I think that wikis are an important and fun method to incorporate into the classroom. To start, wikis allow students the flexibility of a cooperative, online learning environment. They also provide students with the opportunity to self-publish, fostering a sense of pride in a finished product that can be viewed online. Thus, wikis allow for the individuality of self-learning in a cooperative environment. In addition, by creating a crowd-sourced model of learning, wikis also create a platform which follows the theory of the Socratic method: students “debate” or “discuss” through both print and visual rhetoric through wikis. Here is a wiki that I like from Skidmore College about Greek Tragedy:  http://academics.skidmore.edu/wikis/Greek_Tragedy/index.php/Main_Page 

According to Kevin Parker and Joseph Chao, wikis also create opportunities which support constructivist learning: “Constructivism is approached from a variety of perspectives in wiki research, including reflective activity and communal or social constructivism” (59).  This type of reflective learning allows for the growth of metacognition in important ways, and I also think that it allows learners to become more in-tune in general with their strengths and weaknesses as both learners, and perhaps too,  people.   There are so many effective uses of wikis, and I think that by incorporating them within the classroom you are not only exposing students to a greater learning experience, but you are also acclimating them to an online environment that they must learn how to traverse in order to be successful in the future.

In addition to wikis, I also think that eportfolios are a useful online tool to utilize within the classroom.   I’ve actually seen teachers link individualized eportfolios to a classroom wiki too, which I think is an effective way to display the work of a group of students over a period of time.   Again, like wikis, eportfolios help students develop a sense of ownership and pride in their work. In addition, eportfolios enhance procedural learning, helping students understand learning as a process over time.  I enjoyed thinking about all of the ways in which eportfolios can be used as cited within the Parkes article.

I especially think that allowing students the ability to problem-solve becomes a very important asset of using eportfolios and most types of online methods.  The article states, “With increasing opportunities to share and collaborate in class and out, with the use of blogs, the discussion threads, and e-mail communication, students often problem-solve issues and find and share solutions rather than just make a ‘one-stop’ learning goal, such as, ‘What is on the test next week?'”(108). Thus, students become accountable in new and important ways, and they have the agency to think outside of the box in order to find solutions.

The use of online teaching tools such as wikis and eportfolios also suggest the ways in which the classroom is changing in prominent ways. Linked to this discussion, of course, are the changing discourses and methods required in understanding how the Internet and online learning are modifying the ways people think and interact. The BBC episode “The Virtual Revolution” unpacks that very issue: the episode asks, “What are the web’s revolutionary effects on human beings?” The episode investigates whether or not contemporary society, and especially children, are becoming consumed by the Internet.  Accordingly, living with “generation web” involves understanding the social interactions that social media cultivates, and in addition, understanding the feedback loop which requires a constant movement of action and reaction between person and machine. The episode then examines whether or not generation “Homo Interneticus” is indeed drowning in a sea of information, or perhaps growing from the associative linking that is crucial to Internet interactions.

Understanding both the benefits and weaknesses of “hyperlinked” associative learning becomes a crucial part of this discussion: does associative linking keep our brain “jumping” in productive ways?  The web’s associative platform allows students to interact and work together in new ways, creating a global learning environment; thus what emerges is the notion of a global brain.  In all, “The Virtual Revolution” highlights the importance of studying the impact of the Internet on current and future society. It highlights how the Internet holds a mirror up to human nature, allowing us to reflect upon the good and the bad. Furthermore, studying the Internet and its impact also allows us to perceive how the newest generation is indeed evolving. Thus, the episode’s resounding message asks whether the Internet will change human nature for the better. I am hopeful that it will.

In Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street (1853), Melville constantly manipulates the reader’s expectations. A self-reflexive commentary on the life and death of reading, Bartleby’s letter-reading and life-writing (or not-writing, because, after all, Bartleby “prefers not to”) critiques our understanding of reading and a nature of “work.”  We find ourselves today refiguring our work and practice in the digital age. As teachers and scholars, it becomes important to situate reading and learning by teaching texts anew: we need to move ourselves away from Melville’s dead-letter office, and rather, posit learning within moving texts and contexts that define modern life.

Douglas Eyman covers a range of methodological and pedagogical forms for digital rhetorics in the final section of his text. His concerns regarding the engagement of multiple platforms and methods emphasize not only an expanse of differentiation techniques, but also reaffirm his assertion that the multimodal and individualized perspectives of digital rhetorics must be accounted for within teaching practice.  The digital rhetoric courses that Eyman describes in order to give a range of views highlight the principles and practices of instructors who focus on both theory and production.   Of the three courses depicted, I like Eyman’s own course the best; with a focus on production, Eyman’s method immerses students into the actual theoretical and experiential space of inquiry. Thereby, students become acclimated through  constructive educational practice. By experiencing the multiple perspectives of digital rhetorics, students have the ability to uncover theoretical and practical facets of their own production and practice within the expanding field of digital rhetorics.

Eyman also cites Jim Zappen’s article “Towards a Digital Rhetoric” in order to highlight the ways in which Zappen’s focus coincides with his own; Eyman delineates Zappen’s main aims: “refiguring rhetorical traditions for digital texts, defining characteristics of new media, developing digital identities, and forming online communities.” By focusing on the categories of work within digital rhetoric discourse, Zappen also depicts the field of digital rhetoric production, practice, and theory as a method of inquiry. I think this is also an effective way to think about digital practice and discourse because of its variable nature. The digital world provides a valuable infrastructure to so many parts of our lives, and understanding the  infrastructures of discourse and rhetoric relies on online communities of learners who understand and engage the mercurial nature of those infrastructures.   Plus, this type of engagement also calls for a continued inquiry into the affordances of new media texts.

In addition, Eyman’s philosophies also stress the mobility of the learner by grounding method within interactivity which he renders through the work of several scholars.   Aside from focusing on student interactivity, the final sections of Eyman’s text focus on a variety of remix projects along with works that underscore creative appropriation and editing. He reinforces the creative works of scholars and students who are engaged in rescripting and refiguring texts and media into new forms.   The multimodal content of the projects are pretty impressive.  After reading this text in its entirety, I think that Eyman effectively demonstrates the ways in which classical and contemporary rhetorical aims come into play when thinking about constructing theories and methods for digital rhetorics.  I also like the ways in which this website by Claire Lauer of Arizona State University deals with understanding and defining digital rhetorics through a rose metaphor attributed to Juliet’s famous “What’s in a name?” soliloquy in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet:  http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/17.1/inventio/lauer/index.html

The emphasis in this week’s class on digital storytelling, also, I think brings to light Eyman’s aims of remixing new and old. Digital storytelling seems to be an important area to situate teaching practice because it reinforces digital literacy, multimodal forms, and a visual/textual forum that promotes creativity. Also, it can be used within a variety of classes for a variety of reasons. 

Also, as a teacher, I think that the procedural phases of learning that are associated with such a project are beneficial. Students have the opportunity to reflect upon their own creative process while revising as they go. This most mirrors a real-life work space where people are able to reassess and reconsider their own weaknesses.

Finally, this blog by Scott Garbacz offers some great teaching ideas about how to man “the digital divide” in the classroom: http://bloggingpedagogy.dwrl.utexas.edu/content/canvas-tutorial-or-how-not-enforce-digital-divide

“We are as free as birds. Only the birds aren’t free. We are as committed as birds and identically.” —John Cage

Thinking about the heartbreaking story of Aaron Swartz this week calls to mind the John Cage quotation mentioned above. Aaron’s activism and groundbreaking work in media and technology which results in his tragic fall highlights the corruption that governmental controls have on access to education and information. Aaron’s story is one that stresses how  different types of crimes can be conflated in unjust ways; or, how society restricts civil liberties.

In addition, the mourning of Aaron’s life also brought to mind John Durham Peters’s recent book, The Marvelous Clouds: Towards a Philosophy of Elemental Media. Part of the argument in Peters’s book brings to light the ways in which media has become part of an infrastructure that not only discloses information and messages, but also reflects the ways in which existence and expression merge. Peters argues how media embodies Donna Haraway’s concept of naturecultures (one word): thus, communication becomes a disclosure of being, and Peters investigates how this reconstructs the ways we think about the intertwining of nature and culture (and other binaries that follow suit). Thus, for Peters, media crafts existence, reinforcing a movement from the figure to the ground.

I thought about Aaron’s life in conjunction with this book because of the ways in which his existence became so strongly documented by his online presence and by his information activism.  Like Peters, it seems that for Aaron, media held ecological, existential, and ethical imports. Moreover, the “marvelous clouds” that represent the ethereal conditions of Peters’s notions about media, also represent Aaron’s lasting legacy as “the internet’s own boy.”

Certainly, Aaron’s story can be used as an example when discussing some of Lawrence Lessig’s claims in Remix: most notably how notions about copyright must be redefined in our current age for younger generations: “In a world in which technology begs all of us to create and spread creative work differently from how it was created and spread before, what kind of moral platform will sustain our kids, when their ordinary behavior is deemed criminal?” (xviii).  Lessig calls for a remapping and remixing of our “cultures of creativity” in order to take into account what creativity and autonomy mean in our technological moment and the future (18). 

Throughout the text, Lessig’s movement among market economies, changing technologies, and cultures past and present develops an extraordinary lineage of the transitory faces of culture.  In addition, I think his position on the current hybrid nature of creativity, and the “remixing” of art forms through technology shifts our current ideas about what it means to be in what has otherwise been called a culture of consumption, or “copying.”  Furthermore, thinking about remix as a collage or montage of creativity also suggests a primacy of meaning  leveraged by the motivation to synthesize and build something new (76).   To consider art and culture this way fosters a way of thinking about individual expression within a community of ideas. I think this book is great.

The controversial issues surrounding gaming praxis question  whether or not gaming can foster experiential realities. Despite the many positive educational attributes of gaming, as supported by James Paul Glee, Tom Bissell points to a dark, stereotypical realm of gaming that he likens to his own cocaine addiction. I think that part of Bissell’s intent is to point to gaming’s superlative reach past dated deconstructive theories that interrelate the reader and the writer—his assertion that gaming cultivates a sense of liberation and autonomy that even brings about, in his words, “soul-scouring questions,” however, becomes skewed through the addictive tendencies of his practice; this further interrogates whether gaming is more hurtful than helpful, and more addictive than educational.

The ethics of gaming intricately interweave virtual hyper-reality with existential and ontological complexities, forthrightly placing precedence on the dislocation of active versus passive existence. I am interested in the ways in which gaming specifically alters psychosocial dimensions of actuality; and more importantly, how gaming affects the displacement of offline activities and social relationships.

One complication of Bissell’s article “Video Games: The Addiction,” delineates the ways in which Bissell himself seems to have a generally unstable, addictive personality—even without the games.  He depicts himself as a loner who moves from city-to-city with no stable network of family or friends: an ideal candidate for video game addiction. His claim that video games provide what nothing else can—except maybe cocaine—however, becomes weakened when he explains his obvious reservations about Grand Theft Auto IV: “There are times when I think GTA IV is the most colossal creative achievement of the last 25 years, times when I think of it as an unsurpassable example of what games can do, and times when I think of it as misguided and a failure. No matter what I think about GTA IV, or how I am currently regarding it, my throat gets a little drier, my head a little heavier, and I know I am also thinking about cocaine.”

Dovetailing cocaine and games certainly does emphasize gaming’s unstable relationship to healthy human habits. This seems emphasized when checking out Niko Bellic of GTA IV: yikes!

However, thinking about Bissell’s life, maybe there are some positive attributes to his gaming addiction: gaming seems to uncover Bissell’s denial of some of his own personal problems.  His downfall into gaming addiction, perhaps, points out addictive facets of his personality that were just floating beneath the surface of life: as he states, “Playing GTA IV on coke for weeks and then months at a time, I learned that maybe all a game can do is point at the person who is playing it, and maybe this has to be enough.” Thus, I wonder whether or not “the pointing” that gaming does for Bissell becomes a revelation of sorts.

I also think that there is an important difference to be made between gaming engagement versus gaming addiction. Part of our discussions about gaming and its educational advantages point to the constructive mental motivation and communication that gaming provides its players. However, I think that when gaming activity is specifically used to alleviate loneliness or to put off real world tasks then it complicates its efficacious advantages. If gaming begins to foster feelings of dissociation and distortion, and thus, further defer negative feelings associated with real-life activity then it becomes nothing more than an escapist activity that postpones underlying personal and social problems.

I do think that the dissociative imagination that develops through gaming activity can be extremely interesting and important. Gaming has become such a worldwide phenomenon that it is regarded as an athletic activity, a sport of sorts.

The reality of cosplay and competitive gaming is a very true reality:  http://www.vice.com/video/esports-part-one

In addition, Bissell does make some really interesting points about the important intersections between gaming and storytelling in this interview in The New Yorker.   He describes his experience with the game The Witness as virtually literary: “It’s an incredibly personal, strange, and moving work of art. It’s a first-person walker, I would say, in that you have the typical first-person viewpoint but you don’t have any tools or items. You have only your virtual eyes and your non-virtual brain to help you out.”  

In the interview, Bissell accentuates not only the immersive qualities of contemporary video games, but also their divergence away from the games of the past: “whatever is happening in video games is going to split these two kinds of games off from each other, and so storytelling games are, eventually, going to become their own thing.”

So, my thoughts on the topic of gaming in general are still pretty mixed. I think that in some ways gaming hyperbolizes the complexities of our world in crucial ways.   In addition, its focus on engagement and interactivity are extremely useful in terms of aesthetic creativity and expression.  Gaming can also point to important emotional intelligence that drives emotional reasoning. Most critics even claim that the emotional engagement of gaming trumps that of novels and film.  The video below supports this by showing a group of senior citizens playing the game, The Last of Us.

However, I am always afraid of gaming’s addictive elements and the possibility that it is an activity which can promote unhealthy behaviors.

Questions:

1.) Are video games art? Explain. If yes, how do the performative aspects of video games complicate our relationship to art? State some advantages and disadvantages.

2.) In the article, Bissell claims that he has deferred his writing activity for his gaming addiction.  How can these activities be used in conjunction to foster creativity and growth?

3.) Bissell claims, at one point, that the violent nature of Vice City’s subject matter has inspired crime sprees. Can we counter this argument?  Have you heard other arguments that support or refute Bissell’s claims?

4.) When describing the differences between film and games, Bissell claims that gaming alters moral perception because of the ways it converts narrative into active experience.  However, in what ways can this active experience create unwanted stress?