Syllabus+Features



These excerpts from the Rhetoric and the WWW syllabus and the general assignment guidelines speak particularly to collaborative work and community building:


 * Course outcomes** include ... participating actively and knowledgeably in an online learning community ... participating productively in an online team.


 * Support ... Mutual:** Our “Rhetoric and the WWW” Sakai/Learn space is brand new and still a work in process. Your instructor isn’t “an expert” and, like you, is also learning how to use “Learn” to its best advantage. So, since we’re all in this together, don’t hesitate to use the “Help/Q&A” forum in our course space to post questions and answers about anything to do with “Learn,” its tools and capabilities, or any other relevant software or computer issues. We will all benefit from each others’ expertise and experience!

If you usually learn best with regular face-to-face support but still want to take this online course, use the "Help" forum and/or the "Rhetoric Cafe" to arrange regular meetings with a knowledgeable peer … or form a “study group"!


 * Knowledge-sharing:** You will normally post each assignment as an attachment within a specific Discussion forum. According to standard practice for many online courses, and in the spirit of knowledge sharing and community building, you need to know and be comfortable with the fact that all your assignments can be read by your classmates. In the case of the online team presentation and seminar discussion, such sharing with classmates is a requirement.


 * General Plan of Work [for the collaborative assignment]:**

Typical tasks and decisions will involve—

1. Formatting. Your choice should reflect the strengths or experience of individual team members. Unless there’s very clear agreement beforehand, it’s unethical to burden one person with all the “technical” work. For example, if only one of you has experience with PowerPoint, think carefully about whether to use that format.

2. Researching and analyzing. I recommend that individuals each choose a particular content-area of the presentation and then create that content.

3. Compiling, critiquing, editing/revising content. I highly recommend that team members share this work as much as possible. Post drafts within your forum or use one of the collaborative writing tools suggested in [[|the team planning/preparation learning module]].


 * Recommended Schedule:**

WEEK **X**. Within your team planning forum, collaborate on and then post a “code of ethics” articulating your team’s mode of working together, and your expectations and goals for teamwork. For complete details about this assignment as well as guidelines governing online teamwork, see [[|the team planning/preparation learning module]].

WEEK **X**. Agree on a plan of work and allocation of tasks (and post this for the record in your team forum). Put aside some time to do individual work: review course modules, find necessary online resources, and create content, which includes analysis/evaluation of rhetorical feature(s) or site(s).

WEEK **X**. Intensive teamwork period. Plan to log on frequently and help compile drafts, critique/revise and edit content; and/or organize and format the presentation.