Tomorrow I'm participating in a SUNY Writing Council webinar (at 2pm Eastern) on the challenges of teaching writing online, so here I'm working through some ideas of what I might say in my little 10-minute spiel. (If you are interested and want to know how to join, email me at Alex dot Reid at gmail... Continue Reading →
designing ethical experiences
Yesterday my grad class began its discussion of Liza Potts' Social Media in Disaster Response. It is an excellent and (sadly) timely book that examines how people work across a variety of social media platforms during periods of disaster. In particular, she looks at Hurricane Katrina, the London bombings in July 2005 and the Mumbai... Continue Reading →
the emergence (emergency) of electrate collective experiments
I've spent more than 15 years writing about digital rhetoric and pedagogy on this blog, so this seems oddly like business as usual. One of my pastimes is watching English football, and I read some blogs and listen to podcasts. Of course, there's nothing happening right now, but many of those folks are pressing on,... Continue Reading →
Sharing support materials for teaching writing online
As WAC director, I've been putting materials together internally on our CMS to aid instructors and faculty in this transition. Along the way I've been adding stuff into the site that I've seen shared by others. With that thought in mind, I've set up a page on this website where I am posting the support... Continue Reading →
Advice to students who unexpectedly enrolled in an online university
First of all, I understand how much this probably sucks. I've been a professor for 20+ years, but right now my son is a college freshman and my daughter was looking forward to enjoying a victory lap in her final semester as a college senior before heading off to a Phd program. Of course, there... Continue Reading →
advice for the unplanned online class
UB, like many universities, is preparing to take all its classes online in short notice. Some schools have already made that choice as you know. Our Spring Break is next week so I imagine we'll know a lot more before school starts up again on the 23rd. I'm sure everyone is getting tons of advice... Continue Reading →
who wants to “own” writing?
There's this old Steven Wright line that goes something like, "I used to say I wanted to own the world but then I wondered 'where would I put it all?'" That seems apropos here. To clarify, in higher ed circles the idiom "to own writing" would appear to mean claiming sole disciplinary-intellectual authority and control... Continue Reading →
WAC media infrastructures and assessment numbers as quasi-objects
Ok, we'll see if these two topics are actually just one. I'm going to start with "assessment numbers as quasi-objects." So quasi-objects is a concept I/we get from Serres and Latour. Without going too far down that path, it's an understanding that actors do not reside simply on one side or other of the object/subject... Continue Reading →
electrate politics and Joe Biden
In the news today, via The Washington Post and GQ, is the story of a viral video of Biden. It's a heavily-edited 19-second video that attempt to depict Biden as celebrating white nationalist values by ripping phrases and sentences out of context. This is a technique every first-year composition instructor has seen where students quote... Continue Reading →
