Even If You’re Cool, You Should Ask

Students rarely glide or gambol into a campus communication center.  There is no samba line to sentence reconstruction.  The run-up to their appearance at the door is pretty simple: they have an assignment looming that entails stringing words together; they need coaching to create a presentation that won’t lead to… Continue reading

The Importance of Team-Based Learning and Multivector Interaction in the Technical Communication Classroom

Even though the course I am teaching this spring semester has the same name and number as the one I taught in the fall—LMC 3403: Technical Communication in Theory and Practice—the two classes couldn’t be much more different. For starters, last semester was my first at Georgia Tech and also… Continue reading

D-Ped 12/5: Trends in Digital Humanities

In this seminar session devoted to trends in the digital humanities, we (Jason W. Ellis, Margaret Konkol, Patrick McHenry, and Olga Menagarishvili) will discuss ways to enrich our teaching and research with DH approaches and techniques. We will demonstrate how to use widely-used programs, open source tools, and easy techniques… Continue reading

Tech Comm Seminar 11/26: Service Learning

James Gregory and Christina Van Houten will lead discussion on service learning and technical communication; in this seminar, we’ll also open up our discussion to issues of case studies, portfolios, and pseudotransactionality. Required Reading includes: Chris Ritter’s TechSTYLE post: http://techstyle.lmc.gatech.edu/?p=3841 Ann M. Blakeslee, “Bridging the Workplace and the Academy: Teaching Professional Genres… Continue reading

Tech Comm Seminar 11/05: Digital Literacy and Social Media

Jason W. Ellis and Olga Menagarishvili will lead a discussion on digital literacy and social media issues for technical communicators in this week’s seminar. How does digital literacy in general and social media more specifically figure into the Technical Communication classroom? Should we challenge our Technical Communication students to be more… Continue reading

Tech Comm Seminar 10/29: Single-Sourcing and User Experience Issues

Jason W. Ellis and Rachel Mahan will lead a discussion on single-sourcing and user experience issues for this week’s seminar. While technical communication often focuses on software technologies, those same technologies influence and shape what technical communication is and how technical communication is done. A specific area of pedagogical interest… Continue reading

D-Ped 10/10: Assessment

In our Digital Pedagogy talk on Wednesday, October 10, Noah Mass, Sarah Bleakney, James Gregory, and Emily Kane  will discuss strategies for assessing student work. In our discussion, we will focus on two forms of assessment: self-assessment by the student in peer response and revision, and assessment of student work… Continue reading

Tech Comm Seminar 10/8: Visual Literacy, Visual and Information Design

James Gregory and Rachel Mahan will lead Monday’s Tech Comm Seminar discussion on visual literacy, visual design, and information design. We would like you to read and watch the following: “What is Information Design?” Janice C. Redish (pp. 211-17 in Teaching Technical Communication) From “The Vocabulary of Comics” Scott McCloud… Continue reading

Remixing Assignment Design

In this week’s D-Ped seminar, led by Leah Haught, Lauren Holt, Emily Kane, and Julie Hawk, we will focus on innovative assignment design. This week will be a very practically oriented session, so come prepared to put on your workshop hat and get an assignment remixed and ready to use…. Continue reading

Tech Comm Seminar 9/17: The “Soul” of Business and Technical Communication — and Academia

In this seminar session, Dr. Patrick McHenry and Dr. Andy Frazee will lead discussion on the “soul” of business and technical communication; in so doing, the seminar will also discuss the “soul” of academia. What is our responsibility as teachers and academics to the workplaces our students are going into?… Continue reading