Rochelle (Shelley) Rodrigo is an English Department faculty member and the faculty professional development coordinator for Mesa Community College in Arizona. She also has served as the college’s instructional technologist and is developing a writing certificate program. Shelley’s scholarly pursuits generally explore interactions between humanities and technology. She has been invited to speak about teaching and technology at both local and national venues. As well as co-authoring THE WADSWORTH GUIDE TO RESEARCH, Shelley was co-editor of RHETORICALLY RETHINKING USABILITY (Hampton Press, forthcoming). Her scholarly work has appeared in COMPUTERS AND COMPOSITION, TEACHING ENGLISH IN THE TWO-YEAR COLLEGE, JOURNAL OF ADVANCING TECHNOLOGY, and FLOW, as well as various edited collections. In 2004, she was awarded the American Association for Higher Education’s Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award. Shelley serves on the National Council of Teachers of English College Section Nominating Committee and is secretary for the Science Fiction Research Association.

Sessions:

Resident Feminist: Alice in the Wonder of Web 2.0 Technologies

Web 2.0 technologies are generally both highly individualizable as well as inherently social in purpose and function. When users work with them they can adapt, combine, reuse, and remediate (Bolter & Grusin, 1999) them in highly personalized and critical manner, moving from solely academic to personal, professional, and civic uses. I will use the narrative metaphor wrapped around Alice’s character in the Resident Evil films (2002 & 2004), along with various film and media theories, de Lauretis (1994), Rich (1994), Bolter’s and Grusin, to weave together a story about how Web 2.0 technologies might be considered feminist and critically liberatory for users. Audience participation requested required!

Using Web 2.0 in Education

Wikis, blogs, podcasts, and other social networking tools are taking the world of higher education by storm. How are faculty in higher education using various Web 2.0 technologies. More importantly, why are they incorporating different web-based technologies into their courses? Come join a discussion about how and why educators are using these technologies, how such use affects teaching and learning, and why it’s important to not overlook the value of applying these trends.