January Seventh, actually!

Introductions

Response-abilities

Spring 2009 Course Calendar

SideBar

By all accounts, we live in an ecosystem under stress and burgeoning with information, and experimenting with multimedia composition (arranging sounds, images, and text), as technical writers working on specific problems, will help you learn techniques of attention management, but, even more importantly, how to form a commons amidst (ongoing) sea-changes in communications ecologies, and such "distributed rhetorics" emerge and develop in networks. Although the "infoquake" has effected all the disciplines and the very idea of research and inquiry, the collective-but-fragmented problem-solving approach that defines how knowledge often gets made in communities is still under-examined in disciplines related to technical communication and education. This course blends direct experience in such commons-formation with a study of emergent forms and processes of distributed rhetorics and community literacy.

discussion: what is community literacy?

The Community Literacy Journal mission statement offers a succinct understanding. How do trends in technology alter our understanding of community literacy? Discuss

Assignments for Week One:

1. read Ito's report, reflect, blog Ito's Report

-reflecting on Ito's categories of communication and digital rhetoric, blog on one or more of these questions:

• when do you write, and where, and how?
• what is technical writing? If you can, ground your blog with a story about a singular event, be it auspicious or banal, that connects your experience as a writer or researcher with the network pedagogies Ito's report describes.

*what connections can you forge between your major, your plans/visions/goals/dreams, your experience as a technical writer and your understanding of technical writing and the findings presented in this case study. What parts of Ito's report felt dissonant or out of step with your experiences with digital media?

browse: more case studies

2. priming the wiki

who are you?

introduction to narrative. feel free to free-form or use another template, but please do elaborate on your interests.

License Arguments

intellectual property/commons: what's at stake? Follow the steps a the creative commons web site, and select a license.

What does opensource mean to you?

alternate term for this exercise: community literacy. Or offer a definition of a term or concept of your choosing!

Link Pile

Week Two Preview/Options (work in progress, all comments, ideas and suggests are welcome!):

during class:

-visit with MZHS director Pat Fried in FCT 120

-leave class early to attend the Spring 2009 Civic Engagement Fair, which runs from 10 AM to 2 PM

after class:

-discuss our readings of each other's narratives/blogs. Select a blog and respond, integrate peer writing and links from our LinkPile

-read Service Learning Blake Scott and Melody Bowden

during the week and/or during class week three:

-read about Mt.Zion visit Mt. Zion, write an ethnography, conduct interview.

Follow up your observations by making a recommendations concerning how and where we should begin--which documents need to be prepared first? How might we best organize our process?

attendance

who's here:

casey

lauren

maria

tina

jesse

jacob

garan

tiff

rich

brian

pat

trey

inna

nathan