduate and undergraduate levels completed! In the same session, Jonette La Gamba of the University of South Florida presented “Teaching Elements of Rhetoric: Employing Visuals,” outlining a plan to teach first-year composition students elements of classical rhetoric and writing by having them create advertisements, “borrowing” and repurposing visual elements--or creating their own. Some fascinating examples!

Karen Lunsford from the University of California at Santa Barbara presented on “Using Orientation Materials with Writing Assignments,” showing what UCSB is doing with Sakai and Moodle, making “library orientation materials more directly relevant to students by making them part of research writing assignments.”

The keynote presentation on Saturday was by Keith Curry Lance, former director of library research service (Colorado State Library) Department of Education (Denver) and entitled “Powering Achievement: The Importance of School Libraries on Information Literacy and Academic Achievement.” He showed us information he had collected on the demonstrated links between “high-quality school library programs and high-stakes test scores.” None of us were surprised by these links, of course! But seeing these statistics was still extremely interesting, especially in light of the ongoing studies Lance is still involved with hoping to learn more about these important relationships.

Joan E. Broome, of the Zach S. Henderson Library at Georgia Southern University, and Christine Whitlock of the GSU chemistry department are working to teach information literacy to students in organic chemistry, and Barbara Hightower and Michelle Schutt, both of Auburn University, Montgomery, are teaching library research skills to nursing students in WebCT. Their presentations continued this important strand on using technology to help make information available to students and customizing information literacy instruction to better fulfill disciplinary needs.

Finally, I attended the presentation given by Julie Housknecht, Betsy Whitley, and Adrienne Button, all of North Georgia College and State University, entitled “Beyond the Skills Survey: Activities as Assessment.” A testament to the success of this presentation (and, I think, of the conference as a whole) was the amount of audience involvement in this timely and thought-provoking presentation, even at the end of a full slate of conferencing, when so many participants at most conferences are looking for toothpicks to hold their eyes open. Not here! Obviously, assessment, especially in this era of evidence-based decision making, is a “hot button” topic! The activities they outlined look to prove useful for many participants at any level!

Hopefully before the year is out (!), I’ll blog a bit about my own conference panel on my other blog (no, I don’t update it any more than I do this one!). But check it out anyway (link to LILAC blog).

So, okay, this Conference was definitely NOT squirrel splat! J

Keep an eye out on my home page at http://personal.georgiasouthern.edu/~jwalker for a link to the call for proposals for NEXT year’s Georgia Conference on Information Literacy, October 3-4, 2008, at the Coastal Georgia Center in Savannah. The deadline for proposals will be April 15, 2008, so get your thinking caps in gear.

Squirrel Splat

2006-11-15T15:58:00.000-05:00

Today I watched a squirrel climbing, climbing, climbing up the brick wall of my office building. As I watched the squirrel making its way up the wall, I wondered why it would possibly want to climb that wall. Nonetheless, the squirrel climbed to the very top (three stories high) before realizing it had nowhere to go. It couldn't get to the roof because of decoration with no handholds (not even the tiny handholds needed by a squirrel). So there it was, three stories up a sheer brick wall and nowhere to go.

It looked around and saw a very small tree and jumped for it--but unfortunately the tree was not only small, it was too far away, so the squirrel landed on the sidewalk with a decided "Splat!" Luckily, after a few minutes of either unconsciousness or total embarrassment, the squirrel sat up and ran off--up a slightly bigger tree.

I suddenly realized that my day has been going just like this story--climbing, climbing, climbing, with nowhere to go unless I decide to go "Splat!" I just hope that, when I get to that point, I, too, can finally sit up and run (although I'm not sure I want to run toward yet something else to climb!).

Anyway, that's how my day has gone so far....

Interesting Readings

2006-07-22T08:37:00.002-05:00

Interesting Readings

Walsh, Jason. “Information Wants to be Liquid.” Wired News 25 Jan. 2005. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66382,00.html (22 July 2006).

"Email is so last millennium. Young people see it as a good way to reach an elder--a parent, teacher, or a boss..." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13921601/

Liu, Ziming. "Reading Behavior in the Digital Environment: Changes in
Reading Behavior Over the Past Ten Years" /Journal of Documentation/
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/info/journals/jd/jd.jsp
61(6)(2005): 700-712. - Interesting study on the changes in reading
behavior due to increased use of digital information. People highlight
less but search more; people read linearly less but show intense
concentration once sections are found that interest them. While
considerably more research is needed, this article is a good
introduction to the field. [plagiarised review from Bill Wolff, posted to techrhet@interversity.org (20 Dec. 2005)].

WIKIVERSITY
The organization that maintains the online encyclopedia Wikipedia
(http://www.wikipedia.org/ ) proposes the creation of Wikiversity, an
"electronic institution of learning that will be used to test the
limits of the wiki model both for developing electronic learning
resources as well as for teaching and for conducting research and
publishing results." Still in the initial startup phase, Wikiversity
could, at the least, be an open repository for educational materials.
Some Wiki board members also think it could serve as a host to online
courses, which, in turn, could lead to degree-granting programs. For
more information about Wikiversity, go to
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity [original post by Carolyn Kotlas, posted to techrhet@interversity.org by mbulger (6 Jan. 2006)].

"Introducing the Hipster PDA." http://www.43folders.com/2004/09/03/introducing-the-hipster-pda/ (19 Feb. 2007).

Medero, Shawn. "Paper Prototyping." A List Apart. 23 Jan. 2007.
http://alistapart.com/articles/paperprototyping (19 Feb. 2007). "As interfaces become ever more complex and development schedules seem to get shorter and shorter, you may find it useful to give up your user-interface modeling software for awhile in favor of something simpler. All you need is paper, pens, scissors, and your imagination."

Carnevale, Dan. “Professors Seek Compensation for Online Courses." Chronicle of Higher Education 13 Aug. 2004. http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i49/49a02701.htm (3 Mar. 2007).

See if you can navigate this site. All you will ever want to know about "the click." http://www.dontclick.it. [Posted by Kami Cox 5 March 2007].

Michael Wresch, "Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE . I've been using this in some of my classes, and I think it's very good at bringing in some of the issues that we are facing in the wake of changes in the technologies of communication. Of course, it might seem more useful to me because I'm familiar with the history (and some of the code and things!) it uses to demonstrate these changes. I'm curious as to how it might work for others. [4 Sep. 2008].

Kiwis Life Philosophies

2006-04-17T08:18:00.001-05:00

Kiwi’s Life Philosophies

There are certain cogent philosophies by which I live my life. Just in case you want to know what they are, I’m listing some of the more important ones here.

Hurry! Only one day left until tomorrow! (seen on a roadside sign somewhere in Florida)
The trouble with the rat race is that, even if you win, you’re still a rat! (attributed to Lily Tomlin)
Today is the first day of the rest of my life (or is today the last day of the first of my life?) Either way, attribution is unknown.
No trees were killed in the sending of this message. However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

There! Are you happy now?

Resources and stuff

2005-11-08T13:03:00.021-05:00

Resources and Stuff
These resources are listed with neither rhyme nor reason (other than alphabetically because…). Someday perhaps I’ll come in and add subheadings and group these resources, but for now, this is simply a “house of memory.” If you have information or reviews of any of these sites (or “stuff”), please post them.

Adobe Buzzword, http://www.adobe.com/acom/buzzword/ "The first real word processor for the Web"
Angel Course Management Software, http://angellearning.com/
Archive.org, http://www.archive.org/index.php
AudioCasting, http://www.weblogg-ed.com/newsItems/departments/audiocasting
AVS Audio and Video Converters, http://www.avs4you.com/

BibDesk Mac OS Citation Manager, http://bibdesk.sourceforge.net/
BitTorrent, http://www.bittorrent.com/index.html
Blurb BookSmart, http://www.blurb.com/

Callwave Widgets (Think Outside the Phone), Visual Voicemail and TextMessaging widgets, http://www.callwave.com/landing/widgets.asp
CiteULike, A free online service to organise your academic papers, http://www.citeulike.org/
CORE, Comprehensive Online Research Education, an online tutorial, http://gemini.lib.purdue.edu/core/login/login.cfm
Crossref.org, http://www.crossref.org/

D&M Professional Education, The Audio-Visual University, http://www.education.d-mpro.com/
DailyLit (free 5-minute bites of the classics via email), http://www.dailylit.com/
Deli.icio.us, http://del.icio.us/
Dia, open-source visual-editing software, http://www.download.com/Dia/3000-2075_4-10833704.html?tag=mncol
Digg.com, http://www.digg.com/
Dotster, Web hosting, http://www.dotster.com/webhosting/webhosting_pkg_standard.php
Drupal Project, http://drupal.org/

E2Servers, Web hosting, http://e3servers.com/linux-web-hosting.htm
Elements, photoshop techniques, http://training.photoshopelementsuser.com/
Ereader.com, Ebooks for the Palm Pilot, http://www.ereader.com/

Fat Cow, Web hosting, http://www.fatcow.com/fatcow/index.bml
FinalSite, a content management system for education, http://www.finalsite.com/

Getty Images, http://www.gettyimages.com/
Gimp, http://www.gimp.org/ GNU Image Manipulation Program
Go Daddy, Web hosting, https://www.godaddy.com/
Google Docs and Spreadsheets, http://docs.google.com/
Google Page Creator, http://pages.google.com/
GrandCentral: The New Way to Use Your Phones, http://www.grandcentral.com/
GVC.Sitemaker, an Open Source global website creation and management system, http://www.gvcsitemaker.com/
gVisit.com, http://www.gvisit.com/ "Track visitors to your website [sic] using Google Maps."

HelloPDF, http://www.hellopdf.com/ "Free PDF to Word converter"

ICDSoft.com, Web hosting, http://www.icdsoft.com/
iFroggy, Web hosting, http://www.ifroggy.com/
IHMC CmapTools, http://cmaptools.com/ (See also Dia, Visio)
ImageChef, http://www.imagechef.com/ "Customize photos, clip art"
Inkscape, http://www.inkscape.org/
iPodder.org, PodCasts, http://www.ipodder.org/
Internic’s “WhoIs” search page, http://www.internic.net/whois.html
Interversity, a bureaucracy-free zone, http://interversity.org/
iText, http://sourceforge.net/projects/itext/

Kartoo.com, http://www.kartoo.com/
Knight Cite, Citation Creation Tool, http://webapps.calvin.edu/knightcite/index.php?op=newCitation

Landmark’s Citation Machine, http://citationmachine.net/
LiveScribe, http://www.livescribe.com/
Lulu, allows you to publish and sell online, http://www.lulu.com/
Lunar Pages, Web hosting, http://lunarpages.com/

Macromedia Fireworks Tutorial: Creating Pop-Up Menus (Cheryl Ball), http://cball.usu.edu/classes/pdfs/fireworks_pop-ups.doc
Make-A-Web-Site, a how-to guide for creating websites,http://www.make-a-web-site.org/making1.html
MediaPointe, http://www.everythingavoverip.com/
MegaUpload, http://megaupload.com/
Microsoft Office OneNote 2007, http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/default.aspx
Microsoft Photo Story 3, create slideshows, add special effects to digital photos, http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/p
hotostory/default.mspx
MobilPocket.com, Ebook reader for cell phones, http://www.mobilpocket.com/en/DownloadSoft/p800.asp?Origine=PAGE_P800
Mojopac, can turn any portable storage pack onto a personal computer, http://www.mojopac.com/portal/content/who/everyone.jsb
MOO.com, http://www.moo.com/ (Ok, Ok, so it's a printing service, but I LOVED the name...)
Moodle.com, http://moodle.com/
MUVEES Project, a multi-user virtual environmental experiential simulator, http://muve.gse.harvard.edu/muvees20033/
My Janee, Online tutorials, http://www.myjanee.home.insightbb.com.tutorials.htm/

Network Solutions, Web hosting, http://networksolutions.com/
nuTsie, http://www.nutsie.com/main
Nvu, a complete Web authorizing system for Linux Desktop users, http://www.nvu.com/

Onfolio, for collecting, organizing, and sharing online, http://www.onfolio.com/
Online CV portfolio, http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~klarola/
OpenOffice (ODF Converter), http://sourceforge.net/projects/odf-converter or read more at, http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070202-8764.html
Opera Web browser, http://www.opera.com/

Pegaweb, Online tutorials, http://www.pegaweb.com/
Phong, photoshop tutorials, http://www.phong.com/
PHP Web Hosting, http://www.phpwebhosting.com/
Podcasting Projects, by Todd Maffin, http://www.todmaffin.com/podcasting/
Podcasting workshop, CW 2006, http://www.siteslab.org/workshops/podcast
PollDaddy, http://www.polldaddy.com/
Poynter, journalism tutorial, http://www.poynter.org/
Prezi.com, "The zooming editor for stunning presentations," http://prezi.com/
ProtoTerra, Vision 1.0, http://www.prototerra.com/

Quia, educational resources for teachers, http://www.quia.com/servlets/quia.web.QuiaWebManager
QuirksMode, the personal and professional site of Peter-Paul Koch, http://www.quirksmode.org/home.shtml

Radiant Vista, photoshop tutorials, http://www.radiantvista.com/pdf_tutorials/ Read/Write/Think, http://www.readwritethink.org/
Register, Web hosting, http://www.register.com/retail/index.rcmx
Replay Music, The Worldwide Leader in Streaming Recording, http://www.applian.com/replay-music/index.php?src=GMUSIC_REPLAYMUSIC
Review of Sony’s Ebook Reader, dotcomu, http://www.dottocomu.com/b/archives/002571.html
Roush, Wade. “When the Web Was New,” Technology Review 4 Apr. 2005, http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/04/wo/wo_040405web.asp?p=1

Sakai: Collaboration and Learning Environment for Education, http://sakaiproject.org/
Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepb.html
Scholastic, for help with writing, http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/teachwriting/index.htm
Scirus, http://www.scirus.com/ A "free, science-specific, search engine.
Scratch, http://scratch.mit.edu/
Site 5, Web hosting, http://site5.com/hosting
skrbl beta, a shareable online whiteboard, http://www.skrbl.com/
Skype, http://www.skype.com/
SnagIt (Screen Captures), http://www.tucows.com/preview/195062
Sonicfoundry, http://www.sonicfoundry.com/ (See their MediaSite Podcasting Solution)
Spoono, Photoshop tutorials, http://www.spoono.com/photoshop/tutorials/
SSH (Secure Shell) Communications Security, http://www.ssh.com/
StumbleUpon, http://www.stumbleupon.com/
SurveyMonkey, http://www.surveymonkey.com/
Swarm, http://swarm.wide.msu.edu/"Swarm helps you get feedback on your writing from friends and colleagues."
Switch Audio File Conversion Software, http://www.nch.com.au/switch/

Tech Connect, integrates computer technology into the classroom, http://techconnect.glencoe.com/tc/jsp/TcHome.jsp
Teleflip, get email on your cell phone. https://www.teleflip.com/
Thinkquest, a Student-Built Site, http://www.thinkquest.org/oct04jun05/index.shtml,
http://www.thinkquest.org/apr04dec04/index.shtml,
http://www.thinkquest.org/oct03may04/index.shtml

Viddler - The best way to watch and publish your videos, http://www.viddler.com/
Vimeo, Video sharing for You, http://www.vimeo.com/
VirtuSphere Immersive Virtual Reality, http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=462
Voice thread, http://voicethread.com/ "A powerful new way to talk about and share your images, documents, and videos"
Vox Proxy, 3D talking animated characters, http://www.voxproxy.com.index.swf/

Web Editing Tools List, http://www.maryfo.com/mfo/general_resources/free/web_edit.htm
Webtools4u2use, http://webtools4u2use.wikispaces.com/
Wetpaint, http://www.wetpaint.com/ Free wiki Web sites
WikiBooks.org, http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks_portal
WikiHow, http://wiki.ehow.com/Main-Page
WikiSpaces.org, http://www.wikispaces.com/
Windows Live, http://www.windowslive.com/
Wink, Tutorial and Presentation creation software, http://www.debugmode.com/wink/
Word Detective, Words and Language in a Humorous Vein, on the Web since 1995, http://www.word-detective.com/
Writely, the Web Word Processor, http://www.writely.com/
Writing Across the Curriculum, Christopher Newport University, http://writingcenter.cnu.edu/wac/
WurldBook, Personal Internet Intelligence, http://www.wurldbook.com/info/

YouSendIt, http://www.yousendit.com/
YouTube: Broadcast Yourself, http://www.youtube.com/

Of interest to Georgia Southern University faculty only:

Technical writing links:

Prospring, Technical Staffing, Technical Writing, Training and Development, http://www.prospring.net/
Proofreading and Editing: Business, Government and Technical Publications, Austin Community College, http://www.io.com/~tcm/etwr2371/etwr2371sched_classroom.html

Techniques for Editing Online:

Change Tracking, http://www.io.com/~tcm/etwr2371/planners/onlined_track.html

Reasons

2005-11-08T12:53:00.000-05:00

So, I finally decided to become a blogger.  Yes, yes, I’ve had this blog for some time (though I have now deleted all of my previous posts because they were—well, they were!).  But I never really could think of a reason to use this blog.

So, now I still don’t have a reason for doing this, but as I’ve looked at other blogs across the Internet I’ve come to the conclusion that most bloggers don’t have a reason either.  They just are.

What I would really like to do here—at least for now—is simply play.  Perhaps I can use this space to keep me reminded of all the wonderful resources I come across on various listservs from my colleagues, students, friends, and family.

At least, that sounds like something useful.

Maybe not.

We’ll see.  (

So… here we go!!!