the course blog for composition 302 at Colorado State University

The plan for today is code, code, code.

We will learn how to do a little bit of old-fashioned HTML coding so that when you learn to use Dreamweaver, you will understand the basics of the code that the program is writing for you. Think of computer code as a foreign language: our goal is to develop basic reading and grammar knowledge of the code, and not necessarily the ability to do advanced composing in the the language.

So, here is the order of business:

1. turn in posters. I will collect hard copies. You will upload a back-up to the Writing Studio dropbox. Don’t forget to make sure your reflection is posted in the Writing Studio forum.
2. turn in website design plans and mod boards
3. comment on a classmate’s blog
4. finish discussing the requirements for the personal website assignment
5. practicing HTML coding using the program Notepad on the computers and this sample file: HTML_examples.doc.

Below are examples of academic web pages that we will use in class today during our discussion of Patricia Sullivan’s article “Practicing safe visual rhetoric on the World Wide Web.”

Cynthia Selfe (university template)
Gail E. Hawisher (university template)
Lisa Langstraat (university template)
Anne Frances Wysocki (university template)
Katherine Gossett
Derek Van Ittersum
Spencer Schaffner
Danielle Nicole DeVoss
Douglas Eyman
Janine Solberg
Carrie A. Lamanna
Ryan Griffis
Deke Weaver
Joseph Squier

Here’s an update/reminder about a few things we talked about in class Thursday. Leave a comment if you have any questions!

• we changed the due date for the revised manifestos to Thursday, March 11, which is the last class before spring break.
• the three Photoshop tutorials are due by class time tomorrow (3/2). If you run into any problems completing the tutorials, bring your questions and your Photoshop files to class tomorrow and Joe and I will help you troubleshoot so you can successfully complete them. Remember to put your name on your image file when you put it in the Writing Studio dropbox so know who it belongs to!
• remember to email your blog questions to Joe. He will answer your question in person during the next class session.
• we will spend all of class time tomorrow on the poster assignment. Bring your Nondesigner’s Design Book to class as it will be helpful in working on the assignment.

See you all tomorrow!

In class today, we will be learning how to use Photoshop by working through the tutorials designed by Madeline Sorapure. Photoshop is what is called a “robust” program. This means that it has hundreds of functions—more than we can possibly learn in a few days and more than we need to learn in order to complete our projects.

Several of you already know how to use Photoshop, and I hope that you will be willing to help out those around you when they need assistance.

As you complete each tutorial, submit it to the proper folder in the Writing Studio Dropbox.

The instructions for the tutorials are linked below. The images you need for each tutorial are also listed below.

Photoshop 1: Interface, filters, and adjustments

Photoshop 2: Text & brush

Photoshop 3: Selecting & compositing

Image for Tutorial One:
ruins

Images for tutorial two:
coast
girl
crowd
driving
girls
city

Images for tutorial three:
hands
cellphone
house

Here is the plan for today:

1. comment on a classmate’s blog
2. take quiz
3. Typography activity (see previous post)
4. Poster activity (see below for materials)

We will practice using Robin Williams design principles by redesigning a poster that I found in the Eddy Building. You will do this activity in groups and use whatever software program the group is most comfortable with—Word, Illustrator, Photoshop, Publisher, etc. Here are the materials you will need.

the original poster

Lyons photo

Arigo photo

CSU logo

ASCSU logo

more CSU logos

Here is the plan for today’s class:

1. Manifesto peer response: I will place you into groups of three and you will follow the instructions on the peer response sheet to provide feedback to your group members.
2. Typography activity: We will listen to “The Fear” by Lilly Allen and then with your group members, you will design the lyrics to reflect the meaning of the song. Your design may only use type, color, and basic page layout—no images including fonts that are icons rather than letter and numbers.

A few updates and clarifications following today’s class:

• I corrected the due date information on the Manifesto assignment. The draft is due Thursday, 2/18.
• For class Tuesday, 2/16 please read the Non-Designer’s Type Book. This is the second volume in our two volume design textbook by Robin Williams. Make sure to bring the book to class with you on Tuesday.
• If you were absent from class today, make sure to check out the changes I made to the course assignments and look at the additional information on the daily schedule—the schedule is available through spring break.
• Finally, I created a wiki in the Writing Studio where you can provide me with your blog information. A wiki is an online document that groups of people can edit. To add your blog information to our wiki, log into the Writing Studio and go to our class page. Choose “Class Wikis” from the menu on the right. Next, choose the “Blog List” wiki (this is the only wiki our class has!). You should now see a table where you can add your information: click “Manage” and then “Manage wiki.” Add your information to the table and click “update.” You should now see your information in the table. If you have any trouble with the wiki, you can email me your blog information.

Here is the agenda for today’s class:

1. Complete “About” pages of your blogs (20 minutes)
2. Group activity: Develop your own revision of copyright law for the digital age using stasis theory as your method of invention (30 minutes)
3. Discussion of manifestos (20 minutes)

As part of our discussion of manifestos, we will watch this performance of the Declaration of Independence as it is the United States’s most famous example of a manifesto.

Over the past few weeks I have been consuming quite a bit of media commentary on our increasingly online culture here in the U.S. Yesterday, All Things Considered did a story on break-ups and divorce in the digital age:
Apparently people are shocked to discover how difficult it is to sever your online connections with someone when you end your physical world relationship. I found this pretty amusing. If you have common friends in the physical world, why wouldn’t you have just as many common Facebook friends? I also found the suggested solution pretty amusing: “don’t put your personal life online.” Is this really a workable solution? Sites like Facebook are designed to be an extension of our personal lives. In fact, I would argue that there is no distinction or separation between our physical and virtual lives—what happens online affects our offline activities and our offline interests and habits largely determine what we do in online spaces.

My point that there is no separation between the physical and the virtual world is backed up by Julian Dibbbell who researched the connection between the economies of online video games and the “real world” economy. In his radio interview on Focus 580, Digital Media and Virtual Worlds, Dibbell explains that in video games such as World of Warcraft players earn game money that they can use to buy items needed in the game such as swords, potions, etc. Apparently there are people who play these games in order to gain enough points that they can buy a bunch of stuff in the game and then sell this stuff to other players for real money on sites like Ebay. In fact, in China there are whole factories in which people sit around and play these games all day to accumulate things that the owners then sell online for real money. Essentially, the “pretend” economies of these games have created real world sweat shops.

While I do think we need to take our online activities seriously precisely because they have real world effects, we also need our cultural critics to use humor to point out where the online world crosses the line into the absurd. In the video clip below Stephen Colbert uses his usual satire to critique two bizarre uses of web 2.0 technologies: a website that displays all your credit card purchases for the world to see and a site where people can tag a map with the last place they had sex.

In a similar way Jon Stewart calls to task the hyperbole of many bloggers who use violent language to describe his comedic critique of the news. While it is easy to dismiss these blogs as silly, I think that this sort of war-like language is a sign of and a catalyst for the hateful tone of our current political rhetoric. Again, online activity with real world consequences.

And to conclude, I leave you with a link to another Focus 580 interview with Robert McChesney, a communications professor at the University of Illinois. In the interview, titled  The Death and Life of American Journalism McChesney discusses the effect blogs are having on traditional print journalism such as newspapers. He also makes a good argument for why blogs are not a substitute for traditional forms of journalism.

In class today we will start by setting up our Wordpress accounts going over the technical basics of blogging. Next we will continue our discussion of copyright and remix culture with an emphasis on developing our own ethical code for composing in online spaces such as our blogs. At the end of our discussion you will have the opportunity to to explore Creative Commons and add a license to your blog if you want.