Final Exam Spring 2012: Reflective Post

For part one of the final exam, compose a personal blog post in the form of a short persuasive letter written to someone you know (perhaps an underclassman or a younger family member) -- someone who has not shared your experiences with rhetoric and history. (The recipient can be fictionalized.)

I'd like you to convince this person about the importance of a specific event, period, or person from history. Being a good rhetorician, you won't fall into the trap of merely giving a report on something. Instead, you will adjust what you say to be of relevance to that person and in the context of life today. And, since this is online communication, you'll try to work in a personal angle to make it engaging.

Do this by drawing upon personal learning experiences that you recorded in your learning log or discussed on Digital Dialog, and/or upon social learning experiences you had outside of class that confirmed the relevance of your reading or research. 

• Avoid repeating the historical component within your final project post (show you have some range in appreciating history). 
• Make a meaningful title (Do NOT title your post "Final exam part 1")
• Images or other media are not required, though you may visually design your post to make it interesting.
• Keep this to 300-500 words.

Instructor Feedback: Individual Videos (Format and Content)

Please watch this video in which I give detailed feedback on the draft videos posted so far. Take special note of the adjusted requirement for length (shortened to 60 seconds). You should take note of this feedback even if your video was not posted or critiqued so that you get a better idea of expectations and standards. (You are welcome to click through to this video on YouTube to watch it to see it at better resolution and even speed up playback)

While this video is a response to the individual videos, much of what is said relates to how group videos should also be done.  So it will be valuable to you as you finish up those. Also, be sure you refer to the Student Video - Best Practices document.

In the video above I refer to a student journal that features short introductory videos by students about their topics. Here is one of the student videos:

For another set of model videos, see this playlist of student videos from my class in 2015:

Instructor Feedback - Individual Post Design

I go through each of the blog posts that came in on time today with both individual and general critiques. Watch this so you will know how to revise the design of your blog post. You may wish to click through and watch this on YouTube where you can speed it up and see it at a better resolution.

I am doing a separate feedback video with a critique and suggestions for improving the video portion of your blog post.

A Guide to Self-Directed Learning

Within my teaching, I structure my courses so that I am not assigning students everything to read or research. Within some clear parameters, I invite them to do self-directed learning. This is to help them get personally invested in our topic and to train them to be lifelong learners.

My students are generally resistant to the idea of not being assigned exactly what to read. I do give some short common readings, and they have my lectures by which to get a thematic framework for the historical periods we are studying. But after that, they are turned loose. Where to start? What to do? This is meant as a short guide to assist my students.

I believe self-directed learning works best when certain parameters are in place: clear purposes, a time structure, and accountability through documentation and sharing.

It also helps to understand the differences between types of sources and activities for learning, to vary among these, and to avoid getting stuck in the most common secondary sources. All of this I address in more detail below.

Critical Communications Re-Imagined: A Collaborative Student Project

My students and I have come to the end of a semester-long experiment in which we have collaborated in a project connecting periods of the past with our digital present. Our goals to reach an authentic public, and to experiment with online writing and innovative pedagogy, are outlined in this introduction. Our project is indexed in this Table of Contents, where group topics and individual student articles are listed.

Although that indexes the final versions of our work, this blog will remain to document the development of our ideas over the course of Winter Semester, 2016, at Brigham Young University. Your feedback is welcome.

Designing Digital Arguments via an Iterative Collaborative Pedagagogy: A Case Study

[This is a first draft of the manuscript I hope to submit to Hybrid Pedagogy, newly structured to introduce the overall project and each of the eight group topics. This lacks visual and media components that I will add in later.]

I'd like to report on a pedagogical experiment in producing and sharing knowledge which I have conducted in connection with teaching a course on rhetoric and civilization at Brigham Young University in early 2016.

Following iterative and collaborative processes derived from design theory, I've had my students create historically informed, digitally-mediated arguments about contemporary topics. Our assumption has been that communication is critical to civilization. And thus, given our current period of profound changes in communication, we can expect to see -- and perhaps be part of -- substantive changes to civilization. The stakes are real.

Equally real is the role to be played by amateurs like students. Thanks to lowered thresholds for participation and the new ease by which content can be created and shared, it is not just the experts and professionals who may contribute. The shifting grounds of authority and power is one of eight group topics addressed by students. In becoming a critic of social authority, publicly addressing their concerns, my students have exercised a kind of digital citizenship. Ours has been an experiment in digital citizenship, learning that digital literacy is a franchise, a privilege to be claimed that is perhaps as consequential as voting within a democracy.

Being a critic of society and its dogmas is a tradition from at least the Enlightenment. Another of our student groups has examined facets of our digital society that advance Enlightenment ideals like brotherhood/sisterhood and tolerance. But, being true to Cartesian skepticism, they have also seen how our contemporary media contribute to, not just address, social problems.

Civilization may seem to be coming apart at the seems as we are subjected to the barrage of highly charged online communication. All the more reason for us to understand the conditions of 21st century literacy -- another of our group topics. Today's literacy is more than reading and writing, and more than technical proficiency. It requires new kinds of tolerance: for others in a plural society; and for the shifting, sometimes shifty media which we both produce and consume.

Like the experimental philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries, embarking on proto-scientific fields not yet fully codified, we have to go into the laboratory where both chemistry and alchemy are intermixed. The format for our project is one such experiment. We've tried to follow a tiered content model that also blends blogging and video with traditional text-based argumentation. We must experiment with our tools of communication, figuring out their rhetorical force, their affordances and limits. A willingness to experiment and a tolerance for false starts along the way, it turns out, are fundamental principles of 21st century literacy.

Another such principle for today's literacy, one meriting its own category as a topic for us, is that of connecting and collaborating. Of course the individual is empowered as never before today, broadly enabled to have his/her say through our new outlets and media. But we are increasingly aware of the need to work together. Collaboration has always been key to civilization. But what happens when collaboration can take place across the boundaries of space, time, culture, or nationality?

Nationality has been a strong component of personal identity from the time of the Renaissance, but the Renaissance also encouraged individuals to claim their own identity. Today, identity is a major topic, and we have learned that there is power in the personal as never before. That is why we have practiced literally putting a face on our arguments: we are more likely to be understood, to be drawing into meaningful discussion, if we are willing to be present with our words in pictures and video -- ways one could not be so much in print.

Such elevating of the individual is characteristic of the Romantic period, and civilization today is both enhanced and threatened by the highly open nature of digital culture. Openness is a key value of our digital civilization, enabling collaboration and the repurposing of content without so many of the barriers that prevented such use and sharing in the past. But it turns out we want a paradoxical combination of openness and control -- another of our group topics in this project. We do not profit from our new means of communication if we keep barriers up; but, if we do not create structures and measures for privacy and for the organization of knowledge, we risk violating the trust that is needed for people to work together meaningfully in society.

Society depends upon human relationships, and relationships are being subjected to profound reconfigurations due to our highly mediated and electronically connected world today. This is why human relationships earned its own place as group topic in our project. In some ways we are enhancing those relationships; in other ways, diminishing them. And while we cannot go back to a society absent our electronic mediations, we can educate and control ourselves so that the new tools reinforce and not threaten our key human connections.

While we encounter so much novelty, and our civilization is subject to such constant change, it becomes all the more important for us to stay grounded in the perspectives provided by history. Although each of the group and student projects have an historical angle, we have an entire group whose topic is dedicated to showing us patterns of the past in order to make sense of our rapidly evolving present day.

How the March 2016 Utah Caucus Changed my Personal Politics

I really didn't think I would start getting so involved in the political process. Nor did I think I would change or evolve my party affiliation. Of course I planned to vote, but this 2016 election cycle (as all know) has some unique dynamics that drew me in.

This registered Republican has crossed the aisle and joined the Democrats. Last night at our neighborhood caucus meeting I became an official delegate from my voting precinct to the Democratic county convention.

I'll tell my tale, but let me skip to the bottom line: 

1. Online discussion both frustrated and inspired me to say and do more about politics, both online and off; and, 
2. While the distress over current presidential nominees was an impetus, in-person discussion among family members and the experience of the local caucus meetings propelled me into changing my party affiliation and rolling up my sleeves to do more than express opinions. 

Amateur, Actionable Knowledge: A Video Claim

As my students work together on a collaborative project, I want them to realize that their contribution happens at multiple stages -- and not just as a finished, polished piece of work. Part of this requires a willingness to create and share ideas (including in digitally palatable formats like video) while they are in-process.

Here is a 10-second video where I state the claim that I plan to support more fully in my own contribution to our group project:

I'm sharing this on my social networks, using text to ask a question soliciting feedback.

Update: 3/16/16 (two days later)

I had some great feedback from my Facebook friends. Here's a screenshot:

First off, I see there are a number of people with whom I could probably go back to with my more developed ideas. They already seem to be engaged in the topic independent of my friendship with them. I know Christian H has done freelancing and started as a student doing graphic design for the web and had some early success as a non-professional. Mike R works at a big tech company and could probably connect me with the interns working for his company. A couple of fellow teachers have responded, too. Clicking to see who "liked" my post, I saw this selection of people:

This list includes former students who have now had some professional experience. Phil W is involved in a project called a "domain of one's own" encouraging students (and giving them the tools) to create and maintain an independent, permanent identity site online. I started such a site using his platform recently. Should I be talking about his project? At least I could have a good conversation with him as I work through my ideas.

The early feedback I got has convinced me that I need to talk more clearly about what "contribution" means, and I'm realizing this may require amateurs or students claiming and defining their contributions (for example, on a website or a personal domain).

Project Log: Gideon Burton

I'm Gideon Burton. This is my personal log where I am documenting the work I'm doing on both my individual project and our group project.

Getting a helpful critique on my latest
draft from an interested relative

The "Project Log" for documenting progress

A critical part of collaborative work is accountability. And with large projects with much in flux, it is equally important to document what one is doing for one's own sake as well as for others.

To this end, I'd like each of my students to start a "project log" post. This is to be updated at least twice weekly as students account for what they have done both to move forward their individual project, and to contribute to the overall project. Each student will only create this blog post once, but will update that same post, briefly logging their activity and linking to the other blog posts they've completed.

This kind of log is a bit of a hack -- there are other ways of doing this. But it will work, and this will keep each other aware of what one another is doing. (For academic purposes, this will also help grading.) Instructions follow. I have modeled how to do this in my own project log.

Five Themes Linking Civilization and Communication

As my students develop their individual projects connecting civilization with communication, we've decided as a group to identify and work within a set of five themes:

1. Authority and Power
2. Digital Society
3. 21st Century Literacy
4. Connecting and Collaborating
5. Identity

I will elaborate on each of these briefly:

Group Video Prototype 1

Three of our team of students got together last week to experiment with formats for our video. This is the video we came up with. We just had some fun. This is far from a full prototype, but it is something we can work with-- and that's how prototypes work!

I put together something quick with Adobe After Effects

Don't blog blandly!

Why are politicians so childish when the stakes are so high?
How they speak speaks volumes.

Why did you look at this post, and maybe skip over others?

• it's visual (even if this weren't my cute granddaughter, you are more likely to read if given something to see)
• it's personal (this is homemade, casual, personal. My family watching the Democratic debates)
• it's concise (the caption of my photo communicates a problem and a claim, ready for debate)

Don't make blog posts that look like they are assignments -- even if they are! Practice selling your ideas in ways favored by the medium: use images or videos, break up your text. Keep it succinct. LOOK at what you blog, don't just tap out your text. What makes you stop to consider a blog post? A wall of uninterrupted text? Of course not. --Sure, you can blog at length, but if you can't sell readers right at the start, they won't be interested to click the "read more" link.

Keep us interested. Use the medium the way the medium wants to be used.

Our Message [version 1]

This concept card epitomizes our message

Communication is critical to civilization. It underpins it. It makes possible law, education, cooperation -- the very possibilities of consensus and collaboration.

A corollary to this is that as communication changes, so does civilization. New modes of communication do not merely continue our civilization; they alter and disrupt it, for better and worse. And for this reason, we need the perspectives of history to be equipped to manage the critical task of communication in the 21st century.

Things are not the same. However, the problem of change is not new. And so we turn a lens upon the past in order to understand the present as threshold moment in civilization's evolution.

Do you agree? What is the potential to improving civilization made possible by changing communications in the 21st century? What is at risk? What moments from history best illuminate the problems and changes of our current time? What is next?

Our Project: Format and Principles

My students and I are working together to create a short, video-based, historically-informed, collaborative argument around a central theme of contemporary relevance that connects communication and civilization. For more on this theme, see my post, "Our Message [version 1]." In this post, I explain our project format and the principles it is built upon.

We are experimenting with a centralized / decentralized
hybrid text-video project

An innovative format
Arguments on contemporary topics may appear in text or video form, but are typically authored by individuals or by organizations. We are innovating by combining text and video (so that each format carries the message independently, though they are complementary); and by using a hub-and-spoke model by which our central argument (a video + blog post overseen by me, the instructor) refers to and draws upon topics which individual students develop in greater detail and from their own personal angles within their own video + blog post.  We are seeking a balance between centralized and distributed development of an argument, an argument with a clear center but with logical extensions more owned, developed and branded by individuals.

Assignment: Index Card Pitch Post

we are using index cards
to prototype visual communication ideas

My students just went through a round of presenting their preliminary ideas for their individual semester project by using 10 index cards in a five-minute presentation to their peers in class.

I'm now asking them to create a blog post based on that presentation. First I will say why, and then how they should do so.

Why repeat the presentation as a blog post? To answer this I appeal to a principle of communication of increasing relevance in the digital age: translating one's ideas into a new format helps one to refine and develop those ideas. For class, they used handwritten images on index cards combined with an oral presentation; for this blog post, they will re-use those index cards as described below

This post is due by 10am (earlier if you can do so); and comments on others' posts are due by 11am.

Here are the requirements for the post:

Welcome to Critical Communication Re-Imagined

This blog is a sandbox for a group of students (members of a course in Rhetoric and Civilization at Brigham Young University during the term of Winter 2016) who are working together to reconsider communication from both a contemporary and an historical point of view.

We believe that the past can help us to understand and even to civilize the digital wilderness of the present. Each contributor to this project will pursue his/her personal project, and each will tie that presentation to a larger argument that I, as the instructor and project producer, will lay out.

In effect, we are blending both old and new sorts of communication: the individually authored idea; and the collaboratively organized concept.  Our format may or may not be successful, but we are confident that we will set forth -- individually and collectively -- arguments and issues that matter to us personally and as a society.

In the end, we will tidy up our sandbox and put things into a finished form for more formal sharing. But we are also demonstrating a new value for communication that is relevant today: interim knowledge. We are okay with publishing our process, thinking aloud, as it were, on the way to pinning down a more clearly organized final project.

Thanks for joining us. We welcome your input and responses!