I've decided that, to more fully document the ENGL 5376 course expectations and my own progress, I should start by copying down Dr. Rice's syllabus. The following content is all his, posted here for my record-keeping and memory-jogging. So here goes ...

Course Description

The rhetorical triangle has traditionally included reader, writer, and text. Mobile devices implicate time and space as well. How does location and screen space impact information creation and distribution? What are best practice site and app designs? In what ways are Web 2.0 and multimedia technologies being used? What is convergence culture and the impact of ubiquitous tools on reading and writing? This special topics course will explore these questions. The course requires ready access to a web-enabled mobile device. Mac and PC users are both welcome. Students will create a website designed for a mobile device, and/or an iPhone/iPod Touch app. Required books include:

• D.E. Wittkower's iPod and Philosophy: iCon of an ePoch (2008)


• John Palfrey and U.R.S. Gasser's Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives (2008)


• Henry Jenkins' Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (2008)

Additional recommended resources include Amy C. Kimme Hea's Going Wireless: A Critical Exploration of Wireless and Mobile Technologies for Composition Teachers and Researchers (2009), and any iPhone SDK develpment book. Additional readings provided as needed.

Instructor

Dr. Rich Rice can be reached through rich.rice@ttu.edu (email), ricrice@gmail.com (email large files), ricrice2000 (YahooIM), 806.741.0678 (phone), twitter, facebook, blogger, or iMuLL. Office hours by appointment. Our course meets 10 Wednesdays via freeconferencecall.com at 6pm CST, beginning June 3, 2009. (1) Dial (605) 475-4825; (2) Code 593180#. (Recording code is 548371#.)

Learning Objectives

The objective of the humanities in general is to expand knowledge of the human condition and human cultures, especially in relation to behaviors, ideas, and values expressed in works of human imagination and thought. Through study in disciplines and subjects such as technical communication, rhetoric, and new media, students engage in critical analysis and develop an appreciation of the humanities as fundamental to the health and survival of any society. Upon completion of this course, students will be able to demonstrate thinking and skills related to the following:

1. Compare various reading and writing for mobile devices and discuss their implications for practice in the academy as well as the workplace. Measurement: observation and analysis of class discussion.



2. Critically analyze mobile artifacts. Measurement: observation and analysis of discussion and completion of high-quality written assignments.



3. Synthesize readings into an expression of the student's approach to class projects. Measurement: observation and analysis of discussion. Completion of high-quality informal and formal writing assignments.



4. Manage projects through iterative design. Measurement: successful planning and development of a mobile device rhetoric project.



5. Develop reading/writing for mobile device products. Measurement: successful completion and reflective writing over a mobile device project.

Requirements

I accept revisions on all work, but my time to offer substantial feedback gets limited as the semester draws on. Revised work may not increase in grade, but it will never decrease in grade. I reserve the right not to accept late work. Requirements:

• Class/Blog/Twitter Participation. Complete class phone discussion over readings and ongoing work each week; I will offer questions for blog posts and phone discussions. Tweet at least once a day, and comment on others' tweets and blog posts as much as possible. (30%)



• Project. Complete a reading/writing for mobile devices project. Suggested options: an iPhone App, a page designed to be read on a mobile device, audio and/or video-rich page for class or work... (40%)



• Analysis. Complete an analysis report of the project, including directions for sustaining and/or replication. (10%)



• Reflection. Complete a reflective essay identifying the value of reading and writing for mobile devices in the context of your ongoing and/or future work, using evidence from class discussions, blog posts, and tweets to support your claims. (20%)

Readings/Schedule

Purchase these three books: Wittkower, Palfrey/Gasser, and Jenkins. The following is subject to change. Additional readings will be provided.

June 3

Today we'll kick off the course with a friendly mobile phone conference call. Please phone in from a unique location each week if possible. You do not need to be in front of a computer, but on occasion you might want to bring notes. Please have iPod Philosophy read by June 10's class call. We'll finish building our class syllabus after tonight's call. Be thinking about what sort of project you want to build this summer. If you haven't already, send rich.rice@ttu.edu your Twitter, Blogger URL, and Homepage, and each of us should subscribe to one another's Twitter and Facebook. Set our Twitter accounts to come ping your cell phone when each of us tweet. Let's "remediate twitter" a bit during class calls and if you're productively multitasking while in class, say so. Can be random. Say something like "Rich is watering trees" if indeed you're Rich, and you're watering trees. Might get old after a while, but I want us to think a lot about location and knowledge-making. Interesting concept with Glucose Monitoring from Brett. See Lifescan as well. We held our course from our kitchen, garden, work office, basement, airplane, rental car line, and other places this evening. Talked some about GoogleDocs as a possibility in a few weeks, too. Looks like we may be going with #mobilerice or #5376 for Twitter. We'll determine our hash for Twitter soon. See http://ow.ly/7SsZ for an explanation of hash tags (thanks, Julie).

June 10

See if you can finish iPod and Philosophy by class. Also, read Saran, et al., "Use of Mobile Phones in Language Learning: Developing Effective Instructional Materials. Paper presented at the 5th International Conference on Wireless, Mobile and Ubiquitous Technologies in Education (WMUTE2008), Beijing, China." For your blog:

• What do you want to build?


• What's a "blobject" as it relates to your project? (iPod Philosophy, Chapter 2)


• What model mobile manifestifact excites you? Why?

I like http://freerice.org for mobile because it's productive, educational, and, well, freeing for me. Julie recommenda Nambu for social messaging reading for macs users. Userful for researching trends on social networks. Arthur has pointed out a nice definition of "blobjects, blogjects, and tweetjects" at rooreynolds.com. Arthur also noted Twubs.com for #hashtag work. Alex Hosterman, an online Ph.D. student, pointed out Pogue is working on a book comprised of Tweets. Joshua has been researching iStanford from Stanford's Journalism program. Rich is impressed by ACU's iPhone/iPod to all Freshman program, especially the advising aspects. Brett found myGeoDiary this week. Tool for telling stories based on location. Read, if you have time, Stephen Johnson's piece for this month's Time Magazine: "How Twitter Will Change the Way the Way We Live." Here is this week's conference call.

June 17

Read NPR's discussion on cell phone use. Read Edutopia's Digital Generation Project Overview Video. Read Steven Johnson's "Infinity Imagined" from the text Interface Culture, and Greg Ulmer's "Interface Impressions" from his book Internet Invention. For your blog post for this Wednesday:

• What role does interface play in reading and writing for mobile devices?


• What are some of the best interface designs you've seen for mobile devices (best app/page), and what makes them so user-friendly?

Read NGMOCO, a site listing new games that involve location. Sent to #mobilerice by Brett. Read "ACU Mobile Learning" and think about the potentional for mobile computing systemwide. Another Twitter reader for your computer, cross-platform, is Tweetdeck. Worth exploring. See if you can finish up iPod Philosophy, and begin on Digital Natives.

June 24

The author of iPod Philosophy will be joining our conversation today. For today's blog post please brainstorm questions for Wittower. Let's use GoogleDocs, which Joshua has set up. Joshua recommends checking out GoogleWave, too. Liz shared a trailer to the documentary Objectified in #mobilerice; worth looking at. Read Kafkaz's TechRhet-L post, "Tenure in an Digital Era." Read W3C: Relationship between Mobile Web Best Practices (MWBP) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Finish up Digital Natives. Rich is at the CW2009 Conference this week. Shared the SmartCasting Interface concept at the conference. The conference hashtag is #cw09. Might begin reading Convergence Culture. If you want the RSS Feed for our class conferences, see http://www.freeconferencecall.com/itunes/podcast.asp?id=6054754825:593180.

July 1

Read "Kindergarten Is the Model for Lifelong Learning" (Edutopia). I recommend subscribing to this magazine. Read "ITForum-L thread, 'Creating Mobile Phone Apps'. Should be halfway through Convergence Culture. Bloggerino prompage:

• What is a digital native, and how does what you know about DNs impact what you want to produce in this course?


• Are there differences between how some people use mobile devices and how others use them?


• Any follow-up thoughts to our guest last week?

July 8

Read Rich Rice's "iRhetoric Placeshifting." Read William Mitchell's "Replacing Place" from The Digital Dialectic. Finish reading Convergence Culture. Might read "Anonymity Project: The PostSecret Effect" on YouTube. Read "Mobile Digital Storytelling." For your blog post this week:

• Ideally you would have time to usability test the product you produce. What, exactly, is usability testing?


• Any form of communication should begin with the audience in mind. Talk about who your intended users for your class project are, what their needs are, if they have characteristics of digital natives, etc., and then find one. Interview the student (yes, can be through Twitter), gather information and reflect on it in your blog. How does this information change and/or reinforce what you're beginning to produce?

If you have suggested readings for the class, please email them my way. Thanks. And, if you haven't already, you might take a look at Apple's XCode. I mentioned during class, theoretically, it reminds me of Manovich's term "transcoding." Jenkins, too, picks up on the concept.

July 15

Thoughts for readings? Keep working on Convergence. As I mentioned during class last Wednesday, I'd like us to go through Convergence Culture methodically this week, and then the subject matter of our readings for the last three week, pretty much, should be our own artifacts. Please also read the email message "Response to Michael re blogs" from ITForum that came across my desk July 8th. Gives a good perspective about journals and social networking, which we talked about some with Liz's work with Intercom last week. Brett found "The Next Frontier for the Media and Wireless Industry_Diamond Consultants" this week, which is a whitepaper exploring wireless media and gaming. Please read.

July 22

TBA

July 29

TBA

August 5

Final project due by midnight. We'll go over them during class.