I Can Has Cheezburger?

Hopefully, you all have heard of lolcats -- if not, let me direct you to here

Recently, I was thinking about the "messages" these sorts of image send, and thought they might be a viable method to teach rhetoric -- the pictures do indeed try to "sell" things through their appeals, which are usually at least try to be humorous (pathos-like, if you will).

I created an assignment that involves students creating their own lolcat image -- for this particular iteration, any portion of the ICHC could be leveraged, and that included the "Pundit Kitchen" portion, which applies the same concept of lolcats/ICHC with "political" images.

The creation of the image isn't the main exercise; rather, the thought involved in the process (the actual selection of the image to the captioning) was. The main goal was to get students thinking about the why's -- why do they pick a particular image, what step do they take to caption it, and how accurate it is in "selling" their point of view.

The results were pretty interesting, especially whether such images could be used as a rhetoric tool. A concern of some people were that the images would just be seen as humorous/lacking educational value, a concern echoed by those who feel teaching in conjunction with new media will only dilute the process. However, some people found this humor to be a major selling point -- each image does indeed try to "persuade" the viewer by its overall cleverness, the total package of the right image and the right quote. Some responses simply think it depends -- a well-crafted image could be very much persuasive versus a hastily created image. A caveat in one response is that seeing too many of these images may increase the "immunity" one has to the images -- the more one sees the "same," the more likely they are to establish a fixed way of reading and thus nothing new may be uncovered.

Overall, I think teaching with lolcats could be awesome as long as the direction is known -- lolcats would be especially helpful in describing the emotions of an article -- I don't think these can necessarily fully represent ethos (while logos may be sufficiently shown, depending), but these types of images can get viewers in the right frame of mind to see what kind of moves an author makes in order to hook a reader in emotionally. What is also cool about using lolcats as a tool is that it can be used to give the students more responsibility into classroom content -- you can have each person create (anonymously) a lolcat image and submit it -- from there, a few can be selected and given to the class to get them to investigate how well each image works.

A post is forthcoming with specific types of questions/ways to lead such an activity.

A quick and dirty guide to figurative language

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Metaphor-Free

Take a look at the following clip first...

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Now consider how books (creative or "academic") are written -- some can be densely packed with language in general, and others may use clever (or purple) phrasing to better illustrate a point. I think this video would be a good teaching point, simply because -- even though a lack of metaphors would get more directly to the point of something, is anything "lost"? Does this make the writing more "cold" or "distance" because it lacks some sort of connecting human element (e.g., the author shows some bit of pathos)?

I don't know -- I think it's a cool clip, and I think it'd be a really interesting assignment for both creative writing classes and academic classes to bring in a piece of text and have the students translate the pieces -- then, to further leverage the thought process involved in translation, have them reflect in writing or sharing in class why they made the specific choices they did.

-Gl3nn

PS, if you want me to cover a specific topic, again, let me know.

Some basic definitions, tagging, and textual interpretations

Quick Defs
Blogs. Shortened version of Web Log. A journal-esque website where the blog’s creater can add new posts (entries) in a real-time manner.

PodCasts. A way to disseminate media content electronically. Instead of recording content to something “hard” (like a cassette), content is published electronically and can be downloaded or accessed by various platforms (MP3 players, computers, cd/dvds) and in various file types (MP3s, streaming audio/visual).

RSS Feeds. RSS feeds are just a method of retrieval of “existing” content – think of RSS feeds as a golden retriever, or an awesome robot (the second might be more accurate).

Social Networking Sites. Sites such as Facebook and Myspace where education is not necessarily the main goal, but can be leveraged to do so. These sites are typically used to create groups for those of the same mindset, and to literally “connect” with people.

YouTube. YouTube is an online video sharing service – users can view content for free, or sign up and post their own video content free.

Tags
In the blog world, this isn't so much a problem (I don't think), but for youtube...man. You wouldn't believe what tags are used in videos in order to possibly get inadvertent hits -- I've literally seen recordings of people playing a solos in their room with tags like "guitar," and "shred," but also with reference to various female and male body parts that I shant name (and that you should be able to guess). This begs the question -- show a content's creator be "allowed" to have such freedom to classify their work with such keywords? How does it effect the viewer who stumbles across it? Do the keywords need to set up an accurate context for content? Are tags limiting? I don't know the answer, and I have questions for days, so I thought I'd just put that out there.

Finally, the fun part -- Textual Interpretation
The following are a couple of vid clips (durh) -- one, you may be familiar with, and one, not so much. The first mainly address the issue of the interplay between text and music, or in this case, "aritistic" renderings of music videos. Should music videos accurately reflect the song themes/lyrics present, or is artistic freedom allowed?



Second, how does knowing the "correct" context of a work impact a viewers reaction to "edited" content. Take for example the "shred" videos on youtube, initially credited to a user named StSanders, that took musical performances (mostly guitar), and overdubbed them with a similar "timing" but horribly wrong notes. Is it only funny if you know a certain song/know the relative location of the hand and know its "wrong," or again, is the context not important, but just the idea?



I don't know, these ideas are jumbled, but I just wanted to get the ball rolling on ideas.

Done for the night...

...w00t. Tomorrow, hopefully before class, I'll update the site with basic definitions concerning the tools I am using for this project/scope -- hopefully, after that, I will be "creating" assignments/posing questions in order to get feedback in order to provide some breadcrumbs for those who may want to implement a certain tool but are unsure where to start.

be good, etc.

<3 Gl3nn

Oh, Facebook

So, I'm doing some reading (durh), and I just finished a quickie article concerning Facebook -- it was nice and succinct, and equally thought-provoking in about...3 or so paragraphs.

Some key points (made easy by Zotero, baby!):

Some downsides:
-Instinctive "creepyness" factor knowing your prof is on facebook and has found you!
-May limit how much genuine interaction a student may have once friended to a professor, knowing that they can see some pieces of information (unless they set their options to more private, which the article didn't discuss since this was written prior to "new" facebook, or wackbook).
-May create an awkward student/professor dynamic -- being "friends" may leave a student feeling entitled to options they shouldn't have (e.g., grade leniency, the ability to bump into a full class, etc).

Upsides:
-Can help a professor get a more complete feel of a student -- see how their personal life informs their in-class persona, and allows them to act more informed (e.g., seeing a students status change from "in a relationship" to "single," other stuffs like that).
-Can break the tension/dispel possible "hegemeny" myths by finding out a professor is approachable (e.g., "poking" a professor and having the professor "poke" back -- in this case, "poking" means sending a message to a professor to their facebook account saying he/she has been poked by x -- totally harmless).

Anyway, if you want to read the article itself (with more specific examples), I included the reference:

Lipka, S. (2007, Dec 7). For professors, 'friending' can be fraught. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 54(15), pp. A1, A28.

<3 Gl3nn

PS, in the interest of using this as a teaching tool, if/when you read this post, please leave a comment concerning this issue -- how do you feel about your profs being on facebook?

A Little Background to the Project

With each passing hour, day, and year, the world itself continues to evolve and become more modernized. Gone are the days where standard reading and writing were used to convey a message – now, society increasing leverages “New” media outlets such as video sites, social networking sites, and various “feeds” to disseminate information, whether this is of the entertainment variety, or even allowing interaction between “serious” news content. Literally, new students are growing up learning to “read” these new materials as they would a standard text (Leistyna, 2008), and with this sort of new literacy gaining momentum, it is important and imperative that current educators are aware of the techniques being used to target their audience outside the classroom.

With this information, educators will be able to leverage these technologies inside the classroom, expanding the commonly held domain of education to allow for more of a dynamism, and possibly extending the window of learning for a student infinitely from what simply can be taught in class to the whole experience of the class. In the following research, the “New” media outlets of YouTube, RSS feeds, blogs, social networking sites, and podcasts will be discussed in order to help round out an educator’s conception of the tools. In addition, tips on how to implement each item in the classroom will be given, with a tangible example of a successfully implemented “system” the ultimate destination.

The sources are legit -- I'll add references later. Don't be scared by the APA.

PS, Georgia font is awesome.