She has taught online since 2003. This is about her online classes.

Not being able to get good notes. She chose white letters and deep blue background. It is hard to read it. This is hard to follow because of that.

Apparently I missed the announcement that says you need to say what you are going to tell the audience. I know that is more normal in social sciences, but I’ve never seen it before in an English conference.

synchronous:
one on one video conferencing
virtual office hours

asynchronous:
personal introduction
course orientation
announcements
explanations
reading assignments

She uses Skype and Tegrity.

You are creating video.

Her materials come in three formats: text, audio, and video. Oh my goodness! I cannot imagine going over this stuff three times.

She got a theater colleague to read the essay aloud as one of her text presentations.

New instructor roles
1. “one-man band” video production person
2. anchorperson

What level of professionalism is required for movie itself?
Is it okay if it is blurry? if it’s dark? if the light is flourescent?
Is the teaching enough? Are the students looking for something else?
Does the poor video quality impact the instructor’s professional image?
Does the background, dress, etc impact the instructor’s professional image?

You need a shooting checklist.
(I could use Ron’s studio, while he still has that.)

Think about composition.

Technical issues for putting the video on the web. It takes a lot of space. Institutional limits can be a problem.

Will the student like it? Will the student view it?

It’s a good thing that their third person didn’t show up.

Do you dress up? Do you pay attention to colors? Does it matter?

Performance anxiety.
The first 3 minute introduction to my students took 5 hours.

Plan a lot.
Develop a routine.
Know your equipment and your software.

Students’ perception
like personalized instruction
next best thing to f2f
talk back to video
no misunderstanding in communication – written comments can sound harsh without instructor’s facial expression (They are more likely to accept what I say when it’s on video, rather than written.)
No skimming or scanning as in text, no holistic overview

Students watching assignment
issues of technology
distracted
time and energy investment
read faster than view

Won’t even call the help desk. This is an issue related to my talk.

Editing and revising text is tedious and error-prone.

Word processors have hardly any support for working with words.

Most functions are character-based.

Writers must translate high-level goals into low-level editor functions.

Writers have to adapt their writing strategies.

This results in typical errors: missing or duplicative words, lost words, extra words, s/v agreement problems.

Even conceptually simple tasks require many steps.

My thoughts
Hmm. This seems to be on computer science. It takes eight steps to switch “revising and editing” to become “editing and revising.” Let’s see:
highlight
drag
drop
highlight
drag
drop
Okay, I might have missed something that would make it just as bad in real-time. Of course, I don’t think that is too difficult.

Back to the speaker
Norman (1981): Widely accepted classification of errors; editing errors can be interpreted as action slips.
Norman (1983): Many slips result from bad design and are preventable by more appropriate design.

How could the design be improved?
Hypothesis: Tools and functions operating on the same level on which writers think and talk bout texts makes editing easier.

Language-aware editing functions
interactive support
power tools, not checkers (You still have to cut the wood to build the table, even with a power saw.)
functions need linguistic knowledge
useful functions can be implemented even with small linguistic resources
Writing research + computational tools

Prototypical implementation of selected functions
Target group: experienced writers
target language: German
no development of a new editor: XEmacs as test bed
inspired by source code editors for programmers (not just stream of characters)

Fascinating stuff and far over my head.

I did actually understand what was going on by the end. Computational linguistics and composition… Words instead of letter. Interesting.

move from the 2D space to a 3D space

Augmented Reality is the technology

Define and explain AR

Provide examples of tech

Position AR in writing studies

Explain its possible impact on tech comm

Def I: AR supplements the real world with virtual objects that appear to co-exist in the same space as the real world.

Def 2: combines real and virtual, registered in 3D

How does it work?
necessary hardware components:
computing system (on person or remote)
trackers/MARS = GPS tracking system
hand-held display/head mounted display (tablet pc, cell phone, AR glasses)

Looks very odd, but interesting.

What is the point of it? I don’t see that yet.

Ah. BMW video.

BMW is looking at the 5 series with heads up display.

How does that work for technical communication? It impacts.

affordances of AR and mixed reality environments
overlay of virtual and real
interact and manipulate both
virtual objects made material (abstract-concrete)
author environment (new compositional space/composing as a way of knowing)
record experience (playback for workplace training)

You record someone who knows how to do something. Then you use that to teach others.

Why important?
1. Close observation positively impacts writing (Hillocks, 1979)
2. AR environments allow for close observation, esp of abstract concepts
3. If we can understand the impacts certain AR affordances have on writing, we can tailor these AR systems to provide experiences
4. New compositional space / composing as a way of knowing
5. Impact of replication from 3D to 2D writing space

Why imp for tech comm?
Experts needed to author environments. For example, a museum wants to explain things. (podcasts now)
Words, images, and icon displays
proper amount of information displayed for a user (information overload–system adaptability)
audio cues and voice commands in addition to words and images

Want to create authoring environment for public. (Like WordPress or Facebook?)

Within class, students took leadership over tech stuff.

Stephanie Vie (2008)

We appear to be in a race to learn the new technologies. We learn the last as a new one comes in.

Paying attention to the comp is an issue.

Palmquist et al (1991) “common thread… teacher did not feel confident using a particular program, then it could not be used effectively”

We should not exacerbate the divide.

Conflicted.

Rely on our students who are more computer-literate… student-centered collaborative experiences.

If we’re being honest, we don’t necessarily know anything new.

Issues of Web 1.0 are possible the students won’t know how to use. It will help create a new kind of classroom. No reason to go back to being expert. Admitting such a reality can help us move forward.

Rebecca Rickly: “I’ve translated computers and writing to technology and rhetoric in my head.” (Hart-Davidson & Krause, “Re The Future”)

Media forms appropriate older forms. Hybrid literacies.

Doesn’t replace old media or don’t become obsolete. Neither do the skills for old media disappear.

What do we offer? Rhetorical knowledge.

Increasing rhetorical possibilities/skills with scaffolding.
Blogger to WordPress to Wiki page

higher levels of audience/reader= deeper levels of social/networked collaboration

course mgmt to Facebook to blogs to wikis

Still a privileging of author over commenter… until wikis.

basic emphasis on rhetoric and scaffolding

As instructors we can remain a step, a mile behind our students.

1. learn basics and admit our limitations
2. understand connection btw old and new media build toward rhetorical skill improvement

Note: What about Ron’s PA to help me bulk up multimodality in my classroom.

by Shreelina Ghosh, Michigan State University

refers to the ease with which websites succeeds in providing info to the users, thus helping them make decisions regarding buying products or services from them

metaphor: Mouse going through the maze to get to the cheese. That’s what usability and composition are about. Interesting metaphor. It’s not one I would have come up with.

She is quoting Jakob Nielsen.

Usability eval:
1. assess typical user
2. recruit users
3. conduct a heuristic review
4. record functions of website
5. compose a sit of ?s for usability
6. perform test and record data
7. conduct quantitative and qualitative.
..

Shared goals between usability with composition
Unerstanding audience
Effective articulation, clarity without oversimplification (Gopen and Swans, 550)
predict expectations
satisfaction of client/reader

Why this method could work
Students generally know some websites don’t work
theory of web eval can be easily aligned to dev of the writing process
nature of assignments can give space for students to work with topics of their own academic interest- in their own disciplines

Assignment One
Reflective essay: 4-5 page paper based on a technological product or interface or service that they have interacted with. (First time with Facebook. What was not intuitive?)

Related reading: “My Financial Career” by Stephen Peacock, a short story- confused with opening a bank account

Assignment Two
During the assignments, students will be asked to analyze a digital document.

She spent not long on this.

Assignment Three
Research project.
Audience analysis
Explore spaces: library exploration for annotated bib assignment
Main paper/project

This is an interesting idea. Library exploration… physical usability.

That’s what the First Colony/wheelchair essay is about. Maybe I should write it that way. Seems like usability is interdisciplinary.

“Strategy Plane” ch 3 in Jesse Garrett’s The Elements of User Experience
Shannon Ford’s “Creating Quality Personas”
Walter Ong;s “The Writer’s Audience is Always a Fiction”
DB Park’s “The Meanings of Audience”

The Chronicle fora had suggestions for a CC person working on getting a writing center into place.

Since my SLAC does not have one, and my name has been put forward to run one if we get one, I wanted to note this here.

Puchica’s answer said, among other things:

You might also check out writing center association conferences. The IWCA conference is coming up in October… There are also many regional writing center associations all across the country. Check to see if there’s a conference near you that you might be able to attend–chances are you’ll make lots of great connections and meet plenty of people who are happy to talk over your specific context and options.

Comments
We need to be showing our theory.
I did get a ft tenure track position as a pedagogue.

Kairos has a 12% acceptance rate.
Where it is downloaded. Downloaded in 70 different countries.

Battle was at 4th year review over collaboration.
Collaboration was an issue.
Needs to be emphasized.
Need empirical evidence.

Need C&C, C&C online, Kairos…. How many collaborative? Keep an ongoing statistical count for C&W. “because we have to include so many roles in each of the pieces”

Karen had to show… Principal Investigator… take on a scientific model, I was faculty working with grad students and librarians
Librarians “don’t count as faculty”

nothing in tenure requirements, if it’s collaborative with two people, it’s a half an article.
If it’s collaborative with three people, it’s a third an article.

You need to have individual pieces. I’ve also done collaborative pieces to help graduate students become scholars.

Univ of Colorado… collaborative work… Keifer

schools feel like they are at R-1 planning

We, like the sciences, do team based research. Like biology, we…
Applied linguistics people are doing that kind of empirical work.

How do we get our institutions to value what we are doing?
How do we get equipment?
etc

Senior person should take the last place.
As humanists, we want to give credit to everyone who has helped us.
That goes against the sciences… It is clear cut.

Humanities continues to value the monograph
fewer and fewer to publish
Karen has tenure for a series of articles, with a special issue of the journal across the disciplines. Special editor and the introduction. intro=the equiv of a single author
but others have seen special editor as service

NMSU T&P newly revised

ABE bulletin Ohio State, value digital work, to value both print and digital as typical
get rid of atypicality
MLA 2007

There’s a project… Track the collaboration. Here’s something I could do. But I’d need to do it very quickly. And I’d have to find a venue in the next six months. Where would that be?

Teas: 40 sections of computer freshman comp… 25 instructors… 10 people at a tea on average

Can’t do Teas in the last three weeks of the semester

Half of the instructors are regular for the Teas

We are shifting the Teas, so that praxis on multiple levels is talked about. Theories.

Humanities librarian came to our teas.

Reading group is different. What motivated us to do the research… that the informality was important, but didn’t have any proof. As junior scholars, we needed to know whether the time spent was worthwhile.

Tea was partly a way to bring a space. To create comfort.

Purple shirt lady:
Interested in this because I am in a program that is stalled. “We’ve never done this.” Tech comm teacher said, “Why do I need to use tech in my classroom?”

This is more “their” speed, adjuncts. Half of people need to set up.

Ning, an instructor’s ning set up.

Other:
ethos requires that people within your department use it.
Rhetoric choice…
At what point are there clear policy guidelines?
Institutionally you have to use their assessment…

Problem potential: Teas as counterrevolution.

Teacher’s guides. Ethnographies. Video and audio ethnographies.
First year writing program is collaborative.
No matter how hard we tried, there was some fear from the instructors.

Value your facilitators
Everyone knows what the facilitator is
Almost everyone is willing to do it (because there is money)
It allows the different people to talk
It breeds facilitating

It’s not a meeting.
It’s an informal experience.

Something that the Tea offers, is that it would be good to use for multiple disciplines.

We’ve had a supportive WPA.

Last year in a search, teachers have said, First year we have help, but later we don’t.
Informal space to learn, talk.

Teas/Talks for instructors about teaching- specifically for computer writing

Sept 2008 topics
developing conference proposals
teaching visual rhetoric/design
digital storytelling and documentary production
pedagogical uses of blogs
assessing digital projects

Fall 2008 – Spring 2009
copyright and copyleft: writing in a remix culture
designing and evaluating audio composing assignments
social media in the writing classroom
digital media and lit pedagogy
using laptops to teach alphabetic writing
digital pedagogy and the politics of embodiment
designing and eval multimodal assignments

Methods:
triangulation: program assessment materials, word & image interviews, interviews
IRB approval
email requests for interviews
1/2 hour to hr interviews
collaborative meetings

Who interviewed about the teas
females
years 1-5
faculty, grad students

Key themes and ideas:
informal, supportive community
collaborative knowledge building
becoming convinced/prepared (element of cool)
space for pedagogical reflection/presentation
professional development

Informal, supportive community
“comfortable space” “all participate” becoming an expert
“nobody is there to judge you”
“No one’s going to be lecturing to you”
There is a hierarchy.

Collaborative knowledge building
“compiling a commonplace book… teas are a place to do that”
“take lots of notes”
“when people are giving specific examples of what they are doing in their own class”
how to make learning fun for teachers
“I would never even have contact with those people if it weren’t for the teas”
“formalizes a more casual gathering”
moving away from presentational mode

Becoming convinced/prepared
“be able to articulate the why”
“all teaching the same kind of student population”
“Hey I did this. It worked. They loved it” Then for me, that assigment or that approach has a lot of ethos.

Space for pedagogical reflection
“I think facilitating really made me think about, for example, the assessment tea, “How do I assess my students’ digital projects?”"
I always come away from them with something, with one link that I didn’t know about
they’re helpful and I take a lot of notes when I go there, because there’s a lot of good ideas…I’ll get ideas while I’m there
not about which button do I push to make it work, it’s about “okay, so I’m in the classroom and I’m using it, what then?”
I just have a notebook where I am writing all this stuff from the teas down. And whenever it comes time for me to plan a class, I look back…

Professional development beyond the classroom
grew into a workshop at 4Cs
tea-facilitation can be listed on CVs (What would this look like? Invited talk?)
often a space in which research projects are (re)invented
paid facilitators ($50)- trying to value monetarily what work people are doing
learned about constraints: material (finances, student populations), time (students working)…
“it’s important to understand rhetorically how to address those concerns… being an administrator is all about understanding the multiple discourse communities that you’re in and how to listen to their needs”

(NOTE: Language here is out of my ability. Every once in a while I don’t know what they are saying. Usually it’s an acronym.)

Key findings
Need to Expand Audience
mostly grad students and frequently by comp/rhet teachers “It saddens me that a lot of the creative writers didn’t come, saddens me that faculty don’t come and especially literature faculty, too.”

Need to Expand Topics
mostly talked on comp pedagogy

Need for Permanent, Physical Space
if we had an office
a separate space for it
a space or lounge where teachers can gather other than having a tea every other week
difficulty for $, because all the money is for undergrads

Need for Sustainable Virtual Space
“cool if more people blogged”
blog could be a good space for dialogue to continue

DWC blog

Beyond the Tea
What helps people deelop knoledge to bring to a Tea in the first place?
What enables people to use or not use ideas they gain at a Tea?
How can we sustain the valuable informal network beyond the limited and not always accessible space/time of the Tea?

National University requires 2 papers and a revision in the freshman comp course.

Texas Tech University requires 5 papers.

Michigan State U requires 4 papers.

Upate: Okay, I feel a bit less shocked. MSU’s papers are 4-5 pages each. Ours are about 3.