Tag Archives: SIF

Status: Doctor

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Yesterday I became a doctor.

I went and celebrated with a few friends who are also highly educated, and I admit, it felt a bit like this:

And so this is my final official blog as a Student Innovation Fellow, but I do plan to continue keeping a blog chronicling my journey through a tech world as a Humanities student at https://valerievisual.wordpress.com/ – which admittedly needs a revamp, and a cleanup before I start to use it again. That is not, however, the focus of this entry.

The point of this entry is to detail the status of my life as a doctor at this point in my journey.

Yesterday, my committee signed my paperwork.

My dissertation is titled: The Value of Scholarly Writing: A Temporal-Material Rhetorical Analysis of Google Documents

It analyzes how interactive writing software (IWS) like Google Documents serve to forefront functions of interactivity between writers, and by doing so, reshape and create Western values surrounding the academic writing process that are uniquely post-industrial. The whole thing aligns rather well with the work we do as Student Innovation Fellows, and a lot of my work as a SIF informed some of my theory and analysis.

My work as a Computers and Composition scholar has been validated over and over again in my SIF work. I have worked with cloud computing for nearly two years, theorizing how it alters users perception of time and space, and right when I am feeling like I might be saying nothing new, a SIF colleague who I respect very highly made the following statement, “Whenever I’m working on a Google Doc, I always want to save, and you don’t have to in the cloud. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get used to that.” I realized that if this colleague is still not used to the save features of cloud software, then I must be saying something fresh.

And again, when I learned how much fun it is to make simple data into visualizations, as I did for Marni Davis, and when I turned Oscar Rieken’s resume into an infographic, a whole new world of seeing opened up to me. I look at information much differently now, thanks to my projects. This factored in to the way I analyzed the features of Google Documents within my dissertation pages.

Working as a SIF also gave me the opportunity to leave the usual spaces of Humanities PhD life and peek inside the Information Technology world. The links between coding and composition have astounded me. As I began to teach  myself HTML and CSS, I began to understand the grammar and syntax behind coding reflect that of natural languages. Not only that, but I am beginning to see the barriers online that fall down as I learn to code, similar to the barriers that fall as we enter discourses. For example, without knowing anything about the language of law, anyone would be completely lost in a court, even if everyone is speaking English.

A problem does remain that the market is stretched thin, and finding a job is difficult for any PhD student. I find comfort in knowing that even the best and brightest students often don’t land jobs their first year on the academic market (a market that is so complicated and unlike any business market, it is difficult to explain it to anyone not involved in the process). What I do have is the experience I have gained during the Student Innovation Fellowship. Unfortunately, I lack the know-how to market these skills in a way that makes sense.

As I explore my options, I am learning about jobs that I had never heard of, skills I didn’t know existed, and a whole new world of technology that is related to my current research. No matter what I end up doing next, I am certain that it will be as interesting as the work I have done as a Student Innovation Fellow – and if I’m lucky – it’ll be even more so.

SIF Orientation – Fall 2015

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Last week marked the beginning of the second year of the Student Innovation Fellowship at Georgia State University. Many of the first years returned for another promising year, and we got a few new exciting additions too.

Below is a group shot of everyone who showed up for orientation and introduced themselves:

SIF Group 2015-2016

SIF Group 2015-2016

In the photo above you can see a variety of students from graduate students to undergrads with skills ranging from excellent writing and organization, to mapping and design, and coding. Here, we are posing in the CURVE in front of the 12 screen interact wall that we often use for workshops and presentations.

This year, we will be more tightly focused on bigger projects that we intend to ‘finish’ as much as possible. For example, where I was on approximately 6 projects last year, I am on 1 this year. And it’s very exciting. I will be managing the Magazine and Images Archive in charge of building a new Undergraduate research based journal/magazine hybrid. The possibilities are quite exciting, and I will be blogging about this project quite a bit in the future.

Stay tuned.

Building Digital Portfolios

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Building Digital Portfolios

I will be holding a workshop on digital portfolios Monday March 30th, at 1PM in the CURVE.

The workshop is for both students and faculty. If you are a student, you may want to come to see what kinds of options are available for you to create your own digital presence. If you are a faculty member, you can come for the same reason, OR to get tips on how you might teach the digital portfolio. I will be presenting a few versions of my own portfolio, and then we will be discussing ways to present ourselves, and sharing new tools and tips together.

In order to prepare for this workshop, I had to do a lot of research and a LOT of building. I want to be able to showcase a few of the major sites where portfolios can be hosted, both free, and at low cost. I learned an incredible amount about web building and design. I’ve picked up new coding tricks, and learned how to embed a Google Doc, though Google has some of their own bugs to work out concerning that.

Let me show you some examples of how different portfolios can look (this also serves as a sneak peak at my workshop):

Below is my Squarespace website. I own the domain, vrobinphd.com and I have been working on this for quite some time. This is my permanent portfolio, and the one I give to potential employers and promote on my social media.

Squarespace

Screen Shot 2015-03-11 at 12.17.42 PM

As you can see from this front page, the design is sleek, and professional looking, with a lot of white space, which is what the trend for design is right now. Squarespace is a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get), but it also has options for coding, so you aren’t always limited to the template parameters. For example, I was able to drop an embedded Google Doc in as my CV, using the code function. This took some experimentation (and Googling), as I assumed the embed function would do it – and this turned out to be not the case. Unfortunately, this cool red button you see in the header, is not something I can code or manipulate to make it show up on other pages. So while I can manipulate much of the template, I can’t control all of it. Also – it is important to note that buying into Squarespace allows me to create my own logo with tagline. You can’t see the little red robot well here, but you will see it on other portfolios below.

 

This next one I made on a website called strikingly.com which I learned about from an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education called “How to Curate Your Digital Identity as an Academic.”

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Strikingly is ONLY a WYSIWYG drag and drop application, and it only allows you to have one page. This page however, can be as long as you could ever want it to be. So instead of your visitors clicking to find content on new pages, they just scroll to each section. Strikingly allows you to upload backgrounds to enhance certain sections, and provides lots of neat, attractive buttons to place along the way for people to click on to email you, or visit a project you’re working on outside this site. It’s really simple, so it will be great for people who can’t code, or just want easy maintenance.

 

The last one I have to show you here is from wordpress.com which is on a template/theme called ‘pen scratch.’

Screen Shot 2015-03-11 at 12.18.51 PM

I chose a theme that looks clean and has a lot of white space to stay in the theme I have going among these portfolios I’ve made. This one is currently in heaviest build mode, but creating new pages, and showcasing my content has been very easy. WordPress is both a WYSIWYG and has coding capabilities you can use to manipulate both theme and content. I have learned a LOT about themes from working on the Tools Wiki project, including how much each theme can make or break the look of your site. I may find out as I continue to build that ‘pen scratch’ does not, in fact, work for my portfolio, and it could look COMPLETELY different by the time I give the workshop – this is one of the things we’ll cover in the workshop, actually. For now, you can see it largely works well, and there’s my cool Squarespace robot up at the top.

 

It’s been really fun hanging out at the Exchange researching, and building, and saying, “pssst, does this look stupid?” to other SIFs that hang out in the Exchange with me. I’m really excited I get to give the workshop, but I’m MORE excited about all the invaluable things I’ve learned in the process.

If you find yourself in need of portfolio help, please let me know and I’ll be happy to put my two cents in.

Christmas Gift Vines

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Christmas Gift Vines

This week, we collect again for the first of another semester that is certain to fly by so quickly we’ll all be surprised by the end of it. It’s been nice seeing familiar faces, having meetings to catch up on old projects, and to look forward to new – exciting – work to come.

This week, I am deciding not to write about any SIF project, because we have only been back for two days, and there is little to examine. However, largely due to my experience with the SIF program last year, I was inspired to show my thanks for Christmas gifts in what could easily be classified as an ‘innovative’ way.

Meet – my Christmas Gift Vines:

I made my first vine in November for Hybrid Pedagogy’s most recent installment of DigiWrimo, as part of a ‘getting to know me’ challenge. Making a vine is actually quite easy – the bulk of the work is done using your phone. After I made my first vine, I knew I needed to experiment to see what else I could do. So after I started using the Christmas gifts I was fortunate enough to get this year, I decided to start piecing together vines to show what I was doing with my gifts. 

The mustard is an inside joke from my friend, and the cookbook is from my mother. I have since sent both parties my vines through text, and Facebook, which means they are also ‘publicly’ shared with my Facebook friends. They’ve had pretty good reception, but so far I seem to be the only person absolutely tickled by my own idea. I may need to take this one back to the lab for re-evaluation. 

End of Semester

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End of Semester

If you read my last blog entry, you know that we were planning a party/meeting to finish off the very first semester of our wonderful SIF program. It went off really well – there was so much food, we could have fed the people across the hall too!

Look at this amazing spread!!

Look at this amazing spread!!

As people trickled in, we waited to have the ‘meeting’ portion, and everyone ate in rounds. Whoever made that bean dip — you’re my hero.

Eventually, I asked Roxanne to put an interactive video made using Captivate 7 which featured our own Will Kerr building a box fort. Having sufficiently embarrassed Will, we opened the floor for people to ask any questions about the upcoming semester, and to show off projects they have been working on.

Our audience is not only captivated by presentations, they are also a very good looking bunch of smart people.

Our audience is not only captivated by presentations, they are also a very good looking bunch of smart people.

Robert Bryant blew us all away with his project wherein he has been creating digital models of 3D objects using Agisoft. He set up his computer and showed us how to interact with digital objects by waving your hand in front of a little device that reminded me a lot of the way the Wii system works.

Behold the Digital Ball

Behold the Digital Ball

We also got to watch several videos made by Thomas, Babacar, Ameer, Ryan and others that showcased the work they’ve been doing to promote Hybrid Pedagogy courses here at GSU. And we got to see another interactive video Roxanne and Ameer made for the science department which shows a hilarious young man named Kory making mistakes while using the Vacufuge Plus machine.

In all, the meeting was fun and informative. Even though I’ve been working to collect everyone’s accomplishments and achievements, I haven’t gotten to see all these projects yet in action.

Success.

Party in a Pinch

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I sold my soul to Google a while ago.

I think it’s for this reason that the tasks I perform using Google products almost never feel terrifically ‘innovative,’ but as I wade through a dissertation wherein I analyze Google, I’m beginning to think that the way I use Google IS innovative – even to me.

As the end of the first ever semester of the first ever cohort of Student Innovation Fellows (SIFs) comes to a close, I wasn’t about to let it go down without a party. And also holidays. So I mean really – party.

Lucky for me – Justin was willing to let me plan the party – as long as I understood that the budget is exactly $0. Done. Easy.

I executed all my party planning via Google = I created an invitation (okay, so I used Publisher which I eventually converted into a PDF after Justin said, “I had no idea Publisher was still a thing”), which I linked to a Google spreadsheet and a Google form.

Here is a link to my invitation:

Partay!!

As you can see – we’re going the potluck route – and let’s be real: these SIFs are not only smart and savvy – they can cook. Hallelujah.

We have an editable Google Spreadsheet so people can contribute to said potluck – and I am quite excited about this upcoming gathering. I’m a grad student. Food is pretty much all I care about.

AND – because I wasn’t sure where people would be at with the idea of a cute little gift exchange, I used a Google Form to ask whether or not people would like to have a gift exchange.

I have loads of response forms and data to indicate that this will go off without a hitch. And all it took was a few clicks, and some key strokes. That’s… innovation.

Absolutely no paper was exchanged or harmed in the planning of this party. The budget remained at exactly $0 – and we’re still having a party.

Thank you Google. Treat my soul well, please. 

 

SIF: positivity, morale and accomplishments

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This week, the SIF overlords contacted me and asked me to collect and catalog SIF accomplishments so far. As someone whose default setting is >excited with bouncy option – I am excited that I get to do this job.

And while it may seem a little early to start talking about accomplishments, I know that I’ve already learned enough to fill a whole brain noodle – and I’m hoping that others feel the same way. So I created a Google Forms survey to send out to everyone – and Joe, and Brennan already beta-tested it! That was so fast!

I’ve used Google  Forms before, but only as someone filling out the form. This time I got to make, not one, but TWO forms! I made one today for the beta test for the Tools Wiki, which I will send to a few of you in the next week or so, and one for SIF Accomplishments. The forms are really easy to make, and have a variety of options for users to answer – like multiple choice, scale, text, and so on. My favorite part though is that they have lots of themes to choose from that make the forms look a little more fun.

By the time you read this, you’ll probably have already filled out my form, and some of you may have already met with me. My hope is that by all of us thinking about the most positive and helpful aspects of SIFdom, we will be able to deliver an accurate picture of our accomplishments to the powers that be, as well as grow as a community of innovators.

And remember – if you’re having a bad SIF day, Zoe brings candy to the Exchange, Justin makes weird noises sometimes, and there’s always coffee in the common area.

National Day on Writing Success!

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In case you didn’t hear, this past Tuesday was the National Day on Writing. And thanks to a bunch of people in the English Department, the Linguistics department, and some other organizations (I think there was a sorority involved somewhere), it went off really well.

I’ve talked before about the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives, and the project I’ve been working on to find an easy, low amount of hardware way to record using iPad. I blogged a little about it a few weeks ago, and it turns out that the simplest result was the best result.

Here is a picture of the ultimate set up we decided to go with:

DALN_2

As you can see, it is very minimal in its hardware involvement.

We ended up investing in the adapter I mentioned in an earlier entry, which I linked above. The adapter is called the iPad Camera Connector and runs about $30. The snowball you can see in the picture plugs right into the adapter and then it just works. It took me a while to figure out that it needs no other software or authorization on the part of the iPad user – it simply plugs in and works with all the already installed iPad software.

We were at our National Day on Writing table from 10AM until just before 2PM and managed to collect 20 narratives ranging from ‘the first books I read’ to ‘When I learned to read music’ – each one was interesting and wonderful.

Here is a picture of Michael Harker explaining the paperwork to a student who gave a narrative:

DALN_1In all, the day was a big success – we even found we could upload the videos into the DALN system right from the iPad.

I’m pretty happy with how this project is turning out. I learned a lot about iPad interface and hardware (adapters) and a lot about the first things to try. Ooh – and that simplicity is pretty much the best thing ever.

So – in the interest of being as hip as my fellow SIF bloggers, I leave you with a bit of inspiration – not a music video – but  drawing I did on a tablecloth and a restaurant. Enjoy:

Robot-VR

 

Rhet/Comp, Durkheim, Hybrid Pedagogy, and Me

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In the last 7 or so weeks as a SIF, I have learned more than I ever imagined I would.

A few weeks ago, I decided to write an article featuring the SIF program. In a stroke of benevolence, Brennan gave me permission to spend some of my hours developing the article. So I set to work – basing the article on a footnote I harvested from Emile Durkheim’s sociologically ground breaking book The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life written in 1912:

“A tool is material accumulated capital.”

When I read that note, I knew I was going to use it for something – but I wasn’t sure what – until I began to read Writing Teachers Writing Software by rhetoric and composition scholar Paul LeBlanc.

The article I wrote went live this morning at 3am on Hybrid Pedagogy. Here is the link:

Addressing the Elephant: The Importance of Infrastructure

Innovation and the Multitude

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In my introduction, I declared that I would be attempting to define ‘innovation.’ This is one such time.

My dissertation is complex. It is theory heavy, and as soon as I start to describe it, 3 out of 5 people begin to lose consciousness. Instead of risking your current state of awake-ness, I’ll save you by telling you that my dissertation concerns itself with time – specifically the ways in which our American-dominated-yet-globalized world values the way we spend, talk and think about our time. The part I’m concerning myself with for this particular post is the “American-dominated-yet-globalized world values” part of that sentence.

Over the weekend, I dove head-first into Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, followed by an equally head-first dive into Multitude, by the same authors, 5 years later, and it’s also the ‘sequel’ to Empire. Hardt and Negri first distinguish ‘Empire’ from ‘Imperialism’ defining ‘Empire’ this way: “The concept of Empire is characterized fundamentally by a lack of boundaries: Empire’s rule has no limits… as a regime with no temporal boundaries and in this sense outside of history or at the end of history…. Empire not only manages a territory and a population but also creates the very world it inhabits” (Empire xv). In short, we currently live in an Empire – one that is very different than the sort we learned about in history class.

The next important thing to define is ‘multitude.’ I’ll do it quickly this way:

The people = 1 homogeneous entity
The multitude = the many, the diverse, including social stratification
The masses = the indifferent, lacking in social stratification, the passive (Multitude, xiv)

Within the multitude are knowledge workers – people like me, and Hardt and Negri who make knowledge like what you’re reading here. Now here’s the big finish:

At the end of the preface, Hardt and Negri explain that “The multitude is working through Empire to create an alternative global society… the postmodern revolution of the multitude looks forward, beyond imperial sovereignty” (xvii).

In being student innovators, I like to think that we are, in fact, looking beyond any upper-class sanctioned sovereignty – those that rule the masses – and creating our own globalized world – a world, with enough work – that will look very different from the world we know today.