Course Syllabus Spring 2010

Mon 11 Jan

Intros
CourseStatement2010

for Wed

Read CourseStatement
Find out what you can about Twitter: google it

Announcement

Thurs 9:50 am
#haiti is in play on twitter. Go to twitter and enter #haiti in your search bar to get life updates on the earthquake and relief efforts. this is how twitter is now coming to be used in emergencies.

Announcements

Follow @WeblogsAndWikis on Twitter. Get updates events, assignments, announcements.

Wed 13 Jan

Questions on the statement
Sign up with Twitter
Review the social elements, tos, privacy, profile
Follow @WeblogsAndWikis
AboutTwitter

for Friday

Give your Twitter name (@whatever) to others in class
Follow others in the class
Search for others to follow
Collect favorite tweets to consider
Begin to see what you can make of twitter

For Friday,

Walker Rhettberg, chap 1
Think about blog title and tag line.
The brave can visit http://wordpress.com/, sign up, and start a blog.

Fri 22 Jan - through the weekend

Set up a blog on WordPress
Tweet your blog url using #en3177 and #blog
Use the weekend to get used to blogging and WordPress.
For Sunday, read Walker Rettberg, chaps 1 - 3 and comment on each chapter.

Focus on the ideas Walker Rettberg addresses. One way of approaching this is to choose a passage from her text (a few sentences, a paragraph), add it to your post, then delve into the implications of what she's saying. Link when possible to examples, other points of views, other angles, interesting sidelines.

Post responses to the chapters on your blog by Sunday evening, ok? The practice is to take on one idea (or chapter) per post rather than tumble everything together. Focus your posts and readers can focus their comments.
Link link link to topics, other posts, pages on the web. Blogging is about linking.
Bonus points for twitter summary of each chapter. Use #en3177.
BloggingActivitiesExercise - under revision.

Mon 25 Jan

Questions on http://wordpress.com
Discussion chaps 2 - 3.
What makes a good blog p0st: http://aridatha.wordpress.com/
BlogsAndWikisTour
BloggingActivitiesExercise and TwitteringActivitesExercise

Weds 27 Jan

Set up for class workshop/discussion on blogging.
Form groups of 3. Discuss the focus you want to take as a group for a weekend project.

blogs in their communication networks / blogs as communication networks
blogs as journalism / bloggers as journalists
blogs as narratives and a medium of self-representation

Tighten up possible ideas or theme in class for weekend project.

Fri 29 Jan

No face to face meeting. Blog exercise in collective writing running from Wednesday to Monday. Blogs as a medium for collective work.

Time these exercises out over the five days.

You're trying, by posting and commenting, and by linking, to consider and explore some of the implications of the topic to your area of knowledge, expertise, or experience.

By Friday, noon

Read Rettberg, chaps 4 and 5.
Write a blog post in which you consider the topic or issue your group is focusing on, drawing on Rettberg chaps 1 - 5, as well as other bloggers and other authors. (Search Google, and choose sources that you have read and find valuable.)
Write this post in such a way as to invoke comments and help commenters focus. Ask for input, and specify where.

from Friday noon through the weekend

Within your group, gather comments on each other's posts, including further development, links to other sources and each other.
If appropriate, make another blog post before presenting (Sunday evening.)

Of course, you can see what other groups in class are writing in and comment on and link to their work.

You'll be presenting your ideas - and how the exercise went - on Monday, in class.

Update: Sunday 5:00 pm. Everyone log into their blogs and check for comments that might need moderating. Checking in to moderate comments is part of the weekend exercise.

Mon 1 Feb

Present your ideas and how the blog exercise went.
Difficulties in commenting. Amount of knowledge needed for blogging.

Fri 5 Feb

- No face to face meeting. Online exercise on the wiki, leading to Monday and Wednesday consideration of WritingOnAWiki.

Friday Exercise 5 Feb - Sun 7 Feb

Wikis change the postions of writer and reader - as blogs do but more so. But even more, they alter how writing gets written, making drafting more public, slowing down revision, and adding an aspect to writing: refactoring. More than traditionally, wikis demand that writers share a common sense of the material process, and a shared idea of how the text will be worked with.

Become familiar with the shared processes of writing on a wiki. Read the StyleGuide, and the pages linked from that page: ThreadMode, DocumentMode, and RefactoringPages.

Read also Wide Open Spaces: Wikis Ready or Not by Brian Lamb.

Then visit our page titled WideOpenSpaces and start and add to the ThreadMode discussion. You might also contribute to some of the topics already started.

You task is to become familiar with the conversation we've been having on this wiki for the past few years, and to find a place or topic to enter and add to. Post at least once. Better to return later and post a second time. Or post to other topics. If you post to other topics, keep track of those topics.

The discussants are students in this class past and present. You have nothing to fear.

Mon 8 Feb

Everyone should have read the materials and posted to the wiki at least once. These exercises are part of your grade.

Discussion on wikis: Ok. I'm here. Now what do I do?

compositional practices: WritingOnAWiki
social practices: StyleGuide and CollaborationConventions
ReadingTheWikiPage
tools: Search, PageIndex, RecentChanges, Categories
highlights of Lamb's Wide Open Spaces

Who's been adding to the wiki where. Check the RecentChanges.

for Weds

Continue WritingOnAWiki for Wednesday. WideOpenSpaces is a good starting point.
read Woods and Thoeny, chap 3, and chap 15 and 16 for discussion on Wednesday

Past due

WikiName page set up: SettingUpAWikiNamePage. GettingStarted for reference.
Friday exercise contributions on pages

Weds 10 Feb

review embedding images, help
Face to Face discussion
Step away from the keyboards.
Drawing on Woods and Thoeny, Lamb, Rettberg, and your own experience and work so far: Wikis: their uses, practices, significance.
Differences/similarities with blogs/blogging.
Place or role in social media: twitter, weblogs, Facebook, wikis.
Place with respect to print: editors, press, ...
Leads to HCE? amateurs and pros? changes in language and language practices? changes in educational practices?

Friday - Weds

Project: TheHorrorsOfSocialMeeja

Articles to draw on. Work with at least two

Rettberg, last two chapters
Shirky on Newspapers, Neiman Lab.
Produsage: A Working Definition, Axel Bruns
The Future Is User-Led: The Path towards Widespread Produsage. Axel Bruns. pdf
Texting, David Crystal
The Cult of the Amateur, chap 1, Andrew Keen. Scroll down the page until you see the American cover of the book. Click to open.

Additions should start by Friday if not before. Continue to class time Wednesday, 17 Feb.. Return 3 - 5 times.

Weds 17 Feb

Discussion on TheHorrorsOfSocialMeeja project. How it went. Where it went. What's next? Refactoring, stubbing, categorizing, linking.
Bring Thoeny and Woods, for reference to chaps 15, 16,

Friday - Monday

Optional exercise: Extra special double points for refining and refactoring active pages in TheHorrorsOfSocialMeeja. Keep track of pages you worked on and what you did on your WikiName page.

refer to Thoeny and Woods, chap 7, and RefactoringPages

Mon 22 Feb

Wrapping up the first half of the course. Have a look at

refactoring to doc mode: TextingTravesty
TwitterTwoPointO, and TwitterPros
EgoManiaMakesDifficultToWiki

New starts

AppropriateContent
ReadingTheWikiPage
WikiRules
WikiAsNeighborhood
http://www.tumblr.com: Miniblogging
example of tumblr miniblogging: http://feltron.tumblr.com/

Visits

Twice a week, visit the three other sites in your group and comment: give some feedback, crit, suggest, support.

Everyone you visit should also be visiting you - and if they aren't, remind them to when you visit.

Announcements

Twitter as newspaper
mcmorgan Twitter Stream
Weblogs and Wikis Twitter Stream

Reminder: We meet 19 and 21 April

10:00 am

Monday, 19 April. Seven weeks in. We will meet face to face 19 April and 21 April to compare notes and talk about preparing write ups.

ProjectWriteup

Projects should wind down to a close on April 28. The final is on Fri 30 April, and the project write up is due Mon 3 May.

A final visit

Make a final visit and comment to each other's projects this week - Wednesday or Friday - to help prime the pump for the project write up.

Final

Fri 30 April 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

Summarize your project and what you found in 2-5 minutes in class. Write up due by Monday, 3 May.

Recent Pages

IlluminatedManuscriptsAndBlogs
AboutTwitter

Features spring 2010: Conversation and community with WordPress, wikis, and Flickr; micro-blogging with Twitter, mini-blogging with Tumblr.

Parallel Course

ENGL 3179/5179: Elements of Electronic Rhetoric investigates the rhetorical significance behind weblogs, wikis, microblogging, and Flickr through a series of student-designed projects. The principles behind the practice. Spring, 2010. !0:00 T and R.

CourseAdmin

Weblogs and Wikis : CourseSyllabus2010