rhetoric_in_cyberspace

do not blog more than 5 times a day

2004-12-06T21:54:00.000-05:00

Found this while next blog blogging

:Do Not Blog More Than 5 Times Per Day:

Of course there is a context.... still, i just enjoyed the warning and thought you-all might get a kick out of it as our own blog rolls along

http://english110genres.blogspot.com/2004/12/notice-to-my-students-as-seen-on-bb.html#comments

blogging during class

2004-11-23T20:45:00.000-05:00

Ok. So I'm blogging during this evening's workshop.

Liz, Elif, Shanestelle, Don and Amanda are all busy working on their websites.

I'm checking up on email.... in between rolling around the lab on the chair and looking over folks' shoulders....

some great websites/electronic essays are coming together here in this room....

ok, cheers, and happy thanksgiving

c-span series of the digital future

2004-11-15T09:43:00.000-05:00

DIGITAL FUTURE
Series Broadcast on C-SPAN
David Weinberger, former senior internet adviser to the 2004 Howard Dean presidential campaign, will discuss how Web logs work & how they are valuable in children's education.

SERIES DESCRIPTION

Beginning Monday, November 15, 2004 until March 2005, C-SPAN will broadcast live a series of discussions hosted by the Library of Congress' John W. Kluge Center. The series will examine how the digital age is changing the most basic ways information is organized and classified. The goal is to educate the public on the what the digital age means to their lives. The events will include a featured speaker, followed by a panel discussion, and a question and answer session with the audience at the venue, and C-SPAN television viewers. Our viewers will be invited to email questions to the experts.

Books and Sentences

2004-11-05T12:30:00.000-05:00

21 Dog Years @ Amazon by Mike Daisey
Mike Daisey’s, the main character and author of 21 Dog Years @ Amazon, position in customer service exists because of a “less-than-disciplined” audience who is unwilling to conform to a new medium, and Daisey documents his experience in his book and blog, which may be difficult for blog virgins to understand. (Amanda)

Life without a Net edited by Lou Anders
Though I see much of the language of cyberspace, interpretive communities and rhetorical tropes of links and images found in the fiction, I expected a larger vision of the future which presented things I had never thought of rather than the ordinary. (Liz)

Remediation by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin
Like Brookes, Bolter and Grusin suggest that a new, more immediate way of thinking, composing, reading and communicating is emerging with new media, but this new mode is not really new or immediate—just a different combination of old elements (i.e., immediacy + hypermediacy = remediation). (Carl W)

Steal This Computer Book III by Wallace Wang

Read Me First by Ann Sellers (a Sun Technical Publication)
Computers and information technology have become so important, according to Ann Sellers’ Read Me First that it has become rather imperative that people have an understanding of its use {and an understanding of different styles within which IT can be used?}. (Donald)

Cyberpunk and Cyberculture by Dani Cavallaro
The book gave me the insight on the genre of science fiction and now I am more disciplined to understand the issues of cyberculture. (Sonia)

The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas Friedman
Friedman’s book supports Collin Brookes’s view of IT as a new usage of language through the breadth of evidence provided regarding the integral role of IT in transforming world financial markets through the ease and sophistication of electronic communication. (Stephen)

In the Beginning Was the Command Line by Neal Stephenson
In In the Beginning Was the Command Line, Stepehnson argues that information technology requires an evolution of language, often in the form of jargon and applied metaphor, to simplify complex processes and create a foundation of universal “computer literacy” (required by the “global” or “connected” nature of computers and the internet). (Emily)

Wired Style by Constance Hale and Jessie Scanlon
By listing the definitions and common usages of computer and cyberspace-related words, Wired Style shows the new associations of the words and phrases, many of which require knowing the environments that created them. (Shanestelle)

Digital Sensations by Kenneth Hillis
This book, Digital Sensations, relates to Brookes’s thesis that cyberspace represents a new use of language, because virtual realities are, for examples, based on a language of computer codes that is completely different from what we use in our everyday lives, which require us to be disciplined and be part of an interpretative community where that language is understood. (Elif)

agenda for 11/2

2004-11-01T16:26:00.000-05:00

first we will talk about carl's and liz's proposed projects and websites

then we will hear from elif about hillis's book

then we will try to draw together issues, concepts, theories from the book talks so far

then we will hear from amanda, shanestelle and liz

recovering from last night

2004-10-27T14:21:00.000-04:00

whew.... at some point last night, Gershenfeld's idea that the computer screen is really a poor interface for reading (i.e., it's like shinning a flash light through a piece of paper and into your eyes) was very forcefully driven home. I guess I can now say that I have learned something new from a migrain headache.

I have an idea I want to float by people. What do you-all think about writing a blog as a final exam? I'm not saying that we are going to do this, but I'm thinking about it. We could keep a communal blog, post to it (I could see and grade whatever any individual is writing), comment on each other's post, and in that way cover the course concepts. I could do some grading formula along the lines of 75% for your individual posts, and 25% for the communal dynamic, effectiveness, and interplay with comments. What do you think?

10/26

2004-10-26T17:44:00.000-04:00

tonight's agenda

hear from Stephen and Donald on their sites

hear from Emily, Elif, and Shan-estelle on their books

hear from Carl, Liz, and Amanda on their sites

maybe, maybe, maybe talk about CSS

theme: emerging ways of reading, emerging types of literacy

2004-10-21T15:29:00.000-04:00

On Amanda's blog there is discussion of different types of reading

Emily links to this, and comments about Amanda's point on her own blog

Not sure.... what/where/how this develops but it does seem to be an issue that is bubbling up (or maybe being recursively returned to) through our readings as well as the activities that we kicked every thing off with....

thoughts?

connective themes

2004-10-21T15:11:00.000-04:00

I'm browsing in and out.... reading posts about the different presentations.... and trying to figure out themes/issues that are cutting across different books/presentations

anyone else finding any?

for class on 10/19

2004-10-19T12:01:00.000-04:00

Ok, as promised, here's the plan for this evening

a). complete proposed phd survey
b). review elif's, emily's, and sonia's sample webpages and discuss their proposals
c). concepts from books and so far.... & writing activity
d). review stephen's and donald's sample webpages and discuss their proposals
e). book talks: sonia on Covallaro's _Cyberpunk and Cyberculture_ and stepehen on Freidman's _Lexas and the Olive Tree_

list of blogs

2004-10-12T15:18:00.000-04:00

awhile ago carl asked about lists of blogs.... here's one that you-all might enjoy

http://kairosnews.org/node/view/3719

Levy's "No Net?" article

2004-10-06T13:04:00.000-04:00

Here's the link to Levy's "No Net?" article from Newsweek http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6161343/site/newsweek/

list of our blogs

2004-10-06T12:21:00.000-04:00

since i'm tired of BB and its frames, here is the list of our blogs on a straight blog post.... much easier to surf among blogs this way ;-)

Liz <http://bikevoice.blogspot.com>

Amanda <http://theoperaghost.blogspot.com/>

Elif <http://myrhetoricincyberspace.blogspot.com>

Sonia <http://fleckinspace.blogspot.com>

Donald <http://electmeplease.blogspot.com/>

Shan-Estelle <http://theworldthewayiseeit.blogspot.com>

Carl <http://topoftheroom.blogspot.com>

Stephen <http://abullnamedflash.blogspot.com>

Emily <http://peacebegins.blogspot.com>

How Do Steal and Read Relate to Course Themes?

2004-10-06T12:14:00.000-04:00

After last night's discussion of Steal This Computer Book 3 and Read Me First, I asked you to think about how these books connected to the issues we had talked about in the course.

Donald suggested that there was a connection with Bolter and Grusin's concept of remediation. We then touched quickly upon the idea that there was an emerging "international English," in this case tied in specifically with software development and documentation. Play with these ideas on your blogs these next two weeks and let's see where we end up.

btw, I really enjoyed the discussion about the design of Shanestelle site. I like the project and I like the way everyone had good constructive comments to make. We'll really get down to the brass tacks of design discussions when we return from fall break.

list of blogs

2004-10-05T14:52:00.000-04:00

I've decided that we need our list of blogs on a blog rather than hidden within Blackboard. So here they are:

Liz http://bikevoice.blogspot.com
Amanda http://theoperaghost.blogspot.com/
Elif http://myrhetoricincyberspace.blogspot.com
Sonia http://fleckinspace.blogspot.com
Donald http://electmeplease.blogspot.com/
Shan-Estelle http://theworldthewayiseeit.blogspot.com
Carl http://topoftheroom.blogspot.com
Stephen http://abullnamedflash.blogspot.com
Emily http://peacebegins.blogspot.com

Happy reading and happy blogging!

agenda for 10/5

2004-10-05T14:47:00.000-04:00

ok, tonight's agenda sounds much shorter than last week's (9/28) where we had the extensive review of concepts.

tonight we will:

talk about the emerging issue of labor, gen x-y-z-, and cyberspace
hear from Carl (and hopefully Don) about their books
review Elif's, Emily's and Shanestelle's proposals and testbed sites
deal with CSS

British Library site

2004-09-29T13:35:00.000-04:00

Here's the BL site where you can turn the pages of some very old manuscripts. I showed this to everyone last night.

must talk about linking from a blog to a blog with a link WITHIN Blackboard

2004-09-28T22:28:00.000-04:00

or.... in other words why and how blackboard can be a devil of sorts..... the problem with frames and the reasons frames are "good" (or at least viewed as good by some folks.... a forced "stickiness" issue(i.e., the concept from Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point).

Baghdad Blog

2004-09-28T15:44:00.000-04:00

In a comment down below, Carl asked about bloggers having influence on the media. Salam Pax's Baghdad Blog is now a book Baghdad Blog.

Agenda for this evening (9/28)

2004-09-28T13:50:00.000-04:00

Tonight's agenda:

Talk about creating links among our blogs,

links to particular posts within a blog,
BB and frames +/-

Major Course Concepts So Far (Group Review)

hive mind/blogsphere/wikis
Bolter/Grusin Remediation/Hypermediacy/Immediacy
"audience must be 'disciplined'" (emily) back to Fish and Iser
brooks's thesis according to carl m. "computer technology represents a revolution in the way language is used" +/-, agree/disagree, why?
Aristotle's appeals
links & images (concepts as well as code)

Books

Amanda 21 Dog Years
Liz All Tomorrow's Parties
Writing Activity:

Key Concepts,
Responses,
Links to Major Course Concepts

Dreamweaver and Web Stuff

basic code, a review
links & images
CSS

2004-09-28T13:18:00.000-04:00

Stephen sent this link along earlier about wikis.... http://www.dailypress.com/technology/ats-ap_technology12sep27,0,3489773.story?coll=sns-technology-headlines

...a brief discussion of what Wiki sites are, advantages/disadvantages of the protocol, how the idea is being used for public and private ends, more...

a college and community activism

2004-09-23T12:46:00.000-04:00

On Long Island, folks in the eastern part of the island want to keep their local college. Note the way in which the design of the blog is very much like a newspaper (i.e., think of Bolter and Grusin and Remediation)

just a post

2004-09-23T12:40:00.000-04:00

well the email system has stalled so i'm just waiting and thought i'd post

class on Tuesday went well. folks had time in the workshop to ask questions and trouble shot particular problems they were having with dreamweaver.

a blog for a lit class

2004-09-23T10:01:00.000-04:00

i just wanted to save this link in case i end up talking about blogs as part of a faculty development workshop http://lit325.blogspot.com/

on useit, the art department, and bn.com

2004-09-15T16:57:00.000-04:00

just a quick note to underscore the ending point of last night's discussing...

useit.... functional website, draws on text and links
ODU art department..... graphics "intensive" including the idea of "text/writing" as graphic
bn.com..... synthesis of these two "extreme" styles of web design

also, remember our discussions about the elements of a website and the genre of a website.

these concepts will be useful as we talk about and analyze compositions/writing/websites in cyberspace...

sample of a link to another blog post

2004-09-14T20:10:00.000-04:00

Amanda's new job

link to an article on blogging and $

2004-09-14T00:39:00.000-04:00

got this link to an article on blogging for $s from Stephen

http://www.dailypress.com/technology/ats-ap_technology11sep12,0,2637798.story?coll=sns-technology-headlines

Bloggers Find Clicks Don't Mean Cash

By ELLEN SIMON
AP Business Writer

September 12 2004, 8:51 PM EDT

short, last notes to be expanded on later

2004-09-12T14:08:00.000-04:00

stephen's remark about brooke's piece as "dated" feels important, worth circling back to.

emily's: "As with any new technology, the audience must be "disciplined" to perceive the information from a different perspective." comment fits exactly with Elif's and Carl's.... and that tension around readability that I am trying to get us to look at.

some further thoughts

2004-09-12T13:58:00.000-04:00

just to add to my comments about Elif's post, I think the same tensions are seen in Carl's comment about Collin Brooke's piece:

I'm not sure I accept the overall thesis of the piece--i.e. that computer
technology represents a revolution in the way language is used. It might be true
for some, but not for me.

Although Carl's blog is cautious/critical of the IT "revolution," I find it noteworthy that he is able to quickly summarize the thesis of Collin's remediation of style piece. This suggests something about the readability of the piece. (ok more to talk about....)

comments on student blogs

2004-09-12T10:33:00.000-04:00

ok, so the blog posts all made their way online last week, and now I finally have a chance to read and comment on more than just Liz's and Amanda's blogs.

Elif's post on Collin Brooke's "Prespectives" brings up a major tension that I wanted us to discuss. Elif writes,

Collin Brooke’s essay "Perspective:
Notes Toward the Remediation of Style" seems as a very successful Flash Movie.
It was enjoyable to go through this essay. Words that are flashing upon mouse’s
rolling over and moving upon clicking, and its interactive style in general
create an effective impression in one’s mind. However, when I finish going
through the whole essay, I realize that I would have done more out of it, if it
had not been carried to the cyberspace this way. Moreover, I realize that I
would rather read such an academic essay in a text-based format. That is
because, in this presentation, you do not have the chance to go back during you
read the essay. You can only go back to the beginning when you come to the end,
but do not have enough manipulation over the essay when you are in the middle of
it. Also, you do not have the chance to copy and paste any part so that you may
have a chance to reread it. That increases the chances for missing points and
decreases the efficiency while reading the essay for the first time.

The tension that I am interested in is the difference between Elif's note that Brooke has created "a very successful Flash Movie" (contrast with her negative review of Orbital) and her realization that she "would rather read such an academic essay in a text-based format." Here we have the difficulties of reading in cyberspace foregrounded. Many academic journals have moved to electronic distribution systems (i.e., pdf files available through library subscription services), yet few have tried the types of publication format Enculturation is putting forward. By pushing the envelope and trying to represent advanced conceptual research in rhetoric and composition in Flash, researchers/authors/developers are bound to encounter resistance. (i.e., to strength Elif's polite critique, I could say, "How the hell do I read this stuff? How do I remember any of it? How do I make it useful?"). It would be easy to dismiss. Yet, I have a sense that composing in new environments, reading differently is a vast and important enterprise. One that needs to be thought through in terms of academic works, and poetic works (such as Orbital). I imagine many failures and partial creations before new styles, new methods of composing emerge....

Another fascinating point to me is the way that Bolter's concept of remediation plays in here. The scholarly journals that have remediated print by using the web to distribute pdf files make electronic text look just like print text. This makes it much easier for us to digest, to read, to comprehend, because the textual conventions are just like what we are fimilar with. That is, to draw on Stanley Fish again, the conventions of the discourse community are more easily met with pdf files than with flash movies.

So, we have another point to talk about on Tuesday evening. cheers,

making more work for myself

2004-09-12T10:22:00.000-04:00

ok, so i should keep up with the projects I have on the stove right now rather than creating new ones. But, blogging again has gotten to me, and well, I decided to try and crete a blog that would be a useful scholarly tool for folks besides just me.

Here it is http://writingassessment.blogspot.com/

The idea is to put into serious practice the concepts we are discussing in this class. Use blogs, use cyberspace as tool, a mode of communication. Think through issues related to my research in a different, very public space. There is a risk here. What if I do nothing? What if no one reads it? But there is also the potential for keeping a public record as well as my own personal record of research and thought. I keep thinking of T.S. Eliot's line about light casting the shadow of nerves upon a screen (misquote I'm sure), but the idea holds. Blogspace as constantly throwing the nerves of the swarm, the hive upon the screen of the internet....

further thoughts from class

2004-09-09T12:01:00.000-04:00

So, we introduced Bolter and Grusin's concepts of remediation, hypermediacy, and immediacy in class on Tuesday. We also looked at Dreamweaver MX and did a quick and dirty design of three webpages. Finally, we turned to our four sample websites/essays (at http://courses.lib.odu.edu/engl/cwhithau/666/day_1_talk_666.htm) and to our readings of those websites/essays in terms of their elements and their genres. We'll start class next time by talking a bit more about those four sites and our readings of them. In particular, we will look at some of our blogs and see if they give us any further insight into how those four samples worked. We'll follow that up with a discussion of wikipedia and complex adaptive systems, plus some more design work with Dreamweaver MX.

the collective hive mind

2004-09-07T13:36:00.000-04:00

ok the more I scroll through blogs and think about blogs and what they have become in the last three years, the more I see this all as part of some hive mind activity. Goofy, yeah, I know but still. I just finished reading Arthur C. Clark's Childhood's End and well it's hard not to make some sort of connection between blogs and the hivemind/"overmind" that develops/is discovered by the end of that book.

But, seriously, here in research land.... if one thinks about blogs for a moment, just look at these things here is Jose doing a school assignment, here is glenn giving us Shrek and growing up, and Russell with an official looking technology in cousenlor education blog, and to prove that blogs ain't just Americans posting to Americans check out the magic of tips, and then one last blog just because

excellent! liz's blog has exploded on cycling

2004-09-07T13:03:00.000-04:00

excellent! liz's blog has exploded add the talk is all about cycling not rhetoric in cyberspace (what fun!)

thoughts about liz's and amanda's blogs

2004-09-06T13:23:00.000-04:00

ok, in the sprint of play, I'm following Amanda's lead and changing font size and color.... oh where well this all lead....

Here's a game to play with LINKS try linking to a particular post on someone else's blog rather than just to their home page. For instance, what if I wanted to link to Amanda's post on Neil Jenkins's Orbital. See I link to that specific url rather than the homepage of her url.

General Theory Thoughts: We've already talked about the addition of images (and sounds) in cyberspace....but now this idea of links is also important.... different.... something fuzzy and new to look at think about.... is this shifting textual universe.....

Ok, so I'm not doing a very good job responding to either Liz or Amanda....I'll post a comment on Liz's site about the history.... I also agree with her that Jenkins's Orbital is hard to read because we don't have much of a context for reading such a work.... at with that comment, I find that we are back at reader response theory.... so much has to do with what the reader brings to the text.... how the reader fills in the gaps....

In talking about Orbital, Amanda writes, "At first, I thought that the speaking of IP addresses would be annoying, but instead, I found the sound lulling and similar to white noise. At first the entire work just seemed like words flying at my screen. I would slow them down, manipulate their place in “space,” and try to make sense of their arrangement as they slowly, and then more quickly, piled up on my screen." These sentence again underscore the use of SOUND, but also there is a way in which words are becoming images. "I would slow them down, mainpulate their place in 'space'".... that sounds like manipulating an image.... words ===> images What is the weight of making that claim? It's not just that images help fill in the gaps (as in the repurposed "Tell All the Truth but Tell it Slant") but rather words become only images.... (something about Oliver Sacks book on the deaf... Seeing Voices... how to theorize this connection.... something with curb cuts... hmmmmm)

keeping a blog

2004-09-03T14:40:00.000-04:00

One so easily forgets how much work keeping a blog is. It's not that it takes that much time to keep one, but the act of remembering to go into a blog and post each and everyday (((or even multiple times in a day)))) is just soooo much.....

I just about finished the review of Jeff Rice's Writing about Cool that I am writing for Kairos. I've got a few more thoughts to work around and then I'll send it off. I'm really, really, really late with the review.... arghgrghg

ok so no one is sending me their blog urls

2004-09-02T14:41:00.000-04:00

ok so no one is sending me their blog urls.... I had thought that I would be linking to student blogs by today.... but so far no mas.... if there are student blogs in existence they are keeping hidden..... no emails sent saying this is my blog.....

ah well....

notes post 8-31 class

2004-09-01T11:30:00.000-04:00

Ok. So I am stunned that I am in the office at 8:31 after teaching until 9 last night, but there you go. (Actually I've been here since before 8, checking email....

I wanted to write up some notes from last night's discussion. We started with "Tell the all the Truth but Tell it Slant" as a multimedia Flash text. In the discussion that followed we talked about images (and sounds) replacing the readers' imagination, the readers' work, and the readers' emotional interaction with the poem. I tried to link this with Stanley Fish's idea of the reader as constructing the text based on his or her knowledge (or assumptions) about the text. I also tried to introduce the concept of gaps from reader response theory (Iser and Fish). We didn't get as far as I wanted with that gaps.... probably because I tried to situate that discussion within Aristotle's appeals (ethos, pathos and logos) and Burke's idea of ratios.... see way too many theory terms without enough time to apply them, play with them, test them out and come to know them. I'll make a point of having us think more about Stanley Fish's work and Wolfgang Iser's work in reader response theory next class meeting.

Other notes: hopefully folks will have no trouble getting started on their blogs. Also, I hope Dreamweaver downloads and installations go well. I can't want to get to the design work with students.

second post

2004-08-31T21:19:00.000-04:00

I'm sitting here with Sona and talking about how to create a second posting to a blog.....

opening post

2004-08-31T12:47:00.000-04:00

okay, so before class started, I've gone into blogger and created a brand, spanking new blog.

Not bad since it's been over 6 months since I blogged away on my own personal blog..... oh where does the time go.

Seriously, this is just a test page for fun. That's IT. adios.