Critical and Digital Pedagogies: a Virtual Unconference
May 14, 2013 | Filed in: Commons
by Valerie Robin
Most of us are not strangers to the concept of the forum. Forums are attached to nearly every type of community building platform that hopes to encourage continuing discussion. But what do we do with forums? If you’re anything like me, you dip your typing fingers in the forum pool about twice a year, but mostly forget they exist. In their recent article “The Discussion Forum is Dead; Long Live the Discussion Forum,” Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel claim “the forum itself does not automatically promote meaningful conversation -- or conversation at all.” In truth, the forum, any forum, is a metaphorically empty room when no one is in it. But it is much more than just a potential place to gather. It is a space with potential: “In the right hands, it can do wonders,” Jesse and Sean remind us.
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Most of us are not strangers to the concept of the forum. Forums are attached to nearly every type of community building platform that hopes to encourage continuing discussion. But what do we do with forums? If you’re anything like me, you dip your typing fingers in the forum pool about twice a year, but mostly forget they exist. In their recent article “The Discussion Forum is Dead; Long Live the Discussion Forum,” Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel claim “the forum itself does not automatically promote meaningful conversation -- or conversation at all.” In truth, the forum, any forum, is a metaphorically empty room when no one is in it. But it is much more than just a potential place to gather. It is a space with potential: “In the right hands, it can do wonders,” Jesse and Sean remind us.
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#digped Storify: Expertise, Mutiny, and Peer-to-Peer Learning
May 05, 2013 | Filed in: #digped
by Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel
This #digped chat about peer-to-peer learning, or learning in the collective, was inspired by John Seely Brown and Douglas Thomas' book, A New Culture of Learning. In that book, the authors propose that the nature of and methods for learning have changed with the digital age, and that how learning happens now is not necessarily in the hands of teachers; rather, learners -- and in this case, all learners are lifelong learners -- are beginning to take matters of education into their own hands. They open their book with this "very simple question": “What happens to learning when we move from the stable infrastructure of the twentieth century to the fluid infrastructure of the twenty-first century, where technology is constantly creating and responding to change?” Our discussion on May 3rd focused on ideas presented in the book's fourth chapter, "Learning in the Collective", where the authors looked at peer-to-peer learning, or how learners help one another learn. We wanted to investigate how this happens successfully, what happens to the role of the expert/teacher, and...?
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This #digped chat about peer-to-peer learning, or learning in the collective, was inspired by John Seely Brown and Douglas Thomas' book, A New Culture of Learning. In that book, the authors propose that the nature of and methods for learning have changed with the digital age, and that how learning happens now is not necessarily in the hands of teachers; rather, learners -- and in this case, all learners are lifelong learners -- are beginning to take matters of education into their own hands. They open their book with this "very simple question": “What happens to learning when we move from the stable infrastructure of the twentieth century to the fluid infrastructure of the twenty-first century, where technology is constantly creating and responding to change?” Our discussion on May 3rd focused on ideas presented in the book's fourth chapter, "Learning in the Collective", where the authors looked at peer-to-peer learning, or how learners help one another learn. We wanted to investigate how this happens successfully, what happens to the role of the expert/teacher, and...?
Read More...Peer-to-Peer Learning in the Collective: a #digped Discussion
April 29, 2013 | Filed in: #digped
by Sean Michael Morris
Pedagogically, the collective both poses certain dilemmas -- such as the evolving role of the instructor, the ambiguous nature of assessment, the difficulty of maintaining the course as container -- and offers certain benefits -- the introduction of non-competitive research and writing, the opening of democratic communities of learning, and a fuller participation and ownership from students in their own educations. For many teachers, the question of how to modify our pedagogical approach can create anxiety, uncertainty, and even resentment toward a shift in the culture of learning that we’ve had little control over, that’s come at us from outside our own domain; for others, this new landscape appears inviting, exciting, and full of possibility.
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Pedagogically, the collective both poses certain dilemmas -- such as the evolving role of the instructor, the ambiguous nature of assessment, the difficulty of maintaining the course as container -- and offers certain benefits -- the introduction of non-competitive research and writing, the opening of democratic communities of learning, and a fuller participation and ownership from students in their own educations. For many teachers, the question of how to modify our pedagogical approach can create anxiety, uncertainty, and even resentment toward a shift in the culture of learning that we’ve had little control over, that’s come at us from outside our own domain; for others, this new landscape appears inviting, exciting, and full of possibility.
Read More...#digped Storify: Making Collaboration Visible
July 25, 2012 | Filed in: #digped
by Robin Wharton
This past Friday, July 20th, the Hybrid Pedagogy #digped discussion on Twitter extended the conversation we began with our crowdsourced article Digital Humanities Made Me a Better Pedagogue. In that article, we explain why we're organizing a THATCamp Hybrid Pedagogy in order to "tap the disruptive, deformed, insubordinate energy" we see infusing the collaborative praxis of digital pedagogy and the digital humanities. The #digped discussion "Collaborative Teaching, Shared Pedagogies" was motivated by our desire to include the wider Hybrid Pedagogy collective in a conversation about some of the scholarly work informing that piece.
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This past Friday, July 20th, the Hybrid Pedagogy #digped discussion on Twitter extended the conversation we began with our crowdsourced article Digital Humanities Made Me a Better Pedagogue. In that article, we explain why we're organizing a THATCamp Hybrid Pedagogy in order to "tap the disruptive, deformed, insubordinate energy" we see infusing the collaborative praxis of digital pedagogy and the digital humanities. The #digped discussion "Collaborative Teaching, Shared Pedagogies" was motivated by our desire to include the wider Hybrid Pedagogy collective in a conversation about some of the scholarly work informing that piece.
Read More...Collaborative Teaching, Shared Pedagogies: a #digped Discussion
July 18, 2012 | Filed in: #digped
by Jesse Stommel
Why should we collaborate in the classroom (or online learning space)? What strategies can we devise to disrupt the convention of one teacher, one class? What work needs to be done at an institutional level to facilitate this? How can collaborations between teachers work to encourage (or in concert with) collaborations between students, or between teacher and student? This Friday, July 20 from 1:00 - 2:00pm Eastern (10:00 - 11:00am Pacific), Hybrid Pedagogy will host a Twitter discussion under the hashtag #digped focused on collaborative teaching and shared pedagogies. In “Digital Humanities Made Me a Better Pedagogue: a Crowdsourced Article,” we assembled ideas on the subject from a team of authors, who surveyed the thinking of a much larger group via hyperlinks, crowdsourcing on Twitter, and workshopping at several THATCamp un-conferences.
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Why should we collaborate in the classroom (or online learning space)? What strategies can we devise to disrupt the convention of one teacher, one class? What work needs to be done at an institutional level to facilitate this? How can collaborations between teachers work to encourage (or in concert with) collaborations between students, or between teacher and student? This Friday, July 20 from 1:00 - 2:00pm Eastern (10:00 - 11:00am Pacific), Hybrid Pedagogy will host a Twitter discussion under the hashtag #digped focused on collaborative teaching and shared pedagogies. In “Digital Humanities Made Me a Better Pedagogue: a Crowdsourced Article,” we assembled ideas on the subject from a team of authors, who surveyed the thinking of a much larger group via hyperlinks, crowdsourcing on Twitter, and workshopping at several THATCamp un-conferences.
Read More...Organic Writing and Digital Media: Seeds and Organs
June 20, 2012 | Filed in: Literacies
by Pete Rorabaugh
The act of writing is organic and generative. Ironically, this biological approach to writing is strengthened by digital environments that allow students and teachers to cultivate better compositions. Composing is a demonstration of thinking, and in any hybrid classroom, students should be able to a) see this thinking modeled and b) practice it themselves. Digital environments maximize the potential for organic writing in three distinct ways: they rebuild “audience,” expose the organic layers of a composition, and invite outside participation in key stages along the way.
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The act of writing is organic and generative. Ironically, this biological approach to writing is strengthened by digital environments that allow students and teachers to cultivate better compositions. Composing is a demonstration of thinking, and in any hybrid classroom, students should be able to a) see this thinking modeled and b) practice it themselves. Digital environments maximize the potential for organic writing in three distinct ways: they rebuild “audience,” expose the organic layers of a composition, and invite outside participation in key stages along the way.
Read More...The Dark Knight Vs. The Ivory Tower
April 17, 2012 | Filed in: Digital Pedagogy
by Kat Lecky
An all-too standard lament these days is that teachers have been slow to adapt to students’ new modes of learning. This disjunction persists because so many of us have been trained in traditional pedagogical systems that privilege narrow foci and a top-down model of disseminating knowledge. We stand in front of a classroom and lecture, while they assimilate information by immersing themselves in a dynamic, constantly changing technological space. We ground our pedagogy in textbooks and preset lesson plans; they fly freely through the living, hybrid textual space engendered by texts, blogs, open-source databases, tweets, and hashtags. We are static; they are mobile. We are the past of education; they are its future. As teachers, we must broaden our pedagogical horizons to accommodate our student 2.0’s open-ended ways of collecting and processing information.
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An all-too standard lament these days is that teachers have been slow to adapt to students’ new modes of learning. This disjunction persists because so many of us have been trained in traditional pedagogical systems that privilege narrow foci and a top-down model of disseminating knowledge. We stand in front of a classroom and lecture, while they assimilate information by immersing themselves in a dynamic, constantly changing technological space. We ground our pedagogy in textbooks and preset lesson plans; they fly freely through the living, hybrid textual space engendered by texts, blogs, open-source databases, tweets, and hashtags. We are static; they are mobile. We are the past of education; they are its future. As teachers, we must broaden our pedagogical horizons to accommodate our student 2.0’s open-ended ways of collecting and processing information.
Read More...Pedagogy as Publishing
April 12, 2012 | Filed in: Profession
by Charlotte Frost
Publishing and teaching can both terrify new academics, often to the point of paralysis. Their mutual support for one another is often frustrated by institutional demands. For example, the traditional workload split for full-time faculty at R1 institutions in the US is: 40% teaching, 40% research, 20% service. This division and its usual inflexibility highlights the ways that teaching and scholarly production are kept separate and distinct as forms. Yet, by looking at how publishing is teaching and teaching is publishing, we can lessen the anxiety around these activities and begin to notice how they are, in fact, co-constitutive practices. More than that, we can start to think about the open ends of these aspects of our work. The word “publishing” often implies some sort of finality, research that is finished or complete. This misses something vital about academic work.
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Publishing and teaching can both terrify new academics, often to the point of paralysis. Their mutual support for one another is often frustrated by institutional demands. For example, the traditional workload split for full-time faculty at R1 institutions in the US is: 40% teaching, 40% research, 20% service. This division and its usual inflexibility highlights the ways that teaching and scholarly production are kept separate and distinct as forms. Yet, by looking at how publishing is teaching and teaching is publishing, we can lessen the anxiety around these activities and begin to notice how they are, in fact, co-constitutive practices. More than that, we can start to think about the open ends of these aspects of our work. The word “publishing” often implies some sort of finality, research that is finished or complete. This misses something vital about academic work.
Read More...Crowdsourcing a Curriculum, pt. 2: Design Principles
February 23, 2012 | Filed in: Digital Pedagogy
by Jesse Stommel
I’ve been thinking about my audience for this series of posts. Initially, I had thought to bring digital humanities, literary studies, and educational technology experts into conversation, allowing my ideas for the program to be considered and influenced by a much larger network. I’m realizing, though, that there’s another group of experts from whom I particularly want feedback and suggestions: students. Ideally, this would include input from prospective students for the program, but since the program is only just barely beginning to germinate, what I’d like to do here is ask both students and teachers in existing programs to think about how literary studies is being transformed by digital technologies and about how online learning can be re-imagined through the use of new (and increasingly social) media.
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I’ve been thinking about my audience for this series of posts. Initially, I had thought to bring digital humanities, literary studies, and educational technology experts into conversation, allowing my ideas for the program to be considered and influenced by a much larger network. I’m realizing, though, that there’s another group of experts from whom I particularly want feedback and suggestions: students. Ideally, this would include input from prospective students for the program, but since the program is only just barely beginning to germinate, what I’d like to do here is ask both students and teachers in existing programs to think about how literary studies is being transformed by digital technologies and about how online learning can be re-imagined through the use of new (and increasingly social) media.
Read More...Crowdsourcing a Curriculum, pt. 1: Program Name
February 20, 2012 | Filed in: Digital Pedagogy
by Jesse Stommel
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be working to get feedback on the program I’m directing and helping to develop at Marylhurst University in Portland, OR. Marylhurst is a small liberal arts university focused on non-traditional students and adult learners. I teach (both in the classroom and online) for the English Literature & Writing department, which currently has concentrations in Literature, Creative Writing, and Text:Image. The new online degree program, which opens January 2013, integrates literary studies and the digital humanities with a focus on service and experiential learning. My goal in crowdsourcing the curriculum for this program is not only to get feedback on its design but to open a larger discussion about what happens (or should happen) to English programs as digital pedagogy continues to evolve.
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Over the next few weeks, I’ll be working to get feedback on the program I’m directing and helping to develop at Marylhurst University in Portland, OR. Marylhurst is a small liberal arts university focused on non-traditional students and adult learners. I teach (both in the classroom and online) for the English Literature & Writing department, which currently has concentrations in Literature, Creative Writing, and Text:Image. The new online degree program, which opens January 2013, integrates literary studies and the digital humanities with a focus on service and experiential learning. My goal in crowdsourcing the curriculum for this program is not only to get feedback on its design but to open a larger discussion about what happens (or should happen) to English programs as digital pedagogy continues to evolve.
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Experiments in Mass Collaboration
February 15, 2012 | Filed in: Critical Pedagogy
by Pete Rorabaugh and Jesse Stommel
We see the banking model of education in classrooms where desks are arranged in tidy rows and in every labyrinthine online class portal. Mass collaboration disrupts organizational structures imposed from the outside and encourages students to build new channels of communication and new habits of analysis. Mass collaboration pushes students out of the classroom or online class portal and into the world, where their work has more immediate relevance and a much larger audience. Finally, mass collaboration redraws the role of the instructor, shifting power dynamics and forcing students to take ownership of their own learning.
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We see the banking model of education in classrooms where desks are arranged in tidy rows and in every labyrinthine online class portal. Mass collaboration disrupts organizational structures imposed from the outside and encourages students to build new channels of communication and new habits of analysis. Mass collaboration pushes students out of the classroom or online class portal and into the world, where their work has more immediate relevance and a much larger audience. Finally, mass collaboration redraws the role of the instructor, shifting power dynamics and forcing students to take ownership of their own learning.
Read More...Document Sharing and Markup
February 13, 2012 | Filed in: Tools
by Pete Rorabaugh
Text becomes our voice in digital space. In the land-based classroom, we speak. In the online classroom, we compose. What we write, the way that we write, and our interactions with the writing of others determines who we are in the online or hybrid classroom. Critical pedagogy, the tradition of progressive, socially and politically conscious teaching, asserts that our voice is an expression of our power. As such, the way we write establishes an authority about which we should be conscious.
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Text becomes our voice in digital space. In the land-based classroom, we speak. In the online classroom, we compose. What we write, the way that we write, and our interactions with the writing of others determines who we are in the online or hybrid classroom. Critical pedagogy, the tradition of progressive, socially and politically conscious teaching, asserts that our voice is an expression of our power. As such, the way we write establishes an authority about which we should be conscious.
Read More...