Speaker to Address Faculty and Student Professional Identities in Web 2.0 Spaces

Dr. Kristine Blair, chair and professor of English at Bowling Green State University, will present “Shaky Foundations: Constructing Faculty and Student Professional Identities in Web 2.0 Spaces” from 3:30 – 5 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14, in the Alumni Memorial Union, North Multipurpose Room, at The University of Findlay.
Blair will address the role of Web 2.0 tools and genres in fostering digital identity development, as well as more 21st-century multimodal literacies. Despite the strong potential of these tools for professional development and literacy acquisition, there remain rhetorical and ethical concerns regarding digital identity development for faculty and students.
These concerns include the extent to which the Web 2.0 tools often used to construct such identities have ideological designs on users, and how the rise of a template-driven presence can actually limit the opportunity to develop an identity as both a reflective practitioner and a digital composer.
Blair teaches digital rhetoric and scholarly publication courses in the Rhetoric and Writing Doctoral Program at BGSU. She serves as editor of the journals “Computers and Composition” and “Computers and Composition Online.”
Blair’s presentation is part of the Wilkin Chair series of events this year. Ron Tulley, Ph.D., associate professor of English, is the 2012-13 Richard E. Wilkin Chair for the College of Liberal Arts.
Tulley is devoting one year of study to the interdisciplinary exploration of a single topic, The Power of Portrayal — The Social Nature of (Re-)Presenting a “Self:” Role Playing, Social Networking and Identity Formation in the Digital Age.
According to Tulley, his theme is designed to create a discourse community at The University of Findlay that investigates, discusses and debates what it means to construct a self-image in the digital age.
For more information, contact Tulley at rtulley@findlay.edu or 419-434-4608, or visit his blog: http://powerofportrayal.blogspot.com/