Digital Writing Teaching Circle Meeting Minutes--Meeting #3

DIGITAL WRITING TEACHING CIRCLE--MEETING #3
FRIDAY, MARCH 4--4-5 PM
 On WebEx

Present: Brian Lewis (facilitator), Steve Anderson, Jacque Arnold, Bob Bledsoe, Laura Funke, Dianne Gregory, Stephanie Laurey, Laurie Lykken, Brandy Opse-Weber, Sue Taylor

Absent: None

1.  Announcements
    a.  Brian reminded everyone to contribute to the "technology table" on the wiki. 
     b.  Brian then mentioned that all individual goals/objectives and reflection papers were received.  He will be providing comments on these papers and returning them within a week.  He may ask some people to refine/revise their goals and objectives a bit.
2.  Dianne presented three different websites:
     a.  Zoho--www.zoho.com.  Zoho performs many of the functions of GoogleDocs, including writing and collaboration.  It also provides a wiki and an alternative to PowerPoint presentations.  So it contains many different rhetorical functions for students in one centralized place, much as GoogleDocs does.  Dianne argued that, in some ways, Zoho is easier for student use.  It even allows video conferencing.
     b.  Dropbox--www.dropbox.com.   It provides a centralized place for saving documents and allows for asynchronous writing collaboration.  It could be particularly useful for students using iPhones and iPads. 
     c.  Google Groups--groups.google.com.  Offers an alternative to D2L discussion.  It's private--people are invited to join specific groups in Google via e-mail.  It allows for online discussion on specific topics, just as the Discussion Boards in D2L do; one advantage of Google Groups is that people receive e-mails when someone posts to the "Group."
3.  Bob completed his presentation on mashups.  He showed us how he puts together a presentation using Windows Movie Maker.  This presentation included images from Google images, audio (song), and transitions.  He also showed us how to create opening and closing credits for the presentation.  Students can create mashups as a kind of visual rhetoric assignment in composition classrooms.  
4.  Closing remarks
     a.     Next meeting will be IN WEBEX, FRIDAY, MARCH 18, FROM 4-5 PM.   BRIAN WILL SEND EVERYONE THE WEBX MEETING LINK AT LEAST 24 HOURS BEFORE THE ONLINE MEETING. 
     b.     Laurie and Laura will share digital writing/new media techniques and explain why they would work well for the English classroom.  Part of the meeting may be in AdobeConnect.  Details on this later.
     c.     Sue Taylor reminded everyone that an English UFT position is now available at Saint Paul College.
5.  HOMEWORK FOR EVERYONE BEFORE NEXT MEETING:--Find at least ONE new media teaching technique that you think might be worth sharing with the group if you have not yet done so.

Meeting ended at about 5:06 pm.  A recording of the meeting was done and is on the MnSCU WebEx site.

Brian