DTC 595 Reflection

In reflecting upon the different projects, presentations, and readings throughout the semester, I've come to really personalize and shape my own literacy within the Digital Humanities. This course is 1 of 3 in order to obtain a graduate certificate in digital humanities and culture which means that my literacy will be an ongoing process as I learn more from Dr. Arola's teaching with technology in the fall as well as the knowledge obtained in both Dr. Arola's 595 as well as our course this semester. To begin, I want to situate my interest in the digital humanities as a scholar who hopes to bridge the gap between Writing Program Administration and Digital Humanities, recognizing primarily visual rhetoric as a necessary discourse in which students use to compose and communicate within and outside of the composition classroom.

The Reading and Analysis Papers and Participation: To help shape my understanding of the digital humanities, the scholarship we've read this semester (primarily Debates in the Digital Humanities and Digital Humanities Pedagogy) have been a strong foundation for me in regards to learning about the conversations within the field of DH, but also situating the iterative approach of theory/method/practice as weaved together and not separate entity's in the direct application of curriculum and classroom pedagogy. 

The Making: 
Final Proposal: With the ever advancing power of technology, my final proposal aims to explore its benefits by looking specifically at SMS platforms and the ways in which emoji's are utilized to maintain and exert deliberate rhetorical cultural practice. I see this proposal as an iterative foundation as I begin to merely scratch the surface of this inherently new visual communicative practice, understanding its use outside of the classroom in order to fully synthesize and understand the pedagogical affordances it offers within academia. For me, the final proposal is a way to put my foundational literacy of DH into practice, weaving together the theory of embodiment with the methodology of using digital tools and making waves in regards to understanding the pedagogical affordances this visual tools can offer within the classroom.

DTC 101 Syllabus: In addition, the DTC 101 syllabus has really been informed by Comparative Textual Media and Digital Humanities Pedagogy in regards to examination of specific DH projects within the classroom and outside in the public sphere. My literacy of DH has expanded based on this project in recognizing the spaces in which DH can be a part of (public, private, and classroom).


Presenting:

Having the opportunity to do multiple presentations in the course has shaped my understanding of Digital Humanities literacy in the very nature of what it means to present information. In asking us to create a presentation of less than 6 words and 12 slides to shape our understanding of DH, it really pushed me to condense and solidify what key concepts and terms were relevant in what I understand the interdisciplinary field of DH to encompass. Each time I received feedback on the presentations, I felt as though my classmates and I were making a transition towards "comp/rhet" type of feedback which focused on the rhetoric and language, to focusing more on the methodology and theory behind our content (which is inherently DH). Though there are multiple intersections with Rhetoric and Composition, DH literacy focuses on how the theory cannot be separated from the practice, and this is something that comp/rhet doesn't have as much difficulty with in regards to isolating these two concepts. 

The blogging:

For me the blogs were a great experience to help shape my DH literacy because it was a place for me to personalize the material I was creating or reading in ways that not only made sense to me, but also ways that I could speak back to or challenge. Having feedback from both my classmates as well as my teacher was exceptionally helpful and was great for me in regards to getting feedback and questions to push me further as I explored what DH meant to me and my research.


In addition, taken from my acknowledgements page from Scalar, I have a couple thank you's in order for those who have helped to shape my literacy in DH:

Dr. Kim Christen Withey: As graduate students within the field of composition and rhetoric, there is a strong connotation for a start of a project or summative seminar paper within a semester and a clear end. Dr. Withey encouraged us to break this mindset and begin to see our scholarship and application as "serious play", encouraging mistakes and start overs in theory, methodology and practice along the way. In asking students to do a proposal where we don't actually "do" the research, it gives us the opportunity to let our minds soar as we envision how our "dream" project would be conducted within the digital humanities. Dr. Withey, thank you for giving us the freedom to exceed our own expectations of ourselves in entering a new field and breaking the mindset of "start to finish" so that we could play, make mistakes, and learn in ways that wasn't so punitive.

The pride I have in my proposal and success in the course wouldn't be possible if I didn't have exceptional colleagues in the seminar with me to encourage, critique, and question my proposal in its progression throughout the semester. Entering a new conversation and field is difficult, and I am so fortunate to have had the opportunity to discuss and learn from some of the brightest minds in the fields of digital humanities and composition and rhetoric. Lacy, thank you for your constant critique, always challenging and always yearning to learn more and more each day. Your quest for knowledge and your drive motivates me to remember that we all have our own unique voice in these fields that deserve to be heard. Mark, thank you for your dialogue and analysis in each discussion of readings, theory and practice within the digital humanities. I appreciate your drive to want to do things well and the care and attentiveness you take towards your scholarship. You inspire me that our generation will still be comprised of scholars who care and who want to inspire and push our students in ways that are meaningful and proactive. I learn something new every time you open your mouth to contribute to the conversation. Thank you both for the opportunity to learn so much through your inquiry and optimism.

Thank you so much for taking the time to view my blog throughout the semester and helping to inform my perception and understanding of digital humanities literacy.

Lucy Johnson

Farman's Consideration of Reciprocity and Emoji Use

Prompt: We have spent the last few weeks looking critically at the uses of mobile technologies, in the classroom, in public spaces, in those in-between spaces that undo an easy public/private split and in relation to theories of embodiment and place-making. In this blog post, integrate some of the theoretical insights offered by Jason Farman into your project proposal. You can use the blog post as chance to frame the issue of mobile technologies, or locative media more generally, and its impact on your project, it’s methods, and the why DH question. Your blog post should include visual as well as textual elements.
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As we started to talk about this blog post in class on Monday, the wheels begin to turn in my brain in relation to theories of embodiment and the notion of reciprocity in the relationships that are cultivated within digital spaces. In reference to my project, I began to consider ways in which our use of emojis or other visual communicative practices within SMS spaces offer up a great example of Farman's notion of reciprocity. Initially I think I got a little hung up on the "locative media" which hindered my ability to see the currency in Farman's theory for my project specifically (I'm not aware of any GPS or pinning capabilities in iMessage). However, once I got past that I started to think in relation to our conversation in class pertaining to tagging or pulling people into our locations through Mark's referral to the "@" symbol. In our conversations in class we talked about the notion of having students "act out" what that physical representation of being "tagged" or "pulled" in different spaces would look like, and the kind of visual rhetoric such attribution has on our sense of embodiment. For me, this was VERY interesting stuff. 

I began to REALLY think about emoji's and their use, why we have them, what they do for us that text can't accomplish, etc. In juxtaposing this with the body, I came across the idea of adapting the methodology of my project to asking students to mirror the facial expression or physical representation of emojis. To consider this praxis I came across this AMAZING article by Buzzfeed titled "Human Emoji's Are Quietly Horrifying" (it looks as though I'm not the only one that's thought of this..). Although the article references a "physical" body representation of emoji's for a particular campaign to raise awareness on internet safety, the notion of emoji's taking on a "physical form" can have a lot of validity in understanding the different cultural uses of emoji's in different spaces while also considering Farman's notion of reciprocity and the "give and take" relationship that such interactions offer. 

Within chapter one titled, "Embodiment and the Mobile Interface" Farman cautions against making concrete distinctions between the virtual and the real, stating "an experience of the virtual is always an experience of the virtual in conjunction with another concept such as the "actual"...the virtual is not the opposite of the real;instead it is a component of experiencing the real"(22). In reference to my project, I see a lot of validity in drawing the intersections of the virtual composing process and use of emoji's and exploring the reciprocity of the social relationship that is cultivated in the physical by its use. By asking students to experience these "emoji" expressions or actions with their bodies, perhaps we can begin to truly understand cultural variances, and have insightful discussions in the classroom centering around particular notions of rhetorical and varied discourse community use of such visual tools. As Farman notes, "and in the ways in which this space is augmented by virtuality infused from our interfaces, the terms cannot be used in isolation from one another. The realized or actualized is always implicated by the virtual (broadly defined) and such an implication is produced through embodied practices" (22). Other projects such as Fito Segrera's reveal a much bleaker perspective on the type of affordances that emoji's offer in regards to an emotional representation in digital spaces. According to the Huffington Post's article "Emoji Art Reveals the Dark Side of the Smiley Face" Segrera Even as the pieces celebrate the world’s love for emoji, many, like Segrera's, also showcase a darker, problematic side to the clapping hands and grinning cats. The emoji artworks, all smiles on the surface, underscore how little nuance exists in our digital conversations and how poorly technology captures the range of human emotion". By imploring a methodology that seeks to embody the visual practice of emoji's, I hope to employ Farman's notion of reciprocity to study the relationships students are cultivating through visual communicative practice and how these digital spaces have currency in real life relationships. I think considering Farman's argument that the actual and the virtual are interconnected help us to remember that these visual rhetorical tools still operate under the notion that they keep the human central in their objective, which is why I think these considerations and adaptations to my final project still have incredible merit in considering how my project is inherently a DH project by nature. 

Daniel Burrus: Take Control of Your Technology Before It Takes Control of You

For this week's blog post, I decided to explore the notion offered up this week by Leanne Hunter concerning the tightrope analogy and the discussion of our critical use of technology. In looking further into this issue, I wanted to find an article that addressed this topic in a broad sense that I might be able to use in a DTC 101 course. I wanted it to be fairly brief but also accessible in language to undergraduate students (so no Katherine Hayles or Donna Harraway). As a result, I found Daniel Burrus article in The Huffington Post titled, "Take Control of Your Technology Before It Takes Control of You". Within this article, Burrus discusses the historical shift we've made towards separating our lives into chunks (work vs. home) and how through mobile technology, we've made the transition into having all of those chunks constantly accessible every where we go, really making them one giant blob rather than chunks at all.

Rather than advocating for this new mobile technology, Burrus urges readers to be critical of who's in control, stating

Now when we're on vacation, we're really not on vacation. We're simply at work in another location with more free time. We're checking our email and waiting for that important message to come in when reading a book or sitting by the pool. Our work problems are not far away, they are all only a quick text, email, or call away. We can even see each other on our phones now, making it easy to have a quick video conference with others from just about anywhere. As a result, customers and colleagues who depend on us can, and often expect to get a quick response from us whenever they need to.

I think bringing in a topic like this can have a lot of validity for students in thinking about their technology use. My hopes is to include this reading the the first unit that contains my technology literacy narrative (perhaps as a reflective reading/response after the completed project?). In addition, I think this is an important notion for us to consider as digital humanist, and largely graduate students hoping to stay within the academy. Part of being in this profession is the expectation that much of our work comes home with us. As a result, the lines between work and play become blurred. Personally, I find myself constantly checking my email and responding to students as I'm sitting at home watching tv, trying to spend quality time with my boyfriend. My dependency upon technology has caused some riffs in my real life relationships, as friends and family become frustrated with my technology use, commenting that I am "addicted". As Burrus indicates,  "It's time to take control of our technology and our lives so that we can rediscover the wonderful treasures that are buried in those separate realities we once had. Remember, there's a time to plug in and a time to unplug. Choose wisely."

I think having these discussions in the beginning of a DTC 101 course can really help to set the framework so how we can begin to metacognitively approach technology and its use in not only the academic setting, but our personal lives as well. Recognizing these intersections between these two "chunks" of our lives is important as we work to balance that tightrope of human vs. machine. 

Explory: An inherently multimodal storytelling experience

Over the course of the week pick ONE mobile app that centers around storytelling, digital curation, mapping, etc download it to your phone and use it for three days (at least) continuously. After the third (or fourth) day:  1) sketch out the possibilities the app affords for understanding, encouraging, developing or defining reading and writing practices, 2) post these reflections to your blog, 3) include screen shots from the app, 4) make sure to include your “user experience” with the app, from download to use, to navigation, interface, workflow, etc. and finally 5) brainstorm an idea for how to use this app in your DTC 101 syllabus as an in-class or out of class activity, assignment etc.
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For this week's project, I chose to explore the mobile app titled Explory which was created in 2013 in San Francisco California. Ironically although this is an American product, I found that the majority of users were either European or Australian (I knew this by both the accent of the users as well as the infusion of different language via text). What drew me to Explory was the inherent multimodality that this app affords when it comes to mobile narratives and storytelling as Explory combines video, image, sound, and also a tactile interactive experience in which the user can manipulate the timeline of the story based on their own preference. In order to participate in Explory you must sign up with an email and then create a password (yes, this app is FREE!). I was happy that this app didn't spam me throughout my week of using it as some app's that I've used in the past have had to be deleted due to their consistent advertising once they have your email address. The website for the app is the exact same in reference to layout on the mobile app when you first download it:

As I participated as a user in this app, I made sure to document my user experience in each step of the process with screen shots. Here is my registration experience. You'll find from my screen shots that I'm not forced to link my Explory account with other social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter. This was one of the biggest attractions for me, considering I don't have a Facebook and sometimes I really prefer to keep my different composing methods and platforms separate from one another:

Once my account was created, I was redirected to the app's user homepage, the homepage is really traditional to a public composing platform in that it has "popular" explories as well as an informational tutorial video, which I found to be exceptionally helpful. One thing I noticed the tutorial video didn't mention was how to delete different parts of your story as you were creating the videos, sound, and text. (I had to figure out how to delete an especially unflattering picture I took by accident of my chin).I'm wondering if this lack of attention to deleting components to a story is a specific rhetorical move on the app creators part?

When I went to look to see if there was a feedback opportunity, I found I had to go into the settings and then the only option I had to provide feedback was through email:

As for making my own explory, I found that viewing the tutorial video significantly helped my navigation of composing within this platform. I felt like "playing" around within the app was truly an easy experience and I was able to understand the app and how it functioned. I noticed that you could only include music in your explory that was purchased through iTunes, so for me that meant I only had the option of 2 different songs in each video I made. My first video was kind of rough and I got a little frusterated, but by day 2 after snooping around at other user's video's that had chosen to make their videos public, I was feeling pretty good. Here's a couple screen shots from my first video. Notice that you have several sharing options within this app, which is something I really value. 

In considering how to share the story you've made in other realms outside of the app, I noticed that you were largely limited to either Facebook, Twitter, email, or messaging. As a result I had to text my video to my boyfriend so I could open the explory hyperlink on my computer through iMessage, here is my first video:

Lucy's First Explory

Another awesome feature of Explory is that is archives your photos for you to make a "suggested" story based on the images you've collected throughout time. In doing so, here are my "suggested" stories that have been recommended for me:

Based off of specific days or events, Explory kind of puts together your story for your in a suggested time frame and linear composition (which you have the agency as the user to manipulate). This is the aspect that is of particular interest to me for my DTC 101 course as I have students beginning with a multimodal technology literacy narrative. As an assignment scaffolded into that unit, I might ask students to first generate their perceptions of their timeline of literacy with technology and then look to this app to see what Explory "suggests" for them as a potential story, and how this app might work to change the perceptions they have about their own technology use. If they would change particular elements of their suggested story, what would they be and why? how might they change the flow of their story? The music? the details? I think a lot of value can come from integrating a very "user friendly" multimodal story telling app like this one. In addition it's free and has amazing reviews!! (the following information comes from the iTunes App Store website):

Here are other screen shot captures of my experience in the days to follow my initial download and use (the first image is my students doing debate, followed by all my published explories, and then ending with my explory in the public sphere alongside other users). 

In regards to overall reflections of the app, I found this app to be incredibly fun. In staying true to my final research proposal, this app affords a tremendous amount of agency to its users, allowing for multiple ways of composing as well as interactive choice in how you get to view other's stories in regards to organization, time, and details. The app really pushes creating and participating but doesn't spend much time with removing certain facets of your story, which I found troubling. I also liked that once you published a story you also had the option to return to it later and edit it further, which to me really sends the message that nothing is ever finalized. Which is really cool. I am so happy I found this app because it's truly a multimodal narrative project that seeks to connect people through the shared experience of multimodal composing. So amazing!!!