| We are a group of four doctoral students in the Technical Communication and Rhetoric program at Texas Tech University. The purpose of this project was to solicit ideas about how personal agency and social media are used in the classroom to create knowledge. Through sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as through email, we distributed a survey to answer questions concerning the use of Web 2.0 technologies within academia, and how such use related to the rhetoric of personal agency. From this survey, we completed our analysis and then began to catalogue information pertinent to Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom through resources such as Diigo and Zotero. The metaAcademia.com website was initially created for us to collect our ideas and resources, and is intended to be a place where other academics can add their voice, collaborate, share data, provide interpretations, and seek out resources. Additionally, through this website we invite others to help us to define the meaning behind Web 2.0 in academia and what the ramifications are of introducing and using these new tools. This is the beginning of what we hope will a process that will evolve and grow. |
At the conclusion of our project, we met via a conference call to talk about our process and to discuss future directions for this research. Included here are a series of audio recordings of this conversation. |
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| We talk here about some of the perceived and actual barriers to incorporating Web 2.0 in academia... | ||||
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| Here we discuss some of the limitations of our study... | ||||
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| And finally, we talk about future areas of research... | ||||
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| Christopher Andrews has taught rhetoric, composition, and literature in the McMurry University English department since 2004.He is a doctoral student in the Technical Communication and Rhetoric program at Texas Tech University, and received his MA in English from Tarleton State University. Aside from avoiding writing short blurbs about himself, he has a broad spate of interests: rhetoric and invention, composition-rhetoric history (especially 19th century rhetorical instruction), hyper- and intertextuality, digital discourses and social networking, composition pedagogy and web 2.0, web design, narrative theory, and Euro-American literary modernism, (the odd duck in the group). He also hates making charts. | My name is Kristi Dunks and I work as an Air Safety Investigator where I investigate aircraft accidents, as well as write accident reports and special projects. I obtained a Master of Aeronautical Science degree with specializations in human factors and aviation safety from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. My current research is focused on risk communication in aviation safety, and the role of communication in government processes and reports, in addition to various other aviation-related issues. I travel frequently with my job, so I embrace Web 2.0 technologies and the many options they provide to me to stay connected both professionally and personally. | After earning a BA in English from Southern Oregon University, Ronda Wery worked twelve years as a technical communicator, editing computer and pharmacy textbooks and writing manufacturing documentation for Hewlett-Packard. Wery later returned to school to pursue the career in teaching she had always intended. Her MA from Oregon State University is in Scientific and Technical Communication. She is currently an online PhD student in Technical Communication and Rhetoric at Texas Tech University. Ronda teaches speech, technical communication, composition, and Bible as literature courses at Klamath Community College in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Her research interests include rhetoric, social networking, and research methods. |
Monica Wesley is employed by the University of Wyoming as an adjunct instructor in the Department of Communication and Journalism. In addition to higher education, she has also worked in marketing, design, public relations, and operations. Monica earned her masters degree in Communication from the University of Wyoming and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Technical Communication and Rhetoric with a focus in visual rhetoric and new media at Texas Tech University. Her research interests include visual rhetoric, the rhetoric of intellectual property law and issues of ownership and access, new media, visual metaphor, and questions of power in mass media. | |||
