Introduction to Teaching with Technology in Liberal Education

Millsaps CollegeOctober, 2007

NITLE workshop

0. Introductions and overview1. Resource aggregation2. Publishing to the web3. Discussion areas4. Multimedia pedagogy

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)

Millsaps’ core

Abilities:• Reasoning

(quantitative, scientific, ethical, aesthetic)

• Communication • Historical

Consciousness • Social & Cultural

Awareness (Image from CodeCutter, via Flickrhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/jmarkb/1133112464/)

Digital, not analog?

Differences, enhancements• Student’s schedule• Repeatability, scrubbing,

segmentation, transferability• Iteration

(Desire path,Vermont, 2006)

Further affordances

• Social software– Triangulation– Presence

• 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)

The relief of history

Adrien Baillet, Jugement de Paris

Resource aggregation

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

• Vast• Growing

(Bookstore in Fes,Morocco, 2007)

Requirements• Search (classic, social, Web 2.0,

media)• Aggregation (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)

Publishing to the web

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

• 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)

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

Multimedia pedagogy

– Learning styles– Active engagement– Changing population, literacy– Long, long tradition

Images• Visualization• Compositions• Presentation (ppt)• Social (Flickr)

(Image from “LordSutch” via Flickr,http://www.flickr.com/photos/lordsutch/19444718/)

Audio• Sound objects• Social sound:

podcasting (James Phfrem)

• 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• GIS • Web mapping, a/k/a virtual globes• Synchronous? Watch Google

Multimedia syntheses• Presentation tools (PowerPoint,

Keynote)• Media: text, images, sound, video• Ease of use• Danger: death by PowerPoint (cf

Tufte)

Multimedia syntheses• Virtual worlds

– Virtual reality– Social-emotional bandwidth

Multimedia syntheses• Gaming

– Pedagogies (Gee, 2003ff)

– Literacy– Compositions

And text!• Web 2.0• Nearly every digital affordance• Synchronous: chat, IM

NITLEhttp://nitle.org

Liberal Education Todayhttp://b2e.nitle.org