There are lots of types of new media available to use these days. I think the hardest part is figuring out what to use to do what. I have not heard of Camtasia or vodcasting until Joseph mentioned it in his comment which makes me wonder if I am so behind in technology that I do not have a solid foundation to attempt to use new media in technology. Perhaps that should be part of the assignments that I come up with, research new media. Have the students figure out what new programs and technology are out there and then as a class find ways to incorporate it in to our composition class. I also just learned about the program Prezi and I think that it is a cool program to do presentations with instead of the plan old power point. I also came across a program at the May seminar, which I for some reason cannot remember the name of at this time (going to have to talk to a friend about that). Anyway, it allows you to choose characters and input a script to create your own Southpark style cartoon. As much as these kids like drawing and making movies I think this might also be an interesting way to teach script writing or plays.
There are so many possibilities for what new media is and the media is always changing; probably why it is called NEW media and not just media. I came across a YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdH1-L39Dh4) for a book called Writing New Media while I was researching using new media to teach composition classes. First off I have to say like most things on TV it looked bigger than it actually is in person. I thought I was getting a 600 page book, but it is a lot of information packed in to 260 or so pages. I have just started scratching the surface of this book, but I am excited to see what ideas it has for pedagogy and other uses for new media in the classroom. Who knew there was also a bunch of books on composition/ media in the TTU library (nothing compared to Dr. Rice, but not too shabby considering). I am still looking in to ideas and possibilities so any suggestions for where or what to try next is greatly appreciated. (If you can get the comment thing to work on blogger; I still haven’t gotten that glitch figured out.)
Elaine, I'm probably not the best person to reply to this, as I'm the same as you when it comes to new media. Everyone in TCR seems to know more about new programs than I do, so I hope one (or many) of them reply to you. I'd be interested to read their comments, too! :)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I was reading your post when I realized that I do know of a program that you might find interesting. It's called SlideRocket, and it enables a group to create and edit a PowerPoint-style presentation remotely. You can find a free version of it by Googling SlideRocket.
Of course, if you have the Cloud now, it might not be as essential to have specialized software that enables such remote group access. This will be an interesting thing to watch in the next few years (decades?): whether we will continue with the decentralization of new media programs, or whether conglomerate corporations will make a market standard that re-centralizes power. That's how it usually happens in capitalism, so it will be interesting to see what happens.