Blogs & Beyond: Teaching with Technology and Curiosity
![[flying classroom]](/files/legacy/u2284/chairart.jpg)
Blogs & Beyond: Teaching with Technology and Curiosity
The rapid proliferation of digital tools and media is encouraging many of us to rethink our course development and classroom strategies. The adoption of these exciting new tools, however, is not simply a matter of grafting digital elements onto the traditional classroom methods. Instead it uncovers and unsettles many of the basic pedagogical assumptions that have long driven our teaching.
Many of the technologies have allowed us to have different kinds of conversations with students, incorporate richer and multilayered sources of materials in the classroom and in assignments, accommodate various learning styles and paces, and enable sustained collaborative learning among our students. These technologies have fundamentally changed the classroom environment and course development, both for campus-based classes as well as distance learning.
But, these technologies have also created some new challenges as instructors and students. To name just a few:
- students' widely varying technological capacities and experiences
- the distractions of laptops in the classroom - they can impact classroom conversation as well as distract others nearby
- ensuring technology is not implemented just for the sake of it, but is adding something to the class
![[lecture in Second Life]](/files/legacy/u2284/lecture_in_sl.jpg)
And, of course, the simple fact of trying to keep up-to-date with the wealth of potential approaches, tools, and media afforded by this explosion of digital technologies!
By focusing on practical challenges, solutions, failures, and future plans, we hope this forum will generate a productive conversation that will inform our pedagogy by making our engagement with teaching technologies more effective both for teachers and for our students.
We also want to consider "technology" more broadly defined. Along with new tools like Twitter, wikis, course sites, in-class tablets, GIS mapping, Digital Humanities projects, textual analysis, and mobile phones, we want to consider what can be done with non-digital, traditional technologies and how novel interactions among the analog and digital can arise. We hope you will consider the following questions and responses as a jumping off point for this conversation.
Questions:
![[space instructors, by threadless.com]](/files/legacy/u2284/zoom400.gif)
1. What challenges and/or failures have you faced while teaching with digital technology? How have you dealt with these issues and what did you learn?
2. How have you utilized technology to encourage critical thinking about difference - such as the Digital Divide/class/race/gender/sexual orientation. How have students responded? Has it been useful? Have you been wary of using technology for this purpose because of any specific concerns or questions?
3. How have your experiences with technology changed your pedagogical methods, expectations, or results? That is, how do we avoid this: "digital facelift" - merely taking what you do & doing it online (ex. online courses in Blackboard)"? (via @academicdave on Twitter, from this talk)
4. What degree of technological experience is necessary for instructors to be able to discover, evaluate, and effectively use the plethora of digital tools & projects available?
5. How have these technologies impacted your own labor as an instructor? Do you need to spend additional time teaching students to use these tools, and does that feel useful or is it an additional burden? Do you think teaching certain technological 'literacies' is an essential or ancillary aspect of your curriculum development?
6. How can we use teaching technologies to make learning bidirectional? What have we to learn from our students? What have you learned from your students?
*We especially welcome links to your course websites, blogs, wikis, or syllabi. If they're not online, feel free to post excerpts below, or post it as a blog and include the link here! We have also created a Zotero group for saving and organizing these links, which can be joined here.
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digital divide & access
When I first started tacking issues of pedagogy within and with technology, it was in relation to the digital divide. Choosing a class that focused not on inclusion, but exclusion helped me better understand non-physical, but sometimes impenetrable barriers to learning and using (smart) technology.
It's not just getting the computer and the gidgets and gadgets, it's learning how to find networks and spaces that enable you to communicate effectively in a medium that can be quite daunting on the first couple of tries. Too often, lower-income and/or minority users are those excluded from discussions like the awesome ones we have on HASTAC. As a grad student at an affluent private university, I have a front row seat to examine differences between my students who grew up with technology and those who, since arriving on campus, are for the first time just beginning to use all these wonderful thinkpads and iPods and blogs and social sites - alongside taking more challenging classes, navigating new social networks and being away from home for the first time. It's a steep learning curve.
Too often, we teachers stress the progress of technology without acknowledging the underside - the very real issues that have an impact on how fast we pick up the slack and how we utilize lessons from class. It's my goal as a future teacher at the collegiate level to address those access issues while blending it with my research interests. How we can use technology to address problems of ethnic/racial difference? How do we, as teachers, remain sensitive to issues of ethnicity/race that are often repressed/hidden behind dominant modes of understanding technology in pop culture? (e.g. Why are the majority of people in the "Windows 7 was my idea" ads white (and in one case, French), but not of color? How might YouTube college application videos put low-income students at a disadvantage?)
For me, it's not just about access, but rather, once access is gained, in what ways are some communities still excluded and what can we do to make sure all students understand how those exclusions are working?
The Digital Divide
I think this is an interesting issue. As I've taught, in both material classrooms and on-line classrooms, I have noticed that the "real" digital divide comes in ability to use technology--not just access to technology. It is interesting to note that there are many not-for-profit organizations designed to get technology into the classroom. (The Gates fund and even Apple have all spent significant money on some of these projects). However, there is a vast difference between the students who know how to use the technology and those who don't. Part of this is--maybe-- Cultural Capital. I also think part of this has to do with teacher training. Too often, when schools try to train their teachers to use technology, they devote a day or two of teacher preparation time to giving a crash course workshop on how you may want to use technology as part of your curriculum--or part of your pedagogy. Two days hardly seems like enough training--especially since these teachers are then, usually, left without a support network to help them after the technology workshop.
The digital divide
Hi Heather,
When I was doing research for this forum, I came across this book, which discusses precisely this issue of access and competencies. This problem also touches on one of the other questions we asked; how much time should teachers spend teaching these technology competencies? I like that you mentioned teacher training, too. Perhaps we should have faculty and student joint training sessions sponsored by the institution itself. After all, it seems inefficient to train the teachers who will then train the students, especially if the goal is not to teach only the technologies, but to use them in ways conducive to learning.
teacher/student training
Hi Michael and Heather -
Sorry, I somehow just saw this thread this am. whoops.
Heather, that's an interesting point about cultural capital, although i might lean toward saying economic capital is at the root of the problem. you're right in pointing out that just sticking a computer in a classroom isn't enough. But in my experience (which on this particular point have been with K-12) it's that the kids get only a little bit of time with the technology at school, maybe a short computer class *if* the school has funding and then when they go home there is no computer. so there is no chance to bolster skills. this is exacerbated in school systems where there are only basic computers, not the bells and whistles kids in affluent towns get. If you don't have the money to get and maintain a somewhat up-to-date computer, either at school or at home, your ability to master beyond the basic is hampered. So you get to college and are struggling, Hulk-against-The-Abomination style.
As for teacher training, you're right. teachers don't get nearly enough. And there is not enough support for them to seek more training once they get it. Michael, I think it's an interesting idea, the joint teacher/student training, but I wonder how many teachers would want to become a student with their students? There's nothing like getting dusted in website class by a kid who you failed because he couldn't pass a test on Gorgias.
Most definitely an institution-supported format would be awesome. Like when teachers got inservice when we were little. It would seem like we'd need to really push hard to get the institution to see the value, however, in adequately training teachers on its dime. Teachers at the uni level are doing so much professionally and personally, that if the university wanted to make a real commitment rather than just lip service to tech-ed, then it would need to free up some requirements. So perhaps this is an issue that stems, in part, from the upper level administration?
technology in context
I enjoy using, analyzing, and helping to develop new teaching technologies; and I'm sure I will discuss my most useful and stressful experiences in this arena as the forum progresses. Nonetheless, as a researcher who critiques the history of black-boxing, I hope that we can interrogate the technologies that shape our classrooms without positing a false divide between digital and paper materialisms. Like James W. Carey and John J. Quirk, I am concerned that discussions about "book versus computer in education" too often displace serious considerations about about the need for "an adequate curriculum" ("The Mythos of the Electronic Revolution," 1970). I also worry that the impulse to steward students across the so-called "digital divide" proposes a technological band-aid for deeper problems in our educational system. For example, at the prison in which I tutor, I've had students tell me that they had taken several courses on computing at community learning centers while they were struggling to stay in high school at a second-grade literacy level. I have other students who would rather use their limited time in the prison library reading than learning how to type their essays out in Microsoft Word.
Consequently, I hope this forum can explore how we can use teaching technologies to become more effective instructors and learners; and how these technologies might have broad-ranging impacts on the problems facing educators at every level. I want to subject my personal interest in "cool" and "cutting edge" technology to a healthy skepticism that promotes critical pedagogy. I want to use effective teaching technologies while encouraging my students to challenge and break the "black-boxes" that mediate their writing and learning processes, including everything from Microsoft Word to course blogs, from literature anthologies to simple pens and paper. And, of course, I always want to learn from my students. To me, that means valuing their resistance to specific tools, or to "crossing" the "digital divide" in general. How do/would you go about this kind of critical contextualization in your classroom? Or do you find my ideal needlessly limiting?
transparent values about technology
It's remarkable that in a relatively short period of time, the affordances of the computer, the internet, and digital media in general have transformed the landscape of college curricula, specifically its design. Many, if not most, instructors are reeling at the speed with which their students become habituated to not only using, but incorporating social networking, texting, tweeting, etc. into their daily lives. This profoundly affects the ways in which they think, learn, and respond to college assignments, which puts at stake the knowledge and values our pedagogy is designed to interrogate. For me, it's crucial to be as transparent and self-conscious of the values we inscribe in our pedagogy with regards to our attitudes toward technology. How can we think about pedagogical practices that keep students self-conscious of their own technological skills and practices? To what degree do we address certain biases toward different kinds of technologies? How do we desist from imposing our own biases all the while encouraging productive and innovative student work?
I'd like to provoke discussion with a quote: in Audiovisions, speaking of artistic and cultural production, Siegfried Zielinski writes, "if one understands the co-existence of heterogeneous forms of expression and media praxes that wander between the analogue and the digital as a challenge and an opportunity for radical experimentation, for risky balancing acts between different worlds, then leaving behind conventional patterns, it is possible to create something which would be unthinkable without its passage through the media, but which at the same time keeps the option for subversion open but the option for supervision closed." What if we put this assertion in dialogue with our own pedagogical production?
being subversive in a place where there is no supervision
I think your Zielinski quote is interesting. Although, I'm also curious about a space where subversion is possible, but supervision is not--I'd like to see what that space looks like. There 's part of me that thinks that subversiveness could benefit and proliferate in a space where there is little supervision. But then, there is also part of me that wonders whether or not a subversive act necessitates a space that is supervised--or organized in a paritcular manner--with a particular aim. Is it really subversive to initiaite an action or a movement in a space that is not supervised? So, along those lines, I wanted to pose the question of how subversive and creative technologies (digital technologies, other technologies like the chair and desk, and even technologies in the Foucauldian sense) look different in a K-12 environment, when compared to a university environment. We're talking about technologies in education--and I think that the K-12 environment is defintitely subject to a greater level of supervision than the university environment. What does it look like to se technologies for subversion in that space?
I remember, as an English teacher--or rather Language Arts Teacher, doing a unit on Protest. I wanted to challenge my students to think about how protest is a particular kind of language. We looked at text, art, film clips, music etc. Then, the students had to perform a protest on their own. They had to talk about what they did as a form of protest in a presentation for the class. My students used all sorts of technology to make their own film, record a song, advertise their feelings using posters, one group held an art show with their protest art. While there were definitely problems with this assignment, it was interesting to me to see the different types of technology that different students used.
K-12
It's interesting you've moved this into the K-12 discussion, which I hadn't thought of! I think you're absolutely right that supervision operates on a different and more powerful level in the K-12 environment- so an ethics of supervision with regards to tech in the classroom would be different from that in a college classroom- but let's talk about the former. Perhaps pedagogy must consider subversion and supervision as a spectrum. Of course, you wouldn't want to go too far in either direction- for instance, what kinds of subversion do you want to encourage, and what kinds do you want to discourage? You don't want your students to suddenly think you're okay with them hacking into the school's grade system as a gesture of subversion (I was thinking of this in the high school age, but I realize that hacking skills probably get employed by younger and younger people). I think subversion could be articulated as a form of play and empowerment. We want students to be able to grasp concepts and at the same time be able to manipulate them or at least understand them as manipulable- we want them to understand concepts from different perspectives. We don't want them to learn by rote, or to learn and accept and memorize one understanding of history, or literature, or the social sciences, or even debates in the sciences. But we want them to find their voice, to be able to understand their role within a community and feel empowered enough to be active within it.
Rather than a traditional poster for a history class that presents, or re-presents one narrative of U.S. or world history according to their textbook, or even Wikipedia (if that's where they're getting their info), the assignment would ask students to use something like Ancestry.com (I know this is a pay-service- could this be free for educational purposes?) in order to trace their own histories, and then line them up chronologically with the histories of their textbooks. The idea here is that the student would see their own part in a diverse and dynamic history, one that wasn't just an "American" history, but perhaps a history that derived from many different nations, cultures, and languages. Or perhaps the assignment could ask students to do a "research" paper (I'm thinking of the research paper I had to do in 7th grade, using a card file to do my library research) that, beyond teaching them how to use the library and collect evidence, also required them to do internet research in the vein of using geneological forums. I've read many of these myself, and they require you to interact with other people within a digital environment in order to share information about your ancestry.
Perhaps, when it came time for these students to present their research and the project, even if it used the traditional poster, each student would be able to see the individual histories that compose the general one- in this sense, the institutional power of the textbook history would be subverted, but in a playful and empowering way, by their own unique stories.
As far as supervision goes, of course, I can't quite begin to articulate how you create a space without supervision in classrooms with young students. My wife teaches pre-school. Should she design assignments to make transparent the institutional power manifested in a "chair" or nap time? Of course not. But she uses methods from the Reggio-Emilia approach which encourages individual play coupled with a limited type of supervision. Perhaps we could learn from this with our oan approaches to employing digitial technology?
Hypercities
I want to provide this link to a very interesting project being done at UCLA, one you may be aware of: hypercities. Todd Presner just came to UCSB to give a presentation on this project, but I'd highly reccommend taking a look at it, particularly the ways in which protests are tracked in Tehran. This could be a very interesting project, for instance, in either K-12 or undergrad, in teaching political engagement and activism through digital technology.
Social Media Addiction
Here's another post that we have to consider if we're going to encourage using social media in the classroom: Digital Media Addiction. This is a report that followed students who were asked to go for one day without using any kind of social media- texting, facebook, etc. and then blog about their reactions. Many were found to experience symptoms similar to that in withdrawal from addictive drugs.
Digital Addiction?
Thanks for the link on the Day Without Media! I remember doing the "Week without TV" exercises and how hard it was. While I can live without TV these days (90210 the sequel isn't as good as the orginal), I imagine I'd have the same reaction as the kids who did a DWM. What I found most interesting was the part that the newspaper and even, possibly, the news, was considered expendable. Of course, connecting to one's friends and family is super important, but it the study seemed to indicate an insularity among students that I found alarming. That leaves me with the question, how important is it that we address issues of (global) community as we teach with technology? At what point should it be a concern, if at all?
Digital Media and Learning
I agree that "addiction" and attention are issues we have to keep in mind when we talk about the use of digital media for teaching and learning. I am reminded of what a friend of mine said about students using computers in the classroom -- he referred to the screen distraction in the classroom as a form of "visual farting," which I think is quite an interesting and apt way to describe it. What are the boundaries of using technology within the physical walls of the classroom? How can teachers encourage the use of technology in the classroom to go beyond Facebooking during valuable class time, etc. (I think Bridget Draxler's example of the use of cell phones in her class is a great example -- see her comment about "Bidirectional Pedagogy" in this forum). I am also reminded of Cathy Davidson's example (in "The Future of Thinking" session at HASTAC2010) of Howard Rheingold's class in which he begins by asking students to shut their eyes and technological devices, and just track their own thoughts for the next few minutes. Davidson points out that this exercise allows for rewarding self-reflexivity in which students can think about what it means to re-open their eyes and laptops. Only by closing one's eyes, letting one's hands rest, and stepping away from constant "digital addiction" can one begin to appreciate and think critically about or interpret one's use of technology. One of the things I'd like to see happen in the digital age, in terms of teaching and learning, is a greater balance and interplay between online and offline spaces, digital and physical media, analog and digital, etc.. I am always fascinated by the relationships, tensions, and connections between these contending spaces as they relate to learning with technology. This topic makes me want to branch out and talk about the numerous things it makes me think about! One last thing I'll mention for now is that "digital addiction" and the increased use of and exposure to new media also points to the need for information literacy skills (Rheingold has also written on this) and how important it is for educators to work with students in developing these skills. Students may grow up in the digital age, but separating good information from the "bad" and learning to navigate the massive world wide web are still skills that they'll need to learn. It's getting late and I am sort of thinking out loud here, so forgive me if I am going all over the place, but this reminds me of a video on NYTimes that points to the increasing need for information mentors who can guide students through the flood of digital content they're faced with regularly -- see video of "The 21st Century Librarian."
Librarians!
Viola,
Thanks for these great comments! I really like the idea of having students close their eyes and let go of all of their digital connections for a moment -- I think that could be a really useful exercise. In the same vein (and because you brought up librarians) I thought I would mention a few strategies I have used to help students realize that they have to filter the endless amount of information they find on the web.
First, a brief anecdote. When we give our students library tours here -- no matter what specific databases I've asked the library staff person to introduce to the class -- it becomes an advertisement for how hep the library is. Always, a Stephen Colbert youtube clip about wikipedia, and announcement after announcement that they now have video games for check out, etc. I understand why the library does this -- they want to meet students on their own turf (as Brian suggested in arguing that we should use spaces our students already traffic rather than set-aside schoolwork spaces if we really want to engage). But, as much as I understand these library tours, I don't find them very useful for my classes. After a few failed attempts at having the library staff person introduce my class to specific databases (like ProQuest historical newspapers, for example), I've given up on signing up my classes for library tours altogether. Now, I have an assignment where I have students talk to a librarian about a project -- emailing the librarian or going to ask in person are both fine. And every time I've done this, my students are amazed at how useful librarians are in helping them locate truly relevant sources. I've had dozens of students ask why nobody makes them talk to librarians sooner, to which I've responded: 'why didn't you think that a person who really knows how to look through stacks and archives could be as helpful as a search engine?' :-)
I also have a small project in which I ask students how various texts appear to have authority. I've done this one in multiple ways: bringing in examples of books, articles, webpages, and asking them which one they trust the most and why. I've also done it as a response to turned-in material. But I don't just ask them about why they trust certain sketchy websites -- I also ask why they trust books, videos, etc., and then I use their responses as a way to launch into class discussion about research practices, and how they differ across disciplines. I discuss when I use wikipedia or google, and when I don't, etc. These are pretty simple exercises that don't take much time, but I'm always surprised at how taken aback students are when asked to explain how they identify expertise our authority in their citations. This has led to useful discussions about how a lot of the searching they've done for previous writing exercises was really just trying to find sources that corroborate ideas they already had; and how it can often be more challenging, rewarding, or fun to find sources to argue with.
Digital Research & Information Literacy
Jenni-
I had a great chuckle as I read "I've had dozens of students ask why nobody makes them talk to librarians sooner, to which I've responded: 'why didn't you think that a person who really knows how to look through stacks and archives could be as helpful as a search engine?' How many times have I encountered this!? I am firmly resolved in using your idea to make it a requirement to contact a librarian- I also found that when I took students to the library for a presentation, it was in no way not helpful on the librarians part, but I felt that I could have shown my students exactly the same thing (search term strategies for the most part- Boolean operators etc.)- I didn't get the show I had expected from these highly trained info adventurors. I have said so many times in my own classes this same thing- "you would be amazed how helpful librarians will be for you if you talk to one- they will give you more ways to access different kinds of sources than you'll know what to do with!" Of course we don't want them to be overwhelmed- which is precisely why librarians are so helpful.
I think the major issue here, and I've found this popping up again and again (Michael has also commented on this) is the need for tools that help students learn to research in digital environments. These must be fun, engaging, and productive in the sense that they return credible sources without an extraordinary amount of work. They must be more intensive than standard search engines (we all know the first place our students go when they want to "know" something- google), but they must inculcate search engine skills- mostly developing the ability to not let search engines do the student's thinking for them. I find this to be a major problem- students don't want to think about the different ways they can define their terms- they think if one search with two vague terms- "teaching" and "technology" let's say, returns thousands of sources, they've failed b/c they can't possibly go through them all, or they understand their search is too broad, but they can't think of any other way to narrow their search parameters. Wouldn't it be great if we could develop one excercise that would be fun (I'm thinking of Edmond's list for video games lower in the forum), and instructive and would improve our student's research skills and information literacy. Any ideas? Or any successful assignments/exercises/digital tools?
disengage to engage?
@Viola and Jenni
You bring up great ideas in relation to engaging students beyond the technology. Jenni, I think what you mentioned about H. Rheingold and his request for students to re-center themselves in relation to their thoughts and technology was really interesting. I don't know if I can use it in my classes right now, as we are focused more on performance than research or technology, but that is something I will definitely reference in classes later on.
Jenni, I really like that library assignment! I have done that with getting students to open up and approach people and groups they don't normally contact (as in, find someone not affiliated with the university, not in your gender, ethnic, or religious group, and interview them for this assignment). But I like the idea of getting them to the library on their own to have a one-on-one with the librarian who can help get beyond what Christopher noted as the "google" as a verb in research stage. I think it's a great way to get them not only better prepared for other classes, but also to utilize the library resources.
Libraries & Resources for Learning in the Digital Age
Jenni, Kim, and Chris:
Thank you for your feedback and great ideas! Jenni, you also made me chuckle this morning! It is so true that the ease in which students can enter search terms on Google and find relevant information to corroborate a point they're making in a paper makes going to the library seem unnecessary. Why walk down to the library when Google, blogs, etc. seem to offer what they need for completing a paper and its requirements of having evidence for ideas? Of course, one can find interesting and valuable information on the Web, but I think students still need the research literacy skills in order to be better knowledge producers and learners. What if schools require incoming students to take a class (say, for instance, a "Digital Literacy" class) before they go on to take writing classes that require research and evidence from *legitimate* resources? I really like your assignment of getting students to go to the library to work with a librarian for a specific research project/paper. I wonder how classes, teachers, and libraries could work more closely together in order for the school's resources to be more fully utilized by students.
I had a discussion on research literacy skills with my class a few weeks ago, and we talked about how many of us were not given proper training or lessons in ways of doing research, and that going to the library to look for information and finding articles on academic journals and databases like JSTOR, MUSE, etc. were skills that we developed overtime as we began to write more and more research papers.
Today, the digital age offers an increasing abundance of information, and the need is greater and more urgent for educators and librarians who have the skills to guide students in sifting through the hundreds of articles they find on online journals/databases and information on search engines, as well as sharpening the students' skills in knowing what to type in the search box. I also think it is just as important for students to sharpen/develop the skill of navigating the physical space of the library, knowing where to find what they need (and, for instance, understanding why the Rare Book Room could be a wonderful resource, etc.)... I think it may also be intimidating for students to use the library, if they are not familiar with using some of the resources like periodicals, microfilm, etc., so I think Jenni's assignment of getting students to work with librarians one-on-one on specific assignments is a really good one for allowing students to see the value in using the resources to help them learn and further their work.
disengage to engage?
@Viola and Jenni
You bring up great ideas in relation to engaging students beyond the technology. Jenni, I think what you mentioned about H. Rheingold and his request for students to re-center themselves in relation to their thoughts and technology was really interesting. I don't know if I can use it in my classes right now, as we are focused more on performance than research or technology, but that is something I will definitely reference in classes later on.
Jenni, I really like that library assignment! I have done that with getting students to open up and approach people and groups they don't normally contact (as in, find someone not affiliated with the university, not in your gender, ethnic, or religious group, and interview them for this assignment). But I like the idea of getting them to the library on their own to have a one-on-one with the librarian who can help get beyond what Christopher noted as the "google" as a verb in research stage. I think it's a great way to get them not only better prepared for other classes, but also to utilize the library resources.
Thanks for the insightful
Thanks for the insightful comments, Viola, even if it was late at night! I'll try to expand on two threads within them. First, I'm intrigued with the idea of space, and in particular virtual spaces in which we can experiment with student participation. I think the excerise you mentioned- Rheingold's- engages students by reminding them, or making them aware of their own embodiment in space, as well as their connections to laptops or cell phones or other devices. By closing one's eyes, one is reminded of how much one takes for granted- in other words, how much we rely on the visual in our subjective construction of space, and how much we fill in with our other senses when we take that particular sense away. The exercise is a kind of defamiliarization. In the same sense, virtual online spaces, unless they're primarly visual like Second Life, require different senses and therefore a different level of engagement in space- one becomes embodied in a much different way. I love any exercise that reminds students of their own materiality as well as the materiality of the devices or media they're using- it's grounding. I think this is connected to teaching information literacy, which leads to me to my second point- by navigating the different spaces digital media affords- online spaces in the form of forums, or blogs, or even Second Life, students must negotiate with the materiality of these things, and most importantly with what is said or performed, and how it is said and performed within them- or to put it differently the quality of information! In other words, it might be common for some students to think of virtual online spaces as "virtual" and thus not real, which affords them different ways of thinking about information, and ways of being toward that information. It must be our jobs then, to show students the degrees to which these virtual spaces are no less real than the classroom, albeit different. I'm thinking here of a student's relationship to information, and the ways that that relationship is affected by the media or channels in which they get their information. This reorients exactly what you're saying about "good" or "bad" info! Info literacy skills are closely linked with the spaces in which they develop those skills, and these spaces are becoming progressively virtual.
Really great ideas!
Thank you so much for these comments! I am intrigued by the really interesting and stimulating ideas that you bring up: embodiment and materiality as they relate to information and learning. I agree with everything you have said, and think that materiality of texts and information is one of the most important things students should be made aware of. This is a topic that I'm really stimulated and fascinated by.
How do you think teachers can get students to think about issues of space, medium, materiality, and embodiment, so that they have a more enhanced relationship to the information and texts that they interact with and read? Do you think that it would require hands-on activities/learning by doing (and, if so, how would we achieve that in, for instance, English or literature classes whose focus is mainly the articulation of ideas, and are traditionally more theoretically-bent?)? Would info literacy skills, paired with an awareness of the spaces in which they develop these skills, be something students should be taught early on in their college career? I am still learning as I go, and as I write my M.A thesis (which, by the way, talks a lot about the materalities of texts!). I'm curious about the "how" of these processes of learning. Do you have any exercise you could share that reminds students of the materialities of their own bodies and senses, as well as of the media they are interacting with and using?
Materiality
I too am fascinated with this subject- I actually think the haptic nature of digital media is one of the best ways to make students self-conscious of not just the media they're using, but especially their own interaction with it. I think one of the best methods of teaching this, particulary when coupled with english or literature classes where interpretation is foregrounded, is outlined by Jerome Mcgann and Lisa Samuels in "Deformance and Interpretation." In this essay (you may already be familiar with it), they make the case for a different kind of methodology. Using a poem by Emily Dickinson, they suggest that "the critical and interpretive question is not 'what does the poem mean?' but 'how do we release or expose the poem's possibilities of meaning?'" OFten, we take for granted the performative quality of poetry, or in other words, we consider poetry as a type of communication for information- we read for a message (or our students do, or want to!)- in which case, as they explain, "criticism (scholarship as well as interpretation) tends to imagine itself as an informative rather than a deformative activity." To read something deformatively, then, requires a kind of, theoretically at least, haptic approach towards a text. In order to engage with a poem, one should "read it backwards", pull it apart, "mistranslate" it, all of which reminds us, in their words, "the physical artifact, whose stability and integrity is [typically] taken as inviolable." I'm slipping into professor mode, so let me slip out. They give great examples of actual "deformative" interpretations of works- you should absolutely check them out.
I think the major point here, though, is that often student's approaches to literature are hindered by that literature's "untouchability." They're not allowed to "touch" it, for many reasons. It might be a canonical work, and therefore many thick discursive layers are laid on top of it- many "expert" english professors and literature scholars have had their say, and what insight could a sophomore bio major possibly add? In the same way, if they were to go into a special collections unit of their library, they would be told (rightly so) to be careful with the text, to be delicate with it, and this material assumption makes its way into their approach to their interpretation of that text- "be careful- the 'material' is delicate" These approaches presuppose an immanent "materiality" that distances the text from the student. Digital media, on the other hand, can give them access to the text through a virtual interface- they won't "damage" the text at all, and therefore, they can experiment and play with different performances, and especially, deformances of the text. Perhaps this is too abstract. I'll point to some other real examples. I used digital tools to "deform" a comic book (Jason Lutes' Berlin, an amazing comic book I recommend to everybody), stripping it down to its basic formal elements in order to parse the different levels of images, icons, and text that the work was operating on and through. Here is a link to the project, but perhaps even better are some examples, textual models, filmic models, and image models.
If you get a chance to check these out- they offer just one way in which digital tools- we used Photoshop (or the free version of it- I forget the name), and adobe digital film editing software to achieve these effects. If we were to do this to an actual, print text, we would perform real violence on the text- we couldn't be able to return it to its original form. But because of digital media's ability to modulate, we can return it to its original form with a click (it's all code in these representations). To return to another theme of this forum, I believe these approaches help empower students, especially in the formation of their relationship to a text- they get to have a more active, "haptic" relationship, where they can touch, poke, and prod the object, and perhaps, ideally, be touched in return!
students touching texts
I love the interpretive model you set up here. It's a powerful way to harness the nonconsumptive nature of digital media. It reminds me of a moment in Alfred Rockwell's biography when he mentions that he borrowed a book from George Miller Beard, which had markings but also huge chunks missing. Beard had literally cut-and-pasted the sections he found most intriguing. I hadn't reflected on the significance of being able to aggregate or rearrange parts of Things-We-Like without ruining their originals before. Thanks for sharing!
Deformance
Thank you for the really great insights! I have not read McGann and Samuels's "Deformance and Interpretation," but it is now on the top of my reading list (thanks for the link!). I'm so glad that you provided concrete examples and explained how creative digital deformation works -- they're very helpful and I enjoyed looking through the different models. I had just recently been made aware of the notion of deformance for expanding processes of interpretation in Matt Cohen's essay about the Walt Whitman Archive: "Transgenic Deformation: Literary Translation and the Digital Archive" (The 2nd chapter of my MA thesis talks about digital tools and methods for literary interpretation and focuses on the Whitman archive).
I agree with what you said about the haptic nature of digital media and its ability to allow students to form a different, and perhaps deeper, kind of relationship to a text -- this active, haptic, and organic relationship came alive in one of the assignments using digital media in an American literature class that I TAed for. Students were asked to do performative readings/interpretations of a section of Whitman's text and post them on YouTube, and they really took off with the assignment.
Thanks again for your insights -- I'm learning a lot from this forum! Fascinating topics. I can't wait to read more about the deformative approach to interpretation.
Mobiles and Protests
Yes. I think this kind of thing is really interesting. I also like the idea of examining protests through out the world as a project that could engage students. I also like the idea of pointing students to the idea of using technology as a protest tool. I look at some of the stuff on youtube--or even on CNN's I-report--and it looks like people are using their mobile phones to really explore and critique their world. Then, of course, you could also get into the idea of surveillance and privacy issues. My experience is that both high school students and undergrads have some very strong opinions about privacy and their mobile devices. By exploring the mobile phone as both a device of surveillance *and* protest--you could really allow students to explore some of the nuances of technology and technological policies in our world.
play & supervision; digitally connecting to history
Christopher,
Thanks for this great post -- I love the idea of having students connect their familial histories to History more generally. I have a friend who does a course on student activism in the 1960s. Rather than asking students to be "subversive," and having to deal with the problems you mention (like potentially encouraging illegal activity) he has students go into the student archive and look at what people were doing on this campus 50 years ago. It introduces them to a way of understanding the student position as something other than a passive learning following a given set of seemingly-arbitrary requirements. He hasn't tried tying this to digital media, but I could imagine an assignment in which students research such histories and then spend a day looking on google earth and talking about some of the layered meanings of space. Today, this part of campus represents X to me, whereas this was the site of huge Black Panther protests during my parents' generation. A group of students with sophisticated CS skills could even imprint spaces with augmented reality tags glyphs that could bring aspects of these layered meanings into 3-dimensional visualizations.
The issue you bring up about play and supervision is also a crucial one, that I think teaching with technology may complicate. I really enjoy giving students very broad, creative assignments and just letting them explore what they can/want to do. For example, in my last suvery of American literature, I had students create their own anthologies that defined what American literature meant to them and then articulated that definition through a theme. The assignment itself asked for a 5-page introduction including their definition of American literature, and then an annotated table of contents in an order that the students had to justify. The assignment allowed students with different creative and analytical skill sets to produce very different objects -- it also allowed us to discuss how (or whether) "literature" means something different to them given new types of digital media that they use for entertainment and creative production. I encouraged students to make anthologies online if they wanted, but that class gravitated toward material projects (some with accompanying CDs with images and extra material). Next time I do a similar assignment, I will devote more class time to showing students how to use more web tools (like wordpress) because I would like us to discuss the differences between interacting with an online anthology as opposed to a book. I raised the question, but we only hypothesized these differences since no one went the digital route. [Though I have had a student make a video game with me as a character for a project, and that was amazing!]
Anyhow, to bring this back to the issue about play and supervision: I wonder, when all of you out there introduce your students to open-source tools that you'd like them to use for various types of technological mediation or publication, do you discuss the differences between plagiarism and open-source? How do you frame the sharing of this type of intellectual property in a way that informs rules that you have for other assignments, like writing essays? In a sense, it's easier for me to grade paper material that students hand in than digital projects, because I can get a sense of their writing style and tone as they progress; but in a literature class, I don't really get to see they're programming styles enough to really understand how much effort this type of production poses for each individual students. Have any of you thought about this issue? It's really just occurring to me now...
Hacking as learning
I'm going to be dropping comment bombs here and there as I run down the list of replies, and I'm going to keep myself sane by not writing the monster post that is surely brewing. But I just wanted to note that the desire to free students to be subversive strikes a chord with what Julie Meloni recently wrote on ProfHacker about the "Screwmeneutical Imperative." (See also the link to Stephen Ramsay's essay on "The Hermeneutics of Screwing Around".) We need to give students the opportunities to simply fiddle with and within systems. And that impulse is, of and in itself, subversive within an educational system that is geared toward the exam (which is true of both K12 and college classrooms).
Playtime
I couldn't agree more, Brian. I've always been the type of learner who found that any type of system I always learned simply by playing with and especially, by breaking it. I remember breaking open a radio when I was younger and the total frustration that followed as I tried to put it back together again (I ultimately failed- but in the process came to know every part of that radio and what it did- I had broken a part that I didn't have a replacement for). In the same way, when I have learned digital skills, like coding, website design, or programs like Final Cut, I would start with tutorials and ultimately give up on them in favor of just, in yourwords, "fiddling." By doing this, I learned the stystem and when I had problems, I could articulate them specifically and then direct them towards an expert, rather than vaguely or abstractly or theoretically trying to envision something. Play is a powerful tool, and even when it is "non-productive" in the sense that it doesn't result in a finished "product" it is nevertheless always productive.
Like Brian I am going to drop
Like Brian I am going to drop comments and try to resist the long post, as I am late to the party here. Let me just second Brian's observation and say that I think this is a larger shift than the short comment suggest. Encouraging students to play, fail, experiment, in the end not produce anything, signifies a rather substantial pedagogical shift, maybe not on the individual class level, but certainly on the level of the institution for which end product is everything (it is how we give grades).
Learning Record & experiments with going paperless
In the past two years as a HASTAC Scholar I've read and participated in many thoughtful and exhilarating conversations about pedagogy, technology, and how the two intersect. As a result of these conversations and seeing what others at my university have done, I decided this semester drastically to change my method of assessment. While I have always tried to incorporate various digital technologies into my courses, they had mostly not upset in any significant way the ways in which I graded. One notable exception is the recent and excellent HASTAC Scholars forum Grading 2.0, which covered, among its many subjects, using the Learning Record, the method I've adopted this semester. Since I've become active on Twitter I've also joined a vibrant community discussing numerous topics relevant to our forum topic. One thing I've discovered both through HASTAC and Twitter is that, even if you're highly engaged in seeking out new methods and tools, there's always more to learn and more experiments to try in the classroom.
My experiments have had mixed success. Going paperless enables me to make far more extensive (and legible) comments on student papers. Student blogging has been a mixed bag. Video projectors tied to a computer are a mainstay (especially helpful when I teach them how to do online library research). Wikis? Twitter? Unused. I'm in the odd position, too, of developing an advanced humanities research tool while, at the same time, sometimes barely using any "advanced" technology in my classes. It has, in short, been a very gradual progression of incorporating technology into my pedagogy even though I'm constantly thinking about what an ideal, currently nonexistent digital research tool might look like. Further, in both my classroom experience and in the digital humanities more generally, I find that one of the biggest challenges is publicity. Many students lack basic skills using library resources. Similarly, there is a plethora of tools that, despite their usefulness, don't have the name recognition of ones like Zotero (which, itself, is a revelation to many students). One of my hopes for this forum, then, is to discover more methods, tools, and practical tips to improve my own teaching. In turn, I will do my best to publicize all the relevant websites, tools, and other resources I have found.
Moodle
I've found that moodle works really well. I can place a lot of class resources in a space that everyone sees. Students can add their own resources--and collaboration goes from there. Also, moodle has online forums. I get a lot of participation on those on-line forums. I have had students comment on their evaluation forms that they comment far more on the foums than they do in class. They like having that outlet. So, I've had good luck with that.
On the other hand, I've had mixed success with students creating webpages as part of their course work. I've taught a 400 level course where some of the students did webpages for a course project. Some students used wiki blogs and others used Mahara. I had mixed success. Some just looked like essays with hypertext. Others were more fleshed out. Still, while I like the idea that a webpage offers an opportunity to be creative and collaborative, it seemed like the overall quality of information was not what I expected.
Moodle
Thanks for mentioning Moodle. Its feature set reminds me a little bit of Blackboard, but without the bloat (BB is particularly slow at my university, but perhaps that's not the software's fault) and an easier interface. The demo site they show is quite plain and unappealing, though. Have you installed Moodle yourself or does your institution provide it? I like, too, that it's open source and centralizes a lot of disparate features offered by separate tools. Do you provide some guidance when introducing them to Moodle? Do you make it a part of your discussion frequently? Also, are the webtexts your students created available online? I'd be interested in seeing them. I'm not surprised that some are just linked texts. The idea of born-digital texts is one that's still being examined by scholars at the cutting edge of that field.
Moodle
At my university, it is possible to have your college set one up for you or you can design your own, as long as it is fronted by the tech people at the college level. I use moodle every week in my classes. I set up the assignment and tips for the assignments on moodle. I have a weekly "thought question" that students are required to answer. They are also required to "interact" with each other's posts. This is where some of the better discussion in the class has gone on. I think it is great to see students commenting on personal experiences and playing devil's advocate with each other. I also do some group work projects on moodle. At my university, moodle is password protected, and I'm not sure how that would work with FERPA stuff. However, some of the webpages the students created are live. Here's an example of one.
troubleshooting the commonplace book on moodle
I have used Moodle, too, though I wasn't particularly happy with it -- in large part, because as you mentioned, it's boring to look at. I've found that students would rather do the same type of exercise on a blog than a moodle forum. Heather, what types of personalizations/assignments have you used?
I used Moodle to do mini course commonplace books (< links to a description of the practice)--an idea I got from a friend who has used them with better results-- in which the students pulled out quotes that they responded to, and then responded to one another. The semester that I first tried this prejudiced me against Moodle because it kept going down, and now that page is no longer available to me as a reference for future courses. I also had particular trouble because students led each commonplace book discussion in groups, but Moodle didn't allow me to alternate between their group and individual identities.
Is there anything about Moodle that you prefer to a blog format?
I feel like I can manipulate
I feel like I can manipulate moodle more easily. I can divide the class into small groups and have them do group projects--using moodle as a collaborative space. Then, as the teacher, I can manage all of the small group projects. I also like that my students can create their own forum groups. I have had students use the moodle to form study groups and, interactively, come up with study lists and review concepts for the test.
I also like that moodle allows me to select participants and send them notes and requests etc. I guess you could do a lot of this stuff using a blog. But, I feel like moodle allows me to manage all of these things in one place. Maybe it's also that I'm just accustomed to moodle. I don't know. I'll have to think about that one.
I agree that moodle looks boring. It is open source--and I've thought about sitting down to try and come up with something different. Thus far though, I just haven't had the time.
Moodle at UCSB
I use a moodle-inspired platform for UCSB called Gauchospace. I have students post a lot of their assignments on their blogs, I use it to post a lot of the classroom material (exercises, handouts, etc.), and I have forum posts fairly often. I've found it difficult to actually get students to post comments unless I require it, and I want to move on (is this too ideal?) from "requiring that students do things" in their own assignments. The class is a freshman writing class, so we all know the level of engagement for these classes, but I tell them all the time that knowledge is social and to improve their own ideas, they can bounce them off their fellow students through comments on these fourms. Plus, for those shy students in my classes, this can serve as a space to mitigate their own insecurities with speaking in front of others- this can give them a voice.
But what I often find in terms of resistance to participation with these forums or blog comments is the anti-technology attitude, or the cool, ironic reserve. Does anybody else find this, and how can we engage it?
anti-technological attitudes
Christopher,
You raise a question I would also love to hear other opinions on: how do you engage student resistance to using technologies. When I've used moodle, I had to require the precise number of student responses or I didn't get many -- and often their responses demonstrated less engagement and critical thought than I saw in papers or in the classroom. When I surveyed the students about the stark divide between their types of performance, I got answers that weren't too helpful for calibrating future classes. Mostly, "I don't like Moodle."I did a lot of work to explain that we were doing something different than a standard response paper: we were creating interactive threads that had more of a payoff than continuing and generating conversation -- I used the quotes they discussed most as test questions, to let their interests guide the course structure.
I've been wondering if a more creative online project might spur different, more playful (and productive?) engagement. I've been thinking of asking students to adopt personas of different authors we encounter and constructing a blog as if that person were still alive. So, one student could adopt Walt Whitman's persona, and one could be Stephen Crane. I'm thinking this will allow us to disucss voice and tone -- how do we know Whitman when we see him (aside from just memorizing quotes that are likely to be on a test?) -- and the project of having them respond to one another as characters seems potentially fun, at least for a mini beginning assignment. Have any of you tried using blogs or Moodle for more creative assignments? I'm not sure how well it would go, but it's an idea I'm floating around for the Fall, so I would love feedback... If you haven't done a creative assignment, how have you prompted blog responses productively, so students participate without being forced into it??
Hi Jenni, I've done
Hi Jenni,
I've done role-play assignments in the classroom. They've worked really well. I've never thought of caryying this over to a moodle or another digital space. (Why has this not occured to me before??!!) I think you have a great idea. If I were your student--I think it would be fun. Now you've got me thinking--I wonder if I can adopt some of the role play debates I do to a moodle space? Hmmm.
Engaging Students
As I see it, one of the key problems to engaging students with online projects is that they are still schoolwork. And there's very little that we can do to dress up schoolwork into something else. At the end of the day (as my students this semester have been fond of telling me), we are just one of many classes. And anything we are asking them to do--no matter how cool or cutting edge it is--is one more thing to get done. That's not to say that we can't try to engage them, but tools like Moodle are not where the students go of their own volition. They go to check on classwork. To get them involved on a more regular basis, you have to catch them where they are spending their time. Facebook obviously comes to mind, but also the browser itself. To what degree can we use browser tools/plugins to get students involved. We must make the threshold lower if we want constant engagement with students.
For related reading on the subject of getting students to participate, I'd highly recommend Mark Sample's post, "Reflections on a Technology-Driven Syllabus."
Facebook & texting
One of the Scholars has successfully used Facebook in a class - I can't remember who it was, so hopefully they'll pop in here.
But you're right - it's still a class, no matter how fun/interesting/interactive we try to make it! Even if we were exactly where they already are - that form of engagement requires and produces a slightly different mode of interaction. It's a good reminder, and I suppose it's a balance between trying to make the access as easy and intuitive as possible, and using the class as an experiment in new technologies, or even more so - having them learn new software or tools as a new way of thinking.
I must admit your comment about "we must make the threshold lower if we want constant engagement with the students" made me laugh -- I had a student TEXT me one day a question about the reading. On the one hand, wow, a question about the reading ahead of time? Sweet! Bring it on! On the other hand, it crossed some line for me in terms of interactivity and connectedness. I'm sure that line will change someday, and there are certainly teachers who encourage cell/text-connection but I'm not quite there.
how'd you get this number?
@Fiona,
I totally get what you mean by feeling discomfited by some student/prof interactivity. I've had kids call me at home after finding my unlisted number and I remember feeling distinctly weird. I also have found myself to be really uncomfortable finding my students/former students' awesomely designed blogs - with all sorts of, um, behind the scenes info for my perusal.
But echoing (slightly) Brian, we are still going hit limitations as "the Man" in front of classes. In some ways, they are going to see us as putting work upon them through an awesome interface, maybe, but definitely for class. Oddly enough, I have gotten great results by introducing them to sites (just out of nowhere and not making them do it for class); I've gotten comments that they've used it in other venues. But the question becomes, is the only way to get students to take the bait by pretending you don't want them to take it in the first place?
the old bait and switch teaching methods
Kim,
You raise a great question: "is the only way to get students to take the bait by pretending you don't want them to take it in the first place?"
This is precisely why I'm hesitant about incorporating things like facebook into my courses (though I would be interested to see assignments that worked!) And of course, there's the old joke that '[things like] facebook are like high school parties: when the adults show up the party is over.'
I am personally OK with students recognizing that they are doing work when they're in my courses. I do my best to make that work relevant to their lives, to facilitate vibrant discussions, and to challenge and surprise them -- but I do not want to incorporate teaching technologies just because they're cool or 'the kids are using them' unless I think it will help my students better understand or engage course material. It is really exciting to see students pick up things we introduce them to (like the sites you mention), but I also think catering to technological trends resituates our work in a way I'm not fully comfortable with.
I've never had students call or text me, like Kim and Fiona have, but I do have to put on syllabi that I will not respond to emails between 8pm and class the next day; and that I will not respond to emails asking broadly general questions about imminently-due writing assignments.
To touch on something Kim mentioned earlier, about how her body (and all of our bodies) shapes classroom interactions in different ways, being A Teacher (even in a 'democratic,' relatively student-centered classroom) still has value to me. As exciting and valuable as the moments when play and work converge can be, it's not something I think we can consistently reproduce. In fact, I often value difficulty as much as play in my classroom -- with the one stipulation that I always point out and congratulate students for dealing with something truly, truly challenging. (After I had my freshman fiction students read Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, for example, I gave them certificates that said 'Congratulations on completing an incredibly difficult modernist novel,' and I explained that I want them to learn to congratulate themselves for accomplishing difficult things -- instead of taking the common attitude "That tough reading assignment is done, now on to study for my Linear Algebra test...")
Of course, I am sure all of the teachers in this forum challenge their students and don't just cater to them with technologies -- I've seen such great assignment ideas and critical pedagogical thiniking already! I just thought that I should mention this aspect of pedagogy as a potential challenge to the idea that we ought to try to reach students in the digital worlds they already inhabit.
Facebook and Sister Carrie
Hi all! I'm sure there's another Scholar that used Facebook in his/her class, but I just wanted to mention that I also used Facebook in an undergrad Amerlcan literature class that I TAed for, and it was fun and productive! We decided to use Facebook as a way to get students to engage with Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie on another level... I documented the Facebook-Sister Carrie project on last year's Day of DH: http://ra.tapor.ualberta.ca/~dayofdh/ViolaLasmana/2009/03/19/and-now-facing-sister-carrie-on-facebook/
One thing that my Day of DH post doesn't mention in great length is the use of Notes for short prompts and collaborative writing assignments, as well as the use of photo albums for visual interpretations and cultural/historical contexts of Sister Carrie. Because we had about 50+ students in the class, each Facebook profile was comprised of 4-5 students, and they all collaborated on the writing prompts that we posted on Facebook. Grading was an issue -- students were anxious to know how they were being graded on their writing on FB, and how we would know who wrote/posted what, but we assured them it was a low-stakes form of assignment and that we would credit them as a group.
RE: Facebook and Sister Carrie
LOL! As I mentioned earlier, I was thinking of having a role-playing part of my course next Fall, to encourage students to really think about character and authorial voice -- and of course to just have fun. I've been seriously considering either Sister Carrie or House of Mirth and I think this is just the type of project that could really help students get into realist/naturalist novels that often seem too long or too dry to them.
Quick questions: was this just a pass/fail assignment? and what percentage of the course grade did it account for?
RE: Facebook and Sister Carrie
Hi Jenni --
The FB assignment was part of the students' overrall grade -- students were given credit for their work on FB, and basically nobody could fail it if the group participated and responded to prompts (everyone did the work, was active on FB, and really engaged with the text). I'm not sure, however, what percentage of the course grade it accounted for -- that was the professor's decision and I can't remember what the percentages are at this point (sorry can't be more helpful on this aspect!).
I'd love to hear more about your course in the Fall and what you decide on in terms of assignments for reading/studying/deforming the texts!
Link to Class and Reflection Blogs
Only have time for a quick post- Here are links to both my personal and class blogs on which I've reflected on some of these issues.
Meredith
Tablets in the class & haiku project
Hi Meredith, thanks for the interesting links. I particularly found your discussions about how you deal with student distraction in the classroom useful. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you teach at a school where all the students get a tablet device to work on. I would love to see what I could do if we had ubiquitous computing like that in my classes. Of course, I mostly assume all my students have computers, but I can do that because our libraries offer computer workstations. Having taught in some classrooms where all students have a computer, though, is quite different because of the immediate interaction with the technology they allow.
Your series of posts on the Haiku project also stood out to me. When you get some time, could you talk some about that? The combination of art and literature is very nice. Perhaps we should expand our definition of "technologies" to include cognitive technologies. Drawing is vastly different from writing; I'm curious to know if you found any difference in how students reacted to haiku because of their drawing exercises.
Teaching (With) Video Games
A friend and colleague here at the University of Washington and I just presented a poster at the UW Teaching & Learning Symposium on "Teaching (With) Video Games" representing the growing number of teachers and classes incorporating video games. Even though a poster is reductive, here are some of the things we presented in the hopes of sparking discussion (even putting on the map that teaching and video games go together):
"Teaching with video games offers unique pedagogical opportunities and medium-specific challenges, which require particular attention to reading and playing literacies, to careful ludic and analytical framing, and to access. On the one hand, video games are not the promised land inhabited by digital 'natives' On the other hand, they are a worthwhile, playable, popular medium and art. In other words, video games cannot be a gimmick or dangling digital carrot, but rather video games must be the artifacts and occasions for study, investigation, dicussion, and interrogation."
Success & Advantages
Challenges & Limitations
Tips, Tricks & Advice
For more specific course descriptions, assignments, and ideas, please visit http://staff.washington.edu/changed
Games to interrogate human identity
Hi Edmond,
As a gamer myself, I've very happy you brought up games as a method for teaching. Have you seen Rhetorical Peaks? It's a game available in multiple formats designed to teach rhetorical concepts. I've been to a demonstration of it before and it seems quite interesting, though I've never had a chance to incorporate it in my classrooms as I haven't taught rhetoric in a while. I see from one of your links that you've taught a course that used World of Warcraft to explore issues of race and class. Did you use WoW mostly as a visual aid that students could relate to? Did you move around the world as you discussed some of these issues? What were some of your students's reactions?
Also, as a sometime Bioshock player, I love the idea behind this course. It looks like, generally speaking, you're interested in how games construct and reflect different human identities. I want to highlight these points from the "Bioshock: Cyborg Morality and Posthuman Choice" course description:
"technological and biological determinism, individuality and objectivism, post- and transhumanism, and technological mediations of race, gender, and sexuality. Playing Bioshock and a selection of cyberpunk short stories will be deployed as theory alongside formal video game and posthuman critical theory"
How much has the dystopic world of Bioshock influenced the interpretation of posthuman and cyborg theories, which are themselves often more celebratory of the possibilities?
Rhetorical Peaks
Michael -
Thanks so much for the link to Rhetorical peaks! As a future teacher of Rhetoric, it looks like something my colleagues and I should definitely check out.
Gaming
James Gee does research in this area. I'm trying to experiment with this myself. I love this idea. Can you give some specific examples of what you've done--what has worked and what hasn't?
List
This is a really helfpul list, Ed! I wonder, for those trying to implement video games studies into their own programs, how much of a burden it is to successfully have students, in the same way that they read a text, actually play the video game. I imagine a lot of video game courses could actually navigate studying video games without having to play them necessarily- most of the lectures would be screen captures or videos of gameplay, followed by lecture and discussion (of course "live" play would ideally be incorporated- but for the sake of time screenshots and videos might work better) about certain issues. In this case, you could put certain video games "on reserve" for those students who want to go further and actually play the things, but for a larger class, it wouldn't be necessary. Just trying to think practically...