Starting out the morning, I was hoping for more social networking time with my table colleagues from Occidental University in California [one in particular who came literally moments before the next session] but as the lights dimmed, I knew I needed to move onto the Kindle use in the English classroom, since this was one of two sessions I really wanted to see.
Kindles and two representatives from Cal Lutheran
Research question to consider: the effect of uncontextualized text
Design Issue: problems with accessibility; in initial start up problems with transfer of pdfs from Blackboard to Kindle (changed with new updates); qwerty vs # pad, keyboard layout; no backlighting (iphone app has backlighting);
Collaboration between Center for Teaching and Learning and Library
Student responsibilities: personal Amazon accounts, credit cards, personal content purchase, care of the Kindle, reading the assignments, downloading updates of software
Important Things to NOTE: Free texts have lots of errors; text to speech feature offers students options; students are able to download music to “read” by; My Clippings feature allows for highlighting & bookmarked passages, comments, class notes, and other materials, and then is able to copy and paste into Word; search function allows for keywords within the text; Writing Outcomes: builds vocabulary using Kindle’s New Oxford American Dictionary; enhanced reading experience; My Clippings feature allows students to start collecting information and develop their writing assignments earlier and easier; Brought more awareness of audience due to writing in blogs; writing became clearer and more concise.
Considerations: pedagogical adjustment, “Separation anxiety” from the printed hard copy page, no page numbers and location numbers (leads to problems in teaching and citing)
Even though this session is dealing with “Mobile Learning”, I am extremely happy that this session did not talk about the iphone touch!
Next, I’m going to the Rethinking WAC session. Since WAC issues are dear to my heart, I am hoping for this session to have something pertinent that I can relay to NMU. We started out with a writing to learn activity—work with a partner to write responses to 2 questions: what did you not like about writing and did you write anything that was worthwhile
Recommended we check out the materials on the Writing Center website at University of Illinois.
Why Write? Frequent writing in all disciplines helps students better comprehend, retain, synthesize…(This was a good quote, but I can’t type THAT quickly!)
Quoted and discussed Janet Emig—Writing as a Mode of Learning and the theoretical foundations of WAC...fond memories. Personal note: reading her study of the “Writing Processes of Twelfth Graders” helped me, as an originally undergrad Biology major, helped me to think that I could make it as a scholar in the field the field of writing.
Writing for exploration and writing for understanding—he mentioned that it helps promote advanced literacy as well as introduces the students into the discourse communities.
How does Web 2.0 enhance WAC? Audience, community, and multimodality Using things like Twitter, Facebook, and Blogs have the potential with understanding these three things.
2 Examples: A journalism class’s blog that incorporated interview and editorial work; Wikibook from a Blended Learning in k-12
Writing becomes social and not a singular, independent process.
Comic life? Making a graphic novel. http://comiclife.com/ It costs money, but may be helpful in some cases. Many of my EN 205: Intro to Professional Writing class want to make a graphic novel thanks to Watchmen, Sin City, etc.
Discussion on Jay Bolter’s Immediacy to Hypermediacy; Transparency to Hypermediation from Writing Space, “Hypertext and the Question of Visual Literacy”
http://prologue.com/# examples of multimedia
Final thoughts about this presentation: Wished there had been some strategies to encourage or promote interdisciplinary collaboration or more resources for writing to learn activities. Overall, I did feel this presentation was worthwhile, but I felt that from a 2.0 perspective, more could have been done and newer computers and writing (while I enjoy Bolter) research could have been used. Computers and Composition Online recently published their Web 2.0 special issue. Janet Emig is foundational theory, but there could have also been more recent WAC research. Most people would not be reading Emig. I think more resources would have been helpful for people.
Before April left, the remaining girls went to lunch at the Iron Cactus. We got to eat on the rooftop, where I got sunburned. I then got to embarrass myself for a few minutes.
Even though I really wanted to see my former student Janice who couldn’t meet because her son’s babysitter was sick, we made plans to meet up in March when I’m in San Antonio for the College English Association. (San Antonio is only 45 minutes away.)
Michelle and Kristi have more details about the Capitol shooter, but on my way to meet them at the Texas Museum Imax in a taxi, I got to hear how a Houston man was arrested for shooting a gun at the capitol. Considering I was on my way to go behind the capital grounds, it was a little weird. Avatar at the Imax was amazing. The Moonshine restaurant was good the second time around (again); my bacon, bleu cheese burger tasted amazingly like the brisket and ribs from the Salt Lick. I got a piece of the red velvet cake to eat tomorrow at the airport for breakfast; I’m going to call it my birthday breakfast. :)
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Glenna Pendleton: I was very energized by the conference. I became friends with my colleagues at CTIP, Also, there are so many things we can use in our undergrad classes at NMU that were showcased at the conference!!! What I am especialy fired up about is the possibility of an alternative to WebCT that was introduced in one of the sessions. Epsilen is a management option that incorporates new technologies into the course management process. For example, at the touch of a button on the screen, the professor can create a Wiki for collaborative learning in the class. NMU can experiement with this tool at no charge for one semester. It only requres that the experient have specific courses and class lists, similar to WebCT. This allows the students in the chosen classes to sigh into the platgform. There are many interesting tools. The creators, associated with the NY Times, are designing a way to incorporate the grades for rubrics right into the grade computation process. This means the professor does not need to import Excel files or manually transfer grades from rubrics. What a savings in time and a way to cut down on the chance for human error....
Glenna Pendleton: This conference also allowed me to create great experiences with my colleagues in CTIP. Overall I was very energized by the conference. There are so many things we can use in our undergrad classes at NMU!! What I am especially fired up about is the possibility of a newly developed alternative to WebCT. Epsilen is a management option that incorporates new technologyies into the course management process. For example, at the touch of a button the professor can go to a space to develop groups for class porjects. Or, better still, another button in the toolbar allows the professor to create a Wiki for collaborative projects. Students can add (or subtract) to a project in asynchronous time (i.e. they do not have to be on at the same time). Any university can experiment with this tool for one term with NO CHARGE. All that is needed is a list of the classes that need to use the management space. (This aspect appears to be similar to WebCT.) As an extra plus students can access that data base of the New York Times in a collaborative arrangement Episilen has wiht the Times.
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