http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/ Dennis G. Jerz, Spring 2010, Seton Hill University en Copyright 2010 Thu, 13 May 2010 13:18:41 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification ]]> http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/05/final_paper_revision/ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/05/final_paper_revision/ due_dates Thu, 13 May 2010 13:18:41 -0500 Class will not meet on this day. Submit your final online portfolio by posting a link here. http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/05/portfolio_3_1/ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/05/portfolio_3_1/ due_dates Mon, 10 May 2010 13:19:47 -0500
Write a three-page paper that demonstrates your ability to apply assigned readings to your own experience reading (and studying, and analyzing, and annotating) an academic etext.

As with the other exercises, I am expecting you to engage meaningfully with direct quotes taken from our assigned readings.

This assignment also asks you to report your first-hand experience with ebook tools and resources that are currently available.

• A Kindle is available for you to check out at the library; I have pre-loaded it with some media-related books.
• I will also loan my own Kindle overnight if you schedule with me in advance.
• If you have an iPhone, you can use the Kindle app.
  
• You can also download a free Kindle reader for a PC or Mac. (There are plenty of free Kindle books.)
• As of April 14, there are about 10 iPads at SHU.  I don't know who will get them, or whether they will be available for students to try out. If you can get ahold of an iPad, wonderful!
• I have not tried it out, but here is a link to a free trial of a "PDF Annotator" tool. Is it useful for scholars? Can you find a different tool that might be better?
• books.google.com (see for yourself whether Darnton's hopes/fears for Google are accurate)
  

]]> http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/05/ex_5_of_emergence_and_knowledg/ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/05/ex_5_of_emergence_and_knowledg/ readings Thu, 06 May 2010 15:27:12 -0500
Topic: defend a particular position on anything we've covered in the course. (While I am giving you free reign to choose a topic from any unit, I am asking you to choose something specific. Please feel free to run ideas past me.)

Medium: your in-class presentation should demonstrate your successful engagement with, and use of, digital technology, in a manner that emphasizes the unique qualities of digital media.

Samples (to get you thinking)

• Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us (see also "Parisian Love" and Google's "Search Stories" tool that makes a (shortened) version of a similar thing -- you'd need to string several of these together to make a full presentation)
  
• Scrolling palindrome text
• I used Screencast on my MacBook to create the interactive fiction playthroughs. Is there a game, or a website, or a database, or a piece of software that you could demonstrate (or critique)? (The IT department may be able to let you use a Mac in order to do the capturing. Contact Mary Spataro at spataro@setonhill.edu.)
  
• It is possible to add buttons to YouTube videos, so that a viewer could choose to play clip A or clip B -- so you could make a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure video. (Note that, if you use copyrighted material, YouTube may take your video down at any time. FYI.)
  
• Prezi is an alternative to PowerPoint that might appeal to visual-spatial learners. (Here's a Prezi I created for News Writing last fall.)
• Such Tweet Sorrow (Twitter-based reworking of Romeo & Juliet)
  

]]> http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/05/cp4_in_defense_of_digital_cult/ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/05/cp4_in_defense_of_digital_cult/ Tue, 04 May 2010 14:46:05 -0500
The backstory... a prototype of the next iPhone was recently found in a bar.  Somehow that prototype ended up being purchased by a popular technology publication (variously described as a blog, an online tabloid, or some variety of online journalism).

Was the phone lost or stolen? Should the website have paid for the phone? Does it make a difference that this was a huge scoop, and there would have been no other way to get this story (since Apple doesn't let anyone preview its products)?  Cops raided the office of the blogger who posted an analysis of the prototype... yet journalists are supposed to be exempt from this kind of intrusion, since it would have a chilling effect on the coverage of police and political corruption. (Is Apple using the cops as thugs-for-hire, to control the free press? Who decides when a blogger is a journalist?)

The situation is still unfolding, and there are so many unanswered questions that Fast Company has published an infographic (by Sheryl Sulistawan and Tyler Gray) and a series of hyperlinked blog entries by Dan Nasowitz.

For this activity, I'd like you to spend a few minutes exploring the issue in class. Then, I will ask you to comment on

• the substance of the story (as you interpret it based on the infographic and the blog entries) and
  
• the form of the story (both visual and hypertextual, with special reference to Aarseth's Cybertext).

If you prefer, here is a more traditional layout of the same story.
]]> http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/breaking_story_new_media_conte/ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/breaking_story_new_media_conte/ in-class Thu, 29 Apr 2010 12:46:09 -0500 What can we learn from the anxieties, and hopes, expressed by Darnton -- a traditionalist who (by Ch 4) explains his reasons for wanting to write an e-Book? http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/darnton_ch_2-4/ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/darnton_ch_2-4/ readings Thu, 29 Apr 2010 10:45:29 -0500 As We May Think" (I assigned it in EL236, but I'm not assigning the whole article this time -- this online handout should provide you with what you need to know).  It provides you with background information that will help you understand the assigned text, which is Buckland's analysis of the pre-history of the imaginary machine Bush described.

Bush proposed (but nobody ever built) a mechanical device that would permit a reader to locate, annotate, and connect individual microfilm pages. 

The actions he describes seem trivial to us today, just as a photocopier, or a spill-proof ball-point pen, or an eraser-tipped pencil are so much a part of our scholarly life that we can hardly comprehend their revolutionary impact upon our productivity.

]]> http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/memex_buckland/ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/memex_buckland/ readings Tue, 27 Apr 2010 16:41:48 -0500
Demonstrate your ability to relate what you have learned so far to a recent magazine article or news feature that describes a current trend or a recent innovation (within your lifetime) that relates to the development of the book (or related concepts, such as authorship/publication/reading/archiving).  By "relate" I mean please quote from, and use meaningfully, the assigned readings in order to defend a position on a current topic.

• Defend a specific, debatable claim (rather than explaining a situation or describing progress).
• Note that I am going to ask you to speculate about the future in Ex 5, so stick to the recent past and the present for Ex 4. 
• While "interaction" and "knowledge" are both very broad subjects, note that were are exploring those topics from within the perspective of the history and future of the book, so please try to keep some grounding in issues of reading/writing/authorship/publication/reproduction, while still making room for a treatment of the characteristics of new media.
• Demonstrate your ability to apply the readings to your chosen topic. 
• You may choose a popular source such as Wired, or a source that relates to your career or cultural interests.  You may also choose to respond to an academic article.
• Cite your sources according to MLA style  (including a Works Cited list).
  

]]> http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/ex_4/ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/ex_4/ due_dates Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:58:43 -0500
What makes the passages different?

As a student who has been asked to demonstrate an ability to engage with this text, what are some good strategies that can help you make sense of advanced material?
]]> http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/aarseth_ch_6_9/ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/aarseth_ch_6_9/ readings Thu, 22 Apr 2010 11:58:44 -0500
In this excerpt from The Republic, Plato spins an extended metaphor that uses the fuzzy shadows cast from firelight to stand for the imperfect way that we comprehend our world when we do not use the light of reason. Without the light of reason, we are like prisoners chained in a cave, who never see daylight, and never look at objects themselves. As prisoners, we base all that they know on their understanding of the fuzzy shadows of things, rather than the direct observation of things themselves. (How can we apply this story to our own exploration of media?)

• The Allegory of the Cave
• Here is one artistic representation of the allegorical scene Plato describes.

]]> http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/plato_the_allegory_of_the_cave/ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/plato_the_allegory_of_the_cave/ readings Thu, 22 Apr 2010 11:57:27 -0500 http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/portfolio_2/ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/portfolio_2/ due_dates Thu, 22 Apr 2010 11:24:26 -0500
Use brief, direct quotations from scholarly sources to support a debatable claim -- something that a reasonable person would disagree with -- that arises from the readings.

Avoid vague references to what "some people may say" -- give the name of a person who holds that view, and quote the exact words that make you think the person holds that view. (You may paraphrase, but you still need to cite the source of a paraphrase.)
]]> http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/paper_2_draft_1/ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/paper_2_draft_1/ due_dates Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:46:52 -0500 http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/paper_workshop/ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/paper_workshop/ class_topics Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:42:45 -0500 http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/aarseth_ch_8/ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/aarseth_ch_8/ readings Tue, 20 Apr 2010 11:56:50 -0500 http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/darnton_ch_1/ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL336/2010/04/darnton_ch_1/ readings Tue, 20 Apr 2010 11:13:42 -0500