September 8, 2009 - by Bill Hart-Davidson
ATTW 2010
Synergies: The Intersections of Research and Teaching
13th Annual Conference
March 17, 2010
Louisville, KY
The Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW) invites proposals for papers, poster presentations, and workshops to be given at its annual conference immediately preceding the CCCC. The thirteenth annual conference will be held in Louisville, KY, on Wednesday, March 17, 2010. The full-day event includes concurrent sessions, poster presentations, workshops, book exhibits, and opportunities for exchanging ideas, working on projects, and networking in a supportive and challenging academic environment.
This year's conference will highlight ways that research informs teaching and teaching informs research. It will challenge researchers, teachers, and practitioners of technical and professional communication to push beyond the generic "implications for teaching" section appended to research articles to explore the synergies and questions available when we place research and teaching into conversation.
Submissions on all topics are welcome, but we especially encourage proposals that examine topics such as the following:
* the effectiveness of established or innovative pedagogies,
* a research question sparked by an observation in the classroom,
* pedagogical experiments sparked by research findings,
* the needs of the workplace, the university, the field, or the community and ways to meet or challenge these needs in service, major, or graduate courses,
* the roles, challenges, and benefits of instructional technologies,
* the implications of existing research for the design of programs and curriculum,
* pedagogies that can be used to teach research in the university and in the workplace,
* research methods that can be used to examine pedagogies,
* the relationships between teaching and research as they play out in different contexts within our discipline,
* directions for future research on pedagogy or questions raised by classroom experiences.
Proposals, limited to 300 words, are due October 5, 2009. All proposals will be peer reviewed. We offer three formats:
1. Regular Sessions: Individuals may submit proposals for 15-minute talks that will be placed on panels by conference organizers. Groups may submit proposals for 45-minute panel presentations. To submit proposals, follow the conference links at www.attw.org after September 21, 2009.
2. Poster Presentations: Posters will be on display throughout the day with special times dedicated for conversations about this work. Follow the same process for submission as for a regular session.
3. Workshop Sessions: The conference will include two 90-minute workshops overlapping with the regular sessions. Workshops that would help newcomers integrate into our field are especially encouraged. Please submit workshop proposals directly to Summer Taylor (slsmith@clemson.edu).
For additional information, contact the conference chair, Summer Taylor at Clemson University (slsmith@clemson.edu). New teachers of technical and professional communication are particularly invited to attend the conference, as are graduate students and CCCC attendees interested in technical and professional communication.
Dr. Summer Taylor
Director, Masters in Professional Communication Program
Director, Advanced Writing Program
Associate Professor
English Department
610 Strode Tower
Clemson University
Clemson, SC 29634
864-656-6689
July 1, 2009 - by Bill Hart-Davidson
Participants in "Visualizing Patterns of Communication in Digital Workspaces" at the 2009 Rhetoric Society of America Summer Institute spent two and a half days learning to use analytic techniques developed by Spinuzzi, Zachry, and Hart-Davidson such as Genre Ecology Models and Communicative Event Models. The conference was held on the Penn State University campus in State College, PA.
Zachry & Hart-Davidson will present a one-day version of the workshop this Fall at the upcoming SIGDOC conference in Bloomington, IN.
June 3, 2009 - by Bill Hart-Davidson
WIDE researcher and recent Rhetoric & Writing MA graduate Jake McCarthy's research is featured in the article "Finding Usability in Workplace Culture" published in the June 2009 edition of Intercom, a publication of the Society for Technical Communication.
The article addresses the complexity of assessing usability in workplace settings where a myriad of factors can influence how, let alone how well, a particular technology functions. McCarthy and Hart-Davidson, co-authors of the piece, discuss the ways an ethnomethodological approach to usability analysis can be beneficial in such settings:
"Keeping an eye on office politics and entrenched practices while searching for usability issues gave us a unique view of the decisions writers made while interacting with the CMS. Instead of recording the length of time and number of steps required for people to complete tasks, we focused on the cultural motives for completing tasks differently than we had anticipated. Certain traditional usability problems turned up through our
observations, but our presence in the work environment made the workplace
culture impossible to ignore."
Though not suitable for every project, the longer "dwell time" and more in-depth relationship building that went into the project discussed by McCarthy & Hart-Davidson can be indispensable when the design of a new workplace tool is so integral to the core mission of an organization.
May 22, 2009 - by Bill Hart-Davidson
One question we sometimes get around here is what it is like to run a research center. So...I thought I'd try to post weekly recaps of activity around here to create a record. I'm going to stick to the highlights, of course, and this is just my p.o.v. Maybe Jeff, Mike, Jim, Matt, Stacey, Anne, Doug, or Katie (just to name a few of my colleagues around here) will chime in as well!
This week @ WIDE we...
May 18, 2009 - by Bill Hart-Davidson
Lee Sherlock's article entitled "" is available now electronically via the JBTC pre-publication site. Check it out!
Abstract
This article examines the characteristics of collaborative work and overlapping
activity systems in the popular online game World of Warcraft. Using genre
theory and activity theory as frames to work out the genre ecology of
gameplay, the article focuses on how players coordinate ad hoc grouping
activity across and through genres. It articulates the related development of
open systems in online gaming in a discussion of interface modifications
(AddOns) and online information databases that players generate, drawing
on De Certeau’s formulation of strategies and tactics and Warner’s
discussion of publics and counterpublics. The article concludes by discussing
implications of online gaming for an open-systems approach to information
design in professional communication and for professional communication
in general.
May 8, 2009 - by Bill Hart-Davidson
A new study published in First Monday calls into question findings from an Ohio State University dissertation that showed a link between frequent Facebook use and poor grades.
The earlier study by Aryn Karpinski garnered a lot of media attention in April 2009 when a negative relationship between use of Facebook and lower grades and time spent studying was reported.
The new study, conducted by researchers afilliated with the Berkman Center for Internet& Society at Harvard University, attempted to replicate Karpinski's results, paying particular attention to the problems associated with accurate sampling. The results showed no negative relationships between FB and grades.
Northwestern U. quotes one of the researchers Berkman Center researchers:
"“I suspect that basic Facebook use -- what these studies measure --simply doesn’t have generalizable consequences for grades,” saidHargittai, whose research explores the social and policy implicationsof the Web. The doubt cast on the use of social networking sitesvis-à-vis students, the study suggests, is reminiscent of suspicionscast on earlier new media, including TV and motion pictures, and theireffect on children."