We didn't always have student tech support -- while our Stanford Tech Guru, Bob Smith, has always been on hand to help us out with our connections, for several years, Alyssa and I have balanced the logistics of curricular planning with the hands-on reality of hooking up wires, checking for hot ethernet ports, troubleshooting bad network connections, solving echo problems, realigning webcams -- all the very necessary work that goes into trying to create a "transparent" tech interface for our students to use in talking with their globally distributed partners. And, in fact, ironically, despite our strong student staff, some of our connections this quarter are completely UN-supported for the very first time (because of scheduling conflicts), leaving the instructor to field the tech issues him/herself during the session. Of course, this is the situation that many of our partners face every time they connect with us: we know that many schools that we work with DON'T have any infrastructure to support video conferencing and that it is in fact the teachers who are managing the tech aspect of things on their own.

It occurs to me that we need to think hard about the tech requirements of participating in a video conference exchange. As much as we try to streamline participation in the project, what level of tech expertise is still necessary on the part of the instructor? And what is the base level of buy-in needed from the university's tech support structure to make these connections work? How can we best facilitate these exchanges from a logistical point of view, both for those with tech workers, and those without?

I'd be interested in your ideas about this issue!

Students from Aurora, Colorado are connecting with students at Stanford.

Thanks to Susan Achziger, English Composition Faculty, Community College of Aurora

The task today?

Rhetorical analysis of image of the American Flag - from diverse perspectives! Not only are there diverse nationalities at each institution, but Colorado and California have very different cultures. In addition, Aurora is a small community college and Stanford is a research one graduate university - so what can we learn from each other? How might we better understand America and its diversity?

In his talk, Professor Bill Foley presented a new way of approaching the concept of "identity" based upon his years of field research in traditional New Guinea cultures. He shared with the audience instance of ideological beliefs about language practices and their meanings and then made the bold claim for rethinking rhetorical practices in traditional oratory. The talk was inspirational to those interested in contrastive rhetoric, comparing the rhetorical traditions of the West drawn from Aristotle and classical rhetoric against those from New Guinea social groupings. His talk made us all think about the central role that anthropology and linguistics can play in cross-cultural rhetoric studies.

His talk was well attended in the Hume Writing Center, and students remained afterwards to ask Professor Foley questions.

Next week, his own students at the University of Sydney will connect with Stanford students in 5 (five!) CCR video-conference connections, spanning three days. It's a great opportunity for global learning - meeting both universities' initiatives to foster globally educated citizens. Plus, we expect it will be great fun for the students to meet their peers across the ocean!

The delegation from the Department of Rhetoric included Professor and Chair of Literature Lars Burman, Professor Patrik Mehrens (our main CCR class-to-class partner), Director of Studies Professor Ann Öhrberg, and doctoral student Lina Breisch. Also visiting campus were two technology experts from the Uppsala Learning Lab, Mats Cullhed and Marcus Johnson.

Thanks to everyone at Stanford who demonstrated true California generosity in hosting our guests as they toured Wallenberg Hall (thanks Bob Smith and Menko Johnson), visited the Library (thanks to Malgorzata Schaefer), met with the Coursework designers (thanks to Christine Doherty and Makoto Tsuchitani), and toured the campus in its Spring loveliness.

PWR instructors enjoyed meeting our Swedish rhetoric colleagues, having inspiring discussions, planning research collaborations, and comparing teaching strategies. A special thanks to Chris Alfano, Jonathan Hunt, Kelley Myers, and Helle Rytkonen for hosting the visitors in their classes. The crew also had a chance to observe and participate in a special CCR Video-Conference Event, a guest-lecture by John Paval, Stanford alum connecting from Sweden by Marratech to teach a class. What a strange shift in worlds, with Swedes at Stanford watching the American present from their homeland!

Highlights of the visit included a special Dinner with CCR & UAB PWR Students in the 3rd floor of Sweet Hall, with over 30 students showing up to squeeze in around several long tables, share stories of past CCR connections and learn about life and study in each other’s cultures. Also, a special dinner out with Andrea and Marvin at Café Pro Bono, a send off lunch with Alyssa at the Cantor Museum after a tour of the Rodin Exhibit, and a memorable dinner with Bob Smith up in the Santa Cruz mountains at Alice’s Restaurant.

We thank our colleagues in Sweden for their good humor, inspiring research ideas, willingness to participate in courses as judges, team-writers, and presenters, and most of all for their friendship! Here's to many more years of working together!

In addition, the Swedish contingent graciously joined the student teams during Alyssa O'Brien's course on Global Controversies and the Rhetoric of Leadership. As the photos below show, the faculty worked with students to develop compelling oratory using leadership presentation techniques and evoking all five canons: Invention, Arrangement, Style, Memory, and Delivery.

Professor Lars Burman and Lina Breisch in deep discussion with rhetoric students in the Hume Writing Center

Professor Patrik Mehrens in the Hume Writing Center cubicle with students - Patrik and Ann were willing speakers during John Paval's second interactive exercise: the story telling exercise!

Marcus Johnson in active collaboration with students working on their presentation ideas.

Thanks to our Swedish colleagues and to everyone at Stanford who made them so welcome!

It’s been a busy year since then! A Second International Symposium (with participants from 15 countries connecting in by video conference), new partners in Asia (Korea, China), launching fantastic video conference class sessions with Australia (see Rebecca Johinke's post and thanks to Susan Thomas for all the hard work!), bringing onboard Russia as a new partner (see below), and strengthening the blogging partnerships with Egypt. Chris beautifully redesigned the whole CCR website and we’ve also developed a whole new component: Guest Speakers – artists and experts in film, sound, theater, leadership, oratory, comedy, and more!

Just over the past two months, we have had an abundance of CCR collaborations - what wonderful experiences for our students and for us as teachers/researchers connecting across the globe. Some weeks, we have had 3 CCR video connections in one week! Exhausting for the core team, but so exciting and worthwhile for the students. This is deep learning, practical learning of intercultural competencies, ways of writing and speaking with real global audiences about issues that matter.

The highlights:

• We've been busy connecting classes at Stanford with classes at Uppsala University (the oldest, most venerated university in Sweden). Patrik Mehrens has dedicated his time and his classes to meet with ours: Chris Alfano and I each gave our classes a turn in examining Leadership Speeches (see Workshop 1 and Workshop 2).

  

• We've also continued our collaboration with Orebro - it is always a pleasure to connect with Anders Eriksson, who joined his CCR class with Helle Rytkonen's classes for three great sessions on Humor (see Workshop page), and with Eva Magnusson, who had fall connections with both Helle and Chris Alfano (see workshop page).

Russia! After a lot of hard work, we launched our collaboration with Russia.

• Olga Kovbasyuk of the Khabarovsk State Academy of Economics and Law is a true trail blazer. She and Carolyn Ross designed three connections for their students: An initial meeting in the "Video Conference Contact Zone," an Environmental Summit and a Globalization Summit. Carolyn created detailed and meaningful assignments for these exchanges, including a deep-learning collaboration on the CCR blog – writing detailed, research-based argument on these issues and replying to each other in depth. The students, on their own, created a Facebook Group. Join it to see photos and videos from these virtual conferences!

  

• Now Olga in Russia has entered a three-way blog collaboration with Anders Eriksson’s CCR class in Sweden and with my class here at Stanford on Global Controversies and the Rhetoric of Leadership. Our students will share questions, advice for cross-cultural business or travel communication in their countries, and abstracts of research papers. It’s a fabulous opportunity for students in these classes to share perspectives with other students across the world.

Egypt: Our faculty colleagues in Egypt have become great blogging partners. Most recently, Professor Mark Michael's class at the American University in Cairo has begun a blogging exchange with Julia Bleakney's Stanford classes on the Rhetoric of Tourism. (Read more on about our fall blogging with Egypt)

It’s been such a busy time that the instructor’s blog has been put on the back burner. But as we as teachers are so grateful to work with other faculty from around the world, it is important to share gratitude here. I’ll be posting again soon.

Alyssa

• The students in courses taught by Carolyn Ross and Ghada Elshimi enjoyed a wonderful exchange of Cultural Identity blog posts, focusing on environmental issues in the US and Egypt, with a special look at environmental effort on Stanford campus and the new AUC campus.

  

• Melissa Levitt’s “Rhetoric of Online Activism” connected with Wafaa Mishca’s RHET 102 class, titled "From the Personal to the Public," for timely blog discussions of the US election

• Donna Hunter’s Stanford class, "Rhetoric of Criminality” blogged with Belle Gironda’s AUC class, "Writing in the Social Sciences Class." First, both classes viewed the documentary, News from a Personal War, which was filmed in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, and then they exchanged perspectives on the CCR blog.
  

We look forward to future collaborations with AUC -- both on the blog and through video conference -- in the months to come!

The students in Örebro are not fulfilling a requirement in writing. They have chosen an elective in rhetoric. This spring all the students are international students, four from France, two from the Netherlands, one from the US, one Chinese from Sweden. They have chosen the class because it is one of the few classes in English and because the topic of Cross-culture is appealing to them as they wrestle with cultural complexities in a foreign land. To fulfil the intercultural component of the class the students in Örebro also read Rogers and Steinfatt Intercultural communication. The background and the expectations of the students in these two classes are quite different.

This collaboration has been more throrough going than previous collaborations. Previously the collaborations have been more or less one time events that have been inserted into an existing framework. This was the case with the collaboration last year between Alyssa O’Brien’s and Christine Alfano’s class and the Rhetoric B in Örebro. Then we did various analytical assignments in globally distributed teams. The same can be said about the class to class collaboration between the CCR class in Örebro and Alyssas class at Stanford. The classes were separate classes joined through a series of connections on cross-cultural themes.

This time is different in that both classes use Envision as the textbook and we as teachers have planned both classes so that we will cover similar material in both classes at the same time. This difference is also that we have integrated the writing assignment in the collaborations. The students read each others freewrites on research topics, they comment on the blog about the research topics and we conclude the class by having students orally present the highlight of their research to an international audience.

The Stanford students are seated three or four a bit away from the collaboration station. The camera is placed on top of the screen to make sure that all of them appear in the picture. But this also means that they are placed in a subordinate position. The camera is looking down on them, and the viewer on the other side in Sweden takes the perspective from the camera and “looks down” on them. The two camera angles thus reinforce one another so that the Swedish students are given a position of authority.

The authority position for the Swedish students was further emphasized by their age. Most of the students in Örebro are between 20 and 25, some are even 30. The Stanford students were freshmen, sorry FROSH, and thus about 18 years old.

The students in Örebro had been taking a class on rhetorical criticism and for them the method chosen for the analysis was important. While a student from Stanford had as a topic, "The pressure faced by women in society to meet an unrealistic body image," a Swedish student wrote on the Whiteborad that she might write her paper on feminist criticism, thus placing the method before the chosen artefact. Another student in Örebro said he would write something on ideological criticism.

In the debrief some students told me they thought the topics at Stanford were much too large and that they had almost taken upon themselves the instructors role by asking the students at Stanford to narrow their topics.

The power between the students was balanced by the fact that English was the language spoken. Several of the students in Sweden felt insecure when they spoke English. Several of the students at Stanford appear to be quite selfconfident, some know more about the technology used. When the students present the result of their collaboration it is often the students at Stanford that write on the Whiteboard and who do the oral presentation.