After nine years on Blogger, I’ve ported all my posts to here. I moved because I’m working to consolidate my digital identity at http://mcclurken.org/ (as part of UMW’s Domain of One’s Own project) and because almost all of my blogging in the classroom has been oriented around WordPress. It was time to move.
So, if you’re still following me on Blogger, please switch your feed to the new site (http://techist.mcclurken.org/feed). [And look for a new post here with some news in the near future.]
So, a semester’s work of work comes down to tomorrow. As I’ve discussed before, my Women’s History since 1870 course has spent the semester researching and creating a classroom from the mid-20th Century.
The students in the class spent the first half of the semester working on research in the primary sources of the school, especially those resources in our Special Collections department. They created the following sites for each decade
This week I was flattered to join the cast of bloggers at Prof. Hacker, a site that focuses on productivity, technology, and teaching. My first post was on Deploying Students as Tech Mentors. I hope I can keep up with the productive group of people assembled there….
New blog and new blog post on me “building” stuff. You’ve been warned.
[The new blog will not be posted to often (due to time constraints on the projects, not on the blogging). Blogging will resume in this space in the near future.]
I woke up this morning to find 18 of my blog posts had been comment spammed with what looks like Chinese characters and links. [No comments about the need to move to WP please; I’ve seen WP anti-spam plug-ins fail much more often than Google’s software.]
So, why is this a good thing? As I went back to each post that had spam on it I was reminded of a number of posts that I’ve written over the last few years. Now, I’ve been meaning to go back and read over my ideas anyway, to get a sense for how my thinking has changed (“evolved” seems too strong 🙂 over time.
That review reminded me of a number of posts that I’ve wanted to write, others that I wanted to follow up on, and a sense of the comments and community that I’ve been missing out by not blogging lately. [Some of that interaction has been replaced by Twitter, which has been very useful, but also does not encourage me to write as much, or as thoughtfully.]
So, I’m hoping to push out a blog post or two in the next few days; and I’m going to think about how I’m going to use both Twitter and the blog to explore and engage further with the larger community I’ve come to depend on.
So, I’ve gratefully accepted an invitation to speak at WordCamp Ed DC 2008 on “Teaching Undergraduates with Blogs” at GMU’s Center for History and New Media on Saturday, November 22. If you’re in the area, come check it out. [Heck, it’s free!]
I’m planning on talking about my uses of WordPress (MU) blogs in various classes. So, WordPress as: CMS-alternative, research log, reading reaction journal, individual project site, “permanent” group project site, and potential e-portfolio. Then I’ll discuss how students have responded to the process, maybe show a few good examples of students taking it to the next level.
Any suggestions for my talk? Issues to raise? Points to ponder?
This has been a busy school year for me (hence the long absence of this blog) and this semester is no different. Still, I wanted to talk about this semester a bit as it begins, if only to remind myself later what I hope to accomplish. [Maybe I’ll find time a little later for a recap of what worked and what didn’t in the blogging I used with two of my classes last semester.]
Major projects this semester:
The wiki-based discussions worked really well last fall and last spring and I look forward to using those again. [I introduced the concept of posting comments about the primary sources readings to a group wiki to my survey class which started today and one student asked, with some measure of disbelief, “Has that actually worked before?” When I told him that this was the third semester and the fourth class I’d used this technique with (and that the previous ones had been very successful), he seemed surprised.] Still, at least some in the class were intrigued (and a couple had already posted just a few hours later).
The digital history class is my biggest new project and the point that I’m most interested in laying out here. A little background first: I have wanted to teach a history and new media class since I started adjuncting in 1999. For a variety of reasons (tenure not the least of them) I haven’t managed to get to it. I decided last year that I would teach the class this semester, as a 400-level history department seminar. I began talking to our excellent colleagues in DTLT almost a year ago and we began meetings last fall that started to lay the groundwork for this class. The class as I imagine it won’t easily happen without their help.
So what is the class and what are my goals for it? Well, here’s the course description:
This seminar will focus on the process of creating digital history. The course readings, workshops, and discussions expose students to the philosophy and practice of the emerging field of History and New Media. The course will be centered on the creation of four digital history projects, all of which are related to making local resources available online. These projects include the creation of an online presence for the James Monroe Papers, the construction of a site expanding on the state historical markers in the Fredericksburg area, the expansion of digital work previously done on James Farmer’s presence on campus, and the building of a digital exhibit for UMW’s Centennial.
The roster is made up of mostly seniors, but also juniors and a sophomore or two. I’ve already surveyed their digital interests, comfort level, and self-reported digital skills (maybe more on that later). We’ve already chosen which projects each student will work on over the course of the semester. Almost every student has already created a blog on UMWBlogs and a del.icio.us account of their own. And we haven’t met yet.
Check out the syllabus and the course site for more on the schedule and the rough outlines I’ve laid out for each group project here. [I should say that I’ve been inspired in the formation of this class by the work and graduate teaching of digital historians Dan Cohen and Bill Turkel, neither of whom I’ve met, but whose work I’ve been able to follow in a particularly New Media way. Equally important has been the work and encouragement of someone I have met (at Faculty Academy last year), namely Barbara Ganley, whose words, blogging, and teaching continue to influence the pedagogical choices I make.]
I’m incredibly excited to teach a class I’ve wanted to teach in some form for my entire professional teaching career. But I’m also nervous. Nervous because I want the students to be able to choose some of the path the course takes. Nervous because I don’t know quite where that means we’ll end up. Nervous to ask many different people (from DTLT, from other faculty departments, from other parts of the institution) to work with me and these students on something that might not look very polished in the end. Nervous because I’m asking a lot of people to trust me that this will be worth it. None of that anxiety is stopping me from doing this class. Excitement overwhelms anxiety this evening before the first class. I hope that it will continue to do so throughout the semester.
I hope that the students in this class will read this (I know one of them will soon, but hopefully the others will find it too). I know some of them are nervous as well. Good. I know that some of them don’t feel like they know what they’re doing. Good. I know that the class as a whole, and as groups, and as individuals, will struggle at times this semester to figure out what it is that their projects and this class is about. Good. I don’t mean that I want them to flounder without purpose. I will be there (with the support of some of the best educators I know) to support them and help them find their own way.
But that’s just it. I want them to find their own way. I could (and have) assigned digital projects where everything that students did was scripted for them. [And many of them have turned out really well.]
But I don’t want that this time. Or, I should say, I want more than that this time. I have given the students broad outlines of digital projects as starting places with some basic structures, and what I see as key components, but I’m not going to dictate what they should do. I’ve arranged with Martha, Jerry, Andy, Patrick, and Jim to provide students with a digital toolkit, an array of possible tools with which to approach those projects, but I’m not going to tell them which tools they have to use. I’ve arranged to have expert faculty come and talk to a few of the groups about their projects, but those faculty aren’t going to determine the students’ projects either.
Those people who still follow this blog after its long absence, I hope you’ll check out the course blog, the syllabus, the students’ blogs narrating their work, and the projects as they begin to emerge. I, and the students, will benefit from your comments and suggestions.
Martha has asked over at the Fish Wrapper, what kind of bloggers we are, with the goal of complicating the notion of any one style or method or purpose of blogging. [She’s right, I do tend to think of blogging as more or less the same. This is another case of us confusing the technology with the conversation.] I’ll answer Martha’s questions for myself below.
Generally, are you an impetuous blogger? Or do you mull over an idea or post for hours, days, weeks before hand? Do you draft a post and then let it sit until you’ve had a chance to revise it multiple times, perfecting your language and point?
No, I’m a muller. I will let posts sit for months at a time. But, oddly, now that I think about it, not generally because I want to revise them more. I’m an impetuous drafter, writing blog posts as inspired, but I tend not to hit “Publish” on them very quickly. [Faculty Academy this year being an exception.] That has more to do with a deliberate (self)consciousness of my online presence than the care with which Barbara Ganley calls for in “slow blogging”.
Do you “collect” the references in your posts before you write them (if so, describe your system)? Or do you blog with 15 windows open, copying and pasting quotes and URLs, as needed?
15 tabs in Firefox (7 right now….)
Do you blog in the admin panel of your blog? Or do you use some third-party tool? If you use a tool, what features does it have that hooked you?
The admin panel. It’s worked pretty well for me.
Do you automatically consider placing images in your posts? Or does this not even occur to you, usually?
I don’t usually even think of it. I’m generally blogging about concepts, but I see Barbara and others do the same, but with pictures. I’ll have to think about this idea more.
Do you write posts and then delete them before clicking “Publish?” Or, by extension, do you have draft posts that have languished for days, weeks, months waiting for you to pull the trigger?
Yes, see above….
Do you feel compelled to blog on a schedule? Do you feel guilty when you don’t?
No, but I feel left out when I see lots of other people posting and I haven’t had time (or something to say).
Do you “craft” the experience of your blog, adding sidebar widgets and custom graphics to lure readers into your space?
I’ve added some sidebar stuff, but I’ve not thought about it as drawing readers in. After all, I tend to read other people’s stuff in Google Reader (and generally visit their blogs only to comment), so I tend not to worry as much about the reader’s Techist blog experience. [Maybe I’d have more readers if I did…. :-]
Martha and Laura‘s posts about this view of blogging and technology suggest we really need to work harder to clarify that these tools are just that, tools, and ways of furthering conversations, creating interactions, and reading, processing, and adding to, that torrent of information to which we all have access, and with which we all have to deal.
Jim and Claudia presented (neither for the first time at Faculty Academy) on an online literary journal created by one of her classes. Calling Nonce impressive does not do it justice. Check it out for yourself.
[Nearly 40 people crammed into the room to hear them–Standing Room Only….]
One particular point raised by Claudia that intrigued me was the notion of applying to change that particular class from 3 credits to 4, allowing for a “lab” component (or perhaps recognizing the increased time that developing and implementing some of these skills may take). [I’m aware that there are some complications related to campus expectations for what constitutes a four-credit course. Let’s set those aside for a second.] What do people think about the idea of a “digital lab” component for more credit?
Jeff McClurken
Wednesday and Thursday, May 16 & 17 at UMW’s College for Graduate and Professional Studies. See http://facultyacademy.org/blog07/ for more information.
My real blogging began about a year ago, soon after the last Faculty Academy. I’m presenting this year on my class-based wiki projects. Hope to see you all there.
