Poet Ponders the Digital

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 tech...

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 wit...

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...

Wedding Style: Virtual Valley April 12, 2011 Deadline Special to Wedding Style (Summer) The Wedding Planner: Google Your Big Day Great wedding planners help with everything from guest lists to creating photo albums of your special day. My recently married cousin also had a website with photos and information for friends and family unable to attend in person. Sharing via the Web is now as much a part of the complete wedding process as sending thank you notes. Where do you search for a wedding planner with Web savvy? You Google it! No, I don’t mean you search for a wedding planner via Google. You can now use Google as your wedding planner. In early 2011, Google launched “Google Weddings,” a site dedicated to helping couples plan the big event. Wedding planners can also use the site, allowing them to easily access plans from any computer with an Internet connection. Google has joined with Michelle Rago, a respected New York event planner and co-author of Signature Weddings: C...