Category: Computers and Writing

Shameless self-promotion department: Where Do I List This on My CV 2.0

The new Kairos is out and it features a revised version of an essay/article I wrote originally for CCC Online in 2002, “Where Do I List This on My CV?”Considering the Values of Self-Published Web Sites. The new version here– version 2.0– includes the old version and also some updates.

I had a fine time working with the fine folks at Kairos, especially Mike Edwards and Cheryl Ball. Cheryl asked me a while back if I was interested in this process of revamping the article, and Mike did a great job of leading me through the process. I’m thankful for their advice and help, and I hope that folks out there find this second version interesting and helpful and all the rest.

"School boards: The Internet is safe and we should use it more"

Here’s a great link/reference to cite the next time I am indirectly or directly in a conversation with someone about the dangers of the Internets for K-12 teachers: via boing boing, “School boards: The Internet is safe and we should use it more.” This discusses and links to some other discussions of a study from a group called the National School Board Association (which seems a tad on the conservative side, actually) that basically says that a lot of the things that have been cited over the years by schools for being afraid of the internet is bogus. Here is a link to a PDF version of the report, though I couldn’t find any direct/indirect mention of it on the NSBA web site. Here’s a quote of a quote from boing boing on all this:

In light of these findings, they’re recommending that school districts may want to “explore ways in which they could use social networking for educational purposes” — and reconsider some of their fears. It won’t be the first time educators have feared a new technology, the study warns. “Many schools initially banned or restricted Internet use, only to ease up when the educational value of the Internet became clear. The same is likely to be the case with social networking.

“Safety policies remain important, as does teaching students about online safety and responsible online expression — but student may learn these lesson better while they’re actually using social networking tools.”

A good thing for things like 516, and probably a link to send on to my colleagues in English Education.

Ward Churchill, Academic Publishing, upcoming Kairos article

It’s funny how some of these things link together– or maybe how I make links between them:

While browsing my google reader feed this morning, I came across this article from Inside Higher Ed, “Ward Churchill Fired.” Old news, but basically Churchill was let go by the University of Colorado because (officially, at least) because of what has been called “overwhelming evidence” of scholarly misconduct. When this case was still an issue, I wrote on my blog and on the Inside Higher Ed site that Churchill shouldn’t be fired because of some unpopular views on 9/11. But when it turns out that he was cheating in his scholarship, well, that’s a different story. Still, I think this paragraph sort of sums up my feelings about the whole thing:

The meaning of the Churchill case has been heatedly debated over the past two-plus years. To Churchill and his defenders, he is a victim of politics and of a right wing attack on freedom of thought. To Brown and others at the university, Churchill’s case is not about politics at all about enforcing academic integrity and punishing those who don’t live up to basic rules of research honesty. To many others in academe, the Churchill case has been less clearcut. Many academics have said that they are troubled by both the findings of research misconduct against Churchill and by the reality that his work received intense scrutiny only after his political views drew attention to him.

This article lead me to this interesting blog post by Aaron Barlow on a blog that I will probably add to my feed reading called Free Exchange on Campus. Barlow’s post is trying to parse through the meaning of the Churchill case in complex terms so I won’t try to simplify it here, but I admire his efforts of trying to sort it out.

Anyway, reading Barlow’s post lead me to another post on the Free Exchange on Campus blog that lead me to this, “University Publishing in A Digital Age,” on another site I ought to add to the feed, Ithaka, which is site about promoting “the productive uses of information technologies for the benefit of higher education worldwide.” Here’s the abstract of this piece:

Scholars have a vast range of opportunities to distribute their work, from setting up web pages or blogs, to posting articles to working paper websites or institutional repositories, to including them in peer-reviewed journals or books. In American colleges and universities, access to the internet and World Wide Web is ubiquitous; consequently nearly all intellectual effort results in some form of “publishing�. Yet universities do not treat this function as an important, mission-centric endeavor. The result has been a scholarly publishing industry that many in the university community find to be increasingly out of step with the important values of the academy.

This paper argues that a renewed commitment to publishing in its broadest sense can enable universities to more fully realize the potential global impact of their academic programs, enhance the reputations of their institutions, maintain a strong voice in determining what constitutes important scholarship, and in some cases reduce costs.

I haven’t had a chance to read the full report yet, though I kind of wish it had come out a few weeks/months ago. Forthcoming in Kairos is going to be “Version 2.0” of an article I had originally had published in College Composition and Communication Online, “Where Do I list this on my CV? Considering the Value of Self-Published Web Sites.” Had I known about this Ithaka report earlier, some of what’s in the abstract here might have been good to incorporate in this revised article. Oh well; at least my thinking now and in 2002 are in line with some others.

Oh, PS:
Inside Higher Ed had a piece about this Ithaka report, too.

Facebook taking over the world ala Microsoft

Or at least that’s the possible claim in this TechCrunch post, “Could Facebook Become The Next Microsoft?” This is kind of a wonky post about Facebook seems to be going the route of Microsoft in the past and Google in the present in becoming the number one destination on the internet by incorporating all sorts of different applications and the like.

I don’t know much about that, but I do know that Facebook has become more popular in my own house recently: my wife, Annette Wannamaker,
has joined the Facebook party.

And you thought the NYC subway was confusing

Subway Map of Internet Trends

I thought this was pretty cool: Via TechCrunch comes the above subway-styled map of Internet trends. It was developed by a company/group/whatever called Information Architects Japan, and they have several sizes of the image available here. Suitable for a desktop background, IA suggests.

What I think is potentially interesting about this page is that it represents a bunch of sites I know nothing about, so it’ll give me some ideas of stuff to check out sooner than later.

Some version of justice

From MSNBC (via my Google account though, actually) comes this news, “Teachers’ porn conviction overturned.”

A substitute teacher was granted a new trial Wednesday after her conviction for failing to prevent students from viewing pornography on her computer raised thorny questions about who is ultimately responsible for screening unsavory online material.

The woman, Julie Amero, 40, of Windham, Conn., adamantly denied clicking on pornographic Web sites that appeared on her classroom’s computer screen in October 2004 while she was teaching seventh-graders at Kelly Middle School in Norwich.

Amero was convicted in January on four counts of risk of injury to a minor, but computer security experts and bloggers across the political spectrum rallied to Amero’s defense when evidence later emerged that her computer had been infected with spyware that caused pop-up ads to take over the screen.

First off, I don’t quite understand the way the law worked in this case– was this thrown out on appeal? Did a judge look at the jury’s decision and say “oh, this is just stupid,” and call for a new trial? It kind of sounds like the second one happened.

But second, I’m glad that someone came to their senses. I’m too lazy to go back and look at those articles now, but the level of dumb bunny -ness demonstrated by the jurors and other participants in the last trial on all this was startling. So Amero is getting a version of justice here for sure, but jeez, what an awful year or so it has been for her.

C&W 07: My Presentation

I presented at the very last session on Sunday, May 20, at the recently completed Computers and Writing conference in Detroit. To be honest, more people showed up to this session than I thought would, mainly to support the other two presenters, I think. Still, it was a marked improvement over my “crowd” at the CCCCs.

In any event, I am making my presentation available at this web site with three basic versions:

  • the script of my talk with a few key slides pictures included (the version I’d recommend for most readers);
  • just the script with numbers where I inserted the slides; and
  • the Keynote slides saved for the web.

I’m also going to be sharing this presentation to the EMUtalk.org community since, after all, it’s about them. We’ll see what they have to say about all this.

Computers & Writing, Days 3 & 4: Another Bulleted List

  • I was planning on attending the 9 am session on Saturday morning, but things around the house and traffic held me up. These things happen.
  • Went to a session called “Mediating Literacy: Plugging Latour into Computers and Writing.” I learned a few things about Douglas Engelbart and his invention of computer interfaces, and also about a student project involving partially cooked chicken, but I didn’t learn a whole lot about Latour. Oh well; I did work on my presentation during all this.
  • Met up with Bill HD and one of his grad students for lunch, though we cut out before the presentation to do a little roaming about and shopping. I bought a lovely T-Shirt.
  • Went to a round-table on Ong to celebrate the 25 years after the publication of Orality and Literacy that was pretty decent. Hawisher and Selfe were sitting behind me and making me feel inadvertently guilty about multi-tasking.
  • Steve B. and I took off the last panel and went over to the Detroit Institute of Art, which is getting ready to close for the next six months for the final stages of renovation. As a result, there wasn’t much of the collection open. But we did spend a fair amount of time with the Diego Rivera mural “Detroit Industry,” which was worth the minimal admission. Pictures don’t really do it justice, but we did take a few. Pictures are forthcoming, I promise.
  • We went over the the African American History museum after this, quite a bit early, but we didn’t have anything else to do. The folks setting up the dinner said we could take the tour, so we did. It’s one of these museums where you have to go through a linear/historic path: first Africa, then the slave trade, then the Civil War, etc. Pretty interesting exhibit.
  • By the time we were done, the crowd was gathering for the banquet. Excellent food for this, too.
  • The room/lobby/whatever where this was being held was a dome/rotunda sort of structure, and the acoustics in there were bizarre. Conversations taking place halfway or more across the room bounced off the ceiling and marble floors/walls so that it sounded like it was right behind me. I thought I was hearing voices. I mean more than usual.
  • Ended up sitting with a lot of BGSU folks, which was good, especially with Kris Blair winning a technical innovator of the year award. What’s interesting to me about all this is that C&W was my first presentation, back in 1994, and I remember that me and Mike/Mick Doherty, John Clark, and Bill HD road-tripped to Missouri from BGSU. We were it. This time around, I’ll be there were 10 or more current and former PhD students there. Things have changed for the better.
  • Congrats to everyone who won various awards, but once again, I have not won anything. Actually, I’m not sure who the person(s) is/are who won the ward for best blog, to be honest. But congrats to them, too.
  • The keynote speaker was Richard Doyle, and he was, um, interesting in places. I think he was anticipating having internet access; I’m not sure. Doyle was pretty entertaining and funny, but as far as saying anything that was important or interesting or whatever: I thought he vacillated between making some good points and just rambling. Maybe he was hearing voices in his head from the dome/rotunda too.
  • Thanks to the directions from Nancy A., I didn’t get lost on the way home, which was nice.
  • Up and at ’em this morning, I drove back in and moderated a panel, “Virtual and Audio Teaching: Three Instructors’ Tales: Creating Environments for Varied Student Populations,” also made up of former BGSU grad students. A small group, but a good conversation.
  • Then it was time for my spiel. Funny story about tech and about the conference: there wasn’t a projector in the room I was presenting in. This was not good. So I went down to the check-in table and very calmly said “I need a projector in the room where I am presenting.” A couple of Wayne State-types show up with a projector and a computer, feverishly pushing buttons with mixed results. They leave. I hook up my computer, push the power button on the projector, and we’re in business. A link to my presentation is coming soon, I promise.
  • Kudos to Robin Murphy (BGSU) and Kimberly Lacey (Wayne State), the PhD students I prsented with and who did great things in their talks. And congrats to Robin on defending and going on to join the ranks of the tenure-track, too.
  • And then time to go home. All and all, an okay conference. I got a lot of good book project ideas, and a lot of inspiration for getting my act together on all that very very soon. The “home game” aspect of the conference was fun, though I have to say that I’m looking forward to C&W in Athens, GA next year. Bill HD and Steve B and I are contemplating road-tripping down there and playing golf along the way there and back. But that’s next year.

Computers & Writing, Days 1 & 2: The Bulleted List

  • Steve B. and I drove into Detroit City late Thursday afternoon. We arrived at the registration table at about 4:50. Some person there said “Sorry, we close registration at 5.” Um, okay….
  • Went to the St. Martin’s sponsored reception at the Detroit Beer Co., which was a nice way to kick stuff off. Good beer, good company. Showed Bob Whipple a bit about Comic Life, chatted with all kinds of folks.
  • Steve B. and I were going to go out for Greek food, but pooped out and ended up at an Ypsilanti institution and EMU hang-out, the Sidetrack. Ah, the pleasures of the familiar.
  • Friday AM, I moseyed in around 10:30 or so. Met up with a former MA student of ours who is now at the PhD program at BGSU. She interviewed me about blogging for a project she’s working on, which sounds pretty interesting.
  • Went to the lunch event, ate with my colleague Nancy Allen (who has been on sabbatical this year, so it was good to catch up a bit) and managed to be close enough to the front to actually hear it. No microphone. But some interesting talks from Metroblogging Detroit, dETROITfUNK, and DetroitYES, bloggers from three very different area blogs/communities. I talked with them a bit afterwards about contacting them later as case study sources, and they all seemed pretty okay with that.
  • Went to an excellent panel, Blogologies with Collin Brooke, Krista Kennedy, Derek Mueller, Donna Strickland, and Jeff Ward. Review forthcoming, but some useful stuff for this quasi-hypothetical book project. Oh, and there I was, right there, when Derek quoted from my “When Blogging Goes Bad” article. That’s the first time I was quoted right in front of me, which was kinda cool.
  • Talked a bit with Collin and contemplated buying a Wayne State cap. I went into the store and didn’t like the selection, though I did like the sweatshirts they had indicated the major of “Undeclared.”
  • The damn Starbucks was closed so no decent afternoon coffee.
  • For reason too convoluted to go into here, I ended up missing Geoffrey Sirc’s speech because I was eating a lovely ruben and drinking fine beer in a place called Saloon Circa 1890. About 10 minutes after Sirc’s presentation was over, the place was full of C&W folks. At least one photo forthcoming. Talked with many other folks like Nick Carbone and previously mentioned folks, and heard tales from Mike Palmquist of his elaborate motorcycle travel from Colorado State U to here.
  • Drove home without incident (which, knock on wood, has been the case so far in my travels into Detroit) and hung out with the wife and child. All in all, a good day indeed.

"Code and Composition"

From ACM Ubiquity comes “Code and Composition,” by Luke Fernandez of Weber State University. I haven’t read it yet, but I like the abstract/blurb info:

“Luke Fernandez’s “Code and Composition” compares the activity of programming computers with the activity of writing. The essay delineates the commonalities and differences in these activities in the context of larger technical and literary divisions that exist within the university.”