PlanetUSF

You have to check out this PDF which is a photo essay of soon after Katrina and the most recent return to campus. I’ve walked through or taught in several of those buildings and it is amazing to see the devastation and renovation both on the same page.

Amazing…

Found this blog via Metroblogging New Orleans and find its video post to be yet another wonderful example of the truth: what people in NOLA are facing as well as what the places look like, even those places nearby folks who have started rebuilding. Everything is so scattered and the binary that exists nowadays is optimism and harsh reality.

Nine Months Post-Katrina on Vimeo

My gal pal Sarah sent me this page since we’re going to the Madonna concert in July, and I find it hysterical that the bulk of it focuses on the history of the leotard […the origins of the leotard go back to late 18th-century France when colored body stockings were the favored undergarments for the diaphanous, Roman-inspired gowns of the day] rather than Madonna and the fashion industry. That’s something new in the world of news…focusing more on the fact than the infotainment.

Yes, I’m being sassy!

Tomorrow is June 1, 2006 and I am flying from Orlando to Detriot, then from Detriot to London. My grandmother, mother, and brother are in London right now for his graduation and they are leaving on June 6, but I am going to stay there until my the 11th. One of the main reasons for my trip to Europe is the World Cup which is held only every four years, and this year it is being played in Germany. On June 10th I will be in London when England plays against Paraguay. The next day I am flying to Paris where I will be when France plays Switzerland on the 13th. After that I am not sure what I am going to do. My flight home is on June 26th and I am flying from Frankfurt, Germany to Detriot, then back to Orlando. I want to be in Nuremburg when the United States has a match against Ghana, and who knows, maybe I will be able to buy a ticket from a scalper. I am really excited and I feel well prepared for my trip, but at the same time, I don’t know what to expect because I have never traveled to another country. Wish me luck and I will come home with lots of stories and pictures of my conquest.

Received this email from the AOIR and felt I should share it because of the MySpace concerns I’ve blogged about. It is, like I am, more in favor of technological literacy and the First Amendment rather than being scared of the site, exploiting that fear, and focusing only on the people who use it for lewd reasons.

Henry Jenkins and i co-authored an interview essay based on questions
from the MIT News Office to address concerns related to the proposed
American law entitled Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA). We
recognize that parents and legislators are concerned, but we do not
believe that DOPA is the best approach and we fear that, if
implemented, it will cause more harm than good. We conducted this
interview in the hopes that it provides valuable information for
parents, legislators and press who are interested in the issue.

http://www.danah.org/papers/MySpaceDOPA.html

I believe that this topic affects our research community as a whole.
The proposed law affects most Internet communities, including
chatrooms, mailing lists, photo sharing sites, gaming environments
and social network sites. It is also a slippery slope legislative
piece, working to give American legislators more control over who
participates online, in what ways and where. Collectively, we have a
lot of knowledge about this terrain and the positive aspects of
digital culture. This needs to be surfaced publicly in order to
combat the culture of fear. I know that most of you aren’t obsessing
about MySpace as much as i am, but i believe that what is happening
with MySpace will affect many of us on this list.

Finally, as researchers, we’re often faced with how press cover this
terrain and we’re often asked to speak out as experts. For better or
worse, i’ve become a press puppet on all things MySpace and i’m tired
of seeing myself in print. I also believe that there are other
voices that need to be heard, other relevant academic knowledge that
needs to be elevated. I have to imagine that there are other
academics who could join me in addressing the press and combatting
the fears the public has over how people use technology. If you are
interested in speaking to the press about these issues, please let me
know. In particular, i’m especially looking for other researchers
who have expertise in digital youth, online/offline sociability,
online dating, risk assessment, reputation costs, gaming, blogging
and anything else you might be seeing the press cover right now under
the fear category. I know that public-facing academic engagement is
controversial, but i’m definitely in the camp which says, “I am
obliged to contribute. Silence is complicity” (Diane Bell, “Writing
in the eye of a storm”). My hope is that others are interested in
helping combat the fear-mongering with all of the knowledge that we
have about this domain.

Dennis has also had some great posts regarding MySpace up lately. This one in particular, but the others are under the social software category.

Would write more on this but still trying to digest it all and need to get updating the i-pod [new Pet Shop Boys album, you know!] and packing.

More around mid-June, unless I sneak a few posts in the next 24 hours…

I attended a couple of sessions but recorded some of them on my i-pod instead of taking notes. The Writing with Video panel of Joseph Squier and Maria Lovett was amazing though and I wish I had the time and skills to pursue such a class. Looking at their site is enough for my schedule now, but I applaud everything they are doing!

The following list is based on my notes from the presentation they gave and I think captures the essence of the course:

Video as rhetorical medium
Be conscious of ways of seeing
“What is literacy?” video sketch
Build a metaphorical vocabulary
Students compose a “Pages” portfolio—a facet of the ILife suite (like a word doc but you can incorporate video and images)
Keep a process journal
Show motivation behind their assignments
Talk about audio—music and audio are not the same thing, discussing this lets you talk about media literacy, IP, mass communication
Songs have to have a real intention in the film—don’t just choose anything, justify it
IRB approval—documentary film doesn’t need approval
Performative ethnography—show it don’t tell it
Emphasis is on process rather than making a slick film maker
Video is a constructed text, not a transparent window
Students who wrote more composed better videos

Thanks to all those who left comments on my last post. I’m still baffled that I cried so uncontrollably. I mean, I know I have reason to and I am not embarassed by it, but I was not expecting to be so affected by the thoughts of my NOLA. But that again proves I am the perfect case study for my dissertation…

I like the discussion that has started at Composition Southeast, which is actually a post referencing my initial trauma theory post. Guess I haven’t looked at my incoming links page in awhile, otherwise I would have seen this earlier.

I wish I could be around to help students directly affected write through their experiences, but only hope that I will be able to soon enough. Trauma and the Teaching of Writing discusses what teachers can do with traumatic moments as well as what to think of when our usually writing-centered ideas fail us. I’ve not finished the whole collection but will post a response up tomorrow before I take off for HI.

It’s a small one, but the Buzz has awarded Scott Farrell the first Campaign Gumption Award.

There are 6 positive comments already on the blog, the last one makes mention of an online “Town Hall Meeting.”

True? You Might Say That, I Couldn’t Possibly Comment.

I’m going to write about my time at the C&W conference backwards because I presented today and much of what I said in the final version of my Powerpoint was influenced by what I heard on Thursday and Friday.

And the main thing I need to say off the bat is that I cried.

Yes, I got up in front of my audience and as soon as I saw the slide with the pic of me in front of my house in New Orleans [the same one on the front page of this blog], I said “That’s my house,” and the tears started coming down. I’ve been writing and thinking about this presentation for months now and had felt no emotions stir up, then everything changed. I don’t know why, but now I am scared that it will continue to happen all the way through the dissertation defense and job search. And that is very scary. But I do feel that writing a personal piece is more important than anything else I could do right now.

Per Heidi McKee’s suggestion, I was going to write about this immediately after it happened, but I got a phone call from my NOLA actorgirl friend Lara, who I have not spoken to in months, and it was more important to have that outburst all over again with her. She’s been most affected by the storm and is still living in flux, but as soon as I started telling her about today, she completely understood and was proud of me for sharing my experience. The more people, even those in academia who are already thoughtful and celebrate personal narratives, that hear about how painful it is to lose your home and see your city underwater, the more they can begin to think about the rebuilding efforts and what we can all do to try to help.

Anyway, other than that session, the Graduate Research Network Forum really helped me pull out key words that I can use to frame my dissertation. As I have mentioned before, I’ll be using trauma theory to write about how going online during times of crisis is a physical action and something that the body and mind can do together. Therefore, “event,” “embodiment,” and “ethos” are words that I will use to guide that writing and make the dissertation more of a rhetorical one than quantitative or one that adheres to a fixed set of methods. As strange as it sounds, I will be building a theory around what happened to me during Katrina. It was also suggested to me that I make the examples people-based in addition to text-based, and I think that is a good idea, but since I am my own case study and (as evidenced by today’s proceedings) it’s an emotional topic for those personally affected by the storm, I think writing a text-based dissertation will allow me to finish it quicker and make some important points. I can keep track of people’s stories in the mean time and use them in subsequent projects.

I have to get ready for tongiht’s dinner, but will write about the video panel I saw yesterday later.

On Monday, May29th, the PCC/USF Library will be closed for Memorial Day.

WELCOME! My name is Mike and I am Political Science major.
The main reason I have decided to open this blog is because I often find myself in an position of activism and I feel that a blog may help to further my impact on those topics that interest me the most.

Currently, I am an avid follower of the present genocide situation destroying Darfur which is in the Sudan.

I encourage you to visit http://www.savedarfur.org and read up on this terrible situation.

Furthermore, I am very much interested in organizing an activist group here at USF and throwing a fundraising rally to help bring funds and more importantly attention to this unbelievable attack on humanity.

It has been proven that student activism on college campuses greatly enhances public view and leads to action.

Please join me in this, as someone must stand up against these atrocities!

Thursday, May 25th and Friday May 26th: I will be absent this afternoon and tomorrow morning. I will return Friday, May 26, around 12:00 PM. If you need immediate assistance, you can use the Ask-A-Librarian services or, for a short, factual question, use the PCC/USF Library.

Wednesday, May 24th, I will be in Tampa all day for meetings. If you need immediate assistance, you can use the Ask-A-Librarian services or, for a short, factual question, use the PCC/USF Library.

All the myUSF/Blackboard services have been fully restored and are available, including the Content Collection. Please note that has been no loss of data throughout the repair process. We appreciate your understanding and patience.

“Hello world” is the traditional opening for a new blog. Actually, I mean hell0 Nursing Informatics Students.

I just opened this blog but am not yet clear on exactly how I will integrate this tool into my teaching/learning. Any ideas? Leave a comment or question so I will know you’ve been by. Thanks.

You too can open your own blog by going the USF sponsored blog site. You can click on blog.usf.edu on my “blogroll” (the list of “My Links” shown on the column on the right side of the screen).

I have also listed a link for Shauna Shullo, from the Center for 21st Century Teaching. Among other things, her blog has additional information about blogging in general as well as detailed instructions for opeing your own USF blog.

Thanks for visiting and leaving a comment. Elaine Slocumb

Good news! A operating fund for the Lakeland Library Services was created at the USF Foundation. That means that donations for the benefit of the library services here can be made. This fund does not yet appear on the Give Online! system but should soon. You can contact me for more information.

Meanwhile, USF employees interested in contributing to the Lakeland Library Operating Fund for the 2006 Faculty and Staff Charitable Campaign, can do so on a paper contribution form. I have paper forms, as does Drs Ponticell and Lamm. The Fund number is LL0001.