| Articles
An
Evaluation of Adobe’s New Instructional Design Suite: Adobe
eLearning Suite
David E. Hailey, Jr
Utah State University
Instructors
designing online courses may want to look into Adobe’s newest
suite for tools that will help them create interactive course
content. Below I discuss my experiences with this new version
as I designed online courses. In general, I found that the new
suite works well, but it may also provide users with challenges.
Hazardous
Rhetoric
Paul Dombrowski
University of Central Florida
Rhetoric and
ethics are related, Aristotle noted long ago. Our rhetorical choices
reflect our values and our purposes. Especially in our activities
to engage the public in complex technical issues, appropriate
and effective rhetorical choices are vitally important.
Evaluating
Textbooks: A Recommendation Report Assignment for Introductory Technical
Communication Courses
Michael J. Albers
East Carolina University
I have developed
a recommendation report assignment that asks students to evaluate
introductory textbooks in their majors. The basic assignment scenario
is that the student is a member of a student/faculty group charged
with evaluating textbooks for the introductory course in the student’s
field. The student has been assigned two textbooks to evaluate
in order to write a formal recommendation report. Then, the student
has to give an oral presentation, designed for the textbook committee,
on the results of the evaluation.
Conferences
Association
of Teachers of Technical Writing 12th Annual Conference
Beyond Work? Technical Communication in Professional, Community,
& Social Networks
March 11,
2009
We have a
strong program planned for the annual gathering of the ATTW this
year, and we hope many of you will attend. Please encourage colleagues
to join us as well. More information about the conference is available
via the ATTW web site http://cms.english.ttu.edu/attw/conference
2009
Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference
Enabling Complexities: Communities/Writing/Rhetoric
October 7-9,
2009
The 2009 Feminism(s)
and Rhetoric(s) conference will be hosted by the Rhetoric &
Writing program at Michigan State University.
Callouts
New
Position Announcement
ATTW Information Officer
Deadline:
March 1, 2009
The Association
of Teachers of Technical Writing seeks an Information Officer
to help manage its communication resources. The Executive Committee
will propose a constitutional amendment to the membership to make
this new position a board-level position.
How
to Become More Involved in ATTW
Many new or
long-term members may find that they want to become more involved
in ATTW, both to benefit from the professional opportunities and
to contribute to the field. The following means are available
for ATTW members to increase their involvement.
Call
for Editorial Team Members
Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization
Looking for
scholars and practitioners who would like to be involved in the
journal’s development and become part of the editorial team.
New
Program Assessment Research Community Seeks Participants
The Council
for Programs in Technical and Scientific Programs (CPTSC) has
formed a task team dedicated to creating a program-assessment
research community. We want your help to create a framework for
empirically designed program assessment that will be unique to
our programs and curricula yet provide observable and measurable
goals for success.
CFPs
Call
for Proposals: ATTW Sessions at MLA 2009
Deadline:
March 1, 2009
The Association
of Teachers of Technical Writing Committee on Teaching invites
proposals of 250 words for its sessions at the 2009 MLA Convention
in Philadelphia, December 27-30.
Call
for Proposals
Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association 2009
Deadline:
March 1, 2009
Proposals
are requested for the four technical and professional communication
sessions to be held at the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association
(RMMLA) Conference at Snowbird in Utah, October 8-10, 2009.
Call
for Papers
2009 Annual Conference of the Council for Programs in Technical
and Scientific Communication
The Language(s) of Technical and Scientific Communication: Global
Perspectives and Local Practices
Deadline:
March 27, 2009
We encourage
submissions that yield new ideas pertaining to language in technical
communication that could possibly provide a foundation upon which
to build programmatic connections and partnerships. The conference
will be held in Aarhus, Denmark, August 19-21, 2009.
Call
for Manuscripts
Journal of Visual Literacy Special Issue on Visual Dimensions
of Political Communication
Deadline:
April 1, 2000
The Journal
of Visual Literacy (JVL) invites manuscripts for
a special issue on the visual dimensions of political communications.
We seek manuscripts that explore empirical, theoretical, practical,
or applied aspects of visual literacy and political communications.
Call
for Proposals
Georgia Conference on Information Literacy
Deadline:
April 15, 2009
The Georgia
Conference on Information Literacy will be held on September 25
- 26, 2009 at the Coastal Georgia Center, Savannah, Georgia.
Call
for Chapter Proposals
Information Overload: An International Challenge to Professional
Communication Practices
Deadline:
April 30, 2009
In our information
economy, the ability to efficiently find, critically analyze,
and intelligently use reliable information seems to be the key
to profit making. Ironically, however, over-exposure to the valuable
resource, information, leads to the detrimental effects of information
overload.
Call
for Proposals
2009 Graduate Research Network
Deadline:
May 30, 2009
The Graduate
Research Network (GRN) invites proposals for its 2009 workshop,
June 18, 2009, at the Computers and Writing Conference hosted
by the University of California, Davis.
Call
for Papers
Programmatic Perspectives
If you’re
working in academic technical communication administration or
have done research that could benefit colleagues working in this
field, please consider submitting an article to Programmatic Perspectives,
the new journal of the Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific
Communication (CPTSC).
Announcements
Purpose
and Status of the Society for Technical Communication Body of Knowledge
Project
Nancy Coppola
New Jersey Institute of Technology
A Society
for Technical Communication (STC) task force is attempting to
answer these questions by developing the framework for a body
of knowledge for technical communication. For the past 18 months,
the STC Body of Knowledge (BOK) Task Force has worked to locate,
classify, and make accessible that body of knowledge through the
web-based Technical Communication Knowledge Portal.
Technical
Communication Quarterly Editorial Advisory
Board Changes
Amy Koerber, Editor
of TCQ
Texas Tech University
As part of
transitioning TCQ to its new home at Texas Tech, I have
recently worked with the ATTW Executive Committee to appoint a
new Editorial Advisory Board for the journal.
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