#DigiWriMo: 50K Digital words in 30 days

…I've been doing #NaNoWriMo since 2004 or thereabouts. First year, my laptop went south on me within sight of the finish line. Since then I've completed every year. I still couldn't say why I do it either except that I've gotten in the habit. It's become a November ritual.

NaNo, as a computer assisted writing project, meets base line blog requirements. The Hybrid Pedagogy folk assured me that DigiWriMo would compliment not conflict with NaNo, so I registered. Come to find out, what they have in mind is different enough that conflict seems inevitable. So am I in or am I out?

Digital Writing Month (@DigiWriMo) is a wild ride through the world of digital writing, wherein those daring enough to participate will wield keyboard and cursor to create 50,000 words in the thirty short days of November. Can’t imagine writing 50,000 words? Drop in anyway! We’ll have lots of exercises to bend your brain, break your habits, and 
basically rock your writing world. 

Still blissfully unaware of the potential wrath of Stephen over using "collaborative" instead of "cooperative," they have also listed it as a MOOC.  My month of writing is less "wild abandon" than solitary, permission to write badly for a month without editing, revising, giving a thought to readers. Since DigiWriMo sponsor and participants have been going on about social media and collaboration, we could be at cross purposes here.

Never mind, it's a mooc and presumably a connectivist one, so I'll just do it the way I want: do their parts their way when it suits but not when it doesn't. Take or follow what I want, ignore the rest. In other words, I am but on my own terms. Now to figure out what those are...and how this turn changes NaNo. Turning social media (whether usual output or created for the occasion) into a plot (even a post modern one) will be the real challenge.

Nor will it all take place or be recorded here either. My #WriMo ~ its own distributed network. I started a Google Reader folder for just plain #wrimo, already populated with a handful of alert and blog feeds. #digiwrimo in Topsy shows significant traffic already and related links. Of the November #acwrimo (for academic writing), the less said the better.

Digital Writing Month for 50K Digital words in 30 days is hosted by Marylhurst English and Digital Humanities program, modeled after NaNoWMo and sponsored by Hybrid Pedagogy. 

PowerPoint as an Interactive Teaching Tool

…and writing tool. The presentations a computer based genre. I've never cared for them or how students and even seasoned presenters use and abuse them. Still, it is undeniable that presentations are a distinct and valid genre of writing. So maybe it is time to look at them like that. Geoff Cain, Brainstorm in Progress, writes,

PowerPoint is on every computer in this college and every college I have worked with. Students, faculty, and staff use and abuse it every day. Those of you who know me know that I am not particularly an advocate of commercial technology but it is a tool that is being used for teaching and learning. When I am wearing my instructional designer's cap, I have to think about the best uses of any tool. Here is a presentation I gave on PowerPoint (with links to more resources for learning about PPT).

Brainstorm in Progress: PowerPoint as an Interactive Teaching Tool 

English and borrowing

…The computer connection with this one is that it comes from Mr Verb, a language / linguistics blog that is in my feed reader, filed in the language folder. Still, items like this signal the CLW's return to language topics. 
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Got a request to comment on the source of this quote ... now available on t-shirts, etc. It's famous but I couldn't remember offhand when the message came where it was from. As many readers will recall faster than I did, it's from Jame Nicoll and widely quoted (see here). The full quote, which floats around in a set of variants, is richer:

Don't Write Yourself Off: Bio-writing Secrets to Living Larger Online - Forbes

…writing advice from Forbes, specifically targeting self-defined entrepreneurs, those readers hopeful of or desperate to market themselves online. Is this for Computers Language Writing? You betcha. I'm experimenting, reinventing CLW again, rescuing it from the dark forest in the kingdom of the moocs, looking for a mode and format that fits both suits its original and description and interests me enough to keep blogging. Back to writing and language basics. If you want to read about Massive Open Online Courses, check archives (search or see tag cloud in sidebar) or head over to MOOC Madness.

The article is also cracking good advice for bio and introduction writing that students, native and non native speakers alike, so often stumble over. Later, putting yourself out there as a product, you will need a good cover letter.  Then there are those interminable LinkedIn profiles. It's genre and related to bio / intro writing assignments, cover letters, etc. Forbes contributor Dena Kouremetis writes,