Worker\’s Playtime!

I just left a 2-hour meeting with a group committed to shaping the mission and vision for academic technology.  It’s very encouraging because we’re all pretty much on the same page and believe that we need to communicate our values about teaching and learning before we begin to have conversations about applications, hardware, enterprise systems, open source, networks, and other things technology. It goes even deeper then that though. You can identify and communicate your values all you want but if you don’t have the support of the administration then your project is sure to sink.  We have support though - heck, our Provost is leading the charge!

At some point we will have to have a bigger discussion that addresses assumptions about learning and teaching and the neomillenials. I’m sure it will be…invigorating . I’m just brainstorming here but we might pose the questions below to help ease into the conversation to help reduce any friction between traditional approaches to education and the diverse ways in which learning occurs:

• What will your class look like in 20 years?
• What do you wish you could do?
• What do you wish your students could do?
• What is a generation in technology?
• What is a generation for a building?
• What is a generation in curriculum?

We’ll see where we land with this but in the meantime we’re turning the ship!

Wow, it’s July….JULY…already! It’s time for reflection and annual reports.

So much has happened at KSC that it’s hard to take a fair inventory of the changes that have happened over the year. Listing them hardly seems interesting. Singling out one, two, or even five events subtly means that something left out is somehow less significant. Not true. For instance I really don’t want to talk about e-Portfolios because that ‘project’ was tough, it was very tough, and by all indications it was not successful (see how I side step the word “fail”? I just can’t bring myself to say it failed).  We do have a better strategy for the coming year and we have shared our challenges with colleagues at conferences so I feel some relief in knowing that other folks can choose a less bumpy path.

The year has been rewarding but if I had to single out two major coups, one would be the hard work that we (two talented colleagues and me) did to create an academic technology Vision for KSC. It’s still very much a draft but it’s significant in that at its core it speaks of our values. No, not how we value technology but how we value learning and engagement. Technology is merely a pathway to learning and engagement pedagogies. Phase two of the process brings together a committed group charged with creating an academic technology plan (with the draft Vision as the backdrop) that will guide decisions and initiatives.  We’re headed to Orlando in 2 weeks to participate in a working conference that will help identify academic technology priorities. I’m not too excited about the heat and humidity of a Florida summer but I’m really looking forward to the conference and what we bring back to campus.

The “center” is the other significant development that will have a huge impact on KSC. The Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) is now official after much hand wringing (mostly on my part!). I was first made aware of the “center” concept last summer where the idea of a place for faculty professional development, student support, service learning and technology was still being batted about. I witnessed the growth process and how the “center” idea went through a metamorphosis to finally land on something that speaks volumes about KSC and our direction.

“The Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching will provide resources and experience to support deeper learning, effective teaching, and community and professional engagement at Keene State College…
…We want to support a community of learners, where faculty, staff, and students can share ideas, transform curriculum, and deliver education through action”.

CELT will be critical in helping talented people work together to find new approaches to solving problems. KSC has an abundance of dedicated, intelligent people who are eager to make our institution shine and with CELT and campus leadership the sky is the limit!

So today was the day that the ATSC (academic technology steering committee) held an information forum on the college’s Academic Technology Vision that Mike Caulfield (http://mikecaulfield.com), Irene Herold, and I drafted last fall. The idea is that the document will help inform requests, initiatives, and plans involving academic technology so that they align with the mission and values of the college. What an idea, eh? But it goes beyond just alignment. At its core it’s about learning, teaching, and transparency. Period.

We posted our work on a public wiki and invited comments…from anyone. We received a few on the wiki, some via email, while others found it easier to talk face-to-face over coffee. All in all we probably had a dozen or so people who gave us input or asked for clarification. After the first flurry of feedback the document sat…and sat. 3 months later we (ATSC) held an open forum to discuss the document, how it would be used in the planning process, and how this vision might be pulled in and applied to classroom strategies. To be honest I think most of us were expecting 6, 8, 10 people at the most to show up. We had over 40 people attend! We were blown away by the number and encouraged by some of the questions and comments.

There was a lot of interchange about how the vision might or might not support the following: the desire to revisit funding structures for software, the exploration of a student laptop initiative and what that might mean for IT support, faculty pedagogy, financial aid, etc., and support for faculty to find ways in which technology could strengthen learning. I understand why there was focus on process and how to “get stuff” but I hope this leads to broader conversations and an exchange of ideas about pedagogy, learning and how technology can be used to support both.

Again, the conversation was interesting but the following two items resonated with me:

• There is a real need for people to be able to come together to share and talk about their experience using technology in their teaching/with student learning/in their professional development.
  • I think this could be done a number of ways including brown-bag luncheons, however, I think this limits the audience/participants and further tightens already-too-tight work schedules. So to model sound and innovative use of technology we should think about blogs or other social space that would encourage conversations and provide examples (Ning anyone?)

• There is an assumption that students are born tech-savvy and intrinsically “do technology”.
  • If ‘doing’ technology means surfing the web, packing an iPod, or setting up a gmail account then yes, students are probably tech savvy. But if students struggle with sending a coherent email or creating a Word document then we have a problem. But this has nothing to do with technology. It’s a communication, presentation and collaboration problem - skills needed in the 21st century work place. While I think some support can be offered to help address these deficiencies I think it would better serve the student if solving the skill gaps were core to their experience at KSC (service learning, community service - i.e. grappling with real problems and designing real solutions with technology as a backdrop). By doing this students are refining their skills in context of life after KSC.

It’ll be interesting to see where this vision ultimately lands and what academic technology plan(s) it breeds.

I just returned from sleuthing in search of examples of student multimedia projects with an academic purpose. It’s amazing to think that I thought first to use Google to find examples, (and I did find some good ones!), when stellar examples were right here under foot!

Tracy Mendham teaches English at Keene State and is well into the throws of her revamped English 101 class: Thinking and Writing 101 “A Blog of One’s Own: Women and Authorship in the Digital Revolution.”

“This course examines the ways in which information technology is reshaping the relationship between reader, writer, and text, and the role of women’s voices in the digital revolution…A semester-long research project will challenge you to explore and respond to a chosen topic related to social computing as a means of empowerment for women and other marginalized groups. Participation in group discussions and contribution to online weblogs and podcasts will aid in your development as self-aware participants in public discourse.”

It’s important for teachers to take advantage of the passion of students for learning by tapping into the digital environment they are familiar with. Tracy is modeling the best of academic use of technology by using a class blog to facilitate discussion and she takes it a step further by requiring students to blog and develop a podcast. Have a look at the developing blogs by her and her students: http://keeneweb.org/tmendham

JENNY