What we did Thrusday, and what to do for Monday, February 2

**The correct address for Rebecca's blog is on this page under the CLASS links. Be sure to add her to your list.**

So everything is starting to come together - the literacy narrative, the google.doc, your blog, and the readings for the course - and you are doing a GREAT job.

Literacy Narrative:
In class on Thursday, you wrote to the prompts for the literacy narrative and we did some talking to reflect on patterns or repeated references that came up in your writing. I wish we'd had about an hour for that discussion as there were some intriguing insights - from Joe's & Rishi's (and other's) observation about how the internet "ruined" reading, to Dan's and Celia's (and other's) feeling about how internet writing wasn't as "good" or reliable as print writing, and Alison's (and other's) observation that a lot of what she learned and wanted to learn about digital literacies was driven by her peers. And there was lots more. What is important here is that your experiences are both YOUR particular experiences - and a reflection of the assumptions, values and beliefs of your family, your peers, and the culture at large. SO keep working on writing into that material. The better your brainstorming material - the easier your essay will be to write. Maybe do some more writing (fill out some of the details that you couldn't get down in class) about your experiences, and then do some writing for the reflecting questions. These should be a good read for me - and I am looking forward to them.

Google.doc Timeline
I prodded you some more to put up some more "stuff" on the History of the Internet timeline. You have done the good student thing - and I give you credit for that - but now how about really filling out some of the details of what happened with the internet in terms of YOUR history with it? I volunteered information about my first email account and my first laptop. Do any of you remember DOS? Netscape? Linux? What were your experiences? And keep filling in the "facts" to give name and context to your experiences. (Maybe I should have added some info about when PINE came into being and the fact that it has been replaced by Alpine?) This will be an important resource for you as you begin to work on your literacy and technology narratives. It will give you both the history of the internet, and some feeling about what your classmates were doing, compared to what you were doing.

Blogs. Again - I am very excited about what you are doing with this as a class. Some of you have AWESOME posts up. Some of you have put in a lot of work on the design and customization. And some of you have stepped into a new technology for the first time. Really great work, I am so pleased with what I am seeing.

I was going to give you "feedback" on your first post this weekend - so you could get a feel for what I was looking for (ie so you know how I grade) before you put up too many posts, but I see that a number of you have not yet put up your first post. If you are having "technical difficulties" ask a friend, classmate or ME (CAS 324 or by email). YOu don't have to write a grammatically correct, formal essay - just get your ideas up there. The blog is about being in touch - so we can share ideas, brainstorm together, and figure out what we think. Check out what your classmates are doing (if you don't have your link list up - use the links here on my blog).

So - for Monday - FOR SURE - post Blogs 1 & 2.

Blog 1: what was it like using google.docs? What features of the google.docs made it easier to collaborate with your classmates? Describe any difficulties or problems presented by using this software to collaborate. What kind of features might you add to google.docs to make it easier to use for class projects?

Blog 2: Discuss the course readings. Which issues raised by the readings are of particular interest for you and why? Describe any concepts/theories that you have practical experience with?

Also - finish putting in the links to your classmates & me. Be sure to edit the blog names so you know who your are linking to. Again - if you get stuck - ask. If this is a new program for you, there is no shame in getting some help.


Readings for the course
Finally, I talked through the readings for the course - gave a little bit of an overview of what each reading is about - and set you up to think about which reading you might to take on as your area of expertise for class discussion. We will talk about this more - I just wanted you to have some time to think things over.

HOMEWORK:
Blog 2: Discuss the course readings. Which issues raised by the readings are of particular interest for you and why? Describe any concepts/theories that you have practical experience with.
Read: "Sampling "the New" in New Literacies," Lankshear and Knobel. I sent this as an email attachment. It might take a minute to open, be patient. You will need acrobat reader and a decent connection to get it open.

See you Monday!

Blog list

Dan http://drobertcyberspace.blogspot.com/
Celia http://cyvega.blogspot.com
Alison http://ame0401.blogspot.com/
Joe tingletime.blogspot.com
Sue ENG3080-sue.blogspot.com
Nicole http://nicmacs.blogspot.com/
Tiffany http://0380sp08.blogspot.com/
Melissa http://lissa-spot.blogspot.com/
Stephanie http://wis-stephy.blogspot.com/
Liz http://lizdamnit.blogspot.com/
Rishi http://cyberspacewriting.blogspot.com/
Jenna http://jenna3080.blogspot.com/
Kathy http://whoiskathy.blogspot.com/

January 26: cultural ecologies & the internet

We talked through Mowery and Simcoe's essay,"Is the Internet a US invention?" not so much for the sake of prooving the US claim to the Internet's creation - but as a way to look at the relationships between the political, cultural, economic and social circumstances in the US as the Internet was evolving - and the particular form the internet too - and is taking. We will build on and extend the ideas we developed in this discussion for the rest of the term. In their book, Literate Lives in the Information Age, Cindy Selfe and Gail Hawisher point out that technologies evolve and take root in individual users within "cultural ecologies" => the particular sets of political, economic, social, and personal circumstances surrounding a given technologies development, dissemination and use. What is more, the national cultural ecology, will be made up of a wide range of local cultural ecologies.

In our next several classes we are going to continue to think about how and why digital communication technologies have the particular forms/effects that they do - only we are going to take up the exploration at a much more local level as you begin to reflect on your personal experiences with technology. We very briefly looked over the assignment sheet and the prompts for the literacy and technology assignment, and hopefully you will spend the next couple of days musing on some of the "formative" experiences that have made you the writer you are (and the writer you are becoming.

FOR CLASS THRUSDAY
1. Create your blog. Then send an email to ENG3080@gmail.com with your blog address.

2. Enter your first post on your blog. Use Blog 1 to reflect on your experience contributing to the timeline on google.docs. ALthough none of you seemed to want to say anything bad about the assignment in class, when I talked to you individually a number of you pointed out concerns about deleting/correcting classmate's work, about not being able to figure out how to add different features and worrying about messing the whole thing up, about the lack of resources for figuring out how to use the page. . . . There were LOTS of complaints. In this blog - give air to those grievances! And suggest how you might design a better, less confusing site for collaboration. What issues would need to be addressed? What features of google.docs kept it from being an EXCELLENT space for collaboration?

3. Read through the prompts for the literacy and technology narrative (posted to the right) and think about/talk about your past literacy experiences. Spend some time there so you are ready to write on Thrusday.

4. Make that History of the Internet Timeline come to life! Give some of the details of what happened during your lifetime and what was important to YOU. We're not there yet.

Great class today. Thanks for your questions and comments. It was sort of lecture-y - but there was a lot of material to cover.

See you on Thursday!

January 22

You met your classmates, set up your gmail class accounts (you all should have received an email from me with the class list of emails - if you didn't - write to me so I can set that right), and started work creating a collaborative online document. So we are off to a running start.

For homework, use the history of the internet links to create your contributions to the timeline. Also, as you are creating this document, think about what this space does well - and what it doesn't do so well - in terms of supporting collaborative writing.

In class on Monday we will take a look at your creation, and discuss how this assignment worked. You will then set up your blogs and get started on your first entry.

Good class today, and see you on Monday.

First Class!

Yep. This is the homepage for ENG 3080 Writing for Cyberspace.

Today in class we will look over the course syllabus and the calendar. We will talk a little about what you will be doing for this course - and then you are going to open a dedicated gmail account (or use one you have) and send your gmail address to me at ENG3080@gmail.com so I can invite you as a collaborator for the google.doc on the History of the Internet.

You are welcome to print copies of your calendar and syllabus, but you can also rest assured that copies of important documents for the course will either be here on the course blog, or sent to you via email. Your text book is listed on the syllabus, along with an overview of the course policies.

The calendar has a day by day plan for what we will do during the term. This presents an overview of the workload and the schedule. While this schedule is generally accurate - you will need to check here after every class to confirm calendar listings - as we may revise things as we go along.

If you have questions - be in touch with me or your classmates. We have some exciting readings and projects ahead of us, and I'm looking forward to a great term.