fter reading your article, I feel sorry for the author. I do not know the identity of the alleged plagiarizing, font-adjusting, slackers are, but they certainly did not attend any four-year university I, or my family has attended. I agree with Hannah Dodd that you show nothing but "complete contempt and loathing for" your students as well as for her career. This author's experience sounds like high school, but the truth is that universities require most papers be submitted through programs that scan essays and compare the writing with hundreds of thousands of sources to expose plagiarism. This article is extremely insulting to every student, including me, who ever wrote a college essay. Essays written for the history department of CSU Long Beach had to pass the plagiarism test, as well show that the student can think critically and relate that critical thinking to a PhD-holding professor. Those few who do not pass muster will eventually find themselves outside the halls of the college, as California universities do not tolerate plagiarism or patterns of poor grades. How dare this woman belittle the hard work of tens of thousands of hard-working, INTELLIGENT students and professors.
Ann Steckel on 26 May 10"May 25, 2010, 02:00 PM ET Integrating Digital Audio Composition into Humanities Courses By Prof. Hacker Edison Phonograph[This guest post is by Jentery Sayers, who is a PhD candidate in English at the University of Washington, Seattle. In 2010-2011, he will be teaching media and communication studies courses in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington, Bothell. He is also actively involved with HASTAC. You can follow Jentery on Twitter: @jenterysayers.] Back in October 2009, Billie Hara published a wonderfully detailed ProfHacker post titled, "Responding to Student Writing (audio style)". There, she provides a few reasons why instructors might compose digital audio in response to student writing. For instance, students are often keen on audio feedback, which seems more personal than handwritten notes or typed text. As an instructor of English and media studies, I have reached similar conclusions. Broadening the sensory modalities and types of media involved in feedback not only diversifies how learning happens; it also requires all participants to develop some basic-and handy-technical competencies (e.g., recording, storing, and accessing MP3s) all too rare in the humanities. In this post, I want to continue ProfHacker's inquiry into audio by unpacking two questions: How might students-and not just instructors-compose digital audio in their humanities courses? And what might they learn in so doing? Designing Courses with Audio Composition in Mind One of the easiest ways to integrate digital audio composition into a humanities course is to identify the kinds of compositions that might be possible and then find some examples. Below, I consider five kinds of digital audio compositions: * recorded talks * audio essays * playlists * mashups * interviews Each entails its own learning outcomes, technologies, and technical competencies. The recorded talk consists of students reading their own academic essays a
