The Maltese Falcon: Questions I Wish I had Asked My Father (Jerz’s CCCC 05 Notes) This was a personal and literary reflection by Jo Hammett, the daughter of noir detective novelist Dasheill Hammett. The novel and movie The Maltese Falcon are set in San Francisco, so a conference session on the subject seemed appropriate. After the…
Breaking the Cycle of Hate: A Teacher’s Journey (Jerz’s CCCC 05 Notes) I met Sondra Perl on the shuttle ride from the airport. She told me her presentation would be on her experience talking about the Holocaust with writing students in Austria. Since Seton Hill has a National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education, we exchanged cards…
Writing Teachers Writing New Media (Jerz’s CCCC 05 Notes) “What did you guys do to earn walls?” -overheard during the (long) setup for this presentation. Hoping to find an opportunity to continue the discussion of the intellectual property issues Lawrence Lessig raised on Thursday, I attended “Writing Teachers Writing New Media,” where three young presenters from…
Finally getting around to blogging some notes about sessions I’ve attended. I don’t know if the overall quality of the conference has improved or if I just really know how to pick ’em, but all the sessions I’ve attended so far have been great. The first session I attended was “Evaluating Academic Weblogs: Using Empirical…
Since blogs became the next big thing, an increasing number of companies have come to see them as the next great public relations vehicle — a way for executives to demonstrate their casual, interactive side. But, of course, the executives do nothing of the sort. Their attempts at hip, guerrilla-style blogging are often pained —…
In 1992, IF enthusiast Volker Blasius started the IF Archive, which brought together remaining text adventure files and fans from across the Internet. Paul O’Brian, who runs a newsletter for IF fans, says the archive brought text gamers together. “The fact that people can go to one predictable, reliable space … has given the community…
A Blogger Went to CCCC… And Here’s What He Did CCCC (Jerz’s CCCC 05 Notes) The challenging acoustics in the Moscone Center seemed to work in Douglas Dean Hesse’s favor, as he opened his keynote, “Who Owns Writing?” by belting out an African-American spiritual. During the opening session, when Sharon Mitchler asked attendees who are affiliated…
Conference on College Composition and Communication 2005, San Francisco (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) Due to a labor dispute at the San Francisco Hilton, the Conference on College Composition and Communication was moved just a few weeks ago. The Moscone Convention Center made their space available at the last minute, after the organizers determined that a significant number…
“It’s Pi Day because the date is 3/14 — the first three digits of Pi,” said Howard Greenspan, who oversaw a Pi Day Party online with a Pi drop at MathematiciansPictures.com, a Web site that sells Pi paraphernalia. —Jan Paschal —Pi Day Gives Math Mavens Something to Celebrate (Yahoo/Reuters) Seton Hill celebrates Pi Day with a…
—Personalized Google News (Google) A great little addition to Google’s incredibly useful news aggregator. I deleted the “sports” section, and added sections containing keywords that I always find myself googling. The search I created for “weblog” isn’t very useful, but I’ll play with the interface later. There doesn’t seem to be a way for me to…
Our students, especially the ones who are required to be in our classes and are, therefore, required to blog or do whatever else we ask of them, are generally going to be concerned about the grade they get – possibly even more concerned about the grade than about what they learn. —Nancy McKeand —Evaluating Blogging (Random…
The demand is such that the niche has grown from text-based games coded by hobbyists to between 30 and 50 professional audio-game developers who sell 3,000 games a year, experts estimate. Most of these games run on ordinary PCs and are often joystick- or keyboard-controlled. The player dons a pair of headphones, and elements of…
No matter how disgusting, shocking, horrifying or abberant the person, the topic or the interview, your demeanor is ALWAYS one of neutrality. Then, don’t betray that trust – ever. The first glimmer of judgment, shock or negative emotion the person glimpses in you – they’ll shut down. They may keep talking, but not about anything…
Blogging clearly isn’t going to help that proportion of people who aren’t really up to their job, or who are prone to inarticulate flaming, or both. But then, those people tend to have career problems anyhow. Put it another way: not blogging won’t protect you from career-limiting moves, and if blogging provokes one, well, you…
1) How would you describe yourself in 25 words or less? Succinctly. —The Same 10 Questions I Always Ask — with Michael Arnzen (Horror.about.com) My colleague in the office next door gets off to a wisecracking start in this interview. I always enjoy reading his writing. Similar:T.S. Eliot: "when we do not know enough, we tend…
“Americans have always been informal, but now the informality of precollege culture is so ubiquitous that many students have no practice in using language in any formal setting at all,” he says. The remedy is “to restore the family dinner table to the teaching of writing – that setting which can be a very rich…
One thing that would improve college teaching immensely would be mandatory drama and speech classes for all new faculty. Forget the expensive technology. Teach them how to use their voices, how to modulate their tones, how to string together an exciting narrative without notes. Teach them to make the passion that is surely inside them…
Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are. We have had to agree on a certain set…
I am still trying to sort out how much of the difference with this conference was due to the Hawai’ian setting as opposed to the presence of my kids. Obviously it’s configurational, and in that way it makes little sense to try to distinguish the independent impact of either of those factors in anything except…
Oh blog, me, babe! Don’t miss a word of it! Many a blog has brought love to my door Netted by sparkling poem, or flash of wit – The chatroom kind, of course, and little more. What need of tangled flesh on messy dates The weight of expectation as it starts Its gentle journey southwards,…