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Date:         Tue, 10 Nov 1992 22:48:05 -0500
From:         KARRFALT@EDINBORO.EDU
Subject:      MORE ON CLASSROOMS

     I'd like to add something related to the exchange recently on classrooms.
Probably most persons who have taught writing and introduced their students to
word processing have noticed students using their computers like typewriters
(double spacing their text with two hard returns at the end of every line).  But
not MOST students.
     In the same category with this behavior, I had always thought, is writing
an entire essay project (reading notes, prewriting, outline, draft, completed
essay) with pencil in a notebook and then coming to the computer room, whether
in class or in an open lab, and "typing in" the essay.  I have objected to my
students about this practice when I have seen it.  I have told them it is as if
I would give them a new Corvette and instead of taking it to the nearest premium
gas pump they would take it home and hitch it up to the family mule.
     But we have no idea, at least I have no idea, HOW BUSY freshmen are.  A few
weeks ago, after seeing many of my students complete a two or three week
writing assignment on the night before it was due (or on the day after it was
due), I resolved to check each stage of their second assignment over the next
two weeks.  I think something like two thirds of my seventy students showed me
handwritten pages in their notebooks -- and not just of their prewriting, but
their further planning, and their outlines, and their complete drafts of their
essays.  At each stage I complained about this (and even subtracted points) but
the next day I would still see the penciled handwriting coming into the writing
computer classroom.
     I was alarmed and really caught off guard at the extent of this because in
my freshman writing course, I have several tools (a set of tutorial exercises
and a group of WordPerfect style-checking macros) I have developed for them to
use at very particular points in the process of their assignments and their not
doing their planning and outlining and drafting in WordPerfect cancelled the
possible help of these tools.
     My question to any MBUers is whether you see these same behaviors.  And
whether you have an effective counter strategy?  Is it possible (although I
really doubt it) that on campuses where computer stations are more commonly
scattered about than telephones -- on every floor of every dorm, in the library,
the student union, the fraternity houses, etc. -- students show less of this
behavior than students do on a campus where there are many computer labs but
almost all in the classroom buildings and in the Computer Center?

David Karrfalt
Edinboro University of Pennsylvania
Karrfalt@Edinboro.EDU
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Date:         Mon, 9 Nov 1992 22:16:24 -0600
From:         "(Joe Amato)" <jamato@UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject:      Re: is the end of "the paper" in sight?

Sorry for the jargon, Irvin.  By "stack" I meant a stack of (hyper)cards.
The card motif is used by Apple as a basis for (visually) modeling
HyperCard.  Storyspace, on the other hand, consists of nestings of
rectangular boxes.

Joe
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Date:         Tue, 10 Nov 1992 22:57:23 MST
From:         "David E. Schwalm" <IACDES@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Lurkers or Wallflowers?

From: David E. Schwalm
How about "reading violets"?

-- David E. Schwalm, Assoc. Provost for Academic Programs
___Arizona State University West
___4701 West Thunderbird Rd.
___Phoenix, AZ 85069-7100___(602) 543-4500
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Date:         Thu, 5 Nov 1992 12:12:43 -0600
From:         NKAPLAN@UTDALLAS.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Foreign languages?

>Sorry if this seems off the wall, but I need to know something.  Do
>any of my fellow MBUers know anything about how foreign language
>departments are incorporating computers into their instructional
>programs?  Any info, especially journal articles/book titles, will be
>greatly appreciated.
>

I can't claim to know myself, but I DO know someone who does know:  Nina
Garrett at George Mason is your best source, IMHO.  Her email address is:

NGARRETT@GMUVAX

Nancy Kaplan
University of Texas at Dallas
Box 830688
Richardson, TX  75083-0688

(214) 690-2071
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Date:         Wed, 11 Nov 1992 17:01:00 PST
From:         DON WEASENFORTH <WEASENF@USCMVSA.BITNET>
Subject:      temporary signoff

set mbu-l nomail
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Date:         Wed, 4 Nov 1992 17:17:00 CST
From:         GOS@UHDBIT.BITNET
Subject:      Re: is the end of "the paper" in sight?

Regarding the hyper-report:

   John Slaten asks "how many times have you...regretted your own developing
arguments' demand that you not follow one or another of its possible threads...
This can be easily done in HT."
   But as writer, I still controlled that choice.  In HT I can put in all the
treads imaginable but the choice of what ultimately appears is beyond my
control.  As writer, I can't predict what will be seen, or what order it will
be seen in.
   I think Stuart Selber is correct when he says the hyper-report offers a
different forum that requires a different rhetoric.  Perhaps we should be
working toward that new rhetoric now rather than waiting to see if business
goes with the program.  (Dickie Selfe has pointed out that the discussion
is already underway on that matter).  If we wait till after the fact, we
may end up with what David Schwalm called a paradigmless "random organization
of miscellaneous bits."
   It sounds like all involved in this discussion so far agree that the move
to the hyper-report will require a new rhetoric.  What are we going to do
about it?
   And when?

Michael Gos
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Date:         Sun, 8 Nov 1992 16:11:00 CDT
From:         Fred Kemp <YKFOK@TTACS.BITNET>
Subject:      Good stuff on MBU

There is so much good stuff coming down the pipe on MBU these
days that I find I have trouble being original but spend most of
my time sending "me too" messages, putting my spin on someone
else's observation.

So I agree with Joe Amato's comment that at the very least,
hypertext distances the writer from the writing process (and
therefore provides a helpful self-consciousness and objectivity)
by providing an alternative model of how text can convey. . .
what?  Whatever text conveys. Information, persuasion, emotion,
empathy.

Seymour Papert in _Mindstorms_ some years ago called computers
"naturally heuristic," for one cannot investigate any
non-computer activity on the computer without rethinking the
original process, and thoroughly!  Veteran Megabuddies have heard
me say this before, but the principle bears repeating.  Whatever
hypertext is or isn't, it makes us look much more closely at
traditional text structures, just as the enduring legacy of
attempts at natural language in Artificial Intelligence may be
not language facility on computers but new understandings of what
natural language itself is (and is not).  Jay Bolter's resistence
to "closure" at the Indianapolis C&W has gnawed at my brain for
six months and made me completely reconsider something I had
never even thought about needing to reconsider.  I'm still not
sure I agree with him, but I will never again view pat
conclusions in the same, comfortable light.  (These hypertext
people play with your brain, don't they?)

By the way, like Joe, I think hypertext can and will become much
more than just an investigative device, but its value in that
capacity, it seems to me, is already vested, both for the
instructors studying it and for students using it.

Fred Kemp, TTU
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Date:         Sun, 8 Nov 1992 09:47:45 CST
From:         Irvin Peckham <peckham@CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU>
Subject: Re: is this the end of paper (long message)
              92 12:20 pm

Whoever wrote that long speculation on hyptertext as a defining
metaphor teased my brain into new thought.  As Woody Allen might
say, I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around these thoughts,
but I look forward to creating courses in which we experiment
with hypertext as a shaping force of pedagogical environment and,
consequently, social relationships as they are signaled both
through language and instruction.  The next move is toward
(re)shaping culture.  Language-->writing-->printing press-->
computers-->hypertext-->?
--
Irvin Peckham
Internet: peckham@unomaha.edu
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Date:         Fri, 6 Nov 1992 13:10:55 EST
From:         rselfe@MTU.EDU
Subject:      help on a composition resource file

I received a message from      the other day and thought that many
Megabunnies would be willing to help.

> My name is Chris Moore and I am a graduate student in English at Virginia
> Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA.  My duties as a Graduate Teaching
> Assistant include teaching several sections of Freshman Composition.
>
> I worked as a computer consultant for two years before coming to VCU, and am
> very interested in utilizing computers to aid the composition process.  To
> that end, I am performing an independent study this semester with the goal of
> producing
>
>********  a manual for teachers of composition  *********
>
>that catalogs various
> resources availale to them via the internet.
>
> As you know, the internet is a vast arena.  And within all of that vastness I
> am having trouble locating resources that deal specifically with the teaching
> of composition.  I have found the MBU listserver and several useful areas in
> Academy One on the Cleveland FreeNet.  I have been pursuing this for several
> months now and fear I am bumping up against a wall.
>
> Hence this note to you.  I am writing in the hope that you may take a few
> minutes out of your busy schedule to suggest some areas that may be useful to
> me that I have not yet located.  As I said, I am interested specifically in
> resources that cater to composition teachers, but any tips you have
> concerning anything relating to composition would be helpful.  I am currently
> in the process of sifting through a 100+ hardcopy of the "list of lists" in
> order to locate other listservers, but this process is laborious at best.
>
> Can you offer me any suggestions?  I would very much appreciate it.  Once
> again, thanks for taking the time to read this.  If you have any questions,
> please contact me at eng1cjm@hibbs.vcu.edu.
>
> Sincerely,
>   Chris Moore


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Dickie Selfe              rselfe@mtu.edu
Humanities Dept.          906-487-3225
Michigan Technological U.
Houghton, MI   49931
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Date:         Tue, 10 Nov 1992 18:16:16 CST
From:         Irvin Peckham <peckham@CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Lurkers or Wallflowers?

To back in the shadows:
I still prefer Reader to Wallflower, but once I think of
how flowers may decorate walls . . .
Oh, those eighth grade dances!  Can you imagine them
as hyptertexts and us as nodes?
--
Irvin Peckham
Internet: peckham@unomaha.edu
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Date:         Mon, 9 Nov 1992 20:23:33 CST
From:         Irvin Peckham <peckham@CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU>
Subject:      To Stan Sulkes
              92 7:35 am

>
> Irvin, I seem to have stepped into the
> end of your comments on using hypertext in
> the writing classroom.  Can you or someone else
> brief me on it? Provide a citation or two?  I'd
> love to know more about this.  Thanks, Stan Sulkes
> , Raymond Walters College.
>
Stan:
I'm a novice, too.  I'm gleaning information from others'
contritbutions, so I don't have any references.  I should
of course go off and find some in order to reada about
what's going on--but I think I get just about the same
info here.  More fun here, too, because I get to ask
questions and choose my nodes.
Irv

--
Irvin Peckham
Internet: peckham@unomaha.edu
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Date:         Thu, 12 Nov 1992 20:47:54 CST
From:         Bob Whipple <whippl@PARROT.CREIGHTON.EDU>
Subject: Re: WC/Computer Labs

1.  no theatre seating
2.  take the heat generated by 20+ PCs into account
3.  soft, moveable/wheeled chairs
4.  queued laserprinters
5.  LCD projection panel
6.  remember that comfy keyboard height for a 6'4" tchr. isn't so
    for everyone
7.  blinds on large windows, depending on sun's exposure in rm.
8.  recycling and trash  bins at at least 4 places in rm.
9.  don't let someone lse tell you what you need before you tell them,
    even if you're spending their money
10. don't fall in love w/ the first application suite you get
11. remember why you're building the thing
12. buy as much technology as you can afford

bob whipple
creighton u/omaha
rhetoric@creighton.edu
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Date:         Wed, 11 Nov 1992 07:42:49 CST
From:         ellis <nse2@RA.MSSTATE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Nancy--Remedial/working

Irv,
COLLEGE as a PLACE and not as a level of education --
I'll try to focus on that awhile  :-) !!

Thanks,
Nancy
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Date:         Mon, 9 Nov 1992 09:14:32 -0600
From:         "(Joe Amato)" <jamato@UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject:      Dr. Seuss

All:  I'm looking for litcrit analysis of Dr. Seuss stuff, esp.  "Green
Eggs and Ham."

Any help would be much appreciated.  Post me direct if you like.

Thanks.

Joe Amato
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Date:         Wed, 4 Nov 1992 17:20:00 CST
From:         GOS@UHDBIT.BITNET
Subject:      Re: is the end of "the paper" in sight?

Ron,
   I've always felt the native americans had the answers to most of our
problems.
   This is exactly the kind of thought I guess I envisioned when I brought
up the subject in the first place.

Michael
From: BURT@BRANDEIS.BITNET
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Subject: RE: query
Date: 6 Nov 92 18:53:00 GMT
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See also Isabella Bird's _A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains_.
John B
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Date:         Thu, 12 Nov 1992 10:07:47 -0500
From:         Angela Murphy-Walters <WALTERSAM@WCUVAX1.BITNET>
Subject:      Over-admission of remedial students

     David E. Schwalm asks about students "taking courses (from a bean
counter's perspective--'using resources') to no avail...."  At the
college where I did my undergraduate work it was a well known fact that
many people were admitted who were not expected to succeed.  In fact,
there were advantages for the bean counters and others if too many at-risk
students were admitted.  First, for at least one trimester tuition and fees
were being paid.  Second, for those who were not at-risk the scene was a lot
sunnier after that first trimester:  it was much easier to get the courses
you wanted, single rooms in the dorm were more readily available, lines in
the cafeteria were significantly shorter....  I realize that these are not all
terribly significant, but it did make a difference.  We came in thinking that
certain conditions would exist throughout our four years; by Thanksgiving it
was much more pleasant than we expected.  Another thing my college did (and
BTW, this has all changed since the administration changed about 10 years
ago) is put lots of students on probation who probably should have flunked
out.  If I remember right, my Freshman year about 1/3 of the class failed
the first trimester and another 1/3 was on academic probation.  Nearly all
of the second group stayed another semester, paying their fees, before finally
leaving.  Perhaps the problem was lack of support and remediation, but those
students who had chosen this college because of its high academic standards
really didn't appreciate being held back.  The next president of the college
restored the high admission standards we had been told existed and the
reputation of the college began to improve again.  Better students came and
were content to pay higher tuition rates, so the bean counters couldn't
complain too much.
     Sorry for the endless paragraph.  My point is, there may be some very
good reasons why your university is admitting a lot of at-risk students and
not supporting them.  Perhaps discovering those reasons should precede efforts
to remediate?
                                              Angela Murphy-Walters
                                              WALTERSAM@WCUVAX1
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Date:         Wed, 11 Nov 1992 08:43:00 CST
From:         SLATIN@UTXVM.BITNET
Subject:      Multimedia & Vendor Politics

Just a quick note: this morning on NPR Morning Edition there was a story about
Microsoft's announcement yesterday of Video for Windows-- software that allows
users to play back video clips incorporated into Windows documents.  The funny
thing about this is that Apple announced QuickTime quite a while back, and
QuickTime is much farther along, technologically, than Video for Windows,
which can only handle playback speeds of 15 frames per second and can't,
according to yesterday's review in InfoWorld, fully synchronize the sound of
Bill Gates's voice with the movement of his lips (no politician will ever
again say "Read my lips!").

There's also a QuickTime for Windows, either out nw  or on the way.

Why does all this matter?  Because QuickTime/Video for Windows are compression
utilities-- Apple describes QuickTime as a bid to create a standard data
format for all "time-based data," i.e., animations, sound, video.  In
practical terms, this means it's possible to store quantities of video or
sound that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive in terms of disk space;
in different practical terms, it means that the difference between hypertext
and multimedia is that multimedia builds a whole new temporal dimension into
our conception of documents.  Not just text, video, animation, and sound-- but
*time* becomes a medium too.  Jay Bolter talked in _Turing's Man_ (1984) about
the way computers redefine time, but for the most part he was talking about
the way programmers have to learn to think about time; multimedia is
computer-temporality for the rest of us, I guess.

Damn, I've done it again.  Started out to whine about Microsoft getting press
for introducing something Apple did better more than a year ago, and now look
at me!

John Slatin
UT Austin
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Date:         Fri, 13 Nov 1992 09:19:00 CDT
From:         Fred Kemp <YKFOK@TTACS.BITNET>
Subject:      net problems ok now

Several things dealing with net problems, "lurkers," etc.

My dizzying spin into the world of heavy messaging (at one
stretch I was receiving an error message into my account every
two minutes and seventeen seconds) is over for now, after
receiving (and quickly deleting) over 1600 messages in two days.
So what happened?  I donno.  Both Texas A&M and Houston listserv
managers have gently blamed each other, and then both turned and
pointed the finger at Texas Tech, and the listserv manager at
Tech shrugged and said "We din do nothing."  The point is that
somebody, somewhere, stopped the process yesterday at 5:pm. I
would like to send my benefactor some roses or something, but
nobody will confess up to having done anything, either to cause
the mess or to fix it.

(Wouldn't it be nice to return to 1995 when science was growing
confident that soon there wouldn't be any new mysteries?)

The term "lurker" came about on MBU, as so many things have,
facetiously.  It was a sort of teasing reference from the ten or
so heavy messagers to the ten or so who preferred to read only.
Actually, there should be no bad inference drawn from the term.
MBU can only exist as a discussion group with only a few
discussants at any one time.  If all 230 members participated
actively we'd be shut down quickly.  So we act like a sort of
immediate "Dear Abby" with the very important differences (1) no
one claims the single voice of authority (as do the Olympians
Abby and Ann), and (2) anyone who wants to get heard gets heard,
so that a lurker always feels that he or she is only a few keystrokes
away from adding to the discourse.

Regarding ways to manage the heavy traffic (and it's been very
heavy of late, due probably to the "gatekeeping" and hypermedia
threads).  Rob Royar has some high tech ways of filtering
messages, and I have some low-tech ways of using Procomm, Red
Ryder, Versaterm, and other communications software, with
"scripts," to automatically put messages into text files, pull
them down onto an individual hard disk, and read them as rapidly
scrolling text rather than individual messages off a 2400 bps
modem.  Query Rob or me for more information about these
processes. I manage (sometimes not too well) about 150 messages a
day, and usually don't take more than 1 1/2 hour to do it.  That
may seem like a lot of time to some people, but I know
administrators who spend more time than that with three other
guys over coffee at the student center.

Fred Kemp
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Date:         Wed, 11 Nov 1992 11:40:20 -0500
From:         Margaret.Daisley@ENGLISH.UMASS.EDU
Subject:      Reply to Reply to Re: Lurkers or Wallflowers?

I like Nick's suggested alternate to "lurkers" and "wallflowers" ... "browsers."
"Window shoppers" has, of course, that "capitalist" or mercenary undertone, but
"browsers" (and maybe alternately, "bowzers") seems to be relatively value-free.

("Can I have this dance, for the rest of my life?") -- Margaret Daisley
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