My plans

Thoughts about the future after Day 2 of the 4 Day Event/Emerging. In the summer session course I will be teaching in CCS and in the composition course I will be teaching in Fall 2005 I plan to continue my research on the The Border e-Model. The Border e-Model has grown out of my earlier work on holography and border culture. In early versions of the model, I discussed the experience of living in border regions, border semiotics and holography. Now, I am analyzing underrepresented ethnic communities in relation to the building of cybercommunities. I plan to encourage students to engaged in study about their own ethnic backgrounds/family backgrounds during the Fall semester classes. By doing so, they will quickly immerse themselves in threaded discussions, Netiquette, flaming (:)) and many other aspects of digital culture. The methodological approach I am developing in my work on the Border e-Model is influenced by over twenty years of research in semiotics, deconstruction, holography, nonlinear narratives, border theory, and most recently, set theory. I have written a paper about the model and how I have tried to implement some of John Seely Brown's ideas in my classes (Spring 2005), particularly in relation to Xboxes and zines. In Fall 2005, I will be adding two of Bernie's idea: 1) moving up the triangle to assigning authentic, adult tasks (writing letters about the situation of women who have disappeared in Ciudad Juarez, for example) and 2) shifting from talking about novels with nonlinear plots (Cortazar's Hopscotch in this case) to having students choose characters and blogging in the voice of those characters. Other ideas include (for the summer class) introducing the recycling/refurbishing of technology and an environmental approach to digital culture. I want students to understand how exciting it is to take old, discarded computers and install Linux. The literary component of analyzing technology will include a short story about Polaroids (by Cortazar), Vinge's story (the one we are reading). In the middle of the course, a guest speaker will it all together in relation to RFCs (Requests for Comments). The importance of being able to use "old" stuff, again, will be emphasized. The high tech/low tech relationship is what I want students to think about.