Response to: Week 13, April 5-9: Listening to Writing

Ball and Moeller’s argument surrounding the topic of binaries in scholarly and aesthetic writing is interesting to me, but I’m not sure if I agree with it 100%. It seems that historically these binaries did not exist – argumentation (rhetoric) was seen as an art that combined both scholarly and aesthetic writing.  Most classes touching on debate or persuasion would point out that it’s essential to the success of an argument that the writer or speaker work with both art and knowledge to convince the audience of the validity of the argument. The author’s state that, “We can teach students to use rhetoric and aesthetics, which, we argue, “allows one either to make a new move or change the rules of the game” (p. 52).  While this is great, I’m not sure it’s a new concept, and I’m not sure that these binaries have existed for many scholars.  Maybe for some educators and maybe for a period of time…but definitely this hasn’t always been the case.

Comstock and Hock’s piece on “Sonic Literacy” is really interesting.  As with incorporating visual literacies, the idea of incorporating sound into the writing classroom is a matter of catering to learning styles.  I’ve seen a video with an instructor who did an activity similar to Michelle’s documentary assignment, and it was super cool.   Like incorporating visual literacies though, I think there is an element of time that has to be spend in teaching the students how to use the technology to do something like this…which might be better done in an integrated course that’s 6 credits than in a 3 credit writing course.

Research Project Update: Web Conferencing…

I finally figured out what it is I am wanting to get at in my research paper.  I would like to focus on this idea that web conferencing allows for a unique alternative to f2f conferencing when f2f isn’t a viable option.  I really value conferencing with students about their writing because I think that students (particularly struggling students) have difficulty understanding written feedback on their assignments.  For this reason, I switched to doing more f2f conferences with students to discuss revision suggestions for their writing.  I’m enjoying the research about how web conferencing can be similarly used to connect with students about their writing assignments.

Response to Week 12 Readings: Online Teaching and Learning

Chaucer, with his antiquated language and racy plot lines, isn’t known to inspire romantic interludes like Shakespeare or other poets, but Chaucer was an integral part of sparking the romance that brought me to the man of my dreams.  My husband and I fell in love during a synchronous video Chaucer class, so I have fond memories of such “virtual” courses – but not for the fact that this forum provides a wonderful new way for students to learn!  I’ll never forget the whispered flirtations that would frequently cause the video personnel to come out from the back-room and reprimand us for triggering our microphones and, thus, the video camera that was designed to respond to sound.

What I can say from this experience though, beyond taking myself down memory lane, is that it is consistent with what Kevin DePew and Heather Lettner-Rust describe regarding the power structure of such a classroom.  In their chart on page 179 of the article entitled “Mediating Power,” the authors lay out how teachers negotiate power in different types of virtual learning environments.  They explain that a synchronous video classroom works best for a lecture format.  I must say that I agree and that they aren’t even that conducive to a “good” lecture format (if any lectures can be considered “good”).   While we had microphones, it was very awkward to utilize them for the purposes of conversing with our bushy bearded professor thousands of miles away, even though he was a personable fellow.

I’m not sure though that it’s impossible for synchronized video classes to enable interactive, collaborative learning.  As with Online courses, a lot of that depends on the instructor and how creative he/she is with the technology and with instruction.  I think a lot of the virtual mediums have potential for great instruction…the contingent dynamics are the teacher’s interest in making learning inquiry based and requiring students to contribute to the knowledge built in the classroom.  I’ve seen instruction done very well in Online courses (this class included), and I’ve seen it done really poorly – a lot of it depends less on the medium and more on the  teacher.

Response to Week 11 Readings: Social Media and Writing

I think social media is a lot of fun and very helpful when you’re miles away from family and friends.  I recently started a blog for my family and close friends to keep them updated on the pregnancy and (in a few months) on the new baby that’s supposed to arrive soon.  Even in making the decision to start this blog, I faced the challenge of thinking about who my audience would be.  I’m not a fan of Facebook because the audience is very likely to end up pretty broad, but I wasn’t sure how much to narrow my audience.  I initially started with just my immediate family; later, I opened it up to a few close friends.  The group of friends invited to the blog has grown as people out of town ask to be added onto the blog list.  I have pretty mixed feelings about this.  It’s helpful when writing to know who you’re talking to, and, when it was just my immediate family, that was easy!  Now I have to write a little bit differently.

In the same way, I think that social networking, especially used in correlation with classroom activities, can have that same awkwardness in relationship to audience.  For example, my grandma read my cousin’s Facebook page and was horrified – obviously grandma wasn’t who my cousin was thinking of as her audience, right?  It’s a basic principle of communication that people create different personae based on their audience – I’m not the same person chatting with my sisters as I am in front of the classroom.  If my audience is a mixture of different groups in which I portray (and want to portray) a different persona, than it makes communication really complicated if groups outside of your intended audience can peak into that more personal conversation.  Another example: employers who access people’s personal Facebook/Myspace pages.   The authors of Facebook pages may have one audience in mind when a completely unrelated audience may have access to what’s on their page.

When it comes to academic uses to social media, I think things can get really complicated unless they are done in a way that separates the personal communications from the academic communications.  A lot of our students don’t get that these two things should be separate, and I don’t think we’re helping them much by further blurring the lines of communication by asking to enter into their private lives.

Progress Report on Research Project

Right now I’m toying with the idea of tweaking my thesis a bit to focus on video feedback to student writing.  Instead of just looking at how teachers can use blogs to offer feedback on student writing, I’d really like to look more at how things like video feedback can provide a more “conference like” approach to responding to student writing.  My research will still work because a lot of it discusses virtual feedback generally.  As I said earlier, I also was able to attend a seminar that helped me with my research project for English 516…The speaker discussed using Online forms of communication to provide feedback on student writing. She discussed her two-year study in which students were exposed to video, audio, written feedback and combos of those types for feedback. Thankfully, she emailed me this information, so I’ll be able to use her findings in my research paper.

That said, I think my project is going well for where I’m at in the semester.  I have most of my sources and a good idea of my direction for the research paper.

Week 10: Research Update

Did a little more in the way of research for my project today.  It was interesting because I found another article that offers some cautions about using blogs in the classroom.  It addresses some of the best practices associated with the use of class blogging.  I’m interested to learn more about these best practices…

Response to Week 10, March 15-19: Gaming and Writing

From Videos to Video Games…

I was one of those kids who got an Atari from Goodwill way after it was cool.  The joy-stick offered hours of joy as Pack-man ate up the little blinking dots while running away from blob-like ghosts.  I graduated from Atari when I discovered my neighbors’ Nintendo, which, of course, offered a whole new realm of fun – time flew by while sitting in front of their TV with a plastic rifle two inches from the screen to shoot the Ducks flying up out of the grass.  Oh the excitement of “Duck Hunt” as an eight year old!

To be honest though, I’ve stolen my parents’ pessimism about video games and have a hard time swallowing the idea that hours in front of a TV or computer playing games really inspires deep learning.  I enjoyed the YouTube video on how game designers can insert educational material into their games, but I’m not sure how successful this is.  When I meet kids who spend enormous amounts of time in front of video games “genius” or “intellectual” aren’t the first words that come to mind when I try to describe them.

The reason for my pessimism?  I grew up watching hours of “Sesame Street” and other educational shows, and, while they were entertaining, the learning that stuck with me took place in the real, physical world while interacting with my parents or siblings (I was home schooled).  Even the educational computer games that later entered my parent’s home didn’t seem to sink in.  Yeah, it was fun, but I’m not sure I got much out of it.

While I say this, I’m not of the opinion that learning needs to be boring.  My mom and dad were crazy creative teachers and learning happened at every juncture of our lives through real world experiences.  I guess I just think that’s the best way to learn.  Videos, video games, TV shows etc. just offer way too much opportunity for passivity that seems to stunt good learning.

While working on the annotated bibliography…

I found a few articles when I was previous looking, but today I was even more productive in tracking down good sources for my research project.  I learned that combining googlescholar searches with our library databases made it easier to sort through material and find results.

In my sources, I found that there’s a healthy debate regarding the collaborative nature of blogs to teach writing.  Right now, it seems that most scholars are very excited about blogging, but there’s one pessimist in the mix – Steve Krause   Krause’s argument that blogs don’t work as well for student collaboration is interesting, and, from my experience, I might say that I agree to some extend.  I think that Online forums work for academic purposes only if they’re required.  The expectation that students will be hounding a blog for their English course where vibrant debate and discussion is taking place is pretty optimistic.  As with any school activity, unless it’s required and results in some sort of benefit (such as credit for participation), I know from experience that Online discussion won’t just naturally take place.

My interest in blogging relates more to student to teacher interaction versus student to student, which takes me a little bit away from this interesting discussion on “community in the classroom” and collaboration, but I still find it interesting and somewhat connected to my research project.

Thinking more about research project…looking for sources.

I still need to find some additional resources for my project.  My goal over the next week is to locate a few more articles and continue reading the articles as I find them.  I’d like to have a rough sketch of common themes that I want to draw out of these pieces by the end of this week.

Thank goodness for winter “break” – gives me time to make some headway on some of my big projects (including my MA Project, this research project, and conference presentations!).

Response to Readings for Week 9, March 8-12: Multimedia/New Media Texts, part 2