Style and Stance #8: Coding My Control Data Set

Warning: To those who want no more than a casual look at sociolinguistics, move on from this post.  Explore lighter posts like this one about design -- it's even colorful!  In the post you are currently reading, I am starting to dive into the coding of my two data sets, the submission guidelines for a traditional print journal and for a digital academic journal. Come back another day for my findings written in a more blog friendly (and maybe digitally academic) way!

Style and Stance #7: Pinning Down My Categories

I came a long way in my last post ... Let me quote myself:

• "For written texts, style has always been the main way to convey stance because we do not have the other options of voice inflection, dress, gestures, etc that are considered when we look for style in spoken language." 
• "Academic writing wants to show a certain stance so adopts a certain style in presenting a given content."   
  
• "My task now is to categorize this stance and define this style to see if journals are intentionally disaligning from this stance by making different style choices."
• "Rather than stance being the primitive that drives style, stance is the created by style." 

But I am left with somewhat the same question I had before: how does content fit in?  What is the role of all of the stuff we want to jam into our writing?

Style and Stance #6: Defining These Terms

Reading ahead to Kiesling’s  “Style as Stance” was really great advice from Dr. Anderson.  I have been trying to understand the relationship between style and stance, and Kiesling presents a new idea for me to consider: "any choice of linguistic form made by speakers is based ultimately on the interpersonal or epistemic stance they wish to take with their various interlocutors at a particular time, and … it is stances that become associated, through cultural models, with various identities" (172). In other words, stance is at the heart of what then drives style choices and style-shifting.

Style-Shifting

My Discussion

Style and Stance #5: Another Data Pairing

Having spent some of this past weekend prepping my discussion for Labov and the Decision Trees, I have started to think about whether I can apply the ideas of careful and casual speech to traditional and digital academic writing.  Now, again, I am applying a spoken framework to a study of writing, but I think it illuminates some interesting points.

Style and Stance #4: My First Data Examination

My goal tonight is to examine the submission guidelines for traditional academic journals to establish their style and stance then turn to digital academic journals' guidelines to see if I can find any contrasts.  Wish me luck on this first foray!

Style and Stance #3: Am I ready to start being a sociolinguist?

I am just about ready to start examining data sets ... just about.  Before I do, though, I want to use this week's post to encapsulate my understanding of style and stance and how a researcher applies these.  I also want to explore how these seem applicable to written texts in light of the majority of sociolinguistic work being done with speech.  If I am wrong about any of what I write below, tell me now!

Style and Stance #2: Categorizing

Think back to the halls of  high school.  Can you see the different groups standing together while eyeing the other groups? Do you remember what group you were in? What groups you wanted to be in?  Little did you know you were an early sociolinguist.

Style and Stance #1: Pondering

For those of you who follow my blog, I am sorry I have been absent. I took off the last few weeks of the summer to rest my brain in anticipation of taking two grad classes this fall. Now, my teaching year started three weeks ago, my grad student year started two weeks ago, and here I am, back on the blog.

Multimodal: Been There, Done That

In my final text for my independent study, Jason Palmeri explores how  "[l]ong before the contemporary multimodal turn, compositionists have been articulating the deep interconnections between seeing and writing -- experimenting with ways that visual composing can help students both generate ideas for and consider revisions of alphabetic texts" (9-10). I wanted to read this book because I was drawn to his idea that today's composing, while there are different tools, is not the first time alphabetic texts have had competition for composing. I (along with many other educators) am leery of the advent of "brand new" theories, and Palmeri shows so well where we have been and how these old paths can and should inform our work today with digital technologies.

The Little Details ...

I am at the stage with my Wordpress site where I am just tweaking things until I go live with it and get feedback and suggestions from my students.  I am looking at two aspects right now to wrap up before deciding I am ready to open it up to my classes in August:

• Making it mobile
• Linking it to our current database system

Design Mind

I have finished reading Robin Williams's design book, and while the prior four posts probably suffice for "enough said" about design, I want to wrap up by saying that Williams has shown me that I seem to have a natural flair for design.  There were a few moments in the prior posts when I had seemed to read her mind.  That continued to the end ...

• I discovered in my contrast post that repetition was my favorite design principle and that I had founded my class site on it.  Well ... "While the same four basic principles I've mentioned over and over in this book (contrast, repetition, alignment, proximity) also apply to web design, repetition is one of the most important for a web site. The other three principles helps pages look good and make sense, but repetition lets your visitors know whether they're still in the same web site" (139). 
• I also mentioned that I chose my theme because I wanted a horizontal navigation bar that was visible without scrolling.  well ... "Don't make visitors scroll to see the navigation links!" (140).

 Thanks for taking this design journey with me.

References
Book image source
Williams, Robin. The  Non-Designer's Design Book: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice. Third ed. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press, 2008. Print.

Design Principle #4: Contrast

"Contrast is created when two elements are different" (65).

"[C]reate some contrast ... their eyes will be attracted to certain parts ... as they skim ..." (72).

I am playing a bit of a contrast joke with my color choice for this principle. I chose blue as an accent color last semester on my first Google Sites page. Dr. Rodrigo kindly pointed out that this was not the best choice as most hyperlinks are in blue, so I was risking tricking my readers into thinking my blue words were hyperlinks. Blue therefore is a terrible example of contrast because "[i]f two items are not exactly the same, then make them different. Really different" (65).

Design Principle #3: Repetition

Repetition:

 "Repeat some aspect of the design 

throughout the entire piece" (51).

Repetition is my favorite aspect of design. The ways you can do this overtly or subtly are very fun for me to play with. Repetition is definitely a design aspect with room for pushing the boundaries.

Can digital communication be real communication?

This question has been on my mind for awhile.  I have written about it in myriad ways, from my course readings of Dick, McLuhan, Turkle and Baudrillard to my own personal discomfort with online interactions.  Through all of these posts, one thing remains as tough to solve for me as proving the Reimann Hypothesis: is the nature of digital communication defined foremost by its "digital-ness" or do personal tendencies have a defining role in digital communication?  Let me try to say it better: Are digital communications for extroverted and introverted people equally at risk for being shallow simply because the communication is digital?

Design Principle #2: Alignment

Alignment

Nothing should be placed on the page arbitrarily. 

Every item should have visual connection with something else on the page (33).
 
I am a center-alignment user.  I admit it, and well, I can't deny it anyway because all you have to do is look at the post right below this one to see my center-alignment in action.  But that is about to change!

Design Principle #1: Proximity

Proximity

"Items relating to each other should be grouped close together ...

This helps organize information, reduces clutter, and gives the reader a clear structure" (13).

My Class Homepage

Re-Viewing, Re-Working, Re-Visioning

Thanks to Dr. Rodrigo and her helpful comments, I have just ...

• Asked 2 fellow teachers and 1 former student to give me feedback on the design and navigation of my in-progress Wordpress site.
• Made and embedded a Google Form for adding to the class timeline.  I had no idea I could generate a form from an existing spreadsheet -- that is cool!  And Dr. Rodrigo is right -- the form is a much better interface than a spreadsheet.
• Sadly, I discovered that making this Google form from my spreadsheet broke the timeline on my site.  I have experimented with this and learned that any adjustment to the Google spreadsheet template except deleting rows breaks the timeline in Wordpress.  So this good idea cannot be done, and I have fixed my timeline and re-posted the spreadsheet link.
  
• Fixed my image sources since they were not all linked to the specific webpage where I got them.  I appreciate having Dr. Rodrigo see this mistake -- I thought I had the specific URLs but clearly did not for 2 of my images.  I also added the links to the MLA image sources here.

I also have firmed up my reading plans, having gotten all of my possibilities from ODU's ILL.  Here is my final list.  The first three are the same as my initial list, but the fourth one is new.

Brooding over Baudrillard

This morning's task is to get my head around Jean Baudrillard's The Illusion of the End, my second reading for the summer.  This book is very different from Technologies of Wonder, as Baudrillard is a sociologist and philosopher looking at culture and society versus Delagrange, an academic looking at digital technology specifically.  So, this blog post will have two parts.  First, I am going to lay out my understanding of Baudrillard's philosophy of history, as history is the foundation of The Illusion of the End.  Then, my ultimate goal is to determine how Baudrillard applies to digital media work.

Designing for Collaborative Creation

Today, I focused on making my class site a place where my students are co-creators of our learning and exploration.  This was possible on our ning at a basic level (students creating their own discussions and controlling their personal pages), but there was not much they could do.  I have to admit I did not focus well on maximizing what they could do either.  My new site is going to different because I am designing it that way.  That is a key aspect of true digital design -- looking at what can be done because it is digital versus relying on standard print design principles.  I am not finished with my thinking about this kind of design, but I am pretty pleased with what I accomplished today.

Wild Waters of Wordpress

I dove into the Wordpress.org ocean and am now laying on the shore.  I think I survived, but time will tell as I am still waiting on some things to activate.

Here is what I did today.

Designing for "Wunder"

"English Studies ... still privilege[s] the Word as its preferred mode of 
performance, and linear argument as its preferred form. For this to change, 
more scholars must move beyond critical verbal analysis of visual texts and 
become active architects of intellectually engaged (and engaging) multimediated 
visual rhetoric. Until we and our students see ourselves as producers rather 
than just consumers of visual rhetoric, we are ceding the authority to speak 
and intervene in an increasingly mediated world" (Delagrange 11).

Before I embark on my big creation (a Wordpress site for my AP English class), I wanted to practice being a thoughtful producer of digital design who would make Susan Delagrange proud.

Fun in the Summer Sun ... Intellectual Style

Today is kick-off day ... the Great Summer 2012 Independent Study has begun!  My kids are at a camp each morning this week, my early morning run is done, and here I sit ready to work.  My type-A, organized self jumped right into the pool waters of work by ... making a plan for my work!  (I can see my good friend and fellow planner Jennifer nodding her head and laughing ...)  So, here is my plan ...

Rethinking Arrangement

I have started my reading for my new media independent study, and I will be reflecting on each text here.  So, let me get started with my first text, Susan Delagrange's Technologies of Wonder.

Wrapping Up

DMAC Day 10

Really this is about DMAC Day 9, but I took a break last night instead of writing this blog.  I had dinner from City Barbeque with Krista, her family, and her parents.  We had fun remembering the BBQ we would eat in college, particularly the long waits we were willing to endure for the hush puppies at Bullock's Bar-B-Cue.  (My visual design mind is highly alert BTW after the last 10 days because I really enjoyed seeing the difference between these two BBQ websites.  Bullock's website, looking as it does like it is straight from 1985, captures what that restaurant is all about -- no frills, no desire to be more than one restaurant serving great food, good ol' Southern charm. The rhetoric of new media is deep in me!).  Some margaritas and corn pudding set up a great night's sleep, and now I am back in DMAC reflection and production mode.

Summer Reading ... by the English teacher

DMAC Day 8

I have spent some time thinking about how I can build on what I am learning here at DMAC to craft my independent study for the rest of the summer.  One of my goals for this independent study is to read some of the many texts I have heard about -- with the idea that the summer might be a time when I can choose my academic reading and have the time to actually read.  I may be in delusion about this, but hey, it is good to have goals.  So here is my draft reading list for the summer ...

Cooked Texts

DMAC Day 6

I have spent the last 30 hours (when I was not enjoying the DMAC party or sleeping!) focusing my final project.  The process we have been guided through in this focusing is worth reflecting on in and of itself.

Catching up with my students...

DMAC Day 4
 
At times, I feel funny having discussions about the value of multimodal composition because it seems like an old person's conversation.  My students would immediately tell you that they compose all the time in different modalities, particularly outside of school.  To bring these different modalities into the classroom can only enhance students' understanding of composition as a whole and, as a huge side benefit, make their non-academic composing better.

Remixing like a Semi-Pro

DMAC Day 2

Today was audio production day -- well, half of it was.  Which means I made an audio commercial with four layered tracks in half a day.  That is a steep and really great learning curve.

Splicing Audio for the Sake of Literacy

Day 1 of DMAC
(note my Ohio Buckeye color choice!)

• Turns out, this is the last year I could have attended DMAC, as they are moving it to before Memorial Day after this year.  I cannot miss two weeks of work, so I feel lucky that I slipped in for the last June DMAC.
•  The DMAC philosophy: people first, teaching and instruction next, and technology following to support both.  Good stuff.
• Today's topic was literacy, and Cindy said that one of our challenges will be learning "how to be humble with the fact that you will be illiterate at some point in this institute."  A great reminder of the many modalities of literacy as well as a thought-provoking introduction to where we are heading.
• We jumped right into production by recording and editing our literacy narratives.  After some cutting and splicing using Audacity, here is mine, already waiting for you at the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives.  I already have overcome some aspects of my audio illiteracy and am proud of the seamless splice between two audio tracks.  Just try to guess where it is!
• For my future and more complicated audio work, Scott offered one key piece of wisdom: The more pieces of audio you have, the more creative and artful you can be in your crafting of a final product.  More (pieces) = less (restriction on what the final puzzle looks like).

Once you have listened to me literacy narrative, I thought you might enjoy reading the Strausberg Bardette's now famous poem ...

Ohio Bound

I get in my car Wednesday morning westward bound for Ohio.  I have Middlesex on CD, a water bottle, and mountains to cross ... all things I will use to mentally close my teaching year and open my studying summer.  I am most excited about playing with audio and video in these next two weeks, something I have only barely explored on my own.  I have my headphones that cover my whole ear and a huge flashdrive -- I am loaded and ready!


(Image from The Best Motorcycle Roads in America)

Knowing What I Do Not Know

Not knowing is good. 

I start my AP English class every year by telling them that "confusion represents an advanced stage of understanding," wisdom from my first NCTE conference.  I wish I could remember the presenter's name to give him credit -- his words have liberated so many of my AP students from their worries that they need to know it all.  Those who know they are confused as they look forward know a great deal about where they are and what they already know.

I am taking my own advice as I head to DMAC: embracing the chance to wander paths, knowing I do not know where I will be going (well, I am going to Columbus, OH, but where will I intellectually go?) and knowing that what I do not know is much more important than what I do know.  Here is what I do not know about digital media and composition, what makes me confused.

Looking ahead to Columbus

I leave in one week for Columbus, Ohio, to attend the Digital Media and Composition Institute.  I have a full 13 days in front of me -- see my schedule!  I have started doing the readings plus have some early ideas for my final DMAC project.  Here are my thoughts in no particular order ... all tied to being very excited to go and PRODUCE projects based on all of my reading and study.

A Temporary Stop ...

I have come to a stopping point for my Google Sites and coding exploration. My goal has been to create a class site for my high school freshmen on Google Sites with CSS coding within the pages to personalize them. My students will use this site throughout next year to share work with each other and a larger audience (for example, they will present original poems and recorded recitations of them) and to complete group projects (for example, they will work with partners to research and create a page on the site about a Holocaust topic).

Coding like a (New and Inexperienced) Pro: Project Reflection #2

As I was exploring CSS in the middle of this semester, the one piece of advice I read again and again was that the best way to learn to code was to just jump into coding.  Well, I have jumped in, and my Google Site now has custom fonts, custom font colors, and custom spacing ... all brought to it by CSS Coder Susanne Nobles!

So, what is your dissertation going to be? (Reading, Reflecting, and Thinking #10)

Dear Dr. Rodrigo,
Thank you for the open reflection blog, and I hope you will indulge me as I veer a bit away from your particular course only to see how it fits into my PhD puzzle.  Read on ... there just may the seeds of a dissertation planted somewhere in here.
Sincerely,
Susanne

Mapping New Media

Google Sites Kinda Scared Me: Project Reflection #1

Step 1: the seemingly simple goal of creating my Google Site -- just the homepage.  I was confident I could do this easily because I have been using a Google Site for my grad class all semester and I have created multiple online sites for my own classes using Wikispaces and Nings.  I also use many other Google applications, from gmail to Google Documents/Forms/Presentations. How hard could it be to set up a basic Google Site? 

Individual New Media Project Plan

Please visit bubbl.us to explore my map in detail. Add me (user name: Susanne Nobles) to your contacts, and I will share my map with you.

Going Academic on Turkle (Reading, Thinking, and Reflecting #9)

Alone Together, Chapters 11-end: 

I have to admit: Reading, Thinking, and Reflecting #8 is a much more satisfying post -- I really enjoyed that week and enjoyed capturing it in a new blog form for me.  This week it is a return to academics.  Ultimately, I will present this book to my class, so I want to start getting my head around what Turkle says about our core course concepts (garnered from New Media: The Key Concepts and Lingua Fracta). Here go the ones I have played with so far, and I have found constant overlapping in the robotic and digital environments Turkle is studying.

Striking Out on My Own (New Media Project Proposal)

Rhetorical Situation

My goal is to create a class site for my high school freshmen on Google Sites with CSS coding within the pages to personalize them.  My students will use this site throughout the year to share work with each other and a larger audience (for example, they will present original poems and recorded recitations of them) and to complete group projects (for example, they will work with partners to research and create a page on the site about a Holocaust topic).  I will also research the implications of FERPA for an online classroom for minors.

My Life Collides: Grad Class, Colleague, and Church (Reading, Thinking, and Reflecting #8)

Alone Together, Chapters 7-10:
 Let me tell the story of my week in this post.  I learned as I finished reading Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand that what draws me to nonfiction is the existence of a narrative, something Hillenbrand is a master of. So let me try to draw you into my nonfiction life as I lived the very things of which I was reading.

Children Dream of Electric Furbies (Reading, Thinking, and Reflecting #7)

The Gray Furby

Alone Together, Chapters 1-6:

As I move deeper into this course, I am finding the connections fascinating.  I was assigned to read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, I got my second choice when I read Understanding Media, and I am now reading my first choice, Alone Together. None of these were assigned to me or selected by me with any thought to the others, yet they fit into a thought-provoking single picture of our current society.

Final CSS Exploratory Outing and Reflection

Explorer Nobles reporting in from week four. Lost bearings on third outing. Ended up mired in the CSS Language Swamp. Have regained footing. Repeat: have regained footing.  No longer feeling smug but know upcoming trip into the Coding Canyon of CSS will not be a disaster ... most likely anyway ...

Canonical Texts Wikipage Review

The two wikipages I reviewed are Manovich's The Language of New Media and Baudrillard's Simulcra... and  The Illusion ...

Baudrillard, McLuhan, and Bolter ... oh my!

My fascinating reading for this morning comes from: Diane, Suzanne, Sarah, and Jennifer. 

The physical remediation so prevalent in our society and laid out with incredible visual power in Diane's post really had me thinking about the struggles of women to meet the unrealistic expectations of beauty in our society ... and who knew I was channeling Baudrillard as I thought about this! Suzanne and Sarah explain well Baudrillard's concept of simulcra, and I was struck most by his point that society has gotten to where the real and the simulated can no longer be distinguished.  At its most basic level, this is speaking to the women's magazines Diane writes of and the video on plastic surgery she shares.  When a reader of Cosmo feels she needs to look like the models, she is seeking to make a simulcrum into a reality ... and the damage that comes with such an effort is enormous. Sarah and Jennifer then offer the final link in today's cycle of thoughts -- McLuhan's thoughts on how media affect messages.

CSS Exploration #3

As I am in the midst of understanding CSS vocabulary and not yet done, I need to stop and let these foundational terms sink in before I go further. Here is my key terms list for today (all taken from the Mozilla CSS tutorial site):

CSS Exploration #2

Photobucket

Today I took the advice I read last week that nothing is better than just jumping into playing with coding. This CSS tutorial recommended by Wil Laveist is a great start for beginners like me. After working through the first four modules, I succeeded in getting coding into my browser and adjusting the style. This is the me who did not know before tonight how to get coding into a browser let alone how to code. Thank you, Mozilla Developer Network for your excellent beginner's guide -- you have me feeling like a real Stage 2 Programmer!

CSS Exploration #1

Explorer Nobles reporting in from week one. Not lost. Repeat not lost. In fact, feeling rather smug that this first foray into the unknown terrain of coding went so well. Must remember though that tougher terrain lays ahead ...

It's Not Disney World, but CSS ... Here I Come!

For my individual tutorial I am going to explore CSS, which means I am also going to explore HTML. After hearing about all of the languages last night, I have decided that, as a newbie to this whole world, CSS/HTML, since it is so widely used, is a good entry point that will lead me in the right direction for my future work. I am attending the 2012 DMAC, during which I will explore video and audio editing a great deal. I hope to take that experience and apply it to the basic of website building that I will learn through my explorations this semester with the ultimate goal of creating my digital portfolio for my PhD language requirement.

Exploring Blogs

Responses to first part of Lingua Fracta:
- Cheri Lemieux Spiegel's post
- Diane Cooke's post

Responses to finishing Lingua Fracta:
- Eric Sentell's post
- Mat Reynold's post





My partner in the canonical book assignment (McLuhan's Understanding Media):
- Jennifer Buckner's post
- (Reading Eric's post above and seeing that he was also reading McLuhan led me to read his McLuhan post ... so I have two on three topics versus three on two topics. Hope that is okay ...) Eric Sentell's post

Reading, Thinking, and Reflecting #6

 My Book ... Too Full of Ideas to Contain! 

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, chapters 12-22 and chapters 22-33:One of McLuhan's running themes is the difference between tribal and literate societies. I have been tracking this thread ...

- "Literacy creates very much simpler kinds of people than those that develop in the complex web of ordinary tribal and oral societies. For the fragmented man creates the homogenized Western world, while oral societies are made up of people differentiated, not by their specialist skills or visible marks, but by their unique emotional mixes. The oral man's inner world is a tangle of complex emotions and feelings that the Western practical man has long ago eroded or suppressed within himself in the interest of efficiency and practicality" (75).

Reading, Thinking, and Reflecting #5

Understanding Media: The Extensions of ManChapters 1-11:
Marshall McLuhan ... "McLuhan wrote with no knowledge of galvanic skin response technology, terminal node controllers, or the Apple Newton. He might not have been able even to imagine what a biomouse is. But he pointed the way to understanding all of these, not in themselves, but in their relation to each other, to older technologies, and above all in relation to ourselves our bodies, our physical senses, our psychic balance. When he published Understanding Media in 1964, he was disturbed about mankind’s shuffling toward the twenty-first century in the shackles of nineteenth century perceptions. He might be no less disturbed today. And he would continue to issue the challenge that confronts the reader at every page of his writings to cast off those shackles" (Gordon).

Reading, Thinking, and Reflecting #4

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, chapters 16-22:

"Because without the Mercerism experience we just have your word that you feel this empathy business, this shared, group thing" (209-210).

After our 1/23 class when Dr. Rodrigo shared that one reason we are reading this book is to think about empathy as we study new media, I have found myself pondering this idea even more. When I first wrote about empathy, I was thinking about whether digital networks can ever replicate the empathy drawn from physical proximity that underlies non-digital social networks. Dick wrote (see above quote) that empathy will always be the divider between human and android -- which makes me think about whether humans can ever find full empathy through digital connections. Does the inherent lack of empathy in something digital create a barrier to the conveyance of human empathy across digital channels? Dick's empathy box does generate human empathy across its technology -- is this something possible outside of science fiction?

Reading, Thinking, and Reflecting #3

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, chapters 11-15:I am going to wait to comment on this novel for my next post when we have finished reading it all ... Today instead I would like to explore our next text ...

Lingua Fracta, chapters 1-4I somehow reached my place in life as an English major and teacher without taking classical rhetoric. However, I am lucky because I am married to a Latin teacher who pulled right out of his files this when I asked him about the classical rhetoric canons. I hope you find it helpful too -- I keep mine in my Lingua Fracta book as my reference. My husband says the picture is of him at a younger age ...

Reading, Thinking, and Reflecting #2

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Chapters 6-10
I am still enjoying reading this book. Dick has set up parallel story lines that I know must cross in significant ways as I finish the book, and I am curious how that will happen. A version of Rachael Rosen showing up at John's apartment was the first link, but now with the android faux police headquarters appearing, it seems certain that the idea of separating android from human will only tangle up more. I did wonder how the (as we were to discover) android police were able to run the bone density test so quickly on the victim in Rick's car; that test had been said to take a very long time at Rosen. Maybe androids are more adept at pinpointing other androids? Which is intriguing -- how the humans are worrying so much about correct identification, while the androids are either better at it or care less for accuracy.

My Story of ENGL 866

My Goals for New Media Theory I: My study of Pottermore in Tracing Digital Cultures in summer 2012 is the most interesting work I have done thus far in my PhD studies, confirming my New Media emphasis choice. This degree focus plus my acceptance into DMAC 2012 led me directly to this class and these goals:

• To gain a strong base in new media theory to found my DMAC project and future studies
• To determine which language I want to use for my digital portfolio requirement and begin to learn this language (and maybe even start on my digital portfolio)
• To determine my direction for my independent study post-DMAC -- this might be theoretical and it might be practical ... the wide scope of this class will show me all of the possibilities and allow me to explore enough to make an educated decision
• Last but not least, to take a class with Dr. Roderigo, who is my independent study mentor for DMAC and post-DMAC!

Reading, Thinking, Reflecting #1

(A note about many of my blog posts this semester: I have started my New Media Theory I class in my doctoral program at ODU with Dr. Shelley Rodrigo. Many of my posts will be reflections on the reading and work we are are doing. I will always note what reading I have done in case you want to find the texts yourselves. I am loving Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep!)

Chapters 1-5, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
I am thinking about empathy right now. Empathy -- the connection to others that androids cannot feel. Rick's realization that he was caring for an android in the form of his electric sheep (42) really spun the idea of empathy for me.