Susan and I have giggled about how we barely have to spend any money on food at CCCCs. Between the various breakfasts we pay to attend (WPA, see later post & TYCA, oops, slept in this year) and the Textbook Company parties in the evenings, meals are pretty covered. So this year was the typical line up, with conflicting parties so that you can’t possibly attend them all. But I made it to Bedford/St. Martin’s party at the Tavern on the Green. WOW…that place was amazing. And then I felt so sophisticated when I came home and continued reading through my WitchBlade compendium (b-day gift!!!) and a scene took place at the Tavern. I also drank a few too many mohitos at Allyn & Bacon/Longman’s party at the Havana place (eek…forgetting the name, hopefully someone will respond and correct me). The coconut shrimp were divine. And this year I missed McGraw Hill’s annual Rock’n’Roll party because I was too busy hanging out in the Hilton’s bar, and then riding the subway with Dale to try to catch the live sing-a-long of the Buffy Musical episode. We were bummed, they were sold out when we got there.

But back to the title, ethics and eating. So, the textbook industry pays for some of my food while in NYC. In other words, those students buying the books we require of them…paid for our dinners. And folks, these parties are huge, hundreds of people, don’t think that I’m somehow in the “in” crowd. These parties must cost these companies thousands of dollars. With the increasing hub-bub about textbook prices, especially in The Chronicle and Inside Higher Ed, should we be rethinking these practices (and expectations)? But the Rhet/Comp field is not the only one doing this; last year at the annual nmc summer conference, we had two hum-dinger of parties thrown by Apple and Adobe. Adobe rented out the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame!

Other things that have stuck with me from the conference:

· Rock Star Status: First, nmc invited me to come speak. Although I wasn’t as happy with my presentation (Dr. StrangeScholar); it has gotten me started on this line of scholarship. However, I also took my goofy cowboy hat for my presentation, and the plane was empty enough for it to have its own seat. I’ve heard from more than once source that Bono, of U2, once purchased a plane seat just for a cowboy hat he had bought. Finally, Alan Levine also asked me to help with his What the 2.0? activities. I spent a little more time playing with YouTube and dialoguing with others about how they might continue to play with online video tools. So this is also a HUGE thank you to the nmc folks for having some faith in me. Although I would have liked a little better performance out of myself; I’ll be coming back and hopefully dazzle in the summer 2007 conference.

· Doing the conference…leave work at home: This conference also has solidified that I will stop trying to take work with me to conferences. I try to cram it in, usually fail, and then feel guilty for not doing either well. UGH! From here on out I’m going to only try to do work during the transportation to and from the conference. Otherwise, it is only conferencing while at the conference. However, this ties in with my desire to really work on doing summary and reflective work while at conferences. And I want to make these multi-modal works (audio recording, pictures, video recording, blogging, wiking, etc.).

Finally…a few pictures from the conference.

However, I have found blogging about the conference attendance extremely useful in helping to critically reflect on what I have experienced. By making the commitment I would do so, it has forced me to write about my experiences and ramblings (physical and mental) as well as post something as concrete as “what I learned.” Maybe requiring the use of faculty professional development blogs in this way emulates Univ of Penn’s incorporation of blogs for all students: Inside Higher Ed, 9 June 2006 (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/09/blog).

nmc2006

Programs/software/tech tools to try out:

• VUE—visual understanding environment (mind mapping): http://vue.tccs.tufts.edu/
• MediaBASE—multimodal discourse tool: http://pages.emerson.edu/faculty/E/Eric_Gordon/html/mediabase.html)
• XMAS (Cross-Media Annotation System): http://icampus.mit.edu/projects/xmas.shtml
• iPod as audio recorder
• play with wikis more (playing back the various versions of a document’s construction)
• TeamSpot: http://tidebreak.com/prodteamspot.shtml
• Online Syllabus Generator: http://www.clt.odu.edu/sgen/sg_help.php
• Pachyderm (finally…I know!): http://www.pachyderm.org/
• Second Life (3D virtual reality): http://secondlife.com/
• Technorati: http://www.technorati.com/

Books/authors/sites to read:

• Instructional Assessment Resources (IAR) Online: http://www.utexas.edu/academic/diia/assessment/iar/
• Brenda Laurel
• Richard Lanham
• Gaming Theory (See Jeff Anderson’s list from his workshop)
• Hippasus: http://www.hippasus.com/

Concepts

• Faculty certification for teaching w/tech skills
• Faculty ePort for demonstrating teaching w/tech skills
• Faculty facilitating teaching w/tech workshops
• Just in Time Learning (vs. JiTT): http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/03/motivated_to_le.html; http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewfeature&id=236

nmc2006

I guess I’m just liking this metaphor and method as a way to think about a discussion about feminisms with my women and film students. Basically the postmodern “problem” with various issues based groups/movements is that they recognize that individuals within the organization are made up of different experiences, wants, needs, etc. In other words, how do a bunch of different women, with different backgrounds (class, race, sexuality, education, age, etc.) work together to advocate feminist issues without “re-coding” everything else that makes them individuals?

nmc2006

I like that a lot of the courses (four hour workshops) in the program were taught by other faculty. I like that there was at least a requirement of a “pedagogy” course. I like that they offered it piece meal throughout the semester as well as had “boot camps” in January and May each year.

I would love to see something like this incorporated at Mesa, or in Maricopa. I especially think it could be powerful to have faculty start these ePortfolios for this program and then build some form of incentive to keep them developing their portfolio. And, I think it is the portfolio portion that could really help develop and support the continued need to theorize the use of the technology in terms of pedagogy and facilitating learning. The reflective requirements of the portfolio would help faculty move beyond just the “I did this and it did (not) work” reflection. Instead, some of the prompts could request more critical and theoretical thinking and application. And I firmly believe that practice makes perfect; like speaking a foreign language, if someone is speaking the language regularly, they keep in practice. Come on Maricopa folks…think of it as the easy way to have material for your FEP!

nmc2006

At one of the many more social functions Alan suckered me into playing a game. Yes, I have an addictive personality:

nmc2006

nmc2006

Yesterday I attended a panel called “Beyond Course Management: Multimedia Pedagogy in Socially Networked Environments” by three folks from Emerson College. Wow…make my heart sing. They embedded all of their choices in various pedagogical, rhetorical, and other social theories. Part of what they were considering was how various social network tools are changing the manner our students engage in critical, scholarly, discourse. One of the presenters discussed developing a multimedia discourse program as theory…I’ll use the term praxis. I’m definitely interested in using MediaBASE and playing around with multimodal/media discourse (http://pages.emerson.edu/faculty/E/Eric_Gordon/html/mediabase.html)

And fyi…one of the “other” things…shoes, yes shoes!

nmc2006