Second--the article questions the purpose of FYC, and, in greater scope, of University education. I believe I will be writing/publishing on this more in the future. Essentially, I think the growth of digital technology will increasingly move us away from the Enlightenment University (as a center of knowledge production) and more toward the university as a center of civil discourse and engagement. Those who know me know my appreciation for Bill Readings' University in Ruins; I want to spend some more time with that book. I believe Readings' themes permeate the entire article, even if there is limited discussion of his work.
Tomorrow marks the first day of second semester here at USF, and I am in the middle of my "holiday" ritual--cleaning out the inboxes. Three email accounts, 2000 combined messages. Ugh, ugh, ugh. I do this at the beginning of every semester, my way of cleaning the slate and preparing myself for the new crop.
We are home resting; Rowan managed not to catch my plague. Right now, she's playing outside with gramma (Meg's mom just got here this morning to give us some much needed help). Thanks to everyone for their concern and wishes.
We got great news yesterday--the post-op examinations showed no signs that the cancer had left Rowan's eye. Her optic nerve was clean. This means that we very likely have a cancer-free baby. We're really grateful for that--we needed a win.
I thought nothing could be better than rewinding and pausing live television. Hallelujah technology, for finally conquering the tyranny of linear time.
Now, through a student, I have discovered Last.fm. All the randomness and excitement of discovery that comes with a radio station completely equipped with a skip track button. Now I can fastforward time, reclaiming minutes that would have been otherwise wasted on trite radio. Mu'wa-ha-ha-ha.
One of the fun parts of moving to Florida includes putting together a hurricane box- a box of food and supplies that are there "just in case." I am new to this experience. But, on the advice of a colleague, I went out today and (in addition to picking up Tiger Woods 09) put together my first hurricane box. It contains:
Frosted Mini-Wheats
Pop Tarts
Cereal Bars
Graham Crackers
Wheat Thins
Triskets
Tuna Fish
Peanut Butter
Canned Pineapple
Canned Pears in Light Syrup
Apple Juicy Juice
Peanuts (Lightly Salted)
Mixed Nuts (Lightly Salted)
Werther's Hard Candies
3 Gallons of Water
Dog Food
My goodness, I'm so proud of myself I almost hope we're without power for five days so we can put that box to use.
Meg and I are preparing for our first real date since Rowan was born (6 months)- tonight's Ben Folds concert. I wish I saw him with the Five, but I'm still excited for the show.
I just sent of a webtext on the pedagogical dimensions of del.icio.us, the social bookmarking technology of social bookmarking technologies. Seriously, del.icio.us changed my life. I submit to any non-believer (i.e., non-user) the Firefox test- just try surfing the web wish del.icio.us for a week. You'll wonder how you ever lived without it.
As a bit of a sneak-peak, to celebrate the victory-is-mine moment of getting this off to the C&C special edition editor, I thought I would share a portion of the introduction that covers the theoretical implications of tagging. This works has a direct link to my dissertation in its focus on how digital technology contributes to the widespread, ongoing paradigm shift from Being to becoming, from product to process, from The Self to the group, from Truth to contingency. Here it is:
Beyond these benefits, the most significant advantage of del.icio.us
concerns its method of cataloging
entries: tagging. del.icio.us
defines tags as:
...one-word descriptors that you can assign to your
bookmarks on
del.icio.us. They're a little bit like keywords but non-hierarchical.
You can assign as many tags to a bookmark as you like and easily rename
or delete them later. Tagging can be a lot easier and more flexible
than fitting your information into preconceived categories or folders.
Tagging does not seek to replicate a physical organization system for
information; there's no "files" being placed in "folders." In The Long
Tail, Chris Anderson
points out the ontological/categorical/strict-taxonomic organization of
systems such
as the Dewey decimal system, though effective organizational
strategies for physical objects, fail to capitalize on the
unique, non-physical properties of digital information (156-159). Such
top-down,
hierarchical systems are designed to properly "place" physical objects.
Tagging represents a mode of organization that can only be realized
once information becomes digital and is thus no longer tied to the
limitations of physical place. Tagged data has no singular proper
place- users in folksonomies such as del.icio.us can simultaneously tag
data in multiple ways, allowing it to simultaneously exist across any
number of spaces. Rather than attempting to organize information
according to
pre-existing, structured categories, Anderson imagines
a world of ad-hoc organization, determined by whatever makes
sense at
the time. That's more like a big pile of stuff on a desk instead of
rows of items stringently arranged on shelves. Sure it may seem messy,
but that's just because it's a different kind of organization:
spontaneous, contextual order, easily reordered into a different
context as need be. (159)
Thinking of del.icio.us, we can add "idiosyncracy" to Anderson's
description of tagging as a mode of organization. Each del.icio.us user
is likely to tag pages differently. Such a random system might not be
as "neat" as the Dewey decimal system, but its flexibility and fluidity
allow it to effectively capture
what Suriowecki and others refer to as "the wisdom
of crowds." To overstate the theoretical implications: del.icio.us can
be seen
as a collective attempt to explore, organize, and share the web
underwritten by a spirit of enthusiasm and generosity ("Look what I
found!") rather than one of mastery or colonization ("We must order
this"). While an extended discussion of the impact of tagging and
digitality is beyond my scope here, those interested should see Dave
Weinberger's insightful Everything is
Miscellaneous which ambitiously
approaches a new metaphysics for digital information (see especially
pages 92-95 for how del.icio.us and tagging contribute to this effort;
see also his webtext "The
Hyperlinked Metaphysics of the Web"). Interested parties
should also give Clay Shirky's seminal "Ontology
is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags" some attention.
Its unofficially official: I have accepted a position with the University of South Florida. The job focuses on teaching the history of rhetoric at the graduate level and will also involve undergraduate courses on contemporary rhetorical theory, visual rhetoric, professional writing, advanced composition, and (eventually) new media. Initially, I'm slated to teach the History of Rhetoric every year- but I'll be looking to create a Contemporary Rhetorical Theory course at the Ph.D level and offer them in alternating years. Sweet.
I was fortunate enough to have two tempting offers- my other offer focused on teaching new media at the undergraduate level. In the end, South Florida presented an intriguing opportunity to contribute to the development of both a graduate program in rhetoric and an undergraduate program in professional writing (which is currently under revision and is beginning very much to reflect what I've contributed to at Purdue). Also, South Florida reunites me with my original tech-mentor, Meredith: not only won't I be the sole Boiler, but also I won't be the only tech person.
After doing so many campus visits, I have only general thing to say: many English departments are going to wake up one day and realize its the 21st century. Our students, our citizens, are communicating in very different ways than they did even 25 years ago. If English instruction is to remain vibrant and meaningful, then it had better start adapting to the ways that citizens communicate everyday. The essay is "dead"- but many of its values appear in blogs. The research paper is dead, too- but wikis present a new way of thinking about and purposing knowledge. Let me say it this way: the research paper is dead, but the act of researching (the process) has never been more popular. While a number of schools I visited understood this, a number didn't. Go ask philosophy (or, before that, rhetoric) how a discipline fairs once it stops being meaningful to the general public. And the public's importance will increase even more in a digital age.
Enough ranting, perhaps I'll write about the job search a bit more in a few weeks, when I've been able to digest it a bit more. Thanks to everyone who helped and supported me through this grueling process. Now its time to go by some sun block (not for me, for Meg- have you ever seen an Irish person in the sun?)
I've finished the draft for my fyc course this fall. I'm particularly pleased with the sliding image header technique I "invented" for this site--tutorial coming soon. I still have some touch ups (applying a min-width to the content area, thinking about subheading font size, and touching up the definition and unorderlists in the syllabus), but most of the design decisions are finalized.
I recently finished working with a local dog group on a website redesign. Intially, I was particularly proud to recreate what was a table-based layout in xhtml and css. Later, the group decided they wanted to make some significant changes and I taught my wife enough Fireworks and Dreamweaver for her to redesign the color scheme. We worked together and remain married. Go us. But that's not today's victory.
From the beginning of the project the group wanted some kind of photo gallery for the site. The problem: how do I create a standards-compliant site that group members can easily update? My first idea was to use Flash to create a gallery. But this didn't seem like a good option, since images need to be re-sized before they are added to a collection, and every update means going in and editing the flash file. No...no..no. I also thought about using Javascript (I've done this before for Purdue's GradSEA), but this technique isn't standards-compliant.
Reading a Mashable article on image editing resources yesterday, I came across a link to ImageShack--a photo hosting service that allows users to easily create slideshows and pumps out code to embed the shows on other websites (kind of like the libraryThing widget Michael uses on Wishydig, but using Flash rather than Java). The problem? Embeds are banned by the w3c--use the easy widget, lose your validation. All seemed lost. Especially since the classic fix for embed, McLellan's satay method, works best when you can create a container moive. This wasn't the case. Then I remembered (via del.icio.us) Elizabeth Castro's article on how McLellan's technique can be used on Google Video and YouTube movies without the satay...
When you complete a slide show with ImageShack (and you don't have to register to create a slideshow, but you do have to register to be able to edit a show), it will produce this code:
The key to getting this puppy working is to include the unique id as a FlashVars parameter (the final line of the code). Google and Youtube supply each movie with its own URL, ImageShack doesn't--rather, it assigns each slideshow a unique id in its database. So, bottom line, you have to include this id to get the show rolling. The only line I am unsure of is the "allowScriptAcess" line--it was in Castor's code, but I'm not sure if its necessary. I tried removing it and the slideshow still played in Safari, but I'm not sure if it is an IE command (with the satay method, IE doesn't like auto-starting... if anyone has IE, let me know if this is working, I promise not to chastise you too much for using IE).
Victory is mine! And, best of all, ImageShack is an awesome 2.0 app--it automatically resizes images, allows for easy captions, allows users to re-order images, determine background color, tag presentations, import images from Flickr or other URL's (as well as direct upload), choose transition effects, add music (please don't), and make shows public or private. And now, thanks to A List Apart and some wranglin', it can be standards-compliant. Cool.
UPDATE: I am dumb. Problem solved. Already sent "I'm an idiot" email to ImageShack (see my comment... before I delete it). Now I have to write this post up into something a bit more constructive and submit it to imageshack's tutorial contest...
UPDATE:
Apparently the video is only working in Safari. I'm going to play with it this evening. If any visitors are looking at this post, can you tell me 1) what browser you are using [IE 6, Firefox 1.5 etc.] and 2) whether you see two movies above. Thanks.
UPDATE: O.k., its working in Firefox 2.0.0.1. But IE is being terribly tiresome. Back to the drawing board later?
Working from Dr. B's tracking of daily accomplishments, and an appreciation for Stewie's rally cry, I hope to post celebrations of my greatness (this should provide a bit of motivation to complete mundane tasks that would otherwise go undone). I hope others in my local community grab hold to this little trend.
