Emerging Technologies Consulting

Once upon a time, it was a novel idea to put a syllabus online.  Back during my first days of using the web for classes, I hand-constructed a web-based syllabus page.  A few years later, I contemplated, though never completely followed through on the idea of creating a truly multimedia syllabus.  My idea was that each assignment would not only consist of reading material, but would be illustrated by images or video that would also be part of the discussion.  So, for example, I was teaching Shakespeare and adadptations of Shakespeare and I wanted to include a snippet from Shakespeare in Love as well as a photo I had taken of the Globe Theatre in London to give students a clearer idea of what going to the theater was like in the 1600s.  But the task proved pretty onerous even as late as 2001 because taking clips of movies was hard, embedding them in a web site was harder, and I just didn’t have the time or patience to do that.  Having a rich syllabus is something worth striving for.  Although it certainly makes life convenient for students to have a downloadable (and printable) PDF, it seems like one should take advantage of the online medium at a higher level.

I haven’t quite achieved the multimedia syllabus yet, but since I’ve switched to using a blog platform as my course hub, I certainly have the ability to do so without the kind of effort I would have had to make in 2001.  What I have done, though, is to not put the whole syllabus online.  I usually break the course into thirds.  I may have a plan for the whole course, but I don’t reveal it to the students.  Having a syllabus online rather than as a pdf or other type of printable document allows me to change it on the fly and I do rather frequently.  I respond to the pace the students are going at and speed things up or slow things down.  Things happen, like I have to miss a class for illness or we decide to take a field trip somewhere that’s appropriate for the course, but which wasn’t originally planned.  I also try to be open about the fact that my syllabus, my structure for the course is simply my interpretation of how the course might be taught and so I leave room to change my mind, within the semester itself.   I have even, with great success, simply set aside a couple of weeks, give them a general theme and have had the students select appropriate materials or we’ve voted on them.  It means the students take on some responsibility for the course, deciding what it is they would like to know more about and through what medium.  Things like this could certainly be done with paper syllabi, but it seems online spaces allow so much more.  You could, at the extreme, have a wiki syllabus and let it be created throughout the semester.  That might be too unsettling for students and faculty alike, but imagine what might come out of it.  It could be a really intereting class.

So how do you create syllabi online?  What affordances does the online space offer you?

As you can probably tell from the links in the last post, I’m coming down from a trip to Paris.  Today is Bastille Day and because I was just in Paris a few days ago, I thought it appropriate to celebrate by cooking a few things.  I am, at this very moment, waiting for croissants to rise.

What I wanted to talk about, though, is language.  I took 4 years of French in high school and another couple of years in college, thinking I might even major in it.  That was 20 years ago.  I failed to seriously brush up on my French before we went, so although I tried to speak it a little, I got a lot of funny looks as people tried to decipher what I was saying.  Usually, they then switched to English, for which I was actually grateful and not in the least offended.  I had a slightly better experience 20 years ago when I took a trip to Paris in that my French was more current and I think I sounded a bit better, but still, I didn’t have to use it that much.  I gave someone the time.  I ordered bread (pain) and coffee (du cafe).  For more complex transactions, my friend, a fluent French speaker, did all the talking.  I find my lack of real knowledge about French, despite so many years of studying it, rather disappointing.  It would be nice to truly be able to speak the language.  I think two things kept me from really learning the language.  One, we did not speak French that much in class and two, when we did, it was not to ask directions or order food, it was about, as Eddie Izzard demonstrates so nicely–cats on chairs and monkeys on branches (La chat est sur la chaise et le singe est sur la branche.)  Mostly we learned to read French and to write it.  I actually read a Zola in French, but I don’t think I’m going to have a conversation with a waiter about that.  Now, I passed up a couple of opportunities that might have helped.  Every week, there was French table in the cafeteria where only French could be spoken.  Presumably, the conversations were about real things–what we were eating, what we were going to do on the weekend, etc.  By the time this came into my consciousness, I’d decided to drop French as a major.  I also could have gone abroad to France and studied.  Again, I’d dropped French before really exploring this option.

When I was in college, the Internet barely existed.  The web didn’t yet exist.  We barely even had computers, much less networked computers.  Now, though, there are many ways I could immerse myself in a language, thanks to the web.  I can read or watch French news or tv.  Better yet, you can actually have conversations over the net with real people.  The Mixxer is a site where one can find people to converse with in different languages.  I’ve signed myself up despite no forthcoming trips to Paris, alas.  But I’d like to not let my French die and next time I go to France, I’d like to avoid such funny looks.

Several of my Twitter friends pointed to this Wall Stree Journal blog post on how the Facebook generation will expect to work.  I think many of the tenets Hamel suggests are spot on.  I’d like to examine them in the context of education.  First, go read the article, then come back here.  Here are the points Hamel makes and below each one are my comments for the educational environment.

1. All ideas compete on an equal footing.

Instructors should value what students bring to the class and try to create an environment where the teacher isn’t the only expert in the room.  Both student and teacher bring value to the class on equal footing.  I try to point out when someone posts something interesting on our class blog that I didn’t know about or has an idea that didn’t occur to me in order to encourage the idea that student ideas are as important as mine.

2. Contribution counts for more than credentials.

The teacher at the front of the room obviously has more credentials than the students in the class, but teachers can work to encourage contribution from the students so that that is what’s valued in the class.  This is similar to #1 above, but  can be harder to overcome since students often look at credentials as a way of authenticating that the teacher’s contribution is more important.

3. Hierarchies are natural, not prescribed.

Again, because of the received dynamic of the teacher as the expert, this is a hard one to aspire to, but it is true that certain students seem to rise to the top of in-class or online discussion.   The thing to watch out for is that the ones who don’t get an opportunity to contribute.  I think in a classroom, one actually wants to eliminate hierarchies as much as possible.

4. Leaders serve rather than preside.

Approaching teaching as something your doing for the students rather than as some kind of power mongering (I’ve seen this very rarely anyway) can really make your classroom a thriving place for your students.  Offer articles for papers, offer to meet to discuss ideas, and come to the classroom expecting to learn something rather than teaching something.  There’s a balance to be struck, of course, in that you have a limited amount of time, but being generous with what time you do have can go a long way.

5. Tasks are chosen, not assigned.

I actually try to do this in most of my classes.  I don’t give topics for papers and sometimes give rather vague directives about page length, about image inclusion, etc.  I simply ask that it be argumentative and lean toward the academic rather than the casual.  This is very difficult for most students.  They’re used to doing what they’re told.  While assignments are generally necessary, giving students as much freedom within those assignments can help them learn how to choose tasks for themselves.

6. Groups are self-defining and -organizing.

Anyone who teaches has watched groups of students form–those who sit together every class, who comment on each other’s posts or in-class comments.  One can capitalize on this by assigning those students to group projects.  I’ve heard feedback from my students about our small groups that they like to choose their groups.  Sometimes it may be necessary to organize groups for a particular kind of experience, but consider at least trying to let groups form on their own.

7. Resources get attracted, not allocated.

In a classroom, this probably doesn’t apply, but in the larger context of an institution, it would be nice if resource allocation were open to an extent that allows people to gravitate toward interesting ideas.  Instead, there’s still a top-down allocation process.

8. Power comes from sharing information, not hoarding it.

In the classroom, I always try to be as open as possible and I encourage my students to be as well.  That’s why we blog in public.  I think it’s important for students to see each other’s work and ideas.  At the institutional level, it would certainly be good to have that kind of sharing of information.  Technology could help with this process, but most institutions I know of haven’t yet gotten to the point of being able or willing to share information across the institution.

9. Opinions compound and decisions are peer-reviewed.

I’ve done this in many classes, posted potential readings and assignments and let students choose.  I’ve also allowed them to change the direction of the course by voting on it.

10. Users can veto most policy decisions.

I’ve done this in class too.  It’s great when the students feel some ownership over the class.

11. Intrinsic rewards matter most.

This is a value I try to impart, but it’s very hard since many students are used to external rewards such as grades.  I, myself, like external rewards, but those can be very simple and usually I receive the greatest external rewards for projects that have had an instrinsic value for me.  I don’t have grades on individual assignments and I have students evaluate themselves, mostly focusing on what they learned from the class.

12. Hackers are heroes.

I celebrate the student who presents a contrary view–as long as they do so without hurting someone.  Class and blog discussions are most interesting when someone says, “I disagree and here’s why.”

What other ways can these principles play out in the classroom or in educational institutions?  These just came to me off the top of my head.

On Friday, the World Wide Web turned 20.  I remember learning about the web.  In 1990, I had headed off to Indiana University for a Master’s program in Creative Writing.  One might not think that a writer would have any interest whatsoever in the web and the Internet, but I spent a lot of time on a computer, writing my poetry.  Also IU was on the cutting edge of Computer Science, so regular folks had access to technology that they might not have at a different institution.  I stood in line to get my email address, and I still use that same username across many of the social media I use today.  I participated in email lists and usenet news groups, and I have vague memories of using Gopher, but I really didn’t see a web browser until 1995.  That’s when my husband was looking for jobs in Computer Science.  So we spent time surfing the web, looking at potential schools.  We reasoned that a school with a web site in 1995 probably had a decent CS presence.

In those early days, the web was slow.  Most pages were text only, sad versions of print and graphically-enhanced brochures.  I can remember, however, shopping on the web in 1998 via eToys.  And I can remember being frustrated when I couldn’t shop and when businesses didn’t have their products online, just an address and contact info.  Blogs appeared around 1998 and from that point one, the web became a two-way street.  Some might argue that discussion forums, which existed before then, were a two-way street, but I would argue that the blog form encouraged sites like the New York Times and even corporate sites to allow commenting on articles and to get feedback and reviews that become part of the site, rather than being emailed into the black hole of some customer service address.  Amazon, of course, has taken this to an extreme.

I started building my own web sites in 1996.  I taught others how to do it in 1997 and onward.  I never became a web developer, per se.  I found the work tedious.  And as the web developed, it went beyond the HTML and CSS I used to build most of my web sites and moved into the realm of actual programming.  Once web sites became dynamic instead of static, they needed to be programmed rather than simply built.  Luckily, about that same time, blog software and other site building software matured so that a person could put up a web site (a dynamic web site even!) quite quickly, no experience in HTML or programming necessary.

The web used to be accessible only to those who knew about it, but quite quickly, it’s become completely mainstream and has completely changed over the course of 20 years.  If you want to give yourself a laugh, go visit the Internet Archive and look at some sites from the 90s.  They were kind of pathetic, but at the time, they were the cutting edge of web technology.  The next 20 years should be interesting as the web no longer just resides on computers, but also on phones, game consoles, and handheld games.  Who knows what it will look like in 20 years or from where we’ll be able to access it?  I’m looking forward to the developments.

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