Blog Juice for Educational Technology

The current issue of CCO is now live and offers an issue that highlights the richness and diversity of interests in Computers and Writing research today. In Theory into Practice Andrea Ascuena and Michael Mattison offer (Re)Wiring Ourselves: The Electrical and Pedagogical Evolution of a Writing Center, a look at an online writing center and its evolving pedagogy. The Rhetoric and Discourse of Instant Messaging by Christine A. Hult & Ryan Richins take a deeper look at IM using discourse analysis. The Virtual Classroom brings a piece by Matt Barton and Charlie Lowe. Databases and Collaborative Spaces for Composition is a helpful look at Content Management Systems for those trying to decide which of the many out there fits their particular needs. The Print to Screen section now has up-to-date abstracts of the print Computers and Composition articles. Our Professional Development section has two articles: Making Blogs Produce: Using Modern Academic Storehouses and Factories by Jen Almjeld and Chaos: An e-interview with Johndan Johnson-Eilola contributed by Robin Murphy. Finally, the Reviews section has an embarrassment of riches this time with Technology and English Studies: Innovative Professional Paths Edited by James Inman and Beth L. Hewett and reviewed by James Schirmer; Podcasts, Vodcasts, and ProfCast, a software review by Paul Cesarini; The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil, reviewed by Adam Ellwanger; and Radical Feminism, Writing, and Critical Agency: From Manifesto to Modem by Jacqueline Rhodes, reviewed by J. A. Rice.

If after all that reading you are inspired to submit a piece to Computers and Composition Online, we are accepting submissions for the Fall 2006 issue. Send us your submission using the following focus areas:

• Theory into Practice    Theory, thoughts, and speculation.
• The Virtual Classroom    Pedagogy and classroom experience.
• From Print to Screen    Online features that connect with current print journal themes
• Professional Development    Our past, present and future. Send your interviews and profiles as well as conference updates and calls for submissions.
• Reviews    Not only books, but sites, events, and other blended media.

Since web publishing gives us some flexibility in timing, we can accept submissions up to November 1, 2006 if the piece is especially polished and web-ready. Earlier submissions have more opportunity for interaction and editing comments from the editors and reviewers, a real advantage for those open to the collaborative nature of web writing and editing.

Send your submission via email in a .zip file or give us an URL. Potential articles need to be web-ready–.doc files or other purely text-based articles are not suitable. Check current and past articles at http://www.bgsu.edu/cconline/home.htm. In preparing your submission, also note that CCO is a refereed journal and allows time for reviews of submissions. Authors wishing to do so may use a mutually agreed upon form of the Creative Commons License for
their article; CCO supports fair use and the open source movement in academia. If you have any questions about format or content, please feel free to
contact us by email. Queries are welcome.

Kris Blair
Editor
kblairATbgnetDOTbgsuDOT edu

Lanette Cadle
Senior Editor
lanetteDOTcadleATgmailDOTcom

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This is cross-posted on my blog, techsophist.net, but I thought those of you interested in literacy and media choices would be interested. I found this story via TV Squad. A three-year-old St. Paul, Minnesota boy got the birthday party of his dreams recently. No, it wasn’t themed around the Teletubbies, Barney, Sesame Street, or my personal favorite from the past, Bananas in Pyjamas–this three-year-old wanted a Jim Lehrer News Hour themed party–and he got it. The full story with photos of the decorated cake and custom party hats tells how he has been watching the Newshour from day one, with this interesting result.

It just goes to show you–have Jim Lehrer on every day at dinnertime and your toddler too will be in the know and calling Mr. Lehrer “Jimmy Jimmy BoBo” instead of begging for extra time watching Major Astro and the animated Star Trek series–no wait–that was my childhood.

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The Chronicle of Higher Education actually has a good column on fair use entitled Digital Dissertation Dustup that looks at a dissertation which heavily uses traditionally copyrighted images and film clips as well as hypertext. I’ve cross-posted a longer entry on this at my blog, Techsophist. The situation in short was that Virginia Kuhn of University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee’s dissertation was in multimedia form, with generous use of clips and snips of different media, sometimes enbedded in other clips:

Although Ms. Kuhn lists detailed citations for all multimedia works in her thesis, she refused to ask permission to include them, because she insists that she should be able to cite them in the same way that print sources have long been cited. She says: “If you ask for permission, you’re screwed because you imply that you legally need it.”

Yes. Unfortunately there were some at the university that held up her dissertation’s approval fearing lawsuits from copyright holders. Later in the column (too much later) legal experts on copyright point out that what she did was clearly fair use and if challenged she would easily win. I concur with Kuhn’s stance and want to add that if we don’t avail ourselves of the fair use rights we have in academia, fair use will no longer be common use and research of any kind will become even more difficult and expensive than it already is.

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