I’m excited to see these types of tools and “official” activities to engage students in multimodal competitions. I think traditional humanities instructors need to learn from these examples to help make connections to their contemporary students. For example, I love showing The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to my intro to film students and then show Rob Zombie’s music video for “Living Dead Girl.” Being able to discuss how and why he did this gets students to think about why knowing the history of horror films is important to Rob Zombie, both as a musician and a filmmaker.

Ultimately, this gets me thinking about how I’m about to start teaching my early American literature survey class. I was already planning on using wikis to have students publish their reports and interpretations about the material they read; however, I’m not thinking it might be useful to have them really think about the work rhetorically. What was the purpose for some of these early American writers. If they had the same purpose today, what different modes of media might they write and publish in? Why? How would it fit their purpose and audience needs? Could be fun!

Thanks to a Webware post for prompting this post!

Wow…and I’ve spent lots of time finding stuff to organize web research, but this is cool! I’ve been sold on social bookmarking sites for a couple of years now. And now I’m starting to like these various “clipping” or “notetaking” type bookmarking tools as well. However, the problem with most of them is that they do not bookmark, clip, or save/cache PDF files from library databases. Now I’m trying to teach my students that research in library databases tends to be a little more authoritative, scholary, academic, etc. than what they find on the web. And some days I can’t blame them, it is a whole heck of a lot easier to work with texts on the web, than the stuff in the library databases.

So…why not use a tool many of them already know and love, iTunes?

As I read the instructions for how to do this, they reminded me of the major drawback…it’s just an organizing plan; iTunes doesn’t have a PDF reader within it. However, the blog entry also lists the major plus for using iTunes to organize research PDFs, tagging. Currently I have all my research related PDFs saved in the files with the projects that I found them with. Now, most scholars know that they use the same resources for many projects. By tagging, instead of filing, iTunes allows you to associated the PDF with any past, present, and future project it needs to be associated with.

The one change I would make…the instructions linked to above mentions that you could leave your PDFs in files all over your computer. That is part of my problem! I’m now thinking put ALL research related, heck maybe just all, PDF files into one file folder. Then organize them within iTunes as outlined above. And then, as also mentioned in the article, use Google Desktop to search the text in the files for the exact PDF needed. (yes, you read that correctly, once Google Desktop scans all your files, it can read all the text in your PDF files). That just gave me another techno-clean up for this summer:

1. organize bookmarks in delicious
2. finish digital list of DVDs (insurance purposes, ya know)
3. dump all PDFs in one file & organize in iTunes

I’m also thinking I’ll start posting brief little blog entries about the various new technologies I find (thus the new category). For a long time I didn’t do that because there are people already doing great job posting small blog entries at the websites I read (MakeUseOf, LifeHacker, WebAware, etc.). But, they are not necessarily thinking about how/why these technologies might be useful in higher education, specifically teaching and learning. So, as I start playing with new technologies I’m going to post my own version of these brief “check out this tech” blogs. While I will probably start by pointing to their various entries, I will also try to project about how/why I think this technology might be useful in tri-part duties of a faculty member in higher education: teaching, research, and service.

Therefore, I have a plan! (Don’t I always, the problem is I have too many of the damn things.) I’m going to pick a single question for each conference I attend. I can then have a focus point to ask people about. I will also come prepared with a clip board and permission slips that will have the whole set of audio, video, picture, etc. permission options. We’ll see how this plays out this summer…I’ve got a handful of conferences I’m attending.

Let me first apologize to Donna for taking so long to respond; however, I think these issues are at the crux of my professional identity. I identify as a rhetorician who is interested in the interfaces between technology and humanity. Yes…this is huge, but I think the message above shows how/why!

So, the nitty gritty, some first round response (and we may want to invite the librarian’s to play…this could be a nice long discussion in the CTL’s blog).

Information Explosion
We’ve already been watching this for a while. Educational institutions, including libraries and museums, are no longer the keepers of information. Now that information, especially “facts,” is much more ubiquitous, teaching is not just a sharing of facts and knowledge. Now, as educators, we’ve always known that education is more than facts; however, we are now being smacked across the face with it. At this point, I would argue it is pointless to have students “know” the dates for the American Civil War. Why, when they can get online and find the information within minutes? What is much more important is to train them to critically, rhetorically, evaluate the information to see if it meets their needs.

Information Literacy
This topic begins to get to the point of the original posting, so why memorize “facts” when the information is “at your fingertips”? As Donna pointed out above, the information is not being produced and published by people and institutions we consider authoritative. Instead, this information explosion is occurring because anyone with a cell phone that takes pictures or videos can update the world with multi-modal content. We are not going to stop the “just Google it” paradigm (you know, parents no longer say “look it up in the dictionary/encyclopedia”…it’s now “go Google it”). Instead, we are going to need to train students to think rhetorically about the information they consume:

• Who made it?
• For what purpose?
• In what context?

If students start reading rhetorically, they will then be able to assess whether or not the information is “useful” for their particular situation. If the students knows that she is just “checking a fact” and also knows that Wikipedia is about as reliable as a regular generalist encyclopedia (see http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=1734 and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm) then she can rely on Wikipedia as a “valid” source for the “check the fact” rhetorical situation. However, if she is doing a detailed report on a complex subject…shouldn’t she be checking multiple sources anyhow?

The Changing Face of Knowledge—or what is an “authoritative source”?
Once we acknowledge that the need for information is rhetorically situated, then we realize that what constitutes an “authoritative source” is just as rhetorically situated. The rants and raves against Wikipedia as a valid resource for academic papers is my current favorite point of rebellion. Let’s start with the easy stuff…any academic papers that go into any deeper level of detail on a topic never could reliably cite an encyclopedic source, internet based or not. All along scholars should have been teaching their students to use encyclopedias as starting places for their research. Like any other “academic” resource they include citations that then can send a student to more detailed resources. In other words, the rhetorical situation of writing an academic paper rarely ever allowed encyclopedia entries anyhow…why all the hub-bub?

But, the more fun argument, is to show when a Wikipedia entry might actually rhetorically fit the situation. One of my colleagues and I co-authored an article about the cross-modal narrative structures of contemporary science fiction film narratives. In other words, to “consume” all of the Star Wars or Star Trek narratives, to name the biggies, you have to “read” movies, television, books, video games, lunch boxes, underroos…and that’s only the officially sanctioned portion of the narrative structures. Then, there are the fan produced and published materials that also impact the world and narrative of these huge fiction franchises. For example, you really can’t consider yourself a huge Star Wars fan if you haven’t seen Troops. All of this to get to the point that there really is no easy place to point people to when discussing the various narrative franchises. Whereas most film scholars know to go to the Internet Movie Database, that database privileges information about the film narratives, some television and video game narratives, and has barely any connection to the fandom element. And even the connections across modes are difficult to make in IMDB; it privileges the film. Whereas the Wikipedia pages about each franchise very readily list the various modes of the narrative franchise, and some also highly develop the fandom angle. In our paper, we not only cite, but blatantly told our readers that the best “starting place” to read about any franchise is Wikipedia. Isn’t that ironic though, we ultimately use and refer to Wikipedia in our scholarly article for its original rhetorical purpose, general reference as an encyclopedia.

All this to get back to the idea of rhetorically reading a resource. What made the Wikipedia resources valuable for my colleague and I was the fact that more people had access to producing the information. In some cases, fans know more than an “expert” that either the production company or the academy has sanctioned as such. The power of Wikipedia, and the “average consumer” construction of content, is in the fact that more people are having input into the construction of knowledge. Much work of feminist scholars, especially feminist historians, is the reclaiming of “knowledge production” by different women in history. Because those women didn’t have access to “publishing” or “saving” their knowledge through the officially sanctioned mechanism (remember, those “educational” institutions listed above, schools, libraries, museums, etc.) their voices did not get to contribute to a more well rounded construction of historical “T”ruth.

By having more people producing and publishing “knowledge” we have a glorious multifaceted description of truth in the making. And once we can acknowledge that truth is culturally constructed, sanctioned, saved, and reproduced, we know that becoming a rhetorical reader is necessary. If we know who said it, why, and in what context…we can better understand the information and work it into our own complex vision of the world (or the topic we are studying).

Teaching in the 21st Century
Therefore instead of being “knowledge” experts, educators need to become “skill” experts. What does it mean to “do” rhetoric? History? Biology? I can look up what family and genus a poison dart frog belongs to; however, do I have the skills to think like a biologist? To do biology? And just as there are certain discourse practices that are privileged in one discipline and not in another, there will emerge a set of slightly differing information literacy practices for each discipline. Of course it makes sense that I’m fighting for the viability of Wikipedia, I’m one of those mushy humanities rhetorician folks, right? And the information literacy practices that will emerge in my discipline will be different than what emerges in physics. But teaching the “skill” of doing something is much more difficult then just “dumping the knowledge.” You can’t just test do a multiple guess test of skills. As “education” becomes more about learning how to “do” something, all of these government sanctioned assessments will become increasingly humorous and frustrating.

The Changing Face of the “Composition” Classroom…or How we Get Back to Donna’s “Digital Content Expanding”
Whereas many would think this information explosion has added a lot of work to composition instructor’s already full agenda, I would argue it has not. Just like we can’t possibly teach students to write for every rhetorical situation, we can’t teach them the specific methods of locating and using sources for every discipline. Instead, and I’m sure you’re getting tired of reading it, all we can do is teach them more generalizable skills, rhetorical practices (our specialty), that they can they apply to help them figure out the specifics of future situations. Translation: I can teach Johnny a set of questions to ask himself about a writing situation. I can teach Johnny a set of questions to ask himself about a researching/reading situation. I can’t teach Johnny how to research/read/write for every situation.

Now, the difference that is occurring is the production of dynamically changing information. It is no longer just about teaching my students to find the author, purpose, and context of the sources they are reading. I need to get them thinking about how these sources are co-authored, and change over time. In other words, show the beauty of Wikipedia by sending them to a page and having them read the “history” and “discussion” pages that provide a narrative of the construction of the entry. The “authority” of this information becomes real!

Similarly, this “digital content explosion” also demonstrates why “composition” instructors will increasingly be teaching multi-modal composition. Do you really think that academic articles will remain so flat and static with the increasing ease in which we can include pictures, sounds, videos, dynamic content, etc.? The written word will not be replaced; however, it won’t be so lonely anymore!

Digital Natives and the Digital Divide—A footnote
Finally, I do want to address the individuals who got halfway through my posting and went “not everyone has access to these technologies.” You are correct; although Educause, among others, use scholars like Prensky to describe how we need to address the needs of our “net generation” student, especially those of us at the community college know that not all of our students are digital natives and many live on the other side of the digital divide. However, I do agree with Neal Stephenson’s prediction in The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer; in Stephenson’s future, the poor are dependent on technology and only the super-rich can participate in more “natural,” “back to your roots” activities. (And if you really want to talk about the future of education technologies, let’s talk about that Primer…but that’s another blog.) And if you don’t buy that, we still do have a responsibility to help our students, even those on the other side of the digital divide, to compete in Friedman’s Flat World. Although I don’t like the term “cater” in The Chronicle of Higher Ed’s article, I do believe that colleges should be professional consultants, like doctors and lawyers—educational consultants—and be just as rhetorically adaptive to our students needs. And just like doctors and lawyers, that sometimes means telling them things they don’t want to hear. Those things might include, be comfortable with technology as well as know how to communicate solely using the written word.

I think that is enough for now…Donna, I hope this is what you were wanting. J

Shelley

I did learn that although I can hold my digital camera that can take short videos at another angle, it doesn’t mean I can convert the video to the correct direction. In other words, I captured this cool video of Donna talking about technology and the CTL; but the picture is the wrong way.

Oh well…live and learn!

Of course, I took some pictures as well!

I did thoroughly embarrassed myself by mis-associating a colleague with the wrong discipline.

I knew her, and for some reason it was sticking she was in English; but of course after the fact I was “duuh…psychology…she does stats!” I’ll have to grovel an apology the next time I see her!

Otherwise, I don’t have any real insightful things to say… this is just a reflection on the fact I did it and a link to the pictures at flickr.

However, I’m really excited about what we discussed, some new plans we’ve made, and the line up of conferences for the next couple years:

• 2007—Kansas City w/the Heinlein Con
• 2008—Dublin (start saving your pennies folks)
• 2009—Atlanta @ Georgia Tech (and Lisa Y. has some cool stuff planned)
• 2010—Phoenix/Tempe (Craig and I will being playing it up, this conference you will make contact)

As for the other cool things, I need to wait until the President makes some announcements on the listserve before I go blabbering here.

Some pics of us both hard at work, and playing a little as well.

Finally, this trip is what has allowed me to play massive catch up with blogging. I’m hoping that this really helps with sustaining my writing and publishing on a regular basis.

Isn’t it cool to see writing teachers writing…

This trip, in collaboration with my dissertating, textbook writing, my MIL project, sandbox workshop series, Ocotillo R&D work, especially the MCCCD 2007 Convocation, has really helped me to understand how research faculty are so prolific. They recycle! I’m not saying they plagiarize and directly re-print/publish their own work; however, they rework, add and subtract, slightly shift focus, etc. to make something new.

So…my dissertation is work is a study of how faculty learn about and chose to incorporate new and emerging technologies into their teaching. My 2005-6 MIL project further focused that by trying to develop strategies for testing newer technologies in teaching and learning. My 2006-7 Ocotillo R&D project is a continued project on the MIL, while working with some newer technologies. With the 2006-7 Ocotillo work I’ve really begun to focus in on some specific web2.0 technologies.

While being zoomed in on the web2.0 technologies, I’ve started doing a lot of professional development workshops introducing these technologies to faculty. As I develop initial materials for these workshops, the materials further morph into materials for other workshops reports, and publications. Humm…as I’m writing I realize this is one of the examples of my idea on Just-in-Time Scholarship. If we begin to focus on our scholarship as a process, then any time you report out is a just-in-time snapshot of the moment. Obviously there are solid conclusions to scholarship projects/foci; and I would argue that is when your final just-in-time snapshot is a book (or major article). But what if we started to look at publishing processes like Kairos is beginning to develop, where the entire project will emerge as a periodic publication. And at each periodic report, multiple scholars get to reply, peer review, on the project to date. Heck…what if you published your research plans first, and got peer review at that stage? And that is why you all will soon see me publishing the plans for my various projects. I’m hoping readers who happen upon them will give some feedback.

• Once upon a time I did a workshop on basic online design strategies using Superman as a narrative metaphor;
• I reported out on my year as Ocotillo Queen of Hybrids (obviously that wasn’t the title) using The Matrix as a metaphor,

  • Take the RED Pill
    You stay in wonderland and we show you how deep the hybrid learning goes; OR

  • Take the BLUE Pill
    The learning ends. You wake up in your office and believe whatever you want;

• I’ve been using the phrase “Keeping up with the Jetsons” to refer to my various projects (starting with the dissertation, including a presentation to fellow rhet/comp folks, and currently with my Ocotillo R&D work) to easily describe my research on how/why faculty can keep up with the exponentially increasing number of new technologies;
• I’ve co-authored piece coming out in an edited collection called Resident Franchise (playing with the Resident Evil narrative);
• And now, I found myself somehow identifying with Dr. Strangelove as a scholar studying scholarship in the 21^st century.

If you’ve seen Dr. Strangelove or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, I’m sure you are saying “eek—Dr. Strangelove was a Nazi.” You are right, but that didn’t first draw me to the narrative. First, I love the second half of the title. There are still major technophobes out there; and I really think they would be happier individuals if they learned to stop worrying and love the technology. This doesn’t mean they shouldn’t engage it critically; however, like nuclear bombs, computers are here to stay.

Second, I think the various characters at play in the film do nicely parallel folks we have in the academy and how they react to digital scholarship: “We must preserve our precious peer reviewed print journals.” Admit it…you know these people, right?

Finally, and back to Dr. Strangelove himself, I do identify with him. He has accepted that the bomb has dropped and computer technologies are here to stay. Instead of wistfully dreaming of a prosaic past (which was never that good), he starts dealing with the situation as it currently stands and offering up ideas. Instead of studying a problem to death before making decisions on what works best, he knows that there isn’t that kind of time and we have to act with haste. But that is why scholars specialize right, so people/leaders can ask for their trained opinion instead of learning it all on their own. And yeah, he has a dark past; however, that past informs his current understanding of the future.

Translation: Computers in education are here to stay. They also advance quickly enough that we can’t study something to death before deciding whether or not to implement them (or at least try them out). And yes, I am scholar from the dark side of the academy, the two year college; but folks at the R1 institutions, that experience gives me insight into things you may never understand. If anything, I am not entrenched in the current scholarly processes at research institutions; my outside status occasionally allows me to see parts of the process that those of you living in it are blind to.

Ultimately, what I like about my new Dr. StrangeScholar persona is that I blatantly admit to embracing the chaos. Chaos is messy. Sometimes strange, or even half-baked, ideas emerge; however, I also think that interesting connections are also made out in that messy area. I’ll stay there for a while, and continue with my work on the scholarship of the 21^st century. Keep an eye out for my new chaotic connection between Just-in-Time Teaching and the future of scholarship: Just-in-Time Scholarship.