The Eternal Student

Welcome to my page! I'm Nick! Follow me as I journey through the course EDUC 3610 New Media Literacies and Culture!

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Link to all historical figures - http://imgur.com/a/Tcefs

Link to all Historical Quotes - http://imgur.com/a/G4YCz

Historical Cheat!

Rules of the Game

This game is a variation on the card game Cheat. Instead of a normal deck of cards, we have 2 set of cards: historical figures and historical quotes. There are 90 cards in total: 45 historical figures (15 historical figures, 3 each) and 45 historical quotes (3 quotes per historical figure). Players can also modify the deck by creating new cards with new figures/quotes. The game is meant to be played between 3 and 6 players. One player preferably should be the referee to confirm and/or contest calling bluffs. The referee will have a list of each historical figure and the corresponding quotes.

Aim of the Game:

The aim of the game is to get rid of every card in your hand.

How to Play:

Each player will be dealt an equal amount of historical figures and historical quotes cards. Players have two choices: match a historical figure card to its quote, or try to bluff your way through the round by mismatching cards. If another player correctly calls your bluff, you must pick up all the cards in the pile. If a player incorrectly calls your bluff, they must pick up all the cards in the pile. The game ends when there is one player left with cards.

  As part of the classroom, I would give them a list of the various historical figures and give the students time to do research on some of their famous quotes. Prior research is not necessary, but is preferred. As part of their research, the hope is that they will also find the context for each quote they find. Students can hope to have some interest in any of the historical figures, and try to learn the context behind the quotes, learn about the background information of each historical figure.

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Production 4

Multimodality, ‘New Literacies & New Basics': Serious Comics & L2 Multimodal Graphic Texts

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Production #3: Digital Constructionism & Collaborative Networks: Exploring the Opportunities of Wikis

How might you employ a wiki in your content area/s, for your teaching practice, or for your own creative purposes?

In terms of history, I could use a wiki to provide a very basic overview of the content (e.g. Canadian History) using a variety of images and sources. I could also upload and share various assignments necessary and external/internal links to more information. Because of how easily I can edit it, I can continue to update and create new pages to provide interesting links to related content around the internet.

I could also use it as an assignment, giving students terms/important figures to create wiki pages and to learn from others.

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Graphic Novels and Digital Comics (and Literacy)

Graphic novels and digital comics are multiliterate and multimodal media. Graphic novels, simply defined, are book-length comics. Digital comics, on the other hand, are comics that are either created solely on a computer/tablet, or are released and distributed digitally.

Though the phrase “graphic novel” typically suggests a genre to some readers, the phrase is indicative of a form of media which spans and supports a multitude of genres. They range from novellas, original novel-length narratives, autobiographies, biographies, collections of comic strips (typically around a central theme or storyline), collections of serialized comic books around a single story-arc, collections of short stories or vignettes, and compiled anthologies featuring the work of multiple authors. The purpose of works written as graphic novels ranges from evoking pleasure to informing to satirizing. == History ==

The idea of graphic novels originates back to the 1800s with Rodolphe Toffler's ''The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck'', and Richard Outcault's ''The Yellow Kid'' in 1895. ''The Yellow Kid''​ originally appeared in newspapers, but in 1897, it was published as a collection in book form. What is considered to be a graphic novel today originated in 1985 with Will Eisner's ''A Contract with God'', in which he coined the term "graphic novel." At the time, Eisner used "graphic novel" as a euphemism for "comic book."

Will Eisner's ''A Contract with God'' (1978). Eisner is often credited with having popularized the term "graphic novel."

=== Frederic Werthem, ''Seduction of the Innocent'', and the Comics Code === Prior to the 1950s, comics were largely unregulated. They grew to depict graphic violence and sexual themes, depictions that were deemed to corrupt the innocence of children. In 1954, Frederic Werthem, a German-American psychiatrist, published ''Seduction of the Innocent'' arguing that comic books were a negative form of popular literature and a serious cause of juvenile delinquency. The book cited overt or covert depictions of violence, sex, drug use, and other adult fare within "crime comics," a term Wertham used to describe not only the popular gangster/murder oriented titles, but superhero and horror comics, as well. The book asserted that reading this material encouraged similar behaviour in children.

Around the same time, the Comics Code Authority (CCA) was formed in an attempt to create an alternative to government regulation. Their purpose was to self-regulate the comics industry by providing guidelines on the creation of comics. Comics would have to be submitted to the CCA to be reviewed for adherence to the code, and then was authorized a seal of approval. This, however, resulted in "underground" comics, comics that did not adhere to the CCA.

=== Will Eisner and ''A Contract with God'' === Will Eisner was born William Erwin Eisner on March 6, 1917 in Brooklyn, New York. By the time of his death on January 3, 2005, following complications from open heart surgery, Eisner was recognized internationally as one of the giants in the field of sequential art, a term he coined. n a career that spanned nearly seventy years and eight decades — from the dawn of the comic book to the advent of digital comics — he has long been considered the father of the graphic novel.

From his beginnings of the comic book to the creation of graphic novel, Eisner had evolved over time to master his craft. After many years creating comics, he sought a more mature expression of the comics' form. Eisner spent two years creating four short stories of "sequential art" that became ''A Contract With God'', first published by Baronet Books in 1978. In this book, with its 1930s Bronx tenements and slice-of-life moral tales, Eisner returned to his roots and discovered new potential for the comics form — the graphic novel.

Eisner followed ''A Contract With God'' with a series of graphic novels published by the alternative comics publisher Kitchen Sink Press. With subject matter ranging from semi-autobiographical (''The Dreamer'' and ''To the Heart of the Storm''), keen observations of modern life (''The Building'' and ''Invisible People'') and science fiction parable (''Life on Another Planet''). Eisner helped to break comics from the juvenile ghetto of superheroes and "funny books."

== Comics VS Graphic Novels VS Digital Comics==

=== Comics ===

Examples of Comic Books

Comics are sequential visual art, usually with text, that is often told in a series of rectangular panels. Comics tend to be periodical; narratives span several issues. The term "comic" may indicate that it is humourous, but, while that may be the case, not all comics are humourous. Comics are usually shorter in length than graphic novels. Comics are also a multimodal text that fuses art and text, combining print and visual literacy to present a multimodal literary experience.

=== Graphic Novels === Graphic novels are book-length comics that generally have a single narrative that does not normally last more than a few volumes. Like comics, they are a multimodal text that fuses art and text, combining print literacy and visual literacy to present a multimodal literacy experience.

Graphic novels can be classified three ways: 1) ''mainstream graphic novels'' which are genre-based and plot driven, may have multiple authors and illustrators, and are frequently compilations of serialized superhero comic books; 2) ''manga'', a Japanese comic, usually with teen characters, often science fiction, fantasy, or adventure stories involving martial arts; or 3) ''art graphic novels'' which are fiction or nonfiction in multiple genres and often written and drawn by one individual. Graphic novels are usually conceived of as a self-contained book, even if initially serialized, with the art carrying more of the story-telling and theme.

=== Digital Comics === Digital comics, put simply, are comics solely created on a computer or other electronic device. This allows digital comics to be easily released and distributed online through various venues, including Amazon and iTunes. digitally created comic to be published online was Eric Millikin's ''Witches and Stitches'', published on CompuServe, the first major commercial online service in the United States, in 1985.

== Features of a Graphic Novel ==

=== Panel === Panel refers to the framed image. It offers the reader a perspective or point of view on the subjects also known as the camera angle. Sometimes panels do not have borders, creating a unique effect where the subject seems to stand outside the storyline.

=== Splash === Splash is a kind of panel that spans the width of the page. If it runs off the page entirely, it is known as a ‘bleed’.

=== Voice over === Narrators have the possibility to speak directly to the reader through a voice over. Usually this is done with a hard line separating the narrator’s speech at the top or bottom of a panel from the image within the panel.

=== Speech bubble === These are frames around the characters’ language, a kind of ‘direct speech’, where the characters speak for themselves. If these appear as clouds, they represent the character’s thoughts. If they appear in jagged lines, the character is shouting.

=== Emanata === This term refers to the teardrops, sweat drops, question marks, or motion lines that artists draw besides characters’ faces to portray emotion.

=== Gutter === This refers to the space between panels. Readers tend to ‘fill in the blanks’ and imagine what happens between panels, a process known as ‘closure’.

== Examples of Graphic Novels ==

== References == Hammond, Heidi. "Graphic Novels and Multimodal Literacy: A High School Study with ''American Born Chinese''" in Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature. Volume 50 (4). October 2012. Pp. 22-32.

InThinking. “Graphic Novel.” Accessed on October 5, 2016. http://www.thinkib.net/englishalanglit/page/13891/graphic-novel

Ipl2. “History and Basics.” Accessed on October 5, 2016. http://www.ipl.org/div/graphicnovels/gnsHistBasics.html

Kelley, Brian (2010) "Sequential Art, Graphic Novels, and Comics," SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education: Vol. 1: Iss. 1, Article 10.

McCloud, Scott. ''Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.'' New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. 1993.

Will Eisner Studio Inc. Accessed on October 5, 2016. http://www.willeisner.com/

--[[User:N Huebner|N Huebner]] ([[User talk:N Huebner|talk]]) 18:05, 6 October 2016 (PDT)

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Production #2: New Literacies Reflections

Part 1

“The act of designing leaves the designer Redesigned (Cope and Kalantzis 2010, 177).”

This quote summarizes the multiliteracies of design quite sufficiently. As the text explains, a designer can take something (available design), edit and transforming that thing how you see fit, or what it represents (designing), finally transforming into a final product (redesigned). The designer creates new meanings through transforming an available design. For example, a designer can take an image of a bird and transform it into a solid blue bird-shaped image. The result is now an image, a brand that represents Twitter. However, available designs are not limited to images; they could also be forms of communication.

Part 2: Critical Reflection

With the advancement of technology and society, new literacies and modalities begin to emerge. From prehistory with oral culture to writing to the invention of the typewriter and the computer, technology has come a long way to create new ways to communicate. Something that Cope and Kalantzis, and Rowsell and Walsh have discussed in their articles is new ways to learn and communicate, and to transform an idea/concept and creating its own entity, even going so far as to rethinking literacy in a constantly changing society. Literacy has changed and, as future educators, we must adapt to this change.

An important concept is the multimodality of meanings. Traditionally, literacy teaching was mainly in written form. However, alongside the written language, new modes have emerged: oral language, visual representation, audio representation, tactile representation, and gestural representation, representation to oneself, and spatial representation (Cope and Kalantzis 2010, p. 178-179). In these various ways we learn to communicate, even using newer technology to represent these new modes. For example, we can write down the word “hello,” wave, say “hello,” or listen to someone say “hello” and the meaning would remain the same, but the modes are different.

Digital literacies allow people to communicate in various ways. Learning how to use Microsoft Excel or Facebook or Twitter would allow us to convey information in a different manner. The internet only complicates this further by attributing various ways that one can communicate with others. For example, Rowsell and Walsh looked at a study examining teenagers’ texting habits. The researchers observed that teenagers were conscious of “choosing different tones and language styles depending on who they were IMing (Rowsell and Walsh 2011, p. 57).” The youth took something simple and made something unique that created a new identity. The advent of instant messaging offered a new way to learn and be creative, especially among the youth.

Bibliography

Cope, Bill and Kalantzis, Mary. “‘Multiliteracies’: New Literacies, New Learning”, Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4 (3), 2009. 164-195.

Rowsell, Jennifer and Walsh, Maureen. “Rethinking Literacy Education in New Times: Multimodality, Multiliteracies, and New Literacies.” Brock Education, 21 (1), 2011. 53-62.