Two items from the latest teaching file: One just a screenshot from the class blog tonight. Facebook as a verb sums up why writing teachers want to participate in social software. From Webster's Open Dictionary:

facebook (verb) : 1.to search for another person through the online directory know[n] as facebook 2. to send a message through the online directory know as facebook I facebooked Lauren yesterday to see where she goes to college. Submitted by: Anonymous on Dec. 11, 2005 23:24

facebook (verb) : To add someone to your list of friends on the "facebook.com" website. Hey, I saw you facebooked me. (also a noun, as in "Look him up on facebook.") Submitted by: Selena from North Carolina on Dec. 11, 2005 12:03

Facebooking (verb) : it means to checking out your Facebook.com profile or your friend's Facebook.com profile. I was facebooking my friend's profiles. Submitted by: Joshua Wilson from Florida on Jan. 29, 2006 20:21

I don't think there is an analagous spacephrase for academics--conferencelunch me? memosmack me? comitteemeet me?

The second item is a reflection on our playlist assignment, focusing on the work of my Literature and New Media course. The playlists that we developed did well at delivering a narrative--the explicit goal for the assignments. Upon reflection, it is clear that composing the list enables students to refocus attention on music as a cultural and literary artifact. Technically, this proved to be an easy assignment to pull off, although linking to 30 second samples through iTunes is unsatisfying and I have gotten more out of the lists I have been able to play in their entirety. The lists themselves showed a good deal of creativity, ranging from memory trips based on reworking of songs from the first year in college, a musical narrative of the affair of Bill and Monica, and a playlist suicide note from Sylvia Plath. Some snippets from these lists and some observations are available in a podcast reflecting on the playlist assignment. (Beware the impossibly bad audio from the classroom discussion).

Posted by Daniel Anderson at 11:54 PM
Taged as >> playlist composing podcast refelection | Permalink

Early Tuesday Morning -- Making a Playlist

Posted by Daniel Anderson at 12:41 AM
Taged as >> screenshot playlist random media sightsound | Permalink

An e-mail I just recieved from Rich Rice with the line "me and bubbles you" tells me that it's probably time to train the producer/consumer mindset on the bubble phenomenon about to emerge with the release of Steven Soderbergh's Bubble on Friday. A piece called 'Bubble' Vision appeared in the Washington Post this morning that raised some questions teachers of new media writing might want to think about. On one level, the film and its "day-and-date" release strategy (offering the film in every form--theater, tv, DVD--at the same time) makes a gesture to be applauded by writing teachers championing audience choice over producer decisions. If you prefer the theater experience, fine; if you'd rather watch at home in pajamas, no problem. Similarly, champions of new media literacy could laud the production model--a work filmed with digital video cameras, "amateur actors and only the bare bones of a script" is something instructors thinking about having students create digital video projects can relate to. It's worth acknowledging the experimental and prosumer possibilities raised by the project.

But, here comes the however: beneath the surface my reaction is that the project also represents a clever attempt to capture the media market and diminishes the choices of consumers. It turns out the film represents a carefully timed flexing of the media muscles of 2929 entertainment--the conglomerate headed by Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner. It's not as if viewers can decide to finger the remote Friday night and take in the film--they first need to sign up for HD Net TV. Where the film will appear in theaters will also be controlled, no doubt, by 2929. Really there is no way to get to the film without going through the ladder of 2929's monopoly. If this vertical control of new media creation marks the release of the film, we may need to check our enthusiasm with the opening scene. It may turn turns out much of the motivation is economic:

In the 1940s, this kind of vertical integration was declared illegal by the federal government, and movie studios were ordered to divest themselves of the theaters they owned; since deregulation in the 1980s those strictures have largely disappeared. In today's media climate, Wagner insists, it's the only way to make a buck.

Not that there is anything wrong with that (*); it's just that pushing the piece through the "information wants to be free" filter of net culture seems a likely misreading. The real concern, I think, for new media teaching is how this might impact the evolving spaces where more genuine grass roots video composing and sharing is taking place. There is still a space and audience payoff for posting things like "The Real Shining" to spaces like Ourmedia or vSocial. I'm still more interested in saving my applause for that kind of composing.

Posted by Daniel Anderson at 09:50 AM
Taged as >> free digital video consumer bubble | Permalink | Comments (2)

I had a good bit of fun today in both my First Year Seminar and Literature and New Media class riffing off of Dickie and Cindy Selfe's critique of the desktop metaphor. First, it's always helpful to make visible things we take for granted like the ways interfaces construct our computing experience. We hit upon familiar concerns such as the potential gendering and economizing of computing based on the metaphor. And we touched upon what might be gained by alternative models like sandboxes and such. We harkened back to tensions between work and play and the history of graphical interfaces; I even snuck in a reference to an old standard, "Not Maimed but Malted". (I really need to go back in time and fix those server-based image maps on that article.)

And the discussion pointed out issues I had not yet thought about, such as the residue of play and the tension in the office space with activities like cutting and pasting.

Perhaps most enjoyable, however, was our development of the kitchen metaphor to provide a conceptual underpinning for our initial foray into Web building. We really got into it, debating whether cabinets or refrigerators work best to represent file storage, wondering about pre-processed food in the microwave versus home cooked meals and exploring how one might shop for ingredients, alter composing recipies, and serve what one makes to others. We mapped street addresses for a kitchen/restaurant over domains and URLs and looked at the ways public and private spaces on servers can help us cook and serve new media meals. It's impossibly inadequate, but I tried to capture a bit of the conversation on the white board [flash movie]. Finally, the Web building we did after the discussion went quite well, especially the file management and server connection steps.

Posted by Daniel Anderson at 09:14 PM
Taged as >> new media metaphors screencast literacy | Permalink

Here is a link to an assignment I'll be trying in a couple of classes. The task is to make a playlist that creates a narrative. My intent is to make conscious some of the decision we make as we order songs into playlists. I introduce the assignment by asking about the ways that shuffle software is programmed to create sequences that are not exactly random.

Thinking about what informs those decisions reaffirms what I see as the need to teach prosumer level media skills to students. I couldn't help but jot down a note to myself saying "you must have prosumer media skills if you graduate from college today." I'm not sure if that is always true, but I'm going to say it is ture enough to be a maxim. If anyone ever needs it I made a brief screencast showing how to make links to the iTunes Music Store.

Posted by Daniel Anderson at 10:47 PM
Taged as >> playlist literacy music assignment screencast | Permalink

It's time to post some pointers to places where I've been playing a bit of intellectual catch up with blogs recently. I realized that if I'm going to get a feel for online changes taking place, I had better try to do some serious experimental teaching with social software.

Campus support for open-source social software is also behind the curve, so I have turned to an ISP and spent the last few weeks setting up sites and learning a bit about Drupal. I have created a central site for experimenting that really just takes over for other places where I have been posting about new media teaching activities. That site -- Teachmix -- is at http://teachmix.com.

I have also created Drupal sites for both of my spring classes. The site for Computers and English Studies, a First Year Seminar is at http://engstudies.teachmix.com. In this course we will emphasize new media composition and spend a good deal of time looking at emerging forms of literature.

I have also set up the site for Literature and New Media, an upper division course for English majors is at http://newmedialit.teachmix.com. Here we will also do a good bit of new media writing while experimenting with social software as a tool for studying literature.

I'm not sure at all how these different sites will evolve in terms of personal, professional, and teacherly activities. For now, I'll just continue to proliferate spaces and learn to teach.

Posted by Daniel Anderson at 10:39 PM
Taged as >> moving teaching around social software sites | Permalink