Integration

2010 Faculty Evaluation Plan

2010-06-26T00:29:00Z

Once a faculty member in the Maricopa Community College District gets “tenure” (or is no longer in his or her “probationary” period), he or she has to submit a Faculty Evaluation Plan (FEP), basically a self-study/reflection, every three years. This year was my third year since leaving probation/getting tenure. One of the things I’m trying to do with this FEP is get up an running with a digital professional portfolio. And although I really think I wanted to do it in a wiki, I also really want to get back to my professional identify living in my blog. Thus...the blog wins! The following is very formulaic and is the cover page, what is officially submitted, for the FEP.
FEP Summary
Faculty Member’s Name: Rochelle Rodrigo
College and Department: Mesa Community College, English Department & Center for Teaching & Learning
Date Completed: June 25, 2010 For Academic Year: 2009-10
Faculty Evaluation Team

Jeffery Andelora
Naomi Story

Three Required Areas:

1. Teaching, Learning and/or Service (Why I failed the Quality Matters Peer Review and Revising My Teaching Philosophy Part I & Part II)

2. Course Assessment and/or Program Development/Revision (Developing a Writing Certificate Program)

3. Governance and/or Committee Participation at the College and/or District levels (Serving on the Campus & District IRB Boards)

Two Elective Areas:
1. Professional Development (My StrengthsQuest Results)
2. Acquisition of New Skills (I’m Loving MindMeister)

Additional/Related Areas:

1. Service to Community (Writing for EduKid)

2. Disciplinary Service (CCCCs Executive Committee)

Summative Reflection

1. Brief description of my roles and responsibilities as a faculty member:

During the past three years I have taken on a lot more responsibilities related to the role of faculty professional development coordinator. During the 2007-8 academic year, I was completely reassigned to the CTL to function as MCC’s Interim Instructional Technologist while we did a full search to fill the position. For 2008-9 I applied for the faculty developer (I prefer to call is faculty professional development coordinator) position and had nine hours of reassign time to facilitate the New Faculty Experience (NFE) program as well as coordinator faculty professional development activities on campus. For the 2009-10 academic year nine hours of reassign time shrunk to six hours, and I gained more work since we lost our adjunct faculty professional development coordinator position. During the Spring 2010 semester I decided to only facilitate NFE for three hours of reassign time.

As Instructional Technologist, I added teaching CIS236 and CIS237 to my list of courses taught. I also continued to grow the number of workshops, usually about teaching with technology, that I taught at MCC or in the district. I also taught HUM206 for the first time during the Fall 2008 semester. Besides teaching and professional development activities, I continued serving on various committees in the English Department, in the College, and in the District.

2. Focus of the FEP (teaching and course or program development/revision) and a brief statement of rationale and purpose:

For this FEP I focused on three examples of professional self-evaluation, reflection, and growth. First, I submitted my online ENG102 course to the official Quality Matters review process. As is normal, I did not pass the first round of review; however, since I decided not to make some of the changes my peer-reviewers suggested, I did not officially pass the Quality Matters review. I believe the QM review criteria are generally good, like most online/hybrid course criteria; however, I didn’t agree with the interpretation of those criteria with some aspects of my course. I also blatantly did not make two other suggested changes and presented reasons why; however, again, the peer-reviewers and I disagreed on my justifications. Please read my more detailed reflection on this process in my blog posting titled ”Why I failed the Quality Matters Peer Review.”

The second serious reflection and change came about in reaction to working with other faculty for three years in helping them develop online, hybrid, and/or technologically mediated courses. Basically, I simplified my teaching philosophy. This simplification came more at the desire to provide faculty constructing courses with a more streamlined way to think about how/why they are organizing their course; however, it is also helping me continue to rethinking my own teaching practices (both in the traditional academic classroom as well as in workshop settings). In short, my philosophy is now:

Courses need to be organized in modules that provide a variety of content delivery activities, content learning activities, and learning assessment activities; these activities all need to be aligned in terms of their learning outcome as well as in the complexity of skill and thinking.

To read more about my new teaching philosophy, visit the blog posts titled Revising My Teaching Philosophy Part I and Part II

Finally, I’m thrilled that after three years the English department finally submitted our curriculum for a writing certificate program. During most of that time I chaired the Composition Committee whom did the major work during this process. It took us so long because the English Instructional Council wanted us to develop curriculum for a 200 level course that the program would require as well as some type of capstone. The two courses had to be developed, proposed, and accepted through the entire curriculum process before we could submit the writing certificate proposal. We were happy to announce that ENG270: Workplace Writing and ENG297: Writing Program Portfolio were approved by the end of the Spring 2010 semester. And although we’re glad that the district has decided that it needs to “improve” the process for academic certificates, we’re bummed that our proposal is now put on hold until that process has been updated. To read more reflections on this curriculum process, visit the blog posting titled ”Developing a Writing Certificate Program.”

3. Summary of accomplishments and outcomes:

During this three year period I’m most proud of the completion and “publication” of three book length projects: The Wadsworth Guide to Research (co-authored), Rhetorically Rethinking Usability (co-edited), and Motivation and Play: How Faculty Continue to Learn New Technologies (my dissertation). I was also honored that the New Media Consortium refer to my online ENH241: American Literature before 1860 course as an example of “open content” teaching within the 2010 Horizon Report. Finally, I was honored by my colleagues at MCC when I received the Residential Faculty Excellence Award for the Fall 2008 semester.

4. Brief statement of plans to integrate or apply this learning into my work as a faculty member:

The current “learning” I’m integrating into my work as a faculty member is my three part/cycle teaching philosophy. First, I’m increasingly using this philosophy in the workshops I present and while I’m talking to faculty about building and/or revising their courses. I’m also trying to develop and revise my on courses to fit into this philosophy as well. To read more about my new teaching philosophy and how I’m trying to use it, visit the blog posting titled ”Revising My Teaching Philosophy, Part II.”

5. What method and class was used for the student/service recipient evaluation?

I always ask for students and workshop participants to evaluate my teaching/facilitating; however, with online courses it is very difficult to get a high return rate on course evaluations. Similarly, with workshops, all the people who are getting some type of credit for the workshop always complete the evaluation; however, since it has their names attached to it, I question the validity. The evaluations for the workshops are in a variety of locations and I did not hunt them all down to do a comparative analysis; however, usually I get positive comments about my personality and enthusiasm and how that engages and excites the participants. In terms of suggestions for revisions, the comments that I continue to work are generally about providing more support materials and specific examples.

Since the Fall 2008 semester I have collected all my course evaluation data using Google Spreadsheets. I ask the basic questions from the English Department’s Course Evaluation Form that asks students to respond on a 1-5 scale (1 = does not apply to this course and 5 = Excellent). I’m happy to say that all questions except for two had an average score of over 4.0 (the two exceptions: Time in Class, the full class period is used effectively was a 3.73 and Testing, exams cover material on which I expect to be tested was a 3.79). My highest rating was a 4.63 in Knowledge of Subject, the instructor demonstrates a comprehensive knowledge of the subject area of the course. In the open ended questions I would argue my most positive comment was similar to what I get in my workshops, references to enthusiasm and passion. As for negative, I’ve got to get better at turning over grading of major projects/assignments. To read more of my reflections on my course evaluations, read the blog posting titled ”A Synthesis of Course Evaluations, Fall 2008-Spring 2010.”

6. Goals for next evaluation

Survive?! I say that jokingly; however, there is something to it! To stay sane and healthy I have got to try to figure out a way to gracefully and politely say “no” to both “fabulous opportunities” and to some requests for help for which I sincerely do not have the time, nor am I being compensated for; maybe some of the tips and suggestions from my StrengthsGuests results might help. I would also like to start incorporating more self-regulatory and study skills into my courses to help my students become better learners and hopefully successful students. Maybe I can be transparent with my students as an example about self-discipline and self-regulation and talk about my own need to be better about dedicating time and energy in a timely manner to get graded work back to them (as per the results of my course evaluations). I don’t want, nor have the time, to do a huge study correlating incorporating study skills content with retention rates; I just want to try to track what type of activities I’m incorporating into my classes and start keeping better track of my retention rates. We’ll see about this last idea in regards to balancing time, energy, and sanity (back to goal number one).

I’m loving MindMeister

2010-06-21T02:41:00Z

This past December I decided to upgrade my MindMeister account for one year. I had played enough with MindMeister that I knew I really wanted to seriously play and needed more than the three mindmaps that the free account would give me. I have not regretted this purchase at all! I’ve built mindmaps for:

What I found while developing the last mindmap about 21st Century Literacies, as well as another workshop mindmap about my teaching/course organization philosophy (below), is that my outlining my thoughts, ideas, notes, and thinking in this application, I usually make connections I did not see before.

On the one hand, I’m not surprised by this! This is what all the proponents of mind and/or cluster mapping talk about; however, as one of those more linear thinkers that succeeded in a school system that privileged linear thinking...I had never found much of a use for mindmapping. What is now fun is that I have to try to convince my colleagues that although they may think linearly and can’t imagine working in such an environment, they need to acknowledge that some of their students might work and think better with this type of a tool. In other words, we might be able to see students demonstrating learning in this environment in a manner that was not possible before. For example, I loved the variety of formats different students of my demonstrating in taking notes from the same five or six chapters of reading:

example 1
example 2
example 3
example 4

Similarly, instead of having students write up bad reflection essays or end of term papers, I gave them the option of presenting in MindMeister. Check out both this, and this, example; be sure to read the notes and open the nodes to see all of the thinking and writing that went into these documents. I had a few other students do great jobs with colors and uploading images.

I was also ecstatic to learn that MindMeister has a history/timeline tool that allows users who have view or edit access to the document to see who made what changes at what point within the timeline. This not only allows individuals to see earlier versions, but to revert to them as well. The timeline also provides the names of the users who made particular changes (think of what this might mean for collaborative assignments!).

This review of MindMeister is actually functioning as my demonstration of acquiring new skills for my 2010 Faculty Evaluation Plan; however, I am happy to rant and rave. I will be honest and say that Mindomo is also a great mind/cluster mapping tool that does a lot of the same things. At this point I can say that I will probably maintain my subscription (I guess it depends on my budget); however, I will definitely keep assigning these tools in my classes. I can’t wait to try an assignment where students use the ranking and due dates features as well.

CogDog, throw a girl a bone!

2010-02-23T18:19:00Z

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.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/ / CC BY 2.0

Keeping Organized

2010-01-26T23:21:00Z

My “life” is everywhere: desktop PC at home, mac laptop, 2 Google accounts (that I use a lot, of course more than two gmail addresses), a main blog, one Remember the Milk account, one delicious account, two Diigo accounts, more wikis than I remember, box.net, and thanks to @cogdog now Dropbox as well. This past fall I got the slap-in-the-face reminder from a tweet that basically said “everything needs to hang from your blog.” Whew...brilliant (and damn it, I already new that, but I needed the reminder).

Today, a colleague asked me how I keep everything “together.” I responded with a “LMAO.” Her question is kicking off my plans for this semester; this semester I’m trying to:

* go paperless (my partner calls me a pack mule)! We’ll see...however, I’m now also using Evernote to try to collaborate materials across my three machines (now including the Blackberry Storm). There are lots of blog posts about crafty ways to use Evernote.
* keep documents updated. Purchasing a larger account for Dropbox has been worth it to keep my two computers synced and then having everything accessible on the web if I’m on a different machine.
* get back to “hanging” everything from my blog. Although I do still like developing wiki sites for workshops, I’m going to start posting “announcements” or “reflections” on workshops I’m going to, or have, taught. I figure this will also start to develop a repository of workshops so when someone asks me what I have/can do...I don’t have to scratch my head anymore.

@shechelle, did that answer some of the question?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brewbooks/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Twitter as Communication Device

2009-12-28T15:02:00Z

So many people still don’t “get” Twitter because they don’t understand that Twitter is a two-way communications technology like email, instant messaging, and text messaging. In workshops about Twitter @befitt explicitly says that you need to stay active on Twitter for at least 3 months to decide whether or not it is working for you. I think this is a great idea. I think, however, sharing some of those “gems” of stories about how Twitter “works” are valid as well. This is such a story…
A couple of weeks before the end of the semester, I made plans with Shirley Rose, the Writing Program Administrator at Arizona State University, to meet with her for breakfast after the end of the semester. A week before we met, she emailed saying that she couldn’t make it unless we shuffled plans. We shuffled plans, which included me coming to pick her up before going to the restaurant. I got her address and phone number; we were ready to go!
Neither or us remembered to confirm our plans the day before our scheduled meeting. Before I left the house to go pick her up, I tweeted:

After we had settled at our table, Shirley asked me about my uses of Twitter. I briefly mentioned how both Twitter and Facebook are still very much “work” for me (I have not embraced them as much for the personal social connections) and I told her about how I like to use Twitter at conferences. We talked about back channeling (link to article in Chronicle/Inside Higher Ed) and various ways to incorporate the back channeling into presentations in productive ways. She then mentioned why she asked.
Like me, Shirley had realized we hadn’t confirmed and also realized she didn’t have my phone number. She went back to our email communications and noticed I had a link out to my Twitter account in the signature of the email. She linked out to my Twitter page, so my tweet (above), and knew I was on the way.
When I got home, I realized I had made a mistake in not checking my Twitter feed when I was with Shirley. I know I have followers who know “the WPA at ASU.” Two individuals had replied to me via Twitter, telling me to “say ‘hi’ to Shirley.” I then had to forward those well wishes on to Shirley in an email after the fact.

What I like about this story is that it not only shows that the power of Twitter is in two-way communication; but, that Twitter, like any other communications technology is not an independent tool. The conversations that emerge within social networking weave there way across synchronous and asynchronous as well as digital, analog, and real environments. To conclude, when folks (at this point it is usually small business owners and/or the students services folks in our colleges) ask me about whether they should do Facebook or Twitter, or which one to do first, I have to acknowledge that any environment they choose not to engage is a space where they’ll miss either parts of or entire conversations.

Warning for Instructors Using Wikis

2009-08-15T22:54:00Z

This morning while I was eating breakfast at Cracker Barrel (living up to the Time cover article’s statement about weakened will power, I had run 4.5 miles this AM and I was huuungry), I saw this “Be Careful Wet Paint” sign.

When I saw the words “wet paint” it got me thinking about Wetpaint wikis. And I started wondering if “Be Careful” is an appropriate warning for instructors who use wikis. And yes, I think it is! Basically, when using wikis, instructors are inviting students to mess with the website before the “paint” is dried. Once we unlock something, we give students the ability make changes to what we built, and we’ve got to be OK with the fact that they will be “messy” and end with something different then what we would have imagined. I think this is a good warning for instructors who use wikis; they have to accept that they are giving up authority in the classroom (or digital environment).
All this to say, this interpretation of “wet paint” as a warning to instructors using wikis is yet another reason I really like using Wetpaint wikis. Of course, my favorite reason is based the fact they track all members’ changes in the wiki (and discussion forums). This makes it much easier to do the grading thing!

Online Stopwatch: Instant Brilliance

2009-08-12T15:45:00Z

Ever have that moment where you see a new technology and just say “this is brilliant!”?

I was catching up on RSS feeds this morning (I want to know of anyone who is ever caught up with their RSS feed reading) and skimming the headlines for the Free Technology for Teachers blog. There was an entry for a ”Simple Time Management Tool” (and the queen of procrastination poked her head up for that). Basically he wrote about Online Stopwatch, a simple web-app that has a stopwatch feature and a count down feature. I CAN’T WAIT to incorporate this into my f2f classes and workshops. Brilliant I tell you! Do I really need to explain why?

My New Tech Toy: Oakley O Rokr Pro

2009-06-25T01:47:00Z

I’ve been busy this past year with getting the textbook published and finishing the dissertation. Busy enough that I barely blogged (obviously I’m trying to change that). And although many people assumed that I would see downtime after graduation, I’ve really been going mach 10 since mid-May. Last night, however, I finally had the time, energy, and money (yes, summer school does pay!) to reward myself for a year well done (did I say I finally finished my dissertation?). I got myself a pair of Oakley O Rokr Pros. They are Oakley glasses with built in blue tooth audio capabilities. I charged the glasses last night and synced them with both my Blackberry Storm and Mac Book Pro today. It was a BLAST chatting with @Befitt on Skype through the mac and sunglasses.

Once of my “projects” this summer is to do some reading and research on mobile devices. I’ve been wanting a new headset for recording stuff on the computer and I’m excited that I now have that AND another pair of Oakleys (yeah, you didn’t realize I already had 7ish pairs of the babies?). But I’m also excited that getting these has got me thinking about how “mobile” devices is more than our phones but also can include audio recording pens and flip cameras.

Drop.io’s Present.io is Cool

2009-06-01T04:35:01Z

I’m finally playing catch up with my RSS feeds and I’m excited to say I’ve started flipping though the LONG lists of “new techs” be talked about in various blogs. Currently I’m reading through Free Technology for Teachers. Now I had already used Drop.io this past semester for my HUM/WST209: Women and Film course. But I was excited to read about that Drop.io had a presentation mode. I’ve played around with it a bit and basically it allows you to emphasize different posts, or drops, within the drop.io page. So it would work great to go over documents, etc. Drop.io also gives a conference call number for folks to be on a group call. This is not Elluminate or Adobe Connect (esp. no screen sharing capabilities); but it could work for stuff. Even if it just worked to demo how a group would continue to use Drop.io for a collaborative project.

Living the Philosophy

2008-05-19T14:55:00Z

Now that I’m a little less busy (only a little… I really wish these folks who know nothing about education would so get over the idea that we “vacation” for 3 months of the year, yeah, right!), I’m starting to try to get back into the groove of posting to my Twitter, my blog, etc. I’ll admit, being friends for @soul4real can be a little intimidating. According to a tweet by either @cogdog or @nooccar she is in the top five tweeters in the Phoenix metro area. And let me tell you, this woman is productive, both personally and professionally. Although I feel like I’m pretty dang productive, I feel shamed in comparison.
... what seems like a random transition ...
So as I’m getting ready to go off to the 2008 Computers & Writing conference, I’m asking for bios from the panelists of a session I’m moderating. One of the panelists is talking about Open Source as a philosophy that we have to model within our lives. Thinking about this panel, along with the emphasis on “transparency” we’ve had at Mesa CC this past year, it’s made me realize the how and why I’m not “super-tweeter” like @soul4real ... FEAR!
This past year in discussions with various faculty members I’ve stressed the point that if we were open and transparent about our teaching, it would mean we would have to always acknowledge it as a process, and as such there are good and bad days, revisions, etc. Obviously we know this is the same with life; however, with tools like Twitter (and in this instance I’m referring to it as a micro-blogging tool, I know others disagree) there is the possibility of being open and transparent about everything we do! But do I want to share all of my fears, frustrations, and breakdowns as well as the victories and excitements? Or, can we strike a balance?
As I write this I begin to realize that like any other blog, Twitter can function as a focused output tool. Heck, @befitt used Twitter in one of her classes with very specific goals and purposes. Maybe the balance is deciding on a focus for when I’ll specifically make sure to be tweeting? Ultimately, I do believe we do need to live our philosophy, or walk the talk; however, I also do think we have some rights to privacy (or just plain having a bad day).

PMOG Motivates Me

2008-05-17T22:39:00Z

I’m excited to be more actively exploring new technologies again. The other night when I couldn’t sleep one of the people I always look to for finding out about new technologies was my good friend and constant twitterer CogDog was playing around with PMOG. Yippy...I’m so excited about this tool! I’ve been wanting to, and will now that I’ve got the super motivator, write curriculum for an intro to gaming class. Yeah, yeah...your snarky laughs are the same ones people gave a couple decades ago when faculty started introducing intro to film classes. And which of my classes make enrollment with no problem…
Anyhow...back to The Passively Mutliplayer Online Game (PMOG), it’s a game (you earn points, etc.); however, it also allows you to build “missions” that other “players” can take as well. Although I’m still having difficulties getting the Maricopa Tech mission I’ve been trying to build to work; I’m excited about the possibilities of this technology. It will give the intro to gaming class a tool that everyone can “play” and with the building mission feature I can have students “build” mini-games on their own. How exciting! Keep an eye out for when I start developing the curriculum, I’m going to try to make more use of my sites wiki and discussion board features this summer...so you all will be able to help me build.

Socializing Kids

2008-01-14T21:03:00Z

My partner in scholarly crime gave me a Webkinz frog for the holidays. She knows that I like to play with various online technologies and generally sign up for most social networking sites to see what they can do. While we were at NCTE we briefly talked about how her nieces and nephew play with Webkinz; thus, the reason I got one for the holiday.

So I happily went to the Webkinz website to get started. I was amused by Miss Birdie and got cranky listening to her when I just wanted to hit the “accept” button and move on. However, I was stopped cold in my tracks when I got the page to enter my name. They wouldn’t take my name…what? It had a “bad” word in it. I was frustrated at 33; I would have been crushed at 8! Come on…Shelley is my legitimate name. Even my “real” real name, Rochelle, still has “hell” in it. And you are telling me it is a “bad” name.

This gets me thinking about some of the extreme measures that institutions have taken in regards to FERPA. Whereas I agree it is important to protect our children and our students, I also think it is are job to “socialize” them. Included in that socialization is the need to take responsibility for one’s own actions and how they relate to individual identity construction. For example, a course assignment is not the course grade and therefore should be allowed to have some “public” components to it. And if that course assignment is a blog, why not ask students to make it public and give them warnings of using pseudonyms and such? And if a student is really uncomfortable with being that public (my students who work in the banking field are always my favorite security examples), make a private work around. Similarly, shouldn’t sites like Webkinz allow for a parent to request that a child’s real name be accepted? I’m not the only Shelley, Shelly, Shellie, etc. (and the all have “hell”) out there! Part of this “socialization” is recognizing that rules do not always fit the same and context is important and should be accounted for.

Evolutionary Trends of Social Bookmarking Tools

2007-10-11T06:40:01Z

For the past couple years I’ve repeatedly told everyone who would listen that a social bookmarking is one of the “ah-ha” and “you must have one” tools for academics. I started out swearing by Furl because it cached pages. I still like this element when I’m working with writing students working on research projects. However, Furl is a lot less usable than del.icio.us. I’ve since become a devout user, and assigner to my students, of del.icio.us and still happily add to it daily; currently 1340 bookmarks.
I have realized though that there are emerging elements to bookmarking that are extremely useful like the web page annotation feature of Clipmarks and the social ranking of Digg. And it’s just plain cool that there is now an image bookmarking site, FFFOUND! Of course you can track my fascination with bookmarking tools via my bookmarking tool. I think that these criteria for evaluating bookmarking tools also help demonstrate the evoluation of the newer ones.
Although I was happy to switch from Furl to del.icio.us in my writing course, I’ve been seeking for something that will help students recognize that one of the benefits of these tools is folksonomic tagging and making connections to other resources via the tagging. I was excited to see this Webware blog about Diigo adding a social networking element to their bookmarking service. Although it is possible to make “social” connections (follow resource and tags) in del.icio.us, it will be interesting to see if Diigo emphasizes these connections in such a way that my students will more easily “see” them.

Encouraging Digital Media

2007-07-25T23:44:00Z

I’m trying to more systematically work in the reading, reflecting, and sometimes responding (if it’s an online text with a response space) to various scholarly texts. You know, keeping up with the profession. Of course, trying to follow multiple disciplines is difficult, but it keeps me out of trouble (kinda sorta). Today I read Debra Journet’s (2007) “Inventing myself in multimodality: Encouraging senior faculty to use digital media” (Computers and Composition, 24, 107-120). Obviously this will be something that will be extremely useful in wrapping up the dissertation! I really liked the following points:
1. The challenge of learning the technology is generally easier than the challenge of figuring how/why it will better facilitate learning in w writing class (p. 110).
2. “One needs technological know-how, and one one also needs a scaffold--prior knowledge, experience, a theoretical framework--on which to build something new “ (p. 112).
3. The need to both “learn by doing” and learn on a “meta-level” that makes connections across “a complex system of interrelated parts” (p. 114).
4. The acknowledgment that once you start teaching with technologies your classes may have “rough edges for a long time--if not forever” (p. 116).

The article also lists four suggestions for engaging “senior” faculty with new technologies. I’m thrilled that they seem to jive with what I’ve learned in my dissertation study as well as with what I’ve learned via experience:
1. engage intellectually and value experience
2. get them to use it for themselves and analyze that use (don’t immediately jump to teaching with)
3. facilitate creativity and fun
4. consider “longer, intensive professional development experiences that balance theory and practice” (p. 117)

On a quick side note, I was surprised by the anecdotal format of the article. Interestingly, that was meta-commented upon by Journet. I know that the field of computers and writing has worked very hard to move beyond “anecdotal” reporting of experiences of certain technologies. Although I agree there needs to be more empirical work, I also think it is important that we continue to have a balance between empirical with more critical reflective pieces. I’m glad to see C&C published this piece!

Inherent Value?

2007-07-11T19:25:00Z

< rant >
IMHO, this article was a waste of publication. Well duh that podcasting doesn’t have inherent pedagogical value and that the context (teacher, environment, students, etc.) and how/why it is implemented impact its pedagogical value. I guess I’m just surprise that people out there still believe any technology has inherent pedagogical value. Whereas I’m the first to agree that technologies do have ideological baggage from their initial purpose (i.e.Windows GUI environment privileges a WASP middle class, etc. perspective that understands traditional “office” metaphors); however, I also believe a lot of technologies can be very consciously repurposed...which is exactly what happened with podcasting and iTunes.
< /rant >