Digital Literacy
Vlogging Composition: Making Content Dynamic
March 28, 2013 | Filed in: Literacies
by Susan Gail Taylor
With technological innovations come opportunities for students to compose, communicate, share, collaborate, and express themselves in contemporary ways as well as opportunities for teachers to harness potential academic possibilities. Vlogging, or video blogging, is one way to introduce dynamic content and technologically enhanced pedagogical techniques to students in a variety of disciplines, specifically composition. From student-created vlogs that focus on reflection, collaboration, and community building to teacher-created vlogs that focus on interactive lessons and that introduce a spirit of play to the classroom, vlogs can be significant and practical learning tools; specifically in the composition classroom, vlogs can teach students the power of visual text and can allow them an informal way of exploring the composing process.
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With technological innovations come opportunities for students to compose, communicate, share, collaborate, and express themselves in contemporary ways as well as opportunities for teachers to harness potential academic possibilities. Vlogging, or video blogging, is one way to introduce dynamic content and technologically enhanced pedagogical techniques to students in a variety of disciplines, specifically composition. From student-created vlogs that focus on reflection, collaboration, and community building to teacher-created vlogs that focus on interactive lessons and that introduce a spirit of play to the classroom, vlogs can be significant and practical learning tools; specifically in the composition classroom, vlogs can teach students the power of visual text and can allow them an informal way of exploring the composing process.
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Decoding Digital Pedagogy, pt. 1: Beyond the LMS
March 05, 2013 | Filed in: Digital Pedagogy
by Sean Michael Morris
We are not ready to teach online. In a recent conversation with a friend, I found myself puzzled, and a bit troubled, when he expressed confusion about digital pedagogy. He said something to the extent of, "What's the difference between digital pedagogy and teaching online? Aren't all online teachers digital pedagogues?" Being a contemplative guy, I didn't just tip over his drink and walk away. Instead, I pondered the source of his question. Digital pedagogy is largely misunderstood in higher education. The advent of online learning and instructional design brought the classroom onto the web, and with it all manner of teaching: good and bad, coherent and incoherent, networked and disconnected. Whatever pedagogy any given teacher employed in his classroom became digitized. If I teach history by reading from my twenty-year-old notes, or if I lead workshops in creative writing, or if I teach literature through movies, I bring that online and -- boom! -- I'm a digital pedagogue. Right?
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We are not ready to teach online. In a recent conversation with a friend, I found myself puzzled, and a bit troubled, when he expressed confusion about digital pedagogy. He said something to the extent of, "What's the difference between digital pedagogy and teaching online? Aren't all online teachers digital pedagogues?" Being a contemplative guy, I didn't just tip over his drink and walk away. Instead, I pondered the source of his question. Digital pedagogy is largely misunderstood in higher education. The advent of online learning and instructional design brought the classroom onto the web, and with it all manner of teaching: good and bad, coherent and incoherent, networked and disconnected. Whatever pedagogy any given teacher employed in his classroom became digitized. If I teach history by reading from my twenty-year-old notes, or if I lead workshops in creative writing, or if I teach literature through movies, I bring that online and -- boom! -- I'm a digital pedagogue. Right?
Read More...Editorial Pedagogy, pt. 3: Developing Editors and Designers
February 11, 2013 | Filed in: Literacies
by Cheryl Ball
It may seem tautological to say that an editorial pedagogy works well in editing and publishing classes. But, as I defined this pedagogy through an example of a writing-based classroom, in which I mentor students, students mentor each other, and students mentor me through writing for publication, in this installment, I want to clarify how an editorial pedagogy works equally well when working with students (or journal staff members, or publishers, or technical writers, or...) whose “jobs” are to make texts as perfect as possible in a given situation.
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It may seem tautological to say that an editorial pedagogy works well in editing and publishing classes. But, as I defined this pedagogy through an example of a writing-based classroom, in which I mentor students, students mentor each other, and students mentor me through writing for publication, in this installment, I want to clarify how an editorial pedagogy works equally well when working with students (or journal staff members, or publishers, or technical writers, or...) whose “jobs” are to make texts as perfect as possible in a given situation.
Read More...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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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...Digital Writing Uprising: Third-order Thinking in the Digital Humanities
October 08, 2012 | Filed in: Literacies
by Sean Michael Morris
As a self-proclaimed Internet non-user (a proclamation that elicits hoots and howls from my friends), the allure of digital writing for me does not lie in its medium; instead, I’m tantalized by the proposition that digital writing is action. Not that the writing inspires action, or comes out of action, or responds to action. But that the words themselves are active. They move, slither, creep, sprint, and outpace us. Digital words have lives of their own. We may write them, birth them ourselves, but without any compunction or notice, they enact themselves in ways we can’t predict. And this is because digital writing is communal writing.
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As a self-proclaimed Internet non-user (a proclamation that elicits hoots and howls from my friends), the allure of digital writing for me does not lie in its medium; instead, I’m tantalized by the proposition that digital writing is action. Not that the writing inspires action, or comes out of action, or responds to action. But that the words themselves are active. They move, slither, creep, sprint, and outpace us. Digital words have lives of their own. We may write them, birth them ourselves, but without any compunction or notice, they enact themselves in ways we can’t predict. And this is because digital writing is communal writing.
Read More...Data Mining in the Trenches: Using Storify to Teach Research
July 30, 2012 | Filed in: Tools
by Tanya Sasser
It's time to confront our bias against open sources and redefine how our students research in digital environments. We should both allow them to use the research sites that are most handy, i.e., those openly available on the internet, and teach them how to effectively mine, evaluate, synthesize, and use the information contained within those sites. Good research is an art form and good researchers use a variety of techniques. The art of research is knowing how and when to use the various tools and techniques in concert. While students rarely approach research as an art, never have the tools of research been more readily available to them. The trick is to teach them how to use those tools with finesse.
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It's time to confront our bias against open sources and redefine how our students research in digital environments. We should both allow them to use the research sites that are most handy, i.e., those openly available on the internet, and teach them how to effectively mine, evaluate, synthesize, and use the information contained within those sites. Good research is an art form and good researchers use a variety of techniques. The art of research is knowing how and when to use the various tools and techniques in concert. While students rarely approach research as an art, never have the tools of research been more readily available to them. The trick is to teach them how to use those tools with finesse.
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