Growing up in the suburbs of Houston, I didn’t really encounter a lot of people who were homeless. After moving to Austin to begin my academic studies, I became much more exposed to this section of the community’s demographic. It’s almost impossible to walk around without passing by someone who...
Flash Fellowships 2018: Analyzing
Flash Fellowships give staffers and assistant instructors in the DWRL the time, techniques, and technical resources they need to accomplish projects related to their own research and scholarship. Assistant instructors and staffers fill out a form that helps them articulate their project's theoretical and pedagogical rationale, and think through any...
Flash Fellowships 2018: Gathering
Flash Fellowships give staffers and assistant instructors in the DWRL the time, techniques, and technical resources they need to accomplish projects related to their own research and scholarship. Assistant instructors and staffers fill out a form that helps them articulate their project's theoretical and pedagogical rationale, and think through any...
Flash Fellowships 2018: Building
Flash Fellowships give staffers and assistant instructors in the DWRL the time, techniques, and technical resources they need to accomplish projects related to their own research and scholarship. Assistant instructors and staffers fill out a form that helps them articulate their project's theoretical and pedagogical rationale, and think through any...
Lesson Plan: Making Documents Accessible for Screen Reader Software
In an earlier blog post, the DWRL offered various free resources and tips for creating visual content that is accessible to people with visual impairments. For example, The WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool helps pinpoint errors on a webpage interface that may be difficult for screen readers -- software that...
Lesson Plan: Digital Video Reporting Project (with iMovie and Audacity)
Today's shift towards the vast complexity of digital literacies involves, perhaps more than any other medium, the skills of producing digital videos, including the so-called "fact-based" documentaries and video reports. However, these "facts" are still "made" to fit a rhetorical message with its point of view, narrative structure, and appeals...
Wearables Lesson Plan: Yelp
Yelp is a virtual marketplace that has been shaping our spatial orientation for many years, since it was founded in 2004 and has increasingly expanded worldwide since 2009. Despite its vast impact on our daily life, its digital rhetoric has hardly been researched and is usually taken for granted without...
Accessible Data Visualizations
Are you reading this blog post from computer screen or an screen reader? Did you need to adjust the font or text size, screen brightness, or filter the interface through a browser extension or rely on an app like Accessibility to access this information? In her entry on "Access" in Keywords...
Lesson Plan: Filter Bubbles
We constantly consume media -- whether television, internet, or radio. According to Pew, a whopping 62% of adults get their news from social media. This is troubling, considering the pervasive filter bubble; depending on our interests, social media and search engines filter their results to match our preferences. Hence the...