[new media and pedagogy: call for papers]

Submissions sought for Higher Education, Emerging Technologies, and Community Partnerships, a book edited by Melody Bowdon, PhD (Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Central Florida, USA) and Russell Carpenter, PhD (Director, Noel Studio for Academic Creativity, Eastern Kentucky University, USA) To be published in 2011 by IGI Global.






We seek manuscripts that document and assess partnerships between institutions of higher education and K-12 schools, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and corporations that have been made successful (or even unsuccessful in interesting ways) in part through the use of emerging and evolving digital technologies.

Topics or sites might include

• service-learning; internships; volunteer programs; cooperative
• education; distance-learning; continuing education;
• professional schools such as law, medicine, education, and nursing;
• community development programs including alumni relations and fundraising; sponsored research. 

Technologies might include:

• social networking, 
• webconferencing,
• mobile devices, 
• virtual environments such as SecondLife, 
• course
• management systems, 
• Web 2.0 applications

For the full call, please go to:
http://www.igi-global.com/requests/details.asp?ID=714


Proposal Submission Deadline: December 30, 2009
Full Chapter Submission Deadline: February 28, 2010






INQUIRIES, PROPOSALS AND SUBMISSIONS CAN BE SENT ELECTRONICALLY IN MS
WORD TO:
Melody Bowdon, PhD
Department of English
University of Central Florida
(BEmail: mbowdon@mail.ucf.edu


and/or
Russell Carpenter, PhD
Noel Studio for Academic Creativity
Eastern Kentucky University
(Email: russell.carpenter@eku.edu

[sunset // fields]

[grant macewan: officially a university]

Yesterday the province (as well as the university) announced Grant MacEwan's formal change from "college" to "university" (though it has been granting degrees since 2004).

It's interesting, as a new Edmontonian, to learn about the institution's history. At lunch yesterday I was lucky enough to meet with a previous university admin. who filled me in on MacEwan's grassroots beginning (especially in terms of forwarding the arts and culture scene in Edmonton). Just take a look at the "multidisciplinary" Arts of the Ave. Festival to see how many of the performers, volunteers, writers etc... have a link with Grant MacEwan. If you're in the area, you might want to keep track of the Arts on the Ave. calendar which lists upcoming events such as this weekend's Kaleido fest.

[twitter: the film]

Oddly, I actually read about this first in the uni's newspaper but the first movie (mokumentary?) all about twitter is being developed in England. Apparently the idea was made public in February this year but it seems things are really taking off now.

Although I do appreciate twitter for the numerous informational and networking possibilities, I'm not quite sure how it will prove in terms of movie subject.

[dawson bridge]

[capturing downtown edmonton]

 

 

 

[edmonton sky views]

[views from the car]

Driving home from uni I always catch myself marvelling that I'm here. In Edmonton. Living and working back in Canada. It feels amazing. And, as many of you know, I'm seldom without my camera, so I find myself nabbing shots when at a red light or waiting my turn at four-way stop.

 

 

 

 

 

[Transliteracy in my Classrooms]

Ok, so I'm halfway through the second week of lecturing.  Classes seem to be going well (students are coming to class and participating! yay!) and essays, stories and grammar theory are being studied.


As I flip through the syllabus and note my "blog comment" assignments and "blog post" reflections the word transliteracy flits back and forth in my mind.  Transliteracy of course isn't on the curriculum but neither are blogging or media literacy per se.  Though transliteracy is always under development, I'm feeling a strong pull to encourage students to see their movements from writing essays in class, group presentations, blogging, reading online narratives like Inanimate Alice, and designing posters (tweeting comes later on) as examples of being transliterate. I wonder if they can name their behaviour, their learning might have even more resonance? 


I remind my students that we're participating in the online environment and honing our new/social media (and transliterate) skills because when they enter the workforce, they'll need to be prepared.  Librarian by Day gives some good life examples on the necessity to be transliterate:

"Government agencies are no longer issuing print forms, you have to access them online.  Your health insurance plan was a website and you have an account, when you call they will tell you to go there to get information. Banks are sending alerts and account balance information via text messages. Facebook privacy settings are complex and change frequently. The price of computers is dropping allowing more people to own one. Free WiFi access points are increasing, allowing more people internet access."

If our students don't experience these kinds of movement, from offline to online, how will they learn to be literate (not just trial and error or basic proficiencies)? I feel more and more strongly that helping to develop these transliterate skills needs a place in a classroom (though some, of course, are better equipped than others).  


There are lots of ways to begin. Students can use blog posts as reading or reflective learning journals. They can add comments on to the teacher-managed class blog as a way of interacting in class discussion, sharing ideas and even doing pre or post-reading activities.  The Future of Ed. site suggests venturing into transliteracy by:

• Viewing or posting a video around your lesson plan or around an educational component on TeacherTube
• Trying e-learning for your own professional development
• Learning how The Transliteracies Project is designing technology to improve the experience of reading for people of all backgrounds
• Exploring how archaeology and media can be used in your next class at MetaMedia
• Downloading courses from Stanford University on iTunes, MIT OpenCourseWare, or another open access sites for use in your classrorom

Also from the Future of Ed. site, this video with director of Media X's (at Stanford) Chuck House on the 21st century workforce:

Man Booker 2009 shortlist

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2009 shortlist was announced on Tuesday 8 September 2009.  Interviews with each of the authors can be found in the Perspective section along with audio extracts of each of their titles at the main Man Booker Prize website.
The winner will be announced on Tuesday 6 October 2009.
For the second consecutive year, a teaser section of each of the titles is available to download to your mobile phone in both audio and text versions.

A S Byatt

The Children’s Book

Chatto & Windus

Olive Wellwood is a famous writer, interviewed with her children gathered at her knee. For each of them she writes...
read more »

J M Coetzee

Summertime

Harvill Secker

A young English biographer is working on a book about the late writer, John Coetzee. He plans to focus on...

read more »

Adam Foulds

The Quickening Maze

Jonathan Cape

The Quickening Maze is based on real events and is set in and around the High Beach Asylum in 1840....
read more »

Hilary Mantel

Wolf Hall

Fourth Estate

Set in England in the 1520s, Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is his...

read more »

Simon Mawer

The Glass Room

Little, Brown

High on a Czechoslovak hill, the Landauer House shines as a marvel of steel, glass and onyx. Built specially for...

read more »

 

Sarah Waters

The Little Stranger

Virago

When Dr Faraday is urgently called to Hundreds Hall, he is both curious and nostalgic.  Nearly thirty years before, he had...

read more »




Read more at the Man Booker Prize site: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/prize/thisyear/shortlist.

[labour day weekend: elk island national park]

 

  

[new media literacies: employment]

Project Manager:
Project NML seeks a detail-oriented, highly organized, and people-person Project Manager to handle the administration of NML's The Educator's House. This international project joins the NML team with Rio de Janiero's Department of Education to implement a new paradigm for teaching that fully integrates the new media literacies across curricula. The overarching mandate for the position is to provide direction for day-to-day project operations and leadership to staff and students involved. In addition to administrative responsibilities, the Project Manager will be part of a collaborative, distributed applied research program and will be required to demonstrate leadership responsibilities across all projects undertaken by the NML program. This position is housed at USC Annenberg School for Communication in Los Angeles, California.

Curriculum Specialist:

Project NML seeks a creative, media-savvy, bi-lingual in Brazilian Portuguese and English Curriculum Specialist to collaborate in the design of the strategies, content and structure of NML's The Educator's House. This international project joins the NML team with Rio de Janiero's Department of Education to implement a new paradigm for teaching that fully integrates the new media literacies across curricula. The overarching mandate for the position is to design and produce activities and class learning experiences; and to monitor, analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the resources to achieve the goals and objectives of the project. In addition to these content development responsibilities, the Curriculum Specialist will be part of a collaborative, distributed applied research program and will be required to contribute to writing study results across all projects undertaken by NML.  This position has the potential to be a work-from-home position with regular scheduled meetings with the team both in-person and online.


Programmer:
Project NML seeks a creative and innovative web Applications Programmer to be responsible for the technical analysis and development of applications used in conducting research and providing education strategies. The overarching mandate for the position is to work collaboratively with NML's partner, Platform Shoes Forum, and contribute to design, development and refinement of the Learning Library (http://newmedialiteracies.org/library/).  This position has the potential to be a work-from-home position with regular scheduled meetings with the team both in-person and online. 

[new academic year]

It's already a week into September.  Although it's light at 7:30pm the breeze tells me autumn is just around the corner.  My newly planted maple tree is swaying in the wind, a few of it's leaves already burnt with red and orange. This nip in the air adds chutzpah to tomorrow's first day of school/college/uni.  I know there are a few things that I still look forward to about my first day of *school*:

• a new outfit including
• new shoes!
• crisp notebooks, pages immaculate and ready to be filled
• buying pens! lots of pens! all sorts of different colours and sizes (though black fine point is my favourite)
• meeting up with friends after the summer break and finding out what everyone did with their two months break from classroom teaching (unless there was summer school...)
• clean and tidy classrooms
• clean and tidy students!
• the office supply closet is full (of pens! and paper and notebooks and paperclips and staples and folders and and and)

What are some of your favourite things about new starts?










Note: that amazing image of a Japanese Maple isn't mine (I have the usual Canadian kind). It's by one man's perspective on flickr.  


The photo of the books is from OmarC on flickr.

[journal issue: IT and politics]

The Journal of Information Technology & Politics Volume 6, Issue 3 & 4
(2009)
Special Issue: “Politics: Web 2.0” Visit: http://shrinkify.com/144k


Guest Editor's Introduction
“The Internet and Politics in Flux”
Andrew Chadwick

Research Papers
“Realizing the Social Internet? Online Social Networking Meets Offline Civic
Engagement”
- Josh Pasek;  eian more; Daniel Romer

“Typing Together? Clustering of Ideological Types in Online Social Networks”
- Brian J. Gaines; Jeffery J. Mondak

“Building an Architecture of Participation? Political Parties and Web 2.0 in
Britain”
- Nigel A. Jackson; Darren G. Lilleker

“Norwegian Parties and Web 2.0”
- Øyvind Kalnes

“The Labors of Internet-Assisted Activism: Overcommunication,
Miscommunication, and Communicative Overload”
- Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

“Developing the “Good Citizen”: Digital Artifacts, Peer Networks, and Formal
Organization During the 2003–2004 Howard Dean Campaign”
- Daniel Kreiss

“Lost in Technology? Political Parties and the Online Campaigns of
Constituency Candidates in Germany's Mixed Member Electoral System”
- Thomas Zittel

“Internet Election 2.0? Culture, Institutions, and Technology in the Korean
Presidential Elections of 2002 and 2007”
- Yeon-Ok Lee

“The Internet and Mobile Technologies in Election Campaigns: The GABRIELA
Women's Party During the 2007 Philippine Elections”
- Kavita Karan;  Jacques D. M. Gimeno; Edson Tandoc Jr.

[creative industry phd opportunities: queensland uni]

Calling for applications for the upcoming scholarship round at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation in Brisbane, Australia:

Queensland University of Technology
ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI)
Research Higher Degree Project Opportunities

                   
September 2009 Scholarship Round

If you are considering applying for a scholarship in the current September round to pursue postgraduate research studies you may wish to consider connecting with projects we have in development here at the Centre (CCI) and pursue your studies with us at QUT. These projects will link you with industry, government or other partners in order to enhance your networks, the applications of your research, and potentially open up career opportunities as a result of your studies.

Here are a few of the project areas to give you a taste of these opportunities:

* Innovation and sustainability in Australian games and interactive entertainment with companies such as Firemint and Infinite Interactive, and government agencies such as the Australia Council (key contact person John Banks Ph: (07) 3138 8764; email: ja.banks@qut.edu.au)

* Australia's creative engagements with Asia in such fields as design, architecture, fashion and digital media with partners such as Austrade (Key contact person Michael Keane Ph: (07) 3138 3757;email: m.keane@qut.edu.au)

* Designing creative clusters in China and Japan with partners such as Arup (Key contact person Justin O'Connor ph: 0402 395 008; email: justin.oconnor@qut.edu.au)

* International development and empowerment through ICTs in south Asia with partners such as Intel and UNESCO (Key Contact Person: Jo Tacchi Ph: (07) 3138 8178; email: j.tacchi@qut.edu.au)

* Urban regeneration and creative reuses of space with partners such as eastern seaboard city councils and state government agencies (Key Contact Person: Justin O'Connor Ph: 0402 395 008; email: justin.oconnor@qut.edu.au)

Please note the QUT closing date for scholarship applications is Wednesday 30 September for international students and Friday 9 October 2009 for domestic students.

To apply go to: http://www.rsc.qut.edu.au/future/scholarships/Annual_round_awards.jsp

If you have any questions in regards to the application process please contact Britta Froehling (Ph: (07) 3138 3716; email: britta.froehling@qut.edu.au).

General inquiries about the Centre's research agenda and supervision capacity can be addressed to the Director, Stuart Cunningham Ph: (07) 3138 3743; email: s.cunningham@qut.edu.au.

[2 English lessons in 1: parody and bad grammar]

So when students ask us why grammar is important, another reason to add to the list includes maturity.  As the singer says:  "I never changed my verbal habits since I was three."

The video url is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj6QqCH7g0Q&feature=player_embedded

This video might be useful with younger classes or maybe ESL or EFL learners?