Katrina Van Tassel

Simpson, Erik. "Threaded Discussion on the Internet and in the Classroom: Problems of Translation and an Approach to Emergence." Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association. 36.2 (Autumn 2003): 32-39.

In "Threaded Discussion on the Internet and in the Classroom, Erik Simpson explores the reason behind a lack of student participation in threaded discussions required for their classes. Simpson posits that the reason for this student apathy emerges from the structure required within class message boards that force students to focus on a specific topic for only a specific amount of time. In the article, written by a college English instructor for other English instructors, Simpson attempts to explain the phenomenon of minimal participation and provide a means of improving this participation. To aid teachers in creating more active discussion threads, Simpson demonstrates that allowing students more flexibility in their posting by mimicking the open forum of online discussions provides better responses.

While Simpson's article is interesting and helpful to the befuddled instructor, his research is not relevant to the area of research I am pursuing for this paper. I was, however, happy to discover the problems that I was facing in my own classroom had answers, and I will be keeping the reminder of lurkers that he discusses in mind as I continue my own research.

Current Mood: blah

Okay everybody. Here's my old avatar. Isn't she just a little tart? I took her to Dublin and sent her exploring, had a few beers and then lounged on top of the car. I wanted to drive it but, well, she had a few beers.


Then, I realized that I wanted a more serious avatar. So, I took her off the hood of the car and, well, proceeded to embarrass her completely. I had changed her clothing before, but this time, I forgot to actually go into the inventory to start this process. Instead, I started clicking the remove item button on each piece of her clothing. Remember, I'm standing in the middle of the street in Dublin. Just as I finished changing her clothes, some kind voyeur mentioned to me that I was not actually changing her clothes, but stripping her in the middle of the street. I was humiliated. I immediately told this stranger that she was drunk and teleported home. Poor Katrina, she had just left Dublin after getting drunk, lounging on a strange car, and then stripping in the middle of the street. She won't be going back anytime soon. At least not in that outfit.

But, it worked out for the best. I telelported to one of the groups that I had become a member of, found a free t-shirt with their logo on it and changed her clothes. (No, I did not teleport her naked, I put clothes back on her.) When I was done, she looked like this.



As I flew around in my new attire and let poor Katrina sober up, I decided I had found a place that I could call home. It was wonderful. I landed on top of a building so I could survey the world and decided to see if I could "drop the house that I had picked up on one of the free islands onto some land here. I could! Unfortunately, I dropped the house on top of somebody else's house.

OOPS!

I assumed that I could resolve this problem just by picking up the house again. I was wrong. I wish I had a picture for you, but all of the pictures that I had didn't really demonstrate the fact that I could walk and communicate while wearing my house! It was quite an adventure.

So, we're now halfway into the semester and I've been busy getting ready for conferences and working out chapter proposals for upcoming books I would love to be in. Now, it's time to get back to the busywork of my own education. So, get ready, everybody. The point to maintaining an academic blog is, for me, to get things down on paper (well, on screen) that I need to get my own work moving. My blog is my motivation and it makes mundane tasks seem a bit more interesting. So there are likely to be a great deal of posts over the next few days. But first, I thought you might like the great scoop of what I'm doing and where it's going. So, here's the rundown.

Wedding Message Boards and Online Literacy

This paper, for my  New Media Literacy class, focuses on the great question of what literacies are needed to engage in the dialogue on the message boards. I'm also hoping to look into the question of what literacies are acquired through this medium. Since I'm in the process of planning my own wedding, this is an interesting topic for me and I can't wait to see what I learn both from the paper and from my own engagement with the message boards. However, so I don't pollute the study, I won't be posting to the message board that I'm studying. I think it's only fair. 

As part of the final project for this paper, I have to create an annotated bibliography of my sources. So, this means there will be a good deal of precis drafts and annotated bibliography entries appearing randomly over the next few weeks. This is the point of the semester that I get more involved in my blog and it finally starts to feel needed again.

Hillary Clinton's MySpace Page

I've abandoned the idea of a visual rhetoric paper on M*A*S*H. The reason for this is two-fold. First, I'm still concerned that I'm going to shift into my BA and MA training and create a literary analysis instead of a visual rhetoric paper. Second, I spotted a button online the other day that caught my interest and let me come up with a topic that also works for the theme of this year's Federation Rhetoric Symposium. So, for my Visual Rhetoric paper, I'll  be looking specifically at the MySpace page linked on Hillary Clinton's official campaign page. The MySpace page I'm using is here. I'm not sure what exactly the scope of the paper is so far, but that will come as time goes by. 

Current Mood: nerdy

I logged in tonight simply to discuss the literacy that I have acquired in reading the weddingchannel.com message boards. For a moment, though, I was a bit deflated. When I logged in, I didn't get just a welcome, but a welcome with a guilt trip. Below my welcome message was a note telling me that I have not posted in two weeks. Now, I know that LJ did not mean this as a guilt trip, but I tend to feel like my blog is my baby and I had neglected her over the past few weeks. But, it's been a long few weeks, really. Still, I can't believe I've neglected this poor fledgling for that long. But I can't feel too guilty...I haven't posted to my other blog either. I have to do that soon as well. Oh well...on with the literacy.


Weddingchannel.com necessary literacy

So, I honestly went into the wedding message boards thinking that the literacy needed for this project was going to be very minimal. I mean, really, you only plan a  wedding for a few months and after that, what? I was wrong. In just a few minutes of poking through the messages, I ran across not one but three terms that I could not readily identify. Come on! I've been a maid of honor several times and I honestly thought that I had heard all of the terms before I got engaged. Boy was I wrong. Ten minutes into the message boards and there was still no hint as to how I could figure out these terms. I was lost in a world of FI, FH, and DH.

Now, let me say that I was thinking that FH stood for future husband. It was a guess, but I was thinking that it was right on target with the engaged woman's post. Okay, but that still left me with FI and DH. FI could easily mean fiance, but I wasn't sure and I had no idea how to figure out DH. Maybe it meant dead husband, but that wouldn't make any sense since the women were talking about these men in the present tense. So, I did the next best thing. I Googled it. There are only 1, 230,000 results for DH and wedding. And these responses range from DH Wedding Designs and bridal shops to links using the acronym. After searching through hundreds of wedding sites that linked in someway to DH (and I was omitting the duplicates), I ran across a site that was both helpful and interesting.

Her name is Audrey and just over a year ago, she too was attempting to understand the lingo that goes along with the wedding message boards. Finally, I had an answer for DH. It means Dear Husband. I was getting there, but dear is a far cry from dead. I've learned that these acronyms are part of the literacy required before entering the message boards, not through the message boards. However, I been lucky enough that Audrey has an entire post on Wedding Lingo on her wedding blog. I've got this  page bookmarked in my browser and I know that next time I run across a post with odd acronyms, I'm just going to have to look this up.

I don't know if my next post will be SWR (Somewhat Wedding Related) or not, but I'll be back in the next few days. I hope. Provided the grading marathon this weekend doesn't wipe the floor with me.

Current Mood: stressed
Current Music: Old Crow Medicine Show

I've just had my first experience with the literacy of Second Life. And, honestly, I'm feeling a bit illiterate right now. I joined a group (which wasn't that difficult) last week. Now, I've gotten my first email about an event from them. It's just a simple question post saying that the group is meeting "after 9 SLT." Okay, now I know that SLT stands for "Second Life Time." I'm just that bright. But I have no idea where to find a time translator that tells me exactly when that would be in my time zone. Has anybody figured it out yet?

Current Mood: confused

So, my First Life got out of bed this morning, made coffee and headed off to the office for my traditional Second Life (teaching). Then, I came home, logged in, and entered my third life (e-tutoring). Dinner brought about my group of close friends and loyal communers and I settled comfortably into my fourth life briefly before logging into the still new-to-me Second  Life as required by my fifth life (school). (Lives in no particular order, mind you.)

I had finally gotten off Help Island for the second time in my SL career (I wanted a new avatar for the new experience) and as I tried desperately to learn how to fly (again), I realized that SL may be a bit more intriguing than I first thought. I've joined a community of bloggers, so we'll have to wait and see. I should really see if there is a group of M*A*S*H fanatics out there in SL. The Visual Rhetoric paper I'll be working on this semester is on  an episode from  Season 8 and I'm poking around in the  fanlib world to see if there's anything related to the series. I like making connections.  Alas, though, I must away. My child  (a three year old tabby with the personality of Cartman) is summoning. He probably needs food. Then it's off to bed and again, back to my first life.

Current Mood: busy

I took a Foucault class last semester and left in May thinking that I absolutely hated Foucault and that if I never had anything to do with him again, it would be too soon. But then, I picked up Wendy Chun's Power and Control and started digesting the introduction. Chun discusses Foucault's ideas of heterotopias, power and others. I found myself in complete agreement with everything that she said and soon realized that there is no way that I can escape Foucault. The crux of my dissertation will ultimately need Foucault.

While I feel somewhat overwhelmed with the reading for my classes, I'm also relishing in the chance to spend time reading materials that are bringing more ideas to the front of my mind for my dissertation. I may feel behind, but with the reading I've been doing, I'm feeling ahead of myself in the world of dissertation. Now, I just need to get through my classwork.

Current Mood: bouncy