"Hi James

This is looking very good. I really like the way you've pulled this together. I have just a few points, and apologies that the ethics ones seem a bit nitpicky : / :

• I think the second research question is a bit vague, though I see what you're getting at. I think you might tighten it a little to focus on how assessment criteria are defined for multimodal assignments, and how assessors approach the making of quality judgements of these artfacts - something like that?
• On the ethics form, question 5.9 I don't think you need to indicate that the purpose of the research will be concealed: I'm not quite sure what you mean here, but this certainly isn't a piece of covert research, for which particular ethical rationales would need to be given. Just say 'no' to this one...
• On question 6.1, you will need to get consent from interview participants (I can see why the rubric is misleading) - however generating original interview data does require consent. Just use the 'geographies' project one as a template (attached). We can discuss what kind of consent you might need for the observations - probably none so no need to mention that here.
• In section 8.2 - you need to be clear that audio recording will be used (if that's your intention). In 8.3, say that all transcripts and extracts used will be anonymised, rather than that anonymity will be offered. Similarly in 8.4, just say that pseudonyms *will* be used rather than 'where appropriate' (ie for this kind of ethics application anonymity is always appropriate! well, almost always...)

That's pretty much it - if you could revise the ethics application (and the research question, if you agree!) and send it back, we can agree that's the final version.

Then we should meet to discuss getting all this set up - my diary is pretty packed between now and Christmas, I expect yours is too. But monday 10th in the morning? 9 or 10? Or the afternoon of friday 14th?

Great stuff - I think you've really got this underway now.

Sian"

"Hello everyone,

I'm writing with details of the "deeper than the eye can see" event with our guest expert, Natasa Lackovic from the University of Nottingham. MSc in E-learning participants, alumni, teachers and friends are all welcome to join in next week on Tuesday 20 November, 7:30-8:30pm UK time.

Before the event, please watch Natasa's introduction and her video lecture. These are available at:

mms://resources.lsri.nottingham.ac.uk/stream/natasa/introduction.wmv
mms://resources.lsri.nottingham.ac.uk/stream/natasa/screencast.wmv
 
These streams will play in a number of clients across various platforms including Windows, Mac and Linux. The open source client VLC worked well for me, and this is a free download from: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Then, on the 20th, join us in Blackboard Collaborate for an hour-long discussion session at 7:30pm (UK time). Along with talking with Natasa about her research and presentation, and learning more about visual methods, this should be a great opportunity to get and share some inspiration and insights for your own research projects or assignments.

On the 20th, you can access the Collaborate session through the MSc E-learning Moodle course, or directly at this link:

https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2011426&password=M.745C01385F5224536FD3990C738F6B

If you haven't run Collaborate recently, you should check your setup - directions for this below.

If you have any questions, please let me know! 

Looking forward to seeing you online next Tuesday evening!

Jen


Check computer setup for Collaborate
1. Check your operating system and Java: Computer Configuration check

2. Use Configuration room v11 to test your connection, settings, and configure your audio.

More info is here: http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/services/learning-technology/communication/collaborate/preparing

If you require technical help, contact the University Helpline is.helpline@ed.ac.uk (tel:  0131 651 5151) for technical support."

"Transliteracy might provide a unifying perspective on what it means to be literate in the twenty-first century. It is not a new behavior but has only been identified as a working concept since the Internet generated news ways of thinking about human communication." 

"We live in a world of multiple literacies, multiple media and multiple demands on our attention."

and

"In this article, we explore a new concept - "transliteracy' - which is both very old and brand new and may help us shed light on how we, as human beings, communicate."

"Transliteracy is the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks."

"...the concept of transliteracy calls for a change of perspective away from the battles over print versus digital, and a move instead towards a unifying ecology not just of media, but of all literacies relevant to reading, writing, interaction and culture, both past and present."

"Is the internet really changing the ways in which we read, write, and think? Is the book truly dead? Is anything being lost in the frantic rush to get online? What has happened to the idea of literary value?"

"Many people seem to feel that they should have a preference between the analogue and the digital, as it the situation really were so polarized."

"However, it is important to note that transliteracy is not just about computer-based materials, but about all communication types across time and culture. It does not privilege one above the other but treats all as of equal value and moves between and across them."

Citing Scott Lash:

"Culture is now three-dimensional, as much tactile as visual, all around us and inhabited, live in rather than encountered in a separate realm as a representation."

and:

"Culture is no longer one of pure representation or narrative, where visual culture conveys messages. Instead, culture formulates, formats, channels, circulates, contains and retrieves information."

"Furthermore, virtual reality becomes an, albeit extreme, metaphor for change in the rules of engagement between subject and object. 

and:

"The promise not so much convergent media, but rather, simultaneous and concurrent experiential moments."

"One is that design culture requires its observers to move beyond visual and material attributes to consider the multivarious and multilocational networks of its creation and manifestation."

"The ability to read, write, and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks." 

"In this article, we explore a new concept - "transliteracy" - which is both very old and brand new"

"the concept of transliteracy calls for a change of perspective away from the battles over print versus digital, and a move instead towards a unifying ecology not just of media, but of all literacies relevant to reading, writing, interaction and culture, both past and present."

"Across this long stretch of cultural time, five million years of human communication, the privileging of reading and writing as primary defining literacies begins to seem somewhat out of scale."

"But humans have only been using reading and writing for a very short time in our history, so how else do we communicate?" Transliteracy pays attention to the whole range of modes and the synergies between them to produce a 'transliterate lifeworld' in constant process."

"It is an interstitial place teeming with diverse life-forms, some on the rise, some in decline, expressed in many languages in many voices, many kinds of scripts and media."

"There are more similarities between modes than may be at first apparent, and the technological skills involved are often simple to acquire if the user is positively inclined to attempt them."

"As we have seen, transliteracy involves being able to read, write and interact across multiple modes."

"However, materials does not have to be digital to be multimodal."

"The current home page is profoundly different. It is not organized following the logic of the traditional written page but following that of the image-based logic of contemporary pages. Tellingly and more significantly, this page has thirteen distinct entry points where the 1992 page had one." (p9)

and

"It was an entry point given by convention and used by the author. Access to the power of authorship was strictly governed." (p9)

"The existence of the different entry points speaks of a sense of insecurity about the visitors, a feeling or fragmentation of the audience - who are no longer just readers but visitors a quite different action being implied in the change of the name." (p9)

"This then leaves the task of finding principles that will show the 'affordances', distinct potentials and limitations for representation of the various modes." (p12)

"Sequence is used to make meaning; being first has the potential to mean something other than being second or being last." (p12)

and

"Sequence has effects for authorship and for reading." (p13)

"Speech and writing tell the world; depiction shows the world. in the one, the order of the world is that given by the author; in the other, the order of the world is yet to be designed (fully and/or definitely) by the viewer." (p16)

"The new constellation of image and screen - where screen, the contemporary canvas, is dominated by the logic of image..." (p18)

"Where with traditional pages, in the former semiotic landscape, it was the power of the author that rules, here, it is the interest of the reader, derived from the contingencies and needs of their life-worlds." (p18)

"The new media make it possible to use the mode that seems most apt for the purposes of representation and communication." (p19) 

and

"I can now choose the mode according to what I know or might imagine is the preferred mode of the audiences I have in mind." (p19)

"That certainty is gone; each occasion of representation and communication now becomes one in which the issue of my relation to my audience has to be newly considered and settled on." (p19)