Wednesday, August 15, 2007

faculty and staff orientation at anne arundel community college

i'm in maryland where tomorrow i'll be part of anne arundel community college's faculty and staff orientation. i'm giving a talk and leading a discussion around "college campus 2.0: integrating offline learning and online creating." instead of using paper handouts, i'll be using this blog post.

part one: our students


part two: two articles and one short blurb from "the arts" section of yesterday's new york times.
  1. "still vital, 'on the road' turns 50" - from penny vlagopoulos, columbia university: "I still think it's a rite-of-passage novel. The whole idea of the freedom of the open road is still very much alive for young people." from bill savage, northwestern university: "Undergraduates can really relate to it because they live in such a mediated world with the Internet, the cellphone and the iPod."

  2. "they've just got to get a message to you" - jeff leeds: "On Gwen Stefani's recent tour, as many as 20 percent of the audience at some shows agreed to pay 99 cents for text messages and the chance to win better seats, according to the mobile marketing company Impact Mobile. At festivals like Lollapalooza, thousands of fans sign up to receive continuous updates from concert organizers about promotions and special events."

  3. "another radio station for new york and web" - "WFUV says it has been awarded a $500,000 grant from the New York State Music Fund to support the development of a second full-time radio station for listeners in their 20s and 30s, which will emphasize independently and locally produced music. [The station] will be available via the Internet at wfuv.org and mobile streaming audio and, in the New York area, as a high-definition radio channel at 90.7 FM."
part three: learning offline, creating online: five examples
  1. telling stories with photographs

  2. when one class meets another

  3. exploring the archive

  4. learning to listen

  5. conversations as collections

update: a bad photo (taken by me) of some great educators.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey david,

loved the presentation--totally kept my mind off frantically working on my syllabi.

you inspired me to have my latin american culture & civ students do something useful this semester (as opposed to a research paper). since they are all in the teacher education program to become high school spanish teachers, their final projects will be teaching units on culture that they can use next year when they student teach. i imagine several of them will involve....digital media.

now get your students off campus! do they know that they live in the coolest city on the continent??

thanks!

Anonymous said...

Hi David!!

Your presentation today totally rocked!! You got the gears turning in my head. I teach in Architecture and Construction Management at AACC. We are embarking on a remarkable pathway to online learning this semester with our first hybrid course...and I am teaching it!! While I am excited for this opportunity, I've been a little nervous with this new pedagogical approach to teaching for our department. Putting architecture courses online is no small feat. Your idea of "logging off" to reflect thoughts and discussions becomes a key element for the ideas to flow. Our students are so anxious to get onto "CAD" that they fail to understand that they need to learn the "pain" of drawing buildings by hand. It gives a greater appreciation, a great reflection of how the line is constructed, it's weight, intensity, thickness. In the computer, these charachteristics are not easy formed, it's just a digital raster image. How can one appreciate a digital line without first understanding how it was created in the first place, the pressure of the hand, the type of lead, the non-preciseness only created by the human factor.

Your talk with us today put things into perspective about "what" are students are... plugged in!! I took my 15 year sister recently to the Nickleback concert this summer. I swear she spend more time taking pictures of her and her friend using the camera phone or texting her other friend that was 4 rows from the front than actually enjoying the show. I finally took her phone away. As a mom of two young girls, 6 and almost 2, I can tell you that the computer is off in our house. Neither one of them gets face-time with the computer at home; I believe in constructive creativity, wood blocks, bristle blocks, pretend play. They have their whole life to get onto a computer! I often take this approach in my classes; just "unplug", sit back, listen, soak it in and reflect, discuss, engage.....

You inspired me to take a different approach this fall on some of my class projects. For instance, in my Materials and Methods class, I am sending the students out with digital video cameras to make a "media production" of houses under construction. Each student will be assigned a different phase of the construction (foundation, wood frame, electrical, plumbing, finishes) and will document the process and describe what is happening, what materials are used and the why behind the use of materials and sequence of construction. I'm jazzed about this new approach... stay tuned.

Your talk today generated an innovative and productive conversation during our department lunch meeting. We're now looking at revamping some courses to reflect more digital media upfront in the curriculum to keep it interesting, fun and engaging. We are using the approach of appreciation of architecture, analysis of architectural elements creating an opportunity for discussion and "reflection". And we're going to do this using both low tech and high tech means of communication.

BTW-this is my FIRST blog entry, so you inspired me to reflect using a "high tech" method. thx!!

Anonymous said...

it was interesting to watch the reaction of my colleagues. you are right. 1/2 of us were rockin' with you and the other half were probably thinking "omigod...another leftwing academic nut...when's lunch?" i love field-trips. always have. getting students to teach each other is the core of what i do. or at least try to do. your passion for your work is infectious. thanks for sharing. btw, hope your driver got you to bwi okay.

conductorguy @ aacc

Anonymous said...

Hi David,
Your presentation was a breathe of fresh air!
I’m a big fan of incorporating online activities with English as a Second Language instruction. Your experience with the digital journalism class has inspired me to create a blog with my students this fall. Thanks!

BTW… I’m also into organic gardening and noticed the photos of your container garden. Here’s a link to some info re: container veggie gardening provided by U of M master gardeners. Good luck with the organic garden on campus!
http://mastergardener.umd.edu/GardeningTopics/ContVegeGardening/index.cfm

Anonymous said...

first, thanks for all the comments and feedback! it was a real pleasure being part of your orientation and i'm thrilled that some of the ideas we discussed are being translated into real projects in the classroom. excellent.

second, it's exciting to see these ideas finding resonance in different disciplines - latin american culture and civ, architecture and construction management, ESL. so often we academics talk and share ideas solely among others in our own fields: it's exciting and rewarding to swap ideas that don't belong to this field or that field.

third, conductorguy - the driver got me safely to the airport with yet another rant ... er, discussion.

unfortunately, a link the u of maryland's excellent page on container gardening seemed to have gotten cut off. for those interested, check it out here. this looks like a great resource - thanks anonymous for sending it along!

i hope AACC faculty and staff will continue sharing their ideas and brainstorms. and remember - more fieldtrips!

=)

Anonymous said...

What a kick-ass presentation. As a new faculty member, I totally dug it and could not agree more with some of the points you made.

I teach web and graphic design. A big part of our discipline is sitting in front of a computer screen, plugging away at a design or illustration or video. Your presentation made me think a bit more out of the box (ie, why cant thumbnail sketches for wireframes be done outside in a garden?).

I'm working on some field trips myself - visits to Design Studios and Agencies, Printers, and some museums in the area.

One of the things I did think of after the presentation - you talked about Facebook quite a bit. I wanted to share some thoughts on using Facebook for keeping in touch with students.

One of our challenges at the community college is student retention. We have alot of transient students, part time students, etc. I plan on using Facebook to connect with my students in one other way (posting deadlines, information on new classes, etc) and also, to keep in touch with students who may have fallen off the radar.

In addition, it's a great way to keep in touch with new grads, who once in the working world, might be a great networking point for students for internships, first jobs, etc.

Again, thanks so much for your time and for visiting us way out here on the East Coast :)

Anonymous said...

Frm Trish:
BIG thnks. To David. Your goodwill beams forth. FYI: Last concert seen? Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention in Baltimore.

Anonymous said...

jenn - thanks for the feedback! (and, btw, your own web work is excellent; AACC students are lucky to learn from you.) i'll be eager to hear about your experiences with facebook. it's a fascinating platform, one that is interwoven into so much of our students' everyday lives. please let me know how you use it and how it goes!

trish - zappa and the mothers in b'more is easily the coolest "last concert seen" i've heard in a while. thanks to you, and thanks to cindy, for making my visit happen.