Eugene Lang College

November, 2007

NITLE workshop

Introduction to Teaching with Technology in Liberal Education

Agenda for the day

0. Introductions and overview1. Resource aggregation2. Publishing to the web3. Discussion areas4. Multimedia pedagogy5. Next steps

First, liberal education

Inherited models

Artes liberales – Skills– Practice, yet

theory– Multiplicity

Literacies– Multiple– Productive– Media vs

information

Different weavings from the cloth

• Pure learning for learning’s sake• Student-centered pedagogy• Preparation for democratic

citizenship• Institutional typology and heritage

-Jo Ellen Parker, “What’s So “Liberal” About Higher Ed?” (Academic Commons, 2006)

Digital, not analog?

Differences, enhancements• Repeatability, scrubbing,

segmentation, transferability• Iteration• User’s schedule

(Desire path,Vermont, 2006)

Further affordances

Social software– Triangulation– Presence– Performance– History

Temporality– Synch versus

asynch– Two archival

tendencies

Practical tendencies

• Timeshifts within the classroom

• Classroom vs. the rest of spacetime

• LazyWeb meets DIY• Archival teaching for

the professor(Middlebury College,

January 2006)

Challenges

• What are the challenges to using technology for teaching and learning?

The relief of history

Early modern information overload, 1685:

“We have reason to fear that the multitude of books which grows every day in a prodigious fashion will make the following centuries fall into a state as barbarous as that of the centuries that followed the fall of the Roman Empire…”

“…Unless we try to prevent this danger by separating those books which we must throw out or leave in oblivion from those which one should save and within the latter between what is useful and what is not.”

-Adrien Baillet, Jugemens des sçavans sur les principaux ouvrages des auteurs (Paris, 1685)

Antecedents

One response to too much information: the humble marginal annotation

• Glossators (Franciscus Accursius, Denis Godefroi)

• Then the Geneva Bible

Managing texts, readers

(Early English Books Online)

Another response to overload

• Cyclopedia (Ephraim Chambers, 1728)

• Encyclopedie (1751-1772)

Another response to overload

• Cyclopedia (Ephraim Chambers, 1728)

• Encyclopedie (1751-1772)

(Another precursor, lacking the technology: Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, 636)

I. Resource aggregation

• Eroding, but semiarchived (http://archive.org)

• Vast• Growing

(Bookstore in Fes,Morocco, 2007)

Requirements• Search (classic, Web 2.0, media,

social)• Aggregation (bookmarks,

del.icio.us, Scholar.com, H2O)• Information literacy• Social aggregation, or digital

citizenship

Away from the wild Web

• e-reserves • Databases

(ARTSTOR)• The oldest

information profession(Denison Library,

Claremont Colleges)

Using the Web to tame the Web

• Social bookmarking (del.icio.us)– Demonstration– Hands-on

• Aggregating Media– Podcasts– YouTube

RSS• Bloglines• RSS feed from

del.icio.us

II. Publishing to the web

“Web 1.0”• Vast, semiarchived (archive.org)• Enormous publication• Needed: editor and host

(Sir Tim Berners-Lee)

• Euclid’s Elements, Interactive Presentation. http://math.furman.edu/~jpoole/euclidselements/euclid.htm

• Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive. http://etext.virginia.edu/salem/witchcraft/home.html

• Virtual Seminars for Teaching Literature. (WWI archive) http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/projects/jtap/

• Visual Elements Periodic Table. http://www.chemsoc.org/viselements/pages/pertable_fla.htm

“Web 2.0”• Social

software• Microconte

nt• Open • Platforms

Web 2.0: blogs• Public intellectual• Research record• Personal expression

• Collaborative blogs• Scholarly discussion

– Formal and in-

• Emergent interest

(Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Pomona CollegeLMS conference, Reed College, 2005)

Web courseware (Moodle, Blackboard, Sakai)

• Class (not course) only

• Copyright shield (TEACH Act)

• Integration with e-reserves

(Martin Dougiemas, via PeskyLibrary on Flickr)

III. Online Discussion

• History of online discussion– Discussion boards, newsgroups, etc.– Listservs (SF-LOVERS, 1979ff)

• Asynchronous vs. Synchronous– IM– Chat rooms– Skype chat– Virtual world, gaming chat

• Question: what are your best practices for online discussion?

Web 2.0 discussion areas

• Blogs– Posts– Comments– On-campus and off-

(“Blog-based communities,”James Farmer, from

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elifishtacos/90944651/)

Wikis• History• That encyclopedia• Two challenges• Wikis not called

wikis

Modes of use• Discussion• Annotation• Collaborative

writing

IV. Multimedia pedagogy

Why would you do such a thing?– Learning styles– Active engagement– Changing population, literacy– Long, long tradition

Images• Visualizatio

n• Compositio

ns• Presentatio

n (ppt)• Social

(Flickr)

(Storms on Jupiter,NASA New Horizons mission)

Audio• Sound objects• Social sound:

podcasting• Embedded sound

(Web, video)• Synchronous: VOIP (Aaron Prevots, French,

Southwestern University)

PodcastingPedagogies• Profcasting• Studentcasting• Public intellectual• Field work

Video • Video objects• Social video (Web)• Synchronous (Video conference)

Digital cartography• Google Maps• GIS • Web mapping, a/k/a virtual globes• Synchronous? Watch Google• Platforms? Cf Twittervision

(Google Maps/Flickr mashup)

Multimedia Syntheses

• Presentation tools (PowerPoint, Keynote)

• Media: text, images, sound, video– Demonstration and Hands-On

• Ease of use• Danger: death by PowerPoint (cf

Tufte)

Multimedia Synthesis• VoiceThread

– Image– Voice– Social– Demonstration– Hands-On

http://voicethread.com/

Multimedia syntheses• Virtual worlds

– Virtual reality– Social-emotional bandwidth

Multimedia syntheses• Gaming

– Pedagogies (Gee, 2003ff)

– Literacy– Compositions

(Image from Scott Osterwall, MIT, from NERCOMP presentationhttp://www.nercomp.org/events/event_single.aspx?id=1227)

And text!

And text!• Web 2.0• Nearly every digital affordance• Synchronous: chat, IM• Utter comfort for most of us

(previous slide: Ken Wark, GAM3R 7H30RY (2007)CommentPress implementation

http://www.futureofthebook.org/mckenziewark/gamertheory/)

V. Wrap-Up

• Small Groups– Plan for how you can use one thing

you’ve learned today

• Final Group Discussion

NITLEhttp://nitle.org

Liberal Education Todayhttp://b2e.nitle.org