DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.
At a previous college where I once taught, the tuition was VERY steep ($35,000 plus another $15,000 for dorming).  Many of my students received generous scholarships but after the recession, the generosity wasn’t as forthcoming.  The university was struggling also.  There would come a point in the semester where students’ bills weren’t paid for any host of reasons— loans were not approved yet, scholarship money was not in yet.  To motivate students to get their finances together, the university would simply drop students from their classes.  This means they could not access campus email, course blackboards, their ID… nothing!  I thought it was obnoxious.  I am not someone who gets angry, upset, or ashamed because I grew up poor, but I do resent people and institutions who try to punish and alienate me because of it.  That’s part of why I taught myself web design for my classes.  None of my students could reach my blackboard pages after they had been dropped from courses, making it more difficult for them to stay caught up with the work.  Well, guess what?  Any student in the world with a phone or computer can reach this space.  “Knowledge reigns supreme”…and it don’t have to cost a thing.

 

There is another reason this course incorporates so much multimedia and digital processes though.  And that is also about YOU.

 

Imagine it is 2024 and you are working in the profession/industry you want, doing the work you are dreaming of.  Do you really think that will be a print-based culture?  Do you really think knowing the rules of grammar will be enough?  That you can succeed without knowng a minimum of web design and coding or, at least being comfortable with the various templates and interfaces of a variety of programs?  Do you think that the ways that you will have to navigate text in this world will look like what I had to do years ago as a college student?  It’s time to step up to plate here.  You all already use technology.  But that’s not good enough.  You have to become people who also design technology.  That’s what writing in the 21st century will require if you want to be critical and engaged citizens of this world.

 

The digital work of this class will not be difficult but it could possibly be different from your other classes.  Like I said, I want you to experience and create your own design, not just learn from the platform I designed for you.  Here’s the motto: if Carmen can do it, anyone can!  Seriously!  I am very basic and simple.  If there is something I want to do better (like use videos and music in my classes), then I will exploit the available technology to do that (I don’t even do facebook.  I have no interest in the foolishness my friends do up in there.)   If I am working on a website like this and there is something that I need to figure out, I just google it, watch some video tutorials, and get it done. I have never taken a web design class.  No one ever taught me how to do word art, turn videos to mp3 and cut them, embed playlists, change CSS to suit my own needs, or make animated powerpoints into movies.  It was something that I needed to know so I looked it up/googled it and then did it.  Like I said, if I can do this, really, anyone can.  For those of you who already have websites and know code, you can help us all out even more.

 

If you want to see my digital toolkit,  you can visit these spaces if you like (optional and mostly to get a sense of how I approach web stuff):

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.