Learning Outcomes

 How did you meet the stated learning outcomes for the course?

Learning outcome #1: Consume:

I believe I demonstrated my ability to analyze literary texts in my final chapter for the ebook. I showed my ability to gather, search, filter, sample, bookmark, and research wtihin academic and general sources through the following posts:

Here is a list of sites I bookmarked and tagged and sorted relating to my literary research. It also shows my ability to gather a lot of general sources about Huckleberry Finn. I then created a google document that shows how I sampled and processed that information.

You can see how I used different places to search out much of this information when I narrate my process of searching: Twitter, Creative Commons Images on Flickr and Google, Google Blog Search, Open Educational Resources, and Goodreads.

As for doing research within Academia, I posted about learning about and exploring library tools, using these tools to complete research on my chosen literary work, compiling all my academic research with research found for me by fellow classmates, and finding more social research online through an academic article.

Learning outcome #2: Create

I posted about my process of creating an online persona here. That link will lead you to my many different profiles, content outlets, and social networks as would my google profile which I newly updated this semester.

I made a personal learning plan here, some of which I followed pretty closely as it fit the domains of the course. I have documented my learnign efforts throughout the semester on this blog and even my personal blog here and here. I created an attempt at a multimedia composition here. As for creating and publishing more formally developed work in a public and durable format, I contributed a chapter to our class ebook and published it online for the class at internet archive and goodreads.

Learning outcome #3: Connect


I felt I connected meaningfully outside of the class on several occasions which I have narrated on my blog here, here, and here. I also advertised our ebook and webinar to several people who I thought had a vested interest in the project. These individuals are listed at our class wiki under my name.

I also worked collaboratively with our class to create our ebook and in a team to publish our ebook. It was a lot of work but ended up being a very rewarding process.


The Class


I believe our class met these outcomes together by consuming materials related to our literature on the web, narrating our process, creating informal and formal writing about literature, and connecting with both each other and outside of the class. I believe we could have done better on a whole with the create portion. Though we created an ebook as a class collaboratively, we did not do much in creating multimedia which is a legitimate form to use to talk about literature in the digital age.

Free, Simple, Quick, Painless ebooks (I think)

While we do have the option of just using an online converter to change a Word doc version of our book into HTML (More specifically XHTML, Nyssa - my husband says the only difference between HTML and XHTML is that XHTML conforms to higher standards so you have to remember to close all your tags and such but it's essentially the same), the converters are not always perfect and then we'd probably need someone to double check the coding for us. Assuming (pretty sure this is a safe assumption) that none of us are fluent in XHTML coding, this could pose problems.

Nyssa found a way to use Adobe InDesign to export to ePub, but I'm not sure any or enough of us are familiar with InDesign. Besides, I think we (my genius husband and I) have found a way to convert directly from a PDF to ePub format. This would not only skip the XHTML conversion step but also put most of us in a format that we're probably more familiar with: the PDF. Here's the article that explains this.

It looks like it's originally intended for users who already have ebooks in PDF format and are frustrated that their chosen ebook readers don't support PDF format, and so can use this platform to convert their book into ePub which is supported by most ebook readers. Interesting note: the article says the ebook situation is similar to when the music industry was trying to find a uniform format and now ePub is the closest format we have to the comparable music Mp3.

The article has directions for how to use this "free and cross-platform ebook management tool," Calibre, to accomplish the task and it looks relatively painless and quick. I think we should at least give it a shot, though we may need to understand more about PDF/ ePub formatting of ebooks so we know what is allowed, like what Nyssa discovered about graphics in the ePub format, etc.

Anyways, check out the article about this process and the demo video on the Calibre home page to learn more. Let me know what you all think!

Literary Inquiry (gone digital)

I gotta say, I appreciate Dr. Burton's efforts to focus us towards literary research of late. At the beginning of the class, we were focusing so much on where literacy is headed and what digital literacy meant that, to be honest, I was a little leery about the whole approach. After all, literary criticism is a huge field full of writers, professors, and critics and to ignore that when the title of the course is Writing Literary Criticism seemed incredibly bizarre to me. Yes, the topics we began with in this class have value, but it's not entirely the purpose of a course like this, is it? (No, Ms. Granger. It isn't. Why don't you step outside with me so I can hex you and hide you in a closet so as to benefit the rest of us who are enjoying class the way it is?)

Lately, I think we've been focusing more on doing research on literature in the critical age which feels a bit more comfortable to me. Anyways, I looked up the course description on BYU's site: "How to address an academic audience, support arguments, and engage effectively in critical conversations about literature." I think we're getting closer to this goal with the class focusing more in general on doing research. I know the library instruction will be largely focused on this.

Must Reads

Have you ever gotten an email forward with a list of 100 books you should read or posted on your blog a long list of books from the Western Cannon and checked off the ones you have read? It seems these lists are becoming even more ubiquitous as social reading sites crop up all over the place. Sam McGrath's post for today got me thinking more about what we should read.

I clicked over to wikipedia's article about the Western Cannon. I didn't know there were so many different versions of it and these lists are not short. It is somewhat overwhelming. Take a look at St. John's reading college reading list. It's pretty amazing. Sam asked if we think we should try to read everything. The problem is, the cannon itself is controversial: should it include more works by women and other minority groups? Should we abandon it altogether? Is the notion of universal truths as represented in these works of fiction a load of nonsense in itself?

Developing an Online Presence Bit by Byte :)

A classmate, Taylor Gilbert, recently posted that he felt a little daunted by having to create an online presence in a social media world that has become somewhat of a leviathan and mentioned the presence that I have created for myself online. I commented that I've had a year and a half or so since I joined the social media scene to build up an online persona and advised him to try doing it a little bit at a time, as most people do. In this class, it must feel a little like being thrown into the deep end of a pool without floaties for the first time. I can't imagine learning all these myriad tools at once.

Unplugged

This semester I am more unplugged than ever before.

I am Personal Computerless. It's a new experience for me at BYU. I've always had that link to the greater world at large via instant internet access that I could plop down and use anywhere I was. Two semesters ago, my personal laptop broke, last semester the one I was borrowing from my husband broke, and now we share a laptop that stays at home so as to preserve its life. In past semesters, in addition to these personal computers, I've always carried around two work computers as well. Probably between 70-90% of my days at school were spent "plugged in". Far from being over-worried about the "evils" of technology, I enjoy using it to my purposes and I feel I have a relatively high degree of digital literacy.

However, lately I have found I rather enjoy the lack of instant access. Albeit I recognize having a cell phone (though I have what is deemed a 'dumb phone', not even comparable to my husband's iPhone with its dataplan) still allows me quite a bit of plugged-in-ness, I find that I really like having to walk to a computer, sit down, do my work, and get up to do the next thing. It's nice having to share one computer at home, because we try to get whatever we need done on it quickly so the other can use it and then we can both be done and do something together.

Rainbow "Connections"

First I should say, I'm in chapter 15 of Verner Vinge's Rainbows End, a scifi novel set in the future and full of almost magical technologies that set the framework for how we're going to be thinking about writing in the digital domain for ENGL 295 this semester. I recommend the book so far as it offers a lot of food for thought about the ways technology is shaping our culture and world. It even offers the balancing viewpoint of an old man who has been cured of alzheimer's and is suddenly cured and thrust into this world of technology though his values greatly differ from those of the hightech world he's been thrown into.

Today in class I was thinking about the digital theme of "connect" for our class as seen in Verner Vinge's Rainbows End. For those not in the class, the theme connect in our class is about connecting digitally with others: collaborating on projects, the effectiveness of working in groups or sharing as a community. One of the ideas behind a research blog is that it allows you to connect with an audience beyond the classroom and get their feedback on your ideas as they are in progress.

In Rainbow's End, the main character, Robert Gu (not sure about spelling since I'm listening to the audiobook), the old guy suddenly thrust into technoworld, critiques the younger generation as knowing nothing. He is frustrated that they are just constantly able to google and look up things they don't understand and seemingly know nothing for themselves.

How Form Affects Function

In class today we discussed how the format of a particular piece of writing affects its function. I didn't pipe up in class but I could think of several examples, specifically when our discussion turned towards the scriptures. So... stories ....

My mom was teaching a sunday school class of 8 year-olds and was attempting to introduce them to the footnote systems that the LDS scriptures use. She asked them, "How would you find out more information about King Solomon?" They answered as any digital native might, "Google it." Duh. And I reminded her that in all actuality, they would probably all be reading their scriptures on their iPhones by the time they're in seminary and thus really would google things they were unfamiliar with or at least be able to hit the links to the footnotes which makes much more sense to them than a footnote. The experience made us chuckle.

Also, my husband has experimented with reading his scriptures conventionally and also online. I think we've both found we prefer to read them in physical format, though mainly this is because of all the distractions available when you read scriptures online. But someone in class said you cannot highlight and such, and if you go to LDS.org and log in using your membership account information, they have created a pretty functional highlighting and commenting system that I really like. One of the interesting aspects of studying scriptures online that I've noticed is that I tend to share what I learn more often when I already have access to networks as I'm studying. For example, this morning I did a gospel study online and because my husband was already at work but I wanted to share my learning with him, I was able to just quickly email him my written thoughts from what I'd learned.

I'm going to read a book on this topic next week: The Case for Books, but I'm curious to know, what differences have you noticed about the differing functions of reading in different formats?

Book Choices

For my book on Digital Culture I actually chose the "anti"-route and decided to read Robert Darnton's The Case for Books, since I think I've probably taken enough courses from Dr. Burton to have heard all the pro-arguments. ;) No, I am really interested to hear the arguments against the digital formats, since I am not really bothered by reading in digital format or paper format. I think there's benefits to both. I am excited to see what Darnton says.

For my personal literary work (pending approval from Dr. Burton), I have chosen to reread The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. I really enjoyed it when I read it the first time around and I know there will be plenty of literary scholarship on it already, though what I can possibly have to add to that conversation, I have no idea.

Personal Reading History

I remember coming to my mom one summer sometime in my early adolescence and telling her I was bored. At this point, she suggested a host of books that she had read as a youth. I wasn't into reading and I tried getting into The Boxcar Children books and Nancy Drew, honest I did, but it just reinforced to me that reading was more boring than TGIF and my weekly helping of Boy Meets World.

It wasn't till my dad wanted some father/ daughter bonding time and decided to read aloud Tolkein to me that the world of books was really opened to me. Not only did we read together but he expounded his countless theories about how these books related to gospel themes which sparked a myriad of discussions that lasted late into the night. From there dad was able to direct me to a whole world of books that he had grown up loving and reading. I never finished The Hitchhiker's Guide but I really enjoyed the first couple books of Another Fine Myth. Then the Harry Potter craze started and after the third book came out, I yielded to a close friend's insistence to give them a try. The books gave not only my dad and I, but by this time several of my siblings, something to read and talk about together. 

At this point I began to read, almost bookclub style, with my two sisters closest in age. We read I believe all of Tamora Peirce's quartets, and things like Johnathan Shroud's Bartimaeus trilogy, Shannon Hale's fairy-tale like YA fiction, and later Chistopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle. We would read and swap and discuss and I believe the books not only shaped our imaginations but also, in part, who we wanted to become. I was very strongly influenced at a young age by Peirce's strong feminist heroines and Shroud's sarcastic characterizations.