tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40207026778819711622012-02-16T14:55:01.322-08:00CAAH 201 = CLAM = Cultural Literacies Across Media - Clemson University students traveling abroad - engaging cultures across the globe!Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.comBlogger341100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-79909123194908362222011-04-10T14:59:00.000-07:002011-04-10T14:59:43.117-07:00

Our students are working feverishly to produce final video essays that reflect growing knowledge of digital composition skills - but also ones that reflect cultural circumspection. In other words, you will NOT see anything like this:

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-40765146722908136552011-03-02T05:13:00.000-08:002011-03-02T05:13:50.736-08:00

A friend of mine went to Dominican Republic for a visit. When asked upon his return what he thought of the country, he said, "It was a beautiful country, but there were a lot of foreigners there." It made me wanna say,  "Uh. Yeah. YOU were one of the foreigners, dude." An immature and uninformed person may dismiss the meaning-making practices of other cultures as "strange," without bothering to

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-20277164170081179042011-02-14T11:42:00.000-08:002011-02-14T11:42:34.953-08:00

There were some excellent reflections in the blogs regarding the week's readings from Nicolas Carr and Kevin Kelly. You really oughta read them if you haven't already. Many good comments about how technology shapes our literacy practices - and our thinking! The famous 20th-century American scholar Walter Ong, writing about the shift from orality to literacy, said, "Writing restructures

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-34141334254984903542011-02-09T14:07:00.000-08:002011-02-09T15:10:56.718-08:00

"The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad. I speak now, of course, in the supposition that the gentle reader has not been abroad, and therefore is not already a consummate ass. If the case be otherwise, I beg his pardon and extend to him the cordial hand of fellowship and call him brother." - Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad If you

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-67558712647197976512011-02-03T14:15:00.000-08:002011-02-03T14:17:59.659-08:00

Members of our 2011 CLAM contingent are either now on the field across the globe, or are soon to depart for their fields of study. The student blogs will begin to be even more rich in critical cultural insights in teh coming weeks. The blogs to be posted in the next week will be an introspective self-portrait of the students' own cultural landscapes - as seen by outsiders. An informed and

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-1404345122100997792011-01-24T12:56:00.000-08:002011-01-24T15:22:14.618-08:00

From Morguefile.com Your colleagues blogs form a network of rich resources to help you as you work toward refining your digital and cultural literacies this term. The links to the right ---> will take you to the blogs of the other members of your community of scholars. Visit them. Check out their posts. Post comments. Ask questions. Share ideas. Here are a few examples of your classmates work

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-352980651274019202011-01-20T13:49:00.000-08:002011-01-20T13:49:23.090-08:00

Students, you will be posting digital photos often to your blog, so this first digital editing exercise is one you will put to use early and often. Don't post more picture than you need! A size of 800 x 600 with a resolution of 72 dpi is plenty! (OK - 96 dpi if you got a Mac.) Let Tommy's Joynt help explain... I've posted two pics below of a cool restaurant I visited in San Francisco. Do you

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-85670410091165368542011-01-19T12:35:00.000-08:002011-01-19T12:41:11.873-08:00

What kind of writing is appropriate for blogging? When faced with new and evolving new media practices, it is good to observe convention as a clue to the language of that medium. Every medium has literacy practices that are unique to that medium. For example: Delivering a live speech is not the same as writing an essay. (Orality has demands writing knows not of... such as tone, pace, etc.) Phone

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-80874983056661919122011-01-12T17:24:00.000-08:002011-01-12T17:27:13.447-08:00

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts."    Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad Pretty soon, a new crew of Clemson University Students scatters across the globe on adventures to be chronicled in these blogs. This group of CLAMmers, our biggest yet, will share their cultural engagements in stories, anecdotes and reflections,

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-75281818633220849652010-08-22T19:45:00.000-07:002010-08-22T19:45:11.694-07:00

On November 12, 2009, Pecha Kucha Night Greenville held Volume 1at The Huguenot Mill at The Peace Center. Clemson University's "Cultural Literacies Across Media" Instructor, Randy Nichols presented to the audience the challenges of communicating in a digital age - and what CLAM is doing to help students meet these challenges in "Helping Johnny Become Digitally Literate." Pecha Kucha is an

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-24424312610512924632010-07-24T22:09:00.000-07:002010-07-24T22:12:17.965-07:00

Dr. Constancio Nakuma The July 22 Issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education featured a story on Study Abroad experiences, and highlighted the work of the students and faculty involved in our own beloved CLAM! The article features interviews from the instructor, Randy Nichols,  from students Meg Sparkman and Jennifer McAmis, and from Dr. Tharon Howard and Dr. Constancio Nakuma, who were

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-84282313935852507742010-07-14T07:13:00.000-07:002010-07-14T07:13:27.140-07:00

The Cultural Literacies Across Media course, and the work of its students, are featured in the recent issue of AAH - the magazine of the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities. The article by Sarah Brown features original photos from our students, as well as links to samples of blogs and video. Check out the pdf for the full four-page color spread! Dr. Constancio Nakuma, Associate Dean -

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-67673349787176422092010-07-14T06:54:00.000-07:002010-07-14T06:58:05.093-07:00

Many of the videos from CLAM students studying abroad have been posted on Clemson's Office of International Affairs YouTube Channel. The exceptional work of our CLAM students is getting international exposure through this channel. Check it out!

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-49207282919454050672010-04-26T15:12:00.000-07:002010-04-26T15:13:29.416-07:00

Our CLAMmers are wrapping up their Spring Term, but our CLAMmers will not really leave. You can click the links to the right to see some of their projects already posted in their own blogs. As soon as evaluations are done, and Clemson OIA's YouTube channel is updated, we will let you know and provide links. Congratulations, CLAMmers - you lived to tell the tale! (in multimodal fashion, no less!)

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-75051873969746998232010-04-16T05:37:00.000-07:002010-04-16T05:37:38.120-07:00

CLAMmers recently received some next-to-last-minute instructions and are putting together their projects. Some of the earlier blog posts hint at some very interesting projects in the works. These video projects will allow our students to share their newly gained cultural literacies with the greater Clemson University community at large. Do we have grand expectations for these projects? Sure. But

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-44911092279998456672010-03-30T21:59:00.000-07:002010-03-30T21:59:39.597-07:00

This week, CLAMmers will post more rhetorical analyses of media artifacts from within their cultures of focus. These should be interesting! But as they prepare to dig into preparations for their final projects, I offer a last resource for more last-minute video helps. This link takes you to Media College's short, "basic video editing" tutorial. You may already know these things, but a refresher

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-1787616759324957812010-03-25T09:09:00.000-07:002010-03-25T09:12:09.764-07:00

How to deal with "flop sweat" - or stage fright, speaker anxiety, etc. Don't panic; take deep breaths. Put yourself and your guest at ease. Express genuine interest. Try to make the interview a "real" conversation. And whatever you do, don't come off like this: And, to sum it up: Have fun; Enjoy the Interview; Do Great Work!

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-639712188301407542010-03-23T10:44:00.000-07:002010-03-23T10:51:36.751-07:00

The biggest news story of the week - the long-fought remarkable Health Care vote? or... the 5-minute Tiger Woods interview? One element of the CLAMmers final project is the interview. This seemingly simple format (ask a question, get an answer, repeat) is a useful tool for journalists, ethnographers, students, and a plethora of other people who want to learn things. I'm attaching a few links

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-63177508086922248162010-03-03T07:24:00.000-08:002010-03-03T07:27:32.484-08:00

A two-minute reminder to see your culture of study with fresh eyes! (Should ring a bell with your previous course materials - recognize a map in there?)

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-26630850545866085422010-02-25T14:27:00.001-08:002010-02-25T14:39:23.676-08:00

CLAMmers and cultural new-media-meme-interested readers: You may have heard that YouTube removed the RickRoll'd video. You may have been concerned that I, your ever tech-hip and culture-savvy instructor may have included an illustration that now appears dated. You may have wondered if I was somehow "behind the times" and if this was a sign of the end of the world. Fear not. Only the naive and

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-46645597585714837702010-02-23T14:38:00.000-08:002010-02-23T18:06:40.318-08:00

CLAM students will be working with photos and offering critical analyses of the rhetorical choices that go into the "composition" of digital images. The choices of angle, inclusion, exclusion, etc. are paramount in "making meaning" with photographs! If you doubt that consider these photos taken at a recent speech by President Obama to a group of 6th graders. (These news photos were taken by Getty

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-41885389753751418672010-02-11T06:12:00.000-08:002010-12-13T11:49:33.307-08:00

CLAM students will be posting several really cool blog entries (see links to the right) over the next few days. Some of these entries will allow the students to display their cultural-critical chops by way of analyzing media rhetorically. Students will discuss the persuasive forces behind billboards, movies, websites, video, tv, etc. in their host cultures. Students will also blog with a focus

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-17649735945411365302010-02-03T14:04:00.000-08:002010-02-03T14:08:52.512-08:00

This week, CLAM students will be reading (yes, gasp! - reading!) two important contemporary articles: Nicholas Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (from the Atlantic) and Kevin Kelly's "Becoming Screen Literate" (from the New York Times.) When we say "multimodal" we do not mean to exclude reading and composing in printed texts - but only to add other modalities to the compositional mix. Print

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-13658391827166657852010-01-29T12:01:00.000-08:002010-01-29T12:08:00.854-08:00

Last month, I returned for a visit to New York City - to visit friends, see the city at Christmas, and, of course, to do some research on visual rhetoric at the International Center for Photography. My wife and I saw some old friends, and visited some of our favorite places in north Jersey and NYC... but we also decided to try something new. We went to Koreatown for the first time. We had been

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-70177422934435086792010-01-19T15:08:00.000-08:002010-01-20T16:25:56.911-08:00

Our CLAM bloggers are entering the course with a wide range of experiences in "Composing for New Media Sites" - ranging from the greenest rookies to the most savvy social networking veterans. And the choices for engaging new digital media are many, as well - ranging from the blogosphere (like this one) to Facebook to Twitter to Skype and more. The "thing" that we call "New Social Media" is not a

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-75367230836777911032010-01-12T12:33:00.000-08:002010-01-12T12:34:08.396-08:00

Congrats on your first posts, CLAMmers! You have gotten off to a good start - and some of our bloggers  are discovering an entirely new way to communicate, compose, and connect. Check the links in the navigation bar to the right to see the new blogs of our Spring 2010 CLAMmers. CLAMmers should add a similar "My Blogs" gadget to link to this (CLAM Soup) and to the blogs of fellow CLAMmers. Some

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-31699316630280025752010-01-06T06:17:00.000-08:002010-01-06T06:39:40.813-08:00

Welcome to our new CAAH 201 (CLAM) students -  - Spring 2010 is here! Soon, new blogs will be listed in the column at the right and a new crop of bloggers will become part of a growing network of Clemson students who are critically engaging cultures in interesting, inspiring and provocative ways! I will be posting some general comments here each week - answering questions, sharing tips, and

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-56227899373577860232009-09-24T16:56:00.000-07:002009-09-24T16:56:49.988-07:00

The work of students in the pilot course version of CLAM (CAAH 201) is being proliferated to the world via a couple more digital avenues I’d like you to see: YouTube – via the ClemsonOIA channel. (http://www.youtube.com/user/ClemsonOIA) Facebook – via the Clemson University Study Abroad group (http://www.facebook.com/facebook?ref=pf#/group.php?gid=120226240703&ref=ts)  Check out theses sites.

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-26163931573070346722009-09-09T13:47:00.000-07:002009-09-09T15:31:56.682-07:00

Most students from the pilot program of Cultural Literacies Across Media have posted their final digital projects (or links to them) on their blogs. (Check out the links to students' blogs at the right of this frame.) The remaining projects will be available soon, as well. CLAM students will display their work via "Digital Posters" at the Study Abroad Welcoome Back Reception on September 22 in

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-82432040697621498272009-05-02T05:15:00.000-07:002009-05-02T05:22:42.016-07:00

The term is ending and I am amazed at the richness of the experiences shared by our Clemson CLAM students! My blog has been silent for some long periods as I worked on our home campus with other studies, but the blogs of our students has been constantly buzzing and humming with evidence of their cultural engagements.If it has been a while since you checked their blogs, you should do so again to

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-76790724417332585982009-02-24T13:15:00.000-08:002009-02-24T13:24:24.382-08:00

Congrats, CLAMers - everyone made it to their respective fields!I have enjoyed reading your blogs, viewing your pics, and seeing your engagement with the cultures of your host countries. (My last couple of attempts to respond were foiled by the "word verification" being down. - Also, hey Melissa, your blog seemed to disappear. What's the deal?)So... here is your first Group Blog Challenge:

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-190028236702352102009-01-27T16:46:00.001-08:002009-01-27T16:49:39.075-08:00

Looks like the clam blogs are picking up steam - and I expect momentum to increase geometrically!CLAM Students: Read the blogs - and feel free to comment liberally with your observations. Share your comparable (and incomparable) experiences with your fellow travelers! And don't forget to fill us all in on your brilliant observations of culture in media - and media in culture!

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-33178964514126814212008-12-20T06:49:00.000-08:002008-12-20T06:57:23.502-08:00

Congratulations to all our CLAM students for successfully completing the intensive pre-trip classes. Each student showed amazing progress toward integrating cultural awareness and compositional ideas with new media technologies. And now... the real learning begins!The blog links in the right column will reveal the ongoing engagement of our students in the cultures of their host programs. Across

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4020702677881971162.post-81340315464900648922008-12-15T11:21:00.000-08:002008-12-15T11:25:34.202-08:00

Our first CLAM (Cultural Literacies Across the Curriculum) class blog-project:Refer to Hirsch's Dictionary of Cultural LiteracyWrite five entries for your own unique "Cultural Dictionary."

Randy D Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00173976396074291405noreply@blogger.com0