REFERENCES
Bemer, A., Moeller, R. M., & Ball, C. E. (2009). Designing collaborative learning spaces: Where material culture meets mobile writing processes. Programmatic Perspectives: Journal of the Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication, 1(2).
Boiarsky, C. (1990). Computers in the classroom: The instruction, the mess, the noise, the writing. In Carolyn Handa (Ed.), Computers and community: Teach¬ing composition in the twenty-first century (pp. 47–67). Portsmouth, NH: Boyn¬ton/Cook.
Carter, S., & Dunbar-Odom, D. (2009). The Converging Literacies Center: An Integrated Model for Writing Programs. Kairos Journal, 14.1. Retrieved from http://www.technorhetoric.net/14.1/index.html
Gresham, M. & Yancey, K. (2004). New studio composition: New sites for writing, new forms of composition, new cultures of learning. Writing Program Administration: Journal of the Council of Writing Program Administrators, 28(1), 9-28.
Handa, C. (1993). Designing a computer classroom: Pedagogy, nuts, and bolts. In Linda J. Meyers (ed.), Approaches to computer writing classrooms: Learning from practical experience (pp, 103-118). New York: SUNY Press.
Harrison, A., Wheeler, P., & Whitehead, C. (2004). The distributed workplace: Sustainable work environments. London: Spon Press.
Inman, J. (2010). Designing multiliteracy centers: A zoning approach. In D.M. Sheridan and J.A.
Inman (Eds.), Multiliteracy centers: Writing center work, new media, and multimodal rhetoric (19-32). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Johnson, R. (1998). User-centered technology: A rhetorical theory for computers and other mundane artifacts. Albany, NY: State University Press of New York.
Mirtz, Ruth. (2004). The inertia of classroom furniture: Unsituating the classroom. In Ed Nagelhout & Carol Rutz (Eds.), Classroom spaces and writing instruction (pp. 13–28). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton.
Myers, L. (1993). Approaches to computer writing classrooms: Learning from practical experience. Albany, NY: State University Press of New York.
Nagelhout, E. & Rutz, C. (2004). Classroom spaces and writing instruction. Creskill, NY: Hampton Press.
Norman, D. (1988). The Design of Everyday Things. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Reddish, J. (2007). Expanding usability testing to evaluate complex systems. Journal of Usability Studies. 2(3), 102-111.
Selfe, Richard J. (2005). Sustainable computer environments: Cultures of support for teachers of English and language arts. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Vatrapu, R. & Pérez-Quiñones, M. (2006). Culture and usability evaluation: The effects of culture in structured interviews. Journal of Usability Studies, 1(4), 156-170.
Wolfe, J. (2005). Gesture and collaborative planning: A case study of a student writing group. Written Communication, 22(3), 298-332.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
Linguistic and Cultural Online Communication Issues in a Global Age
The last few days I've been reading Linguistic and Cultural Online Communication Issues in a Global Age. Certainly an interesting read with lots of valuable information. While not all of the information is applicable to my IS on Intercultural Communication this semester (mostly because I am focusing on app development), there is very useful information in the text. I've summarized some of it below from the various chapters I read.
There are almost 7,000 languages spoken in the world. The most popular 8, spoken by 96% of the population are English, Hindi (with Urdu), Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, and Bengali. While English is the most widely spoken, it is also clear that the Internet is changing accessibility to speakers of other languages. In 2006, for instance, two-thirds of Internet users did not use English as their primary language. And, also, cultural values impact how second-languages are adopted and used, especially online in teaching and learning spaces. Of course, culture is a difficult word to define. One author explains that there are close to 250 definitions in the literature. What is important to remember about information online is that cultures view technology differently, which can mean certain activity we find illegal is actually legal (or vice versa). Privacy and laws about privacy vary by culture and that impacts the language (including symbols and other visuals, sounds, etc). used online of course. The variance can also be somewhat explained by the cultures within cultures, such as business culture or education culture. I imagine, for instance, the education culture just in Florida varies from one place to the text (compare Miami to Jacksonville, for instance).
My big takeaway from the text is that culture is always changing, and the Internet is a path of evolution and we must study the best ways to produce communication appropriate for multilingual users online. In my mind, culture converges and diverges all at once, which is key to the sort of ebb and flow and change we undergo in a global age. We are constantly adopting, discovering, remediating, balancing, redefining and rediscovering, and blurring identity and culture and the Internet and mass media help us to understand this cultural tide. The Internet is a tool of agency for cultural transformation, for students especially, and for teachers too. Never before have we been able to provide our students with access to so many different cultures for educative purposes. Certainly I do not want to overlook the many cultures that do not have access to the Internet, but as so much moves online educators must see there is an advantage to being able to connect in ways never so easily available before. But also, access to so many cultures and ways of thinking/perceiving/believing/living allows us to be mindful in authentic ways--and we have to be because there are ramifications to miscommunication in the workplace and in life. The Internet, in a way, is forcing us into partnerships we never expected but must embrace and learn from.
As I begin to brainstorm for the app I'm developing, these are the issues I'm considering above all. I'm starting simple, with an English only app, but want to write it for translation. That is, write it without cultural references. That is hard and will require a fair amount of testing on users. Additionally, I want to create an app that connects people in authentic ways, so the app itself must be invisible to a degree and flexible. Keeping Lessig in mind, I want a structure that doesn't force a certain kind of communication--I don't want something limiting but facilitating. I want to build an app that connects people and gets out of the way (sort of my definition of good teaching).
A final book to read on mobile theory and culture and an app to develop. Here we go!
There are almost 7,000 languages spoken in the world. The most popular 8, spoken by 96% of the population are English, Hindi (with Urdu), Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, and Bengali. While English is the most widely spoken, it is also clear that the Internet is changing accessibility to speakers of other languages. In 2006, for instance, two-thirds of Internet users did not use English as their primary language. And, also, cultural values impact how second-languages are adopted and used, especially online in teaching and learning spaces. Of course, culture is a difficult word to define. One author explains that there are close to 250 definitions in the literature. What is important to remember about information online is that cultures view technology differently, which can mean certain activity we find illegal is actually legal (or vice versa). Privacy and laws about privacy vary by culture and that impacts the language (including symbols and other visuals, sounds, etc). used online of course. The variance can also be somewhat explained by the cultures within cultures, such as business culture or education culture. I imagine, for instance, the education culture just in Florida varies from one place to the text (compare Miami to Jacksonville, for instance).
My big takeaway from the text is that culture is always changing, and the Internet is a path of evolution and we must study the best ways to produce communication appropriate for multilingual users online. In my mind, culture converges and diverges all at once, which is key to the sort of ebb and flow and change we undergo in a global age. We are constantly adopting, discovering, remediating, balancing, redefining and rediscovering, and blurring identity and culture and the Internet and mass media help us to understand this cultural tide. The Internet is a tool of agency for cultural transformation, for students especially, and for teachers too. Never before have we been able to provide our students with access to so many different cultures for educative purposes. Certainly I do not want to overlook the many cultures that do not have access to the Internet, but as so much moves online educators must see there is an advantage to being able to connect in ways never so easily available before. But also, access to so many cultures and ways of thinking/perceiving/believing/living allows us to be mindful in authentic ways--and we have to be because there are ramifications to miscommunication in the workplace and in life. The Internet, in a way, is forcing us into partnerships we never expected but must embrace and learn from.
As I begin to brainstorm for the app I'm developing, these are the issues I'm considering above all. I'm starting simple, with an English only app, but want to write it for translation. That is, write it without cultural references. That is hard and will require a fair amount of testing on users. Additionally, I want to create an app that connects people in authentic ways, so the app itself must be invisible to a degree and flexible. Keeping Lessig in mind, I want a structure that doesn't force a certain kind of communication--I don't want something limiting but facilitating. I want to build an app that connects people and gets out of the way (sort of my definition of good teaching).
A final book to read on mobile theory and culture and an app to develop. Here we go!
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Last Post of DCS: Literacy as Divergent Practice
“A focus on practices of consumption therefore helps us to understand that meanings not simply sent by producers and received by consumers but are always made in usage.”
When I think of language as a cultural artifact, a technology created by a culture to be used by that culture (and like Foucault suggests, can help us understand the knowledge of a culture), it becomes clear that language is highly contextual. But, as other cultures seek to adopt a language, it becomes even clearer that language use is divergent in nature because it evolves with communicators and communication and technology. In my mind, the production and consumption of language has evolved into a single idea because of the Internet. This prosumerism has created divergent uses for language that rhetoric helps us to understand. I suppose, without a lot of support (yet), I am suggesting that literacy is a divergent practice because today it is resembles this process of prosumption.
Why intercultural communication has become important for me is that I see communication is moving all the more virtual. How can it not? In today’s world we are connected to each other through communication. Imagine a string connects all of us around our wrists. When we feel one person move we must also move. I think that invisible string has a lot to do with divergent forms of communication because it presents a choice, a rhetoric. Someone tugs on the invisible string and it creates a pocket of communication space that must be filled with a response—that response depends, of course, on many factors, rhetorical and otherwise, that a communication designer must engage.
I suppose that is the basis for my argument for a media lab. I see that when the metaphorical string has been pulled (users need to know how to access their email) the communicator must fill that pocket with a response (directions how to access their email) and that response can be varied (email access can be designed around users and use). What I think, then, is that the media lab is the physical symbol of the think-tank that creates, develops, and delivers the response. The think-tank that provides access to all sorts of technology, yes, but also the space that understands that literacies themselves are divergent in nature. And if literacy is truly divergent, like I think it is, then that means the media lab’s purpose is to also understand the user’s needs, abilities, expectations, and
context, etc. Or, to seek to understand communication in general.
What DCS has shown me, in the end, is that literacy is a divergent practice because it’s motor is a language (written, symbolic, etc.). If we approach intercultural communication from that perspective, that means we have to first discover how language is being used and to what end before we can perceive the message. I think this is intent, certainly, but it is also a mindful process (knowledge of varying communication styles and points of view). McLuhan said “The medium is the message.” Yes. Then how does the user impact the message?
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Building Bridges, Building Community: Digital Literacy Narratives in the Hybrid Classroom
There has been a lot of discussion about students hacking learning environments today. Hacking the CMS or hacking the physical environment. What is it that hackers do? One thing is hackers work to make artifacts not suited to their needs or expectations better work for them or perform for them. In a lot of ways, a hybrid classroom is and should be a hack of a traditional classroom. So how can we, as the instructors of these classes, enable students to hack the environment to best work for them?
The goal for my presentation is to discuss how we can bridge the face-to-face environment with the virtual environment through assignment design in a way that also contributes and helps to create a sense of community in hybrid classes. Instead of seeing the learning environments as two separate spaces, I want to see them as one space. To do this, I’m going to discuss and theorize the following ideas
• Thirdspace
• 60 Second Digital Literacy Narrative Assignment
• Student Examples
• Student Reflections
• What I Learned
In Spaces Speak, Are you Listening? Blesser & Salter explain that spaces have a ‘specialized language…” And that space “architects communicate their worldview with a vocabulary of spatial elements that often contain symbolic meaning reflecting their culture.” Surely the idea of a space being symbolic of meaning and culture can be applied to teaching and learning environments. When I think about a hybrid classroom, especially when I first started developing my own hybrid pedagogy, my main concern was a loss of community. How would the loss of F2F class time impact that wonderful community we try to create in our classes? How can we extend this community?
Blesser & Salter continue “As we hear how sounds from multiple sources interact with the various spatial elements, we assign an identifiable personality to the aural architecture, in much the same way we interpret an echo as the aural personality of a wall.” I thought about this idea of space, sound, and echo. We couldn’t hear each other online the same way we could In face-to-face environments. When I would write feedback to my students, I felt that it didn’t necessarily reflect some of the unspoken communicative ideas that exist in the face-to-face classroom. How might introducing multimedia into these environments, especially multimedia created by students, could potentially add back that sense of community I was so worried about losing.
In Infinite Reality: Avatars, Eternal Life, New Worlds, and the Dawn of the Virtual Revolution, Blascovich & Bailenson suggest that the separation between virtual and physical worlds is shrinking, saying “…the brain doesn’t much care if an experience is real or virtual. In fact, many people prefer the digital aspects of their lives to physical ones.” When applied to the hybrid classroom, we might surmise that students today are interested in interaction and feedback regardless of physical or virtual environments. Hybrid is interesting because it combines both into a sort of thirdspace, where what occurs in the physical classroom echos in the virtual classroom, and what occurs in the virtual classroom echos in the physical classroom, until boundaries no longer exist between the spaces. And with the potent power of media and the web to further democratize communication, mediated assignments negotiated in the physical classroom can be ultimately posted in the virtual classroom, and vice versa, even further blurring boundaries between the environments. This is the sort of thirdspace I conceptualized--a single environment made up of several virtual and physical spaces that blur their boundaries, and are all used to create meaning and knowledge.
When I started using media in online classes several years ago it was with podcasts, often used to give feedback to individual students or to the class. It did not take me long to see that students enjoyed the use of media in this space, that it did indeed help to blur the boundary between the physical and virtual, but also, students wanted opportunities to use media to speak as well. My first concern was about how I could teach students to use the software, how much time it would take, and what about students who didn’t have access to computers. Over time, I realized that media assignments could be used in low stakes projects at first. Projects that were worth smaller portions of their grade, and projects that could be completed in a multitude of ways to allow students to be creative. To do this, I started off by mediating invention activities to create a low stakes environment—an environment of play and discovery. My idea also came out of an experience at last years Cs, where I was walking past a table and Cheryl Ball asked if I wanted to record my own digital literacy narrative on the spot. After saying, “Sure” I was taken aback at how easy it was to just talk about an important experience I had with reading and writing without thinking. In essence, this is where my idea for a 60 second digital literacy narrative came from.
To start off, I had students talk it out, much like my own experience recording a digital literacy narrative. I put them into groups of 3, and asked them one by one to dictate an experience they had with reading and/or writing that was important to them. While one person spoke, the other two sat, listened, and took notes. We repeated this process until all 3 students had talked to their peers for around 5 minutes. Then, I asked the students who took notes to give these notes to the speaker so they could draw from them to create their 60 second podcast later on. Upon finishing, I asked students to post their podcasts to the CMS for the class to view. Students were then asked to access each other’s podcasts and respond to them by helping their peers extend their ideas. These responses were completed in the virtual environment in a discussion post. The next class, we loaded some of the podcasts and discussed what we heard as a class, building upon the feedback left in the virtual environment, and seguing into a discussion of open form prose style. Finally, I asked students to write a transcription of their 60 second podcast and we used that transcription as an early draft of their essay.
Students Examples
Student Reflections
• “The story teller's tone is friendly and language they use is colloquial...”
• “By inserting music created by me I was able to delve to an even deeper level of emotional appeal…”
• “Some people used music background for the podcast appealing for another rhetorical aspect, pathos or the emotion of the audience.”
• “At first I thought of my podcast as radio advertising, but I was not promoting anything. Then as a radio novel. But again, there was no drama or dialogue. I finally approached it in the same tone as if I was telling my son a bedtime story. It was calm and I set my desired pace to making it sound friendly and interesting. Maybe the message was a little exaggerated; but it was for a good cause. I delivered the right lines at the right time. The words were carefully chosen in a mix of colloquial and polite, of which I have to admit, changed several times before it sounded flawless in my head.”
What I learned
• The invention activity blended interaction across the boundaries of face-to-face and virtual environments, blurring the boundaries.
• Students “hacked” the assignment to better express themselves, and not just for the virtual environment, but for the face-to-face environment as well.
Reflections
• Hybrid instructors should work to design assignments for classes that help to blur the boundaries between face-to-face and online environments, effectively creating a thirdspace that no longer distinguishes between face-to-face and online environments
• Mediated invention activities can help to create a sense of community that echoes across face-to-face and virtual boundaries.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Culture of a Culture:Notes on DCS Post 3
Concepts from Part 4 that I don't want to forget are below. Haphazard notes, in a way. Interesting application when I think about how this applies to building apps, WPA, classroom administration, designing a media lab, living in Miami (or anywhere else), or other activities that involve a specific audience. Rhetoric is still at the root of my thinking on intercultural, but I'm leaning more on reading than responding right now. Meaning, it seem rhetoric is important for the learning and defining of these ideas. True, we must be descriptive, so we must categorize, but also must understand the limitations of our categories. When talking about people we must generalize, but the goal should be to talk about a person. They as a term is a force that seems dangerous to me because of how it signifies "the other." Instead, we should use dialectic to think about and discourse through situations, lifestyles, ideas that are different from ours in order to better understand. Of course, like a good Aristotelian, I'm connecting dialectic to rhetoric in my thinking.
Also interesting is how important culture is to research--especially ethnographic research or field methods. Since I am potentially using a case study as my methods for the diss, it shows me that I need to also look through a cultural lens at the project. Or, I'd like to. Something I need to think about in more depth. But, it seems like all ethnographic research is at root culturally focused, and so, a form of intercultural communication.
Artifact designers are cultural intermediaries.
Designers have their own culture, defined, in part, by the organization. These cultures are made up of habits, goals, etc. So that means there are global cultures within an organization and local cultures that are a piece of the larger puzzle. Cultures are defined also by their lifestyle. "Lifestyle" means "the combination of responsive design and visual communication with techniques of market segmentation."
You have to learn the culture of the group you are marketing to. When studying that group, you need to learn the culture of it, and the cultures that surround it. In short, all of these cultures are connected somehow (this must be the ecology metaphor).
Design represents cultural values. Transculturation is "how subordinated... groups select and invent from materials transmitted to them by a dominant or metropolitan culture" (Pratt, 1992, p.7). Sometimes this process is referred to as hybridization.
Globalization is a process and a condition. "The process of globalization refers to the way in which media texts (sounds, images, words), capital, technologies, individuals, and social groups seem to be moving across the world more rapidly and in greater numbers than in the past."
"The condition of globalization is generally used by writers who argue that human activities are converging and being shared to the extend that the planet is becoming 'one world' (Giddens, 1990, p. 77).
Also interesting is how important culture is to research--especially ethnographic research or field methods. Since I am potentially using a case study as my methods for the diss, it shows me that I need to also look through a cultural lens at the project. Or, I'd like to. Something I need to think about in more depth. But, it seems like all ethnographic research is at root culturally focused, and so, a form of intercultural communication.
Artifact designers are cultural intermediaries.
Designers have their own culture, defined, in part, by the organization. These cultures are made up of habits, goals, etc. So that means there are global cultures within an organization and local cultures that are a piece of the larger puzzle. Cultures are defined also by their lifestyle. "Lifestyle" means "the combination of responsive design and visual communication with techniques of market segmentation."
You have to learn the culture of the group you are marketing to. When studying that group, you need to learn the culture of it, and the cultures that surround it. In short, all of these cultures are connected somehow (this must be the ecology metaphor).
Design represents cultural values. Transculturation is "how subordinated... groups select and invent from materials transmitted to them by a dominant or metropolitan culture" (Pratt, 1992, p.7). Sometimes this process is referred to as hybridization.
Globalization is a process and a condition. "The process of globalization refers to the way in which media texts (sounds, images, words), capital, technologies, individuals, and social groups seem to be moving across the world more rapidly and in greater numbers than in the past."
"The condition of globalization is generally used by writers who argue that human activities are converging and being shared to the extend that the planet is becoming 'one world' (Giddens, 1990, p. 77).
Friday, March 9, 2012
Doing Cultural Studies Post 2
Part II of DCS gets into the culture of production and consumption. I immediately thought of Shirky's, Jenkins', and Lessig's work on agency and the Internet. The next logical step from production and consumption is prosumption, prosumerism, whatever term you want to call it. The book discusses Marx's ideas of how "Production is... at the same time consumption." Cultures of production and consumption led to cultures of prosumerism online, which existed long after the Walkman had been replaced by a Discman, an MP3 player, and then an iPod.
Point is, that the Walkman was represented in many ways, which impacted how it was produced and consumed. The larger picture, in my mind, is that culture can be invented or discovered, like Aristotle argued about ethos. Steve Jobs built a culture at Apple. It is important that I don't mince terms here, however. Culture as a term is representative of many ideas and concepts that give insight into artifacts, people, language, etc. In this case, the text is talking about the culture of a business and how it extends to the workers and the products they develop (and sell).
From the standpoint of being a WPA, there is an interesting connection to be made to the more tangible aspects of the job. For example, we often discuss course goals/outcomes and programmatic goals/outcomes. In a way, after reading DCS, it makes me wonder how much the system and management style impacts achievement of these goals and outcomes. Yes, we can teach the curriculum and we can teach a specific text to guide students through achieving these goals/outcomes, but how much does the culture of the program impact the students enrolled in the classes or the profs teaching them? I'd bet a lot.
And if I extend this idea even more, to media labs, it suggests the culture of the lab impacts the work being done in the lab. Of course that makes sense to me. But what impacts these cultures of production? I turn back to DCS.
Origins of the Idea
When I started circulating the idea of the DWS a few years back, my understanding of media labs was more instinctual than concrete. Not to say the idea was abstract. Rather, I think I understood it as a support system based on three basic pedagogical ideals: use technology to teach writing, use writing to teach technology, and use technology to write. I thought, of course! A media lab! Something to support my students through some of the technology related assignments they are asked to complete as writers in the workplace. Yet, I'd never seen a media lab--only imagined one. I'd been in recording studios, so my earliest conception of a media lab was a writing center (of which I've worked in plenty) and a recording studio (of which I've worked in plenty). So the origins of my idea was a production space and also a teaching and learning space. Later, as I learned more, I saw more emphasis on the value of production-type activities rather than the teaching and learning ones. I had to spend a good amount of time undoing that approach so that the DWS acted more as a think tank than a production suite. In a way, it was my own representation of the lab that created the cultural misunderstanding of it's purpose.
Context
One thing about the location of the lab is that the context is already undergoing an evolution, and has been for a long while. Certainly programs evolve and that is an ongoing process. But, higher ed is notoriously slow moving, and a media lab (for some) is a relatively abstract and disruptive idea. Innovation always disrupts our normal ways of doing things, but disruption can be a good thing. So, when we start using technology to enhance teaching, service, and research activities, the environment changes and makes way for this new organism. As I developed the DWS, it needed to be implemented slowly to keep the very large culture of our program on the same page. If you think of development of a media lab from a cultural standpoint, then you must realize the impact of the culture on the space and the space on the culture. Epistemologically, I believe in a democratic method of building and defining the space from a user standpoint--an infection model--where how the lab is used is defined over time by those that use it. That cultural message, in my mind, was one way to undo the early misrepresentation of the space, however disjointed the purpose of the lab probably seemed for some over that period of time. Same time, that message may create disruptions counterproductive to the culture as well. There is an interesting negotiation that must go on in the ecology of a program between the existing culture and this new organism.
What's in a Name?
Plenty in this case. Using the word writing in our name was key. But also, calling ourselves the Digital Writing Studio caused some confusion. A few students brought papers to us and wanted to work on them as if we were the writing center. Of course, we referred them back to our excellent writing center and explained how we work more with multimedia texts, not written texts. Ah, but you can truly see that the terms don't clarify what we do at the DWS. Students don't necessarily see the difference between multimedia writing or digital writing and other forms of writing we consider traditional or text-based at our institution. Instead, writing on a computer is writing on a computer. It is all media-based writing. Sure, it is different, but we can easily draw many comparisons. I see why they are confused.
And faculty, while they do see a difference between traditional and media-enhanced writing, oftentimes think asking students to work with multimedia (or multimodal) means substituting a video or podcast for an essay writing assignment. That is why we chose to use studio instead of center or lab in the name. Studio sounded less experimental and more focused on augmenting the work already being done. Studio also sounded more like a production space, however, which later surfaced as a problem in faculty conception of the space.
In sum, I had to contend with the contextual definitions of the words digital, writing, and studio--and then the new contextual definition that was surmised once I put these terms together. To make it work, I had to invent new meanings for what these words would mean in our context--new cultural representations of writing that is digital, and what a studio should do to support that work. That process of defining these terms will forever be ongoing.
Selling the Lab
As I mentioned earlier, the easiest way to sell the culture of the lab was an infection model. One by one I preached the mission of the lab in hallway conversations, class visits, email blasts, lunch and coffee dates, pop in visitors, statements for syllabi, etc. Building the space from an infection model requires a ton of activities that you cannot account for on an annual review. Stopping for 10 minutes and talking to someone about the space is only one way to spread the culture organically. In my experience, when inventing a culture, it takes time and must be propagated by the users of that culture. I honestly think a top-down approach is rarely as effective and causes a great deal of bitter feelings amongst workers, consumers, producers, etc. While top-down can be necessary (nothing is all bad all the time), the media lab in our context needed an infection model to slowly build the culture I was hoping for--one partly invented by users but guided by a basic understanding of the types of activities the DWS does and why it does them. So we created operating principles that suggested the lab grounded technological production with rhetorical theory (note the word production creeping back in). And to simplify the ideas even more, we explained rhetorical theory to mean "audience focused discourse."
These activities above were choices that led to building a culture--inventing it--so that I could represent the work of the DWS a very specific way. My marketing strategies continue to take a great deal of time as I build the space around users, but with a goal in mind for those users (sustainability an important one of them). On a larger level, I've learned that intercultural communication is hierarchically global and local, and all at once you are negotiating with both of these audiences, which is clearly rhetorical (and difficult to achieve). Yet, the culture of the context or ecology of the space is determined by many things outside of my control. These things out of my control can be studied, however, and can also determine how I choose to communicate so the DWS' purpose comes across most effectively. I see that ongoing communication is key.
Point is, that the Walkman was represented in many ways, which impacted how it was produced and consumed. The larger picture, in my mind, is that culture can be invented or discovered, like Aristotle argued about ethos. Steve Jobs built a culture at Apple. It is important that I don't mince terms here, however. Culture as a term is representative of many ideas and concepts that give insight into artifacts, people, language, etc. In this case, the text is talking about the culture of a business and how it extends to the workers and the products they develop (and sell).
From the standpoint of being a WPA, there is an interesting connection to be made to the more tangible aspects of the job. For example, we often discuss course goals/outcomes and programmatic goals/outcomes. In a way, after reading DCS, it makes me wonder how much the system and management style impacts achievement of these goals and outcomes. Yes, we can teach the curriculum and we can teach a specific text to guide students through achieving these goals/outcomes, but how much does the culture of the program impact the students enrolled in the classes or the profs teaching them? I'd bet a lot.
And if I extend this idea even more, to media labs, it suggests the culture of the lab impacts the work being done in the lab. Of course that makes sense to me. But what impacts these cultures of production? I turn back to DCS.
Origins of the Idea
When I started circulating the idea of the DWS a few years back, my understanding of media labs was more instinctual than concrete. Not to say the idea was abstract. Rather, I think I understood it as a support system based on three basic pedagogical ideals: use technology to teach writing, use writing to teach technology, and use technology to write. I thought, of course! A media lab! Something to support my students through some of the technology related assignments they are asked to complete as writers in the workplace. Yet, I'd never seen a media lab--only imagined one. I'd been in recording studios, so my earliest conception of a media lab was a writing center (of which I've worked in plenty) and a recording studio (of which I've worked in plenty). So the origins of my idea was a production space and also a teaching and learning space. Later, as I learned more, I saw more emphasis on the value of production-type activities rather than the teaching and learning ones. I had to spend a good amount of time undoing that approach so that the DWS acted more as a think tank than a production suite. In a way, it was my own representation of the lab that created the cultural misunderstanding of it's purpose.
Context
One thing about the location of the lab is that the context is already undergoing an evolution, and has been for a long while. Certainly programs evolve and that is an ongoing process. But, higher ed is notoriously slow moving, and a media lab (for some) is a relatively abstract and disruptive idea. Innovation always disrupts our normal ways of doing things, but disruption can be a good thing. So, when we start using technology to enhance teaching, service, and research activities, the environment changes and makes way for this new organism. As I developed the DWS, it needed to be implemented slowly to keep the very large culture of our program on the same page. If you think of development of a media lab from a cultural standpoint, then you must realize the impact of the culture on the space and the space on the culture. Epistemologically, I believe in a democratic method of building and defining the space from a user standpoint--an infection model--where how the lab is used is defined over time by those that use it. That cultural message, in my mind, was one way to undo the early misrepresentation of the space, however disjointed the purpose of the lab probably seemed for some over that period of time. Same time, that message may create disruptions counterproductive to the culture as well. There is an interesting negotiation that must go on in the ecology of a program between the existing culture and this new organism.
What's in a Name?
Plenty in this case. Using the word writing in our name was key. But also, calling ourselves the Digital Writing Studio caused some confusion. A few students brought papers to us and wanted to work on them as if we were the writing center. Of course, we referred them back to our excellent writing center and explained how we work more with multimedia texts, not written texts. Ah, but you can truly see that the terms don't clarify what we do at the DWS. Students don't necessarily see the difference between multimedia writing or digital writing and other forms of writing we consider traditional or text-based at our institution. Instead, writing on a computer is writing on a computer. It is all media-based writing. Sure, it is different, but we can easily draw many comparisons. I see why they are confused.
And faculty, while they do see a difference between traditional and media-enhanced writing, oftentimes think asking students to work with multimedia (or multimodal) means substituting a video or podcast for an essay writing assignment. That is why we chose to use studio instead of center or lab in the name. Studio sounded less experimental and more focused on augmenting the work already being done. Studio also sounded more like a production space, however, which later surfaced as a problem in faculty conception of the space.
In sum, I had to contend with the contextual definitions of the words digital, writing, and studio--and then the new contextual definition that was surmised once I put these terms together. To make it work, I had to invent new meanings for what these words would mean in our context--new cultural representations of writing that is digital, and what a studio should do to support that work. That process of defining these terms will forever be ongoing.
Selling the Lab
As I mentioned earlier, the easiest way to sell the culture of the lab was an infection model. One by one I preached the mission of the lab in hallway conversations, class visits, email blasts, lunch and coffee dates, pop in visitors, statements for syllabi, etc. Building the space from an infection model requires a ton of activities that you cannot account for on an annual review. Stopping for 10 minutes and talking to someone about the space is only one way to spread the culture organically. In my experience, when inventing a culture, it takes time and must be propagated by the users of that culture. I honestly think a top-down approach is rarely as effective and causes a great deal of bitter feelings amongst workers, consumers, producers, etc. While top-down can be necessary (nothing is all bad all the time), the media lab in our context needed an infection model to slowly build the culture I was hoping for--one partly invented by users but guided by a basic understanding of the types of activities the DWS does and why it does them. So we created operating principles that suggested the lab grounded technological production with rhetorical theory (note the word production creeping back in). And to simplify the ideas even more, we explained rhetorical theory to mean "audience focused discourse."
These activities above were choices that led to building a culture--inventing it--so that I could represent the work of the DWS a very specific way. My marketing strategies continue to take a great deal of time as I build the space around users, but with a goal in mind for those users (sustainability an important one of them). On a larger level, I've learned that intercultural communication is hierarchically global and local, and all at once you are negotiating with both of these audiences, which is clearly rhetorical (and difficult to achieve). Yet, the culture of the context or ecology of the space is determined by many things outside of my control. These things out of my control can be studied, however, and can also determine how I choose to communicate so the DWS' purpose comes across most effectively. I see that ongoing communication is key.
Cultural Studies Post 1
I've read these two articles
Starke-Meyerring, Doreen , Duin, Ann Hill and Palvetzian, Talene. “Global Partnerships: Positioning Technical Communication Programs in the Context of Globalization.” Technical Communication Quarterly. 16. 2, (2007): 139 — 174
Hunsinger, R. Peter. “Culture and Cultural Identity in Intercultural Technical Communication.” Technical Communication Quarterly. 15. 1 (2006): 31-48.
and I've been reading
Booth, W. C. (2004). The rhetoric of rhetoric: The quest for effective communication. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.
Crowley, S., & Hawhee, D. (2009). Ancient rhetorics for contemporary students. New York, NY: Pearson.
Many people seem to agree that the world has grown smaller in terms of communication. Seems like so much of that is due to the boundaries that the Internet allows us to cross. As a result of this access, clearly communication is changing. I remember 14 years ago we talked in a business class about communicating across cultures. What we learned was a host of generalities that focused on demonstrating awareness of customs. That can earn you goodwill, sure, but I was suspicious at the time that such an approach was a shortcut to thinking. Access to those from other cultures was little to none, so there wasn't any authentic interaction provided. I wonder how those classes are taught now?
It seems there are several schools of thought when it comes to cultural studies. Hunsinger discusses an approach that focuses on heuristics. It sounds a lot like Aristotle's Common Topics and Commonplaces. Lots of generalities to categorize people in order to discourse with them. Hunsinger notes there are downfalls to the approach, and I think the issues are too important to overlook. I base much of my disagreement on my own experiences of living and teaching in Miami.
I grew up in Waukesha, WI, a small town that is a suburb of Milwaukee (and happens to be where the electric guitar was created). Waukesha was a white, upper-middle class area comprised of mostly conservative, well-off folks. They were neighborly and it was safe. Carol College was in the middle of the community. The area was historical: there were Native American mounds next to the library downtown. The Fox River was a vacation spot for Mary Todd Lincoln. The community was very close to each other and to their churches. I spent the first 16 years of my life in this environment. Literally there were 4 black people at my school. There was a very small Latin population--mostly Mexican--who were thought of as trouble starters (and treated that way too). I didn't meet a Jewish person, for example, until I moved to South Florida when I was 16. I didn't interact with many black people until I moved to Tallahassee to go to college.
After trying to be a rock star for a time, I ended up in Miami because that's where my wife is from. Miami was like nothing I'd ever seen. On my first day of teaching at Miami Dade College (basically the community college), a student yelled at me that she didn't come to my class to assimilate, but to learn how to speak English. "Also," she added, "I'm an American so don't talk at me about being American. Latin America is still America." I didn't even know how to respond or what I'd said to inspire such a reaction. I had never experienced so many people from other cultures in one room where I was the minority. And I was supposed to teach them how to write. I was frightened, and had no idea how much my concept of writing was based on my own understanding of truth and reality. Our truths did not align and I had no understanding as to why. Sadly, my first inclination was to think of my students as the other. I thought of them as immigrants. A friend asked me, "How could you live in Miami?" I said, "I pretend I don't really live in the United States." I'd call that my low point--a very low point. The only way I could make sense of the situation.
As time went by, I learned a shocking amount about the cultures in Miami. I learned about all the different Englishes spoken. I had my students read Amy Tan. Something unexpected happened--I adjusted to Miami and became a part of the community. Many of the cultural anthropologists, like Clifford Geertz, suggest that this is what happens when you've lived in a culture long enough--that you become situated in the community. At this point you reach some sort of saturation, and the culture seems familiar and easier to understand. But, like the process of grieving, it just takes time and small realizations along the way. I won't go into all of them here, but I will say that the culture in Miami opened me up in ways I didn't anticipate. Which brings me back to my disagreement with heuristics as a means for studying culture.
Aristotle's common topics and commonplaces, for me, reads a lot like social profiling. But, the real value, I think, is that a rhetor can anticipate points of view, arguments, identities, etc. The ability to anticipate such things allows for preparation, and to react to a given situation rhetorically. Over-generalization, however, muddies the ability to see a person as a person, not as a member of a culture. Without the humanity attached, it is too easy to forget that people have the same needs and weaknesses, but express them differently. I think that is where intercultural communication begins, with listening. If we take a heuristic approach we may not be listening hard enough to the person, and focusing too much on the culture. But, if we learn some of the generalizations, some of the heuristics, it can prepare us to better listen to the person. Don't get me wrong, I think culture is important to preserve. But, I also think it is important to see the person first.
So, as TC programs create these global partnerships and connect classrooms across the world (as they should), I think cultural considerations should be a contextual and situational form of study, but it would do us well to also consider what we have in common as people. Students are in classes to learn, for instance. My fear is if we get too caught up in culture, we might be misspending our time by worrying more about the design of our uniforms than actually playing the game. Bad metaphor, okay, but it's where I'm starting. My hypothesis. Look forward to challenging that point of view!
Starke-Meyerring, Doreen , Duin, Ann Hill and Palvetzian, Talene. “Global Partnerships: Positioning Technical Communication Programs in the Context of Globalization.” Technical Communication Quarterly. 16. 2, (2007): 139 — 174
Hunsinger, R. Peter. “Culture and Cultural Identity in Intercultural Technical Communication.” Technical Communication Quarterly. 15. 1 (2006): 31-48.
and I've been reading
Booth, W. C. (2004). The rhetoric of rhetoric: The quest for effective communication. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.
Crowley, S., & Hawhee, D. (2009). Ancient rhetorics for contemporary students. New York, NY: Pearson.
Many people seem to agree that the world has grown smaller in terms of communication. Seems like so much of that is due to the boundaries that the Internet allows us to cross. As a result of this access, clearly communication is changing. I remember 14 years ago we talked in a business class about communicating across cultures. What we learned was a host of generalities that focused on demonstrating awareness of customs. That can earn you goodwill, sure, but I was suspicious at the time that such an approach was a shortcut to thinking. Access to those from other cultures was little to none, so there wasn't any authentic interaction provided. I wonder how those classes are taught now?
It seems there are several schools of thought when it comes to cultural studies. Hunsinger discusses an approach that focuses on heuristics. It sounds a lot like Aristotle's Common Topics and Commonplaces. Lots of generalities to categorize people in order to discourse with them. Hunsinger notes there are downfalls to the approach, and I think the issues are too important to overlook. I base much of my disagreement on my own experiences of living and teaching in Miami.
I grew up in Waukesha, WI, a small town that is a suburb of Milwaukee (and happens to be where the electric guitar was created). Waukesha was a white, upper-middle class area comprised of mostly conservative, well-off folks. They were neighborly and it was safe. Carol College was in the middle of the community. The area was historical: there were Native American mounds next to the library downtown. The Fox River was a vacation spot for Mary Todd Lincoln. The community was very close to each other and to their churches. I spent the first 16 years of my life in this environment. Literally there were 4 black people at my school. There was a very small Latin population--mostly Mexican--who were thought of as trouble starters (and treated that way too). I didn't meet a Jewish person, for example, until I moved to South Florida when I was 16. I didn't interact with many black people until I moved to Tallahassee to go to college.
After trying to be a rock star for a time, I ended up in Miami because that's where my wife is from. Miami was like nothing I'd ever seen. On my first day of teaching at Miami Dade College (basically the community college), a student yelled at me that she didn't come to my class to assimilate, but to learn how to speak English. "Also," she added, "I'm an American so don't talk at me about being American. Latin America is still America." I didn't even know how to respond or what I'd said to inspire such a reaction. I had never experienced so many people from other cultures in one room where I was the minority. And I was supposed to teach them how to write. I was frightened, and had no idea how much my concept of writing was based on my own understanding of truth and reality. Our truths did not align and I had no understanding as to why. Sadly, my first inclination was to think of my students as the other. I thought of them as immigrants. A friend asked me, "How could you live in Miami?" I said, "I pretend I don't really live in the United States." I'd call that my low point--a very low point. The only way I could make sense of the situation.
As time went by, I learned a shocking amount about the cultures in Miami. I learned about all the different Englishes spoken. I had my students read Amy Tan. Something unexpected happened--I adjusted to Miami and became a part of the community. Many of the cultural anthropologists, like Clifford Geertz, suggest that this is what happens when you've lived in a culture long enough--that you become situated in the community. At this point you reach some sort of saturation, and the culture seems familiar and easier to understand. But, like the process of grieving, it just takes time and small realizations along the way. I won't go into all of them here, but I will say that the culture in Miami opened me up in ways I didn't anticipate. Which brings me back to my disagreement with heuristics as a means for studying culture.
Aristotle's common topics and commonplaces, for me, reads a lot like social profiling. But, the real value, I think, is that a rhetor can anticipate points of view, arguments, identities, etc. The ability to anticipate such things allows for preparation, and to react to a given situation rhetorically. Over-generalization, however, muddies the ability to see a person as a person, not as a member of a culture. Without the humanity attached, it is too easy to forget that people have the same needs and weaknesses, but express them differently. I think that is where intercultural communication begins, with listening. If we take a heuristic approach we may not be listening hard enough to the person, and focusing too much on the culture. But, if we learn some of the generalizations, some of the heuristics, it can prepare us to better listen to the person. Don't get me wrong, I think culture is important to preserve. But, I also think it is important to see the person first.
So, as TC programs create these global partnerships and connect classrooms across the world (as they should), I think cultural considerations should be a contextual and situational form of study, but it would do us well to also consider what we have in common as people. Students are in classes to learn, for instance. My fear is if we get too caught up in culture, we might be misspending our time by worrying more about the design of our uniforms than actually playing the game. Bad metaphor, okay, but it's where I'm starting. My hypothesis. Look forward to challenging that point of view!
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