1. 1 Web Technologies in the Liberal Arts Classroom: A Workshop at Juniata College Barbara Ganley Middlebury College January 11, 2006

2. 2 Writing Exercise What are your pedagogical goals? How does technology intersect with those goals? What are your questions and concerns about using Web technologies (blogs, wikis, podcasting, RSS, tagging, etc.) in this course?

3. 3 The Learning Landscape: Digital Natives, Their Experiences & Expectations --Third-graders podcasting --High School Journalism Class --High School Students on a WikiWiki --Underground H.S. Newspaper --H.S. Digital Storytelling ContestContest --Creative Literature Project --Creative Literature Project & Oral History Oral History

4. 4 Personal Writing Academic Writing Integrating the Selves Purpose: Dialogue & Expression “Rip and Remix” Audience: Self and Community Mode: Text: Instant Messenger LiveJournal Images: “…less objects to be saved than messages to be disseminated, circulated.” Sontag Purpose: Knowledge Delivery Audience: Authoritative Other Mode:Text: Fossilized, formulaic formal discourse Images: Static Powerpoint presentations The Writing Divide

5. 5 Expectations: Balance “College students want faculty members to use information technology, but students nevertheless hunger for the human touch in courses as well, according to a new survey of 18,039 freshmen and seniors at 63 institutions.” Chronicle of Higher Education 11/05Chronicle of Higher Education

6. 6 Overwhelming Realities The speed of change Pressures on classrooms, on pedagogical practices: “…our educational discourse is largely stuck in a time warp, framed by issues and standards set decades before the widespread use of the personal computer, the Internet, and free trade agreements. But we can no more afford to isolate ourselves educationally than we can economically or in terms of national security.” Phi Delta Kappan 11/05 The tools, the tools-- Blogs Wikis Podcasts Skypecasts/Webcasts RSS Folksonomies Multimedia Authoring

7. 7 The First-Year Experience Sets the tone for the college learning environment, experience, expectations Builds sense of Engages student in Fosters belonging to active learning transition community process to adulthood Our inclination to pack in the subject matter

8. 8 Blogs in the Classroom Contemporary Ireland Through Fiction and Film Introduction to Creative Writing Writing Across the Arts

9. 9 WHY USE BLOGS To create/foster/nurture learning communities To engage students in their learning process To extend learning beyond traditional time and space constraints To contextualize learning within the discipline and the wider world To initiate a portfolio for ongoing assessment To create a dynamic archive of materials and models To improve the teaching of writing and visual literacy

10. 10 Blogs and Learning Communities “The principle that development of experience comes about through interaction means that education is essentially a social process. This quality is realized in the degree to which individuals form a community group.” --John Dewey HOW: -- Pre-course collaborative blogging --Pierre Levy’s reciprocal apprenticeships RESULTS: -- Immediate Sense of Belonging & Purpose--Efficacy -- Intensifying of Classroom Experience--Deep Learning -- Sage is Off the Stage & in the Circle--Student-Centered, Constructivist, Connectivist Learning Achieved Blogging in a First-Year SeminarFirst

11. 11 Extending the Teaching Moment Online, Connected Post & Response Benefits the Writer and the Reader The Teacher Highlights Noteworthy Accomplishments Models Critical Reading & Response Writing Helps the Writer to Revise

12. 12 The Students Shape the Blog as It Shapes Them Blogging pushes considerations of effective learning outcomes Award-nominated final essay Students referencing one another in essays Students engaging in discussions with outside experts Meta-reflective Practice

13. 13 Blogging to Engage Students Actively in their Learning Process HOW: Taking advantage of the medium’s --Connectivity --Visual Qualities --Archiving RESULTS: --Understanding of their own learning process --Awareness of progress -- Improvement in critical thinking and writing Student PageStudent Page Contents Project Pages

14. 14 Real World-Classroom Connections

15. 15 Blogging to Ground the Learning within the Wider Discipline and the World HOW: --Inviting Experts into the Class via the Blog --“Publishing” of Student Work RESULTS: --Authentic & Extended Learning Enhanced --Range of Discourse Modes, Levels and Audiences Understood --Efficacy Affecting the World

16. 16 Blogging to Initiate a Portfolio of Student Work HOW: --Individual student blogs/pages --Linking to earlier semesters --Joining future iterations of the Course via the blog --Ongoing reflective narrative RESULTS: --Unified education/integrated self --Learning as process --Rich, ongoing record for student and teacher --Effective revisions & growth in deep critical thinking A student gathers her work

17. 17 Taking the Blog Outside: Multiple Layers of Learning I just want to point out that the Blogger's Field Trip was only very loosely defined at the outset, with no clear purpose. Usually, loosely defined assignments only involve the student and professor, but with this Blogger's Field Trip, we have the opportunity to benefit as a class from each students unique interpretation, stretching the limits of the assignment even beyond the original concept. However, we also have the opportunity for our very different interpretations to clash and create conflicts, as well as move too far beyond the original concept. Layer One: Reacting to Another View Layer Two: Initiating Dialogue Layer Three: Synthesizing and Reflecting

18. 18 Blogging to Create Rich Archives and a Course Portal HOW: --Blog as CMT --Options for rich range of research, group, oral, creative, multi-media and traditional assignments RESULTS: --Nothing lost from original course, emergent outcomes made possible --Enlivened, enriched collaborative projects --Service-learning and dispersed-community collaborations possible Student Models Course Portal

19. 19 Student Responses to First-year Blogging “I feel this class is like that game where everyone tries to sit down on each other at the same time, in a circle, and if they do it correctly no one falls because the weight is evenly spread around. ““I feel this class Amanda reflects/Colleen comments “…we are all experts, and we are all apprentices. We all have our strengths and weaknesses—what Dan or Amanda may write really well, I struggle with, but where they struggle, maybe Caitlin and I excel. We all learn in different ways, and in this, we can all learn from each other. This brings me to Essay #3 which was truly a group learning experience. In high school I always hated working on group projects because I did all the work. Well, we’re at Middlebury, and we’re ALL those kids who did all the work. So, nothing changes, we still do all the work, but we both do, and the result is pretty astonishing. For Colleen and I, it took a few sessions before we settled into our rhythms of working together, but we learned how to work separately, but come together for feedback. ““…we are all experts, and we are all apprentices

20. 20 Challenges Student Unease Stability of Server/Network Unrealistic Expectations of Technology Time Involved to Ground the Tool in the PedagogyInvolved Pedagogy Willingness to Model Good Writing and Thinking BUT not take over the discussionWillingness to Model

21. 21 Blogging Exercises Writing in response to a prompt Writing after reading peer responses Bloggers’ Field Trip

22. 22 Blogging Exercise Go to www.blogger.com and create a blogwww.blogger.com As your first post, brainstorm ideas about ways in which you might use a blog in your course. As your second post, ask questions, voice concerns… Trade blog URLs with someone and respond to one of their posts.

23. 23 Blogs Invite Multimedia Portrait of an Artist (excerpt ) My brother is mute. But not because he cannot speak. Not because he does not have anything to say. It is more as though he is muted—muted because most of us don’t know how to hear him… Story Without Words

24. 24 ….Podcasting/Audio Files

25. 25 …And Wikis RSS--Social Bookmarking Digital Storytelling Keeping Your Own Blog Independent Student Projects Inter-institutional Projects

26. 26 Last Thoughts… “The faculty member of the twenty-first century university could thus become more of a consultant or a coach than a teacher, less concerned with transmitting intellectual content directly than with inspiring, motivating, and managing an active learning process…That is, faculty may come to interact with undergraduates in ways that resemble how they interact with their doctoral students today.” From The Chronicle of Higher Education, 11/02 (National Academy of Sciences Report)

27. 27 Readings (Just a Start) Jay David Bolter Writing Spaces Stephen Johnson Emergence George P. Landow Hypertext 2.0 Pierre L é vy Collective Intelligence Diana & James Oblinger Educating the Net Generation Howard Rheingold Smart Mobs Noah Wardrip-Fruin & Nick Montfort (eds) The New Media Reader Dave Weinberger Small Pieces Loosely Joined