This fall I’ll be teaching a new course – its title keeps evolving, but we’ll be looking at the technologies and processes we use to mediate relationships online. The course will be held Monday evenings, from 6-8:30 in Manning 307. Apparently there was a little confusion over the date/time, so I wanted to set the record straight.
Aside from the title, there are a number of other things evolving about the course. Originally, I had designed the course as a semi-structured seminar, with a significant amount of dense reading. Doing my literature review, I’m officially tired of dense reading. I’ve also been inspired by a number of other educators, so I’m re-positioning the course as a much more hands-on, experimental tour of tools and technologies. We’ll still be examining the same themes, just using some different means to accomplish the ends.
Who has inspired me? Without a question, spending time with David Silver was deeply influential. His course on digital literacies opened my eyes to new ways to teaching and learning. Howard Rehingold’s series of videos on attention have helped me rethink classroom interaction. Trebor Scholz’s documentation and sharing of his course has opened up new perspectives (I was also always impressed with Trebor’s PPT’s – those must have taken forever to assemble!). Obviously, the list goes on – but all of this great work has inspired me to try something new, to break out of the traditional model, and to experiment a little.
More notes as the course progresses.
Tags: inls490
ooh, i’ll be eager to watch the syllabus grow and witness the class launch. i hope you’ll regularly blog your syllabus development.
trebor is in san francisco for a good portion of summer and it’s been nice to share ideas about teaching and research. i’m glad you’ve found his PPT’s – they are really a treasure chest of ideas. and the next time you make it out west, let’s you, me, and howard take a long walk-and-talk on mount tam.
good luck developing your course fred!
[...] As I previously discussed, my goal is to make the class interactive, informative and somewhat practical. To that extent, I’ve lightened the reading load in favor of a number of reflective assignments. I hope to do a good bit of hands on/demoing/testing of technologies, as well as bring in a number of guests. I’ll be reflecting on the process here at Unit Structures over the next few months. [...]