Open Source, Open Access, and Commons-Based Peer Production: Creating a Sustainable University Culture — Computers and Writing 2009

Roundtable Chair. Charlie Lowe, Grand Valley State University Scott Banville, University of Nevada, Reno David Blakesley, Purdue University How can open source software, open access publishing, and commons-based peer production (CBPP) principles help us to create a sustainable university? How can they positively impact the social and economic development of the university and expand the…

Audience and Surveillance: Who is Watching? Who is Reading? — Computers and Writing 2009

I arrived late and completely missed the first talk, so I’ll start with the three I did see. Surveillance of Power and the Power of SurveillanceMike Edwards, United States Military Academy at West Point Hansel and Gretel in Cyberspace: Following Breadcrumbs in a Forest of HypertextMary Karcher The Digital Emergence of the Public/Private AuthorityCasey McArdleBall…

John Lovas Memorial Academic Weblog Award — Computers and Writing 2009

Today, at the Computers and Writing conference, the Kairos editors presented Jerz’s Literacy Weblog with the John Lovas Memorial Academic Weblog Award. (I knew about it in advance, and was able to get funding to attend thanks to the CIT department at Seton HIll.)  Lovas was a dedicated teacher, an accomplished administrator, and a patient…

Sustainable Blogging: Problems and Promises for School, Work, and Play — Computers and Writing 2009

Chair. Gian Pagnucci, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Process-Blogging: A Sustainable Foray into Collaborative Writing Sabatino Mangini, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Jessica Schreyer, University of Dubuque Endings: The Problem of Sustained Blogging Steve Krause, Eastern Michigan University Keeping a Blog as Chair: Sustaining Public Discourse in a Private Job Gian Pagnucci, Indiana University of Pennsylvania What…

Textbook 2.0: Open Source Textbooks and Multimodal Composition Programs — Computers and Writing 2009

Chair. Bonnie Kyburz, Utah Valley State University Planning for Sustainability in Multimodal First-Year Composition Programs Michele Ninacs, Buffalo State College Fast, Free, and On the ‘Net: The Story of a Self-Published Textbook Steve Krause, Eastern Michigan University How College Textbook Publishers Will Thrive in Ubiquity. Or Die Trying. Nick Carbone, Bedford/St. Martin’s Similar:The dawn of…

Metaphoric Space, Cyberspace, and Work Space — Computers and Writing 2009

Chair Mikhail Gershovich, Barch College, CUNY Hacking Spaces: Place as Interface Danielle Nicole DeVoss, Michigan State University Douglass Walls, Michigan State University Scott Schopieray, Michigan State University Writing-a-go-go: Ubiquitous Computing and the Thirdspace of Workplace Writing Tina Bacci, University of Rhode Island The Examined Life–Cyberspace Style: The Construction of Space in the #philosophy IRC Undernet…

Ecotones and Crossroads: Re-imagining the Spaces of Learning in an In-between Time — Computers and Writing 2009

Barbara Ganley, Centers for Community Digital Exploration Barbara Ganley is Founder and Director of the new national organization, Centers for Community Digital Learning, Barbara Ganley has spent her career exploring integrated learning across formal and informal contexts. For nineteen years as a lecturer in the Writing Program and English Department at Middlebury College, and director…

The Impact of Ubiquitous (or not so ubiquitous) Computing on Faculty and Students — Computers and Writing 2009

These are my notes, lightly edited, from a panel at Computers & Writing 2009. I only found a single plug in the meeting room, in the very back row. This is a small conference, so I probably appear fairly antisocial typing way in the back here.  (I’ll move up when the panel actually starts in…

Becoming Informed

A former Infocom beta-tester re-discovers interactive fiction (and enters the interactive fiction competition) Back then in the mid-80s, the only (decent) interactive fiction was being produced by Infocom, the almost legendary, and now defunct, software company formed by a bunch of MIT grads. After cutting my teeth on the Zork series, Enchanter, Infidel, and Witness…

Bibliophilia: A History of the Growth of the Steam Engine (1878)

I enjoy steampunk, a cultural aesthetic which celebrates what both ordinary and extraordinary things might look like, had technology progressed along the lines that Jules Verne and his contemporaries imagined. As a literary subgenre, it imagines that the immeasurable power of steam has opened the skies, leading legions of top-hatted gentlemen-explorers and parasol-wielding adventuresses to…

The Kindle Factor

Charles Crowell writes a valentine to Amazon’s e-reader as a cost-saving tool for cash-strapped college students: If we extrapolate these savings from these two courses over a two-semester, ten-course academic year, we could expect an average savings of $245.05. That number, of course, would vary according to the cost of the respective textbooks, their number,…

What is an adventure but a fumbling through novelty?

Andrew Hussie remixes Dinosaur Comics with a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story. The results hurts my head, and not in a good way. But that’s a good thing, because, well, it’s a remix of Dinosaur Comics with a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story. Similar:On the Ethics of Rebranding a Former Trump Administration Official as an Amusing TV Person…It’s also a disservice…