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Week 15 and Finals Week: What have we learned by studying various digital selves?

I can hardly believe that I’m writing the last website update for the semester. Fifteen weeks seemed like such a long time back in January, but here we are, nearing the end, and I’m simultaneously amazed by how much ground we’ve covered and sad that we don’t have more time to continue our conversations. I’ll save my sentimental goodbyes for our gathering during finals week, but for now, let me just say thank you. Thank you for pushing yourselves out of your technological comfort zones, for tackling unconventional assignments with gusto and grace, and for being patient with me as I taught my first graduate course. I have learned so much this semester, and I hope you’ve found something useful along the way, too.

With just one week remaining, all of your energy for this class should be directed toward your research design project. To reiterate what I said in class last night, if you’ve been keeping up with all of the checkpoint assignments, you have already written substantial portions of your final paper. At this point, it’s time to pull everything together, determine what your data means (or hypothesize what it will mean once you conduct your study), and refine your research methods. If another conversation with me would help you complete any of these tasks, please feel free to stop by during my office hours (T 1-4 and W 9-12) or email me to set up an appointment at another time.

Next week in class, Sanglin and Renee will demonstrated LinkedIn, then the remainder of our evening will be dedicated to short presentations about each of your research projects. Please plan to spend 8–10 minutes telling us about your research site, your methods, and your preliminary results, as well as any challenges you’ve encountered during the course of this project. You can present with a slide deck, walk us through your research site, or read portions of your paper — it’s up to you. Whatever approach you take, please treat this like a real presentation, not just an off-the-cuff description of your project.

Our university-assigned final is Monday, May 13, from 7:00–9:00 p.m. You should submit your research design project before the final, and any other loose ends (e.g., blog posts) should also be wrapped up by this deadline. In place of a final exam, I’d like to invite everyone to have dinner at my house on Monday evening. This event isn’t mandatory, but I hope you’ll decide to come. It will give us a chance to celebrate the completion of your projects, and it just might be the most substantial meal you’ll eat during finals week. We’ll discuss the details of our dinner during class next week.

Due date reminders:

  • May 3 (tomorrow!): Final draft of your Professional Electronic Portfolio due. To submit your portfolio, upload your final self-assessment (no longer than two pages, following the guidelines in the assignment description, and containing the URL for your finished site) to your Google Drive folder.
  • May 13, 7:00 p.m.: Final draft of your Research Design and/or Pilot Study due. To submit your paper, make sure it is saved in Google Docs format and located in your Google Drive folder. Any appendices, data sets, etc., should be clearly labeled as part of your final project. (If you have a lot of files, it might be helpful to collect all of your research design materials in a subfolder.)
  • May 13: Deadline for blog posts and tweets to “count” for this class.

As always, let me know if you have any questions about these plans or if you’d like to chat about your final paper. I’ll be looking forward to hearing your presentations in class next week!

Week 14: What does the future hold for our digital selves?

I can’t believe Week 14 is almost upon us! We’ve reached the home stretch of the semester, and I’m happy to see that everyone is still giving 100% to their work. Last night’s peer critique session sounded incredibly productive, and I hope you left with a list of specific revision plans for your electronic portfolio.

In the interest of helping you focus on your two big projects, we’ll keep next week’s reading assignment simple, and I’ll refrain from distracting you with additional “bonus” readings. After we conclude our reading discussion in class, we’ll spend the rest of class addressing the challenges you’ve encountered while working on your research design projects, so please be ready to (1) provide us with a short update about the status of your project and (2) pose at least one methodological question that your classmates might be able to help you resolve.

At this point, the most valuable thing I can do might be to have an individual conversation with you about your portfolio or your research design project, so please let me know if you’d like to meet. I have regular office hours on Tuesday from 1–4 and Wednesday from 9–12, but I will gladly meet with you outside of those times, if needed.

To read before class:

  • The third section of Networked. In the print version, it’s pages 253–302. In the ebook, it’s Chapters 10 and 11.

Due date reminders:

  • April 26: Methods section of Research Design and/or Pilot Study due. This should be uploaded to your Google Drive folder and clearly labeled so I know which file you want me to read.
  • May 3: Final draft of your Professional Electronic Portfolio due. To submit your portfolio, upload your final self-assessment (no longer than two pages, following the guidelines in the assignment description, and containing the URL for your finished site) to your Google Drive folder.

Please email me if you have any questions about our plans for next week. And good luck finishing your portfolios and making progress on your research projects!

Week 13: Have we surrendered ourselves to technology? Is it possible to return to the way things were?

I’ve really enjoyed our last few class discussions — thanks for being prepared and staying focused on the text! On a similar note, last night’s writing workshop seemed very productive from my vantage point, and I hope the “Swalesian” approach to drafting introductions propelled your research project forward a bit. If you’re worried about any aspect of your project, please send me an email or stop by during office hours (T 1–4; W 9–12) so we can work together to make sure you’re headed in the right direction.

Next week, we will wrap up our discussion of Alone Together, and Shelby will demonstrate how to use Instagram. During the second half of class, I will briefly review the expectations for the methods section of your research design, then we will spend the rest of class critiquing one another’s professional electronic portfolios, so make sure that your site is live on the web and as close to “finished” as possible.

To read before class:

Checkpoint assignments:

  • Make any necessary adjustments to your electronic portfolio based on the feedback that you get from me after submitting your draft on April 19. (I’ll try to get brief comments to everyone by Monday, April 22, and you’re welcome to stop by during office hours on Tuesday or Wednesday if you’d like some additional feedback.)
  • Begin drafting the methods section of your research design paper. This draft is due on Friday, April 26, and should be submitted in your shared Google Drive folder.

Bonus reading (as time and interest permit):

Turkle’s Alone Together is just one of several books/articles in an ongoing debate about the distinction (or lack thereof) between “online” and “offline” life. If you’re interested in this topic, you might enjoy a few of these articles:

Please drop me a line if you have any questions about these plans. Otherwise, keep plugging away on those portfolios and research projects!

Week 12: Is technology altering our relationships with other humans? With technology itself?

I hope our workshop time last night helped you make some progress on your portfolio site, and I hope you’ll take some time during the coming week to experiment with a few of “Quinn’s Favorite WordPress Tools” at the bottom of the Resources page. As you encounter WordPress problems, just remember: Google is your friend. The WordPress user base is so big that no matter what problem you’re trying to solve, chances are someone else has encountered it before and posted a solution in the WordPress Forums or on their own site. And if you search for an answer and come up empty, I am always happy to help with technology issues during my office hours.

Your annotated bibliography for the Research Design assignment is due no later than Friday, April 12, so please make sure that your ten entries for our shared bibliography are in the appropriate folder in Google Drive. (Oh, and when you’re done, be sure to search the bibliography folder to find additional sources that might be useful for your project.)

Our list of discussion superheroes ran out, so next Wednesday, everyone will be a superhero. (Don’t forget your capes and masks!) We will dive into our last book of the semester, and Josette will demonstrate how she uses Elements and Dropbox. Our workshop time will be devoted to drafting introductions to research articles, following the model that Swales outlines in one of our assigned readings.

To read before class:

  • Alone Together, pages ix–147
  • “Introductions,” from Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings, by John M. Swales (PDF copy located in our class’s shared Google Drive folder)

To do before class:

  • Finish adding pages to your portfolio site and focus on customizing the appearance and organization of your site. At this point, you should be installing plugins, adjusting your theme, and thinking about the first impression that your site makes. A full draft of your portfolio is due on Friday, April 19, and I will hold a “portfolio hackathon” on Friday morning (8-12 in 340 Shanks Hall) for those of you who want to congregate and work through any remaining issues with some help from your classmates and me.

Bonus reading (as time and interest permit):

In class, several of you seemed excited about using a tool like Zotero, so this week’s bonus articles focus on evaluating reference management software and getting the most out of the program you choose:

Any questions about these plans, or about your individual projects? If so, just let me know!

Week 11: Where are the boundaries between humans and technology? What ethical concerns should inform our technological work?

Last night’s class, especially the Green Team / Red Team Review, struck me as very productive. I hope you felt the same way. And I hope the slight modifications I made to some of our due dates, our reading assignments, and our blogging requirements will help you focus on your two big projects between now and the end of the semester. To reiterate what I said last night, if you’re struggling with any aspect of this class, the time to come talk to me about it is right now, not during finals week.

At this point in the semester, we’re juggling several projects, big and small, but I’ve tried to arrange our schedule to help you make incremental progress on a few fronts each week. Next Wednesday, Lenny and KT will be our discussion superheroes, and Lenny and Jenny will teach us how to use Evernote. In class, we’ll finish up our fourth book, I’ll demonstrate a couple of tools for organizing your academic research (install Zotero and/or Mendeley before class, if you’re interested), and we’ll have some unstructured workshop time to help you make progress on your electronic portfolios (so bring your laptops!).

To read before class:

  • Digital Literacies for Technical Communication, Part 3 (pp. 147–256). In class, we will focus specifically on the chapters by Longo and Katz & Rhodes, but if the other two chapters relate to your individual research, you may want to read them, too.
  • “Embarrassments of Riches: Managing Research Assets,” by Miriam Posner

To do before class:

  • Make significant progress on your ten bibliography entries for the Research Design project. As we discussed last week, I have extended the due date for this checkpoint assignment to April 12, but please don’t put off your work on this assignment until the last minute.
  • Add several pages (either by HTML-ifying documents you have previously written or by drafting new text) to your electronic portfolio site. We’ll be working on our portfolios in class, and you should have some real content to work with, not just placeholder text.

Bonus reading (as time and interest permit):

All three of this week’s “bonus” articles connect to last week’s class discussion about Dave Clark’s review of technological “instrumentalism.” I think several of you will really enjoy these:

As always, please let me know if you have any questions about your individual projects, or about where we’re headed in class. If you’re feeling lost or behind schedule, stopping by during my office hours (T 1–4; W 9–12) is a great way to get back on track.

Week 10: How do we use new tools to design and manage our digital work?

I’m at the tail end of a very long day, and I’m leaving early tomorrow morning for the PCA/ACA conference, so this update will be short and (hopefully) sweet. Here we go…

Next week, Mandy and Sanglin will be our discussion superheroes, and Kelly will demonstrate the social bookmarking service Delicious. (If you’ve ever wondered about Delicious, you might want to set up an account before Kelly’s presentation next week.) In class, we’ll discuss three chapters that address how contemporary digital technologies are affecting writing workplaces, and our workshop will focus on developing sound research methods for the Research Design project.

To read before class:

  • Digital Literacies for Technical Communication, Part 2 (pp. 85–143). (This is the shortest reading assignment of the entire semester, and I’m not adding any additional readings, so please read the heck out of these three chapters and come to class ready to have a solid discussion.)

To do before class:

  • Create the pages you think you will include in your electronic portfolio (even if some of them only contain placeholder text right now), then select a theme or template that you plan to use on your site. Tip: If you’re using WordPress, install and test a lot of themes to get a feel for which one(s) will work best for the type of site you’re creating. Resist the urge to settle for the first theme that isn’t atrocious.
  • Start working on your ten bibliography entries for the Research Design project. These aren’t due until April 10, but you might want to “claim” your sources in the Annotated Bibliography folder in Google Drive and begin drafting text for a few entries.

Bonus reading (as time and interest permit):

  • Read a really great novel you’ve been meaning to read for a while. Read part of it in print and the other part on your iPad, then think deeply about the differences between these two formats. :-)

I’ll be out of town until Sunday, but I’ll try to check email at least once a day, so please let me know if you have any questions about these plans. Otherwise, I’ll see you next week, either during my office hours (T 1–4; W 9–12) or in class on Wednesday.

Week 9: How does technology shape our workplaces? What do our digital selves look like at work?

Last night’s class marked the midpoint of the semester, and I intended to gather your feedback about what’s going well so far and what we might want to change during the second half of the semester. Unfortunately, we ran out of time, so please remind me to take care of this at the beginning of class next week! I also plan to assign tentative grades for class participation and blogging within the next few days, so an email from me should be headed your way soon.

Our last few workshops have been pretty technical, and I know that some of you are feeling overwhelmed right now. If you’re in that camp, please remember that (a) these workshops are designed to introduce you to a variety of tools and (b) I don’t expect anyone in this class to master all (or any!) of these tools in a single semester. Bottom line: don’t let your worries about software and servers and code distract you from your scholarly work in this class.

Next week, Tana and Jenny will be our discussion superheroes, and we’ll enjoy software demonstrations from Tana (Notability) and Will (Google+). Our discussion will focus on the the role of digital communication technologies in the workplace, and during our workshop we will experiment with modifying HTML templates and WordPress themes. (Bring your laptops! And if you’d like to get a jump start on the visual design of your portfolio, check the Resources page for some new links.)

To read before class:

To do before class:

  • Submit (in your Google Drive folder) a 1-2 page proposal for your Research Design and/or Pilot Study. To simplify this process, I have created a simple template that you can use to draft your proposal. (Sign into Google, make a copy of this document, rename it, and edit the copy. If this format doesn’t help you, feel free to take a different approach to your proposal.)
  • Finalize the software you plan to use for your Professional Electronic Portfolio (e.g., WordPress on your server, WordPress.com, Concrete5, static HTML template). If necessary, update your “plan of action” in Google Drive to reflect your revised plans.

Bonus reading (as time and interest permit):

If you’d like to talk about either of the projects you’re working on right now, or if you need technical help with setting up your website, please stop by during office hours (T 1–4, W 9–12) or email me to arrange another time to meet.

Week 8: Can the internet save the world? Or at least help us improve our communities?

We’re almost at the mid-point of the semester, and from my perspective, things are going quite well. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your online identity analyses, and your blog posts continue to impress me (though a few of you might need to catch up on your blogging over spring break!). For the rest of the semester, we will take a dual-track approach to working on our two remaining projects: the Professional Electronic Portfolio and the Research Design. Each week, you’ll need to make incremental progress on one of the two projects, so please check the course calendar to map out your work plans for the next few weeks.

Next week, Kelly and Josette will be our discussion superheroes, and Tana will show us how she uses Notability. Our discussion will center on “digital citizenship,” and our workshop will focus on setting up personal websites and installing content management systems.

To read before class:

To do before class:

  • Submit (in your Google Drive folder) a one-page “plan of action” for your Professional Electronic Portfolio. It’s fine if your plans change over the course of this assignment (I’d be surprised if they didn’t), but do your best to outline the specific tools you intend to use and the various artifacts/components you intend to include in your portfolio. Think of this document as a “best case scenario” description of what you’d like to accomplish on this project.

Bonus reading (as time and interest permit):

I’ll be at a professional conference for the remainder of spring break, but I should be reachable by email if you have any questions. If you’d like to chat about either of your ongoing projects after the break, please stop by during office hours (T 1–4, W 9–12).

Week 7: How do we use social networking sites? And why might we choose not to use them?

With the Online Identity Analysis project in our rearview mirror, it’s time to turn our attention to our own professional electronic portfolios. I hope our first web workshop went smoothly for everyone, and I hope you’re ready to dig a little deeper into HTML and CSS next week. If you felt overwhelmed last night, or if you just want to review the things we covered, I recommend working your way through some of the basic tutorials on Codecademy, Code School, or Lynda.com. (Top-secret hint: All Lynda.com courses are free for Virginia Tech students.)

Next week, Renee and Shelby will be our discussion superheroes, and David and Mandy will show us how to use Google Scholar. In addition, we’ll talk about how our online networks function as virtual communities and consider the role of social networking sites in the workplace.

To read before class:

  • A Networked Self, Part 2 (pp. 105–82)
  • Howard Rheingold’s introduction to The Virtual Community (first published in 1993)

To do before class:

  • Submit (in your Google Drive folder) an assessment of your current professional online identity, following the guidelines in the electronic portfolio assignment.

Bonus reading (as time and interest permit):

(I hope you’ll make time for this week’s bonus readings — I think they connect quite nicely with the conversation we had during Week 6.)

As always, let me know if you’d like to talk about anything related to the readings, your blogging, or our new assignment.

UPDATE: Here are the files we’ll use for our CSS workshop. You don’t need to do anything with these until you come to class.

Week 6: What do our social networking practices tell us about ourselves? What kind of online presence do we want to maintain?

I hope last night’s peer review workshop helped you narrow your focus and finalize your methods for the Online Identity Analysis assignment. I know that some of you are still feeling overwhelmed by your data or are struggling to make connections between our class readings and your individual analysis, so please don’t hesitate to contact me if you’d like another opinion on your tentative findings.

I have updated the course calendar with the list of “discussion superheroes” and “tech demos” you signed up for last night, so make sure those items are on your calendars, too. Just to reiterate what I said last night, the “discussion superhero” role does not entail a formal presentation; it just means that you should be a little over-prepared for class that night. Do some outside reading, draft a few discussion questions to get the conversation started, or meet with your fellow superhero to work through some difficult concepts you encountered. As for the tech demos, plan on taking 10 minutes (and definitely no more than 15) to introduce your chosen tool and help us think about how we might integrate it into our digital workflows.

Next week, David and Will will be our discussion superheroes, and KT will demonstrate Tumblr for us. In addition, we’ll wrap up the Online Identity Analysis assignment, start talking about the Professional Portfolio assignment, and dig into our third book.

To read before class:

To do before class:

  • Finish the Online Identity Analysis project and submit it via Google Drive before you come to class. (If you would like to use your deadline extension on this project, let me know ASAP.)
  • Keep blogging! Try using one of the articles in A Networked Self as a springboard, or share a link to an interesting article you found while working on your Online Identity Analysis project.

Bonus reading (as time and interest permit):

If you want to discuss your Online Identity Analysis project before you submit it, please come see me during my (slightly adjusted) office hours (M 9–12, T 1–4) or email me to arrange another a meeting at another time.

UPDATE: Here are the files we’ll use for our HTML workshop. You don’t need to do anything with these until you come to class.

Week 5: How do our digital interactions shape our identities? And what’s special about group interactions?

Just to reiterate what I said at the beginning of class last night: I’ve been very impressed with most of the posts I’ve seen on the Motherblog, and I hope the quality (and quantity) of your posts will get even better as the semester progresses. If you haven’t been averaging two posts per week, consider this a gentle reminder to pick up the pace a bit before too much more time passes.

I enjoyed our class session last night, but I felt like our discussion could have focused a little more squarely on the ideas in Baym’s book, and our workshop could have been a little less scattered. I take full responsibility for both of those problems, but I hope you’ll help me as I try to make our Wednesday evenings as productive and valuable as possible. To that end, please let me know if you have any suggestions for specific workshop topics that would be useful to you as a student, a teacher, a professional, etc… As for our class discussions, I’d like to hand off the role of moderator from time to time, so next week I’ll be asking for volunteers to help lead some of our future class sessions. You might want to scan the calendar to see which week(s) pique your interest the most.

Next week, we’ll finish our second book and spend the rest of the evening helping each other make sense of our data for the Online Identity Analysis project.

To read before class:

  • Personal Connections in the Digital Age, Chapters 4–6 (pp. 72–155)
  • “Genre as Social Action,” by Carolyn Miller (PDF copy also located in our class’s shared Google Drive folder)

To do before class:

  • Finish collecting data for your Online Identity Analysis project and begin to draft your analysis of the data. It’s fine if your draft is messy or even incomplete, but you should have something to say about what you’ve gathered, not just the raw data itself.
  • Upload a copy of your draft analysis to your Google Drive folder before class so you can share it with the members of your peer review group during class. (I recommend working in a Google document from the get-go, just to simplify the process.)
  • After completing the readings for class, create a list of as many different “digital genres” as you can think of. Be ready to discuss your list in class.

Bonus reading (as time and interest permit):

All of this week’s bonus articles are examples of how to analyze Twitter data. We won’t have much time to discuss them in class, but if you’re feeling stuck with your analysis, you should find some inspiration (or even methods you can cite) in these articles:

If you need advice about your Online Identity Analysis project, please come see me during office hours (T 1–4, W 9–12) or email me to set up another time to meet. I know this type of data collection and analysis is completely new for many of you, so I’m happy to talk through your project with you if you think it will help.

Week 4: How do we study online communication? And why should we?

I enjoyed hearing your summaries of (and disagreements with) Networked, and I hope our first two weeks of readings have helped us consider some big, societal trends that affect our digital lives. We’ll come back to Networked at the end of the semester, as we try to predict the next round of technological revolutions. Our whirlwind tour of social media analysis tools should have given you a few ideas for your Online Identity Analysis project, and we’ll examine a few more tools next Wednesday. If you haven’t received my feedback on your proposal, don’t worry—it’s coming soon. For now, just start collecting anything that might be remotely relevant to your analysis. (It’s easier to discard artifacts later on than it is to recreate ephemeral social media interactions.) Next week, we’ll dive into our second book and start discussing specific genres and subgenres that are unique to the internet.

To read before class:

To do before class:

  • Devote one of your blog posts this week to a “workflow” essay of some sort. I’ve added several samples of this genre to the Resources page, so read through a few of them before you work on your own. The simplest approach for this mini-assignment is to use the four-question template from The Setup (and the editor of that site has suggested he would love for us to submit our posts to him), but if you’d like to go a different direction with your workflow post, that’s fine, too.
  • Collect as much raw “data” as you can for your Online Identity Analysis project and bring it to class in a format that you can work with. (Hint: store your screenshots, archived tweets, etc., in a Google Drive folder, and if you prefer to work on your own laptop, bring it to class.)
  • Follow five new people on Twitter, with the specific goal of building your own personal learning networking.
  • Read several of your classmates’ posts on the Motherblog, and if the mood strikes you, try responding to one or two of them.

Bonus reading (as time and interest permit):

As always, let me know if you have any questions about these plans. Otherwise, happy reading, writing, and observing!

Week 3: How do we fit in our networks? And how do our networks shape us?

Last night’s class was excellent—everyone had great comments to share about Catfish and our first set of readings, and I loved seeing your drawings of your individual memexes. (I’ll add a gallery of these pictures soon!) If there’s one thing we could do better, it would probably be to dig a little deeper into our readings. I was partly to blame for that last night, so next week you can expect me to push us back into the text whenever possible. As you read this week, try to highlight key passages you want to discuss and jot down notes for Wednesday’s class. I hope we can extend some of the ideas we touched on during Week 2, then get a little more specific about our day-to-day digital workflows.

To read before class:

  • The second major section of Networked, “How Networked Individualism Works.” In the print version, it’s pages 115–251. In the ebook, it’s Chapters 5–9, plus the second “Interlude.”
  • “Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age,” by George Siemens.

To do before class:

  • Explore a few Twitter lists (and pages linked to individual Twitter profiles) to find two people you would like to observe for the Online Identity Analysis project, then add those names to our collaborative spreadsheet in Google Drive called “Online Identity Analysis Subjects.”
  • Write a one-page proposal for your Online Identity Analysis project and add it to your Google Drive folder. (If you draft your proposal in MS Word or another program, be sure to convert the document to Google Docs format when you upload it.)
  • Write your first (or second) blog post, and if you haven’t done so already, email me the URL for your blog. If your blog covers non-class topics, too, create a category called “Digital Self” (or something like that) and send me the URL for your category page. I will aggregate all of your individual blogs into our “Motherblog” before next week’s class.

Bonus reading (as time and interest permit):

Based on our conversation in class last night, I thought it might be helpful to share a few Twitter-related resources. Even if you’ve been using Twitter for a long time, you might find something useful in a couple of these articles:

Last but not least, if you would like to discuss your proposal for Online Identity Analysis assignment, please come see me during office hours (T 1-4 and W 9-12 in Shanks 427) or drop me a line via email.

Week 2: What do our digital lives look like right now? And how did we get here?

I apologize for the somewhat odd nature of our first class session (iPads! syllabus! movie! no interaction!), and I promise that our future classes will look nothing like last night’s class. In fact, next week will be all about you—your digital history and habits—so be thinking about your personal answers to the questions in the title of this post. We will balance our individual, anecdotal accounts with an interesting historical piece and some contemporary data about the relationships between humans and the technologies that surround them.

To read before class:

  • The first major section of Networked, “The Triple Revolution.” In the print version, it’s pages 1–113. In the ebook, it’s the first four chapters, plus the first “Interlude.”
  • “As We May Think,” by Vannevar Bush. The easiest way to read the article is on the Atlantic’s website, but be sure to take a look at a PDF scan of the original article from 1945, which has some important illustrations.

To do before class:

  • Create a Twitter account, if you don’t have one already. Choose a username you are willing to share publicly, upload a photo to your profile, and write a short bio for your account. When your account is set up, send me your username.
  • Set up an account on the Blogs@VT website. You are welcome to blog about the readings for Wednesday’s class, but it’s not required yet. We will discuss the parameters of the blogging assignment in class and review some best practices for academic blogging.
  • Watch for an email invitation from me to join a shared Google Drive folder for this class. Once you accept that invitation, each of you will have an individual folder that you can use to share drafts with me and submit your final projects.

Bonus reading (as time and interest permit):

Last but not least, thank you for completing the two surveys during class last night. I’ve been looking over your responses today, and they have really helped me refine my plans for the syllabus this semester. I will be finalizing the reading schedule over the weekend, and we will review it in class next week.

If you have any questions about these plans, please drop by during office hours (T 1-4 and W 9-12 in Shanks 427), email me, or contact me on Twitter.

Welcome to Genres of Professional Practice: The Digital Self!

Welcome to ENGL 5644: The Digital Self. This website will function as the online headquarters for our class this semester. Each week, I will post an update to the website with details about coming week, deadline reminders, links to helpful resources, etc… I will use Virginia Tech’s Scholar site to record your grades, but otherwise, everything related to this course will be posted here. You should bookmark this site on your laptop, your tablet, your phone, etc. — whatever you use to get online.

A bit about me: This is my second semester at Virginia Tech, and I love it here. My research focuses on how people use rhetoric in online environments, and all of the classes I teach have something to do with technology. I love experimenting with new digital tools, and it blows my mind to think about what we can do with technology that we couldn’t do 20 (or 10, or even 5) years ago. When I’m not staring at a computer screen, I love to cook, read, and spend time with my wife, a brilliant freelance writer, and our two daughters.

Each week (typically no later than Thursday evening), I will add a post to this website that explains what we will be doing in class the following week, and what you need to do to prepare for that class session. You’ll see the Week 2 post tomorrow, but in the meantime, here are a few of things you need to do to get started in this class:

  • Create a Twitter account, if you don’t have one already. (We’ll talk about using Twitter in the coming weeks, but for now, you just need to create an account, add a photo, and customize your profile.)
  • Get familiar with your Google Drive account, which is connected to your vt.edu email address. (If you forgot your password for your VT Google Apps account, follow these instructions.)
  • Set up an account on the Blogs@VT website.
  • Buy copies (print or electronic) of the textbooks listed on the Course Policies page.

Finally, I hope you’ll allow me to begin the semester with a confession: I have rewritten the syllabus for this class at least five times in the past month. There is so much I want to do and so little time to do it all! This week, I realized that you might be able to help me solve the problem, so your first assignment is to quickly complete the following two surveys:

Once I see your responses to these two surveys, I will finalize the syllabus and assignment descriptions. By next week, I should be able to provide a clearer picture of where we’re headed this semester, and I think it will be one that better meets your expectations and needs.