Fall 2012 - Digital Writing
- Room: HU 416
- Day/Time: TR 12:30-1:45
- Professor: Byron Hawk
- Email: byron [dot] hawk [at] gmail [dot] com
- Office/hours: HUO 408, TR 2:00-3:30
- English office: 114 Humanities Office Building
- Printable syllabus: Adobe PDF version
Description
Since the emergence of the Internet in the early to mid nineties, attempts to understand its impact on writing and rhetoric have shifted almost as fast as new software, hardware, and social worlds have come onto the scene. This means that any understanding of digital writing is always in process and understood through the process of participation and production. This class will discuss some key conceptual issues in relation to digital spaces and networks and explore those concepts in the contexts of social networking, video, and blogging. Students will be expected to study the readings, participate in class discussion both face-to-face and in the class social network, participate in social media outside of class, and produce three projects: a network map, video, and blog. Some of the readings may be challenging and a lot of time will need to be spent outside of class learning the digital skills needed to develop projects. I encourage students to analyze social networks they are already involved in and expand on skills or technologies they are already familiar with. However, students will also be expected to explore new social networks and strive to learn new technologies.
Texts
Required Texts:
- Ulmer, Gregory. Internet Invention: From Literacy to Electracy. New York, NY: Pearson, 2003. ISBN: 0-321-12692-0
- Copious articles and videos online and in PDF.
Goals
Basic goals for the course are to:
- provide students with background theories and issues in digital writing,
- expose students to issues and production in video writing, and
- give students the opportunity to explore the cultural aspects of networking through blogging.
SC Labs
Since this class is only a 3 hour course and won't always foreground technical skills, students may want to attend university labs when developing their video/media projects. Most of these labs should have many of the software programs students will want to work with. If you don't have your own computer, you may want to invest in an small external or drive to save your video project on or open a Dropbox account. The Cooper Technology Lounge in the library has consultants on duty to assist students with projects whenever the lab is open. Both places should have hardware available for checkout and sell hardware and software. Many of these sites also have instructions or tutorials for the technologies they support.
Attendance
Each week we will discuss the readings, do short digital assignments, give presentations, and have lab time to work on individual projects. Consequently, attendance is extremely important and will count towards participation grades. If you need to miss a class, please submit any work due on that day via email or posted to the class network and check the online syllabus for any potential changes in the schedule. In accordance with University policy, anyone who misses 25% of our scheduled class periods (7 of 28) will fail the course, and anyone who misses more than 10% (3 of 28) may receive a grade penalty.
Office Hours
I will have office hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:00-3:30 (right after class). In some cases I may have other meetings during that time, so be sure to drop me an email and let me know you are coming. Otherwise, we can schedule another time that is convenient for both of us. I check my e-mail several times daily, so this will be the best way to contact me outside of class.