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Technology Fellows--2009/2010

tech fellows

The Technology Fellows are a group of graduate students selected each year to explore how technology can enhance the writing classroom.

Participants explore a wide range of both technologial and pedagogical issues by reading current scholarship and engaging in bi-weekly discussions that look at the roles technologies play in the teaching of writing.

The current fellows are seen above from left to right: Christian Pulver, Megan Trexler, Liane Malinowski, Luke Phelan, Jack Christian, Morgan Lynn, Christina Jones and Sarah Finn (not pictured.)

Projects 2009/2010

Experimental Writing Blog and Database--Jack Christian

The Experimental Writing classes offered by the Writing Program comprise an innovative and unique set of courses, notable for the specific subject matters they investigate, the kinds of writing students are asked to consider and attempt, and the excellent work students create. The Experimental Writing Blog-Database is intended to showcase this work, and, in so doing, serve as a resource to current and future teachers of Experimental Writing. The site also provides the opportunity for students to publish their work, as well as an easily accessible, useful display for those interested in learning more about the Writing Program's experimental writing sections.

Because it uses WordPress blogging software, experimental writing teachers will eventually have access to the site, and the ability to add-to and maintain it easily. This blogging software is also advantageous for providing a clear organization of material, and for an aesthetically pleasing, easy-to-use format. Ultimately, I hope that developing a single, online space to house so many texts related to experimental writing will promote fortuitous cross-pollination of ideas related to innovation in writing for many years to com

Wikis and Research Communities--Morgan Lynn

In this presentation, I will show some examples of how my students used Wikis to build communities of inquiry around their research projects. I will discuss what concerns brought me to using Wikis in the writing classroom, how we approached designing them, and the series of assignments my students worked through. Finally, I offer some reflections and future uses that have arisen from this project.

Textual Tag Team: Rethinking the Research(ed) Paper--Christina Jones

This semester my students are working in groups to compose both an essay and a video for the 112 research unit. Previously I have asked students to turn a finished paper into a video, but this time I’m asking them to compose the essay and video in tandem. For example, after completing the rhetorical prospectus students will start brainstorming the specific content for and organization of their projects by using Windows Movie Maker or iMovie. Storyboarding with basic video-making software gives students the chance to experiment with content and order in a context where they can more easily visualize and rearrange their ideas. It also allows them to manage their research; by drafting a concrete narrative about how they want their future essay to unfold they develop a clearer sense of purpose and of what content is necessary to fulfill that purpose. Students then narrow the scope of their research and develop specific goals in place of accumulating piles of facts and data at random, and this translates into a more focused first draft. The back and forth process described in this one example goes on throughout the unit, with the video and alphabetic texts feeding into and developing each other as students translate connections between mediums. The ultimate goal of the project is to explore new strategies for composing, especially for developing a focused, well-articulated argument that is informed by research but controlled by a student’s own voice and sense of purpose.

Using Speech for Generative Writing--Liane Malinowski

This semester students began to generate ideas for writing the unit 1 essay by telling stories to one another. They captured some of these stories with audio recordings and voice recognition software. These technologies allowed students to go back and analyze their oral storytelling in order to notice how they could use what they said in their writing. This activity drew attention to the role of context in oral and written stories. It was helpful for teaching the concept of context for "The Contexts That Make Me."

Using PowerPoint to Enhance Visual and Rhetorical Literacy--Sarah Finn

I began instituting oral presentations in my classroom a few years ago, and due to students’ enthusiasm for these presentations, and their belief that they do not get enough practice with public speaking in their classes, I have included even more presentations (individual and group) into the Basic Writing Curriculum. As Composition and Rhetoric go hand in hand, I would like my students to examine the rhetorical, as well as gain confidence with public speaking. The oral presentation assignments also allow students to bring ‘outside information’ into the classroom and make the curriculum even more relevant to their lives and the world around them. This semester, students will work on the technology of PowerPoint presentations. Work with PowerPoint supports my pedagogy of the oral components of Basic Writing, and combines these components with visual literacy. Specifically, I am working with students to design PowerPoint presentations based on an examination of a theme of their choice (such as racism, hope, courage, family, etc.) based on the film “The Hurricane,” which resonates with our course themes. The class brainstormed over ninety themes that are depicted in the film. For the PowerPoint presentation, each student will choose a theme, and include one PowerPoint slide on the film connection, and one slide that links the theme to literacy, language, power, and/or identity (our course themes). The rest of the slides are up to the students. They will present their PowerPoint presentations during our last two classes. My goals for this project are to 1) introduce students to a new medium that will be creative, fun, engaging, and helpful in the future 2) combine multiple literacies through engagement with the project 3) interweave the written text, the visual text, and the oral text for students 4) have students reflect on their choices and become more cognizant of making writing, design, and oral choices 5) build on course themes in new ways. The project mixes writing and orality and the visual in novel ways for most students, and students will be able to integrate the visual, with the written, and with the oral. Using technology to present on such issues also gives students more agency in creating the course.

Multimodal, Multimedial, and Multilocal Responses to Texts--Luke Phelan

This semester I am teaching “Reading Fiction” (English 140). As the name suggests, this class is designed around sustained engagement with a range of literary works. I have selected a reading list to investigate broad notions of aesthetics, both in the contemporary sense of ideas and questions about beauty, and in the original Greek sense of that which is perceptible, 'sharp in the senses' (as the OED puts it). For my Tech Fellows project I am focusing on developing
ways to elicit a variety of sustained responses from my students. This has taken the form of SPARK discussions which begin before we start deeply engaging a text in class, multiple presentation assignments (a form of response I've become increasingly interested in
over the course of the semester), and a variety of 'response projects', the specifics of which vary from text to text.

Projects 2008-2009

Reflecting in New Media--Megan Trexler

During the semester we explored the relationship between new media and reflection. Based on the idea that different media allow us to think in different ways, we attempted to expand our ways of thinking about and reflecting on our writing. Students built upon print-based, alphabetic reflections by using PowerPoint and Inspiration to gain greater awareness of their writing processes and communicate that awareness to their classmates and other writers.

Student Work
Tim Wilson: "Revision: Understanding and It's Affect On Writing"
Patricia Stoddard: "Writing as a Social Process"
Michael Sherman: "My Previous Revision Process"

Podcasting Things Into Proportion--Timothy Zajac

This assignment asks students to explore the concept of "voice" by having them record their Unit 1 essays as a digital audio file after composing a "transcript" that goes through the normal drafting cycle.

Student Work
Amy Goldman--"Too Loud A Solitude"
Nicole Raia--"Puppy"
Rojay Wagner--"My Teal Tank"

Extreme EZiners--Denise Paster

This class publication invited students to collect their writing digitally and link between their essays, an about the author page, and a variety of introductory pages. It followed a print publication in the form of a classbook.

English 112 E-Zine
Michael Galello- "Grafitti Laws: Outdated, Impractical and Unfair"

Moving Between Litercies in New Media Texts--Functional, Rhetorical, Critical--Christian Pulver

Students in English 391-Advanced Software for Writing gain exposure to new forms of digital writing using industry standard software (Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Flash) for building websites, photo editing and animation. Traditionally, web design has been taught with a heavy emphasis on the technical skills needed to build websites. My project wasto enhance student engagement with the technical by exploring the rheotrtical and critical literacies they'll need to read and write in a digital world.

Student Work
Professional Writing and Technical Communication Website
Caroline Cassidy
Gabby Segalla
Joanne Isabell

Writing Center Video Archive--Chris DiBiase

This semester, I've been working on documenting tutors' reflections on
the work that they do in the writing center. I've been concentrating on
interviewing those tutors who will be graduating this semester, as a way to
"capture" their insights before they go. My goal is to create an ongoing video
archiving project that will allow those of us in the Writing Center to maintain
a sense of the WC's developing history.

Sample Video Clip