Blog 16: Write a draft for the text for your hypertext essay. Don't worry about getting all your facts/references right or using polished language. You have permission to do a big, messy draft - a much writing as you can get down.
The purpose(s) for this post is/are to:
1. To make sure you are writing a research essay
2. To make sure you have covered the appropriate points/sub-topics/questions relevant to your topic.
3. To set forward all/identify of the main ideas relevant to your focus so you can do some preliminary work on organization.
4. To consider the depth/detail of development you want to put forward for the different points/sub-topic and identify (additional) appropriate sources for support where necessary.
In other words - on Thursday you will workshop your draft for focus, organization + development.
The more writing you have, the more useful the workshop will be for you,
Revisions to the calendar:
Next week we are going to switch the presentations for the "Friend Game" and the "Hyper Attention" essays.
Blog 17 is NOT going to be on the Wikipedia project. TBA.
See you Thursday,
Monday, March 30, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
For Monday, March 29
I will be giving you feedback on your blogs - with particular focus on your research plans - on Sunday, so if you have new ideas, information, plans for your hypertext essay put them up on your site. Also - if you have any questions concerns you would like me to attend to - put them out there so I can respond.
Blog 14: Follow through on your thoughts, reflections, ideas for the structure of your hypertext essay => develop a preliminary discussion of the macro structure for your site: how you hope to "chunk" the parts of your essay in terms of links and nodes; what basic structure will be most appropriate for your users (look back to the writing you did about your users in your earlier blog); how your macro structure will support the expected uses for your site.
Blog 15: Update your observations on your wikipedia assignment. Your observations should include: your contrib name (so we can track your changes); the text you posted; a link to your entry page; how your contributions were received; why you think they received the reception they did.
In class on Monday we will be discussing electronic literature. Check out Electronic Literature Collection and come to class prepared for Joe and Dan's presentation. We will use this discussion to deepen our discussion of how hypertext structures create meaning and usability.
Have a great weekend.
Blog 14: Follow through on your thoughts, reflections, ideas for the structure of your hypertext essay => develop a preliminary discussion of the macro structure for your site: how you hope to "chunk" the parts of your essay in terms of links and nodes; what basic structure will be most appropriate for your users (look back to the writing you did about your users in your earlier blog); how your macro structure will support the expected uses for your site.
Blog 15: Update your observations on your wikipedia assignment. Your observations should include: your contrib name (so we can track your changes); the text you posted; a link to your entry page; how your contributions were received; why you think they received the reception they did.
In class on Monday we will be discussing electronic literature. Check out Electronic Literature Collection and come to class prepared for Joe and Dan's presentation. We will use this discussion to deepen our discussion of how hypertext structures create meaning and usability.
Have a great weekend.
Macro features for web sites
In class we will review the basic structure types for web sites (Johnson-Eilola, chapter 6). After looking at some real-world uses for the different types, we will do some talking about what kinds of uses are suited to which kinds of structures, and about users preferences.
You will then look back over your characterization of users for your site (or revise and update your characterization of your users in light of any changes in your topic) and use this writing as a basis to identify a primary structure for your hypertext essay.
Listed below are some sample sites - all linked from Kairos, rhetoric and composition studies flagship journal for new media composing.
Losing Control: Writers, Readers, and Hypertext
Constructing a Tool for Assessing Scholarly Webtexts
Using Facebook as a Teaching Tool
A Review of Writing Inventions: Identities, Technologies, Pedagogies
Re-mediating the Canons
Kairos News
You will then look back over your characterization of users for your site (or revise and update your characterization of your users in light of any changes in your topic) and use this writing as a basis to identify a primary structure for your hypertext essay.
Listed below are some sample sites - all linked from Kairos, rhetoric and composition studies flagship journal for new media composing.
Losing Control: Writers, Readers, and Hypertext
Constructing a Tool for Assessing Scholarly Webtexts
Using Facebook as a Teaching Tool
A Review of Writing Inventions: Identities, Technologies, Pedagogies
Re-mediating the Canons
Kairos News
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
For Class Thursday, March 26
Work on your research plan. This writing is an important part of your research process. Before you begin looking for references - you need to think about what you expect to discover/show, and the kinds of references you will need in order to develop your exploration. Doing some solid work on your research plan can save you from taking on a project that will be too much work, a project that does not have enough readily available information, or a project that is too general or too narrow. Perhaps more importantly it can help you develop a *reserch project* ("tips", "how to essays" and reporting essays are not research essays).
Include:
Statement of purpose (what you hope to show/discover)
Detailed statement of your research question
List of the information you need to gather
A preliminary list of sources
Plan for gathering your information
Do some in-depth thinking about whether your question is broad enough or focused enough.
For those of you who have changed/re-focused your research topic - you will want to up-date your user analysis (check back to the writing we did in response to Johnson-Eilola's prompts on who your users are & how they will use the site.
In class on Thursday, we will look at Johnson-Eilola's presentation of structures and navigation devices in common use for web sites. You will identify those features on some sample sites - and then we will discuss correlations between how a site is built - and how it is used.
At this point, you will look at your user/user context analyses - and at your research plans - and we will do some discussing about what kind of structure will work best to present your information to your users.
For Thrusday:
Blog 14: Revised research plan
For Monday, March 30
Blog 15: overview of your experience with Wikipedia. This reflection should include:
1. a link to your post
2. your user name so we can follow your participation in the history
3. a discussion of what you posted & why you chose to post it where you did; how long your post stayed "up" & how & whether it was edited; a report on your discussions/interactions with other editors; your speculations about why your post was received the way it was (some reflections on how wikipedia works).
Include:
Statement of purpose (what you hope to show/discover)
Detailed statement of your research question
List of the information you need to gather
A preliminary list of sources
Plan for gathering your information
Do some in-depth thinking about whether your question is broad enough or focused enough.
For those of you who have changed/re-focused your research topic - you will want to up-date your user analysis (check back to the writing we did in response to Johnson-Eilola's prompts on who your users are & how they will use the site.
In class on Thursday, we will look at Johnson-Eilola's presentation of structures and navigation devices in common use for web sites. You will identify those features on some sample sites - and then we will discuss correlations between how a site is built - and how it is used.
At this point, you will look at your user/user context analyses - and at your research plans - and we will do some discussing about what kind of structure will work best to present your information to your users.
For Thrusday:
Blog 14: Revised research plan
For Monday, March 30
Blog 15: overview of your experience with Wikipedia. This reflection should include:
1. a link to your post
2. your user name so we can follow your participation in the history
3. a discussion of what you posted & why you chose to post it where you did; how long your post stayed "up" & how & whether it was edited; a report on your discussions/interactions with other editors; your speculations about why your post was received the way it was (some reflections on how wikipedia works).
Monday, March 23, 2009
Monday March 23
Hope you all had a great break!
We are going to begin class today by reviewing your experiences with Wikipedia - we will spend the rest of class tightening up your research plans (and taking a look at a publication venue for your projects => Kairos Special Issue on Undergraduate Research.
If you look at the bottom of the assignment sheet on Developing a Research Plan, it asks you to formulate a research plan that includes:
Statement of purpose (what you hope to show/discover)
Detailed statement of your research question
List of the information you need to gather
A preliminary list of sources
Plan for gathering your information
In class - we will work in small groups, through your blogs and through whole class discussion (as a team) to make sure each of you has a strong research question. Your question needs to be:
1) related to the writing/technology issues that are the focus of this course;
2) ask a question that is in dispute or not yet answered;
3) sufficiently focused or narrow so that you can throroughly explore your topic within the format, length, and time constraints of this assignment.
To put it another way, this means that your hypertext essay needs to connect to the theory from the readings, it needs to use that theory to explore ideas about writing and technology in a new way - so as to pose new ideas on your topic; and it needs to present that exploration in-depth and with references to the ideas of others.
The outcome of today's class will be revised research plans (including plans for gathering/thinking through your research process) that should set you up to write a focused hypertext essay that meets the requirements.
We will discuss schematics and work on designing your sites on Thursday.
We are going to begin class today by reviewing your experiences with Wikipedia - we will spend the rest of class tightening up your research plans (and taking a look at a publication venue for your projects => Kairos Special Issue on Undergraduate Research.
If you look at the bottom of the assignment sheet on Developing a Research Plan, it asks you to formulate a research plan that includes:
Statement of purpose (what you hope to show/discover)
Detailed statement of your research question
List of the information you need to gather
A preliminary list of sources
Plan for gathering your information
In class - we will work in small groups, through your blogs and through whole class discussion (as a team) to make sure each of you has a strong research question. Your question needs to be:
1) related to the writing/technology issues that are the focus of this course;
2) ask a question that is in dispute or not yet answered;
3) sufficiently focused or narrow so that you can throroughly explore your topic within the format, length, and time constraints of this assignment.
To put it another way, this means that your hypertext essay needs to connect to the theory from the readings, it needs to use that theory to explore ideas about writing and technology in a new way - so as to pose new ideas on your topic; and it needs to present that exploration in-depth and with references to the ideas of others.
The outcome of today's class will be revised research plans (including plans for gathering/thinking through your research process) that should set you up to write a focused hypertext essay that meets the requirements.
We will discuss schematics and work on designing your sites on Thursday.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Monday, March 9
Designing effective web sites: Johnson-Eilola
The first chapter introduces considerations regarding:
- usability = careful consideration of who will be using your site, for what purposes, and under what conditions;
- structure = planning an organization/link structure that will reflect the users needs, interests, circumstances and abilities
- navigation = choosing the specific devices/facilities that will enable users to move from one screen/node to another
The second chapter engages you in thinking about who your users are and how their identities and circumstances affect their interactions with your site.
Johnoson-Eilola points out:
- that the sites' purpose should connect to the particular users
- user characteristics to consider should include: "age, cultures, interests, movtivations and skills" (10)
- the sites' structures should reflect users' profile; sites can be tailored to users in terms of: navigation devices, size and resolution, aspect ratio, color, fixity and reading patterns (see 10 -18, take a good look at the section on reading patterns)
Chapter 3 considers users' contexts:
-technical
-physical
-mental (+ predisposition to look for certain information)
-social and institutional contexts
Over break you will be reading Chapters 4 - 7, so that after class discussion of these chapters in class Monday, March 23, you can map out a schematic for your site.
In addition to dsicussion Johnson-Eilola, we will talk over the exploratory writing you did for your hypertext essays, and discuss how to finish developing your research plan.
For Wednesday, March 11
Read: Johnson-Eilola 4 & 5
Blog 11: (we will start this post in class March 9) Describe your audience, purpose, focus and work out some of the consequences these features of your project will have for your design; provide links to sites similar to what you have in mind
Blog 12: Wikipedia post + report on-going interactions with wikipedia
Th Mar 12 Online class, Chandler at Conference
Develop your research plan
Read: Johnson-Eilola, navigation + structure; 6&7: come to class prepared
Blog 13: post your research plan
The first chapter introduces considerations regarding:
- usability = careful consideration of who will be using your site, for what purposes, and under what conditions;
- structure = planning an organization/link structure that will reflect the users needs, interests, circumstances and abilities
- navigation = choosing the specific devices/facilities that will enable users to move from one screen/node to another
The second chapter engages you in thinking about who your users are and how their identities and circumstances affect their interactions with your site.
Johnoson-Eilola points out:
- that the sites' purpose should connect to the particular users
- user characteristics to consider should include: "age, cultures, interests, movtivations and skills" (10)
- the sites' structures should reflect users' profile; sites can be tailored to users in terms of: navigation devices, size and resolution, aspect ratio, color, fixity and reading patterns (see 10 -18, take a good look at the section on reading patterns)
Chapter 3 considers users' contexts:
-technical
-physical
-mental (+ predisposition to look for certain information)
-social and institutional contexts
Over break you will be reading Chapters 4 - 7, so that after class discussion of these chapters in class Monday, March 23, you can map out a schematic for your site.
In addition to dsicussion Johnson-Eilola, we will talk over the exploratory writing you did for your hypertext essays, and discuss how to finish developing your research plan.
For Wednesday, March 11
Read: Johnson-Eilola 4 & 5
Blog 11: (we will start this post in class March 9) Describe your audience, purpose, focus and work out some of the consequences these features of your project will have for your design; provide links to sites similar to what you have in mind
Blog 12: Wikipedia post + report on-going interactions with wikipedia
Th Mar 12 Online class, Chandler at Conference
Develop your research plan
Read: Johnson-Eilola, navigation + structure; 6&7: come to class prepared
Blog 13: post your research plan
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Thursday, March 5
Today's discussion of produsage is going to be collaborative (how appropriate -right?)
The class will work in 4 groups - who will each give a brief presentation on the main points of (one of) the following:
1. Defining produsage = differences from producation
2. Preconditions for produsage
3. Key principles of produsage
4. Impacts and implications
Then we are going to look at Bruns web presence + sites relevant to this work, including:
http://produsage.org/ Bruns site for the book
http://www.ning.com/ = create a social networking site
http://snurb.info/net => software for creating social networking sites
We will also take a look at some examples/products of produsage = open source software open source software. open office, & audacity.
We will spend the rest of class (if there is any time left) talking about your hypertext projects & discussing the plan of work to develop them.
For Monday:
Post Blog 10: Begin work on developing a research plan for your hypertext essay.
Read: Chapters 1 - 3 in Johnson-Eilola, and think about what kind of site will fit with the essay you will be writing for your hypertext essay project.
The class will work in 4 groups - who will each give a brief presentation on the main points of (one of) the following:
1. Defining produsage = differences from producation
2. Preconditions for produsage
3. Key principles of produsage
4. Impacts and implications
Then we are going to look at Bruns web presence + sites relevant to this work, including:
http://produsage.org/ Bruns site for the book
http://www.ning.com/ = create a social networking site
http://snurb.info/net => software for creating social networking sites
We will also take a look at some examples/products of produsage = open source software open source software. open office, & audacity.
We will spend the rest of class (if there is any time left) talking about your hypertext projects & discussing the plan of work to develop them.
For Monday:
Post Blog 10: Begin work on developing a research plan for your hypertext essay.
Read: Chapters 1 - 3 in Johnson-Eilola, and think about what kind of site will fit with the essay you will be writing for your hypertext essay project.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
SNOW DAY
Well - we missed class on Monday. I hope everyone had a great day cause I sure did. I will talk about Produsage (it's sort of a long article) and we will figure out how to make up for the lost day when we get to class.
See you Wednesday.
See you Wednesday.
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