E388M 31050
Hypermedia and English Studies
[http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/E388M2/]
Jerome Bump
TTH 12:30-2 FAC 10
This is a course about hypermedia and the "hype," pro and con, about media. Just about everybody agrees that the impact of computers, on research and teaching in English, rhetoric, and composition, already significant, has become truly revolutionary as multimedia CDs and web sites supplement or replace books, periodicals, and even scholarly conferences. The increasing use of hypermedia (interactive computerized words, graphics, sounds, animation, and video integrated by hyperlinks) now faces strong opposition from critics of multimedia (Postman, Healy, Kernan, Bickerts. etc.) and has inspired eloquent defenders (Bolter, Lanham, Ulmer, etc.). We will explore this debate, especially as it is framed in terms of the left brain/ right brain dichotomy, and question the meaning of "reading" and "writing" when applied to hypermedia. We will focus on Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death because the author will be visiting the campus in the spring semester and the book has been assigned in Freshman English courses both semesters this academic year. Students will be given the opportunity to create a multimedia CD of their own and make a web version of it. The site/CD can be devoted to literary criticism, creative writing, rhetoric, composition, ESL, CALL, or related academic pursuits.
This is primarily a hands-on, discovery learning course. One of the key features of this new genre, the increased interactivity -- inviting the reader to make decisions and participate in the creation of the text itself -- also facilitates the new teaching initiatives on this campus, both "discovery learning" (http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/discovery.html) and the Boyer Blueprint for Reinventing Undergraduate Education (http://notes.cc.sunysb.edu/Pres/boyer.nsf). With the assistance of various guest experts and considerable work outside class on our own, you will have opportunities to learn how to make advanced HTML work, with and without the assistance of a WYSIWYG editor such as Front Page; how to capture pictures, animations, and sounds from the Internet; how to hyperlink to pictures, animations, and sounds on the Internet; how to scan images for the web; how to edit images for best cross platform file size, image dimensions, and color resolution; how to create animations; how to capture and edit digital audio and video; how to make all these work together in a cross-platform web site; and how to save this site to a cross-platform CD.
Grades will be based partly on class participation (20%) and a brief essay on the Postman-Lanham debate (15%), but primarily on the CD /web site that is produced [65%]. For class participation students will be asked to bring a page or so of their reading notes to class or take a short quiz on the assignment.
Texts: Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business; Lanham, Electronic Word; Lemay Web Publishing with HTML 4; and a collection of photocopies to be purchased from Jenn's.
Students should be familiar with keyboarding, operating systems, word processing, electronic mail, Web-browsing, and must have or acquire basic HTML skills in the first month. Students will also need an IF computer account. New users may claim an IF account at the Student Micocomputer Facility in the Flawn UGL by completing an IF account request form and presenting it and a government-issued photo ID at the front desk. Students also need to provide their own storage, that is, get a UNIX account or a ZIP or JAZ cartridge, and/or some blank Cds. Students should expect to spend a considerable amount of time outside of class, sitting in front of a computer, and may also find it useful to attend some of the free classes and workshops on various technical topics offered by ACITS, TeamWeb, or the General Libraries. See http://www.utexas.edu/cc/training for short courses, independent study courses, etc. For class schedules see http://www.utexas.edu/computer/classes/ For self paced tutorials see http://www.utexas.edu/cc/training/handouts/tutorials.html#internet. For additional resources to accompany your textbook see http://www.tywebpub.com/pre/links.htm. Many resources are on the CD that comes with the Lemay book; especially important are the 3rd Party software, the examples, and the graphics collections.
The Computer Writing and Research Lab (CWRL) is both a teaching and a research lab. Students in CWRL classes and CWRL instructors have made valuable contributions to research in teaching Writing. Some of this work has found its way into research journals and books intended to help improve writing instruction. To continue this research, the CWRL is required to get student signatures on a release form. On the 12th class day, all students taking classes in the CWRL are required to sign a release that states:
"All work that you produce for this class and in online class discussions is public and is archived for future research. Faculty and graduate students who teach in computer classrooms are conducting on-going research to make writing instruction more effective. These and other researchers may read and quote from these archives. If you wish to take a course in the CWRL, you must sign an agreement that your work for the course, including Internet postings, is in the public domain and may be read and reproduced (edited as appropriate) in future publications by researchers.
The CWRL will not assume responsibility for personal views or any offensive material that you may post to a public forum as a result of your work in this class. Neither will the CWRL assume Responsibility for further distribution of any work that is posted to a public forum."