Poet Ponders Digital Pedagogy

Groups vs Individual Creativity

2012-02-03T14:34:00.000-05:00

I have always preferred to work alone, despising group work. Apparently, I'm not the only person to realize group work is absolutely not better than working alone:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-the-new-groupthink.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Pedagogically, I've always thought that groups allow students to avoid improving some skills. When I assign a group project, the best design student ends up doing the layout and design. Yes, that makes perfect sense and results in the best grade, but it doesn't help the student most in need of practice.

Sure, we should play to our strengths on teams, but school is also about improving your weaknesses. We must balance letting students focus on their favorite tasks and skills against the need to get students to do what they don't realize they can do. Teams allow too many students to avoid work, while other students end up doing extra work.

I want to work on my own, most of time, and that's not a bad. thing.

Susan Cain, writing in the New York Times, advocates for solitude and silence. She is the author of the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.

Cain is responding to the faddish embrace of the belief that groups are always better than individuals. The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki, was published in 2004. Around that time, the idea of "crowdsourcing" took off with various "great minds" embracing this statement:

Specialized expertise tends to be over valued. In fact, large groups, structured properly, can be smarter than the smartest member of a group. On average, the wisdom of crowds will come up with a better answer than any individual could provide.

Thankfully, Daniel Tammet (see the book Embracing the Wide Sky) and others have critiqued this statement. The problem is "on average" — it assumes the crowd will have just enough expert knowledge.

Cain offers another excellent critique of group work gone wild.

The Rise of the New Groupthink

SOLITUDE is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place. Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in.

But there's a problem with this view. Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist. They're extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. They're not joiners by nature.

I wholeheartedly agree with Cain: we have embraced groups despite the lack of solid evidence that groups are always or even most of the time better than solitary work. I'm sorry, but groups are miserable, lousy, horrible experiences. The only groups that function well are the groups that allow time for individual work. Truly individual work, not monitored groupthink that pretends to allow freedom and creativity.

Why do so many people love groups? Because popular people, those with charisma and a need to connect with others, tend to run our world. In their experiences, groups are wonderful. Basically, the world is often tailored by and for social butterflies.

Cain writes:

Culturally, we're often so dazzled by charisma that we overlook the quiet part of the creative process. Consider Apple. In the wake of Steve Jobs's death, we've seen a profusion of myths about the company's success. Most focus on Mr. Jobs's supernatural magnetism and tend to ignore the other crucial figure in Apple's creation: a kindly, introverted engineering wizard, Steve Wozniak, who toiled alone on a beloved invention, the personal computer.

The "star" is the man or woman in a team who can stand on stage and wow the audience. Sometimes that star is a great innovator, but often the social leader has a different set of skills. Those are important skills, but the innovator and creator often needs to be left alone to ponder wonderful, crazy ideas.

I've always needed a "star" to front for me. I'm not a social leader, I'm creative without the social skills necessary to promote my ideas and get them into the hands of others. Likewise, The Wonderful Wizard of Woz needed Jobs, a man who saw how to get ideas into the hands of millions.

The open source software (OSS) movement might be populated by thousands of Woz-like men and women. The problem is, the OSS movement doesn't have a Jobs. There are probably many reasons for this, but one of them is that Jobs and other social leaders thrive on extrinsic rewards. Those rewards include money, awards, and other forms of recognition.

Without a Jobs, Woz would have given away his ideas to a few dozen people. Job sold the Apple II to millions and changed the world. They needed each other, but Woz needed to work alone.

Woz wasn't antisocial or a hermit. He belonged to the Homebrew Computer Club and enjoyed the company of other men and women passionate about tinkering. Once a month, these individuals would gather and share information about the emerging "personal" computer. When members shared their enthusiasm for the Altair computer, Woz immediately set out to create a more affordable and more powerful home computer. He needed his small group of like-minded creators.

But, once inspired, he worked alone.

The story of Apple's origin speaks to the power of collaboration. Mr. Wozniak wouldn't have been catalyzed by the Altair but for the kindred spirits of Homebrew [Computer Club]. And he'd never have started Apple without Mr. Jobs.

But it's also a story of solo spirit. If you look at how Mr. Wozniak got the work done — the sheer hard work of creating something from nothing — he did it alone. Late at night, all by himself.

Intentionally so. In his memoir, Mr. Wozniak offers this guidance to aspiring inventors:

"Most inventors and engineers I've met are like me ... they live in their heads. They're almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone .... I'm going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone... Not on a committee. Not on a team."

My wife and I both work at home. Even when we are "at work" we each spend most of our time "alone" and focused on our tasks. We work with other people, but we work alone. That's something people overlook: you can be part of something while working alone most of the time.

As technical content architect, my wife uses email and phone calls to verify information about highly technical product designs. She needs other people, subject matter experts, but she only needs them for brief moments. A project might require an hour or two a day of contact with others, or it might require none at all.

I'm a writer, a designer, a programmer, and a university professor. I'm also entrepreneurial. None of those activities requires constant contact with others. I write alone, not on teams. My stories and scripts are written alone. After they are written, that's when collaboration begins. I don't need a "team" until I've created something.

My columns are emailed to an editor, who then turns the text over to a magazine designer. Publishing is a "team" effort, but it is more like an assembly line than people realize.

As a professor, I teach alone. There is a department and a school, with faculty around to help and guide me, but I create a syllabus, I teach the course. I do this alone. Like most teachers at any level, I am not joined by my supervisor in the classroom.

Yet, we gather our students into "teams" and make them engage in group work. Strange, since no group is involved most of what I do at the university. Even collaborating on research is nothing like what we ask of our students.

Our schools have also been transformed by the New Groupthink. Today, elementary school classrooms are commonly arranged in pods of desks, the better to foster group learning. Even subjects like math and creative writing are often taught as committee projects. In one fourth-grade classroom I visited in New York City, students engaged in group work were forbidden to ask a question unless every member of the group had the very same question.

What a horrible approach to education. This is collectivism at its worst. The group and consensus are everything; the individual is disruptive and to be shunned. I hate using "consensus" as the ideal of all that must be right and equal. I make it no secret that I dislike groupthink and group mandates.

I'm an individualist. Yes, we should help others, but we must never lose ourselves to the group identity. Leave me alone and I'm much happier.

As a computer programmer, I'm clearly not alone:

Many introverts seem to know this instinctively, and resist being herded together. Backbone Entertainment, a video game development company in Emeryville, Calif., initially used an open-plan office, but found that its game developers, many of whom were introverts, were unhappy.

"It was one big warehouse space, with just tables, no walls, and everyone could see each other," recalled Mike Mika, the former creative director. "We switched over to cubicles and were worried about it — you'd think in a creative environment that people would hate that. But it turns out they prefer having nooks and crannies they can hide away in and just be away from everybody."

My rejection of groups bothers some of my colleagues in education. They can't imagine that working alone is healthy, even necessary, for many people. Rejecting the group? That's politically incorrect, in addition to being strange.

But, I am most productive in my office, alone. I don't feel "energized" sitting around with other people. Interactions are exhausting. Spending an hour or two in a meeting leaves me shaking and anxious. I am an introvert when it comes to working at my best. I like small discussion groups, and sharing ideas, but those gatherings should allow me to escape and then ponder the ideas of others to synthesize my own new insights.

Cain writes that I'm not alone. I'm not strange. Many of us, if not most of us, are at our best when we have private spaces in which to work:

Privacy also makes us productive. In a fascinating study known as the Coding War Games, consultants Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister compared the work of more than 600 computer programmers at 92 companies. They found that people from the same companies performed at roughly the same level — but that there was an enormous performance gap between organizations. What distinguished programmers at the top-performing companies wasn't greater experience or better pay. It was how much privacy, personal workspace and freedom from interruption they enjoyed. Sixty-two percent of the best performers said their workspace was sufficiently private compared with only 19 percent of the worst performers. Seventy-six percent of the worst programmers but only 38 percent of the best said that they were often interrupted needlessly.

Yes, the study was of 600 programmers, but I bet the same is true of writers, painters, and many entrepreneurs. We are at our best when we have the solitude to think and reflect. We need time alone with our imaginations.

If I want to brainstorm, outline, map, and spend some time exploring what seem to be random connections… I want to brainstorm alone. Don't ask me to sit and listen to other ideas until I have first developed and defended my own ideas to myself. Let me argue with myself before I argue with others for my vision.

As Cain observes, brainstorming in groups is a special form of torture for many people:

Conversely, brainstorming sessions are one of the worst possible ways to stimulate creativity. The brainchild of a charismatic advertising executive named Alex Osborn who believed that groups produced better ideas than individuals, workplace brainstorming sessions came into vogue in the 1950s. "The quantitative results of group brainstorming are beyond question," Mr. Osborn wrote. "One group produced 45 suggestions for a home-appliance promotion, 56 ideas for a money-raising campaign, 124 ideas on how to sell more blankets."

But decades of research show that individuals almost always perform better than groups in both quality and quantity, and group performance gets worse as group size increases. The "evidence from science suggests that business people must be insane to use brainstorming groups," wrote the organizational psychologist Adrian Furnham. "If you have talented and motivated people, they should be encouraged to work alone when creativity or efficiency is the highest priority."

Having a lot of ideas is not the same as having a lot of good ideas. Also, groups end up being dominated by personalities. I'm not going to fight some people. Personally, I'm more likely to walk away angry and do my own thing after dealing with a group. I've left meetings more than once and I'll leave meetings again in the future.

I do not care what the group thinks. I care what I think and want to test my ideas.

Yes, I do need someone to help promote my ideas. I'll hire those people or form associations with them, but I don't want to be in charge of promotion. I want to have the grand idea, not the great sales pitch.

Admittedly, I do need people. I need my wife; she is my social connection. I also need the rare, short encounter with other creative people. But I don't want to be on a team that occupies shared space for hours on end.

I am not shy. I am independent.

Cain summarizes the solitary creative personality by returning to the example of Woz:

[Most] humans have two contradictory impulses: we love and need one another, yet we crave privacy and autonomy.

To harness the energy that fuels both these drives, we need to move beyond the New Groupthink and embrace a more nuanced approach to creativity and learning. Our offices should encourage casual, cafe-style interactions, but allow people to disappear into personalized, private spaces when they want to be alone. Our schools should teach children to work with others, but also to work on their own for sustained periods of time. And we must recognize that introverts like Steve Wozniak need extra quiet and privacy to do their best work.

Alone doesn't mean that I am not building on the works and ideas of others. Wozniak read books and attended presentations about computing and the future. He worked among engineers. He simply had the freedom to be alone when he needed that special creative space.

The Internet allows me to read and read and read some more. I can learn a lot from the works of other people. I can do this without sitting in crowded, emotionally draining, meetings.

Please, let me work alone. I'll let you know when I'm ready for the ideas, opinions, and the assistance of other people.

Creating eBooks with Free Tools

2012-02-02T19:03:00.000-05:00

The future is digital, no matter how much we might resist. My wife and I will always be "book" readers. You know, those things that collect a bit of dust, take up space, and weigh a lot. There is and always will be something nice about the tactile act of reading a book.

But, I've created ebooks and will publish many more in the years ahead. Lately, small groups have been asking if I would present on how to create an ebook.

I can offer whatever training is needed for those interested, but the training isn't that involved. In fact, the new, easy-to-use tools are why so many of my colleagues in book and magazine design are losing their jobs. Too many of my friends and colleagues didn't make the transition to online publishing because the skills differ from those we needed in print.

The publishing world is definitely changing. I posted an ebook with a very narrow audience on Amazon and sold over 1000 copies last year. For those of us with decades of experience in the print publishing world, this causes both excitement and anxiety. Truly, anyone can be a publisher.

The tools required for online publishing change based on your distribution goal. Sadly, Amazon, Apple, and other distributors cannot agree on a single file format. The best books are assembled two or three times, so they can be sold via several distribution channels (such as iTunes and Amazon).

The good news: the tools are generally free and easy to use.

To create ePub files that work with almost every eReader sold (except the Kindle), you can use Sigil. This is a free tool from Google and works with Windows, Mac, and Linux. To download Sigil and create your own ePub book: http://code.google.com/p/sigil/downloads/list

The ePub format is used by the B&N Nook, Kobo, Sony, and most other readers. Even the iPad and iPhone can read ePub files, or you can use the free Nook app on the iPad/iPhone to read an ePub.
To create iBook files (which are ePub files with some extra Apple features), you do need a Mac and an iPad. The free creation tool is iBooks Author: http://www.apple.com/ibooks-author/

The iBooks Author creates the best-looking ebooks I've seen. My wife and I have used desktop publishing tools since the 1980s, and nothing has ever been as amazing as iBooks Author. (We use InDesign for print publishing and PDF creation, but PDFs are lousy as ebooks.)

Sigil and iBooks Author are no more difficult than using Microsoft Word. The thing to remember is that ebooks are not about pretty designs. The user can change the font, page colors, and more. It frustrates designers, but readers (and many authors) are glad that the focus is on readability and usability.

Amazon makes creating a decent Kindle book a royal pain. You do need to edit the raw HTML, XML, and CSS to make the book work properly. There is an InDesign "plug-in" for Kindle, but our experience is that the files still require hours of hand editing to work on all Kindle models properly. (The black and white Kindle doesn't even do "grayscale" images well.)

If you want to learn about the Kindle tools:
https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A3IWA2TQYMZ5J6

I have made the journey from etching offset plates to phototypesetting to ePub creation. Each step of the way, the industry changed dramatically. More people can publish today than ever before, yet fewer people are "professionals" in the publishing industry full-time. I've also co-owned bookstores and my wife's sister still owns a small bookshop. It is worse than brutal to be in any business related to publishing.

People ask if I am a "writer" and I always answer, "It depends." The truth is that today's writer has to be a designer, editor, agent, and publisher. You learn that the more skills you have, the more likely you are to win freelance contracts or full-time assignments.

Maybe one of my ebooks will do well. Maybe not. But it won't cost us much to create them and we won't be "sharing" the money with dozens of experts from a publishing house.

I always recommend hiring an editor or consultant to help with the digital publishing, mainly because we all need an editor. However, even with the cost of professional editing and cover design, the cost to publish has never been this low.

(Of course, we'd appreciate it if you considered working with us!)

Apple Needs to Change for Creative Pros

2012-02-01T10:00:00.000-05:00

This complaint is aimed squarely at Apple. It needs to evolve as a company or risk losing its most loyal base: creative professionals.

Apple must realize that power users, that small number of us willing to pay for any creative edge, cannot be surprised by the "Next Big Thing" at the end of the annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). We need a clear roadmap. No, we're not why Apple earns billions of dollars, but we influence other users. Our decisions lead others to embrace or reject technologies.

I teach in the School of Communications and Information Systems at a university. Our school includes everything from "Media Arts" to "Computer Forensics" — it is an eclectic school, with a strong emphasis on rhetoric, communications, and technology. We train graphic designers, computer programmers, and English teachers. It's that eclectic.

Our students will learn specific programs on a mix of Apple and Dell systems. Then, they will go off and influence buying choices.

As a university, we have to plan ahead. We have to purchase hardware and software just as any corporation or large organization must: with an eye towards the future. Many of us are Mac users. Many are Windows users. Some use Linux. We use the tools that best meet our needs, but that's hard when the tools might not be around in a year or two.

Although I love writing, I am also a programmer, a designer, a typophile, and a Mac enthusiast. While I'm also a Windows and Linux user, and each of the operating systems have their place, Apple's place is in the creative arts — unless Apple messes things up even more than they have in the last few years.

Consider Apple Advanced Typography (AAT). Test it by using Zapfino in TextEdit and watch the magic. From an early embrace of SCSI for high-end scanners, PostScript printers (I miss the LaserWriter), FireWire (great for audio and video), Apple has recognized that "creatives" need some tools that are specialized.

Yes, the technology sometimes cost more. But, it served a purpose. Apple wasn't the best business computer for business. As a programmer, I've always found the DOS and Windows tools easier to use. Sorry, but Apple never did have something equal to TurboPascal, Delphi, or even Visual Studio 6. (Blasphemy, I realize, but I did like Visual Studio 6 a lot.)

Apple had HyperCard… and killed it. Apple had Objective Pascal… and killed it. Recently, Apple managed to mangle the Final Cut Pro upgrade. It is as if there's a self-destructive edge to Apple, not merely of the "creative destruction" sort.

I understand that things must change. Apple's move from System 9 to OS X was essential to the company's success. Apple's move from PowerPC to Intel was essential to maintain supplies, though in theory the PowerPC design could have evolved. (Ironically, it is the A4 and A5 chip designs powering Apple's growth today, not Intel chips. The Arm designs are more like the PowerPC than Intel designs.) FireWire is now being replaced by Thunderbolt. DVI video has evolved to HDMI and DisplayPort. Things do have to change.

But the Final Cut Pro fiasco? Dumping the Xserve? Just plain stupid. Yes, Apple can be stupid.
Apple, we need a vision. We need a roadmap.

Is there going to be a Mac Pro for five or ten more years? Will there be a commitment to design, audio, and video technologies? We have to know or we'll shift towards non-Apple products.

With a new CEO, shifts in the board, and other changes, now is a great time to start being a bit more open. Yes, you can keep surprising us with good ideas, but we don't want surprises at the high end. Creative pros need predictability.

Tell me I am right to wait for the next MacBook Pro and Mac Pro tower. Reassure me, and others, who have to think years ahead to make purchasing recommendations today.

The Fads We Follow

2012-01-20T15:09:00.000-05:00

Those of us specializing in new media, digital composition, writing technology or whatever we might call our courses and research projects sometimes fall into the same idealistic fad-think as tech prognosticators.

Remember interactive fiction? Our students don't. SecondLife? Not a single one of my university students has seen it or cares to see it. The list of gone and forgotten technologies seems endless. This week I made a reference to MySpace, something wildly popular only seven years ago among my composition students. Turns out, the MySpace of today is unpopular and doesn't even resemble the old version I knew.

LiveJournal? Yahoo Groups? Don't even try to explain Usenet newsgroups or Internet Relay Chat.
Remember AltaVista? GeoCities? Tripod? My students don't.

In 1992, I operated a Fidonet BBS, first with WildCat and then RoboBoard. Boardwatch was a thick magazine. Internet meant dial-up at 2400 or 9600 baud. Does anyone say "baud rate" today?

I read recently that podcasting peaked in 2007. I have no idea if that's true, but I personally switched to Internet radio apps two years ago. Again, none of my students listen to podcasts. They do love streaming video -- of network television! So much for the revolution.

My students don't live in virtual reality, few blog, and none had heard of Wikibooks until this week. They access Facebook and Twitter on cell phones. Theirs is a text-based world, connected in 140 characters or less.

The world I imagined never arrived and likely never will.

When I've attended conferences over the last decade, the talks and panels have focused on MOOS (Multiuser, Object-Oriented Systems) and other "virtual" settings. We had a futuristic vision shaped by fiction — cyberpunk was coming, we'd simply plug-in to a new reality. It would look and "feel" like the real world. But, that SecondLife meets real life never materialized.

My students tell me they don't want large screens and images. They want quick messages and sometimes a grainy photo sent from a smartphone. They use technology to supplement, not replace, their real life social connections.

This week, I even had students tell me they overwhelmingly reject eBooks for courses. Why? They want the physical books to mark, highlight, and even photocopy. I asked why photocopies mattered and the students explained a trick I never used: copy the end of chapter quizzes and discussion topics, because many teachers use those for tests. They use the photocopied pages to make flashcards or other study aids.
But, I'm still excited by the idea of an eBook with multimedia content. Just as I was excited by podcasts and streaming videos. My students? Not nearly as enthusiastic about rich media content.

As one student reminded me: "Google isn't cluttered. Yahoo is. We all use Google."

I need to keep that in mind, too.

eCheating: Students using high-tech tricks – USATODAY.com

2012-01-06T00:00:00.000-05:00

This fall, I resorted to using "anti-plagairism" tools for the first time in at least six years. One reason for this is that what I had been teaching at the University of Minnesota didn't lend itself to plagiarism. My technical writing students had to design a new toy or board game, create a prototype, and develop a product pitch. It's hard to steal another person's LEGO project that uses randomly selected bricks.

However, teaching a literature class I found that students either had problems with understanding citation norms or they simply assumed an instructor wouldn't check to determine if a passage was a copy-paste effort. I learned this is a great reason to have two mandatory drafts before a final paper, too. My department head and other colleagues were supportive and I'm now working on a reusable lesson module that will address citations. Student don't quite grasp that simply because you can copy-paste doesn't mean it is acceptable.

Back in the "ancient days" before personal computers, typing meant it was easier to paraphrase a source, summarize content, and cite only longer passages. I wonder how the move from typewriters and handwritten reports to word processing has affected paraphrasing skills. Summarizing was the most convenient way to use a source in the past, while now the easy way is to copy text directly.

The problem with citations aside, which I believe is something every writing instructor deals with, we now see a rise of "eCheating" thanks to ever improving technology. The following article only dealt with traditional classrooms, but I can tell you that online courses face even more challenges for instructors wanting to curtail cheating.

From: eCheating: Students using high-tech tricks – USATODAY.com

I recently discovered several websites that help students circumvent the secure browser feature our university uses for online testing. A well-produced video explained how to disable security or trick the system into giving you unlimited time for an exam. According to USA Today, the videos found aren't that uncommon. If you want to cheat, the how-to materials are on the Web.

YouTube alone has dozens of videos that lay out step-by-step instructions: One three-minute segment shows how to digitally scan the wrapper of a soft drink bottle, then use photo editing software to erase the nutrition information and replace it with test answers or handy formulas. The video has gotten nearly 7 million hits.

Imagine 7 million views of a video on cheating. Since I teach technical writing, I suppose the student creating the how-to video would receive credit for technical documentation and instructional video projects.

There is a small industry dedicated to high-tech cheating, sadly.

Several security-related companies, such as Spycheatstuff.com, will even overnight-mail a kit that turns a cellphone or iPod into a hands-free personal cheating device, featuring tiny wireless earbuds, that allows a test-taker to discreetly "phone a friend" during a test and get answers remotely without putting down the pencil.

When I read about small, wireless earbuds, I'm reminded of the television show Leverage. Spy tech comes to the classroom. Not a good thing, but again I admire the resourcefulness at work. Too bad the students don't invest this much effort in learning the assigned materials.

There is evidence that students simply perceive the digital rules differently.

Common Sense Media, a non-profit advocacy group, finds that more than 35% of teens ages 13 to 17 with cellphones have used the devices to cheat. More than half (52%) admit to some form of cheating involving the Internet, and many don't consider it a big deal. For instance, only 41% say storing notes on a cellphone to access during a test is a "serious offense." Nearly one in four (23%) don't think it's cheating at all.

But authorities are increasingly getting tough on cheating. Police in Nassau County, N.Y., on Long Island, this fall arrested 20 teens at five public and private schools in an SAT cheating ring. Five are accused of taking SAT and ACT tests for other students, who paid up to $3,600 for the service, authorities say.

I'm not sure what technology was involved in taking someone else's exam. I've been informed the SAT and ACT are now computer-based and adaptive. I suppose you could take the exam for someone — even while the "right" person is sitting at the keyboard. I'd be pretty suspicious if a student kept looking down at his or her iPod Nano "watch" during an exam. Or maybe I'd miss the cheating.

Psychologists suggest teachers simply don't see cheating, even when instructions have been told that cheating is occurring. If we can't see it, as is the case with online or some high-tech cheating methods, we assume it isn't happening.

Problems like detecting cheating boil down to what Nobel Laureate psychologist Daniel Kahneman calls "cognitive bias." If teachers can't see it happening in front of them, they're unlikely to believe it's happening and so they're less likely to try to prevent it. But Bramucci says educators "are lousy detectors at cheating."

To prove his point, a few years ago he brought in a group of students to take a mock test and instructed them to cheat in a handful of different ways, all under the gaze of South Orange professors, who watched and took notes.

"They didn't even get a third of the ways people were cheating, even when they knew they were cheating and it was happening right before their eyes," Bramucci says.

If we can't spot cheating in our physical classrooms, how do we combat cheating in online spaces? I do believe teachers should prevent cheating. The notion that students are "only cheating themselves" isn't true. Cheating, especially on tests such as the SAT, ACT, and GRE, affect the norming of scores. Cheaters can and do hurt other students.

Drupal Site for Military Writers Society of America

2011-12-29T16:00:00.000-05:00

For the last few months I have been working on a new website for the Military Writers Society of America. The goal was to create a collaborative writing site, where the members of MWSA could share ideas and work together to create the online version of their magazine Dispatches. In many ways, the goal was the same as when I create an online classroom for university students: the technology should assist collaboration and never hinder participation.

If you are curious, the new MWSA website is at: http://www.mwsadispatches.com

What I've learned during this process will influence my approach to designing other online spaces, including courses. Allow me to detail the lessons, some of which were frustrating.

1. Drupal was a good choice.

I experimented with several other content management systems, such as Joomla, Mambo, Moodle, XOOPS, and the classic PHP-Nuke. It was Drupal or Joomla, and Drupal won. For all the choices out there, I settled on Drupal because it is so ubiquitous and rock-solid under heavy use (once it works). There are dozens of good Drupal support sites, in addition to the Drupal.org website. The number of books on Drupal development was also a factor in my choice.

For the MWSA site, I wanted something I could maintain with minimal effort. The PHP code behind Drupal is familiar and I can extend it when necessary. There are more than a few anti-PHP rants online, but PHP works. (I don't blame a language for bad programming, but some programmers do look down on "simple to learn" languages.)

The grandfather of CMS platforms is PHP-Nuke, which has been rewritten several times. I happen to like PHP-Nuke, but its strength is simplicity, not access control levels ("user permission lists") or multimedia. Mambo is the original code that split into Joomla some years ago. Ignore Mambo. Moodle? Great for online courses, but not so great as a general purpose CMS. It's a shame the best of Moodle can't just be merged with the best of Drupal — many sites do run both.

For a reasonable comparison of Drupal and Joomla, read:
http://www.a3webtech.com/index.php/compare-drupal-v-joomla-cms.html

2. Drupal, like every other open source platform, is a moving target.

One of the challenges of setting up an open source platform is that these platforms and the contributed modules, add-ins, plug-ins, themes, et cetera, are always changing. This could be a problem for some organizations. Every week there is an update to one or more of the modules I've installed for the MWSA site. Since a few modules have been further modified by yours truly, the constant updates to modules requires careful management.

When "Revisioning" and "Access Control" were updated, suddenly content editors couldn't access "unpublished" content on the MWSA website to edit and release the content. That process is pretty key to an online magazine, so the problem required an immediate fix. Thankfully, I was able to get things working in a few hours — but what would happen if the webmaster didn't realize Drupal updates are tricky? Never trust an update to any module to not break the functionality of other modules.

3. Drupal isn't Drupal.

Live, active websites are running Drupal 5, 6, 7, and 8. The MWSA website relies on the Drupal 7.x core, which seems to be the most stable, though most modules and features are still for the Drupal 6.x core. If you have a problem with anything, you need to accept that the documentation will likely still apply to Drupal 6, not 7, and there will be differences. I've had to read a lot of PHP source code to adapt fixes offered for 6.x issues to the 7.x modules. It isn't hard work, but it can be tedious. Plus, you do have to accept that mistakes will happen.

4. Drupal themes are complex — and picky.

Joomla is better visually. I believe this is because "theming" Drupal is a pain. Not a little pain, either, but a serious pain that requires significant time and effort. I have yet to customize the MWSA website to my liking. For now, the MWSA site uses a highly modified, hand-tuned version of the Garland theme. I had to edit the CSS and the template PHP — and I'm still unhappy with the results. The theme "clearfix" is a problem I despise and want to fix in coming months. If you don't understand the complaint, don't worry. The basic issue: themes are fragile and require delicate testing.

You can make a Drupal site visually appealing, even stunning. Just don't expect theming to be simple.

5. Expect to install modules. Lots of modules.

No two sites have the same needs, but you will need modules from the Drupal community to accomplish what you want. For the MWSA website, we have nearly three dozen modules in addition to the basic core. Read the documentation, read the bug reports, and consider how essential a module is before installing it on the production server. You can also read how many sites are using a module, which is one way to judge the stability of a module. While a module used by three other sites might seem ideal, I would rather install modules used by a few hundred sites.

I ended up having to reinstall Drupal several times when modules created the "White Screen of Death." This happens. I learned the hard way: always check twice (or thrice) to ensure the site is in "Maintenance Mode" before installing any module that modifies the Drupal databases. Also, install a module, test it, and then install the next module.

Through experience, going back to Drupal 5.x, I've gotten pretty good at a routine. There are some modules I install in a specific order because of past glitches. I love "Views" and a few other interface modules. Installing "Views" and "Panels" is well documented and should be done precisely as documented.

Some Thoughts for Schools

I believe Drupal is a great alternative to systems like Microsoft's SharePoint for schools. There's no reason a high school or university couldn't use Drupal to create a great website. If cost matters, you can install Drupal on a Linux server and pay only for the hardware.

My university uses SharePoint, and I am an authorized contributor to the site. However, Drupal with Revisioning is easier and much "snappier" in my experience.

For online courses, however, Drupal isn't Blackboard or Moodle. I hope that does change. For now, I'd use Drupal as the main website and install Moodle in a dedicated path. It's not perfect, but it works.

Ask Slashdot: Is E-Learning a Viable Option? - Slashdot

2011-12-26T14:34:00.000-05:00

Over on Slashdot, the following question has 165 comments in under ten hours:

Ask Slashdot: Is E-Learning a Viable Option? - Slashdot

Once again, we should remind ourselves that technology and other materials depend on the teacher's ability to use those tools wisely. Technology alone is never a panacea. Also, technology does come with its issues.

Students working online, either at home or in class, can and do get distracted. We all do. It's hard for me not to skip over to check the latest headlines or skim science news RSS feeds. Do you really expect students to be disciplined?

Technology, used wisely, offers amazing new potentials. But, I've seen what happens when a teacher doesn't realize Twitter and Facebook have become the favorite topics of the class period.

Ideally, we teach students to focus. That might be with a book or with an iPad, but focus matters.

Can Anything Be Taught Online?

2011-11-30T12:02:00.001-05:00

One of the questions facing colleges and universities is "Can Anything Be Taught Online?"
The simple answer is, no. But some of almost every topic can be taught online. I ask the question, "How Much of Topic X Can Be Online?"

When an institution wants to take a topic online, it should ask the following:

How much of the course content will work online, in the time allotted?
How will that content be delivered?
How will knowledge and skills be evaluated?
What technologies will be required?
Do potential students have access to the needed technology?

While a school cannot have a veterinary surgery practicum online, they can provide simulations and much of the background material leading up to the physical practicum. Someday in my lifetime I imagine "robot-assisted" surgeries will be common. (They exist now, but are limited to a few procedures and there are physicians present.) Still, I'd want a surgeon to have performed "real" surgery, in case the robot needs to reboot.

We all watch plenty of experts without learning how to do what they do. That's one of the problems with non-interactive video or audio instructions. You need to do things to master them.

I tell my students that watching the Food Network for years has not made me better cook. What would help is following along in my kitchen and having real people test my real food. Most of us listen to music and watch performances, yet I don't know anyone who learned to play guitar simply watching Keith Richards. Watching isn't enough. You have to do what you want to master.

It is my personal conviction that we can teach most foundational knowledge and many skills online. We can even evaluate many tasks online, assuming the student has access to the appropriate technology. Yet, there are some things we cannot evaluate online.

No culinary course could evaluate what I cook at home. But, I could videotape myself playing an instrument for a music course. It is a matter of what is being learned and how it will be evaluated.
The best online education programs recognize that effective teaching of some topics requires a serious investment in technology and training.

To teach music, you would need video and audio production capabilities for the instructors. Yes, you could use pre-recorded lessons, but most instructors have a personalized style. Plus, a teacher could demonstrate specific skills that a students needs help mastering. Pre-packed content should supplement, not replace, the course instructor.

Some topics are technologically "easier" to teach online, while these same topics might also be "harder" to teach due to the evaluation method required. I can teach basic writing skills online, but grading essays takes much longer than grading math or science quizzes. Yet, the science or math teacher might need more technology to prepare lessons.

If even 50 percent of standard course content can be online, why not put it there? For "traditional" on-campus courses, having documents, handouts, practice quizzes, audio, and video online is a great idea. It takes time, expertise, and money, but the long-term payoff is a library of reusable content. Then, instructors teaching online and on-campus can focus on the needs of each class section and each student.

Personally, I do hope to have most of my course content online in a few short years. It will require time and effort, but it will help my students for years to come.

GAO report finds cheating, plagiarism and other violations in for-profit colleges’ online classes - Politics - The Boston Globe

2011-11-26T17:38:00.000-05:00

This story explains some of my doubts about online education. It is not online education that concerns me, but the poor oversight and administration that threatens to further erode confidence employers have in online degree programs.

GAO report finds cheating, plagiarism and other violations in for-profit colleges’ online classes - Politics - The Boston Globe

First, the obvious question: if the GAO is examining for-profit institutions now, how long before they investigate “non-profit” colleges and universities? I have plenty of questions about education in general, including higher education quality, regardless of the charter of the institutions or their settings. State, non-profit, or for-profit, any institution is only as good as its administration and faculty. Online, oversight is even more challenging than on-campus. It requires more time and energy because it is easy for students (and some faculty) to cut corners online.

The GAO examined enrollment, cost, financial aid, course structure, substandard student performance, withdrawal, and exit counseling in its investigation. Just eight of the 15 colleges it looked into appeared to follow policies related to academic dishonesty, exit counseling, and course grading standards.

One way to look at this: 53 percent of online universities were, at least superficially, in compliance with standards. The more likely case: 47 percent of for-profit online institutions were found to be violating standards in this one, limited investigation and there are possibly more problems. I say that based on my own experiences and the conversations I have had with both students and instructors.

Undercover GAO agents were able to use fake high school diplomas to enroll in online classes at 12 for-profit colleges for one academic term, ranging from four to 11 weeks. They paid an average of $1,287 per class to enroll in basic courses including learning strategies, keyboarding, and introductory computing.

Imagine this: 12 of 15, 80 percent of colleges, admitted unqualified students. This means there was little or no checking of academic transcripts. Colleges and universities need students. They need tuition dollars, especially in this economy. However, we still need to admit only those students with some reasonable chance of learning and succeeding in university-level courses.

My personal experience is that many students in online courses, even at universities with well-intentioned admissions screening, are academically unqualified. Sadly, some of those students do have high school or community college transcripts. Many colleges, including state universities, do not require test scores or other evidence of academic readiness if a student has a valid community college degree. But, since many community colleges are counting pre-packaged online courses and remedial courses towards associate's degrees, colleges and universities are enrolling students unprepared for the demands of university-level work.

I don't have a great answer for how any institution can guarantee students admitted are ready for the work. But, you must check transcripts. I would also require standardized admissions testing for transfer students, which I know is unpopular. It's not the ideal solution, but grade inflation at high schools and colleges means we need some sort of alternative standard.

If the online schools required both transcripts and verifiable test scores, the fake diplomas would have been noticed. Universities need to make it nearly impossible to rig the admissions process.

Among the report’s findings:
At a number of schools, students received credit for work that was clearly plagiarized, including text copied verbatim from other students’ discussion posts or the school’s website.
Three out of eight schools did not provide students with the federally mandated exit counseling about federal loan repayment options and the consequences of default. (The GAO reported in August 2009 that students attending for-profit colleges were more likely to default on federal student loans.)
At one school, a student received credit for submitting photos of political figures and celebrities for an assignment that called for an essay response.
Another student received full credit for an assignment that had already been submitted for another class, met none of the criteria sought, and contained a clear notation that it was prepared for another class.
One instructor repeatedly offered to wipe out a student’s failing assignments and allow the student to re-submit them, saying, “It’s not hard to get 100 percent on the second try; just jot down the correct answers and take the quiz again.”

I've personally witnessed four of the above five issues at state and non-profit universities. Thankfully, these problems were quickly addressed by administrators. In some instances, faculty made earnest pedagogical arguments that retesting and resubmitting papers were still learning. I disagree, and clearly federal investigators do as well.

Students must be taught, as part of the overall university experience, that each class demands its own unique work. Copying, including cutting-and-pasting online content, is plagiarism. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to prove some plagiarism instances. Students are left learning how to cheat and manipulate the system, which is a lousy lesson to learn.

The report did not identify the colleges investigated by name.

We should start naming names, but only after completed investigations. We cannot allow our high education system to be corrupted by mediocrity online.

As a proponent of online education, I know that reports like this one from the GAO only hurt all online education programs.

Blackboard Nightmares

2011-10-22T01:09:00.000-04:00

I spent most of today trying to get an online course ready to launch this weekend. I've never been a fan of Blackboard and the last 48 hours or so have been a reminder as to why. There are also some tool-related issues that are not purely "technical" (more on that later), but are leading to frustration.

Uploading files into Blackboard, as with most online systems, is straightforward enough. But when you have dozens or even hundreds of files to import it can be a miserable experience. It is not all Blackboard issues, either, but these have been issues that didn't creep up in my life until this struggle.

Issues of the last two days include:

1) Safari doesn't support the latest Adobe Acrobat plug-in. Neither did FireFox, Camino, or Chrome until I updated Chrome to the latest "beta" version. Safari does display PDFs with a built-in viewer, but PDFs within frames still require a plug-in to function. So, while I've been working with PDFs on dozens of websites, the use of frames within Blackboard caused a major hassle.

There is no excuse for frames in the era of AJAX and HTML 5. Why must Blackboard use frames within frames? I had three vertical scrollbars while using one feature of Blackboard. I had to remember which one to scroll to access the inner and outer-most content. And in the inner-most frame? An error message about Acrobat. What pain.

2) The Java applets for uploading files and drag-n-drop features do not always function properly. I "lost" the Java window so many times I was getting angry. I would select several files and then the "browse" window would close unexpectedly. I had to resort to uploading one or two files at a time. Not a good experience when you have 200+ files to upload.

When I was uploading multimedia content, a file named "_MacOSX" kept appearing in Blackboard. If I forgot to delete this 0K file, the next upload would crash with a complaint that I couldn't upload files with the same name within clicking the appropriate checkbox. I went to click that box and received several other error messages.

Because I was facing a deadline, I opted to upload one file at a time. This was tedious. Seriously tedious. This leads to the next complaint.

3) Uploading "packages" of files caused repeated, meaningless errors. One way to get around problems with multiple file transfers is to upload a compressed (".zip") file and let Blackboard recreate the file folders remotely. This used to work flawlessly. Tonight? I waited and waited while transferring packages to the system. These were 5 to 20 MB compressed folders, some with dozens of small files. Every second or third attempt to load files was greeted with the errors, "Cannot uncompress duplicate file names."

There were no duplicates. The same compressed files would work several minutes later. It was like I was playing the "upload lottery." When an upload and unzip worked as it did in the past, I felt lucky and relieved. When the upload would "freeze" for minutes with not so much as a "beep" I knew I was going to be sending the file again… and again.

4) The editor was "helping" my HTML again. Don't need to write more than that.

5) The basic menu options, which appear on the lefthand side of the screen within our Blackboard system, would vanish. Yep, the menus for such tasks as "File Management" and "Course Tools" would disappear for no reason. I had to close the window or tab and return to Blackboard to see the actions towards the bottom of the menu. Not being able to access basic features, like the grade book, without closing the window and restarted is frustrating. I lost significant time waiting for Blackboard to load… again and again.

Teaching online should not be this painful. I can setup a complex web server with a great content management system. I've installed blogs, collaborative tools, and more. Nothing is as painful as Blackboard. No other platform I use is as unreliable.

I can't be the only user to find Blackboard Learn 9.x to be a step backwards in some ways. I miss Web/CT and WebVista. I'd rather be using Moodle than Blackboard, but the choice to use a specific CMS is up to administrators. If I didn't care to organize files and respond to students, I could be like a few of my colleagues and claim that online teaching is easier. Done right, I believe an online course is more work, not less.

Things are working at the moment. Yes, I only have the first week ready, but that's enough for now.

Writing Instruction Blogs, Twitter Feeds, and Facebook Page

2011-10-10T18:29:00.000-04:00

My wife and I maintain two blogs, Twitter feeds, and a Facebook page dedicated to creative writing instruction. I have discovered that readers prefer to choose how they receive updates and blog feeds, so we've tried to offer the most popular options.

First, a reminder to visit the Tameri Guide for Writers (http://www.tameri.com/) if you are interested in creative writing. The Tameri website is not an academic writing website, though it includes some resources for teachers of writing.

Our blog on creative writing and mass market fiction:
http://www.tameri.com/wordpress/

You are reading my blog on using technology in writing instruction:
http://poetcsw.blogspot.com/

The two blogs are featured on our Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tameri-Guide-for-Writers/239305212783049

You can find "Follow Us" links for Twitter on the blogs and on the Tameri website. Please consider following us using the social networking method of your choice.

Conflicting Visions of Online Ed

2011-10-05T23:07:00.000-04:00

At the university where I teach we are engaged in a debate familiar to online educators: which delivery methods will we embrace and why? When discussing online education it is important to clarify how the experience will be "delivered" to students and how well the delivery method complements the instructional styles of various instructors.

I have a decided preference for courses that include either some face to face meetings or live "synchronous" communications between the instructor and students. My preferences as an instructor reflect my preferences as a student, but only when I consider the best instructors I had throughout my education.

Online education can refer to any of the following:

Distance learning via teleconferencing technologies hosted in a traditional classroom setting;
Synchronous learning conducted by an instructor specifically for remote students only;
Hybrid learning, in which students meet sometimes in classrooms and sometimes online;
Complementary online learning with work and materials online, supporting traditional lectures; and
Asynchronous learning, in which students access materials and lectures at flexible times.

The preceding list represents only some of the approaches to online education found today. Every approach has some situations in which it is the right approach for students and the instructor. However, these approaches are not equal in my mind for a variety of reasons. This is not meant to suggest delivery methods I would rather not practice are "wrong" for students. Situations must dictate delivery methods.

Based on my experiences, fully asynchronous online courses are not as rewarding to teach nor do they excite students as much as those courses with "live" interactions among students and instructors. This week I asked a colleague what is the difference between a fully asynchronous class and a correspondence course? Though we asked students to interact in online discussion forums and to exchange work remotely, many of these interactions are superficial and fail to match classroom discussions. With asynchronous courses, I am left feeling that I could have sent students a CD-ROM of my lecturers, notes, and assignments.

I understand that I can record lectures, produce videos, and create multimedia content in a variety of ways for students in asynchronous courses. However, how would such content differ from suggesting to students that they can download content from the History Channel, The Learning Channel, or any of a dozen other educational content providers? There is an amazing amount of content available via iTunes, websites, on-demand television, and other services that exceeds any content I could produce. In fact, I have used PBS and History Channel content in my traditional classroom, but the showings include pausing the video to discuss the information and encouraging students to debate what they had seen.

My first preference for online education is the hybrid model, with students meeting in traditional classrooms for one-third to one half of class sessions. I find that this improves camaraderie and helps prevent misunderstandings in online discussion forums. Knowing each other face-to-face seems to help students interact more effectively online. Plus, I am better at recognizing when students are confused or misunderstand information when I see them face-to-face.

When a hybrid model is not possible, I prefer synchronous models of online education. With today's technologies I can easily video chat with students, even if I cannot see all 20 to 30 students. With live chat students are able to ask questions and engage in discussions in real time. Some professors have used Twitter for this purpose, while others use text chat, instant messaging, or "whiteboard" applications that allow students to interact while the professor is lecturing. Live interactions are interesting to students and seemed to increase the retention of information.

At this time, the university where I teach has embraced asynchronous online education. The justification for this is entirely student convenience, not pedagogical effectiveness. Enabling students to access courses at any time allows the university to market our courses to nontraditional students seeking flexibility first and foremost. I must admit that I find this troubling even though I recognize the students should be served by higher education.

To me, the university experience is meant to be an exchange of ideas. It is an active experience in which the students are engaged in debate and discussion, not merely learning from a professor or the materials provided by a professor. Asynchronous discussions, as I wrote earlier, seems superficial. I have compared discussion forums between hybrid and asynchronous courses and am convinced there is a difference.

I hope to encourage the university to consider synchronous online courses and distance learning, which at one time was a major strength of the institution. I believe in distance learning, especially with advancements made in teleconferencing in the last five years. I will do all I can as the coordinator of a program to stress the value of real-time interactions in the learning process.

Annoyances with Blackboard

2011-09-14T21:45:00.000-04:00

Every instructor using a course management system / learning management system (CMS/LMS) ends up discovering the various annoyances unique to the system. Some have more annoyances than others, which is one reason I prefer Moodle but still have plenty of "kind suggestions" for the developers. I also like that if you do spot a problem with Moodle, you can participate in fixing the weakness or error.

Then, there is Blackboard. It isn't one or two annoyances. It seems there's one annoyance after another when I try to deal with Blackboard. The hosted Blackboard Learn system we use at my university seems to be one challenge after another. I don't know why, but it is more annoying than the previous versions of Blackboard and its other products I have used as an instructor.

Tonight's list of complaints is incomplete, a mere hint of my frustrations.

1) Editing announcements, discussion threads, and other content is inconsistent. I've tried editing the HTML directly, but after you save the content the "helpful" BB system alters your code. Paragraphs and breaks are changed, magically, into "div" tags with improper spacing. The paragraphs you carefully crafted? Gone. Other HTML tags are also changed. Why? BB supposedly supports HTML, so why "fix" my code?

2) The "Journal" mode doesn't include the same editor as other editing windows. Yet, clearly it stores some code because when students cut-n-paste text from other sources, I can tell. I'd like to have access to HTML in the journals.

3) I want to upload dozens of files for students to download. This files are sample essays. This would be "easy" (at least easier) if our server supported WebDAV and allowed students to access the folders remotely, but even that would be a challenge for students. So, I'm stuck uploading files to a folder, creating a "folder item" for students, and then creating links one at a time to the files I uploaded. I could upload one compressed (".zip") file for every dozen or so samples, but students only need to choose a few files.

The last of these annoyances is the biggest. If any reader of this blog knows how I can upload an entire directory of files and allows students access to these with minimal effort, I'd appreciate it. My method is working, but why should I have to create links to every file? The link method presents screen of fields, none of which I need.

Online education is always more work than traditional classroom instruction. Sadly, even when we aren't fighting the technology, the cumbersome designs of CMS/LMS platforms requires that we spend extra time to do basic tasks.

I actually miss the old Blackboard WebCT/WebVista platforms because I knew their quirks and how to work around them.

Online Teaching vs Classrooms

2011-09-12T00:20:00.000-04:00

As the second week of courses ends at my university, and I have prepared for the third, I finally have a bit of time for reflection.

First, let me state that the department in which I work is dedicated to delivering an online degree program that is equal in value and student experience to the on-campus degree. This task is not easy, since online courses by nature are different. From the delivery method itself to the nature of assessing students online, there are differences we cannot ignore, so we must adjust to ameliorate those imbalances.

Unfortunately, the university is running an ad campaign in local media that suggests online degrees are "convenient" for students. Nothing could be more misleading, in my opinion, than suggesting that an online degree is somehow more convenient or in any way "easy" compared to traditional studies. Online education requires more time, not less, and requires more self-discipline of students. The accelerated pace and the lack of classroom discussions also increase the probability that students will miss concepts or important information.

Online education is more work for educators and students. Don't let anyone try to say otherwise, I've repeatedly written here and elsewhere.

Online courses, in my opinion, should have at least a third fewer students than traditional courses. There should also be an opportunity for "live" text or video chats to help students bridge the traditional and online experiences.

The online program at our university is conducted in eight-week cycles. I dislike this intensely, pedagogically and logistically. There are a number of reasons for this:

1) When each week is two, students seldom read texts "deeply" and respond accordingly.

2) The "quick start" often leads online courses to be "behind" by two weeks, causing some assignments to be omitted.

3) Missing two online sessions is equal to missing four regular class sessions, a gap that cannot be bridged.

Moving so quickly risks a superficial course that doesn't leave a lasting impression on students. In the short-term, we might claim outcomes are equal, but what of long-term retention? What about the "convenience" when a working student misses a week online? That's far different from missing a single class meeting in a traditional course, especially if the traditional course meets more than once weekly.

I'm highly skeptical of claims that online and on-campus courses lead to "equal outcomes." How are we judging those outcomes? Grades? We know grades don't measure learning. Test results? Do those scores reflect long-term retention?

Online education is important and necessary for many students, especially non-traditional students. But, we have to ask ourselves some difficult questions. How can we ensure that online is as demanding — and rewarding — as the traditional experience? I'm not sure there are easy answers. And, I believe too much of the research is superficial, as if that research has sought to support online education, instead of challenging its value.

Many of us believe in online education; our research might reflect and support that bias.

I read recently that the public is more skeptical, overall, of online courses and degrees than are college administrators. Maybe the public perceptions should guide us? If our graduates' coworkers and employers question online education, we have to prove that it is equal to traditional learning. Sadly, too many online programs have hurt perceptions of online courses.

More thoughts in a day or two. I plan to discuss my own efforts to align a course that is both online and on-campus.

Preparing an Online Course

2011-08-22T14:52:00.000-04:00

I'm taking a short break from designing my Blackboard shells for both an on-campus and online course because I'm exhausted. Don't let anyone try to persuade you that online courses and courses with online content are somehow "easier" to prepare and to deliver. The time and energy required is substantially greater than the effort to prepare a traditional university course. Universities need to consider this time and energy more accurately. The minor stipend I receive for creating an online course does not reflect the time I invest in the effort.

I definitely believe there are more benefits than negatives to providing online content to students, including extra content for traditional on-campuses courses. But, we have to admit that effective online delivery is time-consuming. The reasons for this are many; I can address a few now:

1) The course management software itself requires time and effort.

Everything online is simply more time consuming. The benefits include giving students the ability to access any papers or assignments they missed. The downside? Lots and lots of time setting up the course. Trust me, I reuse much of the content for courses, but it still takes hours to set up a new class each semester.

I've always used a spreadsheet for grading and stored important files on my computer. By comparison to an Excel spreadsheet, creating a course grade book online can be tedious. In a spreadsheet, I can create the columns in ten minutes or less. Online? I have to tweak and adjust the grading system for at least an hour. Even when I am able to copy the basic shell from course to course, I have to update assignment data. I'm pretty fast online, but it still takes a lot more time than my old Excel method.

To prepare a handout for a traditional course, I could either head for a copier or I could print the document at home. Yes, printing takes time, but I can do other tasks in the meantime. To deliver a handout online, I have to create a "folder" for handouts, convert the document to HTML or an Adobe PDF, and then upload the file. Uploading includes entering information about the file, such as the title and when it should be available to students. I've learned that sharing a file can take up to ten minutes, depending on technical issues. If you have numerous handouts, plan to burn a couple of hours.

These are only a few examples of how online can require more time to create and maintain due to the nature of the software. You do not merely "upload a course" each semester. When instructors do upload all files to one folder, with no effort to organize content, the students struggle. I compare organizing a course to preparing a brand new computer for use. While you could copy everything and hope it works, most people learn you have to move and test files and applications. With online course management, you need to upload and test assignments, handouts, links to external resources, and so on.

2) You need to create "virtual lectures."

Yes, I could resort to recording my lectures and then posting the audio, but it is more effective to create new lectures. I create podcasts and screencasts, which require editing. I'm a perfectionist, so an online lecture can take two or three times longer to prepare than a traditional lecture does. Yes, I can reuse lectures when I teach the same course or a similar course, but every new course means hours of new online lectures. I believe this is better for students, since they can listen to, watch, and read lectures as many times as they personally need. However, it does mean an instructor invests more time and effort.

3) You need to "guide" students more actively.

Online courses, at least in my experience, require daily attention to keep students on-task and participating. You do not need to respond to every online forum post or track every student activity, but you need to be "present" online to catch any problems quickly. The sooner you can help students with problems online, the better the course will function.

4) Servers go down.

Tomorrow, there's a 12-hour outage of our Blackboard system. That's a week before classes start and I'm still uploading content. During past semesters at other institutions, I've had course management systems go down for two or three days. This is particularly hard on students if the system is down over a weekend. Many non-traditional students count on weekend access to online course.

5) Administrators increase student caps.

Responding to student discussions and homework takes more time, not less, in an online course. Why do administrators still believe you can handle more students online, despite the need for more time to provide feedback? Administrators still embrace the myth that online is less time-consuming, so they increase enrollment caps. Some universities and colleges allow two or three times the number of students online as in traditional lectures. This is not helpful for the students and risks exhausting the instructors.

-

I believe in online education, especially hybrid models, but I always tell instructors considering online courses that you can expect to spend 30 percent more time on the course. They don't always believe me until after the semester is underway.

More later as the semester starts.

Preparing for 2011-12

2011-08-02T23:55:00.000-04:00

I'm preparing for the 2011-12 school year, which this year means learning new software systems, university philosophies, and everything that goes along with any new job in today's connected world. I hadn't really thought about the comparisons until this month, but I am noticing how my issues at work aren't that different from those of my wife at her office.

Group scheduling and management software varies from okay to horrible. I've used several different "groupware" platforms. The new employer uses Novell GroupWise — at least until school starts. Right before school starts the university will be switching to another platform. Not the best of timing, but that's reality in any organization.

The university is also migrating to new learning management software, new Web servers, and a new collaboration platform. What could go wrong?

It's strange how dependent we've become on our networks. My wife and I have struggled with synchronizing calendars between several computers, PDAs, and phones. That's the new normal, apparently.

My wife's employer uses Lotus Notes, an Oracle management system, and a content management system, among other applications that help employees share and plan collaboratively. Of course, there are glitches. Sadly, we accept the problems in every setting because that's the nature of software — at least as we have come to expect it.

I'm not comfortable with shared data; I like my data on my computer. Sharing used to mean sending data on an as-needed basis to people, but now everything seems to be out there on a server somewhere. That means things can go wrong and probably will.

I'm sure the university will transfer data (at least most of it) successfully to new platforms. There will be problems, not the least of which will be training the employees on the new platforms.

It is easy to forget that what we experience on campus is exactly what employees everywhere experience.

I love technology, but it is complex. That's true on campus and everywhere else.

Been Away, But Soon Blogging Again

2011-07-30T23:02:00.000-04:00

My blogs have been inactive for a few weeks while I have been in the process of moving from the Midwest to one of the Original Thirteen. I apologize, but Internet access has been unpredictable at best and blogging on the road proved too difficult to maintain.

Thank you for understanding. It is interesting how reliant we are on Internet connections.

I will have new posts in the first week of August 2011.

Word Counter

2011-06-21T20:54:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite writing tools is Word Counter 2.1, from Supermagnus Software.

http://www.supermagnus.com/mac/Word_Counter/

The price? Free. The value? To quote a popular credit card company, "Priceless."

If you're like most of my students, you're asking yourself, "Doesn't every word processor include a word count function? What's the big deal?"

Yes, most editing and word processing applications do count words, sentences, and paragraphs. However, I'm more interested in two features that are either incomplete or missing from word processors and layout applications: word frequency counts and readability analyses. Again, most applications provide at least the ability to create these reports, but none of them match the speed or ease of Word Counter.

There are several reason I use Word Counter:

Not every text editor I use provides real-time word counts;
Word counts are curiously inaccurate within some applications;
Macros for Word that provide frequency counts are painfully slow with long documents; and
Readability statistics from within programs are limited to one or two methodologies.

The application website explains Word Counter's basic functions:

About Word Counter

Word Counter is a Macintosh OS X application that performs a word count and a character count, but it can do much more. It can be used independently or in conjunction with other applications such as TextEdit, Microsoft Word, Pages, TextWrangler, and others.

Word Counter can automatically update the count based on a user-defined time interval. It can show the progress achieved towards a set goal for the total number of words and characters. It also can perform bulk counts on multiple files and folders simply by dropping them onto the window. Word Counter can count the number of times a particular word appears in a document. It can even create a sortable summary table of all words in the document, with the number of times each word appears and the length of each word. Word Counter can also calculate estimates for readability statistics using the well known Flesch-Kincaid readability formula and many others.

Word Counter can handle various file types including plain text (txt, text), rich text (rtf, rtfd), Hypertext Markup Language (htm, html), Microsoft Word (doc), Microsoft Word XML (wordml), Apple's web archive (webarchive), the Adobe Portable Document Format (pdf), and others. This program may be useful for writing a manuscript or an abstract with a strict limit on the number of words or characters allowed.

I do not live in Microsoft Word, though it is one of my primary tools. I write most drafts of documents in Scrivener (see my overview of Scrivener). Scrivener has excellent word count and document length "target" features, far better than those of Word, but I have had some minor issues with its Project - Text Statistics function. Don't misunderstand, I consider Scrivener to be as close to ideal a writing environment as exists, though the menu structure can be a pain to navigate. Enough about Scrivener. Try it (and buy it) if you don't already use it.

Since I create documents in Scrivener, Final Draft, Movie Magic Screenwriter, InDesign, Dreamweaver, and a half-dozen other applications, it is great to have a single application to generate word count and readability stats. Most of my documents are eventually "printed" to Adobe PDF files. Word Counter will analyze a PDF or even a folder filled with PDFs in mere seconds. I've had Word Counter analyze 45 files, all very long documents, in under a minute.

Most of my students aspire to being professional writers or designers. Some writers, including me, accept jobs that pay by the word. A good, indisputable word count is important so clients can't argue with the billing statement. Word Counter is definitely the most accurate counting system I've used. For example, is "J.C. Smith" one word, two words, or three? One of my clients would argue it is one word and I can set Word Counter's preferences for that standard.

In Word Counter's preferences, I can tell the application to count only words with two or more letters. I can tell it that hyphenated words are one word or that Word Counter should consider each segment as a word. Is an email address one or more words, since there is at least one punctuation mark (the @ sign)? You can even create an "exceptions" list to exclude minor words from counts. Yes, some publishers do not pay you for a, and, an, the, and similar words.

Another tangent. I would rather bill by the hour, since research and document design can take as long as the writing and editing. Friendly advice to writers: avoid per-word payments except for simple assignments with minimal research and design requirements.

Word Frequencies
Counts are great, but my primary reason for using Word Counter is its Word Frequencies function. When we speak and write, most of us have definite patterns of word usage. My writing patterns include several problem words and phrases that I overuse. Examples include any, every, just, and so. I have a long list of adverbs I'd like to remove from my writing. By obtaining a report of how often words appear in a text, I can revise the text to reduce the counts of problem words.
The Supermagnus website explains its frequency function:

Word Frequencies

Word Counter also provides an interesting feature that summarizes the frequency of every word in a document.

To use the frequency option, the document to be summarized must be open in either the main Word Counter window or in the TextEdit window (depending on the current data source for the counts). The Word Frequency window can be accessed from the main menu. Press the Count button to begin the analysis. Once the count is complete, Word Counter will display every word that appears in the document as well as how many times each word appears and how long each word is. Columns can be sorted by clicking on the column name/column header. This can be useful if you want to know how many words longer than 10 characters you are using, or to see if your choice of words may be repetitive.

My students tend to doubt their writings reflect personal patterns. Word Counter enables me to quickly and easily demonstrate to students their patterns. I can generate the Word Counter frequency report and email a copy to the student author of a project. Students are surprised to see how predictable writing patterns are. A student using "however" six times per page in one paper is likely to repeat the pattern in another.

Readability
The final feature of Word Counter I want to highlight is its Readability Statistic reporting. Yes, Word generates some basic readability statistics, but nothing I've seen matches what Word Counter reports. The report from Word Counter includes more than 40 statics, including more than a dozen "grade level" calculations. As a writing instructor, this is wonderful.

When writing for some audiences, the text cannot be too complex. When I explain to students that writing at a college level is not always desirable, they are stunned. But, it is logical that some writing needs to be simplified. Legal warnings, for example, must have a high probability of being read and understood by the majority of consumers. Courts have used readability calculations to determine if instructions and warnings were dangerously complex.

The Word Counter website explains its Readability Statistics function:

Readability Statistics

Word Counter can provide various statistics to help judge the readability of text.

Many formulas exist to judge readability and caution must be exercised when applying a readability test to a document. Some tests are more appropriate for certain types of documents and it is important to think carefully when choosing a test. Some tests are better for text written at a grade school level, some are better for technical manuals, and some are considered flexible enough to judge the readability of almost any type of text.

Word Counter makes estimates for various elements of the text including the number of syllables and number of sentences. These estimates might deviate from counts done manually. In addition, even though many of the readability scores require a short passage of around 100 words, Word Counter will make its estimates based on the entire text. This should help average out any of the discrepancies in the estimates. In testing Word Counter and comparing the results to other online tools, some of the estimates were found to vary widely, probably because of differing underlying computer algorithms to make the estimates.

Keep in mind that all of the measures are simply standardized ways to judge the readability of text and none are perfect, and their pros and cons have been debated for years. A 1939 article by Irving Lorge in The Elementary English Review appropriately states: "It seems reasonable to conclude that reading difficulty is a difficult criterion to define." If you would like to learn more about readability, there are multiple online references describing these measures and the appropriate uses for them. A very good reference is The Principles of Readability, by William H. DuBay.

Along with Grammarian Pro and Scrivener, Word Counter is a tool I recommend to professional writers, students, and writing instructors. Best of all, it is a free tool (donations accepted).

Technology Speed Bumps

2011-06-18T01:31:00.001-04:00

For the last few weeks I have been eagerly waiting to start preparing online course shells related to my new university post. Unfortunately, I still do not have access to the Blackboard servers used by the university. The delay, I am told, has something to do with the HR department. The odd part of that explanation is that I do have access to the other online services to which the university subscribes.

As with many smaller colleges and universities, the information technology at this university is contracted out to specialists. I believe the Blackboard services are subscribed to directly via Blackboard, while email and website services are hosted by other companies. Currently, the university email and calendar system is on a Novell GroupWise hosted service, while website and intranet servers running Microsoft SharePoint involve yet another service provider.

I don't know if HR and other departments farm out IT to yet more companies, but I wouldn't be surprised.

When you create a primary account, the information is supposed to be automatically forwarded via directory services to all the various service providers. So, when I change a password for my email account, that password is changed on all the services to which the university subscribes. Of course this doesn't include Blackboard.

I have to admit, if I were in charge I would probably still contract with a hosting service or off-site backup service to ensure data integrity and service availability. However, I'd sure attempt to consolidate as much as possible.

When technology isn't "invisible" to faculty and students, it can be confusing and frustrating. Though I understand that each service I use is actually operated by a separate company, everything should feel unified to users. Instead, it is a jarring shift from Novell to SharePoint to Blackboard. There are three "login" links from the faculty website, each one asking for what in theory will be the same user information.

The two universities I attended for my master's and doctorate degrees had a "My [whatever]" page, where every service was brought together. This is similar to the "iGoogle" or "My Yahoo" portal approach. A single page displayed an overview of email, calendar, course notices, and my student fees. Everything seemed to be in one place, even though several application platforms were involved.

To most users, it would seem illogical that I can use email, group calendars, some administrative applications, but not the Blackboard Learn course management system. While I might do things differently, I really do appreciate the university's logic. I just wish they could get my Blackboard access up within a week of everything else working.

Contracting with Blackboard to run everything course-related means you get instant software updates (it is their system on their servers, after all) and you can quickly change the options for the university's courses. You don't need in-house experts to upgrade and maintain Blackboard, which can be a serious hassle to install and update.

I wonder how many other businesses and organizations struggle with the SaaS (software as a service) model? I'm still not convinced out-sourced services with shared "cloud" storage is better than the same technologies brought in-house. I've read many firms are creating "private clouds" — an approach that seems wise to me. Again, I'd still have an off-site backup service, but I'd sure like to have as much control as possible over critical operations.

Everything will eventually be squared away and I'll be able to get to work. In the meantime, I need to be patient.

The Purdue Online Writing Lab

2011-06-09T22:37:00.000-04:00

The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/) is one of the two websites I check when I have a writing related question. The other is the Tameri Guide, of course, since Susan and I tend to add content to Tameri based on our experiences writing and teaching. I am a bit envious of the great content on Purdue OWL, though. It is probably the best academic writing site on the Web.

Recently the OWL began adding slide shows, movies, and podcasts for students and teachers. The MLA and APA citation guides were already invaluable, but I've started to accept that students want content in digital form.

The podcasts' content focuses on rhetorical concepts. Because students struggle with ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos, any additional explanations are helpful. I'm for anything that helps students sort through the complicated textbook definitions of these concepts.

For a few years the OWL has been adding PowerPoint presentations on a range of writing topics. I'm not a fan of PowerPoint; slides are best used to introduce topics. Slides, by their nature, are superficial and should be accompanied by further reading and discussion. Still, the slides help students focus on key topics and concepts they should remember. The long list of available presentations is impressive and I do encourage teachers and students to browse the OWL library.

The OWL movies focus on visual rhetoric, but they too can be useful for writers. Unless we're discussing audiobooks, most of our words appear on pages or screens. Design affects the perceptions of texts, including how seriously a reader approaches the words. The OWL movies are a good starting point for discussions of visual rhetoric.

For the basics of academic writing, you won't find many resources equal to the OWL. Again, the website is: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/

ePubs and the Future

2011-06-01T15:27:00.001-04:00

I have been working on various ebook projects and am frustrated by the amount of "hand coding" required to make an ePub book work well with several reader applications. When a book looks just right on one reader, it looks odd on another. Yet, we know the future is digital.

Most computer users are familiar with Adobe's ubiquitous Portable Document Format (PDF). The benefit of using PDF files is that a file includes all graphics, fonts, and layout information. A file appears nearly identical on every computer, tablet, handheld device, et cetera. A magazine in PDF looks like the designer intended — and design is the emphasis of the entire Adobe product line. Adobe's Creative Suite applications are for designers, not writers.

ePubs take a different approach, closer to the original intentions of HTML and similar document "markup" formats. Yes, you can put words in bold or change a few colors, but the intent of ePub is to allow the reader, the computer user, the ability to control specific font choices and even some layout choices. Content, not visuals, are the focus of ePub files, which are coded in a mix of HTML, CSS, XML, and plain text.

Both ePub and PDF have their roles in the digital age. ePubs let a reader easily change the appearance of a text to improve readability (the speed at which text is decoded), while PDF maintains original artistic intent. For example, most magazines are visual publications and the text is somewhat subordinate to visuals. A classic novel? The words matter. One way I consider which is the better format is by asking myself if a text would be appropriate in audio format. Audiobooks definitely don't emphasize visual design.

While I can create "perfect" PDF publications using almost any application on my computer, I can't seem to create an ePub that doesn't need some tuning. It is annoying and even absurd that software companies cannot accurately and completely generate a basic document format. Come on, software developers, HTML has existed since 1992 and SGML traces its history back to GML of the 1960s. You cannot create a good ePub editor based on more than 40 years of markup history?

There is no excuse for ePub generation to be so sloppy from most word processors, layout software, and XML editors. When a program gets the actual pages right, it doesn't include proper metadata. When the metadata are correct, the order of book elements is either incorrect or poorly maintained. I've tried InDesign, Pages, eCub, Sigil, and Oxygen. Each one is almost, but not quite, standards compliant.

We know that the ePub format, along with the .Mobi/PRC (Kindle) format, is where publishing is headed. Right now, ePubs are still in the early days, similar to the first years of HTML editors. That's a shame.

My Ideal [Online] Degree Programs Would...

2011-05-26T22:23:00.001-04:00

As I prepare to assume the role of coordinator of an online (and traditional) degree program, I have been thinking about my ideal educational model. My ideal system would include online and traditional instruction, so many of the ideas I express below apply to traditional classroom education and online. Online systems might provide flexibility not possible for some traditional schools, which is why I am a believer in hybrid educational systems.

So, my ideal degree program would…

Allow students to switch between online and traditional instruction if they find online doesn't meet their learning styles or needs.

Allow students to take and re-take any online tests and lab practicums two or three times until a set deadline, encouraging mastery over merely passing a test. A mix of questions or problems would prevent "memory gains" from repeated questions. Three exams does seem a reasonable cap, though.

Allow students to move faster or slower than the traditional quarter and semester models. If a student is able to complete a course in half the time, let him or her advance. Technology should enable us to get beyond the "factory model" of twentieth century education.

Allow (and encourage) teachers to team teach more frequently, emphasizing each educator's special skills and knowledge when possible. Students would benefit from the audio and video lectures of noted specialists.

Encourage teachers to distribute podcasts, screencasts, and other multimedia materials that students can review repeatedly, at their own paces.

Encourage a greater mix of individual and group work, so too much of one or the other approach is not embraced. Pedagogically, too much group work can be problematic, but too much individual work also ignores future career realities. Technology should encourage a mix of approaches.

Encourage teachers to provide audio or video feedback to projects, in addition to traditional forms of grading and responding to papers.

Encourage students and teachers to experiment with the online space, instead of dictating what the space should be for every user. Some standards are needed, but customization is important for special needs accommodations and general comfort.

Encourage students to "meet" outside any schedule class sessions, virtually or physically. I believe meeting face-to-face is important, but virtual meetings are also useful. Too many online systems make online meetings difficult.

The ideas above are some of my desires for a degree program. Not all them will be possible in the short-term, but I hope to implement many of the ideas over my career.

Word Processing Essential Skills

2011-05-25T16:35:00.001-04:00

For the last couple of days I have been reformatting and revising a Word document I created and then passed along to colleagues. Unfortunately the colleagues used "brute force" to alter the formatting of the document. This formatting method rendered the automatic table of contents, title page fields, and indices useless.

Brute force formatting is when you override the style of a paragraph or word to match another style's appearance. For example, instead of changing a "Normal" paragraph to "Heading 2" for a section, the editor of the document simply increased the size of the text and applied "bold-italic" font attributes. As a result, headings created this way did not appear in the table of contents.

Such formatting was applied throughout the document. In once case, a bullet list appeared in the table of contents because the style was "Heading 3" — with brute force formatting to make the text appear like the "List Paragraph" style.

I was frustrated. I cannot fathom professional writers, especially ones with tech industry contracts, not using Microsoft Word features properly.

Microsoft Word, Corel WordPerfect, Adobe InDesign, Apple Pages, and most other text-based applications use "styles" to control the visual appearance of elements and document automation features. Every HTML/XML editor makes extensive use of tag styles and classes. Not using styles reflects poor writing habits. You cannot create effective and compliant DITA, ePub, or HTML documents without understanding styles.

There are things I find (or don't find) in the documents I receive to edit that bother me. The following list are some of the more annoying "bad habits" that increase the time I must spend repairing a document:

Misuse of styles or missing styles to indicate chapters, sections, and subsections.
Spaces and tables to align text that should be positioned with tabs.
Manually created tables of content, page numbers, and indices.
Forced page brakes using blank lines instead of actual page breaks.
Inconsistent spacing after punctuation, even though Word can check spaces.

We should teach students to use tools properly, in addition to writing well. Some of my colleagues argue that we need to focus solely on the words, not how they appear on the page, but the document design itself is a rhetorical act. A document's appearance and accuracy affects how the document is perceived.

The skills of organizing a document "properly" for software to automatically create tables of content, indices, and other features, forces the writer to consider the organization of ideas in the document. A table of contents is an outline. The indices are forms of "idea clouds" or "tag frequency" lists. When you think about how a document functions, you are also analyzing its effectiveness.

I received a paper with page numbers out of order. That implies a lack of organization and preparation. Yes, using a typewriter or writing by hand could result in the same problem. Still, a word processor will number the pages for you — and the order is always in series (unless you did something unusually creative with the fields). Copying and pasting manually numbered pages is obvious when you forget to renumber them.

Using "carriage returns" to force page breaks leads to other problems. I've received papers from students in which the page numbers slowly drifted down the pages. By page ten or so, the number was three inches down the page. Text meant for one page carried over to the next. This happens when the writer adds content to an earlier page without realizing the extra lines "cascade" from page to page. One more reason to use page numbers in headers or footers.

Teaching automatic formatting features actually relieves writers from considering things like the drifting page number issue. When a word processor does the "grunt work" of formatting complex elements, especially contents and indices, hours and hours are saved. If you consider learning these features in light of the time they set free for thinking about the content, it is hard to argue against mastering basic word processing skills.

Scripting Better Writing

2011-05-18T22:41:00.000-04:00

Most writers develop patterns in their prose. Experts can use these patterns to calculate the likelihood that a given text was written by a particular author. For example, my weaknesses include "unfortunately" and "just." President Obama overuses the phrase, "Let me be clear." Does the president need our permission to be clear? I doubt anyone tries to obstruct presidential clarity.

Since buying my first copy of WordPerfect for DOS, I've maintained macros to help locate and remove my personal textual demons. The idea is simple: automatically highlight the words and phrases I might want to revise before submitting the text to an editor. Four years ago, a student noticed the red words in an open Word document on my laptop. She asked if the highlighting was part of Word's grammar or spellcheck features. I explained to her that when I finish writing a document I run several macros to mark potential problems.

When the student asked for a copy of the macro, I was confronted with what I call the "spellcheck" question: Does automatic "editing" help students?

There is a pedagogical concern when automating tasks associated with editing and revising. Teachers ask me if the automation leads to "laziness" among writers. I do not believe so. Using automation to highlight my weaknesses has helped me avoid the words and phrases during the writing process. In many ways, the word processor is acting as a coach. The macro I use does not change my words, nor does it suggest changes. Instead, I must decide if the highlighted words should be changed or removed. Sometimes, I leave the original words.

My students have found that customizing the macro for their individual writing patterns helps them discover patterns they didn't suspect existed. There are ways to generate "word frequency" tables, showing students which words they use most in a text. The frequency charts reveal "lots" of "really" abused words. Students are fascinated by this. The idea that a writer has a unique "voice" magically registers with students at that moment.

I am not opposed to automating editing tasks. No statistics instructor I know would oppose using Microsoft Excel macros. Creating the macros requires understanding the underlying concepts. A student has to understand what an adverb is and does before appreciating why some adverbs are "weak" word choices.

Below you will find the AppleScript I use when writing. When Microsoft shipped Office 2008 for the Mac, I had to convert my simple Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macro to AppleScript. This conversion was also an opportunity to add functionality to the macro. I've been asked to cut word counts, reduce complexity, and target a broader audience. I added Word functions that help me meet the requirements of my editors.

Note: The AppleScript Editor has moved several times in OS X. In 10.6, the editor is located in the "Utilities" folder. You can use Spotlight to find the AppleScript Editor, if all else fails.

If you use MS Word for the Mac, the script I crafted can be copied and saved to the following folder:

~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Word Script Menu Items/

-- Mark likely problems within a document
-- C. S. Wyatt 2010

--

-- List of Words to Mark as Potential Problems 
set markWords to {"about", "all", "almost", "a lot", "already", "always", "along with", "anxiously", ¬
"absolutely", "as well", "believe", "certainly", "clearly", ¬
"eagerly", "easy", "easily", "every", "feel", "felt", "few", "finally", "frequently", ¬
"good", "got", "intrigued", "intrigues", "just", ¬
"many", "merely", "must", "nearly", "need", "never", "nice", "not", "numerous", ¬
"only", "quick", "quickly", "so", "think", ¬
"utilize", "utilized", "utilizes", "very", ¬
"in the event", "in order to", "on the grounds that", "in case", "the public", ¬
"come to the conclusion"}

tell application "Microsoft Word"
-- Cycle through the markWords and Bold/Underline the words
repeat with theWord in markWords
set findRange to find object of text object of active document
tell findRange
set match whole word to true
set content of replacement of findRange to "{" & theWord & "}"
set bold of font object of replacement of findRange to true
set color index of font object of replacement of findRange to red
set underline of font object of replacement of findRange to underline thick
execute find find text theWord replace replace all
end tell
end repeat

-- Calculate stats
set statWordCount to compute statistics active document statistic statistic words
set statFKGradeLevel to get readability value of readability statistic 10 of text object of active document
set statParagraphs to get readability value of readability statistic 3 of text object of active document
set statSentences to get readability value of readability statistic 4 of text object of active document
set statSentPerParagraph to get readability value of readability statistic 5 of text object of active document
set statWordsPerSent to get readability value of readability statistic 6 of text object of active document
set statPassiveSents to get readability value of readability statistic 8 of text object of active document

-- Move to end of document
set currentDoc to text object of active document
insert break at currentDoc break type section break next page

-- Create a report on the document, after a page break
set currentDoc to collapse range currentDoc direction collapse end
insert paragraph at end of currentDoc
type text selection text "Report on Text"
type paragraph selection
type text selection text "Grade Level: " & statFKGradeLevel
type paragraph selection
type text selection text "Number of Paragraphs: " & statParagraphs & ¬
"; Sentences per Paragraph: " & statSentPerParagraph
type paragraph selection
type text selection text "Number of Sentences: " & statSentences & ¬
"; Words per Sentences: " & statWordsPerSent
type paragraph selection
type text selection text "Passive Sentences: " & statPassiveSents
type paragraph selection
type text selection text "Number of Words: " & statWordCount

end tell

The Classroom of the Future | Salman Khan | Big Think

2011-05-13T22:31:00.000-04:00

This article explains how one man's YouTube tutoring lessons went viral. Students worldwide now benefit. What does this experience tell us about education?

The Classroom of the Future | Salman Khan | Big Think

One major point of this article is that learning can be individualized with technology, though we know that's not easy when a school or university enforces a time-based model for teaching. For example, I have to guide students through a course in either eight or 15 weeks. There is no choice regarding the end date.

I have never thought time-based education was the best model. Why should we move from one class to the next, one grade level to the next, as if all students are progressing that the same rate? Could online education force us to rethink this rather dated model of instruction?

Granted, I'm not free to do as I want, but I can certainly advocate for changes to online learning, especially at the university level.

Why shouldn't a student be allowed to work at his or her own pace?

By removing the one-size-fits-all lecture from class and allowing teachers to invest more time on working with students in smaller groups geared toward their specific skill level, Khan is empowering a method of self-paced learning that is fundamentally different from this traditional model of education.

I see no reason at all to retain the current "quarter/semester/year" markers. Why not use the power of technology to cater to each student's unique pace of learning? In some areas, a student might be a "fast" learner, while other areas might require more time and focus for the student to advance.

One benefit of online education, even with time-based advancement, is that students can review materials as much as they want. If I post a lecture as an audio or video file, the student can review the podcast as often as he or she needs. At least this offers a start for self-paced and self-reflective learning.

Kindle so-so for students, UW study concludes

2011-05-04T16:28:00.000-04:00

Brier Dudley's Blog | Kindle so-so for students, UW study concludes | Seattle Times Newspaper

Seven months into the study, more than 60 percent of the students had stopped using their Kindle regularly for academic reading -- and these were computer science students, who are presumably more sympathetic to an electronic book.

I'm not surprised that an eReader doesn't replace books. Taking notes and highlighting are part of the reading process that a Kindle or other eReader doesn't easily replicate.

I recall what a page looks like, from the graphics to the pattern of paragraphs. On an eReader, I can't always locate where a bit of information is. You can't say it is on "Page X" because the pagination changes with font size and other choices a user can change.

Many of us would like to imagine eReaders catching on with universities because textbooks are so expensive. The prices of textbooks are outrageous: my last course text was $100 for students and could not be resold because it was customized by the university. If a student pays $100 or more per course, that's at least $800 to $1000 a year for books. An eReader is $300 or less, such as the Color Nook or Kindle DX.

The problem is, students don't find the eReader a convenient experience. If six of ten stop using it, there is definitely a problem. I'd also wonder how well students recall what they read on screen. I know I tend to skim when I read an eBook. I don't pause and go back to reread as I do with a printed page.

Taking notes? Forget it. I use paper because I remember what I write more than what I type. Plus, typing on a Kindle (small keyboard) or Nook (touchscreen) is awkward. I have seen students taking notes on an iPad, but I would probably purchase a small keyboard for something like the iPad.

Maybe the worst reason an eReader won't replace textbooks? The publishers didn't offer a substantial discount! You end up paying as much for many books as you might in print. Students save money buying used texts when compared to a Kindle and new eBooks.

Some publishers promise students will "rent" books in the future. The problem with that? I already see the local college bookstore offers a form of rental. What's the benefit to renting the eBook? It still costs more than "renting" the print edition.

I do love eBooks. Why?

I have learned I can highlight, copy, and paste right into my academic papers. That beats retyping passages and making mistakes.
The books are convenient, when compared to having stacks of books on my desk.
I can read in bed without a nightlight. My wife appreciates that.

My Personal Tech Biases

2011-05-03T12:29:00.000-04:00

The surest way to get into an argument might not be a discussion of religion or politics. No, the real heated debates, at least online, deal with those really important matters of bias:

Windows, Linux, or OS X?
iOS (iPhone / iPad) or Android and Chrome (or maybe Windows Mobile)?
XBox or PS3? (Sorry, Wii)
FireFox, Chrome, IE, Safari, or other?
PHP, Perl, JavaScript, or ASP / .Net?
Objective-C, C#, or C++ with Qt?

You get the idea. If you really want to read arguments, read technology blogs. These are passionate people arguing vehemently over technologies that often come and go faster than an Italian national government. The lifespan of some fruit flies seems longer than the life of a cell phone generation.

My students have grown up with the same attachments to modern technologies that I have for fountain pens and mechanical pencils. (I love a good pen or pencil.) Getting a student to switch from Mac to Windows or from Windows to Mac can be nearly impossible. I've had one tell me she'd never work at a place with Apple systems. Talk about passion.

This attitude leads me to explore a basic question: what are my technology biases? Do those biases and expectations effect how I teach?

Here are three of the biases I recognize in myself:

Apple. It really is more about the experience than the hardware. I complained about the shift to Intel chips, but when things kept on working, I decided Apple (Steve) knows best what I need. My first Apple experiences were with an Apple IIe. How could I not love one of the companies that introduced me to computing? OS X is the Unix I used in college, with the option to ignore it. Also, I believe System 7.x and System 9.x (only minimally related to OS X) were the move innovative personal computer operating systems, setting the trajectory for today's GUI experiences. Perfect? No. But innovative.

Keyboards. Though I am an Apple fan, I prefer a command line when I want speed. I use Terminal (I switched to Bash before Apple did) and can't comprehend life without shell scripts. Automation is worth the initial effort. I use MySQL via Terminal -- not via some GUI thing. I am also a keyboard shortcut maven, even within OS X applications. I type "alternative characters" faster than I could ever insert them via a menu.

Pascal and BASIC. Yes, I still like the old "procedural" languages I learned in the 1970s and 80s. I'm willing to update those preferences to Delphi's Object Pascal and Microsoft's VisualBasic (through 6.x). For all their power, the C-family of languages never thrilled me. Don't even get me started on Apple's insistence that Objective-C is the be-all, end-all of languages. Apple should have maintained the Carbon frameworks and allowed some competitive language tools. Microsoft's C# is elegant; too bad nothing will pressure Apple to offer an alternative to ObjC.

I'm sure I have other biases and that those affect how I interact with technology. Do you have any tech biases?

Technology Fanaticism (Who? Me?)

2011-05-03T01:19:00.000-04:00

Me: Why are people so personally rude via e-mail and blog comments? I'm deleting more mail and posts than ever lately.

Friend: What are your blog topics?

Me: I maintain websites on economic theory, political rhetoric, technology, autism, creative writing, and philosophy.

Friend: You do realize only creative writing and technology aren't likely to trigger hate mail.

Me: It seems Linux is a religion.

Friend: Says the person with an Apple sticker on every vehicle.

Sometimes, it is easy to forget a personal zealotry. I am having a strong reaction to the fact my future employer is an all-Windows campus. Yes, I use Windows sometimes — but I just uninstalled Boot Camp from my Mac and removed the last Windows software.

Turns out, I am a fanatic, too.

Into the Academy

2011-04-28T23:02:00.000-04:00

I am set to join the faculty of a small private university this summer, as an assistant professor within the institution's School of Communications and Information Systems. I will share more information about this position and its duties in coming weeks. This blog post focuses on why I am accepting an academic appointment and how it might help me as a writer.

The decision to accept and embrace a university position is not financial, political, ideological, or idealistic. The pay is, well, academic. I've never been a "classroom radical" with a political agenda. As for idealism, I'm generally considered a curmudgeonly cynic.

No, this is a selfish choice made for a desire to improve myself.

For the last six months, I have peen pondering if I should alter my career path. After considering a return to the corporate life, I have decided to remain focused on my first passion: writing. Currently, I am a freelance writer, often exploring the relationship between technology and society in essays and creative works. I enjoy sitting and writing for hours; I thought I could do nothing else and be satisfied with life. But something was missing that I couldn't explain. When I talk to groups about writing, I get excited and energized. After most public appearances, which necessarily means time away from my desk, I find I write more than I did before the appearance (but following a little bit of physical rest).

There was only one logical path for me: return to teaching and embrace it as a foundation for writing.

My motivation for pursuing the doctoral degree was curiosity. I am interested in how technology affects the writing and production / publishing processes. Writing has evolved with publishing technologies, which means we are in the midst of yet another major shift in writing methods thanks to social media. The doctorate was also meant to be a safety net, allowing me to teach part-time while writing. Now, it appears teaching and writing should be closer to equal in my life because they are interconnected.

I love writing. I am fascinated by technology. I enjoy teaching. Accepting a university post that will allow me to mix and match my passions was too great an opportunity to decline.

About This Blog

2011-04-26T16:49:00.000-04:00

People have asked me (okay, two people) what "Poet Ponders" is meant to be. What is my purpose? I now will attempt to clarify what makes "Poet Ponders" different from my blogs on rhetoric or writing.

"Poet Ponders Pedagogy" is meant to address the role technology plays within the science and art of education. This is not a blog for general political rants, thoughts on the latest fiction, or photos of my cats. This blog is a place to explore how teaching and learning are affected by hardware and software. As a teacher, how does technology shape my experiences and those of my students?

We have moved beyond the early "Digital Age" and through the "Interactive Web 2.0" trends. Now, our students occupy the "Social Media Age" and the Internet is much more than e-mail and the World Wide Web. Writing has been affected by Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and dozens of other "quick" media. These technologies enforce a brevity with its roots in technological limitations: the 120 to 160 characters squeezed out of "Short Message Service" (SMS) cell phone packets.

While our students (and some of us) embraced the Social Media, our colleges and universities slowly embraced the Web. At the moment, many schools are at Web 1.5 -- if we are fortunate.

Some of the topics I have and will continue to address on "Poet Ponders" include:

Learning Management System / Course Management System (LMS/CMS) platforms such as Moodle and the various Blackboard applications.
Collaborative tools, such as Wikis and group blogs created and maintained by students.
Applications to support the writing process, from brainstorming to editing, and how they affect writing.
Technical challenges supporting various students and faculty skill sets.
Student expectations versus the realities of online and partially-online (hybrid) courses.
Evaluation tools, methods, and standards for online education, including student digital portfolios.

For a more general blog on writing, I suggest the Tameri Blog on Writing and Reading. If you are interested in rhetoric and communication skills, I suggest following Rogue Rhetorician.

Job Market Update - The Unexpected Twist

2011-04-15T01:08:00.000-04:00

On March 1, 2011, I wrote about the difficult state of the academic job market in fields such as mine: "digital rhetoric" and "new media" studies. Even with a specialization in "special needs pedagogy" (disabled students), the market is challenging. There are several reasons for this and I want to share those before I share my personal update.

Let me first point to a trend that has finally reached the university setting: "Software as a Service" (SaaS). For several years, and even before the rise of the Internet, companies and non-profits alike could pay to access software remotely. In fact, this was the original model of computing back in the ancient days of mainframe dominance. A company would "lease" time on a mainframe, housed at a data processing center. Universities would lease time on their mainframes, too. Often, smaller universities and local public schools would use a regional minicomputer or mainframe. Today, this is "the cloud" and "Web 3.0" applications -- really just the "centralized computing" model updated and repackaged.

For universities, the result is outsourcing of "learning management system" (LMS) and "content management system (CMS) maintenance and support. Companies like Blackboard house the computers and simply enable or disable software features based on a school's contract with the SaaS provider. This is great, in theory, because it spreads out costs among hundreds of campuses. When there is a software update, the software developer simply updates one set of servers and every client (as in academic site, not client-server jargon) instantly has the newest release.

One team of "usability experts" (that would include me), one team of programmers, one team of compliance experts -- namely the employees of Blackboard -- can serve universities globally. A university might hire a few designers, one or two people to support Web-based systems internally, but for the most part Blackboard offers a turnkey solution. I'm not needed to help install and customize an LMS, CMS, or CRM platform.

Specializing in online education might not have been wise. That's simply the way things work. Years ago, I knew a programmer who wrote accounting programs for small businesses. Today? Those businesses all use QuickBooks and the programmer has retired. Change happens.

The next thing that changed was student demands for courses: in a down economy, vocational degrees explode in demand. Approximately 19 percent of undergraduates study a "business-related" field. That massive number of students were drawn from other programs, especially the humanities and creative arts. Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors have expanded slightly or remained constant, but students are not pursing degrees they (mistakenly) believe don't lead to good jobs.

A drop in student (and parent) demand means fewer offerings in communications, English, journalism, and new media. It doesn't help that media companies are cutting employees, discouraging potentially great minds from entering media-related fields. If you're a 17-year-old pondering what to study and where, the draw of "media" courses and anything "creative" is rather slim right now.

The third swipe at the humanities was the alarming increase in remediation at colleges and universities. Students, often a third or more on any one campus, are not meeting basic requirements in English or math, so they must take non-credit courses to meet the most minimal mandates. These "NC" classes require resources: teachers, space, time, and so on. They cost the students money, too. As a result, an English department might have 20 percent or more of its total "teaching hours" dedicated to NC remediation. These are hours that professors are not teaching about great writers or inspiring the next generation of greats.

Faculty cannot teach four sections of remedial math or English and then find the time and energy to explain the thrills of scholarship in their fields. Imagine being a newly-minted mathematics professor… and you're asked to teach pre-algebra four times a week and one class of calculus. I love the idea of teaching high school, but I'd rather do it at a high school than a university. (It's a hard job to teach high school, so don't consider this an insult of high school teachers -- it simply is a different career path.)

In my field(s), the trend is to end up teaching "NC" first-year writing courses. I'm not a "composition" scholar and I admit that. I'm a new media researcher and creative writer. Helping students master the art of the term paper? That's not really my life's ambition. Again, there are wonderful, dedicated composition experts. These men and women are under siege because every person landing in an English department is assigned to teach composition. The pay for these posts drops, lower and lower, with administrators imagining (incorrectly) that anyone with a communications, journalism, or English degree must also be a good academic writing instructor.

Teachers of academic writing are among the worst paid, most over-worked, and least-likely to be tenure-track. I'm sure they're thrilled when someone like myself is asked to teach composition courses. ("He studied how color choices in a design affect online readers? And now he's going to teach writing?") Don't get me wrong, I love writing -- I am a poet, after all. But, I'm not the best scholar to teach composition. I'm more qualified to teach Web design, screenwriting, or any number of topics. But, all but three job interviews mentioned I would teach first-year writing with the promise of someday, maybe, teaching a new media seminar.

Finally, colleges and universities struggling to retain students have altered "core curricula" at campuses. Foreign language requirements were among the first to be dropped. Then, universities started to allow students to "test out" or "place out" of writing classes. Some schools ended any math requirements for humanities students, while other dropped humanities requirements for science majors. You get the idea: we allowed students to specialize and stay within their preferred disciplines instead of "forcing" students to receive a solid foundation in the liberal arts tradition.

Now, the good news.

I had several interviews after March 1. One of the universities has extended a job offer that includes researching online course designs. I should have an official announcement in two weeks or so.

Yes, there are jobs out there. They are not plentiful, though. Universities are focusing on those programs demanded by students and supported by politicians. I still would caution anyone against pursuing a doctorate outside the STEM fields unless he or she had a safety net. The job market has left several of my classmates "marooned" professionally. Thankfully, I have options, but many graduate students do not.

I believe I'm going to be teaching and researching within a great academic community. If hired, I will owe my job to a great colleague who thought of me when the post opened. I'm certain there were hundreds of applicants, so I did have to be qualified, but the referral helped.

Stay tuned.

The Employment Picture

2011-03-08T15:11:00.000-05:00

Last week, the university program from which I earned my doctorate hosted its annual "visit day" for potential doctoral students. I wanted to e-mail each of them, "Don't do it!" Not because it isn't a good experience (it wasn't) and not because you don't learn something (you will learn something, mainly about humanity). You should reconsider a doctorate in the "digital humanities" because the job market is saturated, driving down wages for the few jobs that do exist.

I had a state college hiring committee tell me they could only offer $38,000 to $42,000 a year for a new professor. That's simply not enough money to justify selling a house and moving in my case: my wife is an engineer and technical writer with a great employer. Taking such a post would be impossible, financially. My wife's career and our overall security do come into play. Plus, we have already cut our expenses dramatically. Student loans must be paid, and they are the second greatest expense we have.

The hiring committee told me that they offered $50,000 or more only three years ago. With summer school teaching, that would be nearly $60,000 and worth relocating for a job I love. But, state budgets have resulted in far, far lower starting salaries.

I've written several times that it appears I'm going to continue freelance writing as my primary vocation. This week, I came close to two permanent posts, but in one case the company admittedly chose the cheaper employee and in the second case the university was unable to fund the position for next year. I read the economy is improving, but it is doing so at a painfully slow pace.

The jobs simply aren't there in my fields. That does not make things easier, since millions of people are out of work.

Would I like to be teaching full-time? Yes. Would I like to have a post doing research? Definitely. I wouldn't mind doing something tech-based or something creative (or some mix of the two), but the jobs aren't there.

My degrees include undergraduate degrees in English and journalism, a master's degree in English composition and rhetoric, and a doctorate in educational technology / special education (within the field of rhetoric and communications). Those qualifications are not like degrees in petroleum engineering or genetics. There are hundreds (600+) doctoral graduates in "rhetoric" each year and nearly same number of "educational technology" graduates. That means I'm competing with 1200 or more (most likely twice that number) "doctors" out there in my fields.

I have technical certifications, too. I'm Microsoft certified, an "A+" PC technician, and a certified Web designer. The problem is, as one retailer told me, "People buy new computers for the price of repairs." I tried to argue the point, but then I saw that a complete system (with "free" printer) was $500 at that store. Hard to justify repairing an old system at that price. Web design? People are moving from the traditional Web experience to phones, tablets, and other connected devices.

I am good at the things I do. I know that. I graduated with honors (perfect grades in my M.A. program, one B+ in my Ph.D. studies) and I've never doubted my skills either as a writer or as a tech geek.

Before a student considers the cost of a graduate degree, I suggest he or she consider the realities of this job market. Make sure the major you plan to pursue has a solid future with enough demand that you're not forced to take any paying job after graduating. I know too many humanities graduates working entry-level jobs that have no connection to their educations. I also know Ph.D. graduates looking for any work at all.

I'm not sure what the future holds.

Online Courses are For Whom?

2011-02-07T14:00:00.000-05:00

When I have attended meetings or conferences and the topic was online courses, a great deal of attention is paid to the "target audience" for online education. The assumption is that online courses are ideal for certain groups:

Workers seeking to complete a degree.
Rural residents unable to relocate or travel to a campus.
Disabled students requiring accommodations.
Non-traditional students (meaning everything from older to unusually young).

These might be ideal "targets" if a university operates as nothing but a business, but even private institutions have a responsibility to deliver the best, most meaningful educational experience to all qualified students. I would argue the pressure on for-profit institutions is actually greater because there is a skepticism in academia towards the profit motive.

And what we ignore when we think of "target audiences" is that the descriptions do not reflect the personalities of the students.

Online courses, from hybrids that meet at least a few times physically to those courses entirely online, require students who exhibit some character traits that are not always present in college students. Placing an unprepared student in an online course increases the odds he or she will not complete the course. Low grades, dissatisfaction with the course, and other negative outcomes could lead a student to exit post-secondary learning.

Instead of targeting students by their locations, ages, or special needs, we should be considering if a student is ready for online learning. We should help students determine their preparedness for online learning. What are the traits necessary to online success?

Self-motivation,
Time management, and
Tech savvy.

Too many students believe an online course will be easier than a traditional course. Those of us with online teaching experience will tell you that the time requirements and effort are greater online.

Depending on the format of the course, synchronous or asynchronous, a student has to maintain a strict schedule. The students in asynchronous courses, in which there are no "live" virtual meetings, have a tendency to fall behind on assignments. Instructors can send repeated reminders, post an online calendar, and take other step to prod students along, but if a student doesn't go online he or she won't complete assignments.

I've had motivated students with no time management skills. They do want to succeed, but they've never learned to keep a calendar or weekly schedule. Teachers have always been there to remind these students of deadlines and expectations. I tell students, if you don't keep a calendar without being told to, an online course is going to be difficult. I teach students to put deadlines in their calendars on the first day of class. MS Outlook, Apple's iCal, and various free alternatives are ideal for this.

I have found that students who aren't comfortable with computers don't do well in online courses. I've had online systems that required downloading Java, QuickTime, or other support software to play media clips or edit documents. If a student isn't comfortable installing software or adjusting browser settings, then an online course becomes both technology training and whatever the intended content is. I've had English students tell me they learned more about Windows in my class than in any other! That's not what I want to be thanked for by students, though at least they valued the information.

History of Education: Books I Suggest

2010-12-21T16:26:00.000-05:00

Selected Bibliography

Some texts either specifically or indirectly on the history of education and education theory (pedagogy) that have influenced me. The list is exported from my Bookends database, so there might be some formatting errors. I am trying to clean up my database, but I have several thousand books in the system (and on my shelves).

Beniger, James. The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986.

Berlin, James A. Rhetorics, Poetics, and Cultures : Refiguring College English Studies. Lauer Series in Rhetoric and Composition. West Lafayette, Ind.: Parlor Press, 2003.

Corbett, Edward P. J., Nancy Myers, and Gary Tate. The Writing Teacher's Sourcebook. 4th ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 0195123778 (alk. paper)

Cuban, Larry. The Blackboard and the Bottom Line : Why Schools Can't Be Businesses. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004.

---. How Scholars Trumped Teachers : Change without Reform in University Curriculum, Teaching, and Research, 1890-1990. New York: Teachers College Press, 1999.

---. Oversold and Underused : Computers in the Classroom. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001.

---. Teachers and Machines : The Classroom Use of Technology since 1920. New York: Teachers College Press, 1986.

Diels, Hermann, and Rosamond Kent Sprague. The Older Sophists : A Complete Translation By Several Hands of the Fragments in Die Fragmente Der Vorsokratiker, Edited By Diels-Kranz. With a New Edition of Antiphon and of Euthydemus. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 2001.

Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. 2nd ed., Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Flynn, Daniel J. Intellectual Morons : How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall for Stupid Ideas. New York: Crown Forum, 2004. 1400053552 (hardcover)

Fuller, Steve. The Philosophy of Science and Technology Studies. New York: Routledge, 2006. 0415941040 (hardcover : acid-free paper) 0415941059 (pbk.: acid-free paper) 9780415941044 9780415941051

Hanson, Victor Davis, and John Heath. Who Killed Homer? : The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom. New York: Free Press, 1998. 0684844532

Healy, Jane M. Endangered Minds : Why Children Don't Think--and What We Can Do About It. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.

Kimball, Roger. Tenured Radicals : How Politics Has Corrupted Our Higher Education. 3rd ed ed., Chicago, Ill: Ivan R. Dee, 2008. 9781566637961 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1566637961 (pbk.: alk. paper)

Kramer, Rita. Ed School Follies : The Miseducation of America's Teachers. New York Toronto: Free Press Maxwell Macmillan Canada, 1991. 0029176425

Marrou, H. I. A History of Education in Antiquity. 1956. New York: Mentor Books, 1964.

Matthews, Eric. Merleau-Ponty : A Guide for the Perplexed. London ; New York, NY: Continuum International Pub. Group, 2006. 0826485316 (hardback) 0826485324 (pbk.)

Miller, D. W. "Anthropologists Exploring Silicon Valley Find 'the Best, the Brightest, the Greediest'." Chronicle of Higher Education (1999): A21-22.

Morris, Van Cleve. Existentialism in Education: What it Means. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.

Murphy, James Jerome. A Short History of Writing Instruction : From Ancient Greece to Modern America. 2nd ed, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2001. 1880393301 (alk. paper)

Oppenheimer, Todd. The Flickering Mind: Saving Education from the False Promise of Technology. New York: Random House, 2003.

Pernot, Laurent. Rhetoric in Antiquity. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2005. 9780813214078 (pbk. alk. paper) 0813214076 (pbk. alk. paper)

Piaget, Jean, and Bärbel Inhelder. The Psychology of the Child. New York,: Basic Books, 1969.

Poulakos, Takis. Speaking for the Polis : Isocrates' Rhetorical Education. Vol. Studies in rhetoric/communication Columbia, S.C: University of South Carolina Press, 1997. 1570031770 (cloth)

Prothero, Stephen R. Religious Literacy : What Every American Needs to Know--and Doesn't. 1st ed. ed., [San Francisco]: HarperSanFrancisco, 2007. 0060846704 (cloth) 9780060846701 (cloth)

Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000. 0684832836

Ravitch, Diane. The Language Police : How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn. 1st Vintage Books ed., New York: Vintage Books, 2004. 1400030641 (pbk.)

Sarason, Seymour Bernard. Educational Reform : A Self Scrutinizing Memoir. New York: Teachers College Press, 2002.

Sarason, Seymour Bernard, and Robert L. Fried. The Skeptical Visionary : A Seymour Sarason Education Reader. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2003.

Sarason, Seymour Bernard, and Seymour Bernard Sarason. Revisiting "The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change". The Series on School Reform. New York: Teachers College Press, 1996.

Stoll, Clifford. Silicon Snake Oil : Second Thoughts on the Information Highway. 1st ed. New York: Doubleday, 1995.

Tate, Gary, Amy Rupiper, and Kurt Schick. A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 0195125363 (pbk. acid-free paper)

Tyack, David B., and Larry Cuban. Tinkering toward Utopia : A Century of Public School Reform. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Contour and Dramatica Follow-up

2010-12-18T03:57:00.000-05:00

Two months ago I introduced the idea of using Contour or Dramatica to outline a novel or screenplay. These applications are marketed primarily for screenwriting, but they do mention novels in their promotional materials. I would only use Contour for screenwriting, but I would recommend Dramatica to anyone writing a long-form work.

Contour's questions assume a blockbuster script will progress through four stages. These stages represent the emotional growth of the main character.

Orphan: The main character is literally or metaphorically abandoned and isolated from others.
Wanderer: The main character wanders through events, looking for a place or role that will end the feeling of isolation.
Warrior: The antagonist creates a situation that forces the main character to face any doubts and fears. The two characters engage in direct or indirect conflict.
Martyr: The main character consciously chooses to make a personal sacrifice to accomplish the primary task of the story.

This is a "Hero's Journey" model, familiar to readers of Joseph Campbell. It's simple, familiar, and effective for a screenplay. It's not detailed enough, in my opinion, for a great novel or a complex film.

Comparing Dramatica to Mariner Software's Contour 1.2 is almost unfair. Contour offers only a single, simplistic story model: the Hero's Journey. Contour is fine for that one story template, but it seems forced when you load the sample analyses of various movies and novels. Dramatica, however, handles almost any imaginable story structure.

If you want to learn Dramatica, load the sample stories, from the film classic Casablanca to the Toni Morrison novel Sula. Loading a story and then stepping through Dramatica helps make sense of the complex theories behind the program.

I had a half-finished manuscript sitting around that I decided to fix through Dramatica. It took a week to enter the characters, their personality traits, and various plot points. What Dramatica revealed to me was a problem with the characters: they were not distinct enough. There were minor differences, but not nearly enough contrast.

That is what Dramatica does best: point to the conflicts and contrasts necessary for a compelling story. If you have a logical character, you should have an emotional character to provide contrast. If you have a guide, you also need someone trying to mislead other characters. Sure, it seems simple and obvious, but it is easy to write what seems like a great story until you discover something is missing.

Answering the 250 questions asked by Dramatica took most of a week (writing during the evenings). These are not simple questions; simple is not what Dramatica does. Dramatica is more than most people will ever use, I fear. It requires dedication to work through Dramatica, more dedication than I believe any of my students have exhibited. It took me nearly four hours to outline two characters in Dramatica, working from notes I had compiled while writing the rough draft. The "Hero's Journey" of Contour became a plausible meandering in Dramatica, with a depth that helped me reconsider several plot points.

I am not even going to try to explain Dramatica's questions or screens. I encourage you to visit the Write Brothers website and learn about the software.

http://www.dramatica.com/
http://www.dramatica.com/theory/articles/Dram-differences.htm

Online Courses Reducing Equal Opportunity

2010-12-13T14:38:00.000-05:00

http://chronicle.com/article/Blind-Students-Demand-Access/125695

I have argued that online courses are not equivalent to traditional spaces and often are more of a barrier than an accommodation for students with special needs. I remain skeptical that online spaces can be made flexible enough to accommodate all students. Nor, honestly, do I believe it is right of universities to suggest to many disabled students that online courses are somehow better for them.

In the case of blind students, clearly the online spaces aren't working as planned.

For students with limited mobility, maybe online is a good alternative, but I found them less engaging and harder to comprehend. Right now, we don't consider the pedagogical implications carefully enough, but I also understand the rush to online spaces is an economic necessity for some institutions.

Since I have difficulty with mobility as well as some cognitive differences, my views of online education are biased. I like the convenience, but that doesn't mean I learn more effectively. Online simply becomes "easier" in that it allows me to avoid the challenges I should be learning to overcome.

Colleges Lock Out Blind Students Online; By Marc Parry

More than 19,000 people have visited a new student union that Arizona State University put up last year to build a better sense of campus community.

Darrell Shandrow, a blind senior studying journalism, can't get through the front door.

He's stuck because the new social hub is built of bits, not bricks—a private Facebook application for Arizona State students. And, like so much technology used by colleges, the software doesn't work with the programs that blind people depend on to navigate the Web.

The rush to online spaces needs to be examined more critically.

The Chronicle, after more than two dozen interviews and a review of federal records and recent research, found widespread access problems like that.

Some other examples:

College Web pages are "widely inaccessible" to people with disabilities, according to a recent National Science Foundation-backed study that looked at 127 institutions in the Northwest over five years. A recent study of 183 colleges, nationwide, found similar problems.

Many colleges have no centralized way to ensure that online courses comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act, says a November report from the Campus Computing Project and the Wiche Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications.

At one of the country's most prominent public institutions, Pennsylvania State University, blind students and professors suffer "pervasive and ongoing discrimination" because of inaccessible campus technology, says a federal complaint filed in November by the country's largest organization of blind people. The complaint names problem areas that include Penn State's library catalog, departmental Web sites, and, crucially, its "almost totally inaccessible" course-management software.

At Arizona State last year, advocates including Mr. Shandrow sued the institution over its use of Amazon's Kindle e-reader, which lacked audible menus for blind people. Arizona State agreed that it would strive to use accessible devices if it deployed e-book readers in classes over the next two years.

"In a number of respects, blind students are at a greater disadvantage today than they were 20 years ago," says Daniel F. Goldstein, counsel to the National Federation of the Blind, who filed the complaint against Penn State. (Both that university and Arizona State have responded to complaints by stating that they are committed to accessible learning for all.)

Online Communities Temporary at Best

2010-10-07T23:13:00.001-04:00

The word "community" is overused in academic fields, but it is the best word for what it on my mind today.

I closed a Web server this week on which I had created a Drupal and MediaWiki site on special education. The site was functional for about two years, which is an eternity online. The reality is that online communities come and go so rapidly that what was popular a year or two ago is often "inactive" now.

There are dozens of Yahoo groups that are dedicated to special education. Most of these were active five years ago, but have since fallen out of favor with users. Just as the Usenet groups and most "listservs" have faded away in the last five years, so have many online forums.

The Internet has accelerated the speed with which a community grows, propers, and then declines. The timeline of the Internet is punctuated by technologies and business ideas that were "hot" for a moment. When is the last time you used IRC or read a newsgroup? Remember CompuServe? Prodigy? And Netscape was nearly synonymous with the World Wide Web.

Many of us live in physical regions or communities for decades, even lifetimes. I've read that most people end up living and dying within 500 miles of their birthplaces. Humans demonstrate a bond to physical communities we simply haven't developed, and might never develop, with online settings. I read a study in "Population and Environment" finding only 92,000 U.S. citizens migrated in or out of California in the 1980s (international numbers were much higher). Thirty million Californians remained in the state.

We enter and exit online communities impulsively. We form few lasting online bonds. For the most part, we use online spaces for a purpose. Once the purpose is met, we exit. How many truly close, lasting friendships are formed online? They come and go, like most school year friendships.

I wonder if Web pages will matter in a decade. I now read more news and information via non-browser technologies. My iPod Touch is my primary Internet device. Specialized applications present the information. The Web? I navigate it indirectly.

Many of my colleagues in education talk about Second Life and other "virtual worlds" as the future. I don't think that's the case -- Second Life has already "come and gone" for most Internet users. My students scoffed at the mere thought of using Second Life -- they'd rather use video chat and see real people. I don't know if online game worlds last longer or not, since I don't play any multiplayer games.

I miss FidoNet and BBS systems. I miss the sense of community I felt on CompuServe. Increasingly, the Web seems more like television and pop culture magazines -- video, audio, and very short articles. Even blogs with comments sections seem less about dialogue and discussion than they are about ranting and some level of narcissism.

Yeah, I'm a curmudgeon. I miss the Golden Years of online communities.

Dramatica vs. Contour vs. 'Me'

2010-10-05T03:47:00.001-04:00

I am a believer in outlining and planning before, during, and after the drafting process for most long forms of creative writing. Generally, I'm always searching for a way to better organize my thoughts. As a writer, this means I experiment with various outlining and "story plotting" tools.

Two popular story plotting applications are Dramatica (B000H774K0) and Contour (B002ABL3IK). In addition to my thoughts on these tools, you can read reviews on Amazon and various writing-focused forums.

Bluntly, Dramatica Pro 4.1 is too precise and Contour 1.2 is not precise enough.

Contour guides you through a serious of basic questions based on a single "Blockbuster" template for screenplays and novels. There is one, and only one, Contour story structure. You can create a basic story outline in a few hours, assuming you follow the model.

Contour could be great. It looks a lot better than Dramatica, but the beauty is only skin deep.

The Contour application does nothing more than present a question and allow you to type any answer you want. It doesn't check your work or enforce any rules. You could accomplish the same task with a list of questions on paper. Having a database of sample stories is nice, but Contour didn't help me think about my writing.

Honestly, I can create a basic "template" of the plot points emphasized by Contour in any word processing application, from Final Draft to Word. I've even thought about doing just that to see how the process might work. I still might create an automatic Word template for this purpose.

At the other extreme is Dramatica Pro with its supposed 32,767 (32K) story structures. If you want too much detail, too much time spent planning, then Dramatica is the procrastinator's best friend.

I spent an entire week, several hours a day, putting data into Dramatica Pro. I can't easily explain the process in a short blog post, but suffice it to state that Dramatica's approach was too much. I never finished the process.

After a week, I still didn't have my story outline in Dramatica. I had a dozen or so pages of character notes, story notes, and rough ideas, but nothing close to a usable story structure. I finally exported what I had and went to work writing.

Dramatica Pro did help me think about characters and their relationships, but the "story forming" process was too intense. I started with the "Level One" form, which asks 75 questions. If you manage to get through to Level Three, you end up answering 250 questions about the story. I'm sure that's great for some writers, but it didn't work for me.

I ended up in a personal loop: changing one story form answer meant I had to change those plot points before and after the change. I ended up frustrated with the process, so tangled in the Dramatica approach to stories that I didn't want to write the actual manuscript.

If I could trim Dramatica's process and package it with Contour's interface, I'd be pleased. If I had to choose between the two, I'd end up using Dramatica to think about a story of any serious complexity. I might even get used to Dramatica's detailed approach to outlining and creating stories, but it would take a great deal of practice and patience.

Contour is a good, basic guide to story plotting. I would use it for a basic writing class without hesitation. However, it doesn't really do anything I can't do on my own. Yes, an "expert" helped create the questions, but the questions are similar to those in many books on creative writing.

I know some authors simply sit and write. After struggling with Dramatica, I was ready to find a typewriter and avoid computers entirely. Part of the problem is that Dramatic looks like an ancient application. The screens are difficult to read, a challenge to navigate, and remind me of old GEOS-based software. The Mac version is visually horrible on OS X.

Both Contour and Dramatica Pro were supposed to be updated in late 2009. The updates are late. In the case of Dramatica, the update is overdue by three years.

Theoretically, the appearance of Dramatica shouldn't have bothered me so much. Realistically, hard to read is hard to use.

Dramatica: http://www.screenplay.com/
Contour: http://www.marinersoftware.com/

I (Sometimes) Miss WordPerfect for DOS

2010-06-09T05:36:00.000-04:00

In college, I wrote software documentation for mainframe users, which meant I had the opportunity to use text editors and word processors on a variety of computer platforms. I composed documentation on everything from glorified typewriters (DEC VT102 and IBM 3270 terminals) to slick WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") Apple Macs.

I was probably not alone in being captivated by the Mac experience. Toss in PageMaker, a few fonts, and a LaserWriter for a complete desktop publishing system, and the Mac was hard to beat. Yet, I quickly realized that I wrote better on my MS-DOS 2.1 PC running WordPerfect 4.2 from floppy disks. How could this be? The Mac was easier to use and the papers I typed looked much better on paper. Why did I type so much more, and much better, on the PC?

I didn't work on the Mac; I explored. I'd play with fonts, formatting options, and the nifty features of Word or PageMaker. I'd also play Crystal Quest, Lode Runner, and Dark Castle for hours. The Mac temptation at its worst for me. I still remember discovering Tetris on the Mac. More hours lost.

My PC was a typewriter. The sparse screen of WordPerfect, with little more than a document name and position information ("Doc 1 Pg 1 Ln 1") didn't beg to be explored. The screen was analogous to the paper in a typewriter. You had to type to fill the blank blue or black screen, the blank space demanding to be filled with words.

I am distracted easily. I think most people are, but especially creativity workers -- artists. The Mac OS, Windows, and any other GUI experiences, are like playgrounds. That is great when your job is visual design, but not so great when you need to be focused on writing.

To circumvent my nature, I started writing everything longhand on legal pads and then typing and formatting the work. I still am more productive when I can't point-and-click my way to something other than work. That's one reason I liked typing on a laptop at coffee shops or bookstores -- until they added free WiFi to the menus.

WordPerfect on a basic DOS-equipped system was the perfect typewriter. There was no multitasking (AKA multidistracting). You didn't get lost in the Web conducting "research" for your latest assignment or creative work. You typed. And it was good. I keep trying new ways around distractions, but nothing seems to match those simple DOS days.

No, I am not going to give up my MacBook Pro, Pages, Adobe Creative Suite, and thousands of fonts. I love my Mac too much. I will write about some possible options in the near future and explain how they help me reduce distractions, at least a little. The key is to be immersed in writing, so I've been using applications that attempt to recapture the spirit of WordPerfect for DOS.

For now, I'll reveal that my favorite writing application on the Mac is Scrivener. Visit Literature & Latte (http://www.literatureandlatte.com/) for more information on Scrivener. It is not a design program; Scrivener is for composing text. The full-screen mode does remind me of DOS: nothing but the text I'm writing, not even the Mac menu bar is displayed. It's a distraction-free environment.

I need to get back to a writing project. It seems I got sidetracked.

WordPress, Drupal, Moodle

2010-06-03T01:49:00.001-04:00

This weekend I installed WordPress on our personal server. The process took about two hours, including customization and tweaking beyond the basic installation. No great PHP or MySQL skills were required; as long as you know how to use the command prompts you can install WordPress.

The modifications included adding Amazon code to the PHP-generated pages. This allows us to use Amazon links without long URLs. To do this, I had to copy code from our Amazon Associates account and paste it, formatted, into the PHP code. Not a challenge, thankfully. I also enabled two spam filters via the PHP code.

What makes WordPress, Drupal, and Moodle popular is the ease with which these systems can be extended. Third parties have created numerous plug-ins, widgets, and themes for these three open source platforms.

I could, rather easily, support a pretty large number of teachers and students using open source software (OSS) for Web applications. The price is ideal and the skills required are increasingly common. I bet many high schools have dozens of students familiar with MySQL and PHP. Students could earn class credit supporting platforms, reducing costs even more and giving the students real-world experiences leading to future career opportunities.

I am a big supporter of Drupal and Moodle. I think schools could do a lot with these platforms. Drupal is portal software with every feature you might want: local messages, forums, blogs, and even collaborative books. For classes, Moodle offers these features within the safety of closed classrooms. Moodle is more complex the Drupal, but it has a different purpose.

Drupal is a content management system (CMS) for general use. You can do a lot with it, but it wasn't designed to include gradebooks and other academic features.

Moodle is a learning management system (LMS). It assumes you might want to grade all content. I would definitely use Moodle for any class I teach without hesitation.

While Drupal and Moodle support blogging, I only needed a basic blog for a project. Drupal would have been serious overkill.

I can envision a school system adopting all three for the same reason I have: they serve distinct purposes.
Media teachers, from art to writing, are going to have to know how applications differ and what their purposes are. I recall a time when people used Lotus 1-2-3 as everything from a word processor to a database. The spreadsheet was forced to be everything… and did many things poorly.

Making Moodle do everything, as I have seen, is not wise. Mixing and matching free platforms is not difficult and produces better results. It does mean learning three systems. It also means learning how to design themes for each of the three that are consistent visually. You can "hide" the shift from one platform to the other.

One platform I have dropped recently is Wikimedia. I was increasingly disappointed in the Wiki format and the slow progress of the platform. It is strange, since Wikipedia is so popular, but it is a text-centric system. I found other platforms handle mixed media better.

I have used Wikibooks and Wikimedia installations in classes, but the students found it difficult to organize and maintain books online. Drupal books are easy to maintain and organize, moving chapters and sections via drag-and-drop interfaces. Plus, Drupal uses standard HTML, instead of Wikitext markup. For all its flaws, HTML is still the dominant Web standard for page design, coupled with CSS and JavaScript.

I encourage teachers to read about the OSS applications I've mentioned. I love using them and I'm sure my students have, too.

The Doctorate, Completed

2010-05-12T15:41:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, I defended my doctoral dissertation and paid the last $120 in fees to the University of Minnesota. For the cost of tuition, they really should include the dissertation filing, even though the money is technically paid to a private publisher.

Here is a portion of the "ETD" report you receive after submitting the final project:

Print Date   :  05-12-2010
_____________________________________________________
Campus        :  University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Program       :  Graduate School
Plan          :  Rhetoric/Sci/Tech Comm Ph D Major
Degree Sought :  Doctor of Philosophy
Plan          :  Supporting Program Minor

Dissertation: Online Pedagogy: Designing Writing Courses
for Students with Autism  Spectrum Disorders

Dissertation / Final Research Categories
______________________________________________________
736 :  Speech & Rhetorical Studies
810 :  Educational/Instructional Media Design
835 :  Special Education
864 :  English Education

It is complex enough you need a key to decipher the information.

The official degree program was "Rhetoric and Scientific and Technical Communication (RSTC)" at the University of Minnesota. The degree is granted by the Graduate School, but the primary departments overseeing the degree were the Department of Rhetoric and the Department of Writing Studies. The Department of Rhetoric was dissolved in 2008, as were a few other departments and programs within the university. The Department of Writing Studies became "home" though I took courses in other departments.

My interest remains writing, in general, though the degree implies a technical bias. This is because the Online Writing Lab was originally based within RSTC; my reason for attending UMN was an interest in how technology is affecting the writing and production / publishing processes.

The focus on students with autism was to learn more about how a marginalized community is using technology to remove barriers to self-expression. As a faculty member observed, the same study could have focused on a minority population or any marginalized socio-economic community. Technology is creating new opportunities while also perpetuating some barriers.

I did study autism and its affects on language development in detail. I also spent a lot of time researching special education laws and regulations. What I did not study was the "rhetoric of autism" or any particular debates around autism. My only concern was how individuals with autism use technology to create traditional and new media content -- and how the tools might be improved.

I am glad to be done, but it is interesting to see how tangled the degree explanation is.

The End is Here

2010-05-10T00:33:00.001-04:00

I recorded grades and the end is near. The last day of class was May 4… teaching is over for me, for now.
The future isn't clear, yet, but it appears I won't be teaching next year and maybe for a few years to come. I'm not sure I'll have much of anything to say about teaching and technology, but you never know.

I do leave thinking Moodle is much better than Blackboard's alternatives. Moodle was a much better experience, overall. The gradebook, forums, wiki, and other features were fantastic.

Maybe I'll be teaching again sooner than I anticipate. In the meantime, I'll be writing away.

Online Forums and Participation

2010-04-04T12:50:00.001-04:00

In the last few days, I have noticed what might be called an "explosion" of activity on the forums for my writing class.

With 23 students, these where the statistics:

Thursday: 56 new posts.
Friday: 246 new posts.
Saturday: 100+ new posts.

After you scroll through the posts, reading them or not, Moodle marks the posts as read. This means that each night's posts were counted separately. I make that distinction because WebCT didn't take the same approach -- some posts I had read would remain marked "new" for several days.

What leads to twelve discussion threads being so active? I'm not sure but I am going to explain what I do. It should be noted that I use online spaces for every class, so students always have access to materials. However, I do not use the online spaces for instruction when a course is not specifically online. The current course is traditional and the forums are mainly to help students discuss assignments.

1) I set "weekly topics" for online (and traditional) courses. These are visible from the first day and I encourage the posting of topic-specific questions to those forums. For example, the forum on "Successful Collaboration" is associated with week six of the course, but was active by week two. The students were not required to post anything specific, but they started sharing stories of good and bad work experiences.

2) I respond to every post the first week. The second week, I respond to about half of the posts. By the fourth or fifth week, I'm only posting when I read something that I cannot resist commenting on -- but I do try to restrain myself. One of my concerns is that students will try to write for a grade. When I enter the conversation, it should be after most of the students have participated.

3) I encourage "professionalism" but when I comment or grade I try to avoid being "picky" about the writing. The students should learn to adjust to the audience and setting of a classroom space, but I don't want them to think grammar and spelling are more important than great ideas. Instead, I want them to recognize that writing well is part of the persuasive process. Most start improving because they see peers adopting business-like writing.

I can't take credit for how active a class is. Some classes are more active online than others, no matter what I do to establish the online participation. Some classes never ask if forums are graded, while others are concerned with nothing but the grading. That's one reason I try to downplay the grading as much as I can.

Not sure if this helps anyone, but I am certainly impressed with the overwhelming use of online forums in a class that is not even designated as a hybrid class. I think the students simply feel more comfortable debating and discussing matters online.

Moodle Grading

2010-02-24T12:39:00.001-05:00

I still dislike the "pop-up" or "list" method for entering grades in Moodle. I could enter digits much faster; I hate being forced to use the mouse / touchpad to select grades. This is consuming a bit more time than it should, but it seems comparable to Blackboard in terms of the time and effort. At least I have Moodle set to always show the complete enrollment when I enter grades. For some reason, Blackboard always showed only ten students at a time, no matter how often I told the system I wanted to see 25 or more students at once.

The grade book for Moodle is a bit confusing, still. I use a Numbers spreadsheet I migrated from MS Excel, so the online grades are only for students to track their progress. Still, I wish the display were a little easier to read. The last column is showing an average points earned per assignment, when what I would like to see is a points total. I'm sure I'll figure out how to change this… but it isn't a major issue right now.

Students are starting to create profiles and update their information. They are also using the Moodle wiki module a bit more. The threaded discussions have exhibited the standard drop off in participation, so I'll have to comment on some posts and get students re-engaged.

I'm going to try returning some "Advanced Assignments," which in Moodle means I can return a comment file. Hope it works, since I had mistakenly assumed I could return single file assignments.

Online Forums

2010-02-06T01:30:00.001-05:00

I went back to requiring weekly responses to readings and lectures after two semesters without the requirement. I know students always complained about weekly responses and I found that the grades in a course would not change with or without the responses. But, something told me that the online conversations were valuable.

There are already 138 posts to the forums on Moodle this semester. The students are using the forums actively, along with the group wiki pages I set up on Moodle for students. The posts reflect a much deeper attention to detail than I think the students exhibited in the courses without weekly responses.

While the grades might not be different without the responses, I'm convinced the overall quality of work and reflection is higher. I realize that if the grading were more objective this would not be an issue — in a writing course we always "curve" the grades somewhat based on the work in that class.

Also, I think the students rise to what they perceive as teacher expectations. The weekly responses convey that I care about the content. The fact I respond to their weekly online thoughts seems to encourage additional writing. I'm not marking grammar, spelling, or other mechanical issues. I want the students to write and reflect throughout the semester.

There is also a noticeable elevation of class discussions. Students come having read the assignments, which helps move discussions along so we can focus on problem areas.

I am glad that I went back to the weekly response model and will likely continue such work in the future, regardless of what the subject of the course might be.

Moodle Issue - Homework

2010-02-04T18:35:00.001-05:00

I have experienced two issues with Moodle that annoy me. One is inconvenient, the other is truly frustrating.

The inconvenience doesn't surprise me: the full-featured editor and some dialogs do not function properly in Safari. Since I don't mind coding the HTML manually, this is okay, but for students wanting the "Word-like" editor I have to explain they need to use another browser on a Mac. It's definitely not unusual, since Blackboard behaved oddly via Safari.

The frustration was with assignments. If you select a "single file" assignment, you cannot return a copy of the file with comments. The problem for me, and probably other writing instructors, is that mark-up is part of the grading process. I like to return a paper with comments in the original file.

If you create an "Advanced Assignment" item you can return drafts, with certain requirements. But, not realizing I had to create an "Advanced Assignment" even for a single file if I wanted to return the paper with comments, I had created several items before class started.

Now, I have to delete assignments and recreate them before the due dates. A true pain that you cannot modify an existing assignment item or simply return files for a basic assignment.

The solution I settled on was to create a folder and upload the edited files into a specific folder. The students like this, but I found it slow and tedious.

Now that I know the limits with assignments, I'll be more careful.

Moodle Work

2010-02-01T12:54:00.001-05:00

Students have submitted their first assignments via Moodle and are starting to use the Moodle-based Wiki system for group projects. I have a lot of ideas for using this system, so I'll have to consider how the ideas might be shifted to Blackboard just in case. I like the use of standards within the Moodle Wiki and how easy it was to create a Wiki per group.

I am going to be grading papers today, so I'll learn about returning them with grades tonight.

So far, I'm obviously pleased with how flexible the system is. There are often too many choices, but I'm willing to tolerate some of the complexity for the extra power I seem to have as an instructor. Maybe newer versions of Blackboard will be as flexible. If I accept a post at a BB-only campus, I hope to have some time to play with any modules they have added.

Moodle is working so much better for me that I'd hate to go back, though.

First Week of Moodle

2010-01-20T17:33:00.001-05:00

Moodle is definitely proving to be more flexible and, sometimes, more efficient than Blackboard. I created five groups for class today in under 15 minutes, something I could not do as quickly in Blackboard. I then created a Wiki for each group in only three steps. The Wiki in Moodle does use HTML instead of Wikitext, but that's okay with me and should be okay for students.

The system is new for most students, but they seem to have far less difficulty than my previous classes with Blackboard. That's a definite positive to using Moodle.

The campus interviews I have for tenure-track posts use Blackboard. If hired, I would certainly want to advocate for Moodle, now. Unfortunately, such choices are seldom up to instructors and few IT departments want to support several platforms.

Reporting is overly detailed in Moodle; I would prefer a chart or something by student. Still, it is nice to be able to check so many student activities.

Next week I collect my first online assignment and record the first grades in the system. I'm hoping for no major problems.

Moodle: The Start

2010-01-10T13:11:00.001-05:00

This semester I am using Moodle for online course content, after six years of Blackboard use (including WebCT, WebVista). I thought I'd chronicle my experiences; I know it helps me refine my thoughts and it might help other instructors.

As I design my course, which starts Jan. 19, 2010, I am finding some things take a bit of extra work with Moodle. This is because the system tends to present every possible variable for an activity, even when only two or three are required. It would be nice to have a "show basic" option for some tasks. I realize some instructors use every option, so those should be easily accessible, but cut the clutter is a good design philosophy.

When I do use an option, such as setting the maximum points for an assignment, the system uses a "pop-up" or "drop-down" list, when I would rather key in the numeric value and tab to the next field. Scrolling through every number, from 1000 to 1, for "points possible" is annoying. I commonly use 10, 20, 25, 50, and 75, and 100, but there are times I use other scales so setting up my own lists would be inefficient.

The sheer number of options and the lack of clear naming forces even the most tech-savvy user to read the help system. Moodle definitely has more options and power than Blackboard platforms, but this flexibility can be overwhelming. The problem with "everything anyone wants" is that the software risks being too many things. The balance between usability and features is tough to manage, I realize.

So far, I do like Moodle much more than Blackboard. It will take me a bit of time to complete the setup and see how students respond.

I am trying to organize the course design my units, instead of weeks. So far, that seems to be working well. I'll post some detailed thoughts on specific features in the weeks ahead.

Are the Logical Deficient?

2009-11-10T02:15:00.001-05:00

While working on the research for my dissertation, I have read page after page on writing pedagogy asserting that the goal of a university writing course should be to teach students that knowledge is socially constructed and that "truth" is relative to culture and community.

The problem with this assertion is that students with autism and similar conditions (my scrambled brain, apparently), are not relativists. Various researchers (Wellcome 2008, Frith 2001) have found that individuals with these conditions are more logical, unaffected by emotional inputs or rhetorical framing. I've found quite a bit of research on this aspect of brain trauma and autism and am including these findings in my dissertation.

If a group of people are "wired" to think there is a "truth" -- that knowledge is not created but discovered and then applied creatively -- who are educational theorists to consider such people "immature" or "simple-minded" in some way? In fact, I would argue that such clarity of thought is admirable and even a necessary counterbalance to the relativists.

As a culture, we are so certain that Maslow and Piaget knew what "maturity" and "self-actualization" must be that we are willing to dismiss as somehow undeveloped a mind that seeks rules and patterns. Just because some philosophers and psychologists decided relativism was a sign of maturity does not make it true. It's ironic that many educational theorists embrace as "absolute truth" the argument that there is no absolute truth.

Students with autism or brain trauma are attracted to the sciences, technology, and mathematical fields. The like the notion that truths are waiting to be discovered -- not created. How we apply knowledge is creative, such as the various gadgets we all love, but the knowledge itself represents truths that are outside human control or creativity.

The research indicating some brains are better at logic than other is interesting. The price paid for this logical seems to be deficient social skills. Not sure that's a bad price when I think about dealing with some people. I think I'd rather be logical and "rigid" in my thoughts.

Some of the research I have been exploring is if we can teach the "genius-level" students with autism and other disorders how to work better with others. As another researcher, working in London, responded: "unlikely." Most people don't like the rigid, pattern-seeking minds. Usually, the gifted are in some ways "handicapped" by their neurology and reason. Not everyone wants to believe "truth" is definite, waiting to be discovered.

And, yes, I realize this only applies to some fields. Not sure we can have a "truth" to painting or dance, but we can have a "truth" in science. Anyway, I was pondering this tangled mess while editing my dissertation.

Also, a reminder that my project on autism and educational technology is continuing through December 2009:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=6hUN2HISyDpNYnlwPpLkxQ_3d_3d

Web-Based Applications

2009-11-02T17:25:00.001-05:00

In the last few days my wife and I have fought Blogger and SurveyMonkey. For two applications that are used by a lot of people, especially writers and academics, the applications are horrible.

When an engineer and computer programmer can't figure out the choices to accomplish basic tasks, something is wrong.

I have used Blogger for several years. This is a great platform, but some of the tools need improvement. The help to accomplish tasks leaves much to be desired. We wanted to create a multi-author blog. While we were able to get the setup to allow anyone to post, the author name was always the same. It took several passes through the settings to realize you needed to create special "inbox" addresses for each author.

Sure, it was a logical fix once we realized the issue, but it wasn't obvious on the surface. That's not good.
Also, the editor has some problems with formatted e-mail. I wish the editor were more like Google's Doc application. After all, Google does own Blogger. I am sure that change will arrive soon, but it can be annoying to edit posts.

SurveyMonkey was tedious to setup a moderately long survey. Again, a great tool, but not easy to use for some things.

I wanted to skip questions if they did not apply to a situation. SurveyMonkey skips complete pages, based on the last question on a page. This means you have to create several short "pages" to skip questions. The result is a very long survey if you want to skip sections based on answers. I would like an option to "Skip to Question X" instead of "Skip to Page X." to make things smoother.

It took hours and hours to create a 21-question survey. Really! I had to break questions that on a form were two or three-part queries into separate questions. This changes the wording, out of necessity. The changes were minor, but when you make such changes you have to resubmit the questions to the IRB for quick approval. Minor thing, but annoying.

Losing a day was not a problem, but complex logic would be nice within SurveyMonkey. Still, it beats the old ways of doing surveys!

I just want to see more usability testing of Web applications. Eventually, things will be better as technologies improve.

Career Portfolios

2009-07-29T01:33:00.001-04:00

I am currently dealing with three major projects:

Completing my dissertation.
Applying for 2010 positions
Finishing home renovations.

The middle task, quite literally sandwiched between the other two in my daily life, is one of the most difficult for any person. I tell my students that career changes -- including starting a career -- are always difficult. The likelihood of rejection, at least a few times, is quite high. It is emotionally draining to hunt for work.

To be in the job market along with my students will be interesting. It should remind me of the challenges they face.

Portfolios are common for my students. Many have studied fashion design, architecture, or landscape horticulture. They need to present evidence of their projects to prospective employers. I also have to present evidence of my work as a graduate student, teacher, and writer. The portfolio will be something of a shared experience, this year.

I'm not yet sure if a digital portfolio will be a class assignment or not. In the past, I have only required a portfolio binder at the end of each semester. Maybe it is time to go digital with that assignment, too.

Computers and Writing 2009

2009-07-02T01:08:00.001-04:00

I attended Computers and Writing 2009, earlier this month and returned with mixed emotions.

First, the negatives -- so I can end on the positives of the actual presentations and keynotes.

As you can guess, the job market for writing teachers at all levels is weak. The reality is that a handful of instructors are losing their jobs; new jobs are definitely not on the horizon. Community colleges, four-year colleges, and full universities are all suffering from a lack of funds. Writing seems to be an easy target for cuts. In some cases, courses will migrate to online settings and in other instances graduate students will assume more teaching responsibilities.

Technology, especially online courses and hybrids, are letting universities outsource general education. This is definitely a rough trend to confront. While it is good for the online companies, which offer packaged online courses overseen by part-time, freelancing instructors with graduate degrees, the end result is that general education becomes homogenized and commoditized.

Some attendees told me that writing instructors at their institutions are never tenure-track faculty. Writing is seen as "blue-collar" and handled by instructors with annual contracts, adjuncts without tenure, and various part-time employees. At some institutions, writing instructors are employed by a myriad of departments, so the writing tasks can be focused on the disciplinary needs. Again, such instructors are viewed as laborers, not professors.

Now, the positives.

Most writing programs are embracing technology and alternatives to printed texts. Video and audio are accepted forms of composition, which gives me hope.

More of the presentations addressed fiction and creative non-fiction. This means we are allowing for more than the "academic" forms in our classrooms. That's a good thing.

The instructors recognize that students are living online, familiar with numerous media. In some cases, getting the students "off-line" is important, so instructors are experimenting with assignments that take students away from computers. Collage compositions was an interesting concept: create a collage representing you, then write about. Sure, this could be done digitally, but the idea is to move away from technology a bit.

There is an understanding that we need to balance many thing: virtual / physical, new media / traditional media, creative / academic writing. In the end, these aren't binaries, but our students need bridges to recognize that binaries exist to be challenged.

It was a good event, even if it reinforced how tough the job market is.

What Goes Online...

2009-05-28T23:34:00.001-04:00

I have been on the Internet since the 1980s. I have located messages I posted in college via the USENET, now more than 25 years after I composed them. The various incarnations of my Web sites have also survived in various forms, for reasons I cannot explain.

From my main site, though, I have removed things over the years and hope they are generally "gone" from the massive electronic memory that is the Web.

I eschewed blogs for many years. I posted only a few badly written essays and ramblings on my Web site. My poetry was online, but I removed the works after someone told me there were things no one needed to read. I removed a few short stories, as well, realizing that I couldn't recall what was fictional and what was close to the realities of people I once knew.

When you write a lot, thousands of words some days and literally tens of thousands some weeks, you end up capturing bits of the people around you. But what if they don't want to be exposed, even anonymously? It seems right to respect the wishes of others, and I have tried to do so with the Web.

Of course, there are some instances when you cannot and should not defer to the emotional desires of others. When I work on issues of education and students with special needs, I am fairly certain my complaints and demands for better services supersede the emotions of some people. If you are a barrier to education or self-expression, I don't worry about your feelings.

But I do worry about people who were or are important to me.

This raises questions about what students do online. Do they realize a photo they find humorous could hurt a friend? Do they realize an angry rant posted online could damage a friendship? Do they understand that even fictional works, like those I write, can get too close to reality and need to be censored, at least for a time?

Do I feel the same about the printed word? I am not sure. I think some things might need to wait for print, too. Somehow, print seems safer for now, but it's also easy to scan, convert, and e-mail physical pages. I would publish some things I might not place online, for now, but I cannot explain or even anticipate what those barriers might be.

As it is, some of the few things I have published this year have been pseudonymous. They'll likely remain that way, which means they will not appear directly or indirectly on my Web site.

Because my memory is spotty, I write many things down and record various thoughts. That doesn't mean every thought should be online.

Fonts and More Fonts

2009-05-25T23:32:00.001-04:00

This is a portion of my summer (re)reading list, at least on one particular subject matter. I am reading various books on type and design. So far, I have completed Dodd and Lupton. The Bringhurst and Parker texts are re-reads, which I will tackle later in the summer. The current book on my stand is the Stanley Morison Tally of Types.

I'm putting the bibliography up top, to stress the books a bit more than my own ramblings.

Bringhurst, Robert. The Elements of Typographic Style. 3rd ed ed. Point Roberts, WA: Hartley & Marks, Publishers, 2004.
Consuegra, David. American Type: Design & Designers. New York: Allworth Press, 2004.
Dodd, Robin. From Gutenberg to Open Type: An Illustrated History of Type From the Earliest Letterforms to the Latest Digital Fonts. Vancouver, WA: Hartley & Marks Publishers, 2006.
Lupton, Ellen. Thinking With Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students. Vol. Design briefs. 1st ed ed. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004.
Made With Fontfont: Type for Independent Minds. 1st ed. Ed. Jan Middendorp, and Erik Spiekermann. New York: Mark Batty Publisher, 2007.
Morison, Stanley, and Brooke Crutchley. A Tally of Types: With Additions By Several Hands; and With a New Introduction By Mike Parker. Boston: D.R. Godine, 1999.
Parker, Roger C. Looking Good in Print. 3rd ed. Chapel Hill, NC: Ventana, 1993.
Tice, Bruce, and Nadine Monem. Font. The Sourcebook. Black Dog Publishing, 2008.

Now then, for my own ramblings.

We have tried, especially in academia and in some forms of publishing, to downplay the power of the typeface, the font, and how a typeface influences the reading experience. We've adopted a utilitarian philosophy: the type should not get in the way of the words. The words are "special" and are somehow independent from presentation.

I've been experimenting with poetry and fonts. Poetry and prose were illuminated for a long time. Words on the page were accompanied by carefully designed miniatures. Borders and uncial scripts gave a text majestic form. Mechanized type meant less "frills" and a much colder rendering of texts.

There was a movement in the mid twentieth century to use type to affect the reader, with poetry set in shapes. Fonts were used by some to convey meaning. And then, poetry retreated back to under the heavy hand of bland typography.

I have been thinking about books and type a lot lately. I want to experiment more with fonts and emotion. I want to manipulate my readers. I want to play against their expectations, and then swerve into something at full-speed to leave the reader stunned and shaken.

We have all this wonderful technology, thanks to digital typography and illustration software. We should be using it to move beyond words alone. Lines of text to do need to be straight lines. We can twist and turn letters. We can add effects easily. But, we continue to think of that as somehow "wrong" -- a violation of the word.

The socialist and communist designers tried to devise "systems" that would guide readers to think logically, rationally. The type and the other design elements were to be subservient to the ideas and "science" of Marxism. The results were still emotional, and still rhetorical: Bolshevik posters are powerful in their attempts to focus on words and "realistic" images.

You can't create a page without the design giving some clue as to your philosophy or biases. Most novels suggest the words matter and are sufficient. But, imagine if you used a "Blackletter" font when setting the name of a village or household. That would be pretty powerful. I thought about using a "technology" font, such as OCR-B with its rigid shapes, when narrating from the perspective of a character. What would that convey about the character? Why not use such devices?

We should experiment. We should shatter the norms. Not only because we can, but because doing so might lead to something more. I do not know what more, but I wonder how readers might react.

My dissertation will appear in a bland 12-point Courier or similar font. The words will be what matters. Every dissertation the same, to focus on the words. I suppose only design students or other art majors get to say more than mere words.

I want more from my words. I want them to be more than a text. Something to ponder. It is also something to explore with our writing students.

Let's move beyond the "basic" fonts and see what happens. We might learn something about composition and rhetoric in this digital age. Advertising uses fonts well, so why not creative writing or even academic writing? Let's explore.

Upgrades... Never Ending?

2009-05-05T20:00:00.001-04:00

I am in the process of upgrading my MacBook Pro to a 500GB hard drive. (Let's not get too technical, since I know it's not "really" 500GB.) The one thing digital media do well is consume hard drive space.
This is the third or fourth time I have updated a PowerBook or MacBook hard drive. As with all new laptops, you wonder, "How will I ever use so much space?" The excitement of having twice or three times whatever you last had soon fades as iTunes, GarageBand, and iMovie eat the bytes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. InDesign, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Flash are there to help, too.

A colleague said, "Why not just store it all on the campus servers or on Google Docs?"

Okay, this entire cloud thing is nice -- for sharing some files and for backups -- but I am not about to put my projects out in the cloud. I'd never upload confidential files, and I certainly don't want some company to have my student projects. No way.

Plus, I'm not always online. I actually do use my laptop away from the Internet. Shocking, but there really are places without wireless signals. And I'm not about to pay for a 3G account just to always have a connection to my files.

Someday, instead of moving platters, we'll probably have monstrous amounts of solid-state drives. Maybe even in a RAID-like configuration for truly blazing speed. As it stands, platters are still necessary for what I do.

My students complain about the size of media files. It seems netbooks have small drives, regardless of the technology used. Those little Atom-powered toys are cute, but they aren't meant to edit audio or video. The drives fill up, the RAM is too limited, and processors are about power consumption (long, long battery life) instead of computing power. I'm not even sure if there are netbooks with dedicated video.

The reality is that data will keep growing. I'll update to HD quality video, better sound, and suddenly my screencasts and video presentations will double or triple in size. Technology moves ahead, and I'll end up with yet another upgrade.

On the positive side, updating the hard drive is a cinch with the Macs. Sure, it's a pain to remove a dozen screws, but it's about 20 minutes from start to finish. With a FireWire case, you can clone the drive or migrate the data in an hour or so. If you simply copy the data, eSATA rocks in even less time.

Upgrades are part of being digital. Beats buying a new computer every two years.

Hybrid Hiccups vs. F2F Courses

2009-04-30T20:08:00.001-04:00

This year has been a study in contrasts. I chose to teach a traditional technical writing course in the fall and a hybrid course during the spring semester. The differences in student projects, the quality of their analyses, and general attitudes is remarkable.

I know research found no easily quantified differences in learning outcomes. However, I think anyone could compare the group projects between these courses and see a difference in the products. While the lessons learned and the facts students retain might be similar, the results do demonstrate something.

Some elements of are "intangible" because they are social and philosophical. For example, groups struggled online, even with guidance and gentle remainders to establish schedules and routines. In the traditional course, groups developed stronger bonds and worked together frequently. It should be noted that the face-to-face (F2F) students exchanged more e-mail and chatted more often than the students on the officially hybrid course.

Students in the traditional course met in a computer lab once a week. This allowed them time to help each other with desktop publishing issues. Both courses included design students, but in the F2F course these students were leaders. In the online course, leaders failed to emerge. (I try not to influence how groups function, but maybe I should be more proactive online.)

The hybrid students did the bare minimum on assignments. They counted words, literally, and seemed driven by convenience instead of a desire to learn something new. Online was, as several admitted, perceived as "less work" because there were fewer in-person meetings.

I had not registered D or F marks for nearly three years. Unfortunately, the hybrid course had a high number of incomplete and missing assignments. Ten percent of the students will not receive credit for the course. I am told that the failure / drop rate approaches 30 percent online.

The best students in both classes were definitely equal. For some students, the online space was not problematic. The problem is that the average grade was approximately six percent lower. Sure, a 81 versus an 87 seems minor, but it is significant to me.

I like online content. As a teacher, I was able to post my lectures as audio, include supplemental videos, and I could return papers easily with comments. Students could easily check the calendar, announcements, and obtain handouts. Unfortunately, even with those materials available, less than half of the students downloaded all the materials I offered.

Students have to be self-motivated for online learning to function. I am disappointed, but I realize I did all that I could. I sent students e-mails to remind them of due dates. I asked questions when they seemed to struggle. I posted leading questions, imagining they would realize I was hinting they needed to communicate better within groups.

Maybe it is because so many parents, working students, and students with misconceptions about online learning were in the hybrid that it had a slightly shifted grade curve. The convenience was essential to some of these students, but that meant they were balancing a lot in their lives. If students who could not otherwise take the course were able to complete a requirement, I suppose that is a good thing.

Though I like the hybrid model, with both online and traditional meetings, it is clear that I need to consider that the students attracted to such a course might have different needs and expectations. A course with group projects is not like a computer programming, math, or statistics course. One of my students said his online econ course was great because he worked ahead. Group work online, in his view, was annoyingly complex.

I kept student comments, with their permission, and hope to write about this in a more formal way. Who takes a course affects the dynamics more than I anticipated. It might not be the format caused the reduced grades, but the student population attracted to the format.

It would be nice to discuss this with other teachers of hybrid courses.

The change I would make is to have more F2F meetings before switching to an online course. I think the students needed a greater sense of community that requires more time to develop online than in person. I would have six consecutive traditional courses, at a minimum, if group work is to remain a component of the class.

I admit, the social aspects are not "officially" part of a class on writing, but they are important to the future success of graduates.

My Online Portfolio (Job Hunt Ahead!)

2009-04-30T01:05:00.001-04:00

I am completing an online portfolio, which is always a good process for self-evaluation as an instructor.

See: http://www.tameri.com/csw

Because I ask my students to create online personas and to work on various digital projects, this is a good way to keep myself grounded. It reminds me that the process is never easy, no matter how experienced one might be with the genres involved.

My teaching philosophy took me two weeks to edit, and I'm still not pleased with the results. The sidebar and overall site design isn't what I had hoped to create, either. Something about it doesn't seem to convey who I am. At least I can sympathize with my students.

Some of the university job listings ask applicants to describe the classes they might want to teach. I could list two or three dozen, easily. I am a proud generalist, with too many interests and a complete inability to focus on a specialty. That's not a bad thing, since I can be a "utility player" within a department. However, I am struggling with how to compose a personal statement reflecting that diversity of interests.

The good news is that I have several months, or at least the summer, to get the portfolio into shape. Apparently the job hunt starts about November and runs through April for most aspiring professors.

I might post some of my thoughts, just to share how confused I am.

Everyone Fights Technology

2009-02-14T19:50:00.001-05:00

Sometimes the technology wins.

The reality of computers is that they are still machines. This means that parts wear out — hard drives certainly come to mind. We rely on fragile little boxes, in my case a MacBook Pro, to store our daily work, our family memories, and much more. Even the "non-moving" parts are technically moving on an atomic level, with heat slowly taking a toll. Memory chips start giving "exception errors" and video cards make abstract art of our virtual desktops.

This is why I make lots of backups. It is why I have three external hard drives, and hope the digital demons never cause all three to die at once. One drive is a clone of the MacBook Pro's drive, so if disaster strikes my current work is ready to be revived on another system. The other two are archives, saved for those "I think I did something like that before" moments.

With the preceding in mind, I now admit that even following good, defensive habits is not enough to spare a dedicated geek from hours of pain and suffering.

I spent from noon on Friday until 5 a.m. Saturday trying to revive Word and Excel on my laptop. Though other programs are "compatible" to some extent, I must still use Microsoft Office for some tasks.
Word died a strange and horrible death, refusing to even start.

I read every "user forum" and "knowledge base" article I could locate on both Apple and Microsoft Web sites. I tried dozens of various solutions, but nothing came of any of them. Some made matters worse, others gave false hope.

I resorted to reinstalling Office. When that didn't work, I did a complete removal of everything Microsoft from my computer. I located files in the places Apple is good at hiding from most users (usually to protect the user from doing stupid things). I deleted them all: font caches, preferences, templates, and more. Gone. Not one bit or byte of Microsoft remained.

Another reinstall and another failure.

I rebuilt the disk drive, using Drive Genius. I verified disk permissions. I did everything a good geek would do. Nothing worked. Word still refused to launch.

Finally, I decided to go for the ultimate solution: reinstall the operating system. Thankfully, Apple makes this painless. I downloaded the complete 10.5.6 "combo update" at a whopping 590 megabytes. It took about 20 minutes to download, maybe more. This was every little fix Apple had ever released for the operating system, all in one file. My suspicion was that something in "Rosetta" was corrupt. Rosetta is the technology that allows old software to run on Intel Macintosh hardware.

The install took another 30 minutes, plus two reboots.

It worked! Word and Excel were back to functioning. Life was back to normal... until I realized my customizations of every Office application were gone. Oh, well.

What, you might be asking, does any of this have to do with digital writing and teaching?

Think about the time and energy I invested in simply getting my tools back to functioning. My frustration with the tools of writing was turning into anger. Should a tool make you angry? Should technology leave me wanting my pencil and legal pad?

Actually, I do prefer to write on paper — at least early drafts. Now, I am reminded of why. Paper does not fail me. It does not require 17 hours of horror. Sure, I could have plugged in the clone and worked on another computer, since my documents are always safe. But, what do you do when the applications fail? The documents are useless if you cannot easily open them and get back to work.

Word's revising and version control features do matter to me. Other programs are getting better at these features, thankfully. But, in this case, I'm not sure who to blame... Microsoft or Apple.

No matter what, technology can and does get in the way of writing. At the same time, it makes it possible to do things I could never have done with a typewriter. Love or hate it, I'm not about to do away with the computers.

At least I can sympathize with my students when they fight the technology. The difference is, unlike most of them I can (eventually) get things working again. I sacrifice some sleep, but I do get things back to "normal" eventually.

Now, off to edit student papers using all those revising tools I appreciate in Word.

Learning Web 2.0

2009-02-08T22:05:00.001-05:00

My students are not as tech-savvy as I assumed. No only are they not on the bleeding edge of technology, they suffer from the standard inattention that all students have.

Online courses aren't as forgiving as "traditional" courses, which means the normal problems students have become more serious. For example, not reading an assignment calendar in a "physical" classroom can result in a late paper, but the student generally has several ways to at least get partial credit. Online, my course accepts late papers for two days... and that's it. Done. The paper is no longer merely late -- it is a zero.

In a traditional class, my reminders would be verbal. Online, they are "announcements" that most students don't seem to read. Reminding students to check the calendar doesn't seem to take hold. Assignments are missed anyway.

The online system requires Java for some features. When a student was having problems uploading files, she waited to tell me until after the assignment was late. If students worked ahead (I can dream), then this problem would have been solved in advance. But, most students procrastinate. Online, if something goes wrong, that's a much bigger problem.

I have done what I can to help students be more aware of how the system works, what the deadlines are, and where to locate supplemental materials. As my wife reminds me, there is only so much I can do.

No wonder students struggle online — you do need more initiative and discipline. It's a tough lesson for some students. We'll have to see how the zero grades influence the class.

Teaching Aspirations

2009-01-26T12:36:00.001-05:00

When I consider what I hope to teach and research, I begin with the question how online collaborative tools shape the composition process. How does technology restrict or expand the choices available? Is composing enhanced or degraded for those with special needs or language limitations?

Because I am a creative writer, I view "team" compositions of interactive fiction with the same curiosity I have for non-fiction projects. Composition, in my mind, includes a mix of what we often label as creative and academic genres. What matters to me is the writing process, regardless of how we might categorize the product at a specific moment.

"Composition and rhetoric" are often perceived as limited to the study of academic genres. I cannot foresee myself being limited to genres I want to challenge and reshape. The "rhetoric of fiction" and "rhetoric of theatre/film" are topics I would hope to teach in the future, from a technological and collaborative perspective.

Certainly, I see value in traditional forms, though I hope to influence their evolution to exploit technology. A serious academic work is creative. I hope to extend ways to express that creativity using technology, drawing from methods employed in creative composition.

It is my sincere belief that students who struggle with academic genre norms might excel with alternative approaches. Collaborative, multimedia composition has been studied for years, but we still employ traditional forms in most of our classes. I hope to be an advocate for change, ideally a radical shift towards collaborative compositions across the curriculum.

The Hybrid Experiment

2009-01-18T20:52:00.001-05:00

I spent the day preparing the course I am teaching. It's a hybrid, with online content constituting half the course.

That is a positive thing, considering last semester. It's already known that I need at least one more eye surgery, maybe more, and one internal surgery. Both of these can be done out-patient and are relatively minor. (Minor if you like having your eye scrapped with sandpaper.)

With these things in mind, and the miscellaneous emergencies last semester, I have completed most of the handouts and homework assignment sheets for the upcoming course. If/when I am medically indisposed, a situation which I seem predisposed, the homework schedule can be maintained. That's the joy of an online course.

I am going to supplement the course with podcasts and screencasts, giving demonstrations of basic tasks so students can review the lecture concepts. This is going to be quite the adventure. The recorded materials can also become part of my portfolio. Yes, I'm planning ahead.

Last semester was rocky -- one of my most difficult semesters ever. I am hoping things go more smoothly this semester.

Digital Rhetoric... sans the digital part

2008-09-08T18:53:00.001-04:00

My first week of teaching this year was frustrating. The initial classroom was unfinished, lacking electrical outlets and the standard overhead LCD projector. This killed my original lesson plans. How I can teach a technology based course with no ability to demonstrate technology is beyond me.

The second room I use was double-booked with first-year composition course. The room itself has a low-resolution projector on a pushcart. It's a lousy setup for the instructor, but the students have nice workstations.

I need more time to demonstrate concepts for students, so I cannot wait to have my classrooms finished. The university should have completed all remodeling during the summer. Oh, well.

Digital Skills

2008-04-16T20:16:00.000-04:00

My students have been using Wikibooks, a LEGO CAD application, and various DTP tools. I think their skills will translate much better to the workplace than merely learning about writing. Unfortunately, there is never enough time to really teach the skills that matter... and what matters today won't apply to the next generation of software.

I am wondering if I should demonstrate other types of software writers might use. Should I make sure these tools are included in my next writing class? If so, how would I organize the course content? These are questions I might consider over the summer.

Teaching in an Era of Kos

2008-02-02T23:49:00.000-05:00

As some of us mourn (complain) the state of the Internet, I wonder how we can teach students to write and think in ways that rise above the [choose your own description | rancor] they read on DailyKos, Free Republic, Town Hall, MoveOn... et al. Agree or disagree, the Web is home to a lot of angry tirades that would fail a basic debate course.

Though I consider myself “moderate” and want more fun and less politics in my life, I understand that many of my colleagues cannot resist being political in their courses. What they don’t admit is that they might be tolerating weaker logic from those students expressing views that are aligned with the instructor.

The students might be learning that weak, but passionate, arguments are acceptable if they support the dominant positions within their classroom communities. I worry that we might be little more than an echo chamber, suggesting to students that virtual shouting matches are acceptable.

A post on the DailyKos did summarize my feelings (paraphrasing): We could replace “Hillary” with “Huckabee” in most of these rants and readers would blindly cheer us on because it is so easy to hate when we all think alike.

Is that the “democratic participation” we envision when teaching composition? If so, that is very, very sad. The short angry burst has replaced reasoned debate.

Box o' Hopes and Dreams

2007-12-08T23:35:00.000-05:00

If I have to think of what things have changed my life, the answer is simple: computers. I have owned quite a few. If I had kept them, I would have an interesting museum of old technologies.

Commodore VIC-20
My first computer at home was a Commodore VIC-20. It was an odd computer, soon replaced by Commodore with the C64 — the best selling computer model of all time. (More than 3 million of the original C64 were sold!) I have a real fondness for the early years of the home computer: Atari, Commodore, Apple, Tandy, Texas Instruments, and many others were competing to get technology into the home. They were all more interesting than the modern Apple Mac and IBM PC to me.

Magazines like BYTE, PC World, PC Magazine, Compute, InCider, A+, and dozens of others included program code. You could enter BASIC, machine code, Pascal, or C programs and then change them to see how things worked. Today? The complexity of software no longer makes it possible to include code in a book. Games take dozens of programmers.

Commodore VIC-20

Released: January 1981
Price: US $299
CPU: MOS 6502, 1MHz
RAM: 5K (3.5K for the user)
Display: 22 X 23 text
176 X 184, 16 colors max

I wanted to write using my computer and its noisy dot-matrix printer. Writing by hand has always been a challenge. As a result, I wrote several text editors for various computer platforms. I coded TextRite for the VIC-20, a simple editor that allowed me to write a page or so of text — about the point the computer would run out of memory!

Timex Sinclair 1000

In addition to the VIC-20, my father purchased a Timex-Sinclair "DIY" computer. This was the ultimate in "small" computers. About the size of a book, the TS-1000 was fascinating. The membrane keyboard was a pain, and the computer was stuck in only black and white. The VIC-20 was an amazing machine by comparison!

Timex Sinclair 1000

Introduced: July 1982
Price: US $99.95
Weight: 12 ounces
CPU: Zilog Z80A, 3.25MHz
RAM: 2K, 64K max
Display: 22 X 32 text

Atari 800

My junior high had Atari 800 computers. These were way, way ahead of the VIC-20 and the Timex-Sinclair. These were fascinating machines. There were floppy drives, cartridges, and the best games around were on the Atari. I did have "Apple Envy" though, because Apple computer seemed to be in most other schools. I only used one Apple IIe before college. The Atari and Apple computers even looked similar.

Atari 800

Released: November 1979
Price : US $999.95
CPU: MOS 6502,1.8MHz
RAM: 8K base, 48K max
Display: 24 X 40 text
320 x 192 monochrome
160 x 96 with 128 colors
Expansion: 4 internal expansion slots
RGB video output
TV video output
Storage: external 90K floppy drive
OS: Atari OS

Tandy 1000

After using the VIC-20 into high school, my father purchased the computer that truly changed
my life: a Tandy 1000. The Tandy 1000 ran Microsoft DOS 1.1 — the newest and most exciting operating system. Over the years, I would upgrade to DOS 2.x and 3.x before upgrading to another "IBM clone" computer during my second year of college (an Epson PC-AT with a 10MB hard drive).

Using the Tandy, I learned QuickBASIC, TurboPascal, COBOL, and experimented with a dozen or more computer languages. By college, I was also working as a programmer for the university, using REXX, C, FORTRAN, and more. I definitely found my place, surrounded by technology.

Tandy 1000

CPU: Intel 8088
RAM: 256K (Expandable to 640K)
Ports: Edge Card Tandy Printer, DB9 Serial, Tandy Joystick x2 & Light Pen
Display: TCGA 16 Colors & CGA 4 Colors
Storage: One or Two 5.25" 360K Floppies
Operating System: MS-DOS

Using the Tandy 1000, I write a fairly complete word processing system, which I used for several years. I expanded the features and copies were used on IBM computers at my high school. My skills came in handy when I helped setup a computer lab for the school newspaper and yearbook.

Apple Mac IIci

After college, I would go on to build PCs, while developing a passion for Apple's Macintosh line. The first Mac I owned, not counting the Macs on my desk as a university employee, was a wonderful IIci. This was a great machine... much, much better than any PC.

The Mac was not a programmers dream, unlike the PCs I owned, but it was light years ahead of the PC when it came to graphics. I got a copy of Aldus PageMaker, Microsoft Word, and was in heaven. These were amazing applications. WordPerfect on DOS and Lotus 1-2-3 were not nearly as exciting as MacPaint, PageMaker, or even Word.

Apple Mac IIci

Introduced: September 1989 $6,700 ($8,800 with 40 MB hard drive)
Discontinued: 1993
CPU: 25 MHz 68030
FPU: 25 MHz 68882
ROM: 512 KB
OS: Apple System 6.0.4 to 7.6.1

What I Use Today...

At the moment, my wife and I have a Mac mini, a G4 "Lampshade" model, a MacBook Pro, and a PowerBook G4. We gave away our last two PCs during the summer of 2007. Since my MacBook Pro runs Windows and DOS, there was little reason to keep so many computers around the house... especially for just two people.

Why This Matters to Writing
I write about technology for a magazine publisher in California. I've written for a couple of newspapers, as well. Answering questions and helping other people is always interesting, leading to new ideas.
If I were to write about all the ways in which computers affected my life, I'd be writing a book. Instead, I simply wanted to reflect on how far the computers have come.

I Was Wrong… sort of

2007-11-27T23:53:00.001-05:00

I posted a response to Geoffrey Sirc's "Box Logic" (Writing New Media, 2004) that might have been my reaction to his essay, but I also think I didn't quite understand the essay.

Hearing Prof. Sirc speak on November 27, 2007, I realized his theories were not far from my own, at least within creative writing, which might have been why I didn't sense any "revelation" in the essay. At the same time, the links between art theory and composition that escaped my comprehension when reading were much much clearer during the visual and oral presentation.

However, I also don't complete agree these approaches help in a college composition course meant to teach academic norms.

This leads to an interesting question: why would I be thrilled by his presentation, but utterly flummoxed by a text? Why did the text leave me confused and disappointed, while hearing Prof. Sirc was fascinating?

I think it is important to admit -- Sirc's ideas are interesting. Not because they are new, but because someone considered an expert is willing to say what I have been thinking for years: We don't teach composition in a manner that will captivate and inspire students. But, what they must write at a university is not necessarily exciting in form to many students.

Sirc gives me a reason to keep doing what I do. Pushing limits is necessary; we cannot give in to a series of "reforms" that move us backwards as a university. I hope I manage to have his ability to keep up the fight; I'm used to resignation after so many failed attempts to change things.

Of course, you can't suggest students start writing poetry for their poli-sci or engineering papers.

Online Feedback in Writing Courses

2007-11-24T13:53:00.001-05:00

How do I respond to student writing using online technologies?

I tend to make extensive use of Microsoft Word's "track changes" and "reviewing" modes. The real challenge for me as an instructor is to not make every edit for a student.

My primary concern, and research seems to support this, is that students have been inculcated with the notion that you make the suggested corrections, no more or no less, and that is what constitutes "revising" a paper. Online, this habit becomes even easier... cut-and-paste or simply "accept change" and the revising is "done" in the view of many students.

When I first started student teaching, in the late 1980s, I fell into the trap of making too many comments on papers. Now, I try to minimize how often I correct mistakes students need to discover. I also do not make as many suggestions as I did years ago.

Online tools have made editing and leaving short comments much easier. For all the dangers of relying too much on helpful "hints" from Word or the Mac's built-in dictionary, I think students do benefit from technology when writing. I love moving paragraphs with "drag-and-drop" simplicity.

When writing is done online in threaded discussions, I encourage students to respond only to the ideas and the rhetorical arguments they read in the posts. Sometimes, they cannot resist correcting an obvious grammar or spelling error, which is okay, but I want them to reply to something more than the surface mechanics of a text.

I moderate occasionally online, usually more in the first weeks and less as the class progresses. I'm still trying to find the right balance of involvement to encourage longer and more thoughtful online responses to peer texts.

Blackboard's online system includes an option of interactive editing and comments. I wish the Web/Vista platform included a similar "markup mode" to help students. I like the "Post-it Note" style of the comments in Word and Pages a lot. Students read the comments and know that I am an engaged reader. I think they need to know the words are being taken seriously.

Honestly, I don't think I could switch to an all-paper process for giving feedback to students. I can type a full-page critique of a paper, using color coding to indicate where a paper was weakest and where it was strongest. I love the visual cues, both for my own use and for students' use.

I put important thoughts in bold type and I will use colors, too. I want students to remember my feedback!

One risk of online editing is that students might come to expect the "spreadsheet" style checklists of "points possible" found in Web/Vista. While having a rubric can help students, I also need some flexibility as a teacher. Students will argue for grade points based on a rubric, instead of focussing on the overall quality of a text. I think this is a serious problem with rubrics, which online systems seem to enforce without the flexibility I want as a teacher.

Evaluating Web Sites

2007-11-24T01:59:00.001-05:00

What makes a Web site readable?

As the Internet moved from the ASCII texts of the USENET and FTP repositories towards HTML, no one really cared about appearance. The notion was that content was everything — and most content files were journal articles and scientific research. The early notion of specifying fonts on the World Wide Web was a major shift from the original notion of the Web. You can look at changes from HTML pre-1.0 to our current standards and the shift towards visual content is obvious.

The reality is that there was no stopping the drift towards a visual medium.

Given basic HTML 2.0, designers resorted to complex tables-within-tables to mimim familiar print designs. From the earliest handwritten manuscripts, artists have known how words are placed on a page (or screen) affects how they are read. No one was about to settle for no control over a Web site's appearance.

Temptation to experiment can lead to innovation, but on the Web it also helps to keep a design simple.
I don't surf the Web much. Like most people, I have destinations I have bookmarked and seldom explore beyond those now. My "start page" is Google News because it is simple, mostly white, and easy to read. The two-column design is easy enough to read on my screen, especially if I can enlarge the text.

Designers want the control they are accustomed to, but some choices they think important for aesthetics make a Web site useless for me. Too many Web sites rely on specific fonts, even locking sizes so those of us needing larger type cannot use the pages. Google never makes this mistake. Most news sites do, though — so I stop visiting them.

I'd actually be okay with a return to the past. Give me text. Let me select the scale of the fonts on my screen. Allow me more control as the reader so I'm not locked out of a site by my blurry vision or inability to focus on some colors.

The past isn't going to return though. My own Web sites are visual. I have spent days and even weeks altering colors and typefaces. I tweak the smallest elements of the pages, trying to make them as visually appealing as I can while still allowing users to magnify the text. (That's not always possible, but I definitely do my best to make sites accessible.)

I often wish Web designers would study why people use Wikipedia and Google. They are simple, fast, and easy to read. Don't add sounds (I prefer my iTunes music), don't force me to watch videos, and don't use wild color schemes that are trendy for a week.

Even what some designer thinks is simple can be a mess. Yahoo is a good example of too much at the top level of a site. Microsoft and AOL are even worse. No wonder most of us use Google!

Collections

2007-11-23T02:26:00.001-05:00

Assignment: find images of interest to you and collect them.

I do not collect much of anything. I do not know of any "scene" nor do I have any particular focused interest at the moment. Maintaining my Web sites is now about maintaining content, not creativity or discovery. (They are academic tools, not hobbies.)

I seldom leave my house, except to travel between the home and the university campus. I do not have any hobbies, which would merely distract me from writing assignments. I have no desire to gather random things without purpose, and the "purpose" of completing an assignment was painful enough with the Flikr slideshow I was asked to produce earlier in the semester. Without my wife's assistance, the idea of looking at pictures would have been too daunting.

When I have "nothing to do," I do whatever I am asked to do by my family or employer. I have a list of stories and projects at all times, though, giving me guidance when I wonder what tasks require my attention. I don't do random things — I despise randomness; it causes nothing but anxiety.

If I were in the composition classes of some of the theorists I have read in the last six years, I would have given up on writing. No, that is not hyperbole. I have dropped classes that annoyed me for good reason — it is best to exit early knowing the silliness to come than to fail at being silly enough.

It is odd that I have received praise for my writing, even my poetry, but I find myself not only resisting but appalled by some of the ideas presented in composition instruction texts. Creative non-fiction is something I write on a regular basis. I've written for stage and for radio. Clearly, I have no lack of faith in my skills as a writer, neither as craftsman nor as artist, depending on the genre.

Whatever would I collect and why? At the moment, I hope to collect my thoughts and move ahead with other tasks.

Geoffrey Sirc: Box-Logic

2007-11-23T01:58:00.001-05:00

Responding to Geoffrey Sirc's "Box Logic" (Writing New Media, 2004):

1) What should we be teaching as composition? (p. 110) I do not spend much time on Web design (HTML, CSS) because those technologies will change within a year or two. Rhetorical thought, however, is a skill that can be applied for both analysis of existing material or synthesis of new. Thinking strategically is a portable skill.

2) I truly despise the "creativity" of making blocks of text non-columnar (113). It is painful to read as it is, so why make it any more difficult? If this were poetry, I would be forgiving — poetry is condensed meaning. This is not poetry. It is a mockery of poetry and creativity to have a scholarly article make pretense of creativity. Bluntly, the blocks serve no purpose in this text. They do not move me emotionally, they merely annoy me as a reader of a dense text.

If you want to be poetic be poetic, but this is not even prosaic. It's silliness.

3) I am generally repelled by quotes of Freud, as a reader of neurological research papers with an interest in psychobiology / neuropsychology. As a psychiatrist wrote: Only a professor in the humanities would quote Freud; we know better.

4) This is all much too metaphorical for me. I don't understand the purpose: what did any of these people accomplish? Clearly, I am missing something obvious to others. That frustrates me, since it must be an important concept. At the same time, I doubt my life is lacking anything for not grasping the concepts. Well, I am lacking the time it took to read these pages.

5) What is a personal symbology? The only symbols I have voluntarily affixed to my life are Apple logos. Why? Because my wife says the stickers make it easier to locate our Jeep in a parking lot.

6) I do not write because I am dissatisfied with existing books. I write because friends, family, and editors give me ideas and ask me to write. I get paid to write, to mimic genre norms, with plots provided in most cases. Others write for "art" and I write because I can sell my words.
Paychecks are a good and necessary thing. Art is good, too, but even Shakespeare sought to sell tickets to the plays.

7) I do not wish to "spell my name" with adjectives, as some teachers required, or objects (121). My name is simply what people use to attract my attention. I have no particular attachment to the name, nor do I see a reason to create an artificial attachment to the name.

8) Please, no, let it not be a teacher using Kurt Cobain as an example of anything other than teen angst that never matured. A drug-addicted waste of potential talent, remembered fondly until you listen to the albums without considering the mythology. Then, you realize Nirvana was nothing unique and of only mediocre musical ability.

9) I don't pretend to be a radical, railing against corporate powers, materialism, or whatever else Sirc wishes to cite (126). I do believe there are "finest" things in art and culture. I make no excuse for believing in meritocracy and the educational establishment's role as gate-keeper. There is a lot of mediocrity and we seem to tolerate more and more of it.

10) If the "box" is merely a repository for research, physical or digital, than it seems to be nothing more than the boxes of notecards I keep when working on a paper or project (135-6). I am left feeling like nothing "new" was proposed in the end. I tell my students to save research, to make copies and print Web pages. I ask them to spread things out and view them as a whole. I'm at quite a loss, still, as to what insights I should have gained after this article.

Oh, well. I prefer Peter Paul Reubens to Andy Warhol any day.

Practical Technology Skills

2007-11-13T00:25:00.000-05:00

This blog is a revision to a column I wrote for Direct Media publications. Normally, I wouldn't repost something I wrote for hire, and I certainly don't wish to anger one of my publishers. However, since this blog is primarily accessed by one of my graduate seminars, I think the publisher will appreciate that I am extending my thoughts for educational purposes. I'm also more than willing to encourage businesses to visit the Direct Media home page.

Page numbers seemed to be a half-inch lower on each successive page. I stared at the mid-term paper, handed in to me by a junior at the university, and thought back to my fights with dot-matrix printers.

When I was an undergrad, my Epson FX/80 printer jammed often and would sometimes rip pages after the sprockets slipped out of alignment with the punched holes of the perforated paper. Surely the undergraduate author of this paper suffered the curse of a similarly possessed printer, I told myself.
“I guess when I changed the margins I forgot to retype the page numbers. At least I remembered to use five spaces to indent each paragraph.”

Sure enough, changing Microsoft Word’s options to enable viewing of “non-printing characters” revealed a document littered with extra spaces, manually numbered pages, and the occasional extra “hard return” used to maintain double-spaced text.

The next week, I used three class meetings to discuss what I think are essential word processing skills. Simply because they’ve grown up using computers doesn’t mean that college students know how to use popular software effectively.

Regardless of the application, there are some features that seem to apply to all popular word processors: tabs, styles, and page numbering are the most basic of these features.

I decided to ask other instructors if they were having similar experiences. Sure enough, most of the English instructors felt word processing skills were lacking, while our students had no difficulties preparing complex presentations. Many of the students we see can work wonders in iMovie and customize Web pages with minimal effort. There had to be an explanation.

I have come to think the difference in skills has to do with the “fun factor” and how we approach writing throughout the school years. If we allowed, and even encouraged, far more visually appealing documents, students might learn the real power of Word, Pages, OpenOffice, or WordPerfect.

Too often, word processing and spreadsheet applications are treated like the old technologies they replaced. My Epson printer supported variations of a single, simple, typestyle. By telling my students, 20 years later, that they can only use Modern Language Association approved formatting, I might as well be asking them to use a dot-matrix printer.

As an English teacher, I’m certainly not arguing that my students should stop caring about the words. What I am suggesting, and many instructors agree, is that communicating is now more than words. Even the textbooks we use to teach English demonstrate the value of varied fonts, color-coded text, and graphics.

When I taught at Fresno State, I asked students to exploit the power of Word. I was stunned by how quickly they begin to explore advanced features. (Fresno State's writing program was overseen by two professors quite willing to experiment with new ideas, thankfully!)

“I only used Word for papers before this class. I just did everything else on the Web,” a young woman told me. “I didn’t realize Word could actually be fun.”

Her paper had nice cover page, including a photograph relating to her paper topic. There was then a customized table of contents, which relied on the proper use of headings throughout the document. She had modified the default styles, making the font choices reflect her topic while still retaining an easy-to-read font for the text of the paper. Charts and tables reinforced her research.

Most importantly, it was her best writing of the semester. She told me that since it looked great, she had a realization: “People might read it.”

Discovery, driven by personal interest in a topic, is exciting to watch. Applications associated with work became tools for creative expression.

Word was no longer a mere homework tool, associated with drudgery and rigid rules left over from manual typewriters and carbon paper. Students even started to compare different applications, deciding which word processor they liked the most. They also came to appreciate that skills learned in one application can be applied in similar applications.

Once two students discovered you could insert an organization chart in Word, they became the class experts on diagramming family trees, company organizations, and flowcharts. Another student, a statistics major, taught himself how to use the equation editor included with Word.

Students began experimenting with spreadsheets as well. Basic, unformatted data included in papers became color-coded tables with properly aligned decimal points. It didn’t take long for students to learn you could update a spreadsheet in Excel and a related graph in Word would be updated. Best of all, I didn’t discuss any of this in class.

The English instructors at the university have talked about ways to use the World Wide Web to teaching writing, as well as the value of producing films and podcasts in our writing classes. What we hadn’t discussed until recently was how we could make something as common as word processing more relevant.

Most of my students are more humble now, having discovered how much they didn’t know about word processing. They assumed being able to type a document in Word was enough to consider yourself “expert” in the application. I cannot blame the students; we have not stressed practical knowledge enough in some of our classrooms. The other technologies often seem more fun, even to teachers.

When I first started teaching, a handful of “experts” thought our students needed to learn programming skills. Now, many of these same “experts” are suggesting we teach multimedia production skills. Ironically, the computer skills that are used in more workplaces get overlooked.

Our high school graduates should know how to create visually effective documents using word processors and spreadsheets.

Unlike video editing, the computers and software needed to create “fun” documents do not need to be the most powerful, most expensive computers on the market. Students with almost any home computer can enjoy playing with fonts, colors, and graphics. Once they find that “typing” and “word processing” are not the same, students might wonder how we ever managed to express ourselves in plain text.

Digital Writing Ideas

2007-10-28T17:55:00.000-04:00

Online composition and participation are always a requirement in the courses I teach. When I began teaching at Fresno State as a graduate student in 2004, I was one of the few instructors who required students use Blackboard on a weekly basis. I believe there are several reasons to use tools like Blackboard / WebVista:

Students can read and respond to the thoughts of their classmates.
I have a record of how writing (and thinking) improve during a semester
Peer editing can occur online, in small groups.
Students less vocal in class discussions tend to participate more online.

Normally, I post a "Weekly Response Question/Topic" based on class discussions during the week. Students can then extend the in-class discussion online. Those who were unable to speak up during the class have time to reflect and post their thoughts, too. By requiring every student to post at least 50 to 100 words a week, they soon engage each other in discussion.

I always use threaded discussions or blogs, but never live, synchronous chat. I am not comfortable with online chats and believe it would hurt my performance as a teacher.

Podcasts and Internet Radio

2007-10-28T03:15:00.000-04:00

You must read Podcasting News if you are interested in podcasts! The New York Times has NYTimes Podcasts covering almost every area of interest. For anyone and everyone, podcast.net is a directory of professional and amateur podcasts. Unfortunately, many podcasts come and go too quickly and the directory links to some ghost sites.

For October 30, 2007, we were instructed:

In your blog: listen to some podcasts and analyze different aspects of the production quality of these podcasts; then, reflect on ways that you could use writing to create podcasts or coursecasts; brainstorm some ideas for creating your own podcast: an interview, presentation...

I am a fan of Internet Radio, podcasting, and pretty much all things resembling "radio" in any form. For November 6, we have been asked to create a podcast of some form, and I certainly don't see a problem creating a theatrical production of some sort.

Podcasting has the convenience that most Web tools lack. A podcast listener can be riding train, jogging, or sitting at home. As a listener, I don't need to interact with the podcast; I can listen and think. I can review a segment several times, or skip boring segments. It beats reading a Web page!

Many of the podcasts I favor are radio archives, so they have the production quality of any good broadcast facility. I listen to KGO (San Francisco); podcasts allow me to listen to any show from the previous seven days. I can stream the audio from WCCO, for clarity, and then listen to shows that aired at the same time on KGO at my convenience.

On a technical side, I head for NYTimes because they have the best science and technology reporters on the Web. For general interest, I launch iTunes and simply browse both podcast listing and radio listings. I prefer audiobooks, especially film noir era mysteries.

podTheatre

As a playwright, I am drawn to podTheatre because it is similar to old-time radio (OTR) and Readers' Theatre. I love the notion of students learning about narrative structure, cooperative production, and even the value of oral traditions.

Communities Online

2007-10-28T02:56:00.000-04:00

For October 16, 2007...

Blog post: Add a YackPack plugin to your PBwiki (click on plug-ins) and try it out. Sign-up for tappedin.org (http://ti2.sri.com/tappedin/index.jsp) and explore its features for online chat (see how it was used at Hillcrest High School:
http://www.slideshare.net/sbgaddy/hillcrest-high-school-21st-century-project-student-products). Reflect on how you might use tappenin.org or other discussion sites (WebCT/Vista, Moodle, Drupal) or tools (IM’ing, etc.) or virtual/game sites (Second City, etc.) for online discussion.

I gave up trying plug-ins with OS X and Safari, which I think might happen in many educational settings. I just don't have the energy to manually link and setup so many items, even though I have done so with images and other elements in PBwki. As with Google Docs and other "Web 2.0" items not supporting Apple's browser at this time, I generally won't sacrifice my system to another browser. (FireFox is the only major alternative, though Camino is also a Mozilla application.)

As the discussion thread on the Society for Technical Communication's mailing list recently concluded:

"I'd rather have a sharp object inserted into my eye than deal with Second Life or a similar virtual world."

There are several reasons for this:

The animation is poor without a very powerful computer, and even then it seems to demand a lot of resources.
The movement can cause problems for some users, especially those with seizure disorders or migraines.
Most virtual worlds, for whatever reason, end up with the same social issues as "real life," with a bit more flirting and a lot more anger.
I hate most live chats, with or without animation, because I read slowly. Unless it is one-on-one, I get lost quickly.

I'm sure many students can and do accomplish a lot while multitasking online, but studies have also revealed that work suffers despite what students (and working adults) imagine they can do. When your attention is divided, even talking while driving, your overall effectiveness declines dramatically. We simply don't like to believe this is the case.

I like threaded discussions and have used them for several years as a teacher. However, interactive chats have ended up dominated by the same students who speak up during a traditional class session. I find asynchronous threads give more students a chance to participate.

Falling a Week Behind - Excuses

2007-10-28T02:42:00.000-04:00

I know excuses are inexcusable, and being even a week or two off schedule bothers me. But, the last few weeks have been miserable.

New Glasses. I've never worn prescription glasses before, but I ended up needing them to deal with some strange color separations and "starburst" effects I was seeing. The glasses ended up being incorrect the first time I tried them, so the optometrist had to repair them. I lost a week of computer use while struggling to see. Even now, I'm not used to the glasses.

Family Things. Let's just say that my wife's family will not be visiting from California. But, until Mother Nature's wrath was felt we had been rushing to accommodate visitors.

My Best (Feline) Friend Died. He was 16, and had been with me for a lot of years. Losing him was tough and both my wife and me; she even took time off work to care for him.

Not sure how any of this fits with pedagogy, but it goes to show that even the most obsessive student can get sidetracked by life events. The glasses prove that the visual aspects of the Web can trip us up, quite quickly in fact. The other issues were simply more stress and lost hours than I realized... proving students, including me, should work ahead!

Considering Place

2007-10-12T17:54:00.000-04:00

Ivanhoe, California

I am from Ivanhoe, California, and believe growing up in a small, Hispanic, farming community has influenced most of my decisions. Before viewing my slide show, I think you should know about the place I call home.

Population (year 2000):	4,474
Median resident age:	24.9 years
California median age:	33.3 years
Ivanhoe median household income in 2005:	$29,700
California median household income in 2005:	$53,629
Ivanhoe median house/condo in 2000:	$76,900
Ivanhoe median house/condo in 2005:	$159,100
California median house/condo in 2005:	$477,700

The ethnic composition of Ivanhoe also shaped my views on social issues:

Races in Ivanhoe
Hispanic	76.2%
Other race	40.4%
White Non-Hispanic	21.8%
Two or more races	9.5%
American Indian	2.0%

As you can tell, it is not what people imagine of California. My wife and I uploaded some of our photos of the area around Ivanhoe, which I have marked as a slideshow on Flickr. Somewhere in storage I have photos of Ivanhoe's Main Street, with Ivanhoe Hardware, Ivanhoe Drug, and a handful of small shops. The school in town is, of course, Ivanhoe Elementary, and the county library branch is under 1400 sq. feet.

This is home, but I also consider "home" to range from Sequoia to the Coast Range. On a clear day, you can see from Sequoia to the Pacific Coast Range, nearly 200 miles. Home will never be urban... but Los Angeles has some surprisingly wonderful national parks within an hour to two hours. (Los Padres is really great during the winter and spring months.) San Francisco used to be "closer" to farmland, but much of the wine country is sprouting homes.

My Views...

2007-10-10T13:25:00.000-04:00

I am a skeptic when it comes to technology in the classroom. From accounts like those found in The Flickering Mind: Saving Education from the False Promise of Technology, by Todd Oppenheimer, to the works of Larry Cuban, one finds a series of issues with technology that keep repeating every generation — as if technology and the excitement that always follows it will translate into better-educated students.

Oppenheimer is an award-winning San Francisco journalist who toured the country to study how computers were used in the classroom. He began as an optimistic believer in technology and ended the work on a skeptical note, almost a "back-to-basics" philosophy based on everything from the price of technology to the lack of technical support and training teachers generally receive.

Gene I Maeroff's work, A Classroom of One: How Online Learning Is Changing Our Schools and Colleges, is authored by one of the leading experts on education. Maeroff has written 11 books in 30 years and is a leading instructor (and administrator) at Teachers College. I read his work, which also begins with an optimistic view of technology, after my own M.A. research on the use of Blackboard in Cal State composition courses. My original research had to change as instructor after instructor stopped using Blackboard... a case of poor teacher buy-in and even worse technology (which has improved greatly in just two years).

I deal with special needs students. The technology doesn't always fit their needs: even issues as simple as color-blindness are ignored. I often dictate because of my own issues with sight and information processing. Most educational software and Web sites ignore my needs and those of people with more severe disabilities.

Most importantly, I want a pedagogical defense for technologies. Getting "excited" is not reason enough to use something. I want to know what skill it improves, how it improves it, and if students can expand to use analytical skills.

Finally, I do care about the "real world" and what employers want. Our students do not write well. I know this as an employer, not merely as a teacher. I've watched students I have hired struggle to make change for customers, read instruction manuals, and compose basic e-mails professionally. I want to know how technology helps with basics because I want students to succeed outside school.

I installed publishing systems during the 1980s and 90s in three schools. I've donated small computer labs when I thought they were appropriate. But, I need to know that teachers will use the labs in ways that help students later in life.

My students already have "digital literacy" and a deep skepticism of media. They need writing and math skills. Show me how those are being improved, and I'll be right there installing the network and computers.

As for the risks of online technologies — it is an issue of teacher training. Too many teachers don't understand the risks, ignore them, or imagine there's no way a student or parent will report a minor incident. Trust me, I've resigned from a teaching post after my "mentor" tried to push off blame for minor things.

My very first year with a "real" job (1991) ended abruptly after the teacher (a genuine "character" from a bad movie) was scanning pictures and commented on the anatomy of the female students in the images. Our conflicts increased, until I finally resigned mid-semester. This man was "teacher of the year" and had the video class, yearbook, and newspaper. He also ran the drama program. All the cool toys were "his" and not the school's.

The moment there were any issues, I was the one meeting with the principal and being told I was inappropriate. Technology was too hard to explain. It was clearly my fault digital editing was being used inappropriately. I was threatened (literally) by an administrator who said, "The parents of young girls might complain about you. It might be wise to think about other paths."

And so I went back to programming and selling computers for two or three years, knowing I had nothing to do with what was happening in the lab.

Technology comes with responsibilities. Once it costs you a job, you realize it isn't always used wisely.

My Views and a Bibliography Pt. 2

2007-10-10T13:20:00.000-04:00

Selected Bibliography

My views on the implementation of online writing curricula are also informed by the following texts and articles:

Anson, Chris M. "Distant Voices: Teaching and Writing in a Culture of Technology." College English 61.3 (1999): 261-80.

Applebome, Peter. "The on-Line Revolution Is Not the End of Civilization as We Know It. But Almost." New York Times 4 April 1999 1999, sec. Education Supplement: 26-28, 35-37.

Armstrong, Alison, and Charles Casement. The Child and the Machine : How Computers Put Our Children's Education at Risk. Updated ed. Carlton North, Vic.: Scribe Publications, 2001.

Beniger, James. The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986.

Berlin, James A. Rhetorics, Poetics, and Cultures : Refiguring College English Studies. Lauer Series in Rhetoric and Composition. West Lafayette, Ind.: Parlor Press, 2003.

Callister, Nicholas C. Burbules and Thomas A. "Universities in Transition: The Promise and the Challenge of New Technologies." Teachers College Record 102.2 (2000): 271-93.

Carnevale, Dan. "Online Instructor Cautions against Having Too Many Activities." Chronicle of Higher Education (2001).

Corbett, Edward P. J., Nancy Myers, and Gary Tate. The Writing Teacher's Sourcebook. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Cuban, Heather Kirkpatrick and Larry. "Computers Make Kids Smarter--Right?" Technos 7.2 (1998): 26-31.

Cuban, Larry. The Blackboard and the Bottom Line : Why Schools Can't Be Businesses. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004.

---. How Scholars Trumped Teachers : Change without Reform in University Curriculum, Teaching, and Research, 1890-1990. New York: Teachers College Press, 1999.

---. Oversold and Underused : Computers in the Classroom. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001.

---. Teachers and Machines : The Classroom Use of Technology since 1920. New York: Teachers College Press, 1986.

Daniel, Sir John. "Lessons from the Open University: Low-Tech Learning Often Works Best." Chronicle of Higher Education (2001): B24.

Eric Fredericksen, Alexandra Pickett, and Peter Shea. "Factors Influencing Faculty Satisfaction with Asynchronous Teaching and Learning in the Suny Learning Network." JALN 4.3 (2000).

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Mapping and Me

2007-10-06T01:03:00.000-04:00

For a graduate course in curriculum, we have been asked to experiment with "mind mapping" software.
As my previous post reflects, I've never been comfortable with such maps personally, though I realize many people find the exercises useful. I'm clearly in a minority. It is important that teachers understand any potential tool, whether or not they are comfortable, because students are not homogeneous in learning style. I love outlining... most people do not. I also like flowcharts, graphs, and charts. Order, lots of order, works to my advantage, even when my artistic output isn't "organized" in familiar ways.

Background

As an example of how to integrate new technologies for composition across the curriculum, I am proposing a series of units relating to radio. As radio has shifted to the Internet and podcasting, radio theatre has remained a part of the tradition, from rebroadcasts of classic "Old Time Radio" programs to original plays.

Mapping

I thought a good start for appreciating how "mapping" might apply was to study an example template in Inspiration 8. The template is meant to help students compose a biography of Marconi, inventor of the terrestrial AM radio.

Notice that the yellow, green, and peach colored boxes are aligned. Then notice the blue and periwinkle boxes. I can't get past the misaligned boxes. I can only imagine my elementary and junior high teachers watching me spend an entire class period trying to get a balanced design. I also want to know what some of the icons mean — they don't seem to relate to the topics. I had to think about the "brick wall" idiom, which initially escaped me. Being baffled by the map would only delay my work on the actual project: the biography.

I also decided to view an Inspiration map on radio waves:

At the gut-level, my reaction is "Eeek!" The mix of icons, colors, and the overall "busyness" of the two templates makes me cringe. I was tempted to spend hours "fixing" the colors and images to make them more pleasing to me. It isn't worth writing a list of complaints; the template would merely serve as a contrast to any I would personally design.

Would I Ever Map?

I'm trying to determine where my own graphical methods might approach the more "unstructured" nature of the maps I have seen. As I have written, I like flowcharts. I am also a fan of graphical entity relationship diagrams and database modeling to remind people how data tables are relational. Family tree diagrams are an example of relationships, as are taxonomic charts. Dichotomous relationships are an important tool in parsing, organizing, classifying, et cetera.

If any diagram can be considered a "map" then I map with some regularity. The Apple programming tools use a graphical data designer for CoreData, for example. Microsoft Access, most SQL tools, and serious programming tools are visually based today. Why? Because it is much easier to design interfaces when you are manipulating exactly what software users will see.

But, I never use graphical charting tools to create stories. Character sketches are done using tables, so I do not forget to think about a particular trait. I use tables to check plot structures, as well. Tables and timelines — linear tools — help me, even when a story might not be told in a linear manner.

An Uninspired Inspiration

A May 2006 review of Inspiration 8 appeared in MacWorld. I have to say that they were a lot kinder than I would be regarding the user interface:

Interface oddities
Although Inspiration 8’s interface is as straightforward as ever, it still suffers from a number of annoyances. For example, Inspiration’s Main and Formatting toolbars are fixed rather than floating, and the Formatting toolbar is relegated to the bottom of the window.

The application’s menus aren’t as logical as they could be, either. You import graphics using the Edit menu, yet you import videos and sounds using the Tools menu. Plus, some of the commands aren’t logically placed. For instance, all of the commands under the Utility menu would fit better elsewhere, while Preferences appear both in Utilities and the application’s own menu.

This might be the "least Mac-like" application I have used on my Mac outside the Unix applications I run from time-to-time. I kept getting the sense I was running a Windows application via Parallels. Inspiration is not a "Cocoa" application: it is a Carbon application, meaning it is based on an older programming framework. The use of Carbon means Inspiration works on OS 8/9 and it probably makes it easier to share code between PC and Mac versions, but the interface is jarring in some ways. Things are where Windows users expect them, which is why Preferences is under Utilities.

Even on Windows, formatting tools in applications belong at the top of the screen or I should have the option of moving them! At least let me "float" the tools, which is possible with the library of symbols in Inspiration.

MacWorld gave Inspiration 4.5 "Mice" (stars) and an overall good review for its support of curriculum standards. In other words, Inspiration is pre-packaged with a lot of templates teachers can use with minimal extra effort. I think that's generally a good thing: technology should not slow down teachers who are busy enough without mastering new software. On the other hand, a more "Mac-like" interface would make it easier to learn the software.

Would I Use Inspiration?

Yes, and this is a very important point to make: I might have students who would benefit from mind maps and other graphical organizers. I should never assume that my mental process is the dominant learning style; I know it isn't. Learning how to use Inspiration should not be difficult, though I will probably continue to long for features that aren't actually needed to their market.

I expect students would adapt to Inspiration more quickly than I am. I could see combining some ideas from Inspiration with OmniGraffle, which also has a (poor) outlining mode. I definitely prefer Omni Group's tools, but Inspiration's inclusion of so many templates would save a lot of time and effort when planning potential course lessons.

There's no doubt I will learn and use Inspiration in order to be well-informed and current with educational technology. I hope that enables me to help students who would benefit from the use of Inspiration. I definitely know some students who would gain a lot if they had to organize their ideas before typing a single sentence.

Mind Maps and Other Organizers

2007-10-02T00:44:00.000-04:00

The thoughts for this week are in response to:

In your blog: how might you digital note-taking tools (see links on the wiki) to have your students take notes/engage in prewriting activities? Create a digital map using Inspiration (use a free trial download: http://www.inspiration.com) about your potential final project topic; reflect on how you could use digital mapping for helping students exploring relationships between different topics/images.

I have to admit that I need more time to experiment with Inspiration 8, as well as other tools, because I am fairly set in my own note taking ways. Until I gather my thoughts a bit more, I can at least explain my own habits and my personal views on software tools.

Before I start, I'll make a pitch: If you use a Mac, the Omni Group makes some of the best organizational tools I have used. (http://www.omnigroup.com/) I like the fact Omni applications do not “feel” like PC software ported to the Mac — these are OS X applications from top to bottom.

I love Word's “Notebook View” on the Mac.
I use the Notebook View in Word in every course I take. I tried adopting OmniOutliner, which is a great program, but there are some Word features I use so often that not having them in OO was annoying. On Windows, the Notebook View would be analogous to OneNote, which comes with Office for Students, I believe.

There are times when OO is a better choice than Word. You can configure multiple columns with special features in OO, which is a really slick ability. I use checkboxes, pop-up lists, and even attachments.

What? Attachments? Yes, you can link OO line items to files! So, if I have a point that refers to an Excel file, I can "attach" the file to my outline. That's a great tool.

If only I could mix the best of Word and OO, I'd be set.

Notes help me a lot, even when I am planning a project. I take a lot of notes, make lists, and consider what will and will not work.

OmniGraffle and Visio are good if I must be graphical.

I'm not into random "clouds" or maps — I like linear organization and nice, neat lines. Anything random upsets me, literally. OmniGraffle, which is like Visio in many ways, helps me create perfect flowcharts and diagrams, aligned with a grid and connecting items via “snaps” that are always on corners or centers of sides.

Other Thoughts

I am not one for “freewriting” or other forms of brainstorming. I like to think slowly, carefully, and develop my thoughts internally. I think that is what makes me a decent writer and a good programmer. Maybe free associations and random thoughts work for others, but I need to pause and reflect on every thought. Even the nature of blog postings makes me uncomfortable at times; I like to edit my words multiple times, revising word choices and sentences.

To assume that mapping, clouds, freewriting, and other tasks will help students is to assume a great deal about the nature of human thought. I often wrote stories, and then outlined them, to please teachers. I would do this because they insisted you could only write if you had completed the various pre-writing tasks. Nonsense, for me, and I have my earliest notebooks from elementary school and junior high to show that wrote complete stories without such tasks on paper.

This does not mean that I did not pre-write in my mind, but it means that putting the thoughts on paper needed to be done in completed story form. If I tried their approach, I would waste hours trying to get circles and lines perfectly placed on a page. I'd spend so much time with the need for visual perfection that my anxiety would overwhelm me.

Software tools for planning my writing have had much the same result. I end up trying to perfect designs in the applications instead of getting to work. There's little benefit in being frustrated and overwhelmed by “planning” when I already have a completed story or most of a paper outlined in my mind.

Then again, not everyone can “see” computer code executing in their mind, either...

vlog Test

2007-09-25T01:52:00.000-04:00

Our House

What better experiment for a vlog than a short video of our remodel in progress. Of course, I set the video to some nice jazz, too.

CI 5410: Research and RSS

2007-09-13T20:50:00.000-04:00

Blog post: describe the search methods and databases you employ to collect information for use in your writing; how do you determine the validity and credibility of the information you acquire and how you categorized and organize that information for use in writing; how might you use RSS feeds to Bloglines or Google Reader to enhance your students how could you improve your students’ search strategies (see the Teachers Teaching Teachers site) Work on your vlog

This week we are being asked to consider two very different topics, so I'm going to split my response accordingly. However, I'm also going to take a detour, which isn't that unusual for me. I like detours.

[rant]
Knowing a blog is for a course, especially a course on teaching writing/composition using online technologies, leads to blog posts that are anything but "bloggy" in nature. Instead of a wry wit or wandering observations, the writing feels controlled — mediated by the context to the point it is an anti-blog. Sure, these are my opinions and experiences, but carefully couched and positioned so I sound "academic" in the posts. Blech. That's not how I write for magazines, for theatre, or even in technical manuals, which definitely scream out for humor now and then.
[/rant]

Searching the Web

Searching for information online always concerns me. I don't trust information online unless it comes from a source I would trust in the physical world (and I wouldn't trust an encyclopedia for serious work). Depending on what I am researching, I tend to follow the following pattern:

Is there a primary source Web site?

For an author, scientist, or other individual, is there a "personal" page?
For a company, organization, or government agency, is there an official site?

Can I locate an online version of a "secondary" journal I trust?

I subscribe to Scientific American, MIND, and others I trust.
I use standard secondary databases, like PubMed (nih.gov), ERIC, and the SilverPlatter set

I e-mail writers, scientists, and others directly

Most university researchers have a public e-mail
Many authors and others will respond to a polite e-mail

I tell people not to trust what I write... which probably says something about how deep my skepticism runs. If someone visits one of the Web sites I maintain (the Tameri Guide for Writers or the Existential Primer, for example), they will find lists of original sources to consult and even a warning that our sites are not substitutes for reading the primary works.

Reading about The Stranger is not the same as reading Camus' work. Students have always tried to get around assignments, but the Internet makes the temptation to short-circuit a meaningful assignment all the stronger.

We all know that 90 percent of the Web "commentary" is fluff, authored by people without expertise or training. The ten percent of great content isn't always obvious. You have to find out about the content authors and editors before trusting information.

RSS Gone Wild

As a spoiled Mac user, I have long used RSS feeds as part of Safari. The downside of being a Safari user is that some Blogger and pbWiki features aren't available. Honestly, not having a "Word-like" editor in Blogger doesn't bother me, since I know the security holes such things open. Once you get addicted to built-in RSS feeds, instant dictionary access, and other slick extras, you're a Mac/Safari power-user.
RSS on the Mac means...

Never having to see an ad, pop-up, or animation of any kind!
Being able to adjust how much of the text from each feed you see.

You can set to headlines only, first line, first paragraph, etc.

Grouping feeds together in folders

You can open all RSS feeds as one page, open in separate tabs, or open in separate windows.
You can nest as many folders as you want (News > Tech > InfoWorld > Mac)

Complete control over colors and fonts

I absolutely adore RSS feeds. For years I have also used AvantGo, which transfers Web feeds and articles to my Palm device. I'll spend an hour or more a day reading the Palm, and I hate small screens.
Certainly my students would see my feeds — CNN feeds are my screen saver! I change my screen saver RSS to Science Daily, Washington Post, and other sites every few weeks. RSS feeds are a wonderful way to sort through the clutter to "real" content on the Web.

Granted, I'm not normally inclined to subscribe to a blog site... unless it is actually a feed of columns / articles by a writer I trust. I am addicted to Howard Kurtz, for example. It's fun to read about why I shouldn't be reading the Web.

With or without Safari, I'd encourage students to explore RSS feeds. I might object to Bloglines or other services that are really nothing but data mining resources for media conglomerates, but I know of several free readers and alternatives. The downside is that most of these don't allow the sharing of RSS lists. Honestly, it isn't that hard to code RSS URLs into a Web page or blog, so that's an alternative approach.

As for using RSS, I'd teach student to organize feeds, since the real problem with searching for data in any form is organizing the results.

End of wildly rambling post that lacks sufficient humor.

Thoughts on Video Blogs (Vlogs)

2007-09-09T17:02:00.000-04:00

Responding to the following:

Select one vlog that you like and describe what you like about this vlog, possibly including a link to or screen shot of this vlog in your post.

Whom do you think is the audience for this vlog and what aspects of the vlog are designed to appeal to this audience?

What video/editing techniques are employed in this vlog and how effective are they?

The video I selected, after watching too many others, was a 2004 profile of artist Lillian Colton.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPRYe9xs0x0

The secret to having a good time at the Minnesota State Fair is finding those lingering connections to its rural roots. That means clog dancing, baby farm animals, and of course crop art. Rumor has it, you can see Bjork and Al Franken rendered in seeds this year. But it's not quite the same without legendary crop artist Lillian Colton, who passed away earlier this year.

This video is one of a series produced by Mike Dust for Colton's 2004 exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

The segment on Colton was more professional than most. Mike Dust seems to be an artist, like Ken Burns, dedicated to documenting ways of life. I appreciated the editing, high-quality sound, and overall content of the video. I felt like I was learning something instead of being entertained with frivolity. The fact the subject is no longer living ensures the video is perceived as an oral history. If I were interested in regional history or folk arts, this video would be an excellent resource.

I would much rather watch something like this on a larger screen, ideally as part of a full series. The computer video size, a limit of technology, is not always easy to view comfortably. The video streams of even the highest quality skip frames, which can cause eyestrain and even a headache in my case. Until the technology improves, the viewing experience hurts even a quality documentary.

Much of what I saw on Minnesota Stories would not be a considered a "vlog" — many were segments taken from local television, including PBS / Minnesota Public Broadcasting, with inane comments posted in response. Some of the videos were simply the standard nonsense posted to YouTube; not exactly elevating the artistic form of video. Truly creative images would require a great deal of effort to locate, in a medium I don't generally appreciate.

The most popular video, one on the monthly Critical Mass bicycle demonstration, was a segment from KARE 11 News. The video was choppy, dropped frames, and the sound skipped several times. I have a high-end laptop with a huge, fast hard drive and cutting-edge video. My cable modem connection is good. There's no technical reason on my end that the video should have been so poor.

If you were to create a vlog post for this course, what form might it take: autobiographical recollection; political statement a la The Daily Kos; instructional demo, for example, of a composing processes; a literary text, etc.

If I must create something, it would not include video or sound of me. I don't wish to add to the partisan vitriol of the Internet, certainly, and the primary reason I maintain a Web presence is because it is a good place to store documents I use for work. My wife maintains photo sites for family and friends, but the pictures are not of us — they are of the house or our cats. It usually requires family asking for the photos before we post new images.

Poet Posts...

2007-09-07T01:27:00.001-04:00

I have several blogs, some public and some not-so-public. This blog is specifically for ramblings on "digital writing" and how we might use new technologies to improve the writing skills of students. My other blogs range from photos of my cats to updates on life in Minnesota so my friends can share in my adventures. In some ways, these are the same uses students have: vanity sites (who else cares about my cats?) and keeping in touch with friends. The question we need to ask is if using these technologies can improve writing in ways other tools might not. Or, are we merely entertaining students with new toys, deceiving ourselves into thinking what is more exciting must result in more learning.

I am a skeptic, having been a business owner, corporate executive, and college administrator. Technology might not only do little good, it might encourage bad habits and mistaken notions of what is acceptable when writing later in life.

My first required posts will be this weekend. I've never bothered with YouTube or online videos because video tends to hurt my eyes and cause literal physical discomfort. I have seen YouTube videos on television and wonder why people would seek out such things. Let us hope the video blogs I view are somewhat more appealing. Just seeing what is listed as "most popular" on YouTube and MySpace should scare any social critic.

I'm not sure asking students to frequent sites best known for videos of profane comedy and stupid stunts ending badly is wise. Maybe I can be convinced otherwise, but I am a skeptic.