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Pathway to Pedagogy. Tracy Mendham, MFA Keene State College CELT Presentation March 28, 2008. A Technology-Infused Curriculum . Social computing as means of facilitating academic discourse and developing writing skills
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Pathway to Pedagogy Tracy Mendham, MFA Keene State College CELT Presentation March 28, 2008
A Technology-Infused Curriculum • Social computing as means of facilitating academic discourse and developing writing skills • My top three picks of social computing for general use in different courses • How to use them and why
So many websites, so little…dignity By Stabilo Boss, on Flickr
Academic culture “in my day” Academic discourse Testing ideas in face-to-face discussions to develop critical thinking “Face time” where when argues for an idea in a seminar or other semi-formal group discussion encourages identifying oneself with some Writing as a multi-stage process and a social process Academic culture today “Dancing bear” syndrome Grades primary motivation—college as a hurdle Classroom discussion either performance to meet requirements or to win a contest Writing alone and for the teacher in one draft Qualities I miss from my undergraduate days
Tools to extend the learning environment • Top Three Picks • Blogs • Instant messaging • Online social networks
Blogs • Model continuous, ongoing discussions • Links to other blogs and comments allow conversation and awareness of oneself as a member of a community of scholars • Build audience awareness—the reader becomes a fact, not a theory
IM • Instant Messaging ss the new phone… deal with it • Not as troublesome as you might think • It shows that you to be the caring, available, teacher that you are, and what long hours you work
Online Social Networks • Most students already understand them better than you do • Discussion forums with assigned questions encourage students to identify with what they say and compose thoughts before voicing them • Helps you learn students names and faces
What software needs to be for me • Free (for me and the students, if not for the school) • Something I can learn and teach without more than two formal training sessions • Students and other users don’t have to download anything • Cross-platform (Mac or PC) • Advances specific course goals
Keeneweb Pilot Program • Uses WordPress: • Two hours or more to learn • Powerful • Allows multiple pages • Feeds are easy • No ads • Choice of lots of template designs • Supported by KSC instructional technology folks • How: • Go to http://keeneweb.org and click “Sign me up!”
Simple as pie with a keene.edu or ksc.mailcruiser.com address
If you want a huge project you can have students create individual blogs
Or start out smaller:Have one blog, post questions for students to comment on
Ning Online Social Network • Free (if you can tolerate Google ads in sidebar) • Not Facebook or MySpace--Less distracting, new environment
Students can ask questions of a member (like my gracious speaker Laura Clawson)
My Advice • Stop worrying and learn to love the Web • Go to instructional technology brown-bag luncheons and instruction sessions even for tools you don’t know about or need yet • Have meetings with instructional technology liaisons and library liaisons (and listen to what they say) • Make teaching a learning experience for yourself as well as your students
More Information • Web 2.0: The Machine is Us/ing Us , a short video by cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch, and A Vision of Students Today • Worker’s Playtime (Jenny Darrow’s blog) • http://keeneweb.org/workersplaytime/ • Mike Caulfield • http://mikecaulfield.com/ • Web 2.0 Teaching Tools • http://web20teach.blogspot.com/
You Know Where to Find Me • http://academics.keene.edu/tmendham (academic website) • http://keeneweb.org/tmendham (T Blog) • tmendham@keene.edu • mendhamt on Meebo (instant messenger) • http://keenening.ning.com (Keene-Ning online social network) • http://del.icio.us/mendhamt/socialnetworking (explore my bookmarks on social computing) • http://del.icio.us/mendhamt/cool (explore my bookmarks of all things cool)