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Usability and Human Factors (WRT 419/619)
SU, Spring 2012
If you’ve ever clicked and clicked on a website, fruitlessly searching for information while feeling your blood pressure rise, then you’ve dealt with usability factors in digital texts. This course focuses on ways to ensure that websites provide a positive user experience. We’ll investigate user-centered design principles and explore a variety of research methods, including usability testing, heuristic evaluation, interviewing, and observation. Assignments include design analyses and project journals as well as collaborative design and delivery of testing of a client web site. The hybrid course format emphasizes online discussion and hands-on development work.
Digital Identities (WRT 426)
SU, Fall 2011
This hybrid course focused on practical and theoretical ways to address these central questions: In an age where social media pervades our lives and potential employers always google first, how might we effectively balance personal and professional personas online? How can we display our skills to their best advantage? Using basic rhetorical principles, we considered digital presences as an integral part of our professional portfolios. Using Google+ as our central course site, we developed branding and production plans, assessed existing digital profiles, created/revised presences on multiple platforms, and developed a digital portfolio. Our work was informed by readings on topics such as digital identity, online privacy, and short-form style.
Textual Machinery and Rhetorical Agency, Ancient to Digital (CCR 733)
SU, Spring 2011
Technologies of writing and reading are ubiquitous to the point of invisibility in our daily lives. As we go about mundane communicative tasks, we seldom pause to consider our essential tools: styluses, the alphabet, handwriting, paper, printing, screens, and pixels. These technologies have immense rhetorical consequences that influence the formation of knowledge, power, and community identities. In this course, we will explore intersections of rhetorical agency and the material aspects of textual production. We’ll begin at the beginning and work our way toward the digital age, using the following questions to focus our inquiry:
- How have humans historically created and refined technologies to meet communicative needs?
- How do technologies influence the form, content, and distribution of human writing?
- Can technologies (particularly communicative technologies) possess agency?
- How do publishing technologies shape the formation of communities and power?
- How have we rhetorically constructed narratives of our complex interactions with communicative technologies?
Information Design (WRT 400)
SU, Fall 2010
This hybrid course explored basic principles of information design and graphic design as well as intermediate-level technical communication. Since the class fulfilled a Histories & Theories requirement within the Writing major, we spent a fair amount of time considering historical examples and theoretical elements that make these sort of documents work. The course drew not only Writing majors, but also students from Aerospace Engineering; Hospitality & Food Service; Radio, TV, & Film; Biochemistry; and Graphic Design. In addition to weekly short development assignments, students produced multimodal instructions sets and information packets that addressed a variety of real-world information situations. Final projects included
- redevelopment of on-campus parking information for freshman orientation
- redesign of signage and ancillary wayfinding materials for Byrd Library
- design of on-campus recruiting materials for Meals On Wheels
- development of informative animation for SyrGuide
Syllabus (PDF) | Major Assignments | Course Site | Project Gallery
Technical Communication in the Digital Age (CCR 760)
SU, Spring 2010
This special-topics graduate seminar provided an introduction to the field of Technical Communication and a broad survey of contemporary issues, including content management, information design, usability, social media, distributed authorship, non-organizational technical communication, and relevant intellectual property issues. Guest speakers included Johndan Johnson-Eilola (Clarkson University), Jessica Reyman (Northern Illinois University), and Jenny Spadafora (Intuit Innovation Lab).
Emerging Technologies in Professional & Technical Writing (WRT 427/627)
SU, Spring 2010
This hybrid course drew students majoring in Writing & Rhetoric, Advertising, Communication & Rhetorical Studies, Biology, and English & Textual Studies. Additionally, one PhD student from the Composition & Cultural Rhetorics program participated. The class restructured, revised, and signficantly expanded the Hill Guide wiki begun by a Fall 2009 WRT 307 class. The site was renamed SyrGuide, moved to its own domain, and grew to include a number of areas, festivals, and activities in Greater Syracuse. The site continues to run on MediaWiki. In the process of managing the revisions and build, we employed social media applications such Twitter, del.icio.us, Write Maps, Project Pier, Flickr, YouTube, and GoogleMaps.
Professional Writing (WRT 307)
SU, Fall 2009 (2 sections), Fall 2010/Spring 2011 (online), 2011-2012
This required course introduces students from a wide variety of majors to common workplace writing conventions.
Pilot Development:
In 2010 and 2011, led development of department-wide course redesign. Course was redesigned with an focus on workplace writing genres, multimodal composition practices, and distributed collaboration.
Experimental Design:
In Fall 2009, two sections worked collaboratively to create online editions of a Newcomer’s Guide to the SU Hill Area and a Guide to Food Justice Resources in Syracuse. Both projects ran on MediaWiki and incorporated a variety of other apps, including Flickr and GoogleMaps.
Internship Supervisor: Revisions for 35W Bridge Wiki
UMN, Spring 2009
Supervised a senior Scientific & Technical Communications intern who revised the wiki on “Scientific & Technical Aspects of the 35W Bridge Collapse” originally created by the Spring 08 4662W class. Revisions included close editing, visual and textual style standardization, transition from pbWiki to a MediaWiki installation on university servers, and improved tagging taxonomy and storage for the visual archives.
Emerging Technologies in Scientific & Technical Comm (WRIT 4662W)
UMN, Spring 2008, Spring 2009
This writing-intensive, 4-credit, online course attracted graduate and undergraduate students from Scientific & Technical Communication, Organizational Communication, Biology, Microbiology, Nutrition, Urban Studies, Electrical Engineering, and Political Science. In 2008, the class worked together to plan and create an extensive wiki on scientific and technical aspects of the 35W bridge collapse. The 2009 project addressed scientific and technical aspects of the RNC protests that had just occurred in St. Paul. Students collaboratively engaged in information architecture design and project planning before developing individual site sectors in their area of interest. In the process, we explored a variety of technologies that facilitate asynchronous organizational interaction, such as Basecamp, Twitter, Thinkature, and deli.cio.us.
Internet Tools & Issues (WRIT 3401)
UMN, Spring 2007
This online course introduced students from a variety of majors to digital literacy practices and issues. We covered one issue and application each week, examining our interactions with technology and the Internet from a variety of critical perspectives. Students produced individual work in various formats, including web comics, podcasts, videos, image collages, avatars, blog posts, and wiki entries.
Syllabus (PDF) | Major Assignments (PDF) | Course Blog
Scientific & Technical Presentations (WRIT 3257)
UMN, Fall 2005, Spring/Fall 2006, Spring/Summer 2007
This traditional classroom course offered instruction in public speaking techniques, rhetorical theories, and presentation design to students from a variety of majors. Students completed informative, instructive, persuasive, and argumentative talks. Assignments incorporated presentation styles influenced by Lawrence Lessig, Steve Jobs, and Garr Reynolds, as well as integration of video and audio into slides.
Syllabus (PDF) | Major Assignments (PDF)
Technical & Professional Writing (WRIT 3562W)
UMN, Fall 2004, Spring/Summer 2005, Fall 2007, Fall 2008
This 4-credit, writing intensive, required course instructed students in basic organizational writing genres. Over the time, I transitioned the small-group instructions assignment from paper-based reports to wikis that included digital images and, occasionally, video or animations. I had the opportunity to teach the course online, in traditional classrooms, and in computer classrooms.
Syllabus (PDF) |Major Assignments (PDF)
Composition I (UALR RHET 1311)
2003—2004
This course was the pilot development for online first-year writing instruction in the department. It provided a survey of basic writing genres, including correspondance, descriptions, and several forms of expository essays. Additionally, students developed individual blogs and posted weekly reflective entries.
UALR Assistantships
Teaching Assistant to Charles Anderson, Spring/Fall 2003
Introduction to Nonfiction (RHET 3317)
Course Theme: Immersion Writing
Web-based course required for Professional and Technical Writing major
Collaborative course design with Dr. Anderson
Teaching Assistant to Lawrence Coleman, Fall 2002, Spring/Summer 2003
Introduction to Astronomy (ASTR 1301)
Introduction to Astronomy Lab (ASTR 1101)
Web-based core curriculum course
Responsible for editing course content, creating course FAQs, facilitating online discussions, grading student work