Nov 2012
Editorial Pedagogy, pt. 2: Developing Authors
November 27, 2012 | Filed in: Literacies
by Cheryl Ball
A key feature of a teaching philosophy is that it has to be applicable to all of the classes you claim to (be able to) teach. And a professional philosophy has to apply to all the research and service work you do as well. When I first started talking about an editorial pedagogy, I mostly used it in reference to my writing-intensive classes and job-market workshops where students were writing a lot of job materials. But I realized that my syllabi draw on an editorial pedagogy in two different ways, depending on whether I’m teaching writing or publishing classes (the publishing classes I refer to in the third installment of this series aren’t writing for publication classes, but editorially focused classes). These sets of classes reach users on different ends of a communicative spectrum: authors want to write better, publishers want to produce better publications. When we’re talking about professional-level publications, authors need publishers and vice versa.
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A key feature of a teaching philosophy is that it has to be applicable to all of the classes you claim to (be able to) teach. And a professional philosophy has to apply to all the research and service work you do as well. When I first started talking about an editorial pedagogy, I mostly used it in reference to my writing-intensive classes and job-market workshops where students were writing a lot of job materials. But I realized that my syllabi draw on an editorial pedagogy in two different ways, depending on whether I’m teaching writing or publishing classes (the publishing classes I refer to in the third installment of this series aren’t writing for publication classes, but editorially focused classes). These sets of classes reach users on different ends of a communicative spectrum: authors want to write better, publishers want to produce better publications. When we’re talking about professional-level publications, authors need publishers and vice versa.
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A MOOC is not a Thing: Emergence, Disruption, and Higher Education
November 19, 2012 | Filed in: Open Education
by Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel
A MOOC is not a thing. A MOOC is a strategy. What we say about MOOCs cannot possibly contain their drama, banality, incessance, and proliferation. The MOOC is a variant beast -- placental, emergent, alienating, enveloping, sometimes thriving, sometimes dead, sometimes reborn. There is also nothing about a MOOC that can be contained. Try as they might, MOOC-makers like Coursera, EdX, and Udacity cannot keep their MOOCs to themselves, because when we join a MOOC, it is not to learn new content, new skills, new knowledge, it is to learn new learning. Entering a MOOC is entering Wonderland -- where modes of learning are turned sideways and on their heads -- and we walk away MOOCified.
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A MOOC is not a thing. A MOOC is a strategy. What we say about MOOCs cannot possibly contain their drama, banality, incessance, and proliferation. The MOOC is a variant beast -- placental, emergent, alienating, enveloping, sometimes thriving, sometimes dead, sometimes reborn. There is also nothing about a MOOC that can be contained. Try as they might, MOOC-makers like Coursera, EdX, and Udacity cannot keep their MOOCs to themselves, because when we join a MOOC, it is not to learn new content, new skills, new knowledge, it is to learn new learning. Entering a MOOC is entering Wonderland -- where modes of learning are turned sideways and on their heads -- and we walk away MOOCified.
Read More...#digped Storify: On the Deformation of New Media Citation Practices
November 06, 2012 | Filed in: #digped
by Jesse Stommel
In "Notes towards a Deformed Humanities," Mark Sample writes, "I want to propose a theory and practice of a Deformed Humanities. A humanities born of broken, twisted things. And what is broken and twisted is also beautiful, and a bearer of knowledge. The Deformed Humanities is an origami crane—a piece of paper contorted into an object of startling insight and beauty." Citation practices on the web have begun to contort and twist like the origami crane Sample describes here. For many, this leads to a certain despair, but I find myself reveling in a moment, a threshold, across which our scholarly practices now teeter. Citation is becoming less about name-dropping and positioning and more about generosity and collaboration. On 11/2 we had a raucous #digped discussion about the changing shape of citation in the wake of digital scholarly practice. The results were Storified.
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In "Notes towards a Deformed Humanities," Mark Sample writes, "I want to propose a theory and practice of a Deformed Humanities. A humanities born of broken, twisted things. And what is broken and twisted is also beautiful, and a bearer of knowledge. The Deformed Humanities is an origami crane—a piece of paper contorted into an object of startling insight and beauty." Citation practices on the web have begun to contort and twist like the origami crane Sample describes here. For many, this leads to a certain despair, but I find myself reveling in a moment, a threshold, across which our scholarly practices now teeter. Citation is becoming less about name-dropping and positioning and more about generosity and collaboration. On 11/2 we had a raucous #digped discussion about the changing shape of citation in the wake of digital scholarly practice. The results were Storified.
Read More...Editorial Pedagogy, pt. 1: A Professional Philosophy
November 04, 2012 | Filed in: Profession
by Cheryl Ball
Sometimes, my esteemed colleague, Jim Kalmbach, understands my academic identity better than I do. His most recent revelation for me was this: “I see you transforming yourself in ways you don't understand yet. It is true that your definition of DH will be richer than most people if for no other reason than it will include comp. You should stand in front of a mirror and say ‘I am a digital humanist.’” He’s right. My academic identity most easily fits into a digital humanities notion of technology-infused writing, publishing, and pedagogy. And in the month since I got Jim’s most recent identity-cometojesus-email, I’ve been able to reconcile these sometimes-competing disciplinary identities to form a holistic approach to my teaching, research, and service. In revising my teaching philosophy recently, I realized that my pedagogical approach wasn’t limited to classroom-based teaching, the typical scope of such statements. Instead, my philosophy -- an editorial pedagogy -- is fundamentally linked to my academic identity and performance as an editor, scholar, teacher, mentor, and administrator in digital writing studies. Or, more specifically, a juggling act of digital writing studies and digital publishing under the big tent of digital humanities.
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Sometimes, my esteemed colleague, Jim Kalmbach, understands my academic identity better than I do. His most recent revelation for me was this: “I see you transforming yourself in ways you don't understand yet. It is true that your definition of DH will be richer than most people if for no other reason than it will include comp. You should stand in front of a mirror and say ‘I am a digital humanist.’” He’s right. My academic identity most easily fits into a digital humanities notion of technology-infused writing, publishing, and pedagogy. And in the month since I got Jim’s most recent identity-cometojesus-email, I’ve been able to reconcile these sometimes-competing disciplinary identities to form a holistic approach to my teaching, research, and service. In revising my teaching philosophy recently, I realized that my pedagogical approach wasn’t limited to classroom-based teaching, the typical scope of such statements. Instead, my philosophy -- an editorial pedagogy -- is fundamentally linked to my academic identity and performance as an editor, scholar, teacher, mentor, and administrator in digital writing studies. Or, more specifically, a juggling act of digital writing studies and digital publishing under the big tent of digital humanities.
Read More...Seeing Composition Three Dimensionally
November 01, 2012 | Filed in: Literacies
by Lori Beth De Hertogh
One of my favorite childhood memories is of me helping my dad in the garden. A hardworking individual who dealt with a lot of stress, dad was always at peace among his veggies and flowers. The garden was a place where he could spend time with plants that needed (but did not demand) his attention; among his many plants, dad could be creative, whimsical, relaxed; absolved from the everyday stresses of work, family, and life.
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One of my favorite childhood memories is of me helping my dad in the garden. A hardworking individual who dealt with a lot of stress, dad was always at peace among his veggies and flowers. The garden was a place where he could spend time with plants that needed (but did not demand) his attention; among his many plants, dad could be creative, whimsical, relaxed; absolved from the everyday stresses of work, family, and life.
Read More...