Author: Jialei Jiang

As their time with the DRC draws to a close, the 2018-2019 DRC Fellows offer reflections on their experiences, what they’ve learned, and where they go from here. Jason Tham I am thankful for the opportunity to serve as a returning DRC Fellow this year. In my first year, I learned how to engage different scholars and field leaders in sharing their projects with the greater community of digital rhetoric. This year, I got to experience another dimension of serving this field by encouraging junior scholars––graduate students and new faculty––to promote their emerging research and cutting-edge ideas through various events…

What is LittleBits Robot? LittleBits are small pieces of modules and circuits that can be combined together with magnets, creating machines that perform multiple functions. The deluxe robot kits come with instructional manuals that allow users to build predesigned projects such as glowing handlebars, flickering lanterns, door bells, etc. Beyond the manuals, instructors and students can have access to online resources for additional projects and teaching materials. Most interestingly, users are also provided opportunities to unleash their imagination in building their own inventions. While LittleBits have been more commonly used in K-12 settings, where kids are challenged to create various…

Acknowledgement We thank all contributors of the 15th Blog Carnival for their perspectives, engaging discussion, and exemplications of multimodal design and social advocacy. Our initial intention for this blog carnival is to “to spark an interdisciplinary conversation surrounding the key role of multimodal design in fostering social advocacy within and across the fields of digital rhetoric, multimodal composition, and technical communication.” We are grateful for the examples provided by the contributors across these fields. The three main domains that have emerged from the entries in this blog carnival are pedagogical models, theoretical and practical futures, and critical reviews of multimodal…

Presenters: Aaron Beverage (University of North Carolina at Greensboro), Sergio Figueiredo (Kennesaw State University), John Gallagher (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), and Steve Holmes (George Mason University) This panel provides insight into algorithms and the ethical implications of algorithmic performance. Aaron Beverage, Steve Holmes, Sergio Figueiredo, and John Gallagher put together theories and practices surrounding algorithmic rhetoric, social media captioning, recommendation algorithms, and algorithmic digital writing. Beyond simply categorizing algorithm as a neutral procedure with a “fixed self,” the panelists have sought to address the ethical consequences of algorithms in digital environments and to envision the future possibilities of algorithmic…