pixel(n)ation

We are the members of a University of Idaho graduate seminar called Digital Rhetorics. This blog serves as a point of public intersection with our course. It serves as a place to collect and comment on items relevant to online communication and persuasion, and a place for us to present critical work that may be of public interest.

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 It occurred to me as I was doing my research on how graphic novels are studied in academia that: 1) they are not studied very often, and 2) the traditional essay form did not lend itself well to analyzing graphic novels, especially when scholars attempted to do close readings. The pictures and scenes described were often relegated to the appendix (making for an awkward read). There are, of course, exceptions. I was inspired by the formats used by Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics, Marshall McLuhan's The Medium is the Massage, and, of course, Mike Carey's and Peter Gross's The Unwritten. I thought of ways that I might update these formats while dealing with the issue of having to submit this project online. I am not an artist, but I have had (a little) experience with collage and with PowerPoint in undergrad classes. I decided that I would have to create a digital project--a digital comic book that used panels and characters from the graphic novel I was studying, The Unwritten. And, as long as I was creating a digital composition, I might as well take advantage of affordances such as hyperlinking. So, doing what I could to keep myself clear of the traditional essay format I follow in Word, I decided to do some screenwriting and outlining in celtx, a simple freeware program for nontraditional writing like comic books, movie scripts, and more. Then, I created my digital-collage comic book essay (whew) using PowerPoint. Once I was satisfied with the result, I converted the PowerPoint to a flip book that allowed for hyperlinking and posted it here on pixel(n)ation.

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Twitter Hate Speech Map

Quoted from the article:

According to our analysis: A majority of hateful tweets are coming from smaller towns and more rural areas. For example, some of the biggest spots for homophobic tweets are along the border of Oklahoma and Texas, and one of the biggest hubs of racist tweets is in a seemingly empty area of western Indiana. There are a lot more racist tweets coming out of an area in the middle of North Dakota than in the larger city of Fargo, for example. Homophobic tweets have a wider spread across the nation than racist ones, which are coming from the southeastern portion of the country more than anywhere else.

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The Flipped Class (flippedclass)

"The Flipped Classroom" is using Pinterest, an online pinboard to collect and share what inspires you.

How can I, as a future educator, leverage technology in an effective and meaningful way that enhances the learning experience for my students? I've been working with a former teacher of mine, Theresa Carter who is an Implementation Specialist for IDLA, to answer this question. She travels to schools around Idaho and advises teachers on implementing a blended curriculum in their classrooms. Blended learning is a combination of face-to-face and online education. The flipped classroom is just one of many models used for blended classroom instruction. The flipped classroom inverts instruction, moving ‘lecture’ to homework and ‘homework’ to classwork. The flipped classroom model challenges teachers to think critically about their methods of content delivery in the digital age, where Google is the ultimate master and the majority of students have access to it through a device in their front pocket. The teacher is no longer “sage on the stage” but becomes a “guide on the side” who directs students to the most valuable resources.   I have created a Pinterest board to share the information I have obtained on the flipped classroom with other teachers on Pinterest. Pinterest is a social media network that allows users to gather resources on a certain topic and "pin" them to "pin boards" which then are available for followers to view. My pin board, titled "The Flipped Classroom," has a collection of 14 boards that are arranged to display over 100 pins that include a multitude of links to articles, books, info-graphics, videos, blogs, discussion forums, concept maps, apps, web tools, and learning management systems. Under each pin I wrote up a brief description, which may or may not persuade viewers to click on the link. Using Pinterest, I had to think carefully about how users navigate through it and the best arrangement for my pin board. I started by created one, single board on my own personal Pinterest page, which was effective because I already have several teachers that follow this page; however, the board I created was overwhelmingly cluttered with over 100 pins on a single page. By creating a separate Pinterest page dedicated to "The Flipped Classroom," I have given up my followers for more organization and easier navigation. I believe that this change was necessary for my page to become popular and remain popular. While I only have one follower on the new page, this follower may find my page useful and re-pin to her page, which will attract others to my page as well. So, it is very important that pictures, descriptions, and the organization of the site is appealing to users in order to draw in more followers. I thought carefully about the descriptions I wrote, as well as the pictures I chose to use as links. I try to catch the attention of the user with an interesting photo and then use my description to show why this link may be useful to their research on the flipped classroom. The new boards are categorized to guide users through the multiple pins to the ones that will be most useful to them. I have hand-picked one pin as the cover to each board, also choosing an interesting photo that will catch the user’s attention, which I think is representative of that category as a whole. I am now in the process of inviting more followers to my page! I too, just as the teachers that are considering flipping their classroom, had to think critically about my methods of delivering content.

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FoodinDigital (foodindigital)

I struggled with choosing the shape my project would take, and even as I decided on using Pinterest I realized the difficulties such a project would entail.  I believed (and still do) that Pinterest was a good venue for my study because the content -- food rhetoric -- is everywhere on social networking sites.  Pinterest, as a social networking site, appealed to me because I consider the layout to be less like a bulletin board and more like a recipe box filled with recipe cards, which also provides visuals in a relatively organized fashion. This gives the participants/viewers a visual and --even -- embodied sense of familiarity, one in which viewers could directly connect to their relationship with food, whether through memories of planning and preparing food with their mothers or through the memory of working with their own recipe boxes. 

The challenge was to make Pinterest work for an academic study of a specific subject while providing some sense of intellectual organization and flow without making it too text heavy. One of the affordances of Pinterest is the ability to either re-pin a pin, create your own pin from scratch, or pin something directly from a different website. With any of the above choices one has the ability to write something about the pin, from the simple to the substantial. Each pin is then posted on a “board” (I liken this to a recipe card heading, i.e. Desserts), and each board can have a written description. The ability to “pin” a pin with a description into a specialized board with a description made it possible to have an academic-ness. And yet. Whether I’m hyper-critical, incapable, unaccustomed to “reading” websites critically/academically, or just too close to the project, I worry it is lacking. Organizing in a way that is not linear -- or not like a standard essay -- is, I think, crucial to a social networking site like Pinterest. Equally crucial, perhaps even more so, is the use of images to make, direct, or lead arguments. Both of these tasks proved to be very difficult and frustrating for me. 

In the end, though I feel like my project is better than mediocre but less than excellent, I learned a lot about the value and importance of understanding one’s medium as well as one’s audience.

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See how science fiction and the computer industry have mutually influenced each other. Have a look at artificial intelligence in life and fiction. Take a trip through science fiction and computer history. This multimodal project discusses science fiction media (literature, television, and movies) and historical computers from ENIAC to Watson in a historical context for scholars and interested techies.

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Embodiment of Google Glass takes a close look at the possible impacts the product could have on the way we we interact and perceive the world.

http://boomer23.wix.com/googleglass The purpose of this project is to examine the binary of the physical world and the digital world.  Recent research has argued that this binary presents many issues and does not hold up very well.  Google Glass is a technology that further complicates this binary.  Unlike ever before users are bringing the digital to the physical and the physical to the digital.  The digital screen that we have learned to look through is now gone.  The screen is now the world around us as augmented images overlay our physical world.  With this change our understanding and our perception of the world will change drastically.  It is no longer about how we exist or interact in the digital world or the physical world, but simply the world.  Using well known theories and ideas by Martin Heidegger, Jean Baudrillard, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and many other embodiment and technology theorists I apply them to Google Glass and examine the binary closely.  I have created a website that takes advantage of hyperlinks, other websites, videos, and images to help enhance the experience and increase engagement of visitors.  The end result is hopefully a well-rounded persuasive argument that is based on the knowledge I acquired about digital rhetoric throughout the course. 

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FlipBuilder provides flipping book design software to build wonderful 3d flash flip page effect ebooks from PDF, images, Office files.

So, useful program. They have a variety of pro versions, some of which are fairly cheap (under $100). They do have a simpler freeware version that I quite enjoy. Any hyperlinks available in the original PDF also work in the completed flip book!

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From writing your first draft to scheduling your last shot, we provide the tools to get it done. Writing and pre-production tools for your browser, desktop, and mobile devices.

This is a great program (and one that I'm taking advantage of) for screenwriting. It's simple and easy to use! It allows screenwriting for various purposes (theatre, movies, comic books, storyboards, etc). Definitely worth checking out! They have Pro versions that allow collaboration and other cool stuff, but the freeware is also pretty cool.

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Coming Soon! Koala-Chortle's Multimodal Project!

It's one giant step for koala kind. Koala-Chortle's multimodal science fiction project is coming soon to your computer. But for now, you can click this preview link to see some of the technology used for the project. Stay connected with this blog to see the koala's final project and the projects of other students.

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is the inaugural winner of the UM Press/Sweetland Publication Prize in Digital Rhetoric for his long-form webtext Screen Rhetoric and the Material World.

This is an example of a winning multi-modal project.  I personally feel uninspired and overwhelmed by the video/audio portion of the essay, but it does take a fairly straightforward form so is not a completely daunting example of multi-modality.  

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Monitors displaying predominantly black colours use around 20% less energy than those displaying a predominantly white screen. By using this special black search page instead of the default white service, you will be saving energy  and doing your bit for the environment every time you search the internet.

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I know there are several people in our class interested in this concept, so here's the website.

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A Class Project from UI Students

From the publishing and editing class (404/504) of Professor Slovic comes a very general guide to the Moscow, Idaho, metropolitan area. Download the PDF or other formats for free. Leave it to the MFA’s to come up with a title, “You might want a bicycle: And other tips you won't learn in class.” Get your copy quickly so you can trade “tips” with your friends! It’s a blast! It’s a gas! Its more textual excitement than the Gideon Bible in the motel drawer! Impress your family and peers and get it NOW- NOW- NOW!!!

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Google Death Manager? Search engine giant lets you plan digital afterlife with 'Inactive Account Manager' tool

This article does a good job discussing the new phenomena of the "digital legacy" left behind after a death. Currently, as the article notes, the politics of password and content dissemination to family or close acquaintances prevents access to potentially productive information. It will be interesting to see how the various platforms adapt and if legislation will be passed as the Internet becomes haunted by artifacts of a user's digital afterlife.

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Anonymous Targets Westboro Baptist Church

Members of the hacktivist group Anonymous have targeted the Westboro Baptist Church after the hate-mongering, quasi-religious group announced plans to protest a Sunday night vigil in remembrance of the Sandy Hook shooting victims, 20 of whom were just 6 and 7 years old.

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Proairetic: an empirical inference?

Proairetic is a term related to Roland Barthes’ literary criticism. It is probably best understood by reading Honore de Balzac’s short story Sarrasine and then reading Barthes’ criticism with which he demonstrates proairetic. There is a brief outline of Barthes’ five codes as discussed by Brooke on Wikipedia.