Blogging Pedagogy

I read a really interesting interview with Nicholas Carr this week. Carr argues internet use harms our ability to reflect deeply.

The interview is useful for a couple of reasons: first, instructors may want to think about how decisions to use technology or not affect the way their students are learning. We assume in the CWRL that using technology in the classroom is good, and this interview questions those assumptions. Second, if students read this article in class, they could critique their course (and their instructor's choices), which may help them think critically about what they are supposed to be learning and gaining by using technology in the classroom. I can see the article being a way to frame a learning record essay also.

Here's the link:
Computing the Cost: Nicholas Carr on How the Internet is Rewiring Our Brains

Normally, I shy away from talking about reproductive rights in the rhetoric classroom, even though I study reproductive rights discourse in my research. The reasons are several: first and foremost, I want to guard students’ privacy; second, it’s a topic I have fairly strong feelings about myself and I don’t want to get myself in an uncomfortable situation with students who feel differently; and third, I just don’t see many opportunities for stasis in the values-based, divisive discourse surrounding abortion.

Yesterday's campus events surrounding the unveiling of the Cesar Chavez statue were very exciting. The red United Farm Workers flag flew on the Main Mall while senators, state representatives, the US Undersecretary of Education honored Chavez's legacy and called for a continued struggled toward racial equality, workers' rights, and social justice. Like the Martin Luther King, Jr. statue on the East Mall, the Chavez statue and the Barbara Jordan statue (set for unveiling in Spring 2009) were the result of student-initiated campaigns and were financed by student fees.

I love Banned Books Week. I love reading the reports each year. There are always the old standards (Judy Blume, Alice Walker), and the new-old standards (the Harry Potter books), and then there are always some surprises.

I know a number of us talk with our classes about UT's campus statuary. I like to take students on a little tour each semester, after looking at materials about the debate.

A particularly interesting document is former UT President Larry Faulker's "Comments on the Report of the Task Force on Racial Respect and Fairness" from May 10, 2004:

http://www.utexas.edu/president/speeches/rrf_051004.html
(See especially paragraphs 46-57)

Right now, I'm teaching a first-year writing class that is affiliated with an interdisciplinary first-year seminar in environmental science. Looking for articles to use in class, I came across this website http://www.counterbalance.net/. I haven't reviewed it in great detail but it seems like a good place to look for academic yet accessible conversations about interesting, contemporary issues.

In this past Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Michael Berube began to answer a question I didn't realize was nagging me about the liberalization of academia conspiracy: what is actually going on in these classrooms? Berube's argument is, of course, that conservative attacks on dangerous professors are misguided, however validating and exilerating they might be to radical academics. His first major point is that liberalization is really an administrative rather than pedagogic issue to begin with, but it is his second point that relates to pedagogy and that I found most interesting.

Google is making a push to digitize a number of books with their Book Search. This could be a great controversy for those teaching Lessig this semester.

Here's a Washington Post editorial by Richard Ekman about why universities should support Google's efforts.

If you've been following the controversy about teaching 9/11 conspiracy theories at the University of Wisconsin, then this book might be an interesting read.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Parody_of_Al_Gore_Film_tied_0803.html