Category: Assignments

Final Reflection

In Authentic Learning in the Digital Age: Engaging Students Through Inquiry, Larissa Pahomov writes, “For student reflection to be meaningful, it must be metacognitive, applicable, and shared with others,” and defines metacognitive reflection as taking the process of reflection “to the next level because it is concerned not with assessment, but with self-improvement: Could this be better? How? What steps should you take?” (read full article here). In light of this assertion, I would like you to write a metacognitive reflection on the final project. This reflection should address the following questions, with an aim to identify how you could improve your work.

  1. What did you learn through the process of creating and presenting this project? How did this project help you synthesize and apply the topics we covered throughout the semester? Do you have suggestions to improve this assignment?
  2. What readings, activities, assignments, and discussions did you find particularly helpful, informative, and engaging in this class this semester? What would you suggest be changed to improve this course next time it is offered?
  3. Bonus question: if we were to rename this course in the future, what should this course be called? What title would appeal to students?

You may expand or add to these guidelines in any way you wish. This is your opportunity to speak directly to me about what you learned in this course.

This will be submitted as a Google Doc (title: finalreflection_yoursection_yourlastname for example finalreflection_381_licastro) that you share with me upon completion. You must invite me as an editor (with privileges to edit, not just read or comment). You will complete this by the day of our scheduled final exam, 5/11 at 4:15pm.

Also, please include this statement at the bottom of the document and fill in your name and response:

I ____________ do/ do not give Dr. Amanda Licastro permission to use my final project as an example in scholarly presentations and publications.

Pitch Feedback

On each pitch post, answer the following questions in the comment section.

  1. What excites you about this project and why?
  2. What do you want to see more of and why?
  3. What additional evidence does the audience need to be convinced that this research is complete?

The Future of the Book

Final Assignment

Together we have explored the history of media through theory and practice. For this assignment you will engage in “reflective design,” defined by Hancock et al as “promot[ing] critical inquiry over usability and exploratory prototyping over fully realized productions.” You can do this by beginning with the current state of publishing and then projecting potential solutions – or perhaps evolutions – of these tools to enhance the reading experience in the future. We are specifically concentrating on the tools of publishing for this project, since this course has focused on media we use to communicate. Essentially, it is your job to imagine the future of the book. However, these are meant to be visions of the future – featuring a balance of imagination and practicality

This project will be broken into parts:

Stage 1: The Pitch                 

  • Create a proposal for your “design fiction” project ( 450-500 words, 3-5min presentation)
  • Introduce the product and explain its purpose – this is the time to dream big!
  • Explain what need this product will fill that is not met by currently available technology and how it builds on current technology(ies)
  • Prove this item has a customer base, and be specific about your target audience
  • Imagine the process and materials it would take to manufacture and distribute this product – even if these do not exist yet
  • Provide evidence of preliminary research – especially evidence that this product does not currently exist already (Use MLA citation formatting for in-text citations and works cited entries)
  • Present this idea is a “Shark Tank” style pitch in under 5 minutes

Stage 2: Annotated Bibliographies

  • Using Zotero, you will build a research base for this project
  • Each person must contribute at least 3 resources to our group library
  • Each source must include a correctly formatted MLA citation
  • Each source must be summarized and evaluated in the “notes” section

Stage 3: Final Proposal

  • Create a dossier for your proposal. This should serve as the complete representation of your product. Create a 5-7 page description that features your research (properly cited in MLA format) and connections to what you have learned in this course.
  • You paper should include the following:
    • Purpose
    • Audience
    • Technical specifications (what products are you modeling this on, how will the user interface with the product, and include a mock-up/prototype)
    • Implementation plan (advertising/marketing/long term vision)
  • Include some kind of prototype or mock-up of your tool. Use multimedia to your advantage!
  • Include a full works-cited page for all materials used (including media)

Additional Notes:

Each student must meet with me in pre-scheduled conferences. I am also available to consult with you on your individual product pitches during office hours. This description is subject to change after we discuss your ideas.

Zotero

A Quick Guide to Zotero

zotero handout (click to download)

Why Zotero?

  • COLLECT

Grab information from an item displayed in your web browser with one click!

  • ORGANIZE

Drag and drop imported citations into folders. Use tags to further categorize your items.

  • CITE

Drag and drop bibliographies into a word processing document or use a toolbar in Microsoft Word and Open Office Writer to insert citations and bibliographies.

  • SYNC

Keep all your information backed up and accessible on multiple computers.

  • COLLABORATE

With a free Zotero.org account you can create and share group libraries.

_____________________________________________________

How to use Zotero?

  1. To create a Zotero account
    Go to zotero.org and click on “register” in the top right corner. Follow the instructions to create a free account. When you validate your email address you’ll be asked to open Zotero and change your password in preferences.
  2. Making Zotero work for you
    Now that you have a Zotero account you can add and upload citations to your library manually, however a lot of the cool functionalities that make Zotero easy and awesome are not yet available to you. You’ll need to download Zotero onto your personal computer. If you use Firefox as your regular browser, choose “Zotero for Firefox”; otherwise choose the “Zotero Standalone” with the browser extension that matches the browser you use most often (ex. Chrome or Safari). Once it is downloaded, open it up and click on the gear menu, choose “preferences”, then choose the “sync” tab where you will log in using the account you just created.

Once you’ve created an account, you can explore these great tutorials (https://www.zotero.org/support/screencast_tutorials) on the Zotero.org website.

  1. Using Zotero to Cite Your Sources
    Chances are, if you spend time reading an article or book that you find interesting you’ll want to refer back to it more than once in the course of your academic career. Zotero lets you easily store sources that look promising as you’re doing Internet research, and it helps you to organize them in multiple ways.

Adding sources: Once you’ve downloaded Zotero, when you arrive at webpages that contain bibliographic information a Zotero icon will likely show up in the top right hand corner of the address bar.

What if I don’t see an icon? In the Zotero pane, find the button that looks like a page with a little plus symbol: it’s next to the big green plus-sign. That will create a new item from the current page. Equivalently, you can right-click to “save page as a Zotero item.”

You can also change the item type in the right side of the Zotero pane, or even add subtypes like “comic.”

Already have an item on your computer? Try “store copy of file.” This will sync it up with the Zotero server. You can also then right-click on the new item to try to “retrieve metadata for pdf.”

There are also apps for Android and iOS smartphones that let you scan bar codes to add books to your Zotero library.

Tags vs. Collections (folders)

When you add something to your library, it will automatically be added to My Library and to any collection/folder you’re currently viewing. NB: This applies as well to group libraries: if you’ve selected a group collection in the Zotero pane, then any item you add will be shared with everyone in the group. And if you haven’t selected the group collection, it won’t be shared with them. But you can always drag something from one folder to another: it will be copied to the new folder without being removed from the old one.

What’s the difference between a collection and tags?

Think of a collection as a single bibliography, at least in potentia: all the sources you consulted for a given research project. The reason to put these sources together in one folder is to make it easier to select-all.

Tags, on the other hand, are per-source descriptors that travel with each source wherever they might go, and make it easy to find connections between projects – or even to find new projects.

Once you’ve built a Zotero library full of sources, you can use Zotero to construct citations and bibliographies while you’re writing a paper!

One-off citations (e.g. forum posts): Just drag and drop a source item from the center Zotero pane into anywhere you can enter text: it will automatically take on the format you set under Gear > Preferences > Export.

Bibliographic projects (e.g. an orals list): Select the items in the center Zotero pane, then right click and choose “Create Bibliography from selected items.”

Longer projects (e.g. articles, papers, dissertations): If you have integrated citations, you’ll want to use a word processor plugin, which will allow you to rapidly convert your footnotes to parenthetical citations, MLA to APA to ACS, what-have-you. Zotero Standalone comes bundled with plugins for MS Word, or you can download it separately for the Firefox version; there’s also an OpenOffice plugin.

Either way, you’ll have to activate it within Word; how depends on your OS:

  • On a Mac, head to Tools menu > Templates and Add-Ins > Zotero.dot. It’ll add a little Zotero toolbar, which you may or may not be able to add to the ribbon. (Depends on your version of Word.) If you accidentally lose the toolbar, you can get it back from View > Toolbars > Zotero Bibliographic Management.
  • On a PC, hit the round Office button > Word Options > Add-Ins > Manage > Word Add-Ins > Zotero.dot. It’ll add an Add-Ins tab to the ribbon, containing the same buttons as on the Mac.

Hover over each button in the new toolbar to see what it does; it’s pretty self-explanatory from that point. But, just to be safe:

  • Click “insert citation” to search your library for a citeable item.
  • To add page numbers, click on a name you’ve selected.
  • Press Enter to insert when you’re ready.
  • You won’t get a bibliography until you select “Insert Bibliography”; once you do, it will autopopulate the bibliography with the items you’ve cited.

What does the “remove codes” button do, and why use it? When you’re ready to submit to a journal or professor, use this button to convert the citation placeholders into real text, so you know it won’t get screwed up by their citation manager software. Just be sure to give it a new filename with File > Save As, so you can quickly switch citation styles later if you want (using the Set Doc Prefs button).

Book Traces with Andrew Stauffer was SO COOL!

Last class, we had the honor of having Andrew Stauffer conduct a lecture about his project on book tracing. We were also able to attend his talk in the library. Both talks were extremely eye opening and informational. Throughout the paper I will discuss types of materials that were often stored in books, the content of marginalia, the purpose of further research and what I found most interesting from the talk.

First and foremost I appreciated Stauffer’s passion for his project and movement because it made me more inclined to learn about it and ways in which I could be involved. Stauffer began his presentation by showing the audience pictures of artifacts that he and his students found in books. A common practice in the 1800s was storing locks of hair on the inside of books. Some stored locks of hair to remember their child’s first haircut, or as a memento from one distant friend to another. There was a needle and thread found in books that once belonged to a seamstress. Flowers and other botanicals were mostly found in books of poems. It dawned on me that, although it seemed strange to me, people stored personal items in books because it was always with them. Sort of how our phones are always with us- it is like an extension of ourselves. It was common for people to adventure on their day-to-day lives with a book in hand. It is not as common today, as social media has become our source of entertainment, and the access of books is now at our finger tips.

Before books were simplified to an app on our cell phones, physical books were a convenient way for people to interact and communicate with one another. Books served many purposes for soldiers in war. For instance, Stauffer showed pictures of written memories between two veterans, a soldier’s geometrical calculations of what angle he should point his missile to successfully shoot a target, and even one troop’s location on an unfinished sketch of a map. It was interesting to see the differences in content and use of marginalia in specific books. Like the love notes written back and forth between two lovers in a book of poems, or the thoughts of a grieving mother who just lost a child, or son to war. Often found in personal books were meanings of what lines in the poem meant to the owner, along with how he/ she identified with the content. Some owners even crossed out parts of the text and wrote it in their own words, which I found to be hilarious. It displayed humor, self-pity, and sense of self in a society. Shauffer showed us one example of a young woman who questioned her faith in God, herself and “mankind” who did everything to stifle and suppress her. I found this very interesting because despite my passion for empowering women, I always had this misconception of what women were like centuries and decades ago. Many assume that because women were suppressed and kept from gaining higher education that we would not find many traces of them in books, but we did- and they had a lot to say. Many of the traces found today were written by women. This information was the biggest take away piece for me. I would love to find out if there are book traces of famous women leaders and if they have personal, case by case information leading up to historic events such as women gaining the right to vote and furthering their education. For this very purpose, book traces is a movement built upon more than sentimental value.

There is significance in knowing to whom books once belonged to, and the content of their annotations because it gives us an understanding of what people were like and how they interacted with each other. We also see how books have evolved from physical to a digital form with textual-like characteristics to simulate the real thing. For instance, instead of finding an imprint of flowers in today’s books, we would find digital illustrations of a flower pinned on a page, or leaf designs around the trim of a picture. Techniques of book markers or imprints of flowers are still used today, in this way. These little details are still important to us because we still hold on to them even as we evolve into a more digital way. There is much meaning to be found in book traces that we will never discover until we look beyond the pages.

 

Book Traces event with Andrew Stauffer

The Book Traces event was enlightening. Andrew Stauffer brought a handful of books to our class from the time period of 1800-1923. These books, which he gave to each of us, were special because they contained authentic marginalia from that time period. In my book–a book of poetry from the 1800s–someone had underlined various lines of sad content. There was only one written marginalia in the book–a date, which Professor Stauffer explained was most likely the date things went wrong with the writer’s relationship.

Professor Stauffer explained the marginalia in the other books as well. For example, Ryan’s book had marginalia which effectively tried to alter the story printed in the book. So funny and extensive were the alterations that the class joked the writer must’ve been an SNL writer before SNL existed. Another book, called Reveries of a Bachelor, had written in it notes from the reader who clearly found the book relatable.

Next, Professor Stauffer pulled up a slideshow of images of books with marginalia. He read the marginalia to us and subsequently told us the stories of the writers based on his and his students’ research. We learned that a lot of the books that had been donated to UVA were sent from homes of Confederate families. The most touching marginalia recounted how the writer, drunk and feeling sentimental, purchased a book which reminded him of the past with his friend. This marginalia was in letter form and was gifted to the recipient with the book.

At the actual Book Traces speech, Professor Stauffer covered much of the same content, since more students and staff were present. However he also included new information. For example, he talked about why books older than 1800 weren’t included in his research (because they were stored away in vaults due to their fragility and rarity). He also talked about flowers as marginalia–often left in books to commemorate loved ones or to illustrate excerpts dealing with flora.

This all deals a lot with the content of our course because we have been learning about how ancient, or simply old, practices are carried over in today’s publishing/technology. Professor Stauffer made a profound statement about how the marginalia between two lovers in the same book was much like how we may text each other today.

Transcription: A travler’s last words to a love one

To Mardirine Regales,

Much have happened in the realms of gold, and many States and Kingdoms sseen around many western islands have I been which bring into reality to hold off. Had I been told that Homer ruled as Luis, Demure? Yet, could I never judge what this could mean. Title I Heau and Heferman speak aloud and hold. Then, I felt like some vulture of the skies when a new planet savant hits, or like a scout with regale eyes. He landed at the Pacific and all Luis’ men look at each other with a world surmise silent whom a peak in serine.

The day is gone and the men are gone. Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hands and softer breast, warm breathe tranquil whisper and tender tone.

When the dust Holiday…

Faded the… of and all lauded shores.

Faded the beauty from my hands.

Faded the beauty from my view.

Faded the voice,

As I have less… through to day

He’ll let me suffer- seeing I last and pray.

 

Timeline Assignment

Together as a class you will create an interactive timeline of publishing invention and innovation. Each of you will be responsible for adding 3 items to the timeline. Here are some examples to choose from, but you may suggest others:

Hieroglyphics – Shanice
Papyrus- Shanice
Vellum – Grace
The codex – Ryan R
Paper – Grace
The Greek alphabet
Folios – Marcus
The monastic scriptoria
Stationers
Moveable type – Juwan
Bookbinding – Juwan
Steam Press – Cory
Gutenberg Press
Pencil – Grace
Quill and ink – Lanett
Newspapers -Cory
The Republic of Letters – Juwan
Typewriter – Ryan R
Copyright – Lanett
The computer mouse – Ryan R
Creative Commons – Marcus
IBM – Marcus
OCR
Email
GNU Operating System
Apple II
Windows – Cory
MOSAIC
ARPANET
American Online (AOL)
Hypertext
Project Gutenberg – Lanett
TEI – Shanice
Blogs

Once you have selected three inventions, you will compose a timeline entry that includes:

  • A date range and title.
  • A thorough description, with MLA citations, that provides the history, impact, and context for this item. This should be between 300 and 500 words.
  • An image, video, or map that best represents this item. You must have citation information for each item, and they all must be free to use or share.

Here is our spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C4GPoW7NjVvPy-WZo5pAOmBA_PBQCFN__Z7UapBdVXc/edit?usp=sharing

Note: Don’t change the column headers, don’t remove any columns, and don’t leave any blank rows in your spreadsheet.

Here are guidelines: https://timeline.knightlab.com/docs/using-spreadsheets.html

Here is an example: https://timeline.knightlab.com/examples/user-interface/index.html

This is worth 30 points = 20% of your grade.

You will post extended drafts (between 500 and 700 words), with media, for each entry by 2/23 on our course site. Use tag “timeline” and category “blog.” You will present your entries on 2/28.