- Find the locations of labs & classrooms
- Get contact and office hours information for the administrative personnel
- Learn about our mission & history
- Use the bibliography for research
- Read the director's annual reports
Cynthia Haynes to speak at CWRL
The CWRL is pleased to announce that Cynthia Haynes will be visiting the lab in October to give a talk titled “Avatar Nation Secedes, Cites Moral Panic as Grounds for Political Divorce.”
Haynes, who is an Associate Professor and Director of First-Year Composition at Clemson University, will discuss how ‘avatar nation’ is making headlines around the world. She will describe how the proliferation of avatars into mainstream culture situates academia on the bleeding edge of a nation desperate for someone to take the diplomatic lead in an historic rhetorical negotiation. In an unprecedented move, virtual citizens of World of Warcraft and Second Life have joined forces and seceded from all their native nation-states. According to her, the world is on the brink of an avatar mass exodus. It’s serious—it’s real. It’s going to tank the economy. It’s going to mean the end of the virtual world as we know it, right down to our Molten Core. If we don’t go virtual now, we will find ourselves on the threshold of rhetorical hell ... where only action heroes rule and hockey moms wait in the wings to take their place.
Haynes will speak on Thursday, October 9, 2008, at 4 p.m. in the Sinclair Suite (3.128) of the Texas Union on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. The talk will be followed by a question and answer session. Light refreshments will be served.
CWRL introduces software specialist program
In order to fulfill our mission to encourage innovative, sustainable, theoretically informed pedagogies and pedagogical resources for teaching sociotechnical writing, the CWRL is introducing the software specialist program in the fall of 2008. This program will consist of CWRL staffers dedicated to supporting the use of software programs or services by CWRL students and instructors. We are debuting the program with four specialists who will provide training in web accessibility, Drupal, alternative web design, and Adobe Creative Suite. These software specialists will be available for individual or small group consultations relating to their area of expertise. They will also be able to visit individual classes for presentations or group training.
If you are a student or instructor in the CWRL, stay tuned to this space for more information about the specialists, including the times they will be available in the lab and contact information.
The Tenth Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association
June 18-21, 2009
Saint Louis University
St. Louis, Missouri
Deadline for submission: January 15, 2009
From the CFP:
“Ecology”: a word derived from the Greek words meaning “household knowledge.” For the 2009 MEA convention, we seek papers on any aspect of media ecology. Special interest in the places and spaces of media interactions: Silicon Valley or St. Louis; screen, studio, library, or street. Does place matter? Local systems, larger systems, and changing relationships in the ecology of media. The role(s) of media in different ecological systems. The changing geography of media: Why do some forms emerge and others recede? The ethics of (not) setting boundaries. Living in information systems: Are we the center, the web, the flaneur? What is the I in the culture of iPods, iPhones, and iGames? Because the 2009 MEA Convention will meet at Saint Louis University, where Walter J. Ong was a faculty member, papers on any aspect of his work are especially welcome.
Digital Media and Learning Competition 2008
Competition Theme: Participatory Learning
Application Deadline: 5 pm PDT/8 pm EDT, October 15, 2008
From the proposal description:
Drawing upon the innovative winning projects from the first Digital Media and Learning Competition, the theme for this year’s Competition is Participatory Learning. There are two award categories: Innovation in Participatory Learning and Young Innovators. All proposals submitted to the Digital Media and Learning Competition, in either category, should be for support of digital projects that engage participatory learning in an integral way.
Participatory Learning includes the ways in which new technologies enable learners (of any age) to contribute in diverse ways to individual and shared learning goals. Through games, wikis, blogs, virtual environments, social network sites, cell phones, mobile devices, and other digital platforms, learners can participate in virtual communities where they share ideas, comment upon one another's projects, and plan, design, advance, implement, or simply discuss their goals and ideas together. Participatory learners come together to aggregate their ideas and experiences in a way that makes the whole ultimately greater than the sum of the parts.
'Knowledge Engineering Review' special issue: Visual Reasoning and Knowledge
Visual Reasoning and Knowledge
Deadline for submission: February 28, 2009
Knowledge Engineering Review (a journal normally dedicated to the development of the field of artificial intelligence), plans a special issue on visual reasoning and knowledge. The topic is to be understood broadly. We welcome papers covering pictures, diagrams, thought experiments, etc. that connect to some form of reasoning (as opposed to mere illustration). And we welcome a broad range of approaches: philosophical, historical, anthropological, psychological, computational, and so on. Papers should be of interest and intelligible to a broad audience, including: working scientists and mathematicians, philosophers and historians of science, anthropologists, sociologists, and cognitive scientists.