CogDog, throw a girl a bone!

While flying to various professional events, I can either be extremely productive (grading, or like this past Wednesday night, I read both the 2010 Horizon Report and The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2009) or not (like this past Sunday when I finished Blood Magic and piled through most of Unknown). 

This is a reflection about the results of being productive yet unconnected. So last Wednesday I’m flying to San Antonio to an English Professional Development event being hosted by my publisher, Cengage. I decide a 2+ hour plane ride is the perfect time to get caught up on a little ed tech reading and printed out the 2010 Horizon Report and The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2009 (yeah, yeah, I know...but I actually like to read and annotate on paper, and it’s recycled, printed on the back of stuff!). 

I started with the 2010 Horizon Report and was excited about the fact that mobile learning and open content were on the horizon for "one year or less." If you don’t know, each section of the report that talks about the technology includes an overview of the technology, a description of it’s relevance for teaching, learning or creative inquiry, a section providing links to example in practice, and then a list of resources for further reading. 

I remember getting an email from Veronica (I think Veronica?) last fall asking for examples that fell into the list of horizon technologies and providing a few. Needless to say, I was not prepared for my online American Literature before1860 course to be the first example listed under Open Content in Practice.

I refrained from squealing on the plane (that would have been embarrassing); however, I did grumble something under my breath like "CogDog, you could have thrown me a bone and warned me." The first thing I wanted to do was go "clean up" the site. I know it is "messy" because it is a live course with classes worth of students contributing to the wiki. That many contributors is always chaos on the content, formatting, links, etc. However, because I was "trapped" on the plan without internet connection, I could do nothing. 

With a little forced reflection, I actually think it is a good thing that I didn’t get the warning because one of the "problems" with open content, especially student generated material like the courses I design in this manner, is that they can be "raw" and unpolished. Once you let others have the ability to add and organize, their sense of style and arrangement might conflict with yours. However, this also got me thinking even more (I had already started) about the "next steps" for the American Literature before1860 course:

• continue contributing: I think I’ll have this next batch of students (Summer 2010) not contribute as many resource; however, make them more "substantial." Maybe I’ll limit resources to library database, eBooks, and/or Google Books.
• bulk out and prioritize the available resources: Some of the current resources are not as significant as others; instead of incorporating all new resources, I’ll have students reread and reannotate ones already present.
• get visual: It is definitely time to incorporate some visuals, specifically timelines and maps. I’m thinking a collaborative timeline and map for the entire course as well as more specialized timelines for each period and/or author. Maybe that type of project would replace one of the writing projects due with each module. It would be nice to incorporate more visuals (and make sure they are cited correctly).
• clean up layout, design, and formatting: I’m not sure how I might build that into an assignment for the students...that might just be my responsibility.

And for those of you would like to see some of my other reflections about reading the 2010 Horizon Report and The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2009, I’ll be posting comments at the online-interactive versions of the 2010 Horizon Report and the EDUCAUSE Evolving Technologies Committee Blog.

February 23 2010 | Posted in Reading