Travel

CCCCs Executive Committee

2010-06-18T21:15:00Z

I love Duane Roen, my dissertation chair and scholarly mentor. He was good and tried protecting me from national/disciplinary service commitments until I had finished my dissertation. Now, I have to give him credit because although I sabotaged my own PhD progress by still serving on these type of committees, working too much, writing a textbook, etc., he still protected me. I really know that because practically within days of defending my dissertations I was getting requests to serve on different committees. Needless to say, I have been elected to the CCCC‘s Executive Committee. This is a three year committement and I have to attend both the annual CCCCs confernece in the Spring and NCTE’s annual conference in the Fall. After attending my first meeting this past spring, I can say I’m both excited and intimidated about being on the committee. I’m glad to represent community college interests the committee. However, I also realize there is a lot of work with various sub-committees and such. I’m even overwhelmed with all of the official and unofficial responsibilities I have at the CCCCs conference itself. My TripIt planner was pages long, getting me started as early as 7:00am (as in events started that early) and going late into the evening (yes, late night socializing is serious “work” at this conference). Prior to being elected to this committee I sincerely thought I wanted to be TYCA Chair someday; however this position at least makes me appreciate the time, energy, and traveling commitment that type of a role requires.
I’ll admit, there is no shining pearl of wisdom in this blog post...it’s more of a “here’s what I’m up to” so that I can connect it to my 2010 Faculty Evaluation Plan. I will, however, ask the following question to any readers: how do you balance your regular work, institutional service, and national and/or disciplinary service?

Computers & Writing 2010

2010-05-21T12:12:01Z

I’m trying a little experiment with Susan’s grad students while at Computers & Writing 2010. We’re trying to take notes in a variety of places with different technologies. I’m setting up a CoverItLive to at least track Computers & Writing 2010 Twitter hashtag (#cw2010) but hoping they’ll take notes too!
Computers & Writing 2010

The Start of Summer 2010

2010-05-20T04:07:00Z

The last grades for the spring semester are in, the 2010 mTech conference has already come and gone, and I’m already sitting in West Lafayette, Indiana for the start of the 2010 Computers and Writing Conference. I’d say this is a GREAT start for summer 2010. I decided to make a Wiffiti board for C&W this year...I like that this blog post will now be dynamic!

Deborah Holdstein: Keynote at TYCA-West 2009

2009-10-09T16:29:00Z

Deborah Holdstein: Keynote at TYCA-West 2009

Guest Blogger: Stacey Cochran on Digital Touring

2009-06-20T15:07:01Z

Kicking of my own return to regular blogging, I’ve got a guest “traveler” and fellow technophile.

Amazon Kindle link: http://www.amazon.com/CLAWS-ebook/dp/B0024NL6QS/

Thanks so much, Shelley, for hosting me today as a guest blogger. As you know, I am currently on a 45-Day blog tour to help promote the release of my new novel CLAWS. Truth is I’m coming down to my last couple of weeks of the tour, and so I’d like to take this opportunity to reflect a bit on what I’ve learned. Specifically, I’d like to talk about how technology has affected me as an author on this tour.

First the good news; over the past 4-5 weeks, I’ve sold around 2,300 copies of my books. 97% of these sales have been coming on Amazon Kindle; the other 3% in trade paperback. This is the first time I’ve ever released novels on Amazon Kindle, and this has been the biggest breakthrough of my fiction-writing career.

The blog tour has certainly helped to concentrate my efforts and energy, and the momentum has been great. As I’m writing this guest blog post late Friday evening, I’ve done three interviews today alone.

The way these interviews were done is worth examining. My first interview today was a text interview that I did with an author by sending her questions about her book in a Word file. Once she wrote her answers, she sent the Word file back to me as an e-mail attachment. I posted the answers and questions on my new website onlinebookreview.org

The second interview was a Skype video call interview that I recorded using Call Recorder on a MacBook Pro. I spoke with an author via video call who lives in another part of the country, and I saved it as an .mov file and uploaded it to YouTube. From YouTube anyone in the world can watch this video interview; it’s really amazing!

The third interview I did this evening was on Blog Talk Radio and it involved my calling in via telephone to a buddy’s talk show for one hour. The conversation was recorded digitally via Blog Talk Radio and streamed Live via the internet. Additionally, the conversation was saved and is available permanently for listeners via Blog Talk Radio.

Three very different kinds of interviews and three very different kinds of technology driving them.

The point of all this, I suppose, is that today’s author can do a “book tour” without ever leaving his/her home. Technology is in place in 2009 to enable “habitation” of virtual space. It makes me think of N. Katherine Hayles come to think of it.

So how do I feel after doing these interviews all in one day?

I’m tired. My back aches. My brain feels like it’s worked through 45 crossword puzzles. Not unlike how an author feels when having to drive from strange city to strange city to find bookstores while on tour.

And while I’ve been writing up this guest blog… I’ve sold four more copies of my books according to Amazon’s Digital Text Platform.

Truly, our Brave New World has arrived.

Thanks so much, Shelley, for hosting me today. You were one of the earliest readers of CLAWS way back in 2004 when it was in its rough draft state, and it wouldn’t be half the novel it is today had your wisdom, grace, and good humor not informed its pages.

Thanks so much! And thanks everyone for reading!

Podcamp AZ 2008

2008-11-03T03:44:00Z

Although I was wiped since I was at the Arizona English Teachers Association 2008 annual conference last weekend, Educause‘s 2008 annual conference this past week, and then PodcampAZ this weekend…I’m really glad I went to PodcampAZ. I greatly appreciated making some connections with folks in the local community. I loved having the opportunity to present my “Resident Feminist” presentation. It was very gratifying to do a “feminist reading” of web 2.0 technologies in a way that validated some individuals’ web activities. I also enjoyed talking with a variety of people with different connections to education, but who are committed to teachers teaching with, and students learning with, technology. I look forward to trying to be more helpful in the production of PodcampAZ next year (this is purely a volunteer endeavor and they do not charge a conference registration fee).

Educause08: Teaching with Images Workshop

2008-10-28T13:28:00Z

Kicking off Educause08 with a strong start at the “Teaching with Images: Tools and Resources” half-day workshop. I’m excited that Beth Harris, our fearless leader, has me already signed up for three new webware accounts and I don’t even have my live blog set up yet!

AETA-08: Facing the Dead Line

2008-10-25T18:12:00Z

I’m very excited to be attending a presentation by my new colleague Jeanne Dugan, “Facing the Dead Line: Teaching Drugs and Alcohol to Middle School, High School, and College Students.”

AETA-08: Keynote

2008-10-25T17:07:00Z

Beverly Ann Chin, Director of English Teaching Program of University of Montana, Missoula and former chair of NCTE presents “Strategies that invite students into the world of multicultural literature.”

TYCA-West 08: Google Apps

2008-10-10T21:37:00Z

Devon is sharing the types of stuff that we like to play around.

TYCA-West 08: Mining our own Resources: In-Service Alterantives to Formal Professional Development

2008-10-10T19:16:00Z

I’m excited about this panel because I’m MCC’s faculty professional development coordinator.

TYCA-West 08: Keynote

2008-10-10T13:45:00Z

Mapping my Trip to England

2008-07-23T21:24:00Z

Many people ask me how I learn all the new technologies I fiddle around with. Basically I give myself “projects” to do with them. This summer I’m really getting to play around with Google Maps. I’m having a good time playing around with mapping our Pub-A-Day activities as well as points Donella or the textbook points to while talking about various British authors and their works. It really does get me thinking about various ideas of using Google Maps for multi-modal projects in classes.

I6. The Instability of New Media Performed in One-Minue Provocations

2008-05-25T15:59:00Z

F2: In Pursuit of the Stolen (Content) Vehicle

2008-05-24T18:44:00Z