I blogged about this and so has Rebecca Moore Howard, but if you don't have Inside Higher Ed in your RSS reader, you may not know about Turnitin's offer to pay in order to get positive panels at the next CCCC. The article indicates negative response so far, no matter how much Turnitin wants a positive spin on their product. I think it shows some modicum of self-awareness that when interviewed for the article, the Turnitin spokesperson's reaction was to cover up the effort:

Povejsil’s first statement, upon being asked about the company’s offer to pay for some people to present at the meeting, was to ask that any coverage of the initiative be delayed. She said that the company was planning to expand the program to offer to pay for selected presentations accepted at a range of scholarly meetings, and that Turnitin.com only sent out the information now because of the approaching deadline for applying to present at 4C’s.

Oh my. Who's talkin' ethics now?

Many of you know Daisy Pignetti, and even those who don't but are interested in blogs and information-sharing/gift culture should be interested in her webarticle, The "I" of the Storm: How Hurricane Katrina Changed My Life and My Methodology, which is in the Fall 2007 issue of Computers and Composition Online. She gives a fascinating view of how blogging worked during a time when traditional news sources (TV, newspapers) were less than helpful.

The deadline for your abstract submission to this edited collection is tomorrow by midnight, Central Time. We really hope to get plenty of good submissions from the people who hang out here, so if you have been thinking about what to submit, now's the time to write it up and send it on.

Lanette Cadle
Elizabeth Monske

The call:

Technology in the Composition Classroom: Teaching on the Frontlines of the Have/Have Not Technology Battle

In a time where budget cuts are the norm, the dream of computer-mediated classrooms for all writing students, with some lucky exceptions, is just that—a dream. For the vast majority of our peers, desks, chairs, and maybe a whiteboard is their reality. At the same time, if they take the initiative to use the digital tools available, a more traditional classroom setting can extend beyond the classroom walls. This collection seeks proposals from teachers on the composition frontlines who have found ways to work technology/new media into their classes even when funds or equipment don’t exist. Click "read more" for section areas and due dates.

Technology in the Composition Classroom: Teaching on the Frontlines of the Have/Have Not Technology Battle

In a time where budget cuts are the norm, the dream of computer-mediated classrooms for all writing students, with some lucky exceptions, is just that—a dream. For the vast majority of our peers, desks, chairs, and maybe a whiteboard is their reality. At the same time, if they take the initiative to use the digital tools available, a more traditional classroom setting can extend beyond the classroom walls. This collection seeks proposals from teachers on the composition frontlines who have found ways to work technology/new media into their classes even when funds or equipment don’t exist. We anticipate including essays representing a variety of areas, including but not limited to the following:

• Pedagogy: What are your hard-won ways to teach with technology in a non-tech setting?
• When things go wrong: What are your battle stories? Much can be learned by analyzing the dynamics and speculating theoretically about those semi-comical days you tell war stories about.
• What to do with one computer or one hundred: Do you still hear from your colleagues “I have students type their drafts in class or do research, but I don’t know what else I can do with them” or “I only have a computer at the podium to project my ppts; anything else is impossible”? What do you tell them in return? How do you answer the question “in a room full [or void] of computers, what do YOU DO with your students”?
• Open Source software and the open source ethos: How can we best inform, train, implement these possibilities to our peers?
• They made me do it: When faced with a university-mandated overarching technology such as wireless, Turnitin, or Blackboard, what are your options? How do you deal with systems that are a poor fit for your pedagogy? How can writing teachers find out how to use these systems effectively when tech support lacks the context for writing instruction?
• Making do: How have you revived, reexamined, or repurposed existing technologies (i.e., overhead projectors, notecards, texting, Facebook)?
• Show me the money: How do you get and write technology grants? Where do they look? How can you articulate technology needs to administration or other faculty members who may be technophobic?

This is cross-posted from a longer version on Techsophist. While most of the buzz this week about Office 2007 for Vista has been about the lack of back-compatibility between the newest Word and all previous versions and how it may be time to just say no, something even more major slipped right by. Clippy is dead (link found via Slashdot).

Yes, Clippy and his annoying friends, the vaguely Shakespeare guy, the huffy cat, the ecologically-superior whirling globe, and some others like the dog that are too aggravating to even mention, are dead, dead and gone. Clippy was the most annoying of all the creatures simply because even in the internal monologues (oh, that poet imagination...) he couldn't get the idea that not every communication was a letter or a memo, and his perkiness glowed in animated splendor. No one wants a perky paper clip when looking for answers.

So, Clippy is dead. Was it murder? Had he finally died of uselessness? I think the latter. If the underlying rhetoric of Word is enterprise and productivity, that leaves no place for an unproductive animated figure. In Microsoft world, even the animated figures are brisk, helpful (in an off-kilter Westworld kind of way), and productive. So long, Clippy. The real world is too serious for you, and oh yes. You're too annoying to live.

The current issue of CCO is now live and offers an issue that highlights the richness and diversity of interests in Computers and Writing research today. In Theory into Practice Andrea Ascuena and Michael Mattison offer (Re)Wiring Ourselves: The Electrical and Pedagogical Evolution of a Writing Center, a look at an online writing center and its evolving pedagogy. The Rhetoric and Discourse of Instant Messaging by Christine A. Hult & Ryan Richins take a deeper look at IM using discourse analysis. The Virtual Classroom brings a piece by Matt Barton and Charlie Lowe. Databases and Collaborative Spaces for Composition is a helpful look at Content Management Systems for those trying to decide which of the many out there fits their particular needs. The Print to Screen section now has up-to-date abstracts of the print Computers and Composition articles. Our Professional Development section has two articles: Making Blogs Produce: Using Modern Academic Storehouses and Factories by Jen Almjeld and Chaos: An e-interview with Johndan Johnson-Eilola contributed by Robin Murphy. Finally, the Reviews section has an embarrassment of riches this time with Technology and English Studies: Innovative Professional Paths Edited by James Inman and Beth L. Hewett and reviewed by James Schirmer; Podcasts, Vodcasts, and ProfCast, a software review by Paul Cesarini; The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil, reviewed by Adam Ellwanger; and Radical Feminism, Writing, and Critical Agency: From Manifesto to Modem by Jacqueline Rhodes, reviewed by J. A. Rice.

If after all that reading you are inspired to submit a piece to Computers and Composition Online, we are accepting submissions for the Fall 2006 issue. Send us your submission using the following focus areas:

• Theory into Practice    Theory, thoughts, and speculation.
• The Virtual Classroom    Pedagogy and classroom experience.
• From Print to Screen    Online features that connect with current print journal themes
• Professional Development    Our past, present and future. Send your interviews and profiles as well as conference updates and calls for submissions.
• Reviews    Not only books, but sites, events, and other blended media.

Since web publishing gives us some flexibility in timing, we can accept submissions up to November 1, 2006 if the piece is especially polished and web-ready. Earlier submissions have more opportunity for interaction and editing comments from the editors and reviewers, a real advantage for those open to the collaborative nature of web writing and editing.

Send your submission via email in a .zip file or give us an URL. Potential articles need to be web-ready--.doc files or other purely text-based articles are not suitable. Check current and past articles at http://www.bgsu.edu/cconline/home.htm. In preparing your submission, also note that CCO is a refereed journal and allows time for reviews of submissions. Authors wishing to do so may use a mutually agreed upon form of the Creative Commons License for
their article; CCO supports fair use and the open source movement in academia. If you have any questions about format or content, please feel free to
contact us by email. Queries are welcome.

Kris Blair
Editor
kblairATbgnetDOTbgsuDOT edu

Lanette Cadle
Senior Editor
lanetteDOTcadleATgmailDOTcom

This is cross-posted on my blog, techsophist.net, but I thought those of you interested in literacy and media choices would be interested. I found this story via TV Squad. A three-year-old St. Paul, Minnesota boy got the birthday party of his dreams recently. No, it wasn't themed around the Teletubbies, Barney, Sesame Street, or my personal favorite from the past, Bananas in Pyjamas--this three-year-old wanted a Jim Lehrer News Hour themed party--and he got it. The full story with photos of the decorated cake and custom party hats tells how he has been watching the Newshour from day one, with this interesting result.

It just goes to show you--have Jim Lehrer on every day at dinnertime and your toddler too will be in the know and calling Mr. Lehrer "Jimmy Jimmy BoBo" instead of begging for extra time watching Major Astro and the animated Star Trek series--no wait--that was my childhood.

The Chronicle of Higher Education actually has a good column on fair use entitled Digital Dissertation Dustup that looks at a dissertation which heavily uses traditionally copyrighted images and film clips as well as hypertext. I've cross-posted a longer entry on this at my blog, Techsophist. The situation in short was that Virginia Kuhn of University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee's dissertation was in multimedia form, with generous use of clips and snips of different media, sometimes enbedded in other clips:

Although Ms. Kuhn lists detailed citations for all multimedia works in her thesis, she refused to ask permission to include them, because she insists that she should be able to cite them in the same way that print sources have long been cited. She says: "If you ask for permission, you're screwed because you imply that you legally need it."

Yes. Unfortunately there were some at the university that held up her dissertation's approval fearing lawsuits from copyright holders. Later in the column (too much later) legal experts on copyright point out that what she did was clearly fair use and if challenged she would easily win. I concur with Kuhn's stance and want to add that if we don't avail ourselves of the fair use rights we have in academia, fair use will no longer be common use and research of any kind will become even more difficult and expensive than it already is.

In the Fall 2005 issue of Computers and Composition Online we are pleased to present offerings from both new and established voices. Typical of these blendings is our Theory into Practice section where the pairing of Collin Brooke’s “Weblogs as Deictic Systems: Centripetal, Centrifugal, and Small-World Blogging” is answered by Steven D. Krause’s “Comments on Collin Brooke's ‘Weblogs as Deictic Systems.’” Also in that section is “Making Online Spaces More Native to American Indians: A Digital Diversity Recommendation” by Angela M. Haas, who proposes a more expansive look at what diversity in digital spaces should mean. Over in the Virtual Classroom section, “A Role for Blogs in Graduate Education: Remediating the Rhetorical Tradition?” (by Rebekah Shultz Colby, Richard Colby, Justin Felix, Robin Murphy, Brennan Thomas, and Kristine Blair) describes and reflects on their experiences as graduate students and instructor writing in a course weblog while also intensively examining rhetorical theory face-to-face. In “Computer-Assisted Language Learning in the 21st Century,” Brita Banitz discusses the possibilities and the challenges second and/or foreign language educators face when using technology in their classrooms. Our Professional Development section offers Rich Haswell’s “Text-checkers: A Chronology and a Bibliography of Commentary,” and this issue’s reviews include Literacy in the New Media Age by Gunther Kress (reviewed by Michael Charlton) and Composition in Convergence: The Impact of New Media on Writing Assessment by Diane Penrod (reviewed by Eric Stalions).

As editors, we strive to make each issue of CCO address something new, whether it be a new approach to a continuing topic or reflections on new media. Another source of pride for us is the opportunity this gives new web authors to contribute to the journal. If you have work you would like us to consider, please send your submission via email in a .zip file or provide a URL. Potential articles need to be web-ready--.doc files or other purely text-based articles are not suitable. Check current and past articles at http://www.bgsu.edu/home.htm to get some idea of the level of digital formatting required. In preparing your submission, also note that CCO is a refereed journal and allows time for reviews of submissions. Focuses for the sections are as follows:

* Theory into Practice Theory, thoughts, and speculation.

* The Virtual Classroom Pedagogy and classroom experience.

* Professional Development Our past, present and future. Send your interviews
and profiles as well as conference updates and calls for submissions.

* Reviews Not only books, but sites, events, and other blended media.

* From Print to Screen Online features that connect with current print journal
themes

If you have any questions about format or content, please feel free to contact us by email. Queries are welcome, and we’d be happy to discuss your piece at the upcoming CCCCs or Computers and Writing Conference.

Kris Blair

Editor

kblair@bgnet.bgsu.edu

Lanette Cadle

Senior Editor

LLCadle@MissouriState.edu

This is an edited selection from a longer post about my experiences using the Digital Dropbox this semester that is over on my blog, Techsophist. I have been using it for about six years with no significant problems, but each campus has its own culture when it comes to technology in the classroom and some differences are to be expected. Since Blackboard is not a default choice at my new location, it's possible that students see it as fragile, a technology that can conveniently not work. Some say they simply can't "get on to" Blackboard in order to access the class materials or to submit papers. When it works fine in class, then access in the dorm or at home is seen as different somehow. Other students blame the Digital Dropbox alone for their late drafts and ignore the time/date aspect of it.

On the other hand, now that I've had a chance to think about it a little, the fact that Blackboard isn't a default system here does give me the opportunity to try other storage or course management methods. Anyone with an open source solution that will fit in my available space on the web, please comment. I'm not crazy about Blackboard, but lack alternatives for places to put my materials that my students can access, but others can't. And I do use the gradebook and of course they like having that kind of access. Finally, even though the Digital Dropbox was a fiasco this semester, it is a great way for students to have free server space to store their files. It takes away the failed disk/ lost USB drive problem and can be accessed anywhere there is web-access. Any ideas?