HU520 The Rhetorics of a Print/Digital Culture
Use of Digital Environments
Netforum: http://www.hu.mtu.edu/cgi-bin/netforum/hu520/a/1
These treaded discussion systems are great for archiving discussions: The question I asked myself, then, was: "What discussions will be worth archiving?" I'm thinking that the responses to peoples' book reviews might be most useful. I'm going to ask people to submit their reviews either in html format or in a form that I can easily transfer to html. I'll then link the reviews to the web, and ask on the email list (below) for comments and questions. I'll have a topic on the above NetForum site for each book. The folks in class might have some pithy comments to add once the author of the review presents in class at the end of the quarter.The authors of the reviews will be primarily responsible for responding, but others can chime in as well.
Email List: print-digital-l@mtu.edu
I wrote a two paragraph description of the course for the "rationale" page anyway, so I thought I'd send that out to the ACW-L list and to some folks I know who might be interested in a discussion of the print/digital issues. I posted the first note to that list before the quarter pointing students to the readings, in case they wanted to get started (one did). The next note pointed the 30 or so subscribers to a web page with introductions on them from class last Mon. But only one list member has offered his intro. so far. I may have to be pretty proactive to get this list started: pick out controversial comments or topics from each week's class and post it to see if I can generate any discussion.
Synchronous Discussion "Isle of the Net":
http://maryann.hu.mtu.edu:7000
maryann.hu.mtu.edu 8888 (via MOO clients & Telnet)
We'll use this for several purposes in the class: on the first day, I had folks think about introductions to the email list in class and gave them a few minutes to jot down some stuff to type in to the MOO in the last 30 minutes of class. It was primarily an "introduction to the MOO basics" day. They typed in their short or long paragraph of introduction. A synchronous conversation really didn't have time to start. It was a lot to read from each person. I recorded the intros. off of the MOO and put them on a web page for people to look at if they wanted. I almost missed capturing the intros because I got busy and failed to log into the MOO myselfe early on.
We will also use the MOO to talk with Anne Wysocki in southern California later in the term after reading one of her online pieces.
Depending on how the email discussion goes, I'll set up a synchronous session between interested folks there later in the term. Perhaps I should set it up early in order to get people talking?
This is supposed to be a space to archive useful materials and coordinate their arrangement. I'm hoping to attach most of the work that I do and that others do to the page: notes from class, lectures, chapter reviews, book reviews, project proposals and presentations. I will probably try to provide simple templates for each course activity to help those folks who haven't done much web development.
I plan to recruit people from the class to write an online or print (or both) article based on this class for an appropriate publication(s) after the class is over. I'm hoping that the materials collected on the web site will help us in that endeavor. With some modification, it may BE that endeavor.
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