This is the post for the September 17, 2014 class meeting.

Project 2 Overview

Today we’ll begin work on Project 2. You will be looking at an web-based tool as an example of a digital, multimodal text in a web essay that analyzes how the tool works.

Affordances and Constraints

We will get started with a discussion of autocorrect, autocomplete, and one of the recent articles about Grandmaster Flash and Grandmas. We’ll use these questions and gather our ideas on Padlet.

1. What are the affordances of autocorrect and autocomplete? 
   In other words, what do autocorrect and autocomplete allow or encourage you to do? What do they make easy for you?
2. What are the constraints of autocorrect and autocomplete? 
   In other words, how do autocorrect and autocomplete limit your ability to do things you want to do? What do they make difficult for you? Think about which features of autocorrect and autocomplete are intuitive and which features are “hidden” or only available to advanced users. What shortcomings are there to autocorrect and autocomplete?

Overview of Project 2

We’ll read through Project 2. You’ll use information from chapters 1 and 2 of Writer/Designer to help you write your analysis.

Homework

For Friday, the 19th, read Chapter 2 of Writer/Designer, and think about how you would analyze WordPress.com if you were writing about it for Project 2. I will ask you to apply the information from Chapter 2 to WordPress.com and to talk about the affordances and constraints of the site in class.