viz. 2011 Showcase
Blogging
As the year closes, we're reflecting on the ways our posts have connected visual rhetoric, digital literacy, and pedagogy. In the first part of this post, Elizabeth will focus on lesson plans that present ideas for using iMovie in the classroom. In the second part of the post, Ashley will explore one of the broad themes our posts this year have addressed and talk about the ways in which we are theorizing the connections between embodiment and pedagogy.
Collaborations
This mindmap reflects a number of of viz.'s connections in 2010-2011 including those with other blogs, photographers, museums, and initiatives, centers and programs both in the DWRL and at UT, Michigan State, and Rice University. Here's a partial list of collaborators: The Blanton Museum, BagNewsNotes, the Department of History, TACC, and The Adipositivity Project.
Technology
Earlier this semester, we here at viz. decided it might be nice to get a better sense of who we were talking to. As good rhetoricians, we felt it might be pertinent to know more about our audience. So we installed the handy-dandy (free) Google analytics tool for tracking all sorts of information about our readership. The results have been surprising at times, reassuring on the whole, and ultimately quite useful for thinking about how better to serve our readers. As a result, we've also begun working on a full site redesign.
STEVE in Action
The STEVE in Action project helps art museums incorporate tagging interfaces onto their websites in order to encourage thoughtful interaction between the patrons and the art objects. This semester, we used the Blanton's STEVE interface to get a closer look at how students write about abstract art, and while we have not yet processed all the data, the experience has been very thought-provoking.