English 602: Electronic Research, Writing, and Editing

Instructor: Marilyn M. Lombardi

Office: McIver 120

Phone: 334-4692 (office)

Email: msmaylom@uncg.edu

 

Course Purpose: Students gain theoretical and practical training in computer-mediated research and instructional design.  We will evaluate and design web pages, learning basic and advanced computer applications, including content management software (Blackboard) and web site production and management software (Dreamweaver).  We will study the social, economic, and cognitive impact of computer-mediated instruction, the creation of new literacy communities, the pictorial turn in postmodern media, the relation between computer hypertextuality and postmodern theory, the theories of graphical interface design, and the tropes and figures of electronic culture and virtual reality. 

 

Course Goals and/or Objectives/Student Learning Outcomes:

  1. to design and present Web documents
  2. to study and implement theories of web-based instructional design
  3. to know and use specialized terminology of computer design and composing
  4. to draw critical conclusions about the status of literary study and literary production within the contemporary culture of information
  5. to consider the ramifications of tele-presence and the expansion of distance education technologies

 

Evaluation Methods and Guidelines for Assignments:

15% leading a class discussion

5% web site planning: organizational chart detailing distribution of responsibilities among team members

5% web site planning: flowchart exercise

5% web site planning: writing for the web (inverted pyramid technique/chunking exercise)

35% an individually-written essay (approx. 12 pages in typescript) or a hypertext essay of equal weight

35% collaboratively produced web project

 

Required Texts:

Nielsen, Jakob.  Designing Web Usability (New Riders, 2000)

Trend, David.  Reading Digital Culture (Blackwell, 2001)

 

Topical Outline:

January 14 Introduction to hardware and software in computer lab

January 21 MLK Holiday

January 28:  Living in the Immaterial World

Aronowitz, Technology and the Future of Work (RDC, 133-43)

Kroker, Weinstein, The Theory of the Virtual Class (RDC, 144-53);

Activities: Activating personal web space on UNCG server, the logic of downloading/uploading to the server, introduction to web-authoring with Dreamweaver


February 4:  Technology and Artistic (Re)production

Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (online; see "external links")

Activities: Re-producing Benjamins famous essay in web site terms (charting the flow of information); teams meet to begin brainstorming for final web project.

February 11:  The Emergence of Literacy: From Socrates to Plato

Denise Murray, Changing Technologies, Changing Literacy Communities? (see external links)

Plato, Phaedrus

Erik Davis, The Gnostic Infonaut from Techgnosis: myth, magic, and mysticism in the age of information (see "external links")

 

February 18:  The Machine in the Garden

Paul Virilio, Speed and Information: Cyberspace Alarm! (RDC, 23-27)

Felix Guattari, Machinic Heterogenesis (RDC, 38-51)

Activities:  Introduction to HTML formatting

 

February 25: Theory and Practice of Hypertext: the structure, rhetoric, literature, sociology and psychology of browsing

George Landow, Hypertext and Critical Theory (RDC, 98-108)

Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel (see "external links"),

M.D. Coverley, Fibonaccis Daughter (see "external links"),

Riane Koskimaa, Visual Structuring of Hyperfiction Narratives (see "external links"),

William J. Mitchell, City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn (see "external links")

Activities:  spend class time with team members working out the conceptual and practical challenges of final web project.  Teams should have definite project ideas to bring to workshop.

 

March 4: Theory and Practice of Interfacing

William Gibson, Johnny Mnemonic (RDC, 57-69)

Shoshana Zuboff, Dilemmas of Transformation in the Age of the Smart Machine (RDC, 125-32)

Martin Heidegger, The Age of the World Picture (hand-out)

Albert Borgmann, Transparency and Control (hand-out)

Steven Johnson, from Interface Culture (hand-out)

Matt Kirschenbaum, A White Paper on Information (see "external links")

Activities: From this point on, each member of a team must submit an online weekly log form that records what that student did to further the final team web project.

 

March 11: Spring Break

March 18:  Envisioning InformationTheory and Practice of the Graphical User Interface (GUI)

Jakob Nielson, Web Usability, chapters 3 & 4

Richard A. Lanham, Whats Next for Text? (see "external links")

Activities: Students will be asked to visit five sites and evaluate them based on web usability criteria.  Teams will then think about which type of navigation scheme to adopt based on the needs of the intended audience.

 

March 25: Simulating

Slovaj Zizek, From Virtual Reality to Virtualization of Reality (RDC, 17-22)

Brenda Laurel, Computers as Theatre (RDC, 109-114)

Kim Veltman, Electronic Media: The Rebirth of Perspective and the Fragmentation of Illusion (hand-out)

 

April 1: Is there a community in this classroom?

Activities: Teams present progress reports on their final web projects for class discussion.

 

April 8: The Sociology of Cyberspace

Michael Heim, The Erotic Ontology of Cyberspace (RDC, 70-86)

Donna Harraway, A Manifesto for Cyborgs (RDC, 28-37)

N. Katherine Hayles, The Seductions of Cyberspace (RDC, 305-321)


April 15: Narrating, Gaming, and Hacking

Espen Aarseth, Aporia and Epiphany in Doom and The Speaking Clock: The Temporality of Ergodic Art (hand-out),

Bruce Sterling, Hacker Crackdown (see "external links"),

Critical Art Ensemble, The Coming Age of the Flesh Machine (RDC, 172-82)

 

April 22: Performing Identity in Cyberspace

Essays in RDC by Sandy Stone (185-198), Julian Dibbell (199-213), Laura Miller (214-220), Steve Silberman (221-225), Lisa Nakamura (226-235), and Sherry Turkle (236-250)

 

April 29: The Function of Art and the Humanities in the Age of Learning Organizations

Robert Markley, History, Theory, and Virtual Reality (RDC, 297-304)

Timothy Allen Jackson, Towards a New Media Aesthetic (RDC, 347-353)

Andrew Ross, The New Smartness (RDC, 354-364)

 

May 6: Final Day of Classes

Presentation of Collaborative Web Projects

Individual essays are Due