DWRL Lesson Plans - Accessibility

Assignment Length:

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Research

Summary

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

Introduce rhetorical analysis to students
Offer a broad illustration of the scope of rhetoric and rhetorical analysis
Familiarize students with initial components of rhetorical analysis (audience, speaker, argument)
Help students feel comfortable offering their own analyses

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

Media console with overhead projector
Class computer with internet connection
Preferable, but not essential: personal computers for brief individual research activity.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Early in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

This lesson is intended to provide a light, engaging, and accessible introduction to rhetorical analysis. Students will survey several contemporary advertisements that vary in a number of ways yet share some broad themes. The order of the texts is intended to subtly help the students progress from basic to more nuanced analyses.

The first moments of this class are open to suit the needs of the instructor. If this is the first day that students will be performing rhetorical analysis, it may be helpful to provide a brief overview of what is to come.

To begin the analytical portion of the class, play the first text—an Old Spice commercial from the 2010 "Smell Like a Man, Man" campaign. The commercial is both fun and funny, thus students should respond well to it. Moreover, its fast pace and quirky tone will likely get students laughing, which will hopefully loosen them up for analysis.

Once you have played the video, ask the following questions:

Who is the speaker?

Who is the audience?

What is the situation?

What is the argument?

What does the text want you to feel?

What does the text want you to believe?

What does the text want you to do?

How is the text making that argument?

Be sure to draw out detailed responses from the students. Play the video again, as needed. One reason this ad is great for an initial analysis is because it has two different speakers (i.e., the spokesman and the company), two different audiences (i.e., implicit and explicit), and plenty of components that students can draw on to support their answers to the argument questions.

Next, play the second and third videos. Each of these are 2008 advertisements from the Corn Refiner Association's "Sweet Surprise" campaign about high fructose corn syrup. Ask students the same series of questions, and encourage them to pay even closer attention to the details that help create this argument.

Once you feel that your students have adequately analyzed the argument in these two texts, have students go to the website featured at the end of the videos. If students don't have computers, do this together as a class. By this point, hopefully students will have mentioned that the text wants you to go to this website, so this can be a way of getting them to further test the text. Once there, have students try to identify any bias on the website and ask them to list specific examples. This is meant to encourage students to closely examine sources and to consider how word choice and other stylistic choices shape an argument.

If time permits, have students look at one more text—a 2014 print ad from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. In the ad, one woman remarks about new public transportation changes and another woman responds, "Can't we just talk about shoes?" There are several broad parallels between this text and the former texts, so students should feel comfortable by now analyzing this form of visual rhetoric.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Given the brevity of both these texts and the follow-up questions, it would be a good idea to thoroughly familiarize yourself with each text before presenting them to the class. With this being an introduction to rhetorical analysis, students may feel shy about offering responses, so being prepared with many different ways to prompt their analyses can be helpful.

Instructions For Students:

For the group analysis portion of the class:

Answer the following the questions. Cite evidence to support your response.

Who is the speaker?

Who is the audience?

What is the situation?

What is the argument?

What does the text want you to feel?

What does the text want you to believe?

What does the text want you to do?

How is the text making that argument?

For the individual research portion of the class:

Go to http://www.sweetsurprise.com
Can you identify any bias?
Cite specific examples to support your response.

Evaluation Suggestions:

There is no evaluative component to this activity.

Course Type:

Course Description:

This lesson plan was designed for "Rhetoric and Writing", an introductory course.

Tags:

Using Google Maps with Alternative Learners

Voss — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 19:31:21 +0000

Author:

Jay Voss

Image Credit:

billolen

Brief Assignment Overview:

This lesson plan will help students visualize unfamiliar geographic settings. For whatever reason (there’s probably an anthropological explanation), humans around the world are often ignorant of locales 3,000 miles away. Most Americans don’t understand the political distinctions, say, between different sects of foreign religions, and people who have never been to America probably imagine that it’s all like Die Hard or Blade Runner. Some whose first visit to the states included a stop at Austin’s SXSW festival might have found those expectations fulfilled, but I digress.

Given such short-sidedness, this lesson plan is for college-level students who are assigned to read something like Tolstoy’s Hadji Murat, and yet who struggle to understand the historical politics of a place like the mid-nineteenth century Caucus. The strength of the exercise is that it helps students visualize where all sorts of unfamiliar places are on a map. A potential weakness of this exercise is that you’ll encourage underperforming students to rely on the Internet for information. It’s precisely these students, especially if they’re Literature or Rhetoric majors, who instead need encouragement to read more. In any case, humble me is merely proffering up this lesson plan to a caring forum, and we can all keep debating issues like this for the rest of our careers.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Arrangement

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Textual Analysis

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Research

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

Internet access and a Google Account.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

When teaching literature, inevitably you will assign a book that involves travel to places that students have never heard of. This could be Bath in Austen’s Northanger Abbey, or Birnam Wood in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Sometimes, in the case of a Tolstoy story or Nabokov novel, knowing something about these places often provides for a richer thematic understanding of the literary art. This is the sort of knowledge that comes from having read a lot already, and if you’re students haven’t acquired this knowledge from previous reading, you may be looking for ways to instill this learning. In this lesson plan and assignment, you will ask students to make a detailed Google Map for a piece of literature that they find exotic, and then also ask them to write an interpretive essay that digests the map they created.

In the accompanying paper that goes along with this assignment, ask students to interpret a specific work of literature through the map that each individual student has made for that work of literature.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Students need to know how to use Google Maps. Most of them already do, and there are a number of tutorials on YouTube that you can find for them. If students don’t know how to use Google Maps, then you should take the time to teach them.

Instructions For Students:

So, assign your students to make a detailed Google Map for a confusing piece of geographic literature. There are a number of things that I think you should counsel students on as you assign this work. Each student’s map should contain roughly 8 place markers. They should drop place markers in locations that pop up in their work of fiction, and label those pins with important relevant information that they can find on the Internet. In some cases, such as Lolita, many of the towns mentioned are entirely fictional. Rather than smurf your students out of this paradox, I suggest you have them articulate their own way out of it in the accompanying interpretive essay.

Each place marker should contain all sorts of research data. There are any number of ways they can go about filling out this information. The place markers may contain references to some sort of multimedia content or Wikipedia page. It can contain excerpts from the novel in question, or mentions of other works of fiction that also mention these places. Part of what students will glean from this assignment is an understanding of essential information relevant to a quick presentation.

Evaluation Suggestions:

As an instructor, there a two different ways you might consider assessing this work, depending upon your own pedagogical prerogatives. If you’re looking for ways to grade students that don’t involve traditional research and writing, you might put more emphasis on the mapping portion of the assignment. If, on the other hand, the mapping component was simply a leader designed to get students researching in productive ways, you might instead put more emphasis on the writing component. It’s really all up to you.

Composing Short Writing Assignments for the Internet: Confronting the Digital Native Myth

Steel — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 00:13:32 +0000

Author:

Connie M. Steel

Image Credit:

Digital native image found at http://www.mondaynote.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/144-digital_native2...

Brief Assignment Overview:

This peer learning assignment and lesson plan series gives students the opportunity to explore digital composition. It allows students to research container designs for themselves; set up a website or blog; peer-train each other to use the site; develop writing standards for content; and write peer-editing and publishing content. This plan can be adapted equally well to short rhetoric or short literary criticism assignments.

Type of Assignment:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Homework Assignment

Assignment Length:

Multiple Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Literary Criticism

Textual Analysis

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

1) To develop ideas of critical reception in digital formats by asking students to analyze and benchmark websites and blogs

2) To develop standards for on-line writing by having the students generate the writing prompt

3) To access on-line composition technologies by choosing a product capable of meeting their aesthetic goals within their resource limits (i.e. free and within time constraints)

4) To develop research skills by selecting books for review appropriate to the blog theme

5) To develop collaboration and oral argumentation skills through an in-class debate and final selection of aesthetics, technology and writing standards

6) To formulate ideas for logos and arrangement of multiple textual pieces

7) To write a short review essay. (The short reviews become the final product and content for the website).

8) Peer review and copyediting of short essays

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

A computer classroom; or enough laptops that every two students could share

Internet access

Students

An idea for a short writing assignment relevant to course content that would be interesting to potential audiences outside of the class room, such as book reviews on a particular theme, or research summaries on a coherent topic of current interest

Timeline for Optimal Use:

http://womenofsteel.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/34/

Late in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

I designed this series in response to the 'Digital Native' myth. The 'Digital Native' myth goes something like this: today's students grow up surrounded by technology, and therefore, magically know how to use it. But when I surveyed actual students at the beginning of a course "Literature and Artificial Intelligence," I found that the number of students who knew how to compose on the internet was very small. When I showed the aggregated results to the students they noticed immediately a large gender bias in our class--only one of the young women had ever started their own blog. This raised a sort of accessibility issue that we decided to address as a class. Further discussion revealed that instructors tend to set up courseblogs or course websites for students, and then just ask the students to create a login and add the content. Many did not understand the data input side of things well enough to explain it to a peer. The majority of students did not know how or why those containers had been chosen or how to set up a blog of their own, thus indicating a significant barrier to entry for digital composition in spite of access to the relevant hardware. In response to the students' survey results and comments, I expanded the original blog post assignment to include the full range of steps required to get from Step A to Step B in digital composition for the internet. This series was designed for a computer lab classroom (I have done similar things with a series of reservations for a computer lab).

This is a series of in class workshops and take home assignments. The entire class functions together as a collective to produce a single website with a common theme composed of multiple short essays. These are the skeletons of the prompts I used to guide the students through the process of selecting a container, developing standards, writing, editing and publishing content.

TAKE HOME ASSIGNMENT #1—Selecting Texts Prompt

As a take home assignment, I asked students to post three suggestions (each) for texts to review on the website we would build. The idea here was that the texts selected might influence the overall aesthetic choices. The stories needed to fit the course theme of science fiction involving artificial intelligence with the added dimension of a female author as we found a shortage of information about female science fiction writers on the internet. Here’s the discussion board prompt:

“List three stories by giving MLA citations for the copies you find (on Amazon, at the PCL, your local bookstore, etc). If someone else checked them out of the library, recall them now! If we don’t own the book/story, use Inter-Library Loan to request a copy from another university.”

Then we whittled down

WORKSHOP #1—Brainstorming and Benchmarking Writing Standards and Technologies

In order to accomplish the next goal the class was divided into four teams representing different types of decision making steps. Each team is giving a specific task building towards decisions that will effect the writing of the whole class. The instructor should leave some time at the beginning and end of class for discussion and should check in with each team to make sure they understand their job and how their job fits in with the other jobs.

Technology Selection Team: This team consists of students with prior web/blog/wiki experience. It is this teams job to compare notes on the usability of programs they have used and come up with their top recommendations for the class. (Tumbler and Word Press are favorites).

Aesthetics Team: This team's job is to identify sites that do similar types of work and look appealing. What might be the technical challenges of making something similar? They come up with a list of sites and narrow it down to their favorite four to show the class.

Writing Standards Team: This team is given the task of developing standards for content. In this case the students benchmarked the genre elements in a graduate level E3W Review of Books and adapted them to a shorter on-line format. Students should think about word limits (discourage anything longer than 500 words) and types of questions they want answered in the review, and think about things like pictures.

Managing Editor Team: This small team (two students is fine) compiles, polishes, organizes and removes the duplicates from the lists of books in the discussion forum. At the end of class, final decisions are made as to who will read and review which texts. Everybody commits.

HOMEWORK #2—Find and begin reading your story

Prompt: “This past week you were supposed to find and start reading the text you will review for our blog/wiki on Women and Science Fiction. BRING YOUR STORY TO CLASS on X Date! If it is something you are accessing through EEBO or other on-line source PRINT the cover/title page and the way to access it (website/database) onto a sheet or two of paper and bring that to use. Come to class ON-TIME and ready to do some creative workshopping.”

GAP CLASS—Schedule a day for something else while you give students the time to find/buy/read their books.

WORKSHOP #2—Caucusing and Decision Making

First half of class:

1) At the beginning of class students turn their books and book covers over to the General Editing Team. The Gen-Ed Team gets a delegate each from the Tech and Aesthetics teams to come up with two creative ways to organize texts in the on-line exhibit. (Total of four people). They will present these to the rest of the class.

2) The Tech and Aesthetics Teams caucus to figure out which of their favorite aesthetics are ones that are technologically feasible. They will come up with their best two options to show the class.

3) The Writing Standards Team meets with the professor to publish a handout with their content requirements. This will be distributed at the end of class.

Second half of class:

1) Managing Editor Team presents the final list of books.

2) Tech and Aesthetics teams present their recommendations.

3) Voting on container choices.

4) The Writing Standards team explains the content requirements prompt.

5) Final Decisions are posted as a plan on the discussion board (by the professor) for students to refer to at home and in the next workshop.

HOMEWORK #3—Short Content Writing Assignment

Students write their content using the standards developed as their prompt. They are asked to bring their work to class in electronic format (we used Word).

WORKSHOP #3—Peer Review and Content Building

1) Students read and peer review each other’s content. (This could also be a homework assignment).

2) Students copyedit and correct their work.

3) The tech team peer trains everybody to upload their content. People who "get it" first become peer trainers for the person next to them.

4) Uploading and final proof reading.

5) Troubleshooting. More troubleshooting.

FINAL SHOWCASE

Some students may need to take their time with the content upload. Give them the chance to finish their upload and editing during office hours or for homework. The instructor can review the site for typos or you can leave the remaining mistakes. Extra credit opportunities can be offered for students to add bells and whistles to the site, or for submitting an extra writing assignment.

At the beginning of the next class show off the final product and give the students a chance to discuss what they learned. A fun follow-up is to ask everyone to publicize the site by posting it on their social networking accounts (like Facebook, Twitter or their own blogs). Follow up in a later class by reporting the number of hits.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

This assignment/lesson plan requires clear communication with the students, and a certain amount of patience with utter chaos. By that I mean, the students did all the things I would normally do for them, like picking the website technology and designing the prompt, and I had to stand back and let them take control. Basically, my main job was to keep the teams communicating, to keep them aware of how their jobs fit into the bigger picture, and to help them figure out how to do things without micromanaging. This meant letting them make and learn from minor productive mistakes. There were a couple of challenges, which are described below.

Instructions For Students:

The series of steps are listed above in the Assignments section. Assignments and content can be flexibly adapted to course themes. The in-class workshops were designed for a 1 hour 15 minute class format. When lesson planning, it is important to include time for explaining tasks clearly to students and for getting their feedback at the end of class sessions. This time could vary quite a bit depending on the size of the class, the experience level of the students, and how well they have bonded as a group. I save this type of series for the end of the semester when students already have experience with writing, editing and conducting peer review. This assignment builds off those skills and teaches them new ones.

Evaluation Suggestions:

GRADING

This is a multi-piece project, so I split the grading into smaller chunks, which could be adapted to a variety of syllabi. This also encouraged class attendance.

1) Homework grade for the discussion post listing book choices (credit/no credit--went into the homework grade built into my syllabus)

2) Quiz grade for bringing books to class so that the general editors for workshop number 2. (Pass/Fail--went into the reading quizzes part of my syllabus)

3) Writing assignment for content, and upload completion—Students were given a letter grade. The writing assignment was worth 10% of the syllabus total.

4) Peer review quiz credit for editing during the third workshop. (Pass/fail quiz grade).

5) A small extra credit bonus was given for the “best peer editing team.” This was awarded to the peer editing pair that had the fewest number of copyediting mistakes in their final blog entries.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

The students chose to make a wordpress site. The following is a representative entry of the work they produced.

Their target audience was potential high school and lower division college instructors looking for science fiction texts for their courses. They decided each entry should include an image; a quote reflecting the author's writing style; a brief gloss of plot, genre, and themes; and an indication of the relative reading difficulty, along with pricing information. Two of the students were radio/television/film majors and the class decided it was OK if they reviewed science fiction films by women directors. Tagging and navigationals levels were added to reflect time periods, genres, theme and popular media. One challenge occurred when it was discoverd that the blog's default is to list entries by the date of upload. This wasn't a useful navigational feature but the students discovered it after they had already committed to their container theme. Another challenge appeared with the image uploads. Some of the book cover images load exactly as they are supposed to and others don't (in spite of a uniform training session). Overall, they did a nice job with the content and peer editing. The feedback from the students was that their overall confidence in trying to build a website or blog on their own had increased with knowing the types of decisionmaking steps to make, and their overall ability to explain what they were doing to a peer increased.

The site has since become the target for trolls. As a consequence there are some random unauthorized entries dating after May in the blog. A blog's flexibility for multiple users is an advantage, but sometimes older static website designs have better security. So, that's something to think about.

Additional Resources:

They needed to read books to complete this assignment.

Course Type:

Course Description:

This lesson plan was developed for a writing intensive sophomore level course designated as "introduction to the major/introduction to literary methods." The course variant was titled "Literature and Artificial Intelligence." Course content bridged the canons of English and Artificial Intelligence with a selection of science fiction, philosophy, literary criticism and scienctific essays. In the second half of the semester, students were asked to build a website featuring book reviews for relevent science fiction stories by women authors. Their potential audience was instructors in high school and lower division college courses.

Tags:

Disputing YouTube Content ID Takedowns

Scott Nelson — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 18:27:15 +0000

Author:

Scott Nelson

Image Credit:

Fair Use Logo by Odinn 2007 CC-BY-SA

Brief Assignment Overview:

As part fo the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998, content service providers (such as YouTube) are given safe harbor from prosecution if they take certain steps to prevent copyright infringement. Unfortunately, this has led to a "shoot first and ask questions later" approach on YouTube's part. If you do any sort of video assignments that require students to post to YouTube, you will most likely have to dispute a Content ID automatic takedown. Content ID is YouTube's automated system for flagging copyrighted content. It searches over 20 hours of video footage a minute to look for cpyrighted media "footprints." While it is a marvel of modern technology, the system is imperfect and tends to skew toward the side of major media companies, rather than individual consumers or producers.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

One-Two Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

This lesson plan helps students and instructors understand the four Fair Use factors articulated in the Copyright Act of 1976. Ideally, students and instructors should leave this lesson with increased confidence in disputing a false copyright claim. A YouTube Content ID notice can be frightening for anyone, and especially frightening for someone who doesn't understand Fair Use. The notices themselves can have chilling effects on free speech, so it's important to exercise Fair Use principles.

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

For this assignment, you'll need a YouTube account and a video that has been flagged by YouTube's Content ID system. Jenny Howell has an excellent lesson plan on introducing students to iMovie production. Most mashup videos will be flagged by Content ID, especially if the video clips used are from major motion pictures.

For the assignment, students will need to bring in the original video they created as well, as they'll be assessing Fair Use and the video is not available via YouTube (for now).

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

A few caveats:

1. It's important to note that Fair Use is ony an affirmative defense; that is, it can only be invoked if a copyright holder has accused you of copyright infringement. In the context of YouTube's Content ID system, what you're essentially doing is telling a human somewhere that the automated system has made a correct match, but it was ok for you to use the media in the first place.

2. It's also important to note that this is a legal matter. If you dispute the claim, the copyright holder can sue you. However, the cpyright holder can sue you even without your dispute, as the Content ID system is only a way to identify possible infringers. This threat of litigation is scary, and it is most often what frightens students and instructors away from exercising their free speech rigths. While you should not interpret this lesson plan as legal advice, it's important to teach students the value of flexing their free speech muscles. If you don't practice these rights, they quietly go away.

3. This step in the process is only to ensure that a human reviews the reasons the video was flagged and taken down. After review by a human, the copyright holder may still issue a DMCA takedown notice, at which point you may dispute even that. This takedown notice counts as a strike against your YouTube account. Three strikes, and YouTube freezes your account and deletes all your videos.

As outlined in the Copyrighjt Act of 1976, Fair Use consists of four factors:

1. The purpose and character of your use. If you have somehow transformed the nature of the original by using it, your use is more likely fair. Commentary, parody, reporting, and education are some uses that tend to fall on the Fair Use side. Most likely, your video has some educational aims, as it was created for a course.

2. The nature of the copyrighted work. Fair Use protects factual works more than fictional ones. If the original work was a clip from a major romantic comedy, then your use is less likely fair. This doesn't mean that you cannot use clips from fictional works. It only means that this factor may not be in your favor.

3. The amount used from the copyrighted work. Shorter is better, but this is a qualitative assessment. Use only the portion ofthe work needed to get your point across. Rarely is use of an entire song or video considered Fair Use.

4. The impact of your video on the market. Does your use of the copyrighted work affect its value? If you are making money off of your creation, your use is less likely Fair Use. In the case of YouTube, an example that isn't Fair Use would be using an entire song to drive traffic to your channel where you have monetized the account (provided advertising). Because your video was created for a class, though, chances are you are not making money off of it.

For this lesson, you may want students to read about Fair Use from the US Copyright Office or Stanford's summary of Fair Use cases.

When students write papers for an audience of one, the teacher, there isn't much risk in running up against copyright law. However, in an increasingly connected world, student expressions collide with media companies' interests. Discussing Fair Use in the abstract is good, but actual practice of free speech in the "real world" beyond academia can have consequences. If we are going to prepare our students to communicate in the 21st century, we must not only have conversations about these risks and rewards, but we need to practice this communication as well.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

This assignment can only be done if there has actually been a Content ID match. Surprisingly, these are pretty common. I've also done a rhetorical analysis of YouTube's content ID system for viz. that you may want to check out ahead of time. In the past, some collegaues I know have assigned students to post to YouTube, only to have those videos removed by Content ID the day before students were to present them. With a little planning, such an incident can be a teaching moment rather than a freak-out moment for students. It's ideal to have students upload their videos a couple of days before you'd like to give this lesson. Conversely, you could create a video mashup of your own, being sure to follow Fair Use guidelines, and upload it to YouTube yourself.

Instructions For Students:

Students should work in pairs or small groups. After reviewing the Fair Use guidelines at the US Copyright Office's website, students should view each video and discuss Fair Use for each copyrighted audiovisual element used. Use these questions to help guide you:

What is the overall purpose of the student's video? What evidence from the video can you point to that supports this purpose?
For each audiovisual element used, give a one-sentence statement about what it does for the overall video. How is this media being used? To what ends?
What is the nature of the original work? Is it more factual or more creative?
How much of the copyrighted work is used? Give a time for each element.
Would the student's video take any money away from the copyright holder? How so or why not? (Keep in mind, this is potential money. The copyright holder doesn't have to currently be earning money in this way.)
Could the copyrighted media used be replaced by any other media without changing the meaning or impact?

Once all students' videos have been reviewed, a few should be presented to the class to model the dicsussion. Following this, students should decide whether they think their own video has used outside media under Fair Use guidelines.

Now comes the dispute part. If you truly believe your video was falsely flagged, then you'll want to file a dispute. Log in to your YouTube Account. In the Video Manager, click on "Copyright Notices" on the left menu. If your video has been flagged, you will see something like the picture below:

SNP_2876298_en_v0.png

Image Credit: YouTube

Clicking on any of those links will take you to a page where you can dispute the Content ID block. To do so, click on the "I believe this copyright claim is not valid" link. Here, you can choose one of three reasons why your video should not be removed:

The Content ID system falsely flagged your material; there is no copyrighted media used in your video.
Your use of others media is Fair Use.
You have permission from the copyright holder to use the material.

Most likely, your answer will be #2. Be sure to indicate in the box provided why you think your use is Fair Use.

Evaluation Suggestions:

This lesson is not evaluated.

Course Type:

Course Description:

This lesson plan can be used with any course, provided that course uses YouTube.

Tags:

YouTube

Defamiliarized Keyboards and Embodied Writing

LeMieux — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 20:50:37 +0000

Author:

Steven J. LeMieux

Image Credit:

Screenshot from QWOP

Brief Assignment Overview:

This assignment is geared toward getting students to begin thinking, talking, and writing about how writing is a deeply embodied practice. I ask students to play two games (QWOP and GIRP) that reconfigure how we engage the keyboard as a material object.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Partial Class Period

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Open Access Software

Video Games

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

Reflection, Digital Literacy, Technology, Materiality

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

Computer-consoles for each student

QWOP

GIRP

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Early in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

In this assignment I ask students to play two games, QWOP and GIRP, both can be found at foddy.net. Both games demand that the player engage the standard computer keyboard in strange ways. In QWOP the player controls the calves and thighs of a runner with four keys (Q,W, O,P), and in GIRP the player scales a cliff by pressing and holding keys in a Twister-like fashion.

Before we begin playing games I like to engage the class in a brief discussion about the various experiences that they have had with different writing tools. You can ask them about the mechanical aspects of learning how to write—big red pencils and pencil grips, left and right handedness, print and cursive, timed writings, touch typing, etc. The goal here is to begin students thinking about writing as a physical, embodied practice.

Next, introduce students to QWOP. I like having them jump right in without any exterior explanation or videos of successful runs. The key with QWOP is making sure that student’s engage it as a serious experience. It is worth spending a decent amount of time actually paying the game (roughly 10 minutes)—the general impulse is to try it several times (less than a minute with the game) and give up. For this assignment to work you really want your students to struggle.

After the first few minutes you can encourage your students to think about how their legs work. Have them move around in class, get them thinking about their bodies (legs and fingers both). At this point I like to show videos of successful playthroughs (easily found on youtube). Have them play until you are satisfied with their effort.

Next, start up GIRP. It is less confusing that QWOP, and I have found that students take to it somewhat more readily, so an instructional video isn’t necessarily necessary. Have them play through GIRP in roughly the same manner that they went through QWOP (a serious engagement).

Once they have spent a fair amount of time thinking and playing and working with the games have your students immediately (prior to any organized discussion) write short reflections on their experiences with the games and writing as an embodied practice. Having them jump through these different keyboard uses and configurations quickly works well.

Once they have finished writing I like to give students the opportunity to discuss both games (and at this point it can be fun to have willing students show off their QWOP and GIRP skills for the class) and the relationship between the games and their fingers and the keyboard. Once both games have been discussed you can shift discussion back toward the more general topic of embodied writing that class began with. Ask your students to think specifically about how they have situated their writing practice in the past (where do they write? on what? when?). Guide them toward the notion that there is nothing natural about any of our writing practices and that any rhetorical situation also includes the various writing technologies we engage.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Be sure to play QWOP and GIRP with as much seriousness as you expect from your students before you begin the lesson.

Instructions For Students:

Since this is an in-class assignment you can follow the above description. Here are the key activities.

Discuss writing as a material, embodied practice
Play QWOP - Move, think about how your legs work
Play GIRP -Move, think both about the odd finger configurations the game demands and standard touch typing.
Write a short reflection about your experiences with both games and writing more broadly.
Discuss the games and the relationships we have with writing, our bodies, and writing tools.

Evaluation Suggestions:

I generally have students upload their short reflections to their course blogs.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

The key to this assignment is having students take the games seriously. It is incredibly easy to play for a minute than give up. You really need to work at getting your students engaged with the game (having them move and think about their bodies and the game and the keyboard works well). In general I have found that students readily engage in discussion about this topic—especially when it comes to relating how they learned to write. In the end it is worth remembering that the goal of the lesson is to begin thinking about writing differently rather than to beat QWOP and GIRP.

Course Type:

Course Description:

This assignment works in both early, general rhetoric/composition courses and in rhetoric courses geared toward more specific topic (video games, digital media, technology).

Tags:

Setting Up a Studio Environment for Multimedia Projects

Scott Nelson — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 02:27:16 +0000

Author:

Scott Nelson

Image Credit:

Matt Jones CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Brief Assignment Overview:

Whenever I teach, I always assign some form of multimedia project, and these practices have helped to set up a studio environment where collaborative multimedia projects can thrive. Rather than post an explicit lesson plan to our site, I thought I’d run through a set of practices that have been successful for me over a few courses.

Type of Assignment:

Major Course Project

Assignment Length:

Multiple Class Periods

Course Unit

No Classroom Technology Required

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

The pedagogical goals for this assignment are to have students think about what multimedia production skills they already possess and what skills they'd like to develop. Further, these practices foster a collaborative environment where studetns learn to work together toward common goals.

Media Requirements:

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Required Materials:

Since these are a set of practices rather than a specific use of a technology, what follows can be adapted to any classroom. Because most of the classes I teach are in rooms with computers for the students, I'll assume such a setup. Mainly, the students need some way to communicate with each other outside of class. I use PBWorks wikis for this aim, but a class blog or even email can be used to coordinate student skills.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Late in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

While each course's specific assignment may vary, I've sucessfully implemented these practices in many student projects. These projects have ranged from creating infographics to video games to ebooks. What I hope to achieve from these practices is a form of student autonomy that places responsibility for their work squarely with students.

For this aim, it's important that the assignment's product have some form of value outside of the classroom. Digital media needs a real audience, one beyond just the teacher in a particular course. With this in mind, I require that any multimedia project that students create have some venue in which it is showcased. This can be something as simple as posting it to Facebook, or something more complex such as publishing an ebook in Apple's iBookstore. Hopefully, by having an audience beyond the classroom, students will attribute more value to the rhetorical work they do. These projects aren't just for a grade in a self-contained course, but instead rhetorical practices that work upon the networks they inhabit.

Secondly, I set up a type of Craigslist for student skills. Early in the semester, I have students post a brief biography detailing their current skills in multimedia production and skills they'd like to develop. I normally create a new wiki page for students to populate, but this can be done via a course blog or a mass email. This particular stage in setting up the studio environment requires that students think about their relationships to multimedia and the ways they can create in these modes. Undoubtedly, I have students who begin this stage thinking they have no skills in multimedia whatsoever, but a brief class discussion usually gets students thinking about the digital discourse communities they already belong to. Some may be avid social media prosumers, while others may keep Twitter or Instagram accounts.

A further advantage to these Craiglist-style bios is that students can self-select collaborative groups. If, for example, one student has a great idea for a video game, but no skills with Photoshop, the bios are a first step to making those need-based connections. Plus, because students are shopping for skills among their classmates, they tend to create more organic groups with a common goal. This practice seems to reduce the occurances of group members who refuse to contribute to a project and let others "take up their slack." Common interests drive group formation, so individual students are less likely to be bored with the project.

As a final bonus from this practice, because groups are formed based upon skills, sudents tend to create affinity groups that share knowledge. Students teach each other their skills, and thus all participate in the production of the project. While there is the risk that students will only practice what they are already good at, experience has shown me that this isn't the case. Students are genuinely interested in the common goal they've set, and hence, they all work to create a quality product.

The final practice I do in the classroom is to give students time to play. Multimedia takes some time to create, and scheduling in-class time to experiment is extremely important. Digital technologies ask that we manipulate them, to try out hypotheses regarding their rhetorics and grammars. Groups need time to teach each other skills, and studio work days are important for this task.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

As I've indicated above, this is more a set of classroom principles rather than a specific lesson plan. However, they've worked well for my students, especially when they are working with multimedia. A familiarity with programs like Photoshop, GIMP, Illustrator, Inkscape, inDesign, iMovie, Audacity, or GarageBand can help, but I've found the single most important skill to have is flexibility. No instructor can possibly know all there is to know about these multimedia creation applications, so a willingness to learn from students is paramount.

Instructions For Students:

Since this is a set of practices rather than a specific lesson, there aren't any explicit instructions to students beyond what I've outlined above. However, the following may be helpful when attempting to set up a Craigslist-style skill listing:

In a brief paragraph, outline your interests in the upcoming project, listing any type of multimedia you would be willing to work in or learn. The aim here is not necessarily to give only those programs you're already confident in, but instead your interests in creating multimedia using some applcations.

Evaluation Suggestions:

Because I use the Learning Record Online for all of my courses, the practices outlined above aren't assessed in the traditional sense. I circle the room on studio days, talking with students about what problems they may have run into and to get a general sense of the project's progression. The Learning Record allows for these documented processes to be used as evidence for learning, so the multimedia product is much less important than the processes students go through to create their project.

A successful project is one where students learn new ways of communicating in multimedia, and learn to collaborate with likeminded individuals toward a common goal.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

As I've indicated above, these pracitces have been sucessful in a variety of group projects. I've used this with an infographic assignment, a video game prototype assignment, an actual working video game assignment, an interactive image assignment, and an ebook assignment.

Course Type:

Course Description:

I have successfully used this studio environment in RHE 306, RHE 309K, RHE 312, and ENGL 314J. I'll give each course description below.

RHE 306:

This course is designed to prepare you for the academic writing you do at the University of Texas and writing you will do in your careers and personal lives beyond UT. It is a course designed to teach you not what to think, but how to think on your own. Ultimately, you should learn to be a better thinker, who is able to think critically about topics, other people, and yourself; a better rhetor, who is able to analyze a specific situation and adjust your writing to fit accordingly; and a better communicator, who is able to express ideas effectively.

It will include three units with each unit culminating in a composition and including writing instruction that supports the drafting of that composition. Composition is a broad term including symbolic efforts in a variety of media (including video, audio, and web-design, to name just a few). Many lower-division RHE courses (such as RHE 315 and 312) encourage or even require composition outside of the traditionally imagined prose essay. Nevertheless, the written component of every lower-division RHE class must meet the writing flag requirements as stipulated by the college. These written assignments may include a variety of genres, including narrative, argument, analysis, or critical reflection. (“Creative” writing assignments—plays, fiction, poetry—are not suitable genres for formal writing assignments.) As required by the college, each major writing assignment includes a peer review process. You will also complete informal writing exercises that prepare you to do the writing necessary in your formal assignments.

RHE 309K: The Rhetoric of Video Games

This course seeks to explore video games as a modern discursive medium. Far from being mere “mindless entertainment,” many video games make explicit or implicit arguments about gender and sexuality, economic systems, corporate practices, geopolitics, and both real and imagined societies. What arguments do these simulations and simulacra mount about how the world is? What arguments do they mount about how the world should be?

Much of the past and current study of digital rhetoric seems to look at the content of computers through applying older means of rhetorical analysis, looking at the text and images contained on computers rather than the processes through which this content is represented. What we seek to explore is a relatively new field—procedural rhetoric—and the ways this new field can inform video game criticism. How do the procedures inherent in video games make arguments about the world?

The course will include three major units with each unit culminating in a composition and including writing instruction that supports the drafting of that composition. Composition is a broad term including symbolic efforts in a variety of media (including video, audio, and web-design, to name just a few). Many lower-division RHE courses encourage or even require composition outside of the traditionally imagined prose essay. Nevertheless, the written component of every lower-division RHE class must meet the writing flag requirements as stipulated by the college. These written assignments may include a variety of genres, including narrative, argument, analysis, or critical reflection. (“Creative” writing assignments—plays, fiction, poetry—are not suitable genres for formal writing assignments.) As required by the college, each major writing assignment includes a peer review process. You will also complete informal writing exercises that prepare you to do the writing necessary in your formal assignments.

RHE 312: Writing in Digital Environments

This course explores rhetoric across a variety of modes: verbal, visual, aural, procedural, haptic, and kinesthetic. “Writing,” in this sense, refers to a variety of inscription technologies. For example, it can be communicating through text on a screen, through the rules of a game, or through the layout and colors in an image. In this course, we will create a variety of digital communications, most with a purpose of persuasion. In doing so, you will learn about digital discourse communities and will eventually present an argument to a chosen digital community.

Each form of media brings with it a set of affordances and constraints. Much of digital media relies upon the logics and metaphors of earlier forms of media, but does present new avenues of distribution and production to a wider range of people. In this course, you will analyze various forms and communities of digital communication and reflect upon these affordances and constraints. Hopefully, you will leave the course with a greater awareness of not only the communicative power of digital media, but also some of the limitations it imposes upon its users and producers.

The course will three major units, with each culminating in digital composition and textual reflection. Throughout the process, you will participate in peer review of your compositions and maintain evidence for use in your Learning Record.

ENGL 314J: Literature & Video Games

In the popular press, literature and video games are frequently positioned as enemies fighting over time. In a recent Slate article, for example, journalist Michael Thompson states that in the time it takes to play one modern video game, “You could read War and Peace, for instance, then follow it up with Thus Spoke Zarathustra and a few starter courses in a new language” (par. 1). Further, the often-cited 2004 National Endowment for the Arts’ Reading at Risk report places video games among other forms of electronic media as “competing” with literature. But both of these sources (and countless others) fail to examine the more complex connections video games have had with literature over the past sixty years. What at first began as a parasitic relationship of video games borrowing, adapting, or extending literary themes, characters, and plots has now become more symbiotic, with both media now remixing each other.

Rather than view video games and print literature as contenders for precious time, this course seeks to explore the ways literature and video games impact one another. That is, this course looks at literature as a practice and not merely a collection of artifacts. Using video games as a frame through which to study literature, we will work our way through a variety of genres, including fables, fantasy, epic poetry, historical fiction, science fiction, mystery, and gothic fiction. This course helps students prepare for upper-division English classes (as well as a wide range of upper-division courses in other UT programs and departments) by focusing on close reading and critical writing, and by introducing formal, historical, and cultural approaches to literary texts. Students will learn how to use the online Oxford English Dictionary as well as other resources essential to literary study.

Tags:

Analyzing Visual Arguments

RMazique — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 22:56:44 +0000

Author:

Rachel Mazique

Image Credit:

somewhere on Facebook... Unfortunately, this is from a Facebook upload. I didn't keep track of where on Facebook I found the photo, and I can't remember now. I'm also unable to find this image on the web again.

Brief Assignment Overview:

Students practice closely describing and analyzing an image for its argument and rhetorical impact.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Visual Rhetoric

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Visualization

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

1. To apply the concepts from Everything's An Argument and practice closely analyzing an image for its rhetorical features

2. To practice analyzing the framing of an image

3. To practice writing a detailed description of an image in preparation for a "Research Summary" paper on a piece of visual rhetoric

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

1. An image relevant to your course topic

2. Questions to prompt student analysis

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

After reading selections from Chapters 1 and 15 in Everything's An Argument, and the section on visual rhetoric in Chapter 8 of Critical Situations (the University of Texas at Austin's Custom Edition) for homework, students discuss what they learned about how images can function as arguments, how the framing of an image can alter or shape our perception of it, and how to approach analyzing and describing such visual arguments.

Following this discussion, I explain that students will break into groups of 4 or 5 and practice summarizing and analyzing a visual argument in preparation for their second Research Summary, which must be a visual viewpoint source. I also explain that this in-class activity is preparation for our next unit on Visual Rhetoric in which they will analyze the visual rhetoric in a pop culture source of their choice. Because this unit focuses on the rhetoric of terminology, students are to pay special attention to the words that frame an image but to also analyze the relevant contexts and controversies that an image may evoke or speak to. Finally, I explain that students should spend a good amount of time summarizing the image with as much detail as possible--as if they were describing the image for a blind person. I encourage them to use the vocabulary from their reading assignment (i.e. foreground, background, etc).

Because I teach in a computer classroom and use the PBWorks platform, each group creates one wiki page in a public group activities folder and names it with all their group member's names. I explain that only one person can type on the page at a time, but if they save the page, another person may begin typing or "steal the lock" on a wiki page to begin typing.

However, this activity could be done in a room without technology if the image students are to analyze is projected onto a screen, or if each student has a paper copy of the screen. Students could then hand-write their summaries and analyses. With the benefit of a computer classroom, I'm able to read student writing once they save the page. It is also available for all students to see on the projector/read along on their own computer screen.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Instructors may decide to use any image--whether seemingly benign or provocative. The image on this page could be used in any class, or you may decide to choose an image relevant to your course topic and class discussions so that students are better able to analyze the social, political, and historical contexts. I had notes prepared to flesh out any gaps in the students analysis as I did not presume knowledge on cochlear implant surgeries, Deaf Studies, or Deaf culture and peoples. I also, however, did not want one group to be full of students who knew about Deaf people, so I asked in advance. In one class, I had four students who knew about Deaf people, so I had one person in each group. In another class, only one student professed knowledge, so I let students determine their groups on their own.

Instructions For Students:

Break up into groups of 4 or 5 people. Each group may have only one person knowledgeable about Deaf people/Deaf culture. You do not have to have a person who feels knowledgeable of this group to conduct this analysis.

1. What argument does this photo make?
2. How would you summarize (i.e. describe) this photo (without editorializing)?
3. Analyze the pathos, ethos, and logos of this photo. What rhetorical effect does the visual argument have?
4. Analyze the word choice in the title of the image. How does the title frame the visual argument?
5. What questions does this visual argument raise about the political, social, and/or historical contexts surrounding Deaf bodies? Or, if you have some knowledge of these contexts, where does it fit with regards to these contexts? What conversations might the image be speaking for or against?
6. Who are the stakeholders? Which audiences/stakeholders would be persuaded by this viewpoint? Which audiences/stakeholders might disagree with this viewpoint/choice of images and words? Why?

Evaluation Suggestions:

Since this activity is practice for future writing assignments, I give feedback on each group's summary and analysis as we read and discuss each group's work as a class. This way, the entire class has the benefit of knowing how to improve their summaries and analysis by listening to what each group did well and what each group could have improved upon.

Students also have this document as a piece of evidence of their collaborative work and can write an observation on the activity to use in their Learning Record portfolio at the midterm when they analyze their individual development along the course strands of argumentation and/or writing process and the dimensions of knowledge and understanding, skills and strategies, prior and emergence experience, and/or reflection .

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

I'm always impressed at students ability to analyze the image even without professing any knowledge of the historical, social, and political contexts surrounding Deaf people. Students also enjoy the shift from individual/whole class work and having the opportunity to do group work.

Additional Resources:

Critical Situations: A Rhetoric for Writing in Communities with Additional Material (Custom Edition for the University of Texas at Austin), Sharon Crowley and Michael Stancliff

Everything's An Argument by Andrea Lunsford and John Ruszkiewicz

Course Type:

Course Description:

Rhetoric and Writing (RHE 309K): Disability in Pop Culture

In this course, students focus on analyzing the relationship between pop culture and rhetoric. Their analyses examine public disagreements about various issues such as: How do popular (mis)representations of "the supercrip" convince us to make political decisions regarding accessibility, advocacy, education, and/or social policy? How can we evaluate arguments that not only depict (dis)abled people as "heroic" but also those that portray the converse: the "grotesque unfortunate" deserving of "pity" and "help"? How do these arguments address questions of basic human rights, needs, drives and "eugenics rhetoric"? Will children (and adults) make political decisions based on recurrent thematic representations of "disability" in pop culture, and, is that a good or bad influence?Beginning with a selection of readings that introduce disability theory, students conduct research to explore a controversy of their choice on (dis)ability in pop culture. Throughout, students engage with their controversy, analyzing editorials, print and video advertisements, and other contemporary portrayals of “the supercrip” or of (dis)ability in pop culture. The last unit focuses on multimodal arguments; students create a multimodal composition that takes a position on the representations of bodies and abilities.

Tags:

Introducing iMovie

Jenny Howell — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 07:07:33 +0000

Author:

Jenny Howell

Image Credit:

Brief Assignment Overview:

This activity introduces students to iMovie software and reveals the range of rhetorical possibilities and effects that the program provides.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Software

Video

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

This activity not only introduces students to a useful software program but also allows them to see the effects that simple decisions--transitions, music, editing, etc.--can have on a visual text.

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

iMovie, computers

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

I used this activity late in the semester, just before my students began editing the material they had filmed for their own documentaries. Although some of my students were advanced film majors, many were completely unfamiliar with editing programs, and I felt that a brief introduction would be productive. However, because this activity is designed with an eye toward that larger project, the more detailed instructions (see below) include ideas for using the program for their final projects in addition to using the program in class. I chose iMovie because it is mostly intuitive and user-friendly, and I narrowed down the activity to the tasks that I thought would be most useful and most impactful in editing a film. I handed out the following instructions, and I let the students use the entire 75-minute class to work their way through them:

Your iMovie film should include:

(1) At least one film clip (a screencast, a film downloaded from the Internet, or footage from your computer’s webcam).

(2) At least one still image (a picture downloaded from the Internet, or a photo you take with your computer’s webcam). To take a photo using the computer’s webcam, open the program Photo Booth (use the eyeglass icon in the upper right hand corner of your screen to find it), and take a photo. When you’re finished, simply click and drag the image into your workspace in iMovie.

(3) A voiceover.

(4) Nondiegetic music (a song or a sound effect). Since we don’t have any songs in the iTunes library on our lab computers, you can find free music by going to jamendo.com. Find a song you want to use, click “Download,” and it should appear automatically in your computer’s iTunes library. It should also appear in iMovie when you click on the music notes on the right side of the middle bar.

(5) At least one transition.

(6) At least one title and end credits.

While they worked on these tasks, I walked around the room, helping and offering advice as I was needed.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

I familiarized myself with iMovie (mostly by watching YouTube videos) in order to prepare the instruction sheet (copy-and-pasted below). Certainly, though, an instructor doesn't need to master iMovie for this activity to be useful. Following the step-by-step instructions the day before and playing around in iMovie (1-2 hours) should be enough to prepare.

Instructions For Students:

Once you open iMovie, follow these instructions to create your own film:

Step 1: Obtaining Video

There are three main ways to acquire video for your film.

Shoot film yourself. Clicking the camera button at the far left of the middle bar will automatically connect iMovie to any recording device (iPhone, camera, etc.) plugged into your computer. If no device is connected, it will default to the computer’s webcam. The video you record or import should automatically appear onscreen in iMovie in your “Events Library.”
Download film from the Internet (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.).
1. Go to KeepVid.com, and enter the web address of the film you want to use. Click “Download.”
2. You may have to “enable” this website, which can be done by clicking the arrow that appears next to “inactive plug-in.” Then click “Allow” when prompted.
3. Save the file as an mp4 file. (On lab computers, it should save automatically to the desktop.)
4. Take a screencast (a screencast is like a screenshot but with moving images; it records whatever is happening on your computer screen). The screencasting software we have access to is Camtasia.
  1. Find the program on your computer (use the eyeglass in the top right-hand corner).
  2. Follow the directions to record what’s on your screen. To finish recording, press shift + command + 2.
  3. Then, in Camtasia, export the screencast you just created. Go to “Share,” then “Advanced Export.” Under the “Export” menu, choose “Export to QuickTime Movie.”

To import film from the Internet or a screencast from Camtasia into iMovie, go to “File” in iMovie, then “Import,” and choose “Movies.” Select the film you want to import.

Step 2: Cutting & Editing

Your videos should now all be visible in your Event Library. To edit them and begin making your film, simply drag them into your workspace (the large "timeline" part of your window in iMovie). If there are major sections of the clip that you don’t want to use, click and drag over your clip while it’s still in your Events Library, using the yellow box to select only the sections that you want to use in your film. If you want to use the whole clip, you can right click, choose “Select Entire Clip,” and then drag it into your workspace.

Once you’ve dragged a clip into your workspace, you can click on the gear icon in the lower left-hand corner of the clip (it appears as you scroll over the selected clip) and select “Clip Trimmer” in order to more carefully choose which section of this clip you want to include in your film.
You may also want to divide your clip into parts (for example, if you wanted to separate two sections of the same clip to place in different parts of your film or if you wanted to apply video effects to one small section of a clip but not the entire thing). To do this in your workspace, select the section of the clip that you would like to split by clicking and dragging the yellow box. Then right click and hit “Split Clip.”
Now that you’ve adjusted the content of your clip, edit it in other ways: select the clip and then the “Inspector” icon (the “i” with a circle around it in the middle of the middle bar).
Play around with all the settings here: Under the “Clip” tab, you can add video effects and adjust the speed of your video. In “Video” you can adjust what your film looks like (brightness, exposure, etc.)
You can also crop the frame in your video (or in a still photo) by clicking on the gear icon and selecting “Cropping and Rotation.”
Also experiment with adding transitions between clips. Click on the rectangular icon (between the “T” and the globe) in the middle bar. Select your transition and drag it into your workspace. Adjust its duration by clicking on the “Inspector” icon or on the gear icon that appears in a blue box in the lower left-hand corner when you scroll over the transition. (Remember, though, that transitions can be jarring, so you’ll want to use them very carefully in your final film project.)

You may also want to insert still photographs. To do so:

Find an image (on the Internet, on your phone, etc.) or take one on the computer’s webcam using the program Photo Booth.
If you want to edit it, import the image into iPhoto and make your adjustments using that program.
Add your image to your project: You can easily import photos into iMovie from iPhoto by clicking on the camera icon on the right side of the middle bar. To add them to your workspace, simply click and drag. You can also just drag photos from your desktop or from a folder on the computer into the workspace in iMovie; it will automatically import them.
Note that iMovie automatically adds animation to your photos. Its default setting is the “Ken Burns effect.” To make any adjustments to the effects (e.g. to delete it, to change where in the frame the effect stops and starts, etc.), scroll over the photo in your workspace and click on the gear icon that appears in the blue box in the lower left-hand corner of the photo. Go to “Cropping, Ken Burns & Rotation” and play around with the options. Selecting “Fit” will remove all effects from your photo.

Step 3: Audio Editing

You’ll want to think about adding audio to your film through voiceover, sound effects, and/or music.

To add voiceover:

You will probably want to lower or silence the sound in the particular clip you’ll be talking over so that it doesn’t distract from your voiceover. To do that, select the clip and click on the “Inspector” icon. Select the “Audio” tab at the top and make the necessary adjustments to the volume of the clip.
Click on the microphone in the middle bar, and follow the instructions on the preview screen to create your voiceover.

To add sound effects and music:

Click on the music note located at the right of the middle bar. You should have iLife sound effects, iMovie sound effects, and whatever is in the iTunes library.
Click and drag the sounds you want to use into your workspace. Again, select the clip and click on the “Inspector” icon to edit the audio. Select the “Audio” tab at the top and make the necessary adjustments to the volume of the clip. Note: “Ducking” is a way to privilege certain sounds over others. Play around with the settings in this feature to achieve effects like decreasing the volume on a song just before an interview starts playing and then increasing it again as soon as the interview ends. (To achieve this, you would edit the audio of the clip or the audio track you want to privilege and choose “ducking” there so that the other audio tracks quiet down.)
You can also click on the gear in the lower left hand corner of the audio track and select “Clip Trimmer” to edit which parts of the song you want to use. (iMovie will automatically start from the beginning of the song.)

Step 4: Titles

A “title” refers to any words that you place in your film. To insert a title:

Go to the “T” icon underneath the preview window.
Click around for different styles (to see a preview of the effects, scroll over a title).
Note that at least 3 of these options are particularly relevant to your documentary film: the opening credits, the “Lower Third” to introduce words that enter at the bottom of the screen (to identify an interviewee’s name, for instance), and the ending credits.
To insert a title into your film, simply click, drag to the point in your workspace where you would like your title to appear, and drop. Decide if you want it to appear between clips or over a clip.
Click on your title and enter the text in the preview screen.
Double click on the title (or click the “Inspector” icon) to adjust the duration of your title sequences. You can also drag them around in your workspace and extend them manually so that they are on screen during a number of clips.

Step 5: Saving Your Work

Make sure to save your work on an online storage system or to a USB drive. (Lab computers will erase anything on the hard drive as soon as you restart the computer.)

Evaluation Suggestions:

I did not grade this assignment, but in retrospect I should have at least assigned a completion grade in order to keep them focused during class time.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

The activity went well. I think students were genuinely surprised at how editing, music, transitions, titles, etc. can completely change the meaning of a piece of raw video. As I mentioned above, I think I should have raised the stakes a bit, giving out a grade for completion because the temptation to watch YouTube videos or listen to music was too great. I also would have liked to screen a few of the completed films in class to use as the basis of a discussion about how and why the student made certain rhetorical and visual choices.

Course Type:

Course Description:

I teach RHE 309K: The Rhetoric of Documentary Films. The course considers both the rhetoric about documentary films (e.g. "what is a documentary?") and the rhetoric within documentary films. In the final unit, the students make their own short documentary film in groups.

Tags:

Film

IMovie

Video

Collaborative Web Page Annotations With Diigo

Battistelli — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 16:29:21 +0000

Author:

Todd Battistelli

Image Credit:

Todd Battistelli

Brief Assignment Overview:

This lesson introduces students to a collaborative annotation tool to facilitate class discussions and to encourage active reading and research practices.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

One-Two Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Textual Analysis

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

Introduce students to a tool that enables organization and annotation of web pages. Encourage active reading and research practices. Support in-class group discussions with references to common reading.

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

Diigo accounts for each student & Diigo toolbar add-on installed in Firefox.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Early in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

After introducing students to the concept of annotating their sources, the instructor describes Diigo. Diigo is an add-on for Firefox (a more limited add-on is available for Chrome, but the Firefox add-on is used for this activity). It allows for real-time collaborative annotation of text on web pages. Users may highlight text, add sticky-note annotations to specific highlights, or add floating notes to any web page. Diigo also provides a bookmarking & caching function to store pages on diigo.com servers to mitigate against digital impermanence. Teachers may sign up for an educator account which provides access to group administration features useful for working with a group. Users within a group, for instance, can share annotations with each other without making them publicly available to all Diigo users.

As students are introduced to Diigo's functions, they should sign up for an account on the website. Teachers choosing to work with a Diigo group can add students to the group, or users can make their annotations public to share with the group.

Once set up, students work in pairs to annotate a page selected by the instructor responding to questions relevant to the goals of the course (in this case evaluating how accurately discussants in a discussion thread summarized each other). Students highlight text & add sticky notes with their responses. After students are done, the class reviews the annotations as a group.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Instructor should become familiar with Diigo & apply for educator-level account. Set up student accounts (have students sign up for accounts in class). Locate & bookmark a webpage to use for the activity.

Instructions For Students:

Annotate the website according to the prompts assigned to your group. Highlight the relevant text. Hover your cursor over the text to attach a note to the highlighted text. Review the annotations made by other groups by refreshing the page & checking the Diigo side-bar (displayed by clicking on the icon left of the "Diigo" button in the toolbar.

Evaluation Suggestions:

Instructors can assess this activity according to the annotations students produce and how well those annotations can be tied into the class discussion as well as used in later work during the semester. The annotations should provide a means to record and index ideas and arguments often lost in day-to-day discussions.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

Students should be required to use the Firefox add-on, as the Chrome version only provides basic annotation features. Firefox provides access to a sidebar that provides an overview of a page's annotations. Before students begin group work, the instructor should run everyone through a brief training exercise to familiarize students with the basic operations of the toolbar.

Course Type:

Course Description:

RHE 330E - Advanced Rhetorical Theory and Analysis - Topic: Audience & Argumentation. Students study variety of rhetorical theory & investigate questions of how rhetor and audience infuence each other and the arguments produced in any persuasive situation. Students apply theoretical models to analysis and evaluation of how sources interact in argumentation.

Tags:

Screen Readers and Visual Accessibility

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 18:58:46 +0000

Author:

Will Martin

Image Credit:

"Day 009 - Fear of a Blank Planet" via marcandrelariviere's Flikr stream

Brief Assignment Overview:

The purpose of this lesson is to introduce the students to screen reader software, so that they will be aware of the challenges that blind people face in using web sites, and so that they can adjust their own sites to accomodate access for the visually challenged.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Arrangement

Audience

Delivery

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

To teach students about accessibility issues when building and designing web sites.

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

This lesson requires the following equipment:

A classroom equipped with computers for each student, including Internet connections.
Headphones for each student.
A screen reader program.
A screen blocker card (optional)

A more limited version of the lesson, demonstration only, can be done in any classroom equipped with a computer for the instructor.

Headphones are necessary because when you have a classroom full of 15-25 students the din of the computers all speaking at once makes it considerably harder for the students to distinguish their own computer from the others. While the lesson can be done without headphones, it’s substantially more difficult.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

Many people who build web sites are unaware of or have no direct experience with screen readers, the software that blind and visually disabled people use to access web sites (and indeed all the software on their computers). The purpose of this lesson is to introduce the participants to that software, so that they will be aware of the challenges that blind people face in using web sites, and so that they can adjust their own sites to accomodate access for the visually challenged.

The most common screen reader programs, JAWS and WindowEyes, are commercial software, and not cheap. Typical JAWS licenses may run up to $1200 USD per seat. There is a 40-minute demonstration version available, but its licensing terms make it unclear whether it’s legal to use the demonstration version for these purposes. So I prefer the free and open source screen readers FireVox or NVDA. Because they are open source projects, there are no licensing fees to worry about, and the students may have copies of their own if they wish.

The two have some significant differences. NVDA, short for “Non-Visual Desktop Access,” is a fully-featured screen reader. It can read not just web pages, but any application the operating system might run. Because it must deal with a much wider selection of software, NVDA has fairly complex controls. It is only available for Microsoft Windows.

FireVox, by contrast, is an extension for the Firefox web browser. It turns Firefox into a “self-voicing” browser which can read web pages aloud. But it cannot access other desktop applications. Because it works with only one program, FireVox’s controls are fairly simple. It works with Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X (though it’s buggy on Mac). Because of its comparative simplicity and its broader availability, I prefer using FireVox for this lesson.

There are other screen readers out there — for example Orca on Linux. I will assume from here on in that you are using FireVox. Regardless of wich screen reader you use, I recommend that you become comfortable with its controls before teaching the lesson, so that you’ll be able to aid students who get stuck.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

You'll need to install a screen reading software on the computer system. For detailed instructions on configuring FireVox, see the "additional resources" section below.

The lesson breaks down into three phases:

Introduction
Demonstration
Experimentation

Introduction

At the beginning of class, I talk briefly about the challenges that disabled persons face in using the Internet. I tell the students specifically about the importance of alt text, skip links, and structural headings in web design. Typically I write the HTML code for these on the board, describing each one and fielding any questions as necessary. I mostly limit my technical discussion to visual impairments, because that’s the focus of the lesson. However, I usually mention other accessibility problems as well, such as the general lack of captions for the deaf on Internet videos, the difficulty that paralyzed people face in typing, and so on.

In a class period lasting 1 hour and 15 minutes, this portion of the exercise should take approximately 20-25 minutes.

Demonstration

During the demonstration phase, I start FireVox on the instructor computer and attempt to locate a specified piece of information on the web, reciting aloud for the students each command I give. For example, I might try to find out how much a copy of the course text book costs through Amazon. First I press CONTROL+L to highlight the location bar. Then I type in Amazon’s address. Once the page is loaded I press CONTROL+SHIFT+L to bring up a list of elements in the page, use the arrow keys to navigate through that list, and then select a search box from the form elements. I type in the title and press ENTER. Once the new page has loaded, I press TAB repeatedly to move through the links in the document until I find one that sounds right, then I press SPACE to trigger the link. Once the page has loaded, I slowly walk through the document using a combination of TAB, CONTROL+SHIFT+F (for Forward) and CONTROL+SHIFT+D (for Back). I do this using a remote keyboard, with my back to the screen. However, I leave the projector in the classroom running. FireVox highlights the particular section of the screen it’s reading at any given moment, and it’s useful for the students to see those visual cues as I am in the process of using the audio to determine where I am and what I’m doing.

Inevitably, I run across an image which does not have alt text, nested tables, or some other impediment to my understanding of the text. At this point I might stop and show them the code, or I might simply point to my hand-written version. Often I fail in whatever objective I’ve set for myself, but this generally doesn’t matter too much, since the point of this section is just to show them what the process is like before they try for themselves.

In a class period lasting 1 hour and 15 minutes, this portion of the exercise should take approximately 5-10 minutes. Those with a flair for the dramatic might make a show of putting on a blindfold.

Experimentation

Lastly, I give the students a task to complete without being able to see the screen. (see "Instructions For Students" below)

Instructions For Students:

Here are the steps the students need to perform in order to activate FireVox, assuming that you have pre-installed it using the Profile Switcher extension as described above:

Collect a pair of headphones
Plug them into their computer
Log In
Start Firefox
Click File → Launch Another Profile → FireVox
They can close the existing window or not, as they choose.

Once FireVox is up and running, they need to blank out their screens, either by turning them off or by putting a blocker card in front of them. Typically, I ask them to find their own contact information in the UT directory. If they have removed themselves from the directory, I tell them to find me, or a neighbor. Some students accomplish this task quickly, in which case I ask them to just go and browse around on the web.

Evaluation Suggestions:

this assignment was not evaluated

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

I have had excellent luck with this lesson. The students are invariably fascinated by the process. Frequently they had assumed that the blind simply could not use the web at all, so not only observing someone surfing the web blind but doing it themselves is — if you’ll forgive the phrase — an eye-opener. As a consciousness raising effort, it works fairly well.

At the very end of the class I try to contextualize their experience. The brevity of the exercise — a single class period — means that they experience the initial feelings that come with trying to learn a deeply unfamiliar interface. The two most common reactions are excitement and frustration. What they do not get is the sense of accomplishment and pride that comes with mastering that interface, because they don’t work at it long enough. Typical comments run along the line of “I’ve never been so glad to have my sight,” which highlights the frustration and unease of the experience. So, at the very end of the lesson, I try to compensate for that a bit by pointing out that blind people, who cannot independently access the Internet in any other way, soon become highly proficient at using the screen reader. They often remain frustrated, but that frustration tends to spring from encounters with badly designed web sites more than frustration with the screen reader interface.

On balance, I think using a screen reader is a valuable experience for anyone with any kind of responsibility for a web site. It takes accessibility problems out of the realm of the abstract and makes them concrete, tangible. Making future web designers palpably aware of the issue helps ensure that they will stop to consider access for the blind in their future work.

Additional Resources:

Installing and Configuring FireVox

The web site for FireVox can be found at the Firevox website. The installation process is straightforward, but there are considerations to take into account:

Do your computers automatically undo changes made during a session when you log out?
Do you have other Firefox extensions installed?

If your computers automatically undo changes made during a session whenever someone logs out, then you may wish to walk the students through the process of installing FireVox themselves. it’s a useful exercise for them. However, if the computers do not undo this change, then subsequent classes in the same room may be troubled by web browsers which inexplicably speak to them. In that case it’s best to install FireVox beforehand.

If you have other Firefox extensions installed, it’s possible that some of their shortcut keys may conflict with one another. For example, both FireVox and the Web Developer Toolbar use the keyboard shortcutCONTROL+SHIFT+F. In FireVox, that shortcut instructs the browser to move on to the next element in the document and read it aloud. But in the Web Developer Toolbar, the same shortcut enables the Element Information dialog. If you have both extensions installed and pressCONTROL+SHIFT+F, then both actions will be triggered.

You probably don’t want Firefox to speak all the time. And key conflicts are annoying. The best way to resolve both of these is to install Firevox in a fresh profile, which allows one copy of Firefox to be used by many individual users with separate sets of configuration info (including extensions). You can either do this manually (using the -p option on the command line) or you can use the Profile Switcher extension (I prefer the latter approach). Here are precise step-by-step instructions for installing FireVox in its own profile:

Download the Profile Switcher extension:
1. Click the link above;
2. Right-click the link that says “Download (for Firefox)” and save the XPI file to your desktop;
3. Once the download is complete, click “File → Open” in Firefox and open the file;
4. There will be a brief countdown; when it is done click “Install Now”;
5. Quit Firefox and restart it.
Create a new profile for FireVox to live in:
1. Click File → Open Profile Manager;
2. It doesn’t matter whether you close the current profile or not, pick “Yes” or “No” as you please;
3. Click Create Profile;
4. Click Next;
5. Enter a name for the profile — this can be anything you like, I generally use “FireVox”;
6. Click Finish;
7. Click your new profile in the list of profiles;
8. Click Start Firefox;
Download and install the FireVox extension:
1. Go to the FireVox download page;
2. Right-click the “CLC-4-TTS Suite with Fire Vox - Bundle Pack” link and save the XPI file to your desktop;
3. Once the download is complete, click “File → Open” in Firefox and open the file;
4. There will be a brief countdown; when it is done click “Install Now”
5. Quit Firefox and restart it;
6. If you are on Mac, click Tools → FireVox TTS Selection → Mac TTS
At this point, you should hear FireVox talking to you every time a page loads. If you don’t hear it, then:
1. Make sure your speakers/headphones are turned on;
2. Make sure the system volume isn’t muted;
3. If you’re on Mac, make sure you selected the “Mac TTS” option correctly (see previous step);
4. If it’s still not working ... uh, keep poking at it till it does. You do have sound drivers installed, right? Can other programs make noise?
PressCONTROL+SHIFT+H. This should bring up a list of headings in the document. If instead you see a new window called “Library,” then you’re using Firefox 3.x. There’s a conflict between FireVox and Firefox — the command is triggering two effects at once. You can correct this in one of two ways:
1. Method A — Remap the Key:
  1. Click Tools → FireVox Options;
  2. Scroll down till you find “List of Headings” in the list of assigned keys;
  3. Assign it a new key — the letter T will work;
  4. Click OK;
  5. The list of headings may now be brought up usingCONTROL+SHIFT+T. You may need to restart Firefox for this to take effect.
2. Method B — Unbind the H key from the History window:
  1. Install the Keyconfig extension;
  2. Restart Firefox;
  3. Click Tools → Keyconfig;
  4. In the list of defined shortcuts, find the “Show All History” entry, mapped toCONTROL+SHIFT+Hand click it to select it;
  5. Click the Disable button;
  6. Close Firefox completely and restart it;
  7. The list of headings may now be brought up usingCONTROL+SHIFT+H.

FireVox is now installed and configured correctly on this machine. I usually install a copy of the Profile Switcher extension in the FireVox profile too. It doesn’t conflict with FireVox at all, and it makes it easier to switch back and forth between FireVox and your regular Firefox profile.

Take some time and familiarize yourself with the Firefox controls. You can see all of the available keyboard shortcuts by clicking Tools → FireVox Options. FireVox does not use the mouse, because blind people cannot see the mouse pointer to use it.

I’m going to assume from here on out that you’re using Profile Switcher and a separate FireVox profile.

Screen Blocker Card

For best effect, the students should not be able to see the monitor of their computer while performing this exercise. If the computers in your classroom have a power button for the monitor, then you can just turn off the monitors. However, some computers (such as recent iMacs) do not offer a switch for turning off the monitor power. In this case you will need to create blocker cards before class.

These are very simple — just get some cardstock large enough to cover the screen and thick enough to block it out, and have the students prop them up in front of their monitors. If you wish, you can tape a keyboard shortcut cheat sheet to one side so that students can see a list of commands in front of them.

Keyboard Shortcut Cheat Sheet

Here is the cheat sheet which I attach to my blocker cards:

Firefox Shortcut Keys

Key	Function
Ctrl + L	Select the address bar (so you can type in a new location).
Alt + Left Arrow	Go back one page.
Alt + Right Arrow	Go forward one page.
Ctrl + T	New tab.
Ctrl + N	New window.
Ctrl + W	Close tab/window.
Ctrl + Tab	Next tab.
Ctrl + Shift + Tab	Previous tab.
Ctrl + F	Find in this page.
F3	Find next in page.
Shift + F3	Find previous in page.
F5	Reload page.
Ctrl + F5	Reload and ignore cached page.
Ctrl + C	Copy text.
Ctrl + X	Cut text.
Ctrl + V	Paste text.
Spacebar	Activate current link (or form element).
F6	Next frame.
Shift F6	Previous frame.

FireVoxShortcut Keys

Key	Function
Ctrl + Shift + D	Read previous.
Ctrl + Shift + F	Read next.
Ctrl + Shift + E	Repeat.
Ctrl	Stop speaking.
Ctrl + Shift + O	Speak selected text.
Ctrl + Shift + Q	Query current element for more info.
Ctrl + Shift + U	Speak parent element text.
Ctrl + Shift + P	Read current position.
Ctrl + Shift + A	Auto-read from current point on.
Ctrl + Shift + H	List Headings.
Ctrl + Shift + L	List all elements.
Ctrl + Shift + S	Spell out a word.
Ctrl + Shift + M	FireVox Options
Ctrl + Shift + Y	Toggle Live Region announcements.
Pause/Break	Toggle Sticky Keys
F16	Toggle Sticky Keys (Mac keyboard)

Using FireVox Sticky Keys

When sticky keys are turned on, you don’t need to press Ctrl + Shift for each FireVox command; just the letter itself. This is convenient, but causes problems any time you have to type information into a form. Always turn sticky keys off when typing information in a form.

Course Type: