Dànielle Nicole DeVoss | Michigan State University

Andy Frazee | Georgia Institute of Technology

James P. Purdy | Duquesne University

David Sheridan | Michigan State University

Douglas Walls | University of Central Florida

Rusty Carpenter | Eastern Kentucky University

1. share insights

2. address (some) key questions

3. discuss ideas, plans, action items

OVERVIEW

Materials from this panel, including the notes we will generate, will be available at:

www.digitalwriting.org/cw2014

A Space to Play, A Space to Compose: A Model for Creative Collaborations and Composition Practices

● Noel Studio spaces: Greenhouse, Discovery Classroom, Breakout Spaces, Practice Rooms, Conference Room

● Noel Studio pedagogy: collaborative, creative, multimodal

● Spatial/pedagogical intersections/overlaps

Creative collaborations and composing practices

•Noel Studio as a place/space for experimentation and exploration

•Noel Studio space suggests the importance of play through space design/architexture and resources available

Noel Studio composition as gallery space•public spaces for invention•social spaces for composing•material spaces for play

Students engage creative spaces creatively•kinesthetic•messy•physical

This was a moment of creativity, innovation, social/cultural entrepreneurship, and of making.

“ CE gave me a chance to explore some of the activities about which I was unsure—both in my own natural ability and my own interest. If it weren't for the CE I'd likely never have created several of the videos that have been published in other major venues. The CE (and the people behind it) embodies the type of thinking that will not only bring MSU, but higher education as a whole, forward in society. ”

Dan Nufer, Professional Writing, 2012User Experience Designer, Razorfish, Chicago

Shaping Community, Collaboration, and Multiliteracies at Georgia Tech

Three spaces Laptop Classroom | Communication Center | Program HQ

Match physical spaces and philosophy, pedagogy, and research practices.

Get a hardhat.

Residential College in the Arts and Humanities

Language and Media Center

The LMC as a Social HubWe were just hanging out in the LMC on a Monday afternoon. I was kind of waiting between class and my ILO . . . (RCAH Student)

How does space help to connect people, technologies, resources, compositions, ideas, information, etc.?

How do these heterogeneous elements, in turn, construct space?

A learning ecology can be glimpsed in

•chance & planned encounters between various human & nonhuman actants;

•assigned & self-sponsored composing activities;

•the fluid movement of people, compositions, & ideas through proximate but heterogeneous spaces.

The Language and Media Centeras Hub in Learning Ecology

expanding space and the extracurricular

@wallsdouglas

different domains / different practices

New practices that are easy

New practices that are harder to learn

New practices that might be in opposition to old practices

What aspects/elements of space are most in need of attention in the field now? In the future? Why?

• How do we get to the infrastructure inside the institution that allows for creating and sustaining these sorts of spaces? (especially in a context of lower enrollments) > build coalitions with other departments and colleges; smartly share and co-access spaces; strategize with development people (early on!)

• How do we craft rhetorically savvy, institutionally smart strategic plans (and then follow up on and enact them)? > find allies and affiliates (start with students)

• How can we anticipate changes in technological needs and spaces (e.g., labs?)

• How do we shape our spaces around publicness (composing, presenting, sharing, etc.)? And how can we balance that with the necessity to (sometimes) close things off?

• How both leverage and address competing tensions and aspirations?

• build coalitions with other departments and colleges; smartly share and co-access spaces; strategize with development people (early on!)

• find allies and affiliates (start with students)

• draw on existing theory and work is critical; space work is never mono-disciplinary > EDUCAUSE, IT Commons, library literature

• Identify what we’re doing that is particular to us and figure out what is in dialogue with what others are doing

In what ways have spatial considerations changed in writing instruction in the last decade? How have these changes affected the ways we teach—and think about—writing?

• we’ve run out of classrooms; space is at a premium in pressured ways

• we’ve run out of computer lab spaces• is a laptop a space? is a smartphone a space? (it’s not the

laptop—it’s the activity with/through it, and the people, software, and more)

• how can we rupture the deeply embedded understandings and practices of spaces (if need be…)?

• What do we have to swap and transform for space access? How does that impact our teaching practices? (engaging both improvisational models and intentional models)

• How do we shake up the various spaces on our campuses (e.g., libraries)?

• “Ambient sociality”; building for possibility• Where writing happens and how to integrate, address, or not =

HUGE shift (what spaces can we adopt and use without colonizing?)

• Engage pedagogical options > just one model is limiting; protect and allow pedagogical flexibility

What aspects/elements are unique to online/digital writing classrooms and nonclassroom spaces?

• Bridging gap and creating space for digital/virtual spaces within physical spaces

• All spaces have (distributed) barriers; need to negotiate them• Adobe Learning Center > space for instruction for shared/cloud

software and access (central space)• Institutions, imagery, etc., tend to situate online/virtual learning

spaces as gateway spaces to our physical institutions; where is the where?

• Space puts things there; how do we create that in online space? (but… there are space barriers—like parking, etc.)

• How can we consider safety in our spaces? (e.g., how can you lock down if your walls are glass? How can we share material but still protect students’ identity and information?)

• We have to curate and archive practices to share them• We need to work strategically with online and physical

communities to do space-based work

What are some techniques for networking with and best communicating with different stakeholders where space design is concerned?

• [we ran out of time!]

What advice do you have for funding writing classroom (online or off) and nonclassroom space (re)design projects?

• [we ran out of time!]

How do you suggest navigating institutional procedures for space (re)design requests? What local considerations are crucial to consider?

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What approaches are most persuasive in convincing stakeholders (from students to administration) of the infrastructures involved in/necessary for writing?

• [we ran out of time!]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8UyEXemtp0

What opportunities does space provide for reconceiving writing instruction?

• [we ran out of time!]

Other questions…?

• [we ran out of time!]

• [nooooo tengo tiempo!]

Concluding thoughts

Making space:• The physical and digital spaces we use

to produce, circulate, deliver, research, and teach writing shape our practices and our products.

Architexture:• The ways in which physical and digital

spaces affect writing processes, instruction, and scholarship may not be obvious to administrators, students, or even our colleagues. We need to make explicit their influences and our needs.

Concluding thoughts

Infrastructure:• Local conditions matter. Infrastructure

needs will vary by institutions, course, and program.

Rhetoric of design:• Pedagogical decisions should drive

infrastructural decisions. The successful examples shared here started with an underlying philosophy of design and theory of composing.

Materials from this panel, including the notes we generated, will be available at:

www.digitalwriting.org/cw2014