This page is now back to being an announcement page. I’ve kept all the announcements from earlier below even though some of them were kind of combined with what we were doing for certain classes.

I have been sending out regular emails with Zoom session info. If you do not get these emails, MAKE SURE TO EMAIL ME AND LET ME KNOW. It would mean something’s gone terribly wrong, but hopefully we can fix that.

Anyway, you can find everything necessary for each class session posted in the Online Course Materials page, and all the recordings of each class session on the Zoom Recordings page.

From the rest of the semester onwards, mostly for the purposes of the Proposal Assignment, everyone will be working in the following small groups:

Fadi, Muhammad R, Trung, Kazi, Huihong
Jack, Hansen, Gary, Barry, Saar
Cristopher, Ki, Adam, Mohamed M, Peter
Muhaiminul, Eva, Jiayi, Reeaz, Ikraa
Sumon, Jenifer, Baba, Amir, Islam

---

Class on March 25th:

We will again have class during our regular class time on Zoom conferencing. I will address the “Re-calibration pause”

I will post the login information at the end of this message.

What you will need for class: Find three examples of technical descriptions. Check the Assignments page for examples as well as the assignment sheet. Have them open on your computer when you sign in to Zoom.

Update on peer reviews and final draft deadlines for the 2nd essay: Many people have told me they never received ANY of the emails either from myself or from their group members with their essays. I have looked through everyone’s emails as well as my own, and it seems to me that every email address I entered was one I’ve reliably corresponded with its recipient before. Check all your emails. If you STILL have not received any announcements from me, email me again, and I’ll forward you what I sent. The same goes for the peer review groups I sent out a few weeks ago. In all those emails, at least someone responded from every group, and in most of them, most people did, so I am surprised so many people said they had received nothing at all. Fortunately, this is pretty easy to fix! Anyway, peer review letters will be due NEXT MONDAY, and the final draft of the essays will be due on April 6th.

Anyway, here’s the Zoom info:

Oliver St.John is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Writing for Englineering 3/25
Time: Mar 25, 2020 06:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://ccny.zoom.us/j/397916295

Meeting ID: 397 916 295

One tap mobile
+16465588656,,397916295# US (New York)
+13126266799,,397916295# US (Chicago)

Dial by your location
+1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 301 715 8592 US
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 253 215 8782 US
Meeting ID: 397 916 295
Find your local number: https://ccny.zoom.us/u/acLde4eh9h

Join by SIP
397916295@zoomcrc.com

Join by H.323
162.255.37.11 (US West)
162.255.36.11 (US East)
221.122.88.195 (China)
115.114.131.7 (India Mumbai)
115.114.115.7 (India Hyderabad)
213.19.144.110 (EMEA)
103.122.166.55 (Australia)
209.9.211.110 (Hong Kong)
64.211.144.160 (Brazil)
69.174.57.160 (Canada)
207.226.132.110 (Japan)
Meeting ID: 397 916 295

---

March 23 announcement:

Hey gang,
So, class today will be a video-conferenced lecture over Zoom. Many of you may have used this for other classes. After looking over several different types of platforms for videoconferences, I’ve chosen Zoom because if the features that allow me to break out the conversations into little groups that can then come back together. This is how we will do small group work and large group discussions.
The discussion today may mostly be just my answering questions and helping people set everything up. We are in a whole new realm of playing it by ear. In the end, the assignments will still be the same, the readings will still be the same, but the way in which we interact will be totally different.
For now, let’s worry about how today will go. I will set up a Zoom meeting you can all log in to at our normal class time 6:30 p.m. today. We will do the same on Wednesday too.
To be able to do this, look out for the email for the meeting I’ll send shortly. You might have to create an account on Zoom if you haven’t done that. I did that at least. You have to download Zoom as well. There will be a link to do that when you see my meeting email.
Here are the instrucutions for how to sign in to the meeting:
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362193-Joining-a-Meeting
Watch out for the link shortly!

You can also join the meeting by phone if your internet isn’t working great — I meant to send out this link too:
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362663-Joining-a-meeting-by-phone

---

March 19 announcement:

So, a couple of folks have expressed confusion as to how our class will continue. I wrote some of this in response to one students email, and I thought it would be helpful:
So what I’m in the process of doing right now is converting every lesson, assignment, and in-class assignment into something everyone can participate in online. I’m going to have to pre-record some lectures, and set up a lot writing prompts/online discussions on blackboard to go with them; some everyone will do individually, and some will look more like small group discussions, others like whole class discussions. There’s actually a ton of stuff we can do online that we couldn’t do in person, which is neat. All the assignments will be the same, and we’ll read the same stuff.
What I’m learning is that all classes can’t be easily switched out for web-conferences where everyone signs on at the same time, though. A lot gets lost between being in a room with everyone and web conferencing even BEFORE you rule out people having technical issues, so everything I’ve been reading suggests switching as much stuff as possible to multimedia/text-based assignments that individual folks and small groups can work on in their own time. There’s actually a whole teaching pedagogy behind it that seems really solid.

Anyway, to answer your question: Yes, we will have an online class. I’m still figuring out how often and when we’ll have to web-conference with each other. I’ll LIKELY be once a week AT LEAST, although it’s possible there will be entire weeks without web-conferences that we all sign in to at the same time. I’m gonna set online office hours where people can call, text, video-chat, look over essays via screensharing, etc.
Thanks so much for bearing with me. This whole thing’s kinda nuts! Does that answer your question? I might copy and past some of this email and send it to everyone else too if other folks would find it helpful.
How are you doing? It’s been a weird week.
All the best,
-Oliver

This is the course website for Oliver St. John’s Writing for Engineering class, Spring 2020.
Here you’ll be able to find all the readings, assignments, the course schedule, and all the course policies you’ll need to complete this course.
The class meets on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6:30 to 7:45 p.m in NAC room 6/112. Please arrive on time or email/text in advance if late/absent
My contact information is as follows:
Professor: Oliver St. John
Email: ProfessorOliverStJohn@gmail.com (preferred), ostjohn@ccny.cuny.edu
Google voice: (929) 277-8403 (text only)
Office number: NAC 6/215D
Office hours: By appointment (email me the night before if you’d like to meet before or after class)