At least on the short term, declines in gened are a serious problem for us, since it makes up a large part of our coursework. I suspect that’s true of many English departments. The issue might press on my department a little more heavily than most since (a) we recently rewrote the English major to use 200-level geneds for much of the the required “core” of courses (changes not yet on the WIU web site), and (b) I’ve also heard many of our majors are recruited through general education. Though I’ve never seen any proof of the latter, obviously, if it’s true, gened declines would be doubly troubling, since we’d see cascading impacts in our 300 and 400 level literature and writing courses. (One indicator the “gened recruiting” hypothesis is not true: while our number of majors has declined in the past 10 years, the rate of decline hasn’t matched the loss in geneds we’ve seen.)

On the writing side, the numbers look like this. (I have similar numbers for literary studies, but only the past four years.) Here’s enrollment in our three comp courses expressed as a percentage of lower division undergraduates enrolled:

Comp enrollment 2001-2010

By semesters, from a high point of 50.2% in Fall 2002, we are at 43% in Spring 2010. A similar pattern emerges if we consider annual numbers: the headcounts for the last three years, respectively, were the lowest for any of the last ten. It will be very interesting to see if next year’s numbers continue this trend.

For me, the big takeaway is simply expressed: I think we can count on students taking more general education courses in community colleges. I’ve read some articulation agreements and the like this past week, and I don’t think we can do much to stop it. And the more I think about it, I’m unsure that’s the right response anyway. So we’ve got to diversify our roster of courses and strengthen the non-gened parts of our programs. I have a feeling that won’t be easy, though it may be less difficult for the writing side of the department than for literary studies.

• WordPress.com use scales very well. Users can start with a free WordPress.com installation and grow upward from there, via the add-ons WordPress.com provides (CSS editing, domain name hosting, etc) or a fully-functional WordPress installation on another host. Because WordPress.com provides good export hooks, this growth–or a decision to move from WordPress to another platform–need not involve reinventing the wheel.
• Just enough complexity. Maybe the most important reason. Quite a few people have asked for my help with Joomla, Drupal, or similar open source CMS installations. I don’t maintain any, so I haven’t been able to provide much assistance. But I’ve poked around enough under-construction CMSs to know that many of them are overkill for the needs of individual users or small community organizations. Drupal and their ilk are amazingly powerful, and that power comes with a steep learning curve.
• Learning. WP behaves in many ways which are conducive to learning web development. For example, learning HTML can be facilitated by switching between the visual and code-based editors used for posting. Similarly, the modular architecture (themes, widgets, plugins, etc) provides a good way to learn modularity and scalability. Tagging and categorization, and nifty visualizations of them, are encouraged, too.
• Multiple users. Roles allow robust management of shared authoring and administration. Again, for learning, this is invaluable; I’ve been an “administrator” on several friends’ WordPress.com weblogs as they got started, able to help diagnose and fix problems without sharing passwords or the like. No, it doesn’t have the versioning tools that other CMSs have out of the box. But the infrastructure is there.
• Not just a blog. Given the Pages functionality and the possibility of replacing the front page post stream with a single page (Settings, Reading), WP need not be a weblog-driven site. The stream of posts can be converted to a sideline (for news) or all but eliminated.
• Feeds. Automatically generated RSS feeds for posts and comments. ‘Nuff said.
• Good enough support. The WordPress forums and dox have issues, like all similar sites. But I’ve had excellent success finding answers to my questions, and students have enjoyed the videos and tutorials.

One of my former students, Ryan Budds, has used WordPress to build a great self-promotion site. Alison McGaughey’s Welcome to Forgotonia is similarly diverse and interesting, and developing quite nicely. Our local food group, Macomb FIG, fixed its web management issues with a conversion to WordPress. And a bazillion similar articles, examples, and stories are available at a search engine near you.

“No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick.” If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.

There were many variations. Here are a few:

No one should die because they can’t afford health care OR because their only option is an insurance company that makes money by denying claims and/or not approving treatments.

No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick (or get in a really bad accident). If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.

No one should die, go blind, or be crippled because they can’t afford health care. No one should go broke because they get sick. No one should be unable to change jobs because of a “pre-existing condition.” If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.

The basic idea is constant: the status update as engine for social or political action. Other sections of Facebook promise similar results: the “Little Green Patch” or other applications which purport to reduce global warming; the awareness groups tied to particular causes. And we see a lot of other political discourse: status updates, not drawn from memes, which pick up issues; campaign or similar images as profile pictures.

Of course, the “No one should…” health care meme was quickly reappropriated:

No one should die because of zombies if they cannot afford a shotgun, or even just a machete, and no one should be turned into a vampire if they get bitten by one – or a werewolf for that matter. If you agree, post this as your status for the rest of the day.

No one should be frozen in carbonite, or be slowly digested for a thousand years in the bowels of a Sarlaac, just because they couldn’t pay Jabba the Hutt what they owe him. If you agree, post this as your status for the rest of the day.

No one should be without a beer because they cannot afford one, and no one should go broke because they bought too many beers. If you agree please post this as your status the rest of the day.

I think of this today because Facebook has “updated” its interface, yet again, and the latest status update memes are meta and how-to:

IF YOU WANT TO GO BACK TO OLD FACEBOOK STATUS UPDATES; On the top left menu, click on MORE. Then drag STATUS UPDATES to the top. After dragging to top,click on it. That becomes your default and it is like before. Pass it on.

Pass it on: Facebook is blocking all your friends news feeds except 250 that they choose. TO UNDO BLOCK: Go to your HOME page. Make sure your newsfeed shows LIVE FEED. Then scroll to the bottom, click “Edit Options”. You will then see your NEWS FEED SETTINGS. Change the 250 to 5000 for Facebook’s friend limit and your feed will work right again. Post this and pass it on.

We are still figuring out what do to with updates. Some of this is nuts and bolts: Do it via Twitter? What about Gmail status? How do I synch all this stuff? Facebook is making all of these questions more difficult by changing its interface all the time. That affects the larger questions, too, such as the assumption that a status update on a social networking service can be (or can not be) an engine for political action. Or whether, at least in the case of Facebook, the service even wants to support that kind of discourse.

'Tag a friend': Facebook picks up Twitter's @username syntax

Type @ into status updates, and you can include friends’ names, creating updates which are echoed onto their walls. Okay. But why adopt the be-more-like-Twitter approach? Why would Facebook, the do-everything Swiss Army chainsaw of social media, think that adding another level of complexity makes it more like Twitter, with its simplicity and one-dimensionality? (Know I don’t mean that as a negative.) Perhaps those coming late to social media see Facebook and Twitter as mutually exclusive, and find Facebook’s current focus on friends’ information streams, rather than interpersonal communication, as negative. But given the number of people who’ve integrated the two services, how prevalent is that view?

It might be that Facebook is correcting for the unintended consequences of diversifying its interface. Once it became possible to “like” or comment on nearly every Facebook utterance, wall-to-wall communication, long a Facebook standby, took a hit as wall posts (and other utterances) garnered replies by comment, not by paired wall-to-wall posts. Last week this was apparent to me twice: (1) I asked someone for context on an update; once I viewed it his whole stream of updates (via Twitter), the post made perfect sense. However, viewed single-page (via RSS), I missed the whole story. (2) I wrote on someone else’s wall, and they replied as a comment on that post–not on my wall, as in the old days.

I like the comment-on-everything model, and given that I’m not a heavy mobile phone user, Facebook-centric updates make more sense for me than Twitter-centric. But my guess is that’s not the norm. I don’t know enough about the demographics to know if Twitter is “stealing” communication once done via Facebook, but adoption of the @ syntax by Facebook seems a pretty clear attempt to keep up.

“Lots of competitors are doing nothing beyond copying what we have done in our product for years,” said Chris Capossela, a senior vice president in Microsoft’s business division. “They have weekly releases to add things like bold and italics and more than four fonts. We have to redefine what productivity means to 500 million people.”

I interpret this as:

1. Office has no real competition. We’ll do this whatever way we darn well please.
2. Browser-based computing is limited. For email? Fine. For sharing finished product? Maybe. But real work still happens on the desktop.
3. We know we screwed the pooch with Vista. No way we’re doing that again.

While Jon Fortt sees this as a bold move, I think the real change here isn’t the price, but the shift in networking strategy. Microsoft is clearly positioning the desktop first and the cloud second. Okay, since that’s where the money is for them (e.g. Office). I don’t think Microsoft will endanger good ole desktop Office by making a slimmer version for the web. If that were the case, Google Docs, Adobe Buzzword, and the like would have a far larger user base than they do now, since they can read and write Microsoft formats. I think most people recognize that web-based writing tools are fundamentally different than their desktop counterparts, designed for different purposes, and focusing on different feature sets. Google Docs ain’t gonna make a table with complex borders and shading, or the kind of printable newsletter possible in Word or InDesign. Period. More importantly, most folks just feel at home on the desktop. Start, Word. Start, Excel. Or click the little E. That’s the extent of the comfort zone for a lot of users.

Given that, Microsoft has a unique position: they alone have the market share, resources, and instant user base to build an online/offline system which allows the complexity of desktop-based word processors to be combined with the powerful collaboration tools which are so attractive in their online analogues. And that seems to be their strategy, with co-authoring tools and repositioning of OneNote. It looks like Microsoft will reach into the cloud via the desktop, not the browser. On the one hand, that’s unexpected, given the continued dominance of Internet Explorer. On the other hand, no Microsoft monopoly is stronger than Office’s. If done right, 2010 could bring the cloud down to the desktop seamlessly, catapulting Microsoft and Office past Google and Docs–and quietly making Firefox a little less relevant in the process. Now wouldn’t that make Steve Ballmer proud?

The first night keynote, in the pattern of conference talks which fail to take a position, but just “present issues,” was underwhelming. The plenary session the next morning was better, especially Dan Riordan’s talk. But the sessions were most rewarding; the “five minutes per speaker, no PowerPoint” format delivered. Every panel I attended was followed with a strong conversation, and while there were a few of the typical show-off or didn’t-listen questions, real engagement was the norm. Highlights: Karl Stolley on integrating free and open source into TC programs; Richard Johnson-Sheehan on sustainability; Gretchen Perbix on TC and IT; Jason Swarts on situatedness and software. And very good conversations afterward with Jim Dubinsky, Susan Katz, and other folks. No strong negatives at the conference, but a lot of little problems: very late posting of information on the web site, some unpolished presentations everyone had to sit through, lots of errors on name tags and in the program, a very cramped and loud hallway outside the session rooms.

Given that I had to do the conference on the cheap, I stayed in a hostel ($30) instead of the conference hotel ($130). Thursday on the way there, I drove through a neighborhood filled with Carribean restaurants, and I ate at a Jamaican place. Buffet-style. Lordy, it was good. Lentils, chicken, goat, red beans and rice, steamed vegetables, rice pudding. I plowed through a huge, heaping plate and pretty much didn’t feel hungry until we left Saturday morning.

The hostel was in a typical city neighborhood, a mix of rentals, beatifully groomed two-story houses, places a little run-down, small apartments. New BMWs parked next to listing Pontiacs. Lots of Somali and other African influences and people. A guy at the gas station where I bought coffee was selling sambousas. Beef, or I would have bought a few. I enjoyed the opportunity to get off campus a bit, though I imagine the folks I heard complaining about the shuttle ride from the airport wouldn’t have taken the bus with me. I was in a room with four beds, but had no roomies either night. And my room really did smell like diesel… thankfully, not the whole time.

But the best experience was two trips to Stub and Herb’s, once for lunch with my former student Joe Weinberg and later with Amy for drinks before the dinner session. They’ve changed hands about a year ago, and their Beer Advocate page reflects a lot of problems which I believe are no longer present. Let me put in a vote of confidence: about thirty taps with excellent variety, local flavor, and multiple beers I hadn’t seen. Our waitress was outstanding. When she began explaning something to me, I started to cut her off, then realized: this woman knows her stuff. I apologized and went on to have a great conversation with her. My bill of fare:

• Tyranena Hop Whore (Am Imperial IPA): powerful citrusy hops, nice balance of malt/hops, and bitter/flavor/aroma. Not aggressive up front, and stronger than it seems.
• Lift Bridge Farm Girl (Saison): lovely pale yellow-brown, with a little funk. Excellent.
• Two Brothers Cain & Ebel (rye ale): nicely hopped, with a little astringency from the rye. Lighter than I expected. Amy ordered one of these after trying mine. “I didn’t think I liked beer,” she said. “You need to drink my kind of beer,” I replied.
• Boulder Brewing Cold Hop (English IPA): very true-to-style English, not outlandishly hopped, pretty solid malt, even that touch of metallic flavor I identify with British beer.

Wish I’d gone back for a few more I didnt’ get to try (Surly Cynic, Flat Earth Onvi, St Croix Maple IPA), or made it to Town Hall. Next time.

One reason Dziuba is fired up: Michael Arrington said Windows will go away because Chrome makes the browser the OS. He counters that 73% of users don’t know what Google Docs is, and 94% have never used it. But this ignorance doesn’t indicate much. How many PC users know Microsoft Word is their word processor? that they are using 2003 or 2007? Look, people just don’t know very much about their computers. Ask PC users what version of Windows they use. Most don’t know. Ask a group of computer users what web browsers they use. Again, I bet most have no clue. Hell, I’m about as geeky as anyone, and I had to look the other day when asked what version of the Mac OS I was using (10.4.11, for those counting). The upshot here is the “I don’t knows” make the user ignorance of Google Docs in Dziuba’s rant less an indicator of its obscurity than it appears. Not knowing Google Docs doesn’t mean folks aren’t working on the network. That isn’t to say Google Docs, Twitter, Facebook, and the like are ubiquitous; I agree that a lot of the folks looking around the web and say, “Everyone’s using them!” are overstating the case. But let’s not understate it, either.

Besides, Arrington’s point is less that Windows will technically go away than it will become invisible to end users. Don Norman has been asking for that for years. Arguably, for end users, the operating system disappeared a long time ago. No, not because Norman (or Jef Raskin, or whoever) said it should, but because end users don’t care. They care about applications, not operating systems, and more and more critical applications are driven by the web. What functions does a desktop operating system give users, anyway? The ability to manage files? Files? Who manages files with an OS these days? I’m seeing more people open essays in Word, images in Photoshop, CDs in iTunes. Via export or save as, those applications can copy, rename, etc. Users seldom touch the OS, except to start or switch between applications. And this is doubly true in managed environments where they can’t do anything with the OS anyway.

As more people’s screen time comes from mobile devices, not desktops, OS functionality will become less relevant to end users. Stability? Security? Speed? Ease of use? Sure, we’ll want all that, and those criteria highlight critical differences between Ubuntu, Mac OS, and Windows. But we’ll measure it by what we can do with Firefox, not the Finder–as we always have.

On the way to the El we happened upon an Ethopian restaurant. We stopped in front and I said to Jacob, “There ain’t no Ethopian restaurants in Macomb.” Understatement of the year. So it was time for meal #2, which was OK since I hadn’t had a lot of food at Hopleaf. Jacob had beef sambussa, I had a Two Brothers Bitter End, and we split some yellow lentils. And I still made it back downtown by 9:45.

The next morning Jacob met me at the Hilton around 9:00. We picked up our books–course admission includes Tufte’s big four–and started our warmup reading assignment, which was selections from The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Visual Explanations. This was the first of many times Tufte self-exemplified (itself one of his core principles). Much of his presentation touched on or dealt explicitly with presentations–for most, PowerPoint. Tufte’s advice is to dump it, replacing sequences of low-resolution slides with a handout and technical discussion. That’s what he did. Basically, the books served as ET’s handouts (and he did provide a four-page as well); he referred to them over and over throughout the six hour course. For the first hour or so, he worked through several examples, discussing the principles they indicated; students followed along in the books. Tufte projected some images and showed some short films, but relied primarily on speaking. Quite often he showed a slide which was a two-page spread; after a moment (when everyone had a chance to find it) that would fade away given that attendees could follow along in the books. Not surprisingly, Tufte covered a lot of ground: the preparation of visuals in general using the famous Minard/Napoleon graphic he’s turned to several times; the design of visual interfaces, including a mockup of a new weather app for the iPhone; including complexity in design by enabling a tiered structure which shows more evidence upon a closer look (his maxim here is “to clarify, add detail); focusing on the content and its underlying intellectual metaphor instead of focusing on the medium; presenting quantified evidence whenever possible.

I’m glad I went to the course, even though there were times when Tufte was basically reading from the books, which I know very well. Beforehand he walked around the room asking folks “What do you do?” and signing books. I held out my dog-eared copy of Visual Display, and ET grinned when he saw all the sticky notes and page markers sticking out of it. And his excitement and enthusiasm was powerful; he practically jumped up and down when showing off his copy of Galileo’s Letters on Sunspots. Tufte presented some new material, and his presentation indicated some revisions and commentary on his work, particularly on the theoretically intense chapter “The fundamental principles of analytical design” in Beautiful Evidence. His riff on the iPhone was also quite interesting, and he spoke a little about his new project, the “quintet” referred to in BE (10), hinting that it might be a film, not a book. This in line with his “whatever it takes” principle: bring the content to the form, not the reverse. The only time I thought Tufte was out of his element was a brief digression on “minimal interfaces” reminiscent of Jef Raskin’s work (though not as comprehensive).

The course also made me reconsider Beautiful Evidence, which I criticized for repetition of Tufte’s earlier work. In some ways that book and the course are very similar: someone new to Tufte would find both massively dense, full of new insights, even a little overwhelming in a positive way. Perhaps it isn’t meant to follow his other books, as I expected, but is more standalone, a comprehensive approach to understanding the role of evidence in presentations. Tufte has devoted quite a bit of effort to that subject, as shown by his work with the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and the PowerPoint pamphlet which became part of Beautiful Evidence, understandable given the poor presentations it’s easy to find at any conference. Also, I hadn’t thought about using any of Tufte’s books as primary texts in technical communication courses: they seem too focused. But watching Tufte do just that makes me think I’ll have to try as well.