In this icebreaking activity, students think-pair-share on the question “What makes a class a success?” This gives them the opportunity to meet a new classmate and contribute to setting the classroom tone for the semester ahead.
Transforming Video with Popcorn Maker
Like many things, visual rhetoric is often best learnt by doing. This lesson plan introduces students to video editing using Popcorn Maker, a web-based tool for mashing up online texts. Type of Assignment: In-class Exercise Assignment Length: Single Class Period; One-Two Class Periods Pedagogical Goals – Rhetoric: Arrangement; Invention; Style; Visual Rhetoric Pedagogical Goals – Writing: Invention; Organization; Style Pedagogical Goals – Digital Literacy: Audio; Creative Commons; Multimedia; Open Access Software; Remediation; Remix; Video Media Requirements: Technology-Based …
Universal Design for Learning: What and How?
In August 2016, I was invited to address instructors in the University of Texas‘ Department of Rhetoric & Writing (DRW) on the theme of ‘Accessibility’. The invitation arose from some work I’d done for the DRW to make their syllabus boilerplate more accessible — reformatting the existing Word doc with styles to increase navigability, and providing descriptive hyperlinks to web-based …
Infographic Design with Piktochart
Have you thought about incorporating infographics into your classroom? Here at UT, the first year writing curriculum now includes an infographic assignment in which students are asked to remix their final persuasive essay into a visual form. The Digital Writing & Research Lab has been collaborating with the Department of Rhetoric & Writing to create an assignment prompt and tool …
Data Visualisation with TimeMapper
TimeMapper is a free and open source tool for building timemaps, visualizations in which every data point is mapped to both its temporal and geographic location.
Pedagogy: TimeMapper Lesson Plan
In the summer of 2015, I designed a lesson plan using TimeMapper, an open source tool for building timelines in which each event is mapped to its temporal and geographic location, for the Department of Rhetoric & Writing’s First Year Writing course. This course is primarily taught by graduate student instructors in their first year as an instructor of record; …