Students: Do These Things Before January 28th!

1. Set up a digital reading journal. This semester, you’ll keep an online reading “journal” (or “map,” or “collage,” or “timeline”) in some sort of digital space: Mural.ly, Tumblr, Twitter, Google Doc, Dipity, Pinterest, Tiki-Toki, Timeline JS (Lindsey or Jenny can show you how this one works!), a Macaulay eportfolio, or whatever platform best suits you. This should be a space separate from any other digital presence you might have, and a platform you find relatively intuitive. It doesn’t necessarily have to have your full name attached, but it should be publicly accessible. Think of it as a combination scrapbook and/or freewriting space. Items to include: quotes from your reading that pique your interest, questions or thoughts you have, related multimedia, related news articles or blog posts, ideas you want to bring up in class, links to yours and others’ posts on the class eportfolio, whatever else seems relevant. (If you have trouble choosing a tool for this assignment, check in with Lindsey or Jenny. Lindsey is also going to do this and has chosen Tumblr, because it feels most “scrapbookish” to her; hers is here.)
2. Mail Lindsey and Jenny your reading journal’s URL.
3. Read an article! Colby should read Katherine Harris on “screwing around” in digital pedagogy, Kerishma should read Jentery Sayers on “tinkering” in the classroom, and Laura should read Matthew Kirschenbaum’s explanation of the digital humanities. (All links are direct to PDFs hosted elsewhere; please let us know if they’re broken.)
4. Write a post on this eportfolio that first explains the core ideas of your assigned article, as best you understand them, and then responds to those core ideas.

Have a wonderful holiday and break, and I look forward to seeing you at our first class on the 28th!