Proseminar Blog – B. Cicirello

For the government job, besides jumping through lots of securty / background check hoops, you also need:

Experience designing, developing and documenting technology-based learning solutions; experience developing new criteria for analyzing training requirements that maximize the benefit of existing or new technologies; experience operating a Learning Management System from a technical or operational perspective; and/or experience developing and customizing on-line courseware.

For the second job I listed:

Instructional Design, Adobe Photoshop, HTML, javascript, Lectora Programming, Adobe Captivate, WBT, MS Office,  Interpersonal, and verbal skills.

The third job, this is from his site: 

Training & Experience
Distance Education
During the last decade, I’ve used and researched the different delivery methods and courseware tools currently being used with web-based distance education. For the Spokane Public School District, I set up and configured the district-wide Blackboard implementation. For Educational Service district, I installed and maintained several implementations of Moodle. I also created a WebCT-based course on Computer Basics for Gonzaga University.

As an instructor in the Spokane Community College system, I also established numerous web-based instructional sites using such technologies as online testing, web-based forms, threaded messaging, and multimedia streaming.

Professional Experience
In addition to the years of educational and technical experience outlined above, I’ve owned and operated my own graphic design/web publishing/web hosting business. I’ve developed numerous educational multimedia CD-ROM packages. The Spokane Intercollegiate Research & Technology Institute (SIRTI), for example, commissioned me to create a cross-platform educational CD-ROM business application. I’ve also collaborated on a CD-ROM project for Avista Corp. on fuel cell technology.

Training
In addition to completing a masters program in Educational Leadership at Gonzaga University, I’ve attended countless workshops and national convention presentations. As a graduate student at Gonzaga University, I’ve completed courses in Windows NT Server Administration, Networking and Telecommunications, Comprehensive System Planning, Cognitive Perspectives of Computer Application Design, Principles of Instructional Design and Authoring, Human Development and Learning, and many more. As an instructor at various institutions in the Spokane Community College system, I’ve taught countless students to learn computer programming, Web design, multimedia, networking essentials, Windows NT administration and more.

Software Proficiencies

Authorware Articulate Blackboard Camtasia Captivate Director Dreamweaver Final Cut Pro  Fireworks Flash Freehand

Photoshop Imageready  iMovie InDesign Moodle Premiere Illustrator Pagemaker Office Visual Studio WebCT

In addition to being certified for Authorware, Director, Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks, I’m also highly proficient with Photoshop, Imageready, Captivate, Camtasia, Acrobat, iMovie, Premiere, Final Cut Pro, Illustrator, InDesign, Pagemaker, and Office. I’m also proficient with most Web programming languages and technologies including HTML, PHP, MySQL, XML, Apache, WebStar, IIS, Filemaker Pro, ActionScript, Lingo, JavaScript, VBScript, and ASP. 

Hardware and Networking Proficiencies
In addition to having in-depth knowledge of Apple OS X, Linux, and Windows systems, I’ve installed and maintained a variety of Web, e-mail and list servers.

Wow. I better get cracking.

Rhetoric is the study and practice of shaping content, so in a way it is the art of knowledge making. Rhetoric is primarily verbal, situationally contingent, epistemic art that is both philosophical and practical and gives rise to potentially active texts. 

Wow. Let’s unpack that shall we?

How does rhetoric shape content? It tries to persuade you, so it shapes content. It tries to persuade using 3 devices, Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Ethos is the appeal to authority.

“such citations operate to invest the writer – and thus the text – with phronesis: good sense or practical wisdom. The writer becomes more credible because she has done the required homework in the field and shown it through citations.” 15, Covino & Jolliffe “What is Rhetoric?”  

Am I more convincing now?

Let me try something else. Pathos is the appeal to emotion.

How about now?

Didn’t think so…So the last way is to try Logos, which is roughly translated as thought + action. When accompanied by the other two, Ethos and Pathos, it helps mobilize the powers of reasoning. 

So lets go back to the definition again. Rhetoric is primarily verbal, meaning it is mostly written or spoken words. It is also situationally contingent, which means it needs context in order to make sense and have an effect. It is also an epistemic art, meaning that it is a cognitive practice requiring some knowledge. 

Now I love that philosophical and practical are juxtaposed here. Like one cannot contain the other. As a philosophy major, I can attest that this is the case. So philosophical would mean in the realm of thought, and practical would mean in the realm of reality. (again hilarious)

Finally it gives rise to potentially active texts,  So the text is active, potentally,  in that the rhetor is trying to change the mind of the reader in some way.

So what can we take from all this. I think it sounds like the art of bullshitting… ahem, I mean persuasion. What do you think?

It is professed that our culture, namely Western Culture, had a bias toward monomodality. Thick texts consisting of only words, music, even paintings were momomodal in nature. Recently though, we have decided to turn our discourse and media into a multimodality. While a lot of these Semiotic (theory of and study of signs a symbols) modes are independent they can operate across several mediums. 

There are 4 strata of meaning, these are: Discourse, Design, Production and Distribution. Discourse is the socially constructed knowledge of reality, sometimes based on evidence, sometimes based only on theory. Design stands between content and expression, it is, “the conceptual side of expressions and the expression side of conception.” Production is the organization of design into and event or an artifact. Distribution is the technical recording of products or events.

So how do we reconcile all this new theory with what we learned last time, mainly that every medium is a message in itself? Were the messages in the past less complex? We used to be monomodal, this means that only one medium was stressed, does that mean that we were also more simple? We were only giving off the message of the medium and the message in the work? Does creating something multimodaly (if that is even a word) automatically assume that your creation has more information than a monomodal work?  

I love primacy that design seems to have in the strata too. Discourse is socially constructed, production and distribution depend on the design, but design straddles both conception and expression, walking that thin line between theory and practice. Design is certainly the most important part, and requires the most attention of the individual.

This picture does say a lot more than the story in House Beautiful. That is for certain. It says that little Stephanie here enjoys torturing all the unlucky saps who come in to photograph her room. I like that she is standing on a pile of bleached skulls. In her hand is the key to her rack, where she stretches out her victims before the slaughter.

I’m sure the next photo is of Stephanie emerging from her den of horror, after recently vivisecting two unwitting photo-journalists. She cocks her head back and lets out her tiny, yet maniacal laugh. Oh the irony. 

Seriously, this scan of this adorable photo is nightmare fuel.