I wanted to capture some of the quick notes that I’ve taken and haven’t been able to blog yet. Sorry if it is a little disjointed.

Books/Authors mentioned:
Manuel Castels, V1, 2, & 3
Gunther Kress, New London Group
Margaret Mead, Culture & Commitment – talks about rate of change post-figurative, pre-figurative, and co-figurative

Documentaries Mentioned:
Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt
Living Proof
Another one with Louisiana’s women’s stories that I can’t remember the name of…?

Music
http://freeplaymusic.com

Funds
When requesting start-up funds to do something like DMAC, apply for renewable funds if possible and also save so that dollars can be reinvested to update technology.

Remember
We’re teaching mostly non-English Studies majors!!!

Noticing
When reviewing and discussing documentaries, ask students to view short pieces and notice what is going on in the clips. When multiple subjects answer the same question, but they are all interspersed in the editing process, that is an example of synthesis. If there are three or more interviwes interspersed, it struck me that it would be an example of the 3 or more sources paper assignment at MU. Also, when each group discusses storyline for an interview about a person’s hobby — there are any number of questions we could ask about the hobby. e.g. What attracted you to your current guitar? vs. what do you notice about the sounds you produce with your guitar. Each of the answers to these questions could develop into full “papers” in and of themselves. Note the credits at the end of the documentaries for all of the roles that people play in filming a documentary. Looking at the number of people and roles might help students understand the scope of a small class project. It helped me.

Mention
email S. about Odeo. I think we might be able to use it to record tutoring sessions. Also, that would put a laptop on a tutor’s table so it might encourage more tutors to comment on students’ papers in the online writery.

Handouts
The handouts they gave us today for planning our projects were really cool — each of them would appeal to different types of learners….or, they might help all learners discover more of their projects by approaching it differently by using handouts that aren’t their first choice.

6/4/2006: Fixed link