“the future of journalism has never looked brighter”
This from David Carr, one of the journalists profiled in the new documentary, “Page One,” about the NYT newsroom. Why is Carr so optimistic in the face of many dire predictions about the future of journalism? Basically boils down to the many possibilities opened up by new technology. In a recent interview on Fresh Air, Carr talks about how new technologies are transforming his profession. Perhaps of particular interest to POT participants, he talks about the importance of using twitter collaboratively, so we can help one another sift through the incredible volume of media being produced minute-by-minute. Carr follows over 600 people on twitter, and has over 300,000 followers of his own. Here’s the link to the interview for anyone who is interested…
Advice Needed! Blackboard vs Something Else
I recently found out that I am being hired back spring semester to teach the same class that I am teaching now. It is an on-site class, and I want to transform it into a blended one, with online activities and discussions. I have read various opinions here and there about the advantages/ disadvantages of using a LMS like Blackboard and suggestions of other options. My problem is that I still don’t have a really clear sense of what would work best for me. Is there a comparison chart somewhere out there that lays out the features of various options, that I could use as a guide to choosing the best option for me?
last week’s assignment
As for last week’s assignment–it turns out that I am finding it rather difficult to translate my on-site intro lecture (or any of my lectures, for that matter) into an online mini-lecture. The main problem being that my “lectures” require so much class participation. Before I present new concepts, I usually start off with hearing from the class what they think of when they hear a particular term, how they use/define it, etc. And every few slides, I usually have a discussion question thrown in. Also, while I do have some pictures, my slides are mostly text. So, I am going to have to put more thought into how to create online mini-lectures if I am going to “flip” my classroom. Luckily, I just found out today that I am being hired back to teach the same class next semester that I am teaching (for the first time) right now. So, since it is the same material over again, I’ll have more time to experiment with new ideas in the spring semester. I might “make up” this assignment then.
Présumé: The future of résumé writing, or just a fad?
Last week as I explored Prezi and SlideRocket, I noticed that they are both advertising the use of their presentation software to create your own “présumé.” Not a term I was familiar with before. Is this really a growing trend?
syllabus as contract vs map… and open access anthropology
This week I got a bit sidetracked from the syllabus. I did finally finish the reading and viewing material for week 5 and in short, I am definitely interested in setting up Blackboard to work more like Moodle, as Lisa showed us in her presentation.
So I guess the most problematic claim that Ko and Rossen make is that the syllabus is a contract. Yet they also suggest it is like a “map.” Indeed, most syllabi I have seen in my many years as a student and TA have been pretty similar (and similar to K & R’s model), and have had some characteristics of a contract and a map. I wonder if the syllabus that tries to be both is trying to do too much. Resulting in a document that is too dense and not user friendly. Maybe some of the “contractual” elements (or at least, the laying of the ground rules) could be put in a FAQ page. Then the interactive syllabus could focus on being just that–a guide to the students, with links to all the pertinent stuff they need for that week. I do appreciate that about the POT syllabus, and have found that it helps me stay focused and on top of things.
Speaking of which… I did take a detour this week and started exploring some of the open access anthropology resources online. It is so exciting to see how much is out there! I am now a proud member of the Open Anthropology Cooperative and am looking forward to taking a lot more advantage of open access journals and other materials for future classes–and definitely feeling inspired to start contributing my own work in the near future, too.
“flipped” classrooms
At this point I am teaching entirely on-site, and so I am looking for ways to use online resources to enhance my on-site teaching, or even conduct a “blended” course. I already use Blackboard for assessment and to provide readings and other class materials to my students. So, now I want to focus on how I can also use online resources to communicate course content and facilitate discussion. I’ve written about my interest in using a blog to complement on-site class discussions, and I’ve received some great advice for doing so in a time-efficient way.
This week’s reading has got me thinking more about how I could provide more content online, thereby freeing up more class time for discussion, group work, and activities. I think that a narrated presentation of about 10 minutes, plus some online reading material, could be a very effective way for me to present content, and it would be worth trying to “flip” my on-site classes, provide the lectures online, and then do more of the things that I would normally assign as homework (like group work) in class.
I really like what I have seen of Prezi so far, also. So although I am used to power point, I’d like to experiment with using Prezi to create narrated mini online lectures.
As for HTML–to be honest, I don’t know when/if learning it would be particularly useful to me. But maybe once I master some more basic skills with online teaching, I’ll start to see why it might be useful.
Facilitating online discussion–and being time-efficient about it?
My score on the Beginner’s Questionnaire was a 9, placing me pretty far on the constructivist end of the spectrum. Though I do like to use some lecture, mainly to give some context/background to the readings I assign and the topics I cover, I think my greatest strength is as a discussion facilitator. Even when I am “lecturing,” I frequently intersperse discussion questions in my power point slides, and the give and take with my students helps me to tailor my explanations of concepts to their level of understanding. Going off of examples and comments that they have made, I can more effectively make my points in terms that they can understand. And I try to incorporate lots of discussions (both small and large group) as well as group projects. I learn so much from my students—not just from the actual content of their discussions and presentations (which is illuminating in and of itself), but I also find that my own comprehension of my subject matter has deepened through the process of trying to understand their points of view and express ideas in terms that make sense to them.
The readings for this week challenge us to think about how to translate our teaching style into the online environment (or use online resouces to enhance our methods in the case of blended classes). So, it seems like my first step should be experimenting with the use of some sort of online discussion to complement in-class discussion, since that is my emphasis as an educator (so far I have only taught on-site classes). I am interested to find out if asynchronous online discussion could help overcome some of the obstacles that some students face in participating in on-site discussions. Ultimately, I would want all students to participate in both the in-class and online discussions, but having an online “warm-up” could be very helpful, not only to the students, but also to me.
So, my goals are to 1. create an environment where all students participate and feel comfortable doing so, 2. to figure out what online resources would work best to help me achieve that end, and 3. to think through how to conduct an online discussion in such a way that it doesn’t become an overwhelming drain on my limited time.
A couple of related comments:
–Although I see the potential benefits of on-line discussion for giving shy students time to compose their thoughts, etc, I do wonder if Chickering and Ehrmann overstate their case. In my own (admittedly, limited) experience, I have found that discussions on blogs and email listservs can become acrimonious more easily than in person. I am actually more shy/reserved online than I am in face-to-face interactions as a result of my negative experiences. I think that if I am going to include an online discussion component in my classes, it will be imporant to make my standards for civil discourse very clear.
–I also wonder about C and E’s claim that new technology is such a time-saver. I am not sure at all about this. I have heard quite a bit of ancedotal evidence that on-line teaching can be more time-consuming. It’s true that commuting, parking, etc, takes time. And teaching online means, as Ko and Rossen point out, that I become much more flexible in terms of geography as well as my daily schedule. That is no small thing. But I could see one online class easily becoming a black hole, swallowing up all my time! Ko and Rossen seem more aware/realistic about this potential problem, and seem to suggest that while initially there is a greater output of time, you can develop strategies (like FAQs and a set of standard email replies) to save more time as you go. I would be really interested in hearing from those who do teach online about your strategies for saving time.
using blogs to promote/complement on-site class discussions (and some other stuff)
My original motivation for doing POT (lol, I wonder how long it will take me to get tired of making these jokes? 
) was to learn about the mysterious world of the Online Course. However, I am also starting to see potential benefits of incorporating more online resources to turn my on-site courses into “blended” courses, as Ko and Rossen call them. Thus far, I have only used blackboard for posting lectures and assignments and having students submit their papers electronically. But the reading for this week has gotten me thinking about how incorporating a blog or discussion board into my on-site courses could help solve a difficulty that I have struggled with for years: getting all my students to participate in class discussions.
It seems to be a common (mis)conception, even among some professors who have taught for decades, that students who don’t talk in class keep their mouths shut either because they are lazy and haven’t done the reading, or are in over their heads and don’t understand the material. But from my own experience (as a student, and more recently from conversations with my own students) I think the situation is far more more complex. It is true that some students (for a whole host of reasons, not just laziness) don’t do the reading, and there may be one or two who are really hopelessly lost. But there are also a significant percentage of students who have taken the time to do the reading and even take careful notes, but still find themselves—for a variety of reasons–tongue-tied when they get to class. This may have to do with the model of education they are used to (keeping quiet and listening to the instructor is the respectful thing to do in many cultural contexts, and the key to academic success). It may have to do with the gendered ways we are socialized (research shows that girls tend to learn at a young age to lower their voices and not speak out as much as boys do). And some people (myself included) feel more comfortable speaking after talking some time to reflect on what they really want to say—which can mean the it’s hard to compose one’s thoughts on one topic before the class has already moved on to another topic.
So… all this is to say, I’m wondering how having a course blog, that students were required to read and contribute to before class, would change the dynamics of on-site class discussions? Ko and Rassen suggest that an online blog, where participation is not limited to a specific amount of time, has the potential to really open up the opportunity for all students to contribute. I am excited about the possibilities—and would be really interested to hear from those who are already using blogs to complement on-site classroom discussions. How has it worked for you? Any tips?
I also have some thoughts about the topic of creating a “professional online persona” but no time to write about that right now. Just one related question, though: I have blocked this blog from google searching because I don’t particularly want it popping up if someone I don’t know well googles me name… do I need to take any additional precautions in that regard?
And re the anthropological perspective on online environments, I like Mike Wesch’s stuff a lot. Here’s a video of his that I find both clever and thought-provoking: Information R/evolution
participant observing in cyberspace
Today is more than a little reminiscent of my first day “in the field”–I’m a cultural anthropologist, and learning new ways of life and languages is supposed to be my forte. My experience setting up this blog and a quick glance at Edublogs glossary of “jargon of the online world” has already confirmed that, for me, cyberspace is a rather exotic land. So I am embarking on this 24-week journey with excitement and not a little trepidation!
I am a PhD candidate at UC San Diego and a part-time instructor in anthropology, both at UCSD and Palomar College. I teach anthropology of gender and religion. I am a new mom–My son, Acadian, was born on December 10, 2010. And I am married to Kyleb Wild, also a POT participant 
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