home(r) > iRhetoric >
tacit> collecting > the sophists > andragogy > use(r)ful persuings > requirements > reflection > referencesRequirements Core Concept Video
The trails students made through blog posts about readings and ideas in their own contexts were measured through their core concept videos. I define "video" as any media type that presents content without necessarily needing user invention/intervention. Videos can make use of user invention/intervention, but they do not necessarily need to. For instance, a page of text that auto-scrolls, in my view, can be considered a video. A PowerPoint that moves to the next slide automatically might also be considered a video. Bolter and Gromala wrote, "Plato invented installation art" (p.435). Plato's cave is a low tech example of, ultimately, a video. But unlike Plato's view that we can stand outside cultural context, acknowledging writing as a technology and acknowledging technologies as cultural artifacts demonstrates techne in practical ways. Practical wisdom. Phronesis.
The core concept video assignment enabled students who were more experienced with different technologies, or who wanted to learn different technologies, to be challenged. Just as Aristotle suggested that every essay has a beginning, middle, and end, I was looking for videos that had three components: a core concept defined briefly, the concept definition expanded in a specific context, and one or more examples that demonstrated practical wisdom. My students completed the assignment exploring a variety of concepts, while connecting classical concepts to ongoing work and interests. The technology was made transparent. The audience for this assignment could vary as well. Some sophists composed for one another; others created videos for students in classes they were teaching themselves. Their videos became content of the course as you see in the syllabus (as well as, perhaps, content of a course you might be preparing):
Most students had never used MovieMaker, iMovie, or a streaming server prior to the course. Assignments were assessed based on their thoroughness, their presentation of core content with some level of concision and precision, and how well they met the needs of their intended audiences. Because my students were so high performing, my role as a teacher became facilitator, and my role as a facilitor became looking for gaps in application or connections between ideas. The videos were accessed by students before class and during class; we discussed their application in synchronous meetings while viewing the videos in the right window pane in our MOO learning environment so that we could review the videos while chatting about them. But more significantly, the result of such assignments are in some ways what Greg Ulmer talked about when he seeks the creation of a new institution for what he calls "electracy." According to Ulmer, electracy is the convergence of image and reality in a sort of simulacra. Ulmer wrote, "In the same way that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle did not ask how writing might serve the needs of the institutions of orality—religion, ritual, magic—but instead invented a new institution—school—and new practices native to writing (method, dialogue), it is my responsibility (the responsibility of my discipline) to find an equivalent for electracy" (pp. 28-29). The equivalent is the placeshifted space shared between students and their rhetorical situations. That becomes the institution created through electracy.
- Whitepapers as commonplaces (Cynthia)
- Logos and the modern composition classroom (Gillian)
- Ethos and business writing (Barbara)
- Delivery and podcasting (Time)
- Enthymemes and contemporary advertising (Alec)
- Enthymemes and political rhetoric (Kendall)
- Commonplaces in modern national politics (Glenn)
- Blogging in the Agora (Fawn)
- Audience/delivery in online courses (Janie)
- The Canons (Joel)
- Phronesis (Lennie)
- Imitatio (Alison)
