doing

For praxis in the subject, things to do, things that need to be done

Temporary Interruption

Adrian Miles

I will be overseas at a conference for the next week and so it is unlikely I will be doing much here. Enjoy the semester break, do the readings, and given the sorts of questions that have been occurring in classes, blogs, and so on, I’d recommend you read:

Shields, David. Reality Hunger: A Manifesto. New York: Vintage, 2011. Print. Extract, PDF

Reading 07

Adrian Miles

We’ve looked at some earlier history, then the implications of hypertext, and partly based on the things happening in class and the blogs, I think it is useful to read a general survey about technology and culture….

Extracts from Murphie, Andrew, and John Potts. Culture and Technology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print.

(one, and two, both PDFs)

Reading 06

Adrian Miles

We are continuing for a bit on the hypertext, but shifting from the writing side to some introductory material on its implications for narrative, and readers. While this reading is about hypertext, the issues described here pretty much have relevance for all multilinear (nonlinear) media.

They are two extracts from:

Douglas, J. Yellowlees. The End of Books — Or Books Without End?: Reading Interactive Narratives. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000.


(First reading, and the second reading)

HTML Exam

Adrian Miles

Next week is the HTML exam (password is comm2219). You must pass this to receive a result for network media. The exam is done in class. As a part of the exam you will also assess a class colleague’s completed work, confirming that all has been done correctly. You will be able to correct any mistakes found.

A random audit of completed work will be done. Any errors found (i.e. forms have been signed stating that work is finished and correct when it isn’t) will mean both the assessor and maker will record a fail. (We expect you to be able to read someone’s code as well as write your own, the simplest way people code is to read and reuse someone else’s. And you are expressing trust in you which we expect to be respected.)

The test is exactly as the page above describes, which you’ve been able to rehearse and practice with for several weeks. (Anecdotally students who are anxious practice and practice and do it on the day in a snap. A small group think they know what they’re doing and leave it for the day, they are the ones still making mistakes an hour into the class. In six years, on every occasion, they have been male, what’s that about?)

Questions? email.

Reading 05

Adrian Miles

So we’ve looked at some prehistory, now the theoretical work around the first big mutlilinear shapeshifter, hypertext. Why hypertext?

It is about story and text and we already know a lot about that. It uses a nice set of post-something theories that are relevant to media, communication, cinema, radio studies. It has, theoretically, done an outstanding job of thinking about multilinearity, form, readers, and writing.

So:

Key
Extracts from: Landow, George P. Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2006. Print. (low rez PDF)

Extra
Extract from: Bolter, Jay David. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Hillsdale (N.J.): Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991. Print. (low rez PDF)

Symposium 04 Questions

Adrian Miles

The questions of the week:

  1. How can you judge the validity of things on the internet?
  2. What are the limitations of network literacy? How does it differ to print literacy?
    • What limitations do both literacies share?
    • What strengths help compensate for each other?
    • Can they work together?
    • Are they destined to be rivals?
  3. Should network literacy be focused on in earlier education?
    • Can it be taught formally?
    • Is there a formula for blogging? Like how essays have one?
    • What do you think the solution is? Should we let kids teach themselves through doing?

Symposium 03

Adrian Miles

The questions raised are:

  1. How much freedom do we have when writing critically of others or others’ work before we become liable for defamation or copyright infringement?
  2. Copyright protects published content, however this protection does not extend to the ideas or concepts that this content was based on. At what point does content or “fact” become an idea? And vice versa? For example, if someone were to publish the ‘secret’ or methods to creating content (for example someone were to reveal a magician’s trick, or the recipe to the big mac secret sauce) does that constitute copyright infringement?
  3. How are copyright laws policed, and who is responsible for policing them? *in a culture of remix, re-blog and re-post…

Brady’s post is useful too.