On Writing New Media ...

I actually read this book last spring, and decided I should probably reread it or else Jeff would probably call on me to recall something that I didn't/couldn't ;). It's a little eerie, to be honest, since I've done a lot of these assignments before, but I'm going to try and mostly not respond from that place and talk about something else instead.

I remember reading a review somewhere that claims that Anne's opening chapter is weak, and that she seems to be writing from somewhere else than the rest of the book. I think I felt that when I read it through the first time--the assignments are good, her second chapter is rooted in an example, etc. But after doing all the reading we've done this term, and having also read the Castells, the Feenberg, the Haraway that she cites, I can't really agree with that pronouncement. It fits in perfectly with all the theory we've been reading and situates the book well. I don't want to say the reviewer was wrong, per se, but is it really fair to review something without also having a good knowledge of just where the book is coming from to begin with? Without having done the background reading so that this "fits?" Hrm... I dunno, but it gives me something to think about if I ever do get around to writing a review....

That said, I'm going to agree with Mike that I like A. Wysocki's idea of new media better than C. Selfe's. I can say that from a couple different angles. I first like that Anne moves away from an interactivity model of new media and pushes this idea that new media is all about material texts. Sweet--we've actually studied that elsewhere this term. Selfe's defintion seems more ordinary, more Computers and Composition and less "New Media" and composition (and given that she edits Computers and Composition it's not really fair to fault her there.)

However, at some point in her chapters she mentions it being "okay" to let a student teach the class how to use a web editor, and that's one point I really disagree with her on and always have. I was that student in more than one class (not hers, but people she taught...) and it annoyed me to no end. As a graduate student, I'm a person always really willing to help anybody who asks. I'd be happy to run somebody through using Dreamweaver, or point them to good resources to learn. But if an instructor says something to the effect of "Well I don't really know how to do this and don't know how to support it but I'm going to let you support each other" I just get angry. It's a left over from my days as an undergrad that I can't shake. In my classroom I teach what I can support (which is actually a generous amount of stuff) because I think it's *my* job to answer student questions. I don't ever suggest that one or two students help all the other ones and then also have to do the project too--that isn't fair to them or to their in class work time. As grad students, we were also sometimes expected to learn lots of new software fast, and although I don't regret that at all (I teach some of that software now, and I also contract whenever I can so it's definitely come in handy) I still really wanted a go to person for support. Her model WORKS, don't get me wrong, those students do what they have to and like me, they probably sort of enjoy it. But sometimes I think it's a mistake to put that kind of pressure on people that are paying YOU to teach THEM.

Anyway, lastly I'd like to respond to Sirc's "Box Logic." I like this idea of collecting things and interrelating them, writing about them, making sense out of them. On the simplest level, I think I'd like to eventually write an assignment (maybe not this term, but definitely by next fall) that asks students to collect things. For now maybe there's something else I can draw upon.

Several times in the piece he mentions "Found Objects" which happens to also be the name of a community I read (but don't participate in) on Livejournal (http://community.livejournal.com/found_objects/). Now, I think it was Ellen who suggested that participating in such things (Myspace, livejournal, facebook) whatever is kinda creepy when you're an adult, and to one extent or another I'd agree, but I've found some really sort of neat communities on Livejournal. Despite the fact I don't have an account, I've got these "Collection" communities bookmarked and like to look at them.

In the case of Found_objects, people post pictures of strange things they've found outside on the street. Some of the objects are a lot "better" than others, but I think I might be able to direct students to look at these objects and think about how they make the normal strange, as Sirc implies we should be doing. Eventually I'd like to write an assignment that asks students to do the same--look for the strange and take pictures of it--but I'll see how writing up an assignment using the community works first. "Find a favorite example and discuss it in a blog entry" maybe. Something like that. I've been flirting with the idea of *some* mandatory blog prompts, this could be one of them.

In any case, Writing New Media feels like it's in familiar territory for me. I should get going and finish reading that last chapter about databases. *waves*