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Hi Marcy, Good to hear from you. I have some good dialogue software--sort of like Ceildh (if that 's how you spell it). In other words, the students have great discussions about the material they are reading. The conversations are "threaded" so it's relatively easy to interact and talk. The first assignment has also worked out well--an analysis using the rhetorical appeals of a website that advertises either cars or cosmetics (the readings were about advertising.) My problem derives from my attempts to emulate peer editing in an online environment. The software that DE gave me--well--to put it bluntly --sucks. It turns what should be a dialogic encounter into a linear and frustrating experience. The product was designed by a large (anoymous in case I get sued) computer company to facilitate the document review process in industry. I have already received a couple of leads for new software, and I am going to follow them up. If you have any leads, let me know. However, I need an internet rather than an intranet application. It needs to be something that we can install in a web site so that both the students and the evaluators can have access to editing facilities for student texts. Common Space does this but not in an internet environment (each student has to have the disk in order to use it ). If you want to know the specific limitations of the software I am using, let me know. It's a bummer though. At 01:29 PM 10/20/98 -0400, Marcy Bauman wrote: >Cathy, it's not *all* tribulation . . . there are some joys to this >process, too. I hear you, though, about the difficulties of dealing with >tech people and explaining to them what you want. Our tech people are, >on the whole, wonderful, but still it's a trial sometimes. > >Could you say more about the kinds of things you want to do in the >class? Maybe then we can make software recommendations . . . I do have >some pedagogical recommendations, too. (I know this isn't exactly what >you asked for . . . ) > >The most effective way I've found of reducing the workload with >responding to papers is by making as much of the writing in the course >public as possible. Especially in a DE environment, having other >students as the audience is a very powerful incentive; with no visuals >and no paralinguistic cues, those words on the screen become >all-important. I ask for a lot of "prewriting" (they don't really know >it's that) and meta-analysis in class online discussions. > >I've also had success by designing assignments that take advantage of >what students know & can do locally, then bringing that knowledge back to >the wider group. For example, the first paper I assigned this semester >was a language site study, which asked people to go somewhere near them >and observe verbal interactions. Since they live in different places, we >got an interesting mix of sites to analyze. > >Good luck with your class, and I'd love to talk further. > >Marcy > > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > Marcy Bauman > Writing Program, University of Michigan-Dearborn > 4901 Evergreen Rd, Dearborn, MI 48128 > fax: 313-593-5552 > http://www.umd.umich.edu/~marcyb > [log in to unmask] > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > > Catherine F. Schryer Dept. of English University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1 (519) 885-1211 (ext 3318)