• Of course, the end of time for the class is still Friday, December 16, at 5 PM Michigan time!  That’s when the final is due along with anything else that is still lingering out there.
• If you want to meet with me to talk about a revision to one of the major writing projects, our time is quickly running out.  So if that is in your plans, you need to contact me just as soon as possible!
• I have inconsistent instructions on where to hand in the final– that is, I think there are places where I say to email it to me and other places where I say to put it into the emuonline dropbox.  Either one is fine, just as long as you hand it in by Friday.
• And also don’t forget that if you are an education major of some sort, you also need to post a copy of your project to LiveText.

And as always, remember the end is near….

Briefly, as I discuss in the video:

• I have completed grades for everything except the final, which is due by the “End of Time,” Friday, December 16, at 5 PM Michigan Time.
• You have to complete the final of course in order to pass the course and if you are an education major of some sort (Language and Literature for Teachers, for example), then you also need to post your final to LiveText.  If you have any challenges or concerns about how to do that, you should contact folks in the College of Education for tech support.
• As long as you complete the final and do an earnest and good-faith effort job on it, I promise that your work on the final can only help your grade.  What this means is if you currently have a “B” in the course, you’ll probably also have a “B” for a final grade– again, as long as you complete it.
• If you want to revise one of the four major projects in order to improve your overall grade for the course, email me and we will set up an appointment during this week and before December 16! to talk in person, via Skype, or via the phone.  We’ll talk about revision strategies and also what you can (and can’t) do to benefit your grade on these projects.
• Again, the end of time for the course is December 16 at 5 PM Michigan Time!  Any and all work must be posted/electronically handed in by this time!  I will literally start posting grades for this course Friday night and as I make it clear in the video, there are no possible extensions of this deadline.  So make sure you meet it– and by the way, if you get done with things early, that’s okay too.

(Update:  Sorry about the date mix-up.  For some reason I thought today was Wednesday…).

Now, one thing that is a little different about handing in this project is this is your chance to reflect on the collaborative process.  So, when you post your link to emuonline, take a moment to tell me:

• What it is that you did as part of working on the short video;
• What it is you think others in the group did to work on the short video; and
• What grade you think everyone in the group (including yourself) have earned for this part of the work.

If everything with your collaboration went great, then this reflection can be very brief.  If you had some concerns and/or thought things weren’t fair, then this is the “speak now or forever hold your peace” opportunity to voice those concerns.

After the break here, I have some thoughts/reflections on the final peer review process as folks discussed it on their blogs.  But before I get there, let me remind you all that the last blog post of the semester is due this Friday! Be sure to get that wrapped up!

I think that a lot of the reflections on peer review were similar to what it’s been all semester– there are good things about it, there are not good things about it.  For example:

For this time around peer review actually helped me because I felt that this essay was more difficult to write compared to past essays. Although for peer review as a whole the aspects that I found useful are the fact that you are hearing feedback from people who are writing about the same things you are, people giving suggestions to make your point/argument better, people catching errors that the writer may not notice, and also reading others work. I find those things most useful because it gives me a better understanding on how others view my writing and I can see if I’m on the same path as others, because we should obviously be on the same page of what we are writing about. The one thing I find least useful is the fact that sometimes people don’t really have anything to say, or they I think that when it comes to responding to others, it’s best to be honest and helpful.

And this:

I have found myself disappointed throughout the peer review process. The theory of peer review is good, it never seems to work out. I found that I do not get enough feedback. I have no desire to hear that my work is good, if you don’t complain about it, I know it is fine. I have also noticed that people tend not to take the advice of others. I know not every comment given is correct, but every comment should be double checked, in case you are wrong.

Tensions seem to be running high right now. Which makes peer review comments even touchier than normal.

I know there were some “challenges” with the video making process, which (as I’ve said before) I find kind of puzzling and unusual.

And then there’s this:

I learned that there is no good way to correct someone. Even at my politest, people do not like to be corrected. Because this is a online class, I found it was easier to be honest about people’s work, though they probably did not appreciate that!

With every comment I get, I try to look at the situation as if it was not my paper. There is no reason to not take the advice. I would not want my teacher to point out the same mistakes a fellow classmate did.

I think this is a really good point, and it is something that I think I need to work on fostering better in peer review in particular and in the writing process in general.  If you want to be a writer– and why would you take this class if you didn’t?– then you have to learn to see the criticism of your writing as an opportunity to improve and be better and not as an “attack” against you as a person.  If you can’t or won’t do that, then you won’t improve as a writer, simple as that.

First, about peer review: I have set it up again on emuonline, and since you have all been down this path before, you should have a handle on how this all works.  Everyone should be in one and only one group, so let me know if I screwed that up in how I set things up.  The groups are:

Megan A, Ryan, and Leeann

Megan F, Alyse, Lisa, and Maxine

Amanda, Tony, and Ana

Peer review begins by midnight on Wednesday, November 30!  Be sure to have a draft of your individual essay posted there by then.  Late projects will be docked a letter grade.  Also, peer review ends on Monday, December 5!  Be sure to have your comments for your peers done by then.  By Tuesday or so, you should also finish Blog Post 15: The final peer review recap.

The individual essay portion of the movie project is due by the end of the day on Wednesday, December 7!  Late projects will be docked a letter grade, etc.  Also, note that as part of the process of handing this is, this is also your chance to have input on how well the collaborative process went.

The last blog post of the semester is due by Friday, December 9;  it is Blog Post 16:  What is Style, part 2?

Now, what this all means is that by the last day of class, December 12, you will be able to know exactly what grade you will receive for the class not counting the final or any revisions.  As I have discussed elsewhere, as long as you do an earnest job on the final and turn it in as appropriate, I will not give you a grade that will hurt your overall grade on it.  Revisions could make a difference for improving your grade though, and as I’ve discussed before, that’s something where we’ll need to meet to talk about your plans and strategies.

And the end of time for the class is on December 16, 2011 at 5 pm Eastern Time.  I’ll talk more about this as we get closer to it, but basically, this is when everything absolutely, positively has to be turned in.

Excellent!  I think all game shows should involve jumping into a bean bag!

And now, a slightly later entry from Megan A., Ryan F., Diamond J., Alyse L., Maxine W., Ana W.

Another nice one! I like Ryan’s interview responses quite a bit.  Take a look at both groups’ videos, and remember, you need to have a draft of your essay ready for sharing by Wednesday!

Good job, everyone.

Anyway, now that you have gotten the movie making process well-underway and/or almost finished (hopefully!) and now that you have read the essays (hopefully!) by Alexandra Juhasz, “Why Not (To) Teach On YouTube”  and Daniel Anderson, “The Low Bridge to High Benefits: Entry-Level Multimedia, Literacies, and Motivation,” after all that, I think we now probably have a better opportunity to discuss these essays.  So that’s what this post is about.

I’m guessing that the first part of Anderson’s essay is a little rough-going for many of you since he’s talking about some pretty theory-heavy sort of stuff.  I guess what I want to get you to focus on is how the idea of technology as being an “interchange” between people more than being about “tools” and “stuff,” and also about how the reason why you want to include stuff like “low-bridge” technologies in writing classes is to get students to see literacy differently.  The second half of the article has some interesting examples of how he has used technology to “transform” his own teaching.

I include Juhasz specifically for a couple of reasons.  First, she’s almost directly responding to the claims Wesch made in his video about the positive possibilities and potentials of YouTube, and that’s based in part on her own experiences.  As she notes in her chapter, she actually taught a class about and on YouTube a few years ago, and she received a fair amount of press about it.  I believe she made one of those lists that occasionally pop up in the popular media where people are flabbergasted that there is an actual college course about something.

Second, as she notes, her experiences with YouTube were not “great.”  Now, I don’t completely agree that the only two extremes on YouTube are amateurish junk and commercialist pap for the masses, and I am not exactly “coming from” the same place in terms of critically reading media.  I think it’s fair to say that Juhasz sees herself as a radical, avant garde, and activist filmmaker.  I suspect she is as critical of most things in the mainstream media as she is with YouTube.

Still, she has a point.  YouTube does seems to have a way of replicating popular culture in rather uncritical ways, and, given that it is owned by Google, it seems likely to me that the poor searchability of the site is on purpose.

I’ve made this little video heading into Thanksgiving week; you should watch it of course, but here’s basically what it covers:

• I’ve passed back grades and comments on Style Part 2, and you can check those out on emuonline.  I think people did pretty good on this project– good job!
• I explain here the process of revising the major projects for a better grade.  It’s also explained in the syllabus, too.
• Hopefully folks are getting close to done with these movies….

But the nice thing is that all of you are first and foremost (hopefully) working on your movie making projects.  I want to point out that on the schedule, the main thing going on right now this week and next week is time I have set aside for you to work on your collaborative video projects.  I do that on purpose because I know you all need time to coordinate meeting with each (in person and/or online), you need time to edit the project, etc.

But do use that time wisely!  As I point out on the schedule, ideally groups will have their videos posted on the class web site and ready for review before Thanksgiving break and we’ll talk about them on the Monday after break, too.

Speaking of using time wisely:  Style part 2 is due on Monday!  The dropbox for this unit is already set up– that is, it’s the same one that you used for Style part 1.  So what you want to do is return to that dropbox space and post the link to the Google doc version of your revised (based on peer review, that is) Style part 2 project, just like you’ve done before.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Finally about peer review.  For the most part, it seems like the process went better this third time, which isn’t that surprising to me.  Here are a few interesting observations from your blogs on this point:

in all honesty, I loved doing editing for the style project. both of the other projects in my group were great concepts and well done, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading them. I felt that there wasn’t even much editing to do because people put so much thought into their concepts that they carried themselves really well. also, I think we’ve all grown accustomed to working with google docs and therefore editing with it has been easier. my brother recently sent me a paper to edit on gdocs, and I was actually really mad at  him for not setting it so that I could edit it. I had to email him and tell him how to do it, which is ironic because only a few months ago I had no clue gdocs even existed. it was frustrating that my formatting didn’t come out quite as planned with gdocs, but I’m going to work with it and try to make it still look how I wanted it.

I think this is great because remember one of the reasons we’re using Google Docs is because one of the charges of this class is to teach/expose you to/get you to practice with technologies that might be useful for both writing and teaching.  So for me, this comment makes me feel like I’ve accomplished at least a part of my mission!

This peer review was my best one so far. I don’t know if it was because the project was a fun/ny one, or if it was the people in my peer review group, but this review was smooth. My two peers and I really got down to the nitty-gritty on this review, but I think that was because we all had really well-done drafts. I know at least for myself that my last two papers I was not as far along when the peer review came about. We all had really solid starts to our drafts this time, and really solid ideas as well. All of us chose topics that were fun, and that we enjoy, and that made me enjoy reading my peers drafts, and giving them feedback.

I could definitely feel a difference with the peer review process this time around. I felt more comfortable with Google docs, with saying positive and negative things, and just diving into the process with more abandon. I enjoyed asking questions and trying to point out areas that I thought needed clarification and I looked forward to receiving feedback from my reviewers. This time around, I engaged in more dialogue-like conversations with my peer review group. For example, I asked a question about an area of Megan’s guide that I didn’t understand. She explained what she meant and asked how she could make it more clear to me. So, I went back into her document and offered additional thoughts. Other times, all 3 members of my group commented on the same element and had a conversation about it. It just felt more natural in a way.

For me, both of these comments are speaking about the familiarity with Google docs (and of course the more you use a tool, the better you are going to be at it), and also about the familiarity with each other and the process of peer review.  Again, this fits with past experiences for me:  it’s a lot easier to do peer review after some practice and after you know your peers better.  And it also helps that this is one of the assignments that I think students get into because of the nature of the assignment and where we’re at in the class.

But not everybody thought this peer review was great, and I thought that one comment kind of summed up one of the reasons why that might be the case for some:

I kinda feel like every peer review has been the same for me. Some advice was good, other advice wasn’t. I do feel as if peer review is helpful and necessary, but sometimes people don’t care enough to edit each others paper lol.

Here’s the thing:  as a teacher, there’s lots of stuff I can do to try to get you to learn things in this class.  But one thing I can’t do– at least not automatically– is make you care.  And if you don’t care, well, there’s not much I can do.  So I guess what I would say is (along with everything else we’ve talked about in terms of peer review and such) you’ve got to find a reason to care.

In the meantime, watch this YouTube video by Michael Wesch (and be aware that it is about an hour long):

This is one of those things I have returned to quite a few times the last couple years, and it generally is “a hit” with students.  I think this is fairly straight-forward, well-done, and very interesting video that covers a lot of territory about teaching and about some of the implications of YouTube.  Among other things, he discusses the culture of YouTube (not just what but who is YouTube?), community, authenticity, and viral video.  Wesch is actually an anthropologist, but I think the sorts of things he’s talking about here are important to think about as we expand the places and means of writing.

If the link above doesn’t work, try this link to the YouTube page.

Group 1 is:

Megan A., Ryan F., Diamond J., Alyse L., Maxine W., Ana W.

Group 2 is:

Megan F., Leeann J., Lisa M., Amanda W., Tony W.

A few important things to think about/remind you all about with this:

• There are lots of ways to collaborate, which means that I am not expecting/assuming that everyone will do everything, and everyone might not all be able to meet at the same time and place.  In the past, I’ve had very successful collaborations where students were able to work together even when they were in different states.  So believe me, it is possible!
• I’ve set up a space on emuonline for each group to collaborate.  It’s under “Groups & Peer Review for Movie Project.”  That might be a good common place for people to get started.  However, there are lots of other ways to collaborate effectively without ever having to meet together.  Here are some examples of tools you might find useful:
• Doodle Calendar. This is a great tool for trying to find a common time where you might be able to meet either in person or electronically.  I use this to schedule meetings and the like all the time.
• Google + “Hangouts.”  Google Plus is sort of their version of Facebook.  It has its pros and cons, but one of the features I definitely like is called “hangouts.”  Basically, hangouts allow for up to 10 people to be logged in and chatting with web cams at the same time and place, which is pretty close to actually meeting in the same place. It’s super-easy to use.  First, sign up for a Google Plus account– and that’s no big deal since everyone already has a Google account.  Second, monkey around with your account a little bit and you’ll see that you can create a hangout.  So once your group finds a time that will work for everyone (that’s what Doodle might be for), then appoint someone to create a hangout that everyone can then join at that time.
• Google docs.  You’ve all been using this to collaborate in a sense all semester long as it is.  You can also use it to work on writing the same document– a script, for example.

That should get you all started.  Let me know what questions you might have, and if you need my help with cameras or any of the other issues, just let me know.