Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Ups and Downs

I’ve been thinking a lot about technology and limits – that is, how far should I stretch my digital literacy in public, or, put another way, how much can I embarrass myself with digital faux pas in class and still maintain enough credibility and authority to make the evaluative decisions I must as the class instructor?
 
As the last person of the day in the special technology room in the ILC on Tuesdays, I’ve been trying to figure out how to turn everything off. I am not always successful and may be responsible for shortening the lifespan of the projector. Sigh. It would seem that turning things on and off is a basic technology skill mastered by pretty much all humans tall enough to reach a light switch (a skill that can be acquired by some non-humans as is evidenced by smart pet videos on YouTube). Apparently not. I’m adding to my to-do tech list this week: Figure out how to turn the projector off!
 
My inability to perform this simple task is undermining my confidence somewhat in the much trickier digital technology project I’m undertaking: Incorporating Twitter into the research process for an 8-10 page paper requirement in my English 102 class. We began last week with an in-class workshop where everyone present was able to sign up for an account and (mostly) follow each other and try out the format. I will be following up with students tonight to see how researching within the social media network site went on their own.
 
Essentially, students are required to find and follow Twitter handles that appear to be related to their areas of inquiry and/or their service learning agencies. I went through and saw that most students had found a number of accounts to follow. The question remains: Will this yield any useful information? Will this be a useful assignment? Will students be able to transfer this activity to other types of research they will do in their personal and professional lives?

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

SMART moves

This week’s digital learning in the ILC was literally hands-on: I had students demonstrate how they found the best sources for their Annotated Bibliographies using the SMART board. I still feel a bit like I’m in the matrix when I stand in front of the thing and make the sweeping arm gestures necessary to move the virtual keyboard to the corner or scroll up and down a web page. As with most new technology, practice – and trial and error – helps you feel more comfortable and less like a fool when you use it.

One of my goals in teaching with the SMART board is to give students the opportunity to try it out. Since I’m constantly making minor errors and accidents, they should feel more comfortable being put on the spot. There is no expectation of perfection in trying out new technology in my classroom!

I am beginning my Twitter-as-a-research tool assignment next week and plan to incorporate the SMART board into that sequence as well. I also think it might be useful in demonstrating revising short passages of text.

Anyone else use a SMART board in teaching writing and/or research? Any best practices?

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Procrastination

I have been meaning to post to this blog for months -- where does the time go? Oh, yeah, into the belly of procrastination!

I am teaching English 102 (College Research and Writing) in a technology-enhanced classroom this semester and had planned on making an entry each week (after each of my weekly classes) about the pros and cons of using the different technology available. It is now the fourth week of the semester, and I have yet to post.

Last night in class, I took advantage of the two screens to show a few Superbowl ads to talk about cultural assumptions and how the argument of each ad relies on its creators having knowledge of a specific cultural context and audience (just like students will need to as they work on their Research Arguments). I also used class time to help a number of students who are behind (doh!) get caught up. To help them in the class -- and myself -- in keeping procrastination at bay, we watched this nifty little video.

I thought I would share and make a public committment to stop procrastinating and honor my goal of writing more about digital technology in the classroom!