Schedule

Writing

Week 1 (8/22): Literacy

• From Pencils to Pixels
• As We May Think

Introduction to the course, including the course syllabus. Discussion of semester objectives. Get flash drive, course pack, and other materials. Discuss your computer skills, likes, and dislikes. Discuss computers and writing, literacy, and electracy.

Week 2 (8/29): Code

• Code-Wikipedia
• HTML Beginner's Guide
• CSS From the Ground Up
• Blogger: Tour
• MediaWiki Help

Start a weblog and a web site. Discuss your experience writing code. How does it compare to other kinds of writing you do on a regular basis?

Week 3 (9/5): Code (no class Monday)

• Absolute Powerpoint
• Code (ch 7 & 8 only)
• Instant Hacking

Create a PowerPoint presentation of the Bush or Baron article. Discuss Lessig chapters and implications of Hetland tutorial. What does it mean to think in code? How do the codes of computers and society affect us?

Week 4 (9/12): Style

All tagged readings. From the Web Style Guide, read only the Style chapter (6). Read all four subhead pages on the Kelly piece.

Discuss what "web" writing style is. Find examples of it. Build document with Word using style sheets. Apply CSS to web site. Discuss "style" as a general category.

Week 5 (9/19): Metadata

All tagged readings.

Discuss Shirky article. Discuss tags on your weblog. What are the implications for writing? Look at files and file-finding tools on your PC. Set up del.icio.us account.

Community

Week 6 (9/26): Standards

All tagged readings. Start with the Wikipedia definition and follow some of its links.

Discuss standards in general. How do they work? Do they stifle us? Do they create community? How do communities affect writing (with computers)? Write standard for speaking in class discussion. Write standard for asking technical question.

Week 7 (10/3): Accessibility

All tagged readings. I suggest reading the Bohman first.

Discuss the need (or not) for web accessibility. Evaluate your web site in terms of accessibility. Make improvements or enhancements. Pick a WIU web site and evaluate it as well.

Week 8 (10/10): Network

All tagged readings. Start with Wikipedia definitions; finish with the Nardi & O’Day.

Make a Digg account and digg for stories. Use the class Wiki to begin developing our glossolalia.

Week 9 (10/17): IP

All tagged readings. From Freedom of Expression, read at least the introduction and chapter six, and skim the book to find other relevant content (e.g. the DMCA).

Does the CC project appeal to you? Do you think Dvorak’s claim about it is right or wrong? Go through the Creative Commons license selection process—pick the license which suits your weblog and web site. Discuss the Taylor and Riley essay: what is open source? Do you think their application of it to academe works? Do you think scholarship, yours and mine, should work as they claim? Discuss McLeod introduction and Chapter Six.

Media

Week 10 (10/24): Interface

Manovich selections will be distributed in class if necessary.

What is an interface, broadly speaking? Define it collectively. Should we think of interface whenever we think of all technologies—mobile phones? writing? Consider the elements of the Mac and Anti-Mac interfaces highlighted by Gentner and Nielsen. Their article is 10 years old: is it relevant for today?

Week 11 (10/31): Images

All tagged readings. I will supply “Rhetoric of the Image” to you. From the Web Style Guide, read the “Graphics” chapter.

David Banash will fill in for me this week.
Discuss Barthes essay, compared to the instrumental take on images from the Web Style Guide. Check out Flickr and discuss the issues Barthes raises.

Week 12 (11/7): Design

All tagged readings. From the Web Style Guide, read the design chapters. Pay special attention to the last few sections of “Web Design from Scratch.”

Bill Thompson will fill in for me this week.
Apply design knowledge to library database page in readings; talk about design in general.

Week 13 (11/14): Usability

All tagged readings.

How are art and design different from usability? What is usability, and why is it relevant to computers & writing? For what other technologies is or should usability be relevant? Consider the library web page Thompson presented: is it usable?

Week 14 (11/21): Turkey

None.

Have a great Thanksgiving break.

Week 15 (11/28): New media

All tagged readings.

What is new media? How is it different from old media? Do Manovich’s principles (as explained by me or Sorapure) make sense? Find them in new media objects.

Week 16 (12/5): none

None.

Summaries. Course evaluations. Studio time; work on final projects in class.