Category Archives: Announcements

Mid-Semester Check-In Conferences

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Mid-Semester grades will be coming to you this Thursday (10/22), and I’d like to hold another round of individual conferences with you next week to touch base, go through you work in more detail, and address any questions/concerns we might have at this point.

These are the slots that I have open. It’s first-come, first-serve (though the earlier spots will be reserved for those who do not have class after ours, in the Voorhees building). Just drop a comment here, indicating which slot you’d like, and I’ll reserve that for you.

Tuesday (10/27)

  • 1:00-1:20pm: Sam
  • 1:00-1:40pm: Pam
  • 4:00-4:20pm: Fola
  • 4:20-4:40pm

Thursday (10/29)

  • 1:00-1:20pm: Jody
  • 1:20-1:40pm: Mariah
  • 4:00-4:20pm: Ashley
  • 4:20-4:40pm:

As always, we’ll be meeting in my office, N520.

How to embed Prezi presentations in OpenLab posts

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Hi everyone! The OpenLab Team just posted a tutorial on how to properly embed a Prezi presentation into a post so that the presentation itself shows up in the post, not just the link (Pamela, this is what you were asking about last week). Click here to learn how to embed your Prezi, and use this method for all future presentations (please also go back, when you get a chance, & update the Prezi links in your last presentations, on Exploring Social Media, so they embed properly). Happy embedding 🙂

Class Discussions

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Throughout the semester, we will continue discussions we are having in class (or start new ones) on our OpenLab course site. There are low-stakes conversations, but crucial to our work together this semester (consistent, engaged participation in OpenLab Class Discussions is a significant component of your OpenLab Composing grade for the semester).

The goal is to participate early and often, to ensure good virtual discussions that will help you to think critically about the readings/ideas/projects of the course. Therefore, your comments need not be very long: for example, you can provide an idea, provocation (question meant to spark discussion/debate), provide quote/citation (MLA format) and a few sentences of explanation of how/why it functions in the context of some larger issue/question, raise questions, complicate issues, extend discussions, analyze a new media text, etc. You can also link to outside sources, broadening the scope of our conversation beyond the texts we are reading together, and strengthening your ability to find/analyze/synthesize various pieces of evidence in support of claims/arguments.

For each Class Discussion, you should provide initial responses (in the form of “comments”) as soon as possible, to get the conversation going, and then return to the Discussion to continue it, posting multiple comments, and also responding to others (not just to the initial prompt). If you’ve already discussed some of these instances in your previous blogs or in class, you should feel free to draw on that material. The Class Discussions will remain open through the semester, so you should feel free to continue the conversation even beyond the original week we are actively discussing it: your ideas will continue to grow/change as you do your work, so our Class Discussions remain an living archive/forum to return to, a space for us to work through this evolving knowledge of new media composing.

I also strongly encourage you to begin your own class discussions, when you come across something in the readings that you want to discuss further (perhaps something you don’t quite understand, or agree with), or something (such as an article, video, etc.) that you are connecting to the course and that you want to share with others. Anyone should feel free to start a Class Discussion post at any time (just categorize it as “Class Discussion”).

Response Blog #2: The September 11 Digital Archive

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One of the texts you will be working with this week is the The September 11 Digital Archive. You should browse through the website, which (in its own words),

“uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the history of September 11, 2001 and its aftermath. The Archive contains more than 150,000 digital items, a tally that includes more than 40,000 emails and other electronic communications, more than 40,000 first-hand stories, and more than 15,000 digital images. In September 2003, the Library of Congress accepted the Archive into its collections, an event that both ensured the Archive’s long-term preservation and marked the library’s first major digital acquisition.”

After browsing this crowdsourced, multimodal archive, you should blog a response/reflection to 9/11 (categorize it under “The September 11 Digital Archive”).

This Friday is the 14th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and the day holds different (and often quite personal and emotional) meanings for each of us. Therefore, the exact nature of this blog is up to you. You should in some way respond to your experience and reading of The September 11 Digital Archive, thinking about it both as a new media text and an archive of a tragic event (this is a very challenging task, to try to look at this both objectively and subjectively).

What does it mean to aggregate all of these stories, all of this data about the event? How do these stories, together, represent an overall picture of the event’s unfolding? How do the materials in this archive differ from other types of reports on the event? etc. However, I encourage you to pair this response with a personal reflection about the 9/11 events or their aftermath and/or a discussion of an article or media about the event (if you choose this approach, please try to link to the text … there will be a lot of media discussion about 9/11 due to the upcoming anniversary of the attacks). If you’ve been to the 9/11 memorial you can blog about your experiences there as well.

This assignment is really is an open-ended post that encourages you to bring in your own experiences/reflections and to use a variety of media (whether images, audio, video, links to other sites) to describe those experiences and reflections.

No Response Blog Due for Tomorrow :)

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Hi ladies! A quick note to say that my Labor Day gift to you is … no response blog for tomorrow 🙂

We’ll do a good deal of writing over the break in classes the next few weeks, when we’ll be using OpenLab to stay in conversation even when we don’t meet in person as a class. Therefore, use this time to catch up on all the readings (re-reading them, if necessary), and make sure you have mastered them.I expect everyone to have all assigned readings (to date) in class with them tomorrow, with their notes/questions, and to be ready to present to the class on any of the material covered so far, including in-class discussions (this will count as an oral quiz). See you at 2pm!

&, thanks Pamela for posting the Class Notes!

Reminder: First Response Blogs Due (& some thoughts to get you going)

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Hi ladies … thanks for the great Introductions! Just a friendly reminder that for tomorrow you have your first reading response due. All blogs are always due the night before class, at 11:59pm (so technically this first post is due tonight!), but since this is your first blog and the reading was a bit heavy, you can submit your posts until 1pm tomorrow. Yay for me being nice 🙂

Just a reminder that you should check out the OpenLab Composing section on our site, to learn more about expectations and guidelines for your posts. Your response blogs should definitely show that you’ve done the reading (so you should reference them), but you should not spend the posts simply summarizing the material. Find something in one of the readings (or multiple readings: synthesis is good!) that strikes you, that you are intrigued by, or have questions about, and that you want to discuss. Maybe you were struck by the concept of “mediation” in the “Mediated Me” chapter and want to discuss how your life is mediated by various technologies, and the affordances / constraints they offer. Or maybe Manovich’s “Principles of New Media” prompt you to analyze some type of new media you encounter on a daily basis, and think about how they fuction. Maybe, in light of the readings, you want to use this space to think through, comparatively, how you compose in different settings (digital, networked, print, etc.). Or maybe you want to revisit the two Virginia shooting articles in light of this week’s readings, considering how new media is a key component of those stories. Or maybe something else entirely. This choice is yours: the only thing to keep in mind is that your discussion should be grounded in the texts you read, and should show you providing critical analysis and connections among the readings and your experiences / lives (and remember, it’s ok–and encouraged–to post things you didn’t fully understand, and to post questions to the class for further discussion!). I encourage you to provide images, videos, links, etc. in your posts as you see fit.

Happy blogging!