FoolsCap

So here’s some [further and more elaborate and specific] things I’ve gleaned from the C & W experience.

This conf seems to fall into a more practical area of the broader field of C&W, in that many of the presentations were oriented toward reporting on new software packages, new websites, classroom practices, online social trends, etc.  In addition to this, I observed a strong interest in literacy and literacy practices and how they’re changed by an engagement with computers and writing and associated pedagogical practice.  While all of this is of interest, I found it limiting in that I’m developing a keener interest in theory.  This suggests neither that the C&W presenters aren’t grounded in theory nor that I’m dissociating theory from practice.  Rather, I found myself longing for some presentations that were more invested in theory–part., of course, those theorists I’m interested in right now–and that used individual teaching practice or software models or whatever as examples of theory put into practice or as reflecting certain theoretical tropes or something.

Why?

Well I think part of it is that I’m still catching up to a lot of the folks at the conf, so there might very well be references to theory embedded in their talks that I didn’t recognize–what my class and I discussed as passive intertext (as opposed to active intertext–a great discussion, but I’m not sure, on second thought, if itext can be passive after all.  More later.).  So there’s that.  Also, however, other than outright stealing someone else’s assignment, I’m not really sure yet how to turn what I learn at a conf into my own pedagogy and practice.  This will come in time, I am sure, but for now (curiously) I’m more inclined to approach theory and make that work into pedagogy/practice.

The other lesson here, of course, is that one needs to learn the details/goals/strengths/weaknesses of confs just as one must learn the same of journals . . . if C&W is more praxis and empiricist, I might need to choose on occasion which I attend, esp since as Rice mentions, there will on occasion be scheduling conflicts.

What follows is some feedback and commentary on the panels I was able to attend.

Thursday

Nothin’.  I sort of missed the whole GRN/mentor-mentee thing, which was an oversight on my part.  On the other hand, I was keeping busy working registration and helping out as needed behind the scenes, so I still learned things of a different sort.

Friday

Townhall 1: The Bleeding Edge:

I came in late and missed the raison d’etre of this panel and so I was sort of lost through the half of it so I did catch.  Honestly, I’m not sure I could tell you a single thing from this panel now.  No one’s fault but my own.

1.4: Popular Culture as Metaphor:

Didn’tgo, really wanted to.  Maybe I can catch up with these folks via e-mail.

3.2: Ethics and Technology:

Moderated this panel.  Presenters were Nancy Allen ("What Would Plato Do?"), Lanette Cadle ("Come on Over to Our House: Setting up a Program-Wide Writing Community"), Kyle Jensen ("(In)Secure Rhetoric and the Art of Phishing: Analyzing Digital Forgery Past Forensics"), and Michael Martin/Teryl Sands ("Moving from Engagement to Learning: PC Tablet technology in Freshman Composition"). 

Allen sought to raise some ethical questions about our obligations to students as we move into digital comp.  Of note and value to yt: Allen raised questions but did not supply answers–debate as goal rather than starting point for paper.  Response questions, unasked: Are we responsible for rhetorical training or ethical training. . .of course, Plato/Aristotle might have suggested the two are/should be thought of as the same.

Cadle described her efforts to establish a community writing site for her program that didn’t use CM or proprietary software.  She settled on DrupalEd (note to self: pursue?) and site went up very recently.  Site allows for communication btw instructors as well as instructors-students.  Ethical lessons, as Cadle suggests: Ask, don’t demand.  Generate for the community rather than your own needs.  Good things to keep in mind.

Jensen offered a rhetorical reading (idea for blog post after typing that) of some anti-phishing ads.  Essentially, he argued that these ads rely on a faceless, threatening Other for their effectiveness.  This was equated (or maybe just compared to) Bush 43-era politics of fear type rhetoric.  In the end, I remain unconvinced by the pairing of the anti-phishing ads with War on Terror rhetoric–the faceless threat is nothing new–I just have to point to the decades old neighborhood watch signs in my sub that feature a cloaked, faceless boogeyman.  I was with Jensen right until that final twist, even though I share the political sympathy that motivated it.  Jensen did, however, point to an interesting continuum of rhetorical awareness when confronted with such ads/rhetoric, that ranges from an uninterrogative naivete to a vigilant suspicion/skepticism that borders (to my ears) on paranoia–somewhere in the middle, then, rests a rhetorcially savvy/sophisticated reader perhaps.

Martin/Sands offered some early empirical results of a study asking how instructor comments "written" on student work on tablet PCs may influence retention/engagement.  Enjoyed the presentation but since a tablet PC doesn’t loom in my future, I’m not sure what to do with it.  broader question though: how does medium impact our own responses as evalutors of student writing?

4.4: Re-Zoning Virtual Academic Spaces: Expanding Our Curricular Real Estate:

Moderated by Rivait.  Presenters: Kristine Blair ("Course Management Tools and Other Gated Communities: Opening Digital Rhetorical Spaces to Students"), Jen Almjeld ("Sub(Urban) Sprawl: MySpace as Big City Adventure on the Web"), James Schirmer ("Lost in San Adreas: Exploring Space in Video Games"), Sergey Rybas, ("In Private: Exploring Agency in an Online Composition Class").

I owe at least two of these presenters an apology because, even after rereading the panel description and my notes, I have little idea what Blair and Rybas presented on.  This isn’t their fault, mind–my mind must have wandered, or I took insufficient notes or something.  So apologies to the both of you.  Still, I’ve transcribed my notes below:

Blair:technology gap–> what we do/what they do  [This seems to be in reference to the differing uses instructors and students make of technology.]  Can/should/how we cater to interests/show overlap? [How best to exploit those areas where our interests and our students’ insterest in tech coincide?  I think?]  Transparent pedagogy to have students understand reasons.

Rybas: "All but one"–why?  [I wish I knew what this meant.]

Almjeld presented on MySpace pages as being one sphere we might look to to explore Sirc’s virtual urban.  The site offers social connection and collective authorship in a way that avoids the virtual academic Sirc warns against–offering a space to explore the sites where subjectivities meet and interact.  I’m not sure I agree that MS is the best way into the virtual urban, but there were some interesting ideas for assignments behind this. . .more later.

Schirmer used the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as a literal virtual urban ("literal virtual"  Hmm.) to offer some remarks on how video games might shape the way students construct their identities in digital domains.  I liked this angle–it used the space metaphor in a way I hadn’t seen before–even if I sort think the GTA-student ethos connection never quite worked for me.  Another reference to Eilola and Gee, though–must add to reading list.

Student Center Ballroom Banquet

First: The food looked nasty.  I ate a small salad and picked up a burger after.  I know I have a limited palate and all–I’m not saying the food was nasty ‘cos I wouldn’t know.  It just looked nasty.

Second: As expected, enjoyed Sirc’s talk immensely.  In a way, serial composition–outlined here–seems an evolution/expansion of box-logic composition from WNM.  Of particular value–that is, a great metaphor–was the mix tape, and the discourses Sirc described surrounding the rules and guidelines of the mix.  There’s more to it, of course, than just throwing songs together . . . there’s a logic, a refinement of the process that shapes it into a cohesive whole.  Sirc’s work continues to inspire.  Where box-logic was compelling, I’ve always struggled with the implication that the collection itself was the composition, with no arrangement or order.  (A misunderstanding, perhaps–I need to reread.)  But here, as mentioned, Sirc uses a similar method but pushes it a bit further.

Saturday

Townhall 2: The Future of Computers & Writing

Myself, Lacey, Rivait, and Ross on the panel.  A chance to talk about what WSU students are doing in the classroom and get some feedback from more experienced colleagues.  Main concern from audience seemed to be questions of ethical behavior in using publicly accessible sites like the wiki–a good point if I sometimes think this trope tends towrad the alarmist: I’m not asking students for personal details in their assignments, so. . .Maybe that’s more an excuse than anything.  Other concerns: teaching tech v. teaching writing, student online ethos, and the definition of "digital literacy."

I completely missed sessions 5 & 6 as well as Liggett’s keynote because I was teaching.  I did get a chance to tell Liggett I was sorry to have missed her talk.  What a nice boy.

7.2: The Very Best of (the) New order: Agency, Ethos, and the Return of the 80s in Open-Source and Open-Author Economies

Moderated by Pruchnic.  Presenters: Pruchnic, Antonio Ceraso, Abram Anders.  While I was intersted in these papers, they were somewhat lost on me because I don’t have much familiarity with the open-source scene–I know what it is, sort of, but as mentioned in earlier posts it’s not something I’ve spent a lot of time with.  What I did find interesting, though, was the differing and divergent histories of o/s and associated movements.  It is apparently a wide enough field that there is room for dispute as to its roots and its future directions.  Keen.

I can find no record of what I was doing during session 8.  I didn’t attend any of the panels listed in the program, so I assume I was manning the registration desk and getting things in place for Sunday.  Which is sort of a shame ‘cos at least two of the panels [8.6 (Cities, Metaphors, and Objects) and 8.8 (The Wisdom of Wikis: Public Ownership of the Means of Instruction)] sounded of interest.

Wright Museum Banquet:

Food much better than Saturday banquet in being not only palatable but also enjoyable.  Roast beast, turkey, potato parfait (served in martini glasses no less), rolls.  A decent spread, all in all.

I don’t know what to make of Doyle’s talk.  It had something to do with fossil fuels, the information explosion, zhanga (if that’s how it’s spelled), computerized direct mail, and Heraclitus.  I couldn’t explain it to you if I was doing play-by-play.  From what I overheard after the talk and what I’ve seen on a few conf-goers blogs, it didn’t meet with a particularly happy reception.  I enjoyed it, though, as a sort of (often apparently) improvised work of performance art, even if (as scholarship) I’m not sure what the "point" of it was.  But maybe that’s something to reconsider: the urge to insist that it have a "point," a "call to action" or something like that.  Isn’t one of the appealing things (for me at least) about new media logics and comp that writing becomes a performance, an exploration, an exhibition?  [Yes.]

More to come. . .I’ll add Sunday’s comments later