Digital Pedagogy
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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The Failure of an Online Program
April 09, 2013 | Filed in: Online Learning
by Sean Michael Morris
It's evening. An Irish pub in Louisville, Colorado. Fish and chips. Beer. A game of soccer on the TV. I'm sitting down with one of my faculty to revisit the department's Developmental English course (ENG 090). My goal: bring the course fully online, eliminate the text book, and make it a deeper learning and community building experience for all who enroll. The trick is, almost no one enrolls in ENG 090 because they want to. They enroll because they failed a test. How do you take a student from "You failed. Take this class." to "Writing is fun!" And how do you do that online?
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It's evening. An Irish pub in Louisville, Colorado. Fish and chips. Beer. A game of soccer on the TV. I'm sitting down with one of my faculty to revisit the department's Developmental English course (ENG 090). My goal: bring the course fully online, eliminate the text book, and make it a deeper learning and community building experience for all who enroll. The trick is, almost no one enrolls in ENG 090 because they want to. They enroll because they failed a test. How do you take a student from "You failed. Take this class." to "Writing is fun!" And how do you do that online?
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...#digped Storify: the Course as Container
January 14, 2013 | Filed in: #digped
by Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel
During our January 11th #digped discussion, we took a close look at what a course is, and what happens when we consider altering -- or entirely abandoning -- this format for learning. Right off the bat, the nature of the "course" came into question. Every definition offered both made sense, and felt vaguely objectionable. The idea of courses as Lego structures that could be dismantled led us into the idea that a course needs to "go" somewhere; that it takes its participants on a kind of road trip, leading toward a predictable outcome or goal.
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During our January 11th #digped discussion, we took a close look at what a course is, and what happens when we consider altering -- or entirely abandoning -- this format for learning. Right off the bat, the nature of the "course" came into question. Every definition offered both made sense, and felt vaguely objectionable. The idea of courses as Lego structures that could be dismantled led us into the idea that a course needs to "go" somewhere; that it takes its participants on a kind of road trip, leading toward a predictable outcome or goal.
Read More...The Course as Container: a #digped Discussion
January 10, 2013 | Filed in: #digped
by Sean Michael Morris
In his article, Online Learning: a User's Guide to Forking Education, among other arguments, Jesse Stommel foresees a need to break or rebuild the idea of the course. "We need to devise learning activities that take organic (and less arbitrary) shapes in space and time. We need to recognize that the best learning happens not inside courses, but between them." As part of his larger discussion of "forking" education in order to bring learning more effectively into the digital medium, Jesse suggests that the course is only one of a set of components that needs to be taken apart, scrutinized with care and with playfulness, and then rebuilt. The inspection of education and educative methods needs to be so complete that no assumptions are left unexamined.
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In his article, Online Learning: a User's Guide to Forking Education, among other arguments, Jesse Stommel foresees a need to break or rebuild the idea of the course. "We need to devise learning activities that take organic (and less arbitrary) shapes in space and time. We need to recognize that the best learning happens not inside courses, but between them." As part of his larger discussion of "forking" education in order to bring learning more effectively into the digital medium, Jesse suggests that the course is only one of a set of components that needs to be taken apart, scrutinized with care and with playfulness, and then rebuilt. The inspection of education and educative methods needs to be so complete that no assumptions are left unexamined.
Read More...Bring Your Own Disruption: Rhizomatic Learning in the Composition Class
December 30, 2012 | Filed in: Literacies
by Tanya Sasser
Too often, rather than inviting First-Year Composition (FYC) students into the disruptive experience of being a writer, we try to shield them inside the safety of the walled garden of neatly ordered paths that is the traditional, instructor-driven composition classroom. Even while some of us have refocused on the process, rather than products, of writing, we continue to hamstring students with scaffolded compositional tasks and writing “prompts,” assuming that by allowing students to choose between various (artificially-created, instructor-mapped) paths, we are endowing them with an autonomy so empowering that they will arrive at the end of their journey through our garden as self-identified writers.
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Too often, rather than inviting First-Year Composition (FYC) students into the disruptive experience of being a writer, we try to shield them inside the safety of the walled garden of neatly ordered paths that is the traditional, instructor-driven composition classroom. Even while some of us have refocused on the process, rather than products, of writing, we continue to hamstring students with scaffolded compositional tasks and writing “prompts,” assuming that by allowing students to choose between various (artificially-created, instructor-mapped) paths, we are endowing them with an autonomy so empowering that they will arrive at the end of their journey through our garden as self-identified writers.
Read More...Online Learning: a Manifesto
December 03, 2012 | Filed in: Online Learning
by Jesse Stommel
Since I started teaching in 1999, I've frequently encountered an anti-pedagogical bent amongst fellow teachers and faculty, a resistance to thinking critically about our teaching practices and philosophies, especially regarding online learning. What we need is to ignore the hype and misrepresentations (on both sides of the debate) and gather together more people willing to carefully reflect on how, where, and why we learn online. There is no productive place in this conversation for exclusivity or anti-intellectualism. Those of us talking about digital pedagogy and digital humanities need to be engaging thoughtfully in discussions about online learning and open education. Those of us in higher ed. need to be engaging thoughtfully with K-12 teachers and administrators. And it’s especially important that we open our discussions of the future of education to students, who should both participate in and help to build their own learning spaces. Pedagogy needs to be at the center of all these discussions.
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Since I started teaching in 1999, I've frequently encountered an anti-pedagogical bent amongst fellow teachers and faculty, a resistance to thinking critically about our teaching practices and philosophies, especially regarding online learning. What we need is to ignore the hype and misrepresentations (on both sides of the debate) and gather together more people willing to carefully reflect on how, where, and why we learn online. There is no productive place in this conversation for exclusivity or anti-intellectualism. Those of us talking about digital pedagogy and digital humanities need to be engaging thoughtfully in discussions about online learning and open education. Those of us in higher ed. need to be engaging thoughtfully with K-12 teachers and administrators. And it’s especially important that we open our discussions of the future of education to students, who should both participate in and help to build their own learning spaces. Pedagogy needs to be at the center of all these discussions.
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.
Read More...
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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Udacity and Online Pedagogy: Players, Learners, Objects
August 27, 2012 | Filed in: Online Learning
by Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel
This sentence is a learning object. Wayne Hodgins, the “father of learning objects,” first came up with the idea for them while watching his son play with LEGOs. The basic notion is that we can create units of learning so fundamentally simple and reusable that they can be applied in different ways to different objectives and lessons, no matter the context. Hodgins’s dream was of “a world where all ‘content’ exists at just the right and lowest possible size.” Like a single sentence. Like a single question on an exam. Like a photograph, a moment in a video, a discussion prompt. As online learning has grown, learning objects have become something of the Holy Grail of instructional design... Or the windmills at which it tilts.
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This sentence is a learning object. Wayne Hodgins, the “father of learning objects,” first came up with the idea for them while watching his son play with LEGOs. The basic notion is that we can create units of learning so fundamentally simple and reusable that they can be applied in different ways to different objectives and lessons, no matter the context. Hodgins’s dream was of “a world where all ‘content’ exists at just the right and lowest possible size.” Like a single sentence. Like a single question on an exam. Like a photograph, a moment in a video, a discussion prompt. As online learning has grown, learning objects have become something of the Holy Grail of instructional design... Or the windmills at which it tilts.
Read More...#digped Storify Pt. 1: We Interrupt This Broadcast . . .
August 07, 2012 | Filed in: #digped
by Robin Wharton
In his article, "Broadcast Education: A Response to Coursera," Sean asks us to consider, "If online education has made so much progress, why isn’t it more obvious? Why are the good folks at Coursera (who are actually just now catching up to those of us who’ve been doing this for a decade) getting all the attention, while also not putting the best face of online education forward?" He ends the piece with a call for pedagogues "to innovate, to experiment, to play and be played with," and cautions against oversimplification of online learning and MOOCs, of both the forms they take and the issues at stake when we are debating their merits and demerits. In an effort to engage some of the more productive discursive strands weaving in and out of the recent media "MOOCopalypse", we decided to focus last week's #digped discussion on the broader question of broadcast learning, which is the model (as Sean points out, sometimes erroneously) most frequently associated with MOOCs and other, more traditional (did I just write that?) online courses.
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In his article, "Broadcast Education: A Response to Coursera," Sean asks us to consider, "If online education has made so much progress, why isn’t it more obvious? Why are the good folks at Coursera (who are actually just now catching up to those of us who’ve been doing this for a decade) getting all the attention, while also not putting the best face of online education forward?" He ends the piece with a call for pedagogues "to innovate, to experiment, to play and be played with," and cautions against oversimplification of online learning and MOOCs, of both the forms they take and the issues at stake when we are debating their merits and demerits. In an effort to engage some of the more productive discursive strands weaving in and out of the recent media "MOOCopalypse", we decided to focus last week's #digped discussion on the broader question of broadcast learning, which is the model (as Sean points out, sometimes erroneously) most frequently associated with MOOCs and other, more traditional (did I just write that?) online courses.
Read More...Occupy the Digital: Critical Pedagogy and New Media
August 06, 2012 | Filed in: Critical Pedagogy
by Pete Rorabaugh
Teaching is a moral act. Our choice of course content is a moral decision, but so is the relationship we cultivate with students. Both physical and digital learning spaces require us to practice a politics of teaching, whether we’re conscious of it or not. However, traditional relationships between students and teachers come freighted with a model of interaction that often impedes learning. They are hierarchical. Progressive teaching, informed by a critical attention to pedagogy, resets the variables and insists on the classroom as a site of moral agency.
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Teaching is a moral act. Our choice of course content is a moral decision, but so is the relationship we cultivate with students. Both physical and digital learning spaces require us to practice a politics of teaching, whether we’re conscious of it or not. However, traditional relationships between students and teachers come freighted with a model of interaction that often impedes learning. They are hierarchical. Progressive teaching, informed by a critical attention to pedagogy, resets the variables and insists on the classroom as a site of moral agency.
Read More...Broadcast Education: a Response to Coursera
July 26, 2012 | Filed in: Open Education
by Sean Michael Morris
Coursera is silly. Educational technology news has been all a-flutter over the last few months about the work that Coursera is doing to bring higher education into the open. But I tell you what: I signed up for one of their classes -- a course on Science Fiction and Fantasy from the University of Michigan -- only to discover something really startling. Really: startling.
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Coursera is silly. Educational technology news has been all a-flutter over the last few months about the work that Coursera is doing to bring higher education into the open. But I tell you what: I signed up for one of their classes -- a course on Science Fiction and Fantasy from the University of Michigan -- only to discover something really startling. Really: startling.
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...The March of the MOOCs: Monstrous Open Online Courses
July 23, 2012 | Filed in: Open Education
by Jesse Stommel
MOOCs are a red herring. The MOOC didn’t appear last week, out of a void, vacuum-packed. The MOOC has been around for years, biding its time. Still, the recent furor about MOOCs, which some have called “hysteria,” opens important questions about higher education, digital pedagogy, and online learning. The MOOCs themselves aren’t what’s really at stake. In spite of the confused murmurs in the media, MOOCs won’t actually chomp everything in their path. And they aren’t an easy solution to higher education’s financial crisis. In fact, a MOOC isn’t anything at all, just a methodological approach, with no inherent value except insofar as it’s used.
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MOOCs are a red herring. The MOOC didn’t appear last week, out of a void, vacuum-packed. The MOOC has been around for years, biding its time. Still, the recent furor about MOOCs, which some have called “hysteria,” opens important questions about higher education, digital pedagogy, and online learning. The MOOCs themselves aren’t what’s really at stake. In spite of the confused murmurs in the media, MOOCs won’t actually chomp everything in their path. And they aren’t an easy solution to higher education’s financial crisis. In fact, a MOOC isn’t anything at all, just a methodological approach, with no inherent value except insofar as it’s used.
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...Hybridity, pt. 3: What Does Hybrid Pedagogy Do?
June 12, 2012 | Filed in: Critical Pedagogy
by Pete Rorabaugh and Jesse Stommel
Teaching is a practice. Good teaching is an engaged, reflective, and generous practice. Pedagogy is not just talking and thinking about teaching. Pedagogy is the place where philosophy and practice meet (aka “praxis”). It’s vibrant and embodied, meditative and productive. Good pedagogy takes both teaching and learning as its subjects.
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Teaching is a practice. Good teaching is an engaged, reflective, and generous practice. Pedagogy is not just talking and thinking about teaching. Pedagogy is the place where philosophy and practice meet (aka “praxis”). It’s vibrant and embodied, meditative and productive. Good pedagogy takes both teaching and learning as its subjects.
Read More...#digped Storify: Teaching Naked
June 10, 2012 | Filed in: #digped
by Sean Michael Morris
On Friday, June 8, Hybrid Pedagogy hosted a discussion on Twitter focused on the subject of "teaching naked" as presented in Paul Fyfe's article "Digital Pedagogy Unplugged". We thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at the ways in which all classrooms are necessarily both digital and analog, in-person and virtual. Inspired by the notion that we might be able to re-imagine digital pedagogy "without the potentially limiting factor of electronics," we set out to discuss what the truly hybrid classroom was made of.
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On Friday, June 8, Hybrid Pedagogy hosted a discussion on Twitter focused on the subject of "teaching naked" as presented in Paul Fyfe's article "Digital Pedagogy Unplugged". We thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at the ways in which all classrooms are necessarily both digital and analog, in-person and virtual. Inspired by the notion that we might be able to re-imagine digital pedagogy "without the potentially limiting factor of electronics," we set out to discuss what the truly hybrid classroom was made of.
Read More...Teaching in the Digital Tornado
June 06, 2012 | Filed in: Digital Pedagogy
by Sean Michael Morris
In preparing for the Teaching Naked #digped Twitter discussion on Friday, June 8, I reviewed what felt like a massive number of possible topics, discussable literature, and the broad face of educational technology. Out there on the Internet, something is happening that feels a lot like evolution, but which can also feel like survival of the fittest. One idea gives rise unto uncounted more ideas; one tool for organizing spawns a dozen new ways to communicate, and simultaneously a need for new organizational tools. It’s positively autocatalytic.
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In preparing for the Teaching Naked #digped Twitter discussion on Friday, June 8, I reviewed what felt like a massive number of possible topics, discussable literature, and the broad face of educational technology. Out there on the Internet, something is happening that feels a lot like evolution, but which can also feel like survival of the fittest. One idea gives rise unto uncounted more ideas; one tool for organizing spawns a dozen new ways to communicate, and simultaneously a need for new organizational tools. It’s positively autocatalytic.
Read More...Teaching Naked: a #digped Discussion
June 04, 2012 | Filed in: #digped
by Sean Michael Morris
This Friday, June 8 from 1:00 - 2:00pm EST (10:00 - 11:00am PST), Hybrid Pedagogy will host a Twitter discussion group under the hashtag #digped on Paul Fyfe’s “Digital Pedagogy Unplugged,” an article which explores how technology can both support, and might prevent, teaching and learning. We encourage participants to read Fyfe’s article, but we hope to keep the discussion open enough to everyone.
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This Friday, June 8 from 1:00 - 2:00pm EST (10:00 - 11:00am PST), Hybrid Pedagogy will host a Twitter discussion group under the hashtag #digped on Paul Fyfe’s “Digital Pedagogy Unplugged,” an article which explores how technology can both support, and might prevent, teaching and learning. We encourage participants to read Fyfe’s article, but we hope to keep the discussion open enough to everyone.
Read More...A Letter from a Hybrid Student
May 18, 2012 | Filed in: Critical Pedagogy
by Teo Bishop
I am not trained in teaching, but I do have experience in building and sustaining community online, and facilitating dialogue using new media and digital technologies. I write on my blog not as an authority, but as another inquisitive voice in the crowd; and as such, my readers don’t expect me to be an expert. Perhaps this is something that makes my experience with them different from a teacher’s experience with students. I’m in a position where I can do my best work, and inspire the most dialogue, by openly not having the answers. Do teachers have that luxury?
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I am not trained in teaching, but I do have experience in building and sustaining community online, and facilitating dialogue using new media and digital technologies. I write on my blog not as an authority, but as another inquisitive voice in the crowd; and as such, my readers don’t expect me to be an expert. Perhaps this is something that makes my experience with them different from a teacher’s experience with students. I’m in a position where I can do my best work, and inspire the most dialogue, by openly not having the answers. Do teachers have that luxury?
Read More...Twitter Theory and the Public Scholar
March 23, 2012 | Filed in: Profession
by Pete Rorabaugh
The most important benefit of Twitter is its open compatibility with the best web sharing practices. The ability to drop a link (especially shortened ones) into tweets means that Twitter’s 140-character limit is actually a fallacy. I can write a 2,448 page manifesto and direct people to it with one 10 character link built on bit.ly. We can attach an image to tweets that do not impact the character limit. (For example, my students sometimes take pictures of our notes on the board that can be tweeted to other class members.) Twitter users can quickly review the metadata of other users following or replying to them, and make decisions about whether to encourage or refuse interaction.
Read More...
The most important benefit of Twitter is its open compatibility with the best web sharing practices. The ability to drop a link (especially shortened ones) into tweets means that Twitter’s 140-character limit is actually a fallacy. I can write a 2,448 page manifesto and direct people to it with one 10 character link built on bit.ly. We can attach an image to tweets that do not impact the character limit. (For example, my students sometimes take pictures of our notes on the board that can be tweeted to other class members.) Twitter users can quickly review the metadata of other users following or replying to them, and make decisions about whether to encourage or refuse interaction.
Read More...Hybrid Academy, or How #altac Changes Pedagogy
March 15, 2012 | Filed in: Profession
by Roger Whitson
I’d like to move this conversation in a different direction, discussing how I believe the #altac movement to be an attempt to create what I call a “hybrid academy:” an academic model that bridges traditional divisions between academic practice and the public sphere. #altac originally started as a hashtag on Twitter, but has evolved to include an amazing edited collection published on MediaCommons, as well as numerous presentations at MLA and THATCamps across the country. The #altac movement is primarily about giving students more job opportunities, but it is also about broadening the reach of the humanities in such a way that it impacts people far beyond the ivory tower.
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I’d like to move this conversation in a different direction, discussing how I believe the #altac movement to be an attempt to create what I call a “hybrid academy:” an academic model that bridges traditional divisions between academic practice and the public sphere. #altac originally started as a hashtag on Twitter, but has evolved to include an amazing edited collection published on MediaCommons, as well as numerous presentations at MLA and THATCamps across the country. The #altac movement is primarily about giving students more job opportunities, but it is also about broadening the reach of the humanities in such a way that it impacts people far beyond the ivory tower.
Read More...Hybridity, pt. 2: What is Hybrid Pedagogy?
March 09, 2012 | Filed in: Critical Pedagogy
by Jesse Stommel
My hypothesis is that all learning is necessarily hybrid. In classroom-based pedagogy, it is important to engage the digital selves of our students. And, in online pedagogy, it is equally important to engage their physical selves. With digital pedagogy and online education, our challenge is not to merely replace (or offer substitutes for) face-to-face instruction, but to find new and innovative ways to engage students in the practice of learning.
Read More...
My hypothesis is that all learning is necessarily hybrid. In classroom-based pedagogy, it is important to engage the digital selves of our students. And, in online pedagogy, it is equally important to engage their physical selves. With digital pedagogy and online education, our challenge is not to merely replace (or offer substitutes for) face-to-face instruction, but to find new and innovative ways to engage students in the practice of learning.
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.
Read More...
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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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...Hybridity, pt. 1: Virtuality and Empiricism
February 07, 2012 | Filed in: Critical Pedagogy
by Pete Rorabaugh
A critical mind usually avoids binaries. We know that more than two political parties can exist, that gender is constructed, and that emphatic absolutes kill conversation. We live in a world of negotiated hybridity on a variety of levels. Everything about the word calls up a vision of science and the future: hybrid cars, hybrid humans, hybrid flower seeds. Rarely do we consider the implications of a term that floats around us and permeates our daily experiences. Hybridity, as this journal proclaims as one of its foundational principles. What does this kind of hybridity imply?
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A critical mind usually avoids binaries. We know that more than two political parties can exist, that gender is constructed, and that emphatic absolutes kill conversation. We live in a world of negotiated hybridity on a variety of levels. Everything about the word calls up a vision of science and the future: hybrid cars, hybrid humans, hybrid flower seeds. Rarely do we consider the implications of a term that floats around us and permeates our daily experiences. Hybridity, as this journal proclaims as one of its foundational principles. What does this kind of hybridity imply?
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Technological Panic
January 05, 2012 | Filed in: Tools
by Jesse Stommel
The computer and the LMS for an online or hybrid class are merely a medium. Still, so many instructors and students in technologically-enhanced classes spend the majority of their time grappling (and coming to terms) not with the ideas of the class but with the delivery device. We struggle to log in, to format our work correctly, to find information in an endless parade of contextual menus, and to bring some semblance of ourselves into the interactions we have in forums and chat tools.
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The computer and the LMS for an online or hybrid class are merely a medium. Still, so many instructors and students in technologically-enhanced classes spend the majority of their time grappling (and coming to terms) not with the ideas of the class but with the delivery device. We struggle to log in, to format our work correctly, to find information in an endless parade of contextual menus, and to bring some semblance of ourselves into the interactions we have in forums and chat tools.
Read More...The Twitter Essay
January 05, 2012 | Filed in: Tools
by Jesse Stommel
Consider the tangible violence technology has wrought upon grammar. We rely on automated grammar and spell-check tools in word-processing software (so much that they’ve become a crutch). E-mail shorthand fails to live up to the grammatical standards of typed or handwritten letters. And many believe our language is being perverted by the shortcuts (and concision nearly to the point of indifference) we’ve become accustomed to writing and reading in text messages and IMs.
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Consider the tangible violence technology has wrought upon grammar. We rely on automated grammar and spell-check tools in word-processing software (so much that they’ve become a crutch). E-mail shorthand fails to live up to the grammatical standards of typed or handwritten letters. And many believe our language is being perverted by the shortcuts (and concision nearly to the point of indifference) we’ve become accustomed to writing and reading in text messages and IMs.
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Hack the LMS: Getting Progressive
January 05, 2012 | Filed in: Tools
by Pete Rorabaugh
On the simplest level, a learning management system is any organizational pattern that assists teaching and learning. A grade book can also serve this function; so can a journal or a 3-ring-binder. The LMS (or CMS, for course management system) exists as a method for delivering content to students in a given class. What the classroom is to the traditional course, the LMS is to the online or hybrid course. The point of an LMS is to create learning opportunities for students outside the traditional classroom and on a different schedule. It enables synchronous (at the same time) and asynchronous (not at the same time) interaction between members of a class. It overcomes obstacles that traditional college campuses have: proximity to student populations, limited classroom space, and limited scheduling capabilities. In short, the LMS and the online class solve logistical problems for institutions and for students.
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On the simplest level, a learning management system is any organizational pattern that assists teaching and learning. A grade book can also serve this function; so can a journal or a 3-ring-binder. The LMS (or CMS, for course management system) exists as a method for delivering content to students in a given class. What the classroom is to the traditional course, the LMS is to the online or hybrid course. The point of an LMS is to create learning opportunities for students outside the traditional classroom and on a different schedule. It enables synchronous (at the same time) and asynchronous (not at the same time) interaction between members of a class. It overcomes obstacles that traditional college campuses have: proximity to student populations, limited classroom space, and limited scheduling capabilities. In short, the LMS and the online class solve logistical problems for institutions and for students.
Read More...Rules of Engagement; or, How to Build Better Online Discussion
January 05, 2012 | Filed in: Online Learning
by Pete Rorabaugh
All participation is not equal. Digital media prompt us for comments, but in an academic setting we should harness this cultural habit to teach the difference between expressing opinion and authentic engagement. Professors often feel unfulfilled by poorly designed peer review exercises with their students. They complain: “The students don’t offer anything helpful. They just write things like ‘I like this part,’ or ‘this doesn’t make any sense,’ or ‘good paper!’” In peer review and in online interaction, we should teach and model for students the best methods of intellectual engagement.
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All participation is not equal. Digital media prompt us for comments, but in an academic setting we should harness this cultural habit to teach the difference between expressing opinion and authentic engagement. Professors often feel unfulfilled by poorly designed peer review exercises with their students. They complain: “The students don’t offer anything helpful. They just write things like ‘I like this part,’ or ‘this doesn’t make any sense,’ or ‘good paper!’” In peer review and in online interaction, we should teach and model for students the best methods of intellectual engagement.
Read More...Trading Classroom Authority for Online Community
January 05, 2012 | Filed in: Online Learning
by Pete Rorabaugh
Early web commenters referred to the Internet as a primitive, lawless place like the "Wild West." Plenty still needs to change to make certain parts of the web more civil and useful, but some aspect of the "Wild West" spirit is applicable to a discussion of student-directed learning. Too much civilization and society makes us compartmentalized and complacent. The West was a challenging place for European immigrants because it required an expansive sense of responsibility. You could no longer be just an apothecary or a cobbler. You had to provide for your own food and shelter from the resources around you; you had to decide just "what to do" with all this freedom.
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Early web commenters referred to the Internet as a primitive, lawless place like the "Wild West." Plenty still needs to change to make certain parts of the web more civil and useful, but some aspect of the "Wild West" spirit is applicable to a discussion of student-directed learning. Too much civilization and society makes us compartmentalized and complacent. The West was a challenging place for European immigrants because it required an expansive sense of responsibility. You could no longer be just an apothecary or a cobbler. You had to provide for your own food and shelter from the resources around you; you had to decide just "what to do" with all this freedom.
Read More...The Student 2.0
January 02, 2012 | Filed in: Critical Pedagogy
by Jesse Stommel
Students are evolving. The student 2.0 is an altogether different animal from the student 1.0. And our classrooms are ecosystems, an environment all their own, where we each must decide how to engage this new species of student. We teeter at a slowly disintegrating threshold, one foot in a physical world and the other in a virtual one. Our students are no longer just bodies in desks; they are no longer vessels. They have become compilations, amalgams, a concatenation of web sites. They are the people in front of us, but also their avatars in World of Warcraft and the profiles they create on FaceBook. They speak with mouths, but also with fingers tapping briskly at the keys of their smart phones. When they want to “reach out and touch someone,” they use Skype and Twitter. They have become more than just ears and eyes and brains to feed. Now, they feed us, and themselves, and each other, with an endless parade of texted and tweeted characters. Shouldn’t we, as teachers 2.0, work with not against the flow of these seemingly errant 1s and 0s? Shouldn’t student-centered learning address itself, as fully as possible, to this new breed of student? Shouldn’t we understand our students as more than just inert flesh?
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Students are evolving. The student 2.0 is an altogether different animal from the student 1.0. And our classrooms are ecosystems, an environment all their own, where we each must decide how to engage this new species of student. We teeter at a slowly disintegrating threshold, one foot in a physical world and the other in a virtual one. Our students are no longer just bodies in desks; they are no longer vessels. They have become compilations, amalgams, a concatenation of web sites. They are the people in front of us, but also their avatars in World of Warcraft and the profiles they create on FaceBook. They speak with mouths, but also with fingers tapping briskly at the keys of their smart phones. When they want to “reach out and touch someone,” they use Skype and Twitter. They have become more than just ears and eyes and brains to feed. Now, they feed us, and themselves, and each other, with an endless parade of texted and tweeted characters. Shouldn’t we, as teachers 2.0, work with not against the flow of these seemingly errant 1s and 0s? Shouldn’t student-centered learning address itself, as fully as possible, to this new breed of student? Shouldn’t we understand our students as more than just inert flesh?
Read More...