In my last post, I attempted to summarize what I thought were some of the most salient points of Karen Stephenson’s brilliant, complex, and far-reaching keynote address to Faculty Academy on Thurs. May 18th. I also suggested six possible “take-away” points for deliberation, which I intended to be a starting point for conversation. So stimulating, cogent, and compelling was Stephenson’s presentation that I’d like to take the opportunity to develop some of those “take-away” points in a series of posts.

What are the hierarchical and network, formal and informal relationships that exist between faculty? This question alone seems dauntingly huge, and can shift from dept. to dept., from committee to committee, and from year to year within depts., committees, and faculty governing bodies. One small piece of this pertains to the way in which hierarchical and trust-based relationships express themselves in the interactions between un-tenured and tenured faculty as they work together to develop and enrich the social and intellectual capital of the institution.

Relationships between junior and senior faculty may be articulated in (at least) the following ways:

1. formally and hierarchically (as when, for example, senior/junior co-teachers function in the classroom as lecturer/discussant; senior faculty has full control of planning the course, while junior faculty performs student assessment)

2. informally and hierarchically (I would argue that has the potential to be the most awkward one for junior faculty, because it “walks and talks” like a trust-based relationship, but is in fact an authoritatively-based one)

3. formally within a network model (I’m thinking specifically of fruitful and fully realized mentorships)

4. informally within a network model (junior faculty, for example, seeking occasional advice from trusted senior faculty whom the junior faculty perceive as “pulsetakers”).

So, across a campus at large, and even within a single dept., a junior faculty member may experience a wide range of authoritative and trust-based relationships with senior colleagues.

Committees, therefore, are particularly interesting, not only because they are cells of activity within the larger “sub-organization” of faculty, but also because there exists such a dynamic range of formal and informal, authoritative and trust-based relationships in the composition of each committee, and the composition of each committee changes every year. And, then, not every committee is equal either, in terms of the nature of the work it does, whom that work effects, and the points of contact it utilizes to complete its social, intellectual, and transactional obligations (the question “obligations to whom?” is another nettled and complicated question…). Because these committees perform a great deal of policy development and often work as ambassadors between a faculty governing body and the administration, the tacit relationships within committees can have far-reaching consequences (positive, negative, and mixed).

Navigating this nexus of relationships is probably something that some people do better than others, and here’s where department chairs who want their junior faculty to succeed can have real impact early on. Appoint senior faculty members who tend to function well in trust-based relationships to serve as mentors; in the absence of a formal mentoring system, encourage connection between junior faculty and trusted and trust-enabling senior faculty.

Readers, what have your experiences of mentoring been?

UMW’s Faculty Academy this year was more inspirational than ever, and that’s saying something!!

Having earnestly listened to every highly tuned word of Karen Stephenson’s presentation on the topic of trust within institutions, it occurred to me that the faculty at my institution should take a full year to digest, reflect upon, and engage her advice. She argued that there are essentially three kinds of relationships within institutions–transactional relationships, authoritative relationships defined by differential statuses of power, and relationships of trust. Those which are based on trust function through collaboration and “can absorb great amounts of ambiguity and uncertainty.”

Moreover, she argued, in any network, there are three kinds of “nodal” employees, all three of which are typically unaware of the fact that they are nodal: the hub is the “clearinghouse of information” and thrives at on pulling in strains of information from disparate parts of the organization; the gatekeeper serves as a link in the traffic of information between two elements of an organization; and the pulsetaker is one to whom other people turn when seeking advice about strategies or policies, because he or she has his/her “fingers on the pulse of the organization.” If the hubs, gatekeepers, and pulsetakers of the organization are misaligned with the organization, the organization is must realign them or risk failure. Even more urgently, if the relationship which governs any of these three nodal employees is defined by betrayal (i.e., betrayal of trust), it cannot be salvaged.

It occurred to me that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to reflect long and hard about: 1. the kinds of relationships that exist between faculty, between faculty and administration, and between our larger organizations; 2. the relationship between our institution at large and the public (i.e., the taxpayers of this mid-Atlantic state); 3. who the hubs, the gatekeepers, and the pulsetakers of our organization are; 4. the degree to which they value, exemplify, and promote trust; 5. (and this is the hardest and potentially most contentious one) identify and address where and why relationships based on betrayal exist; and 6. deliberate how to contain or reorganize accordingly. Our institution, having experienced lately a series of radical shifts in the top echelon of leadership, could truly benefit from such an analysis.

Readers, how might such an analysis benefit an institution, and how would you organize and engage in such an analysis?

In a workshop at Faculty Academy yesterday, Barbara Ganley drove home a message she had delivered with no little conviction during her plenary presentation. Borrowing a poignant phrase from E.M. Forrester (”how do I know what I think until I see what I say?”), she judiciously argued that every teacher should be modelling the process of thinking, of becoming, of deep-learning through writing. How can we use the social dynamic of a community, she poignantly asked, to encourage narrative reflection that moves through “cycles of disruption and repair”?

One of the best-kept and endemically experienced secrets in academia is that we scholar-teachers tend to fear exposure. We fear being proven wrong. We fear flopping under scrutiny. And, good heavens, we most certainly fear doing so publicly! Barbara encouraged her audience “to fail, oh, to fail gloriously and (*gasp*) in front of our students!” Why? Because failing leads to a sensation of utter disorientation and of dismay. In an exercise in the workshop, she led us to reveal to ourselves that disorientation and dismay are exactly the experiential prerequisites for deep learning, and if we are not life-long learners, how can we expect our students to be?

Some friends of mine (most notably Pedablogy and Gardner Writes), have been encouraging me to jump off the dock and say something–anything–publicly and for the record. I confess, the thought of doing so has inspired no little trepidation on my part. What could I possibly have to say that anyone at all would care to read about? To paraphrase Wodehouse’s most inimitable Jeeves, it seems a given to me that I am in real danger of generating material that would be better put aside to be read at some later date along with the gas bill.

Whether it is whimsy or courage or inspiration that wags its finger at my lesser inclinations, I am here to join the “caravan” into the company of which Gardner has aptly and with “senses variously drawn out” invited me.

I’ve been trying to formulate a post since FA but, I have not been able to sit down and do it. Not only do I have thoughts on FA and the ronco discussion but, Steve recommended I read “Clueless in Academe” this summer so I’ve been flooded with ideas. So in attempt to pull some strands together, finally a blog post.

Last night, as I was taking a walk, I thought ‘Why am I doing this? What is the point of dedicating all this time to learning about this? Heck I’m not even a prof! What is it about this whole thing?’ It is kind of ridiculous in many ways, I don’t consider myself a great thinker, I am a relative “n00b” to a lot of this but, as I have discovered it doesn’t really matter. I suppose I have incredibly lucky timing coming to Mary Wash at the point where class blogging, wikis, etc. are just starting to take hold. In fact I have feared that next year some super freshman will rise up and somehow take my position at DTLT and then promptly take over the world. It is my belief within a relatively short period of time there could be great discussion among students via blogs and if I had shown up later I would be another voice among many students.

Besides impeccable timing there are other factors that have led me to jump on the caravan. In early February, Steve e-mailed me and asked what I thought about a post over on Gardner’s blog. I had actually looked at the post he was talking about a few days before but, after two sentences or so I had skimmed the rest and decided it was way over my head. Not wanting to ignore the call to analyze I wrestled with the post, ‘God, does that word have another meaning? Purpose? Sense? Turtles?’. I had read it enough that I began to memorize parts of it and I finally e-mailed Steve back with what I hoped was a response to what Gardner was actually talking about. In turn Steve told me to blog it so I nervously posted and was excited and surprised that Gardner said what I had said made him think. How could my wimpy post contend with the lofty thoughts of Gardner? This was one of my first invitations in “The Conversation” and I don’t mean just a conversation on education or technology but, the dialogue that exist between people who take time to reflect, respond, and so much more. I realized there was a conversation going on that I wanted in on and I wasn’t even sure why.

I understand now that small pieces loosely joined don’t only foster conversations about things I am interested in (as much as I would like to think the world revolves around me) but, chemistry majors could engage in deeper learning and with the possibility of ronco on the horizon those conversations can extend past our specific interests and majors and lead to conversations where we can all utilize what we know towards a better understanding of…whatever! So perhaps I don’t have to fear that super freshman who will take over my position at DTLT and then the world because there could be other conversations out there for him/her to engage in (and Jim is taking the world over anyway). Even if SuperFrosh did get involved in the dtlt conversation, I might even be ok with that. Everyone can contribute to the conversation and the more reflection the better the conversation gets. It isn’t about whether someone has better ideas than me or blogs better, it is about the conversation their ideas can generate. It is hard to admit when you are being self-centered and I’ve been guilty of some of that. What I really like about “this thing” (whatever this thing is) is it allows me to reflect individually and take time for myself but, also encourages me to share those thoughts and be open to conversation for a greater good.

I actually wanted to discuss something completely different in this post but, sometimes posts have a life of their own. More posts to follow soon, hopefully about things I actually intended to discuss, for now it just feels good to get another post out there.

The FA has ended and I am already feeling withdrawal. I can’t say much now because I am borrowing my friend’s laptop but, as soon as my laptop is returned to me (with working shift keys hopefully) there are many things I want to say. First, it may seem silly but, I know there is something special going on when I willingly miss the season finale of my obsession, CSI. Lastly for now, I just want to comment on the after dinner activities. As each person stood up to say something I knew they weren’t doing it because they felt they had to but, because of the genuine love and friendships that have formed. I’m just in awe of all that is in front of me and I wonder what wrinkle in the matrix has placed all of these people together. The lovely music being played and the song being sung by the choir is like a siren song, and I am lost in it. I feel beyond blessed that I should have stumbled across this community of thinkers, learners, and innovators. This is going to be a long strange trip the next 3 years and hopefully beyond that too.

Today I finally opened a Twitter account at the encouragement of Joe. I had been tempted for awhile but, I had that feeling I didn’t need another reason to feel like I was stalking the UMW faculty. Twitter was acting a little wonky today but, I finally got an account made and started to friend, yes you guessed it, faculty members. I think I came in on Twitter at the perfect time, with all the flurry of ideas and activity there was plenty to read and soak up. Great, just what I needed another reason to get distracted from school work, well I have the whole summer to work through an addiction.

Leave it to XKCD to have an apt comic for today. I’m sure many people ran into something like this at Twitter on a couple occasions.

Shannon Hauser

Panel Discussion: Small Pieces Loosely Joined

Steve/Jerry: It was quite a curious feeling having the class I was in discussed and dissected right in front of me. One of the first things mentioned, “first year students are moldable”. Couldn’t agree more just look how I have been brainwashed Especially first semester if it is made clear to students that college isn’t just “13th grade” there is greater chance for sending them on the right track. One of the keys to the right track is the idea of ownership, without it than a student’s education isn’t personal but, rather a pre-packaged product to be consumed. I was never really fond of pre-packaged anything.

Gardner/Jim: I actually stumbled across the els blog feeds and followed it over the last half of the spring semester. As Gardner said (more eloquently of course) he was trying to create as many opportunities to allow students to observe connections between classes. So as I followed the class I felt like I was almost there without actually being enrolled in the class and I contemplated if I could somehow sneak into the class just to listen in on the in-class conversations that I read about on students blogs. I lurked over a few weeks and in passing mentioned to Serena about following her films blog and she encouraged me to comment, sadly I never did. Since setting up my Netflix account I have added many of the movies discussed in class to my queue, the discussion on the blogs sparked an interest to see and analyze these films. Lastly, as Jim pointed out, he formed relationships with students (such as Serena) that he normally would not have really known and in the process is also learning from students.

Shannon Hauser

After driving down from Jersey I am slightly sunburned and a little exhausted but, I have arrived at the Faculty Academy.

Currently I am sitting right next to Alan Levine (zomg the CogDog!) and listening to Barbara Ganley share words of wisdom on slow-blogging and deep learing, it doesn’t get much better than this. Here’s a quote from one of Barbara’s students, “There’s links on blogs that don’t exist in real life” Exactly!! I couldn’t agree more. So many pieces of brilliance are flying at me that I cannot grab them all but, thanks to technology I’m sure I will read other people’s posts on her inspired lecture and hear the recorded version online.

More goodness to come!

If any of you follow me on Twitter you know that I spent most of the summer waiting to go back to school. In fact I’m pretty sure I spent more time communicating with people from the Mary Wash community then I did with a lot of my friends from home (sorry guys!). Missing people in this way may seem normal for some (or most, probably) but for whatever reason I’m rarely the kind of person that fears loosing connections with people or rather I’m rarely hurt by loosing a connection with someone. So, it was strange being so compelled to spend countless hours on the tubes, waiting for the next tweet or blog post. My mom started to get a little annoyed at how many hours I was spending on the internet. Thinking about how compelled I was to be part of this community I tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together but I have been coming up short. You see, I’m having an identity crisis.

So let me take you back to the “beginning”. Applying for colleges was a highly painful experience and could probably be used as guide on what not to do. I had to be forced to apply to at least four (which is exactly the amount I applied to). Sure I wanted to go to college for “the experience”, but that experience was just some vague and abstract concept I had gleaned from a few conversations with people and a few movies and tv shows. In some ways I did not want to go to college because the thought of another four years of classes did not appeal to me at all, in fact I really hated the idea. I’ve never been a very good student, usually from lack of effort. My goal was to get by with the minimum amount of effort and add in a good amount of procrastination. Horrible study habits, a big problem with procrastination, and a general attitude of caring very little about school would sum up my middle and high school experience. I even contemplated joining the Army (I took the ASVAB and met with a recruiter once) and then work on a degree later. Lucky for me I have a family who cares very much about me and in many ways their opinions were the deciding factor for why I went to Mary Washington.

As I entered college I was feeling wholly unfit to be there and very out of sorts.

Recently, I have had a couple of conversations with various people on identity and how in coming to a new place you end up establishing a new identity, whether its very similar to the old one or something new, a new identity is established. This new identity is formed by your past identity and in what the new community draws out of you. I know that many people perceive me far differently than how I see myself. A lot of me is still stuck in my past identity, even though I have unknowingly been creating a new one.

And in my search to understand what is going on I have come to a biblical story. Being a disciple of a rabbi was only for the best of the best. When Jesus was gathering his disciples, he did not go to the temple and call forth learned men, people of great wealth, those who were best fit to be followers of a rabbi. No Jesus’ disciples were a ragtag bunch, among them a tax-collector and fishermen. Despite being not suitable as disciples Jesus saw something in them and during their discipleship they created new identities as followers of Christ. Jesus drew something out of them they didn’t know existed and they ended up changing the world.

Speaking now of the life of the mind, the caravan, the journey, whatever you want to call it, I still feel freshly called (and found). I have just stepped out of the boat, I have just put down all my things and started to walk away from my former life. I’m still unsure of what I’m supposed to do. Still very connected to my past but seeing great possibilities in front of me and a lot of hope that I will be transformed. I’m sure Jesus’ disciples often wondered why they were chosen (during good and bad times) as I often wonder how I got on board the caravan. Why am I so privileged to be part of a community that is changing the way we learn and think about education? I am not particularly special, definitely not the best of the best. There are of course many answers to this question (the technology revolution, leading right up to web 2.0 among the answers).

I’m not so concerned with answers though, as it has been said, “life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved”. And this post may just be a rehashing of ideas I have spoken about in previous blog posts (I’ve heard iteration is a good thing though). I’ve taken some odd comfort in these thoughts though, typing them out slowly and with much revision. Have I come to any new conclusions? I’m not sure. Should I be more concerned with who I am or who I am becoming? I know those questions are deeply intertwined.

I know my life is radically changing but, it is so hard to grasp what is changing and where that change is taking me it is sometimes easier to not think about it. I’m not sure how to end this post (or what its coherency is at this point). I guess I can just reiterate what has been the (sort of) main point in this post.

I am wholly unfit, but I am willing. Consider yourselves warned.

Recently Steve, my perpetual muse, asked me this question:

“If you were President of the College, how would you create a culture of trust and a community of learners between faculty, staff and students? What are the key issues and questions that would need to be addressed? “

I gave him a list of a couple suggestions and key issues I thought would need to addressed. While I was typing out this list I had one of those flashes of new understanding that linger on the edges and then pop out of nowhere, often occuring while in the midst of writing. So as my behavior often is when I am in a chatting mode I impetuously wrote out a rant and sent it off to Steve, who doesn’t seem to mind my lack of proofreading too much (thanks Steve!).

So here is the cleaned up version of that sudden a-ha moment I wrote in one shot, late at night. Why I am a real school fool, or, why I think Real School is really awesome:

A thought occurred to me while reading Computer Lib/Dream Machines. The work (and play) I am doing now, the discussions I have been having, could have a real world impact. This has obviously been true for quite some time but, it struck me differently all the sudden. Thinking back on my previous school experiences, I thought about how much of that time was spent performing tests and writing papers that didn’t really matter. The tests and papers required answers in a vacuum and now that I have stepped outside the vacuum, and know there is life outside the vacuum, my actions outside it have a deeper impact. For a long time I have understood school as such: A poor grade reflected on my inability to remember an equation in math (or whatever), that didn’t mean much to me in the first place. The poor grade only affected me in my own bubble and ultimately determined whether I would go and where I would go to college, which, is the real goal of making it through grades k-12 (apparently). On the other side of this you’ve got real school. In real school not participating has real world consequences, what happens in real school effects real life, real school is real life. Problems are no longer discussed in a vacuum but, cut across subjects and time. Why shouldn’t these things connect? Aren’t subjects just human creations designed to organize ideas? Of course, more often than not in school, ideas end up being placed in a various subject-sealed containers. I cannot think of anything more exciting than the world no longer being about me but, about others! In real school students are freed from being the centers of their own universes and no longer have to have to hold everything together themselves. Participation in real school is not just for my own benefit of learning but, for others too. To share and connect, to journey on the caravan together, earth is a school. 

Originally uploaded by staylor336.

The transition from high school to college is complex enough and recently I’ve been wondering if technology has made it easier or harder. I don’t have much analysis on the matter because it is more a problem I have been dealing with and have felt more acutely since being home. College has long been regarded as a time where you can start over and find out who you are but, how easy is it in this very connected world? In this transitional time where society is becoming more and more dependent on the technologies that make us connected is my generations college experience (or our lives for that matter) setting a new precedent?

For instance, cellphones keep you connected at all times and even screening calls is a little more difficult because people know you can see their missed calls. People even get upset if you are the type of person that keeps your cellphone off regularly (I used to be this type of person) because not being able to contact someone at every moment is just horrible, right? I’m not trying to put down connectivity because I have been enjoying the benefits of applications like Twitter ever since the Faculty Academy but, I’m wondering how do we go about disconnecting from certain things? Isn’t there a time when we need to move on or readjust our connections?

Perhaps I feel my worlds (yes worlds) are colliding (or will soon be) and I don’t know if I should put up boundaries or just let it be. Most of my family knows I blog but, I am still reluctant to give those who ask the URL. I can think of some family members I wouldn’t mind sharing it with but, others I rather not see it. The same thing goes for friends from high school and friends from college. My blog is out there though, isn’t it? I don’t make posts private and I really don’t talk about embarrassing personal stories that I wouldn’t want my mom to know but, I can’t help feel that there needs to be a separation. In an attempt to try to sort out who I am my thoughts often end up being showcased on my blog. A simple solution would be not to blog about it or limit it but, I don’t think I could really consider that option. Maybe I feel like I am under a microscope of sorts and because my generation spends countless hours on Facebook following people I fear if I shared my blog with peers I would be subject to that same watchful eye, especially since there aren’t many student bloggers. Maybe it is my fear of being known or maybe I just care too much about what others might think?

Today I googled my name and on the first page there was multiple links connecting people to me. It is becoming easier to find me and things I have said.

One of my friends recently left a post on my wall on Facebook and told me while doing a google search she found my blog.

Am I really afraid to fail and “fail gloriously”? Yes. Years of being subtly told failure is to be avoided and making a mistake is a sign of sloppiness, stupidity, or apathy. I’m struggling because I’m not sure I am really ok with making a mistake. When people are more likely to ask me what my GPA is than what I learned I cannot help but feeling failure needs to be avoided. People will try to put learning from mistakes in a shiny light but, more often it feels like it would have been better to have avoided making the mistake in the first place.

Here I am though, sharing this with the whole world. Although while I am writing this I am thinking about the people who read my blog and comment, more than I am imagining everyone on the web. A wise friend recently said to me it is “…interesting how the audience can call something out of us. We know that at least a few trusted readers will read it. Later we learn that many other folks will also love it–but it’s the trusted circle that calls it forth”. I think that is one of the reasons I continue to share and put this out there, it is these people who I can trust to respond with something meaningful to say. If I fail in front of these people I need not fear being ridiculed, these people embrace “making a mess”.

My life is the editing stages, preparing for a major mashup of my past and present lives. As my online life becomes more transparent and as I plan to purposely do this starting this fall (atleast that is what I am telling myself) I have come back to idea of connections. It is clear that not all connections are equal, some are more valued than others. So as I deal with feelings of anxiety and worry about how well things will come together I have to remember to take a deep breath. I am starting to realize I am not enslaved by these connections, in fact I may very well be in charge of these connections. This may just be a matter of asserting myself and taking risks but, that is an issue for another blog post.

Just a brief update from the Emerald Isle.

I haven’t missed the internet too much but, I miss having instant access to connection. I know there is so much going on and I don’t enjoy missing the action but, I needed a break from it.

We are staying in a cottage in Doneraile in County Cork and it is really out in the country. It takes us about 20 minutes to get to Mallow which is not even that big of a city. There are cows in the backyard and the roads are very narrow. I think I have determined that Europeans aren’t more environmentally conscious than Americans but, in actuality it would be a physical impossibility to drive a large car on the narrow roads.

I’ve gone through several batteries so there will be plenty of pictures to upload when I return. We plan on going to the Dingle Peninsula soon guess I need to buy more batteries, I’ve got to remember not to take a picture of every green hill, it is hard not to though.

Being disconnected from the internet (for the most part) has given me time to just write without checking out what everyone was doing every five minutes. When I’m not writing I’m reading some books I picked up in the Atlanta airport. More reflections to come when I get home, when I don’t have to pay for internet access.

The craic has been mighty.

I usually don’t like to get too personal on my blog but, I have been partially inspired by Laura who recently delved into her past to share reasons why she is not a scientist. So on this Father’s Day I would like to take the time to thank my dad, celebrate his life and reflect on what he has taught, and still continues to teach me.

This is now the fourth year where I didn’t get to say “Happy Father’s Day” and buy a necktie, cd, or card. The passage of time has made such days easier and memories bring more smiles than tears now. As Barbara Ganley so eloquently said in her Faculty Academy talk in reference to the recent passing of her own father, “…my relationship with him has not ended but has shifted into memory conversations and flashes of understanding I never had the time to reach because I was so busy in my relationship being with him in the present”. Leave it to Barbara to beautifully state the relationship I have had with my father for over four years now. I continue to learn from my father and have recently felt his presence more acutely as I begin to understand his own methods of teaching me.

My father appeared to be quiet man to many people but, his warmth never failed to come through, he taught through his actions rather than words. Those close to him were blessed with the opportunity to hear him speak at length, sharing his wisdom that seemed to come from a mysterious place far beyond my own understanding. I was so used to these conversations with my father growing up I didn’t realize their rarity until my Aunt pointed it out to me a year or so ago how special my relationship with him was.

I have learned the value of being active from him. He taught me how to ride a bike, swing a golf club, throw a baseball, tend to a garden. My father and I share the same natural athleticism that drives us to be competitive on the field and even though he grew up loving the game of baseball he easily made the transition to soccer coach when I expressed more interest in it than baseball. From 1996-2002 when I played on the inter-city travel soccer league he was the assistant coach. We must have made hundreds of trips in his Saturn to games and tournaments and some of my fondest memories of him come from those rides together. It wasn’t until after his death that I realized how he was a constant in my soccer life and for several months I could not bring myself to play. He did not grow up playing soccer but, he studied, watched, and played so he could learn the nuances of the game. The bond we shared over soccer wasn’t just a mutual love of sports but, went down deeper to the bonds between people that form over shared experiences.

When I went to California for the first time in 2004 I wondered what he would have said to me, having spent a good part of his young adult years on the west coast. I even climbed Telegraph Hill trying to imagine where the shop he had was, hoping I could reach across time to contact him there. Hiking through the Sierra Mountains I thought about the stories I had heard from my Aunt about him spending weeks with people hiking out into nature and those people being amazed by his knowledge and love of the outdoors. I think I understand where my wanderlust comes from now.

It comes as no surprise that he was an avid gardener. Maintaining a large plot of land in our backyard with such ease that the rest of us still haven’t figure out his secret. Now the garden has been overrun with weeds but, naturally weeds that grow quickly and abundantly. My father had a spiritual relationship with nature and he felt most at peace when he dug into the dirt, creating life with a well practiced dance of watering, weeding, and trust in mother nature herself. Even at his grave when other plants nearby are dying his stone is almost obscured by the plants growing around it, it is truly an amazing sight to see.

In his own way he supported my curiosity to learn. In elementary school when I wanted to be an astronomer he went out and bought plastic glow-in-the-dark stars and books on constellations so we could set up an accurate night sky on my ceiling. It wasn’t until my freshman year in college that I uncovered a lesson my dad had been teaching me my whole life. In his pursuit of knowledge and new experiences he taught me the value of being able to have an open mind and to be open to change. When my father became a manager at a factory where most of the workers spoke spanish he went ahead and learned spanish. When computers and the internet were starting to take over my dad took classes on computer programming, he knew that computers were the future. I have no doubt that if my father were still alive that he would pretty web 2.0 savvy, perhaps even dabbling in blogging. When he became too ill to work and was subjected to lying on the couch most of the day he would watch the food network and would learn to create elaborate meals that would have even impressed Emeril.

My family nickname that he created when I was little still carries on and has been more widely used by family members that are perhaps trying to keep memories of him (and my cousin Ryan who also used it) alive. I respond to the nickname like a second first name and each utterance is a testament to my fathers influence.

In his death my father has taught me the value of life. I have learned to love the small things and the small moments that seem so ordinary but, are the times that add the richness and depth to our lives. My small post on the internet does not do him justice but, in the vast realms of the internet I dedicate this small space to his memory. As I think about it his memory isn’t restrained to what I can put down on paper or on a blog. Even though memories of my father will fade, his lessons will continue to carry on and even one day influence my children who will not even know him except through what I share.

My father’s life and death have influenced me in so many ways that I’m not sure I’ll ever fully comprehend it all. Even though I have lived a fourth of my life without the physical presence of my father, every garden that grows and soccer field filled with noise is a subtle reminder of his love, a love that transcends time.

Happy Father’s Day to all dads. Your importance and influence may go unnoticed at times but, your children are forever changed by all those moments spent with them, no matter where that time is spent.

Ever since the Ronco discussion I attended I’ve been thinking about student buy-in into the idea of real education, life of the mind, the caravan, etc. I’ve been swinging between an optimistic and a pessimistic view.

Most days I feel like getting on the roof of my house and shouting out to anyone who will listen about this exciting adventure I am on at Mary Washington. During these high points I can envision students grasping the concept of real and reflective learning and I want to be able to go to the FSEMs this fall and see the new freshman wrestle with this idea. I want to do what so many people have done for me and include them into “the conversation” and show them they can’t pass up this opportunity. I get genuinely excited at the thought of having conversations with fellow students on any topic through an academic lens. Instead of just complaining about classes students talking about what they learned and are even excited to share this information.

Of course with the high comes the crash down into the low valley of pessimism. There is such a culture of anti-school and in some ways anti-intellectualism among students that mass conversion seems impossible. I’m not looking for an instant change or mass conversion overnight but, I wonder how far can we get in the next three years? I’m taking this moment to be a little selfish in wanting all these changes to happen during my stay at Mary Washington but, I want it! I wonder how do we convince students that the caravan IS really cool? I do believe we are moving in the right direction by encouraging reflective thinking and using different tech tools to help make clear connections in learning but, is it enough? I just have visions of the future where technology has made it possible to see connections and has created a rich learning environment but, students do nothing with it. I guess this goes back to the argument made by several people that it is not about the tools but, what the technology enables people to do. Maybe I just don’t have faith in faculty and students to take this movement seriously. There is just so many ways for this to go wrong (I need to stop listening to emo music) that I often miss how many ways that it could work out. I have trouble convincing myself that even if we make a mistake it is ok, making a mess is ok.

I suppose a lot of this conflict comes from my own internal conflict. My secret desire to be a revolutionary even though I am usually adverse to risk and being outspoken. Steve recently sent me this cartoon. I think it describes exactly how I feel during those low moments when everything seems so impossible.

Martha raised an interesting point in a recent post about different types of blogging. It may not be something that most bloggers think about but, just as there are different writing styles there must be different blogging styles. Are there right and wrong ways to go about blogging? Well I suppose we need to know how people are blogging in the first place, so here is my response to her questions.

1) Generally, are you an impetuous blogger? Or do you mull over an idea or post for hours, days, weeks before hand? Do you draft a post and then let it sit until you’ve had a chance to revise it multiple times, perfecting your language and point?

I would say I definitely mull over ideas awhile but, once I start writing about it like to get it all done in one sitting. I’ve recently tried just writing out ideas and then coming back to them later but, now I have several posts that are not quite done. I’ve never been a real good proof-reader but, I do try to go over my stuff once or twice before posting. 

2) Do you “collect” the references in your posts before you write them (if so, describe your system)? Or do you blog with 15 windows open, copying and pasting quotes and URLs, as needed?

Since I tend to just sit down and write out a post I’ll just have 15 windows open and copy and paste.  

3) Do you blog in the admin panel of your blog? Or do you use some third-party tool? If you use a tool, what features does it have that hooked you?

I’m pretty boring I just use the admin panel, works fine for me. 

4) Do you automatically consider placing images in your posts? Or does this not even occur to you, usually?

I rarely use images in my posts I don’t think the thought ever really occurs to me. I’ve been tempted to try including more visual pieces but, I don’t want to force it. 

5) Do you write posts and then delete them before clicking “Publish?” Or, by extension, do you have draft posts that have languished for days, weeks, months waiting for you to pull the trigger?

I’ve had a couple of posts that have been saved as drafts and when I take another look at them I delete them. Most of those are incomplete posts that only contained ideas or were half done. I don’t think I could stand see a draft post sitting, especially if I’ve put a lot of effort and think it is a quality post.

6) Do you feel compelled to blog on a schedule? Do you feel guilty when you don’t?

I don’t feel compelled to blog on a schedule but, I do feel guilty when my blog has been silent for more than a week or so, especially if I don’t have any good reason not to be blogging (like recently!).

7) Do you “craft” the experience of your blog, adding sidebar widgets and custom graphics to lure readers into your space?

Never really put much thought into crafting an experience to lure readers in, I’ve just put widgets I thought were cool up. Things to think about… 

At the end of class the other day, a student who had some questions before an imminent midterm asked me when I would be available the next day for office hours. Now, I commute an hour each way to campus, and I had planned on good library time the next day.

I suggested a solution: “Why don’t you IM me if you have questions? I’ll be on-line most of the day?”

I have to say, the student’s response took me a little aback: “Why would I IM my professor? That’s just weird.”

My perspective came from thinking of IM-technology as a tool to enhance, enrich, and expand communication, one which is suitable for a variety of contexts, both personal and professional. While I certainly do use IM in a personal context, I am straining at the bit to think of viable ways in which to harness the “back-channel” potential of it in the classroom. And, while some meetings are best done face-to-face, during the busiest times of the year when every second seems to count, I must confess, I could be persuaded to hold a number of meetings electronically.

It occurred to me, though, that this student’s objections to holding conference via instant message conveyed an undercurrent of imputation–an imputation, in fact, of violation. I had unwittingly wandered into a DMZ between public and private domains. Although I, myself, never troll through Facebook, I have heard similar anecdotes about students expressing feelings of violation when their professors and administrators look them up or simply have a presence of their own on Facebook. I wonder how they will feel when future employers who have fewer qualms than I do about trodding into “private” public territory read about their undergraduate escapades? (Dean Dad has a great post about this! And Techist is using Facebook in very interesting ways…)

No doubt, there is a generational gap at work here, one in which notional boundaries between “public” and “private” are contestable. While I want to remain sensitive to students’ desire for privacy, it also seems to me to be the case that the academy can do more to embrace these tools and to help define the parameters of etiquette.

Readers, how do you tactfully negotiate the “public” and “private”?

In a recent post entitled “The Battle is (or Will be) Lost”, Will Richardson relates a story that Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, told at the Personal Democracy Forum. Disappointed that in weekly meetings his staff had their faces in their computers, he banned computers. The following week, thinking that his staff were all leaning forward in deep engagement, he came to find that they were all using their blackberries under the table. Richardson quoted Schmidt: “This is a battle that we have lost, and I think it’s fine” because it shows just how important these technologies are.

I found this story very interesting for a number of reasons. First, the CEO of Google, a company that has made all kinds of web-based interconnectedness and sharing of information possible, banned computers from meetings, rather than harnessing and capitalizing on the “back-channel” potential.

Second, his use of militarized language expresses more than just an experience of generational gap; he acknowledges that we are standing in the midst of a cultural and technological revolution that has happened, is happening, and will continue to change and shape the ways in which we communicate, explore ideas, and share information.

In this brave new world, what are our expectations for behavior? Should I assume, for example, that a student is not “paying attention” when his face is focused on his laptop? What if he is actually looking up the the floorplan of the Boule in the Athenian agora and instant messaging that link to another student who just made a very interesting comment on the relationship between civic space and citizen participation in the world’s first democracy?

Moreover, what if teachers and leaders were to encourage the using of these tools to foster interaction, independence, initiative, and collaboration within a learning community?

In his post, Will Richardson draws the proverbial line in the sand:

And so there it is. There is really the crux of this. We. Cannot. Win. This battle has been lost, the problem is most parents, and most educators just don’t get it yet. All this banning of cell phones and taking down wikis and filtering out blogs…all of it is our own little Iraq. It’s not working. It’s not going to work…More restrictions, more blocking, more battening down the information hatches is only going to drive it all underground and make the world of our kids less safe. And, it will deny us a chance to help our kids develop and employ the literacies they are going to need to succeed in their future.

 

I would only add that when we restrict, block, and batten down, we serve only to isolate ourselves. Rather, what we can do is embrace the possibilities by forging a new code of behavioral expectations that supports each contributing member of a community (a staff-meeting; a classroom) bringing her network and all the information and approaches to problem-solving that are expressed within it to the table.

This is part 2 of 2 parts. Because of technical problems, we have a gap in the video. Part two contains the remaining video. Part one is available here.

This is part 1 of 2 parts. Because of technical problems, we have a gap in the video. Part two will contain the remaining video.

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(Your results may vary.)

* How can we catalyze the process of blogging in our courses? Are there ways to jumpstart the process? (Sue)

* How can we structure the use of blogs in a course-context so that students genuinely engage with blogging?

* How can we engage more than just the vocal few in blogging substantively? (Barbara).

* How can we produce ownership in a class blog? (Laura)

* How can we get students to link reflectively with other students’ posts?

* How do we get students to comment on each others’ blogs in substantive ways?

*How can an instructor fairly evaluate blog posts?

*How can a teacher create a design for the class blog to support the intent of the course? (Barbara)

Anyone care to postulate answers?

Gardner had tried to talk me into trying twitter, but it was only when I saw the tweets (i.e. twitter posts) popping up on Alan’s screen during the presentation that I decided I had to give it a try.

What is twitter, you ask? It’s been described as micro-blogging, participating in a sort of on-line conversation with a network of friends where the posts are limited to 140 characters. The basic protocol is to briefly describe what you’re doing. As I write this, lblanken just tweeted, “playing with splashr,” and shauser said, “Just watched the history mashup [that Jim had referred to earlier in the twitterstream]. Not only did I laugh but, I learned stuff too haha.”

Twitter requires much less effort than blogging. If blogging is informal writing, twitter is informal thinking. The beauty of it for me is that following the twitterstream it’s possible to feel connected with your colleagues, even with a minimum of attention. It’s oddly compelling.

It’s also proven to be a great way to maintain the rush I felt from the Faculty Academy.

Yesterday I heard that Joe was taking a course this summer with Angela, one of the faculty members of the team. It reminded me of something I’ve noticed over time. For about ten years, I have taken a group of students to present their research at a regional economics conference. That experience seems to change the dynamics of the subsequent student-teacher relationship.

The change begins when students commit to attending the conference. To be eligible, they submit a research paper. However ‘complete’ their research papers, we always revise them during the Spring semester prior to the conference. This work is done neither for grade nor credit, simply because it’s what is necessary to make the paper conference-ready. It seems to me that during this process, I become more a mentor than a (traditional) teacher. The relationship seems more collegial than hierarchical.

The conference is a tremendous experience in which we get to know each other far deeper than is typical with students and teachers. Part of this is spending several intense days together. But I think an important part is when students see the teacher acting as a professional in his or her field, and when the students are accepted as similar albeit journeyman professionals.

What is particularly interesting is to see the extent to which the changed relationship persists when we return from the conference Some of the students are in my courses–or they take one next semester. In those classes, the students seem less concerned by grades and more interested in learning. They seem to relate to me as a helpful expert, less as the person responsible for their grade.

Has anyone else had this experience with students? If so, how might we build this into our courses more generally?

I’ve been trying to formulate a post since FA but, I have not been able to sit down and do it. Not only do I have thoughts on FA and the ronco discussion but, Steve recommended I read “Clueless in Academe” this summer so I’ve been flooded with ideas. So in attempt to pull some strands together, finally a blog post.

Last night, as I was taking a walk, I thought ‘Why am I doing this? What is the point of dedicating all this time to learning about this? Heck I’m not even a prof! What is it about this whole thing?’ It is kind of ridiculous in many ways, I don’t consider myself a great thinker, I am a relative “n00b” to a lot of this but, as I have discovered it doesn’t really matter. I suppose I have incredibly lucky timing coming to Mary Wash at the point where class blogging, wikis, etc. are just starting to take hold. In fact I have feared that next year some super freshman will rise up and somehow take my position at DTLT and then promptly take over the world. It is my belief within a relatively short period of time there could be great discussion among students via blogs and if I had shown up later I would be another voice among many students.

Besides impeccable timing there are other factors that have led me to jump on the caravan. In early February, Steve e-mailed me and asked what I thought about a post over on Gardner’s blog. I had actually looked at the post he was talking about a few days before but, after two sentences or so I had skimmed the rest and decided it was way over my head. Not wanting to ignore the call to analyze I wrestled with the post, ‘God, does that word have another meaning? Purpose? Sense? Turtles?’. I had read it enough that I began to memorize parts of it and I finally e-mailed Steve back with what I hoped was a response to what Gardner was actually talking about. In turn Steve told me to blog it so I nervously posted and was excited and surprised that Gardner said what I had said made him think. How could my wimpy post contend with the lofty thoughts of Gardner? This was one of my first invitations in “The Conversation” and I don’t mean just a conversation on education or technology but, the dialogue that exist between people who take time to reflect, respond, and so much more. I realized there was a conversation going on that I wanted in on and I wasn’t even sure why.

I understand now that small pieces loosely joined don’t only foster conversations about things I am interested in (as much as I would like to think the world revolves around me) but, chemistry majors could engage in deeper learning and with the possibility of ronco on the horizon those conversations can extend past our specific interests and majors and lead to conversations where we can all utilize what we know towards a better understanding of…whatever! So perhaps I don’t have to fear that super freshman who will take over my position at DTLT and then the world because there could be other conversations out there for him/her to engage in (and Jim is taking the world over anyway). Even if SuperFrosh did get involved in the dtlt conversation, I might even be ok with that. Everyone can contribute to the conversation and the more reflection the better the conversation gets. It isn’t about whether someone has better ideas than me or blogs better, it is about the conversation their ideas can generate. It is hard to admit when you are being self-centered and I’ve been guilty of some of that. What I really like about “this thing” (whatever this thing is) is it allows me to reflect individually and take time for myself but, also encourages me to share those thoughts and be open to conversation for a greater good.

I actually wanted to discuss something completely different in this post but, sometimes posts have a life of their own. More posts to follow soon, hopefully about things I actually intended to discuss, for now it just feels good to get another post out there.

Just watch!

Just got a note that it is now listed on their featured presentations page

and has me thinking I should comb back through and make sure I’ve not done something typical like mispelling my own name

I am blushing, this dog is shy and hates attention. I might need to take a bath now or comb my hair.

I like what slideshare does, that it can YouTube like be embedded into web pages and blog posts and is the only, only, ONLY, O-N-L-Y reason I would ever touch Powerpoint, but with its lack of embedding URLs, it really is less useful as a sharing platform than the slides posted in flickr.

C’mon, slideshare, give us hyperlinks!

David Wiley’s got a fascinating post up at Iterating towards Openness about the generation of open educational resources (OER) and whether we should take a consumer- or producer-oriented approach to production. The dilemma is whether or not resources created to meet a producer’s needs are necessarily limited in their effective scope and impact. Should our approach to OER creation focus on generating resources that are user-oriented, instead?

Wiley thinks not, and he uses this quote from the Cathedral and the Bazaar to support his argument:

Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer’s personal itch.

In the open-source world of software development, the impetus behind creating something new should never be to survey the user base and then develop the product to meet the perceived need. Instead, open-source producers need to look to themselves for inspiration and trust that the resources they create will have a meaningful impact and will be adopted (and further developed, owned, and expanded) by a community of users.

He goes on to talk about the issue of contextualization of learning resources and the the common (mis)conception that learning resources need to be created in as context-agnostic a way as possible. The idea being that if there is too much context to a learning resources, it won’t be as inherently resuable.

But I agree completely with Wiley. Context is what gives content meaning, and when we divorce the two we end up with stale, dry resources that no one would want to re-mix, re-use, and re-own.

(Side note: At lunch with Steve yesterday he told me about a presentation Gardner made recently to our freshman seminar faculty at UMW that I think drives at this point: Gardner, can you share the NASA video–or at least the point you were making with it?)

As usual, when I read these kinds of analyses my mind starts to make a million connections. All of this makes me think of the very human aspect of all that we do–and how vital it is that our work remain connected to ourselves, our communities, and our contexts.

A few days ago, I blogged about risk in higher education and how unwilling institutions were to embrace it these days. The commodification of higher education has taken it’s toll on our enterprise, and these days we seem to be more concerned with focus groups and user surveys than the messy, risky behavior of human connection.

Schools are so busy worrying about FERPA and privacy that they simply can’t allow themselves to be risk-takers when it comes to fostering connections among students and faculty.

It’s been quite a week. I’m trying to absorb and assimilate a lot of information coming out of Faculty Academy and beyond. Ultimately, I’m left with a feeling of increasing urgency that we need to find a way to embrace risk and be okay with the messiness of human connection and context. Education isn’t supposed to be easy or formulaic. The resources we create should vibrate with our passion. We should be okay with that; we should rush to meet that challenge.

fa07

I’m feeling a bit wrecked today, and I’m turning to my blog for a cure. There was a time once before when writing in this little space helped me to start moving again, and I’m hoping the strategy will work this time.

First, I said it in the comment thread, but I want to mention here just how amazing and humbling Alan Levine’s recap post about this year’s Faculty Academy was. I was literally swept away by it — to the point where I actually had to stop reading it and come back later.

I’ve been back at UMW (this time) for almost three years, and for the last two years I’ve had the remarkable pleasure of being a part of Faculty Academy. In my previous tenure at UMWMWC, I had participated in Faculty Academies before, but in the intervening years the event had changed, expanded, and grown.

For the last 9 months, I’ve spent many sleepless nights wondering how we could possibly follow last year’s event — and wondering how I, in my current acting role, could lead us there. I was wrong to worry. I was wrong to not stop and enjoy the process more. I was wrong to focus so much on the product (when will I start listening to my own advice?). I was wrong not to trust.

This year’s Faculty Academy was wonderful, and I can take little credit for any of it. It was wonderful because of the amazing willingness of UMW faculty to reveal themselves and their work. I am amazed every year by this willingness; I am humbled by it.

It was wonderful because of our guest presenters: Alan, Barbara, and Karen who shared of themselves so generously and inspired us again and again. It still floors me how I can feel so connected to people whom I “met” online. I’ve been reading Alan and Barbara’s blogs for years; it was incredible to have them here in person.

It was wonderful because of my colleagues in DTLT who simply dove into every aspect of the event. The commitment that they demonstrate to our work is breathtaking, and Faculty Academy is simply one moment every year when it becomes almost visible. Trust me when I tell you I live with that commitment every day, and it is humbling, too.

Faculty Academy was wonderful because at UMW we have Chip German. I’ve talked to enough people at other universities and colleges at this point to realize how amazing it is to have a CIO who understands and supports the kind of work that we’re trying to do in DTLT. There are lots of reasons administrators could come up with to shy away from the kind of engagement that we’re trying to foster at UMW, but Chip is willing to challenge them all, and for that I am very grateful.

Faculty Academy was wonderful this year because Gardner Campbell is back at UMW. I can’t imagine this event without him, and I can’t thank him enough for his willingness to contribute to the production and programming of this year’s event (on top of everything else he does).

Now I’m going to digress a little, but I promise to bring it all back together in the end.

A little over ten years ago, I walked into Gardner’s office and asked him to work with me on my senior honors thesis. I couldn’t have asked for a better mentor. Every week for a semester, I looked forward to our regular meetings. When one ended, I was counting the days and hours until the next began. What made Gardner extraordinary was that he showed me I could teach him, too. I know now that what he was doing was inviting me into a real community, a conversation in which we were both partners. He was still the faculty member; he was still guiding me. But, more and more, as the semester went on, he let me lead, too. At the time, I thought that the experience was amazing simply because of how it affected me personally. But, now I know that what I was experiencing was teaching at it’s finest. And it is my belief in the power of that kind of teaching that has brought me to the work I’m doing today. I guess what I’m saying is, I learned a lot about John Donne that semester, but, more importantly, I learned a lot about teaching, learning, and the power of people to come together (to commune) around ideas. That’s the most amazing kind of communion I’ve ever experienced.

That year (and for several years following) I struggled and toyed with the notion of going back to graduate school for early modern literature. In the end, I chose a different path. Early this past Friday morning, as I was driving back from dropping Barbara Ganley off at Dulles airport, I realized something. The real reason I wanted to go get a PhD in lit back then was because I wanted to grow up to be Gardner Campbell’s colleague. In the end, I discovered that my calling lay in a different direction, but I still got my wish. How cool is that?

And, really, at the heart of my desire back then lay a wish to be colleagues with so many amazing teachers that I encountered at Mary Washington: John Morello, Terry Kennedy, Donald Glover, Bill Kemp, Gregg Stull, Tadesse Adera, to name just a few.

What made all of these teachers extraordinary was their willingness to give of themselves, their commitment to being in conversation with each other and their students. It’s that willingness that changed my life when I was a student; it’s that same willingness that we witness every year at Faculty Academy, and it is inspiring.

Coming back to work at the place where you studied–the place where you came into yourself–is both a blessing and curse. It is amazing to be given the chance to work with the very people who helped me find my voice. It is frightening, too. When I first arrived back at MWC to work in 2000, I felt like I was walking through a ghosttown. Everywhere I went, this campus haunted me. I remembered a thousand moments of discovery, love, pain, and euphoria, each linked to a different building, green lawn, classroom, office. Those moments seemed so far away and yet so very close. And to encounter the very teachers who brought me so many of those moments, but to encounter them in this new context and as this new version of myself was jarring. The other people whom I shared those moments with — my classmates — were all gone and scattered. But I saw them everyday in faces of the students on campus walk or in the halls of duPont. They looked the same. I swear I could feel what they were feeling; I could read their minds.

Now, UMW feels more like the place I work than the place I went to school. Except, I’m still going to school here. I have the most amazing group of fellow travelers on this journey. We are quite the motley caravan.

And every year at Faculty Academy, I’m reminded of this in the most dramatic fashion. It shouldn’t take an event like this to remind me of what a gift I have. I will try to be better at remembering it, always.

fa07

Note–Relevant links are posted on the Faculty Academy wiki page for this session and note that only the registered users in the class wikis can edit them or see all the functions.

This semester I used wikis (an installation of MediaWiki to be precise) in two of my classes, though in different ways. I did so at Jerry Slezak’s suggestion, despite my greatest previous interaction with wikis being arguing with students about why they can’t use Wikipedia as the scholarly source for their research papers. I’ll describe the two classes, the way the wiki was used in each class, and my evaluation of the experiment.

In one course, my 15-person senior seminar (426), the wiki was used as an improved forum to prepare students for class discussion. In the other, a 25-person upper-level lecture class (325), the wiki became not only an improved tool for focusing class discussion, but much of the online presence of the course, including the location of students’ wiki-based research projects.

First, the use of the wiki as a discussion starter
All of my classes involve reading discussions, often of primary source materials. In previous semesters, I used to have students email me comments and questions about the reading for a particular day a couple of hours before class starts. I would then take those comments and questions and create a document that categorized those comments along certain common themes. This document, displayed in front of the class, would then shape the class discussion for the day, based on the particular areas of need or interest expressed by the students.

This semester, however, the students in both these classes posted their comments and questions to a wiki page at least two hours before each discussion class. I set up one page for each day’s discussion for the semester.I would then go in, just before class started, and bold the questions/comments I saw as most interesting, most relevant, or most commonly expressed. [Bolding became a source of great pride to some students….]

Of course, a large change under this new system is that they now see each others’ postings. [I've resisted this before, fearing repetitiveness, copying, and an unfair burden on those who posted first to carry the class.]

I’ve found that I was completely wrong.

The quality of the questions and comments went up from previous semesters. What’s more, they began to respond to each others’ questions, answering the factual queries and starting to engage the open-ended ones. In other words, the discussion began before class did.

Of course, I could have just used a forum on Blackboard or some other open-source software (and I’ve used such forums with varying degrees of success in other classes with other assignments). They’d still be able to see what the other students had written and respond to those comments. The advantage of the wiki is that students can more easily edit and/or comment on each others’ work than in a forum, which is either hierarchical or linear (or both). The wiki is neither.

Using the “history” version function of the wiki I can actually trace the evolution of the conversation as students add material to the ongoing discussion, often inserting themselves in between other people’s comments.

They haven’t taken to truly editing each others’ work, a common issue from what I’ve heard from those who have used wikis in teaching. [There was a comment deleted by someone else, but that was an accident, for which there was much apologizing.] And actually, I don’t see this lack of editing each others’ work as a problem since I never explicitly asked them to do that and it’s not what I’m looking for them to do.

This wiki-as-discussion-starter worked in both an upper-level lecture class with once-a-week discussions and in a senior seminar that was all discussion, and required them to post comments/questions on a wiki page before every class period. In 325 – Class discussion started at a deeper level, and the wiki brought out broader discussions than we had time for in class. Plus they were engaged with each others’ ideas before class started. In 426 – Here too the discussions had already begun before class started. Plus it was easy for student discussion leaders to facilitate their own discussion of the readings using the wikis. (Bolding and editing the wiki for their own purposes became common and there was often humor involved, though never at my expense, of course….).

So, overall, other than that, that use of the wikis was a success in both classes. However, in the lecture class, I used the wiki for more than just a discussion starter

HISTORY 325 WIKI Projects
The lecture class is a course about the History of American Technology & Culture. It’s a class that’s typically 2/3 lecture and 1/3 discussion. Perhaps more importantly, it’s a course that in previous iterations has required students to create their own websites about the history of an artifact of American Technology.

1) Immense amount of work for Jerry and I, as well as for the students, to deal with HTML, page linking, software.
2) Although I began the web project years ago thinking that students should learn HTML or at least web coding as a life skill, it’s not clear that such as skill would actually be useful to these students at the level they’d be gaining.
3) Finally, students’ sites disappeared as they graduated.

The wiki in this class served three purposes:

1) A place for students to post questions and comments about the readings (as I discussed)

2) A site within which each student could create their own research proposal and then their own research project.

3) A class project binder, by which I mean a place where all of the class projects can be gathered together in the same place, a place where students can find the syllabus and all the assignments, and a place where their work has a long-term home, one that can be pointed to as part of portfolio of accomplishments at some point in the future. [One might describe this as a form of CMS or LMS.]

Process

• Jerry came in for a workshop session where everyone in the class had a laptop and we did a crash course in the basics of wiki creation.
• They had a couple of assignments early in the semester, culminating in a proposal site with a bibliography.
• Then they had to build their site structure (laying out all the pages, but without any content).
• Two weeks after that, the full site was due.
• Then a week of peer reviews, using the Discussion tab (and my guidelines) to evaluate each other’s work. [See the guidelines students were given.]
• Then a week of revision before the final project was due.

Advantages for me:

• See student work in progress
• See timing of their works in progress through the history function
• Recent changes RSS feed allows me to watch from afar (through Google Reader or Bloglines).

Disadvantages for me:

• See student work in progress
• See timing of their works in progress through the history function
• Recent changes RSS feed allows me to watch from afar (through Google Reader or Bloglines).

Why? Because I could see that many of the updates, edits, and wiki site building happened the night before, the morning of, the minutes before the assignments were due. [A longheld suspicion proven....]

Presentations
At the end of the semester, I asked each of the students to present their projects in five minutes.

• They could discuss the content they covered;
• they could discuss cool things they had done or discovered;
• they could discuss the process they used;
• they could analyze the evolution of their site using the previous version (history) function;
• or they could talk about what they wish they had known.

Their presentations varied, though most said they wished they had started earlier. I even set up a page on the wiki for them to post their suggestions. [Many of which revolved around wishing they'd looked at each others' projects for ideas earlier.]

But one of the most reflective student presentations included a PowerPoint slide entitled “What Impacted Me The Most” with the following points:

• The Responsibility/Permanence
• [Many of the students were extremely cognizant that this was something that would be around after they were finished school and felt that responsibility weigh on them.]
• Everyone Viewing My Progress
• As this student pointed out, it was not just me watching them create their sites, it was their classmates (or anyone else who happened to find the site).
• Citations
• I made them cite everything (as any research project in history would be) and that process took time and energy (both in getting the citations accurate and in dealing with the wiki formatting to get them to look right).
• Connections Between Projects
• This student and others noted how much they enjoyed being able to see how their projects overlapped with each others and with the course themes as a whole.

The Big Finish

One day, late in this semester, a fellow faculty member came to me and told me that one of my students had paid me the ultimate compliment in regards to my wiki site project. She told him, “I’ve never had a project that has been more frustrating, or one in which I’ve learned more.”

Exactly!

Let’s be clear, the goal of the assignment was not to frustrate students, but the process of working through new ways of presenting one’s ideas is not inherently easy.

If students are struggling with the process, but get it done, that means that they are finding ways of adapting to the new requirements, to the new format, to the new expectations. In that way, I hope that they will be better prepared to produce and present information in multiple ways when they graduate.

Despite the increasing use of wikis in business environments, my goal, in other words, was not for them to learn specific MediaWiki skills.

No, I’m much more ambitious.

I want them to be able to think broadly about the presentation of information, about the structure of ideas, about the multiplicity of ways to pass on their perspectives and researched content. I want them to be adaptable producers in a larger world that rarely will ask them to write a 7-10 page formal research paper, but will often ask them to learn new skills, new tools, and to work in new environments (digital and otherwise) and then to apply those new skills sets in reliable/productive ways. [I don’t want much, do I?]

Now, it wasn’t all serious; some of them began to call me Dr. Wiki, eventually to my face…. But, the reaction of the student who made that comment to my colleague suggests that in addition to the research and analytical skills being developed there was more going on for her and, given the student presentations and conversations I had with others in the class, I believe she wasn’t alone.

Thoughts? Reactions?

We were just treated to a talk by Karen Stephenson on networking in corporate culture. She made clear so many dynamics that I experienced in the corporate world, and even more powerfully in the organizational world of higher education from the administrative perspective. Silos, hierarchy, bureaucracy, and networking.

Most talk around here since the new president came (an unceremoniously went) has been about breaking down silos. Technology itself, and the portal project we just finished, has this almost utopian mission to help do just that: democratize access to and control of information, thereby facilitating the breaking down of silos.

Still, even with brand new online tools, as in the analog world of paper, phone and fax, I’ve seen those who want the responsibility of managing and manipulating information, and those for whom it’s a burden. So the ideal of silo-busting seems difficult when people are still people, and hierarchies, are so invested in continuing to be who they are. Darn those people!

Back before I telecommuted, I would eat every day in the faculty staff dining room. I’d sit with all different people from day to day: administrative staff, plumbers from the physical plant, an occasional dean, and art professors. I just liked to know people since it made the job interesting. But, I was strangely alone in this habit. Most of the tables I joined were entrenched in terms of a rather consistent day-to-day population — even a consistent choice of table position in the room. So the experience was one of being some sort of human “free-radical” going in and messing with the DNA of otherwise stable cells.

All this is not to say “boy am I awesomely social, or what!” but rather can we expect the technology alone to change the way people work, to make them feel empowered to change tables, if we don’t also address the underlying culture that keeps them at the same tables, even in the same jobs, year after year.

The wisdom of Dr. Stephenson’s talk (insofar as I am even feebly equipped to understand it) seems to be that the underlying hierarchy does not need to change, or be transformed, by some cool technology. But, the technology’s place may be to capitalize on the networks that already exist, and strengthen them rather than just concentrating on breaking the silos, which are here to stay.

Tagging seems to do this, and Alan Levine’s talk about odd groups, and little apps that do little things, seems to speak to this. We join ideas through a network, and find like minds, but the technology becomes more and more transparent — as transparent as getting in your car and getting on the highway, neither of which existed 150 years ago. To phrase it better, the notion of the “killer app” as the embodiment of the ultimate technological solution for what ails us seems to be fading away in favor of a single person simply choosing the little apps (silos) that they want to utilize and tag (network OR hierarchy, or both, depending on what’s consuming them).

Our administrative systems, closed and “killer appy” in their scale and complexity, hold lots and lots of information about the person within the hierarchy of the institution. It seems that tagging, with the nodes being people, their departments/disciplines, and their little apps, would account for the networking component that can become the backbone of the notion of heterarchy.

Which gets to the Ronco, and it’s unique relationship between one’s current relationship to the institution, and then beyond graduation (or separation) when that relationship is no longer relevant, but the content produced during the active years remains a part of the body of work that defines the life and fleshes out that relationship as historical fact.

Viewed within this looser framework, technology could indeed be a key component in building heterarchy within the walls of the university. The rubber will meet the proverbial road in terms of the privacy of personal information and the notion of intellectual capital as currently defined. But, it seems that if technology is not going to transform everything, it sure is a necessary component to making that tranformation possible.

In my last post, I attempted to summarize what I thought were some of the most salient points of Karen Stephenson’s brilliant, complex, and far-reaching keynote address to Faculty Academy on Thurs. May 18th. I also suggested six possible “take-away” points for deliberation, which I intended to be a starting point for conversation. So stimulating, cogent, and compelling was Stephenson’s presentation that I’d like to take the opportunity to develop some of those “take-away” points in a series of posts.

What are the hierarchical and network, formal and informal relationships that exist between faculty? This question alone seems dauntingly huge, and can shift from dept. to dept., from committee to committee, and from year to year within depts., committees, and faculty governing bodies. One small piece of this pertains to the way in which hierarchical and trust-based relationships express themselves in the interactions between un-tenured and tenured faculty as they work together to develop and enrich the social and intellectual capital of the institution.

Relationships between junior and senior faculty may be articulated in (at least) the following ways:

1. formally and hierarchically (as when, for example, senior/junior co-teachers function in the classroom as lecturer/discussant; senior faculty has full control of planning the course, while junior faculty performs student assessment)

2. informally and hierarchically (I would argue that has the potential to be the most awkward one for junior faculty, because it “walks and talks” like a trust-based relationship, but is in fact an authoritatively-based one)

3. formally within a network model (I’m thinking specifically of fruitful and fully realized mentorships)

4. informally within a network model (junior faculty, for example, seeking occasional advice from trusted senior faculty whom the junior faculty perceive as “pulsetakers”).

So, across a campus at large, and even within a single dept., a junior faculty member may experience a wide range of authoritative and trust-based relationships with senior colleagues.

Committees, therefore, are particularly interesting, not only because they are cells of activity within the larger “sub-organization” of faculty, but also because there exists such a dynamic range of formal and informal, authoritative and trust-based relationships in the composition of each committee, and the composition of each committee changes every year. And, then, not every committee is equal either, in terms of the nature of the work it does, whom that work effects, and the points of contact it utilizes to complete its social, intellectual, and transactional obligations (the question “obligations to whom?” is another nettled and complicated question…). Because these committees perform a great deal of policy development and often work as ambassadors between a faculty governing body and the administration, the tacit relationships within committees can have far-reaching consequences (positive, negative, and mixed).

Navigating this nexus of relationships is probably something that some people do better than others, and here’s where department chairs who want their junior faculty to succeed can have real impact early on. Appoint senior faculty members who tend to function well in trust-based relationships to serve as mentors; in the absence of a formal mentoring system, encourage connection between junior faculty and trusted and trust-enabling senior faculty.

Readers, what have your experiences of mentoring been?

UMW’s Faculty Academy this year was more inspirational than ever, and that’s saying something!!

Having earnestly listened to every highly tuned word of Karen Stephenson’s presentation on the topic of trust within institutions, it occurred to me that the faculty at my institution should take a full year to digest, reflect upon, and engage her advice. She argued that there are essentially three kinds of relationships within institutions–transactional relationships, authoritative relationships defined by differential statuses of power, and relationships of trust. Those which are based on trust function through collaboration and “can absorb great amounts of ambiguity and uncertainty.”

Moreover, she argued, in any network, there are three kinds of “nodal” employees, all three of which are typically unaware of the fact that they are nodal: the hub is the “clearinghouse of information” and thrives at on pulling in strains of information from disparate parts of the organization; the gatekeeper serves as a link in the traffic of information between two elements of an organization; and the pulsetaker is one to whom other people turn when seeking advice about strategies or policies, because he or she has his/her “fingers on the pulse of the organization.” If the hubs, gatekeepers, and pulsetakers of the organization are misaligned with the organization, the organization is must realign them or risk failure. Even more urgently, if the relationship which governs any of these three nodal employees is defined by betrayal (i.e., betrayal of trust), it cannot be salvaged.

It occurred to me that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to reflect long and hard about: 1. the kinds of relationships that exist between faculty, between faculty and administration, and between our larger organizations; 2. the relationship between our institution at large and the public (i.e., the taxpayers of this mid-Atlantic state); 3. who the hubs, the gatekeepers, and the pulsetakers of our organization are; 4. the degree to which they value, exemplify, and promote trust; 5. (and this is the hardest and potentially most contentious one) identify and address where and why relationships based on betrayal exist; and 6. deliberate how to contain or reorganize accordingly. Our institution, having experienced lately a series of radical shifts in the top echelon of leadership, could truly benefit from such an analysis.

Readers, how might such an analysis benefit an institution, and how would you organize and engage in such an analysis?

In a workshop at Faculty Academy yesterday, Barbara Ganley drove home a message she had delivered with no little conviction during her plenary presentation. Borrowing a poignant phrase from E.M. Forrester (”how do I know what I think until I see what I say?”), she judiciously argued that every teacher should be modelling the process of thinking, of becoming, of deep-learning through writing. How can we use the social dynamic of a community, she poignantly asked, to encourage narrative reflection that moves through “cycles of disruption and repair”?

One of the best-kept and endemically experienced secrets in academia is that we scholar-teachers tend to fear exposure. We fear being proven wrong. We fear flopping under scrutiny. And, good heavens, we most certainly fear doing so publicly! Barbara encouraged her audience “to fail, oh, to fail gloriously and (*gasp*) in front of our students!” Why? Because failing leads to a sensation of utter disorientation and of dismay. In an exercise in the workshop, she led us to reveal to ourselves that disorientation and dismay are exactly the experiential prerequisites for deep learning, and if we are not life-long learners, how can we expect our students to be?

Some friends of mine (most notably Pedablogy and Gardner Writes), have been encouraging me to jump off the dock and say something–anything–publicly and for the record. I confess, the thought of doing so has inspired no little trepidation on my part. What could I possibly have to say that anyone at all would care to read about? To paraphrase Wodehouse’s most inimitable Jeeves, it seems a given to me that I am in real danger of generating material that would be better put aside to be read at some later date along with the gas bill.

Whether it is whimsy or courage or inspiration that wags its finger at my lesser inclinations, I am here to join the “caravan” into the company of which Gardner has aptly and with “senses variously drawn out” invited me.

Be that as it may, I think the whole “Reverend Jim” joke is a testament to the play and joy we all get out of the work we do at UMW. I’d like to take a moment and thank Barbara Ganley, Laura Blankenship, and Alan Levine for stepping into the nut house and having so much fun with it all -and raising the play and joy to yet another unthinkably amazing level. I’d also like to recognize the faculty at UMW for continuing to awe all of us each and every day we work together -most of my own groove these last few days has been fueled by the revelation that so many of the faculty grok and are implementing the “small pieces loosely joined” philosophy. Additionally, the absent presence of all the people in the ed-tech network that make this, without question, the coolest field in the world in which one could be thinking and imagining currently. Finally, I’d like to thank my colleagues at DTLT for making UMW such an inspiring and generative place to work, live, and play, despite the horrifying fact that they are currently using my uncomfortable status as fanboy to turn me into a bonafide lunatic! I’m feeling a lot of passion, joy, and general good will right now, much like I did after Northern Voice 2007, which is a very good great sign!

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You have no idea how much honor there was in being a part of Faculty Academy

Sitting in the Richmond airport, sipping the free wifi on my way home to Phoenix, I am still swimming in the euphoric high of having the honor to have been a part of the University of Mary Washington’s Faculty Academy- 2 days of tech-teach-learn-love fest.

On the ride to the airport, I joked with Jim Groom that it was almost a religious experience (keep in mind I hang out at a UU congregation). This is even twice as funny as people refer to him her as “Reverend Jim” for his passionate “preaching” of the power of WordPress (T-shirts are available).

So mentally, in my tired brain is a long list of things worth blogging about, like the crafted “slow blogging” approach I learned here from Barbara Ganley. I really ought to do that, but… Maybe I will as I try to blog offline, just typing out my thoughts in thw plane, hoping I remember a few URLs, the names of people I met, the richness of the 2 days, and perhaps even where I left my house key.

And I was serious when I told the UMW folks last night that I might be incessantly blogging the next few days about Mary Washington as much as the recent twitter blogging binge I have been on. They have an incredible– no that is an understatement – an unbelievable– no, because I believe in it — how about just plain amazing thing here, an electric buzz vibe of creative, postively edgy, energy that is doing far and away a range of some of the best uses of web 2.0 technology for teaching and learning.

Like I mentioned repeatedly, I’d watched remotely from across the distance, sipping the RSS and grabbing the podcasts in previous years as colleagues I like and respected were invited to Faculty Academy– in 2005, it was the Two Bri/yans, Brian Lamb and Bryan Alexander. What a tag team! And last year, it was NMC colleague Rachel Smith and long time colleague Cyprien Lomas on the program– but wait, there’s more– with freaking Jon Udell! Is it that deep impressive oratory voice of Gardner that entices people like Udell to make a trip to Fredericksburg?

So it was a dream come try when the Voice invited me this year. Truly, truly, truly, an honor.

So here it is, a start at the 10000 Great Things About My Two Days at Faculty Academy. I think there are at least that many, if only I can remember them. In no particular order, except as I think of them:

• It starts, ends, and could be just about the people here. I’ve been elsewhere and encountered nice people, and they are nice here, but these are fabulously talented people in all cuts, from passionate teachers to creative technical folks to driven leaders to amazing support folks.
• Well, it could be several points on people here. After 2 days of great sessions and activity, rather than dispersing as we typically did at Maricopa when I coordinated our somewhat similar Ocotillo Retreats– they close with a wine & cheese party and a dinner. But nore than that- it was the seemingly spontaneous moment when there was the first “last words” when person after person stood up to share their reflections of Faculty Academy. Oh my gosh, these are people that not only work well together, they talk, act, and are in fact– family. The cooperate, tease, and support each other like a family. How often does that happen in the artificial social bodies we join called “organizations”? Whatever they have in the water supply here, it is some kind of magic elixer.
• Fredericksburg- thought I had been here before, but may have gotten it mixed up with Harrisonburg (I think every town in Virginia is a “burg” just left Richmondburg). I hardly got a sense of the place with the schedule, and lodgiing in a nice, but pretty much Anytown Hilton. The events were held in new buildings of a new campus away from the primary one, but Jim did give me a quick drive through of the main UMW campus on my arrival, which is the classic east coast college bucolic versions I remember – lush green grass, towering trees, and a swarm of red brick, high ceilinged, white pillared classic buildings. It felt like a lush, idyllic park.. of learning.
• Great surprise to run into Rick Reo form George Mason here, thanks for driving down. Faculty Academy puts on this great event– and they share it for free with other educators from neighboring colleges, universties. This is but one small way they carry out and live to open spirit of sharing what they do.
• I heard countless mention in the 2 days here of “small pieces loosely joined” — in the program, in the sessions, in the converastions. And this was not the techies spouting off, I heard it from faculty putting this approach to use. It was a dream, a clever title, a pie in the sky hope back in 2004– but it is happening for real here.
• In Chip German, they not only have a CIO that “gets it” in terms of technology and learning, but someone who genuinely feels the “it” and creates an environment that sustains innovation. And I’ve yet to meet a CIO who spends the full 2 days at this type of event — not tuned into his Blackberry or other pressing business, but listening intently to the speakers, and more often than not, doing his own photography.
• Oh my gosh, they set up a twittercamp on a plasma screen Even customized it.

• And double oh my gosh, I was on the bill with Barbara Ganley, a true heroine of blogging, teaching with blogging, and someone passionate about its still perhaps untapped potential. Someone who writes long, crafted blog posts woven together with beautful photos. I’m taking to heart her worries about people “waning” or being “tired” of blogging, and the notion in her keynote of “slow blogging” of composing those moving, long posts that have an arc of a story. And even more humbling, she spoke like it was a big deal to be here with me– as I said last night, I just play with technologies, talk about them, toy with them– while she is actually doing something meaningful and purposeful with them for her students. If I had a wish to be instantly reincarnated, it would be as a writing student at Middlebury College. Close me eyes and click my heels…
• It was funny that as I met faculty here, not knowing I was an outsider, their first question was “what department are you in?” They do not seem like they are extremely insular and silo-ed, and I saw plenty of examples of cross-cutting department activity, but it tied in with some of the notions in Karen Stephenson’s keynote on visualizing networks of communication and trust in organzations. I’m thinking more about what are the implications of maintaining institutional silos. I’m not advocating burning the silos, as there are positives in huddled groupings by the subjects people are passionaate about, but we need perhaps many more windows, doors, chutes and ladders between the silos.
• The support team of the DTLT group here is one of talent, coordination, camaraderie at a level I’ve seen very few places, where usually instructional technologists toil in more isolation. Its a Fab Five here with Andy, Jerry, Patrick, Jim, and Martha. How can 5 people have such complementary skills and abilities? In basketball, they would be a UCLA like dynasty, in rock and roll, they would be the uber mega band. In Instructional Techniology, they are the dream team.
• The folks here are blogging. A lot. Not just the techies or the bleeding edge faculty. And its not just people expounding on their own stuff- its the use of blogs, wikis, drupal in courses that seemed to be oozing out of the buildings and classrooms. It’s what many of us hoped for when blogs first came out, that faculty would approach them as a vehicle for engagement, expression, and bringing learning and topics to a whole new level. I lost count of how many blog-powered course projects were going on, and being done but faculty who generaly started with a disclaimer of “I was not much of a techie but with the help of…” I think one faculty who was new to using the new tools did three presentations, of which she was referred to as “coming out” (of the technofearing closet).
• Jim Groom is just a nice quiet quy who loves drupal.
• Not. Jim Groom is an amazing, lovable, fireball of creative energy. I lost track again of how many faculty talked about how Jim magically matched some ideas they had to a deployment of it in WordPress (yes, for Jim, everything is seen through WordPress colored glasses, and he has no need to apologize). And he is rarely just in the zone or mindset f technology- he speaks from his trove of experience in literature, history, film, music…
• They fully deployed the small pieces approach in the materials and web site for the program- The Faculty Academy site is a blog, wiki, aggregating, flickr showing, tagged to the hilt, mash-it-up web of information that expands the reach and connections of the event. They seem to use it as an experimental ground too for new ideas, like the Fishtank and the string of tools that pulls in posts from external blogs that identify posts with aspecial tag or category.
• And certainly in the proof that this list is not in order, there is a powerful, magical, a come and jump on the Magic bus presence here know as Gardner Campbell. It was in jest when Brian Lamb and dubbed him “Dr Glu” but his vision and energy here are in fact a glue, not the kind that keeps you stuck, but th fun gooey stuff that helps you keep it all together. Okay, that metaphor missed the mark. Gardner’s words, ideas, and vision here are a driving force. And as a long time fan of his blog, Gardner Writes, I am much much more excited to get a chance to listen when Gardner Speaks. What he has to say lifts you off your seat. I may spend a year saying, “Thank you, Gardner”.
• Thank you Gardner.
• There is a concept here called (well it might not be the official name) the Sandbox. It is the approach they use for experimenting, trying new uses of technology by setting up blogs, wikis, drupals, on an externally hosted location, with the ISP Bluehost. They just refer to their work “being bluehosted”. I’ve seen more, many more, cases where faculty have no option to use new technologies on their internal system due to fear of security, hacking, or just lack of interest in setting these web sites up. I have seen more often than not, the answer is just a flat “No, we cannot install a wiki. End of discussion.” By externally hosting them here, they can ypass the infrastructure support issues, and quickly deploy, try new technologies. Yes, I know it is not feasible when there are needs to transmit student information– but we are in a huge heap of trouble in higher education when we do not provide a place, a space, and the tools for doing R&D. Every industry invests in this to some to a large degree, and education, for the most part, thinks that innovation cna happen purely from the purity of academic pursuit. IN technology, there needs to be places to try and fail, try and succeed. And this is place that took thatr leap, and is now seeing the payoff, the so called ROI.
• One more time- thank you, Gardner.
• And another oft to be repeated thank you is to Martha, who tirelessly made everything work as the conference organizer, program designer, and agenda master/mistress (wow, that non sounds wrong). She was key in making this a raging success.
• I know it is a good sign when people take time to craft clever titles like “M*A*S*H*U*P*S”.
• Jim- again, thanks for being my “Groome” transportation service, driving all the way to Richmond, and at an ungodly hour today. And thanks even more for inviting me home to have dinner with your family. It’s all about connections, eh?
• Did I mention enough times how cool Barbara Ganley is? I need to plot a way to work on a project with her.
• The group here seemed interested, accepted, got something out of my “Being There…” presentation, which to me, seemed to be mostly a stack of fun pictures, goofy video, and me just saying this is how I look at technology as a pie eyed optimist.
• And how can I not appreciate the infections energy of faculty like Steve Greenlaw? He not only “groks” it- he gets other faculty “grokking” it, be example and the fire in his eyes. I expect to see him flying around Second Life now, causing postive havoc.
• And I heard that people took to my notion that you cannot dismiss or evaluate a technology based on quick impressions, inane content (why did I use as an example of twittering of “I just washed my cat”?)– I scopped up a pile of new flickr contacts like Shannon, Joe, etc.
• Oh, did I remember to thank Gardner?
• And add to the dream team, the DTLT’s student aid Joe, who gleefully sported a “Geek” t-shirt and came forth with his probing questions on Second Life. If your IT support area is not tapping into the potential of students as staff, you are missing out. The greatest untapped techical and creative expertise on college campuses are the students who ironically pay for the privilige of being there. Fold their talent in, reap the benefits.
• This was like the second time meeting Andy Rush, and yet for all the technical tips we’ve swapped, I feel like we go way back. He teaches me, I teach him, yet we’ve spoken face to face but once before this week.
• Does faculty blogging spurt to life with tenure? We had joking suggestions that hinted there might be something behind the joke. What might it mean if it is only “safe” to openly express ideas when a job is not jeopardized?
• They are WordPress and Mediawiki addicts here, but its not a complete monopoly approach– there are compelling projects going on in drupal and other web-based apps, but wow, do they push out some elegantly designed and constructed WP sites. “Code is pretty” appeared among the other quotes on one of the poetry course sites, and it is the spirit here, along side “templates are pretty”.
• They have an interesting challenge here with a new campus, separate in location, structure, and academic focus than the main. I have little doubt they will figure it out, but it will be interesting to see it unfold.
• And what a cool surprise it was to meet Laura Blankenship, legendary Geeky Mom! Wow, we gotta find a way to bring Bryna Mawr into NMC. Let’s plot.
• Radical Librarians! In the closing session on folksonomy, Charlotte makes a bold challenge to now run away from the tag clouds and roots for the taggers!
• At the same time, it is not always techno-utopia. Faculty struggle at times with getting students to post, comment, some places the wiki thrives and in others it whithers– but they are not relying here on any formal recipe.
• I feel reborn zest for blogging. Despite tagging, twittering, Second Lifing– my blog has always been my anchor, my hub, my home. It is my tracks in the sand, my echo chamber. In earlier years, I recall numerous times where what I was doing or thinking seemed on its own to compel me to blog- like an idea was rattling around in my head that would not settle until it was written. With some people talking of blog fatigue or a preference to microblog in twitspace, I’m hoping a corp of rebels will stay true to the power of the blog.
• Jerry Slezak just so quietly and effectively helps pull many pieces magic together making it look easy. I have to like someone who uses a photo of Camden Yards as the background of his twitter page.
• Amazing support on on sound and video form David- the big screen, speakers, streaming media were just flawless. And this is his side responsibilites as a server administrator. Does talent here grow like the flowers?
• Twitter or jaiku? A riddle, a quandry? I’m sitting on the fence. More Social Network Fatigue, but I cannot say what I did in the presentation yesterday and not try being there.
• Gotta like the program material and graphic theme be “UMQ Groks”.
• Patrick- another renaissance ITSer here, ranging from Anglosaxon literature to RDF, a drupal-torian in a den of WordPress bear cave. And you had to just be there to appreciate his use of the audience singing the Oscar Meyer song to demonstrate the semantic web.
• Richmond airport is rather cool- small without the 60 gate runs through Dallas or the bus and train travel between terminals of say Atlanta, and even better, they have free wireless! It’s time to bash the airports who give only the option of Terrible T-Mobile. But wait, there’s more! In the seating area, they have ample electrical outlets, multiple 4 port ones but a few feet apart.
• Sorry Jim, that Barbara and I could not support for your daily doughnut habit. And in my presentation, I missed a great opportunity when I showed my McDonalds “billions” served image to mention that Barbara Ganley may have the unique distinction of being a holdout of never having eaten a McAnything. I just love radical stands.

I am about out of steam, and still just scraping the surface of my impressions from the time here. This experience will resonate wiht me for a long long time, and as I hoped slashe expected, I am taking home much more in learning than I may have left here.

So run, click, tune into the Faculty Academy site. Find an excuse to be in the Fredericksburg area next May. Check out the web/podcasts. Pick up the flickr stream, the delicious marks, the tweets.

Oh, I almost forgot.

Thanks Gardner! “Every day I get in queue… (Too Much UMW bus!)” The Magic Bus is a caravan indeed.

In case you didn’t see it, Jim Groom, our resident evangelical instructional technologist, has got his own t-shirt now. Honestly, as if he needs more exposure. Anyway, if you look carefully at the picture (particularly the area within the red square), you’ll see what we’re really thinking of Jim when he’s going on about something . . .

Seriously, Jim was on fire at Faculty Academy and Student Academy (where the photo was taken) this year, and that energy had to captured somehow. Why not on 100% cotton!

Highlights that stick out at this juncture:

– Barbara Ganley’s two presentations — one an impassioned “call to arms” for the role of slow blogging (writing with reflection and purpose) in 21st-century learning, the other an inspiring yet practical workshop on the way to frame a technology-intensive course around both the content and the individual students in a given class. [The last deserves a blog post of its own, and probably from someone more articulate than me.]

– Claudia Emerson’s online technology coming-out party — three presentations on three different projects, and each of them about a site/blog/work that I wish my students and I had created.

– Alan Levine‘s reminder that play and experimentation with non-obviously educational technologies like Second Life and Twitter can provide us with new ways to address educational questions.

– The Teaching and Learning Technology Fellows demonstrating that a little money (a course release), a fair amount of talking, and a lot of support can aid both technology evangelists and technophobes in creating thoughtful, creative projects from which our students will benefit. [And that not knowing at first exactly what you want to do can be a really good thing.]

– Karen Stephenson’s talk about networks of social interaction, of knowledge capital, and the resulting twittering and Twittering about who the hubs, mavericks and heretics of Mary Washington are (and whether or not we need to give them a hug). [Lots more to think about here....] [Thanks to Gardner for his role in bringing Barbara, Alan, and Karen to campus.]

– The success of Martha Burtis and the DTLT ITSs (Jerry, Jim, Andy, and Patrick) in not only putting on a terrific conference (including several of their own sessions), but also providing the moral and technical support that enabled almost every one of the projects we saw presented.

[What? What do you mean you missed it?! Well, there's always next year. Or you can talk to your friendly neighborhood ITS today. They're happy to help you implement your ideas, or even to help you figure out what you might want to do. Don't have an ITS at your school? Ask for one. (But you can't have ours.) Their presence here is one of the best things about UMW.]

Title is a nod to colleagues in the audience who are film buffs. Is anyone a fan of Chance the Gardner? www.imdb.com/title/tt0078841/

In thinking about this session, I kept returning to the value and power of “being there” with all of this exploding technology.

Today was my main presentation for Faculty Academy titled Being There: nets, tweets, avatars… in which I blitzed the audience with 71 slides, mostly flickr’s creative commons licensed images matching my warped metaphors, where I aimed to paint a picture of the distributed and perhaps unfamiliar online social or community space such as twitter, flickr groups for interests you would have never heard of, comment blogging, and a whiff at Second Life.

My suggestion is that ‘expertise’ embodied in a single person is a quasi myth, and the suggested route is to “be” in your own constructed network that provides distributed expertise.

On a larger plane (plain?) I tried to use twitter as an phenomena where people misjudge a technologies attributes and potential based on the seemingly inane content found there. I also tossed in a wild leap at relating teaching to cover bands (What I learned from Johnny Cash), the daring statement that “the internet is really big”, some pointers to resources of online facilitation (that would be you, Choco Nancy!), and a photo of my dog using Second Life. And in the eternal optimism department, I re-used some images to suggest the way through all the craziness is keeping a child like sense of wonder

Anyhow I had fun. People laughed. 75 minutes flew by.

You can find the presentation graphics and links, notes as a flickr set and as a slideshare show (yes I used PowerPoint, mainly for this purpose- not too happy with slideshare- it does not preserve hyperlinks or keep the info in the notes field).

Be there.

The FA has ended and I am already feeling withdrawal. I can’t say much now because I am borrowing my friend’s laptop but, as soon as my laptop is returned to me (with working shift keys hopefully) there are many things I want to say. First, it may seem silly but, I know there is something special going on when I willingly miss the season finale of my obsession, CSI. Lastly for now, I just want to comment on the after dinner activities. As each person stood up to say something I knew they weren’t doing it because they felt they had to but, because of the genuine love and friendships that have formed. I’m just in awe of all that is in front of me and I wonder what wrinkle in the matrix has placed all of these people together. The lovely music being played and the song being sung by the choir is like a siren song, and I am lost in it. I feel beyond blessed that I should have stumbled across this community of thinkers, learners, and innovators. This is going to be a long strange trip the next 3 years and hopefully beyond that too.

Today I finally opened a Twitter account at the encouragement of Joe. I had been tempted for awhile but, I had that feeling I didn’t need another reason to feel like I was stalking the UMW faculty. Twitter was acting a little wonky today but, I finally got an account made and started to friend, yes you guessed it, faculty members. I think I came in on Twitter at the perfect time, with all the flurry of ideas and activity there was plenty to read and soak up. Great, just what I needed another reason to get distracted from school work, well I have the whole summer to work through an addiction.

Leave it to XKCD to have an apt comic for today. I’m sure many people ran into something like this at Twitter on a couple occasions.

Shannon Hauser

Panel Discussion: Small Pieces Loosely Joined

Steve/Jerry: It was quite a curious feeling having the class I was in discussed and dissected right in front of me. One of the first things mentioned, “first year students are moldable”. Couldn’t agree more just look how I have been brainwashed Especially first semester if it is made clear to students that college isn’t just “13th grade” there is greater chance for sending them on the right track. One of the keys to the right track is the idea of ownership, without it than a student’s education isn’t personal but, rather a pre-packaged product to be consumed. I was never really fond of pre-packaged anything.

Gardner/Jim: I actually stumbled across the els blog feeds and followed it over the last half of the spring semester. As Gardner said (more eloquently of course) he was trying to create as many opportunities to allow students to observe connections between classes. So as I followed the class I felt like I was almost there without actually being enrolled in the class and I contemplated if I could somehow sneak into the class just to listen in on the in-class conversations that I read about on students blogs. I lurked over a few weeks and in passing mentioned to Serena about following her films blog and she encouraged me to comment, sadly I never did. Since setting up my Netflix account I have added many of the movies discussed in class to my queue, the discussion on the blogs sparked an interest to see and analyze these films. Lastly, as Jim pointed out, he formed relationships with students (such as Serena) that he normally would not have really known and in the process is also learning from students.

Shannon Hauser

After driving down from Jersey I am slightly sunburned and a little exhausted but, I have arrived at the Faculty Academy.

Currently I am sitting right next to Alan Levine (zomg the CogDog!) and listening to Barbara Ganley share words of wisdom on slow-blogging and deep learing, it doesn’t get much better than this. Here’s a quote from one of Barbara’s students, “There’s links on blogs that don’t exist in real life” Exactly!! I couldn’t agree more. So many pieces of brilliance are flying at me that I cannot grab them all but, thanks to technology I’m sure I will read other people’s posts on her inspired lecture and hear the recorded version online.

More goodness to come!

Notes from Barbara’s workshop:

* no two classes should necessarily have the same goals. Before you think about the tool or technology to use, think first about about the kind of class dynamic that you are hoping to foster and generate. A few questions: “what kinds of teaching will you do in class?” “How will your students spend their time out of class?” “What is the relationship between content and process?” “How will you make your pedagogy transparent?” (Transparent pedagogy — something to ponder)

* the play between “group” and “solo” varies according to the class goals.

* how do you spend the first few weeks of the semester? What’s your “opening act?”

* another question for students: “what in my life has brought me to this course?” Tell a story (dig. story) of one particular moment in your life that explains why you’re in this class. . .

* Bonding over digital storytelling — powerful force/magic

* great exercise on identifying learning moments, trends, commanilities, good stuff. Must to back to Barbara’s blog to take a look at the whole program

development, digital storytelling, fa07, ganley, learning, workshop

Get your own Reverend Jim shirt at www.cafepress.com/fa07..

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Barbara Ganley poses the following question at the beginning of her talk:

What is the correlation between your own personal use of Web technologies and the way you use them in the classroom?

Well, what is it for me? The correlation fall at the interstices of making the process an active, open archive of learning that pushed the limits of sharing, collaborating, and building upon their own relationships with a larger social, political and economic context. The correlation is a vision of finally using technology to rethink the access to education and the ways we help one another think, learn, discover and share ideas. A network we could have only dreamed about 200, no less 20 years ago.

Random quotes from Barbara Ganley’s discussion of slow blogging: “Sending letters to self…slow blogging as an organic evolving portfolio…writing to and for actual people…links on the internet that don’t exist in real life…how do you know excellence when you see it…we will become the course…we will shape and define the course…An archive of learning that intersects with others learning…Use the tools of the time to teach to the time”

I have so much more to say about this talk and will be thinking and re-watching this presentation very soon, but to be quick and to the point (quite the opposite of Barbara’s beautifully nuanced presentation about slow blogging): it was the best discussion on the uses of the blog in life, learning, and love I have yet to see, hear, or read. Wow, Barbara -amazing. Thanks you!

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Alan: You can’t figure this stuff out from the outside.

Gardner has tried to talk me into trying twitter, but it was only when I saw the posts popping up on the screen during the presentation that I felt compelled to give it a try, and in fact I signed up before the session was over.

Alan reiterated a point he made yesterday, that teaching is (or can be) a type of mashup or remix when we provide our interpretation of existing material.

One quibble: I didn’t take enough notes, so I’d love to see a list of the links he used in his presentation.

[Nearly 40 people crammed into the room to hear them--Standing Room Only....]

One particular point raised by Claudia that intrigued me was the notion of applying to change that particular class from 3 credits to 4, allowing for a “lab” component (or perhaps recognizing the increased time that developing and implementing some of these skills may take). [I'm aware that there are some complications related to campus expectations for what constitutes a four-credit course. Let's set those aside for a second.] What do people think about the idea of a “digital lab” component for more credit?

I was taken aback for a moment, but then I realized he was right. Just look at the program for the Academy and you can see an impressive array of departments, ideas, pedagogies, and interests, all who add their voices to the mix.

I would add to that (if I can take the metaphor a step further) that I suspect that the larger choir and its members have never been more in sync with the others in the choir, never more engaged with each other as teachers and scholars, never more able eager to see what others are working on, never been more ready to embrace teaching as a perpetual beta.

[Why now? I suspect it's a confluence of larger trends such as easier-to-use web tools, the rise of digital public learning spaces, and a willingness of students to engage in these online conversations/creations, as well as local strengths such as leadership, infrastructure and support, and the tech evangelism of a key group of people.]

Where do we go from here? Why, back for Day Two of Faculty Academy, of course!

The first day of Faculty Academy 2007 is wrapping up, and I’m enjoying the ITS Monster Mashup Show.
Overall, it’s been a great day: wonderful presentations by our guest speakers: Barbara Ganley and Alan Levine and a smorgasborg of sessions by UMW faculty. I wish I could have been in all of them; I’m looking forward to the podcasts.

Both Twitter and Google have been on the fritz today, and I choose to believe it’s the power of FA, pumping through the “tubes.” Luckily, we only use our power for good.

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* How can we structure the use of blogs in a course-context so that students genuinely engage with blogging?

* How does an instructor fairly evaluate blog posts?

* How do we get students to comment on each others’ blogs in substantive ways?

* How can we get reluctant students to participate in blogging?

* How do we produce ownership in a class blog?

I’m watching a panel discussion among Angela Gosetti-Murrayjohn, Susan Fernsebner, and Laura Blankenship, moderated by Steve Greenlaw. Sue just referred to a point in Barbara Ganley’s presentation earlier: is blogging already becoming passe? And, if so, what’s the next tool we’ll be embracing on the horizon? Or, as Sue put it “what mess can we make now?” (I’m paraphrasing; that’s basically what she said, though.). I love it.

Making messes is one of the parts of my job that I like most. It’s related to risk-taking, actually. I feel very lucky to be in a job that allows me to make messes and learn from my mistakes.

Another great thing about this panel is the fact that Steve is moderating. I knew that he had played a part in getting Angela to consider using blogs for her Afterlife and Homer courses, but I didn’t know that he’d also talked Sue’s ear off about blogs on a commute from NoVA to Fredericksburg–and is, at least partly, responsible for her own use of blogs this past year. Steve is a great example of the kind of faculty mentor that we need more of. Thanks, Steve.

Just to be clear, I feel very lucky to work at place like UMW that does have lots of faculty mentors like Steve. Faculty Academy is a great example of that!

blankenship, blogging, fa07, fernsebner, gosetti murrayjohn, greenlaw, panel

Barbara Ganley’s plenary presentation this morning felt to me like a call to arms–a reminder of how transformative blogging can be if we are willing to give ourselves up to the process of “slow blogging” that she discussed.

The word that resonated in my head afterwards was “risk.” A few weeks ago, when Jerry, Steve, and I presented at UCF, I had an interesting conversation with a faculty member afterwards (whose name I can’t recall at the moment) about the fact that at the heart of so much of what we are pushing faculty to do is the willingness to take risks. That willingness transcends personal choice in many ways–I think that the real willingness probably needs to happen at a higher, institutional level in order for it to filter down to individual faculty (and students). What would our lives be like if we all worked at institutions that valued risk-taking and were “okay” with the idea that, sometimes, the outcome of risk is failure.

These days, risk seems like a completely foreign concept to the business of higher education. Institutionally, aren’t we tending to make choices based on “good business models” and “market research?” Can those practices co-exist with risk-taking? I’m not so sure. . .and if risk-taking isn’t a part of the larger culture, how can we ask our faculty (much less our students) to be comfortable with it?

Or, am I wrong? Is part of the essence of risk-taking a grassroots commitment? I’m not sure. . .

fa07, ganley, risk, slow blogging

I’m sitting here in the panel discussion on “Small Pieces Loosely Joined”. I can’t decide whether I’m more overwhelmed by the lost opportunity in not using the tools they talked about in my classes this semester, or by my excitement in being able to use them in my classes this fall….

Count me in as the newest fanboy of WordPress Multi-User….

a certain amount of mistakes is the price for living large
We simultaneously create the pressure of structure and constraint, and the free fall of choice.

Barbara Ganley’s Argument for Blogging as an Intrinsic Element in Liberal Education

“Slow Blogging” – writing to learn in the blog medium. Drawing connections between things in one’s classes, things in one’s life, things in the world.

Blogging as a way to break down the walls between different courses.

Combining the formal and the informal, the personal and the scholarly.

“Slow blogging is both pleasurable and perilous.”

“Students don’t see their posts as messages in a bottle–they’re writing to real people.”

“We will shape the course as it shapes us.”

Superb address, I can’t possibly do it justice here. You’ll just have to wait until the recorded versions are available.

She asks us

What is the correlation between your own personal use of web technologies and the way you use them in classroom?

Her start- “Slow-blogging” a Course- a reaction to her students urge to accomplish work as quickly and directly as possible. “My students are getting awards for this work, getting jobs– ‘bringing the house down’.”

Blogging as the process – “To Send Letters to the self”. Failing publicly is okay, in front of my students, my readers “who kindly pick me up out of the mud”. Slow blogging is both “powerless and pleasurable”

Expresses difficulty of presenting about a blog on a flat screen “I wish I could be one, have hypertext in my voice”

Students cannot see their blogging as messages sent out a a bottle. “We learn to participate in our own learning,”-family and friends take part, teachers of other classes. Learn about our own biases and cliches.

“There’s links on the internet that don’t exist in real ife” – from a student comment. “Blogging gives me a sense of infinity” another student

Builds grading rubrics with her students, students participate in own evaluation. Involve invited experts…. They expect to write hypertext papers in their other classes.

Shares her decision to start blogging about her father’s recent passing away -his decision to stop teaching.

Weaves together 4 blog external blog posts that have given her confidence- closing with Gardner Campbell’s podcast from the Kemp Symposium on the “caravan”…

Quoting and recommending from book Generation Me – is it “New Narcissism” “how do we bring students out of this interest in themselves?”

“Contact Zones of Travel” – Speaks of power of travel to “open our senses”- her trip recently to Scandinavia… “I saw people hide in their guidebooks, their carefully chosen restaurants- ‘Norway in a Nutshell’ with the books and music took them with them”

Power of “bumping into each others perspectives”- makes analogy with birds nests! You’d need to be here to catch it, cannot properly capture beauty of this in blog words.

“We have to use the tools of the time to teach to the time”

Woot! Such passion and energy.

Opening Session: Panel Discussion by the IT Fellows

I had heard the final presentations of this year’s IT Fellows, so I was familiar with much of what the panel presented today. I’d love to hear what others think about it though.

For me, the most interesting discussion came near the end when the participants responded to a question about assessment of their projects.

What I didn’t hear and think would be fascinating for a venue like the ELI would be the backstory to the first year of the IT Fellows Program–How did the program work? How did the community of IT Fellows develop. What went well? What went less well? What surprises were there? I wonder how the Program per se will be assessed. This is, of course, a bigger issue than assessing the individual projects. My take on this program was that it was an attempt to try a novel way to interest new faculty in incorporating instructional technology into their teaching. My sense, as an outsider, was that this worked very well, at least for a the first cohort of fellows.

Didn’t make it to the ‘burg for Faculty Academy this year? Don’t fret. This year, for the first time, we’ll be webcasting many of the Academy events at http://umw.kzonetworks.com/flash/live.php.

Follow along with us!

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Do you ever really know what to say when someone asks, “how was your flight?” – in nearly every case, I plan for mine to be un-eventful. This trip was an all day event form Phoenix- I thought I was early to the airport, but the lines at Continental (oops, forgot to print my passes last night) were slow and full of “special cases”. The TSA experience was certainly memorable- apparently, the units at Phoenix Terminal 2 are about 10 times as sensitive as the other terminals at the same airport, and my wallet and mostly plastic insulin pump dinged me and placed me in the plastic box for a pat down. The guy after me was zapped because he had a packet of gum in his pocket with foil wrappers.

So rather than having time for breakfast and to do some work using the lovely free wireless at the airport, I got to the gate with about 10 minutes to spare. I was blessed with a seat 2 rows from the back, with the fully reclined person in front and the parade of people to the rest rooms, I was like some contortionist trying to type sideways into my laptop. Not all that productive on the way to Cleveland, but I managed to chew through my battery.

The connection at Cleveland was only 45 minutes, but that went smoothly, and onto a puddle jumper to Richmond. I was met by Jim Groom (not to be confused with Groome Transport) who was a fantastic conversationalist driver all the way from Richmond to Fredericksburg- I got the quick tour, a drive through the lovely red brick UMW campus. Better yet, he took me to his home for a nice dinner with the family before depositing me back at the hotel where I am pecking away at my presentation stuff for the next 2 days.

Oh, that was the long way for saying I got here, and my attempt at blogging something with the proper tag to get nabbed to the Faculty Academy blog. I’m really excited to see all the action tomorrow- more so to meet and listen, then to gab my talk.

The programs are printed. The tablecloths are set. Nametags are assembled (and alphabetized!).

According to the widgetbox countdown clock, we’ve got 1 hour and 54 minutes until the clock turns midnight and May 16 arrives.

Oh, and I’ve got a splitting headache.

What can it all mean? Only one thing. . .Faculty Academy 2007 is around the corner. . .!

See you all in the morning!

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Twitter is coughing up hairballs less than 24 hours until Faculty Academy 2007. And with lots of twittery goodness planned, we hope those cats work fast.

Now, I’ve been folksonomically tagged as a fanboy, or even more recently as the “WordPress Hammer.” I really enjoy such labels because they reside at the intersection of passionate intensity and myopia (all my favorite literary figures live there: Captain Ahab, Raskolnikov, Thomas Sutpen, or even the Misfit from Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find“). Nonetheless, lately I have become a bit suspect of my own inclination to “write to the tool” and was planning on re-gearing my discussions towards more important things like the relationship between institutional learning, power and scholarship. Or even push more of my energy towards the discursive community working towards a free, open, and distributed learning environment.

This was all before I realized that I am already doing that by promoting and contributing to the WordPress “caravan” (to quote Gardner Campbell’s brilliant meditation on this very topic) for it is not a Web 2.0 tool, rather it is a movement! A community that promotes and augments the possibilities for publishing content of all kinds at the low. low cost of free. More than that, unlike many of the other applications out there that do much the same thing (Moveable Type, Blogger, etc.) -there seems to be a sense of commitment on the part of the WordPress community to keep it that way for the foreseeable future. Well, so much for any hopes of abandoning my monomania!

WordPress rules!!!

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Fishtanks are colorful, interesting, and constantly transforming — just like the intellectual life around the Faculty Academy. We’re using that metaphor to describe what we’re capturing here, a view on the blog posts about Faculty Academy events. (Information about registering your blog to be included in the list is in your program). The blog page gets you into scuba gear to dive right into the depths of the blogs. Here, you’re looking into the fishtank to see an overview of the posts, including the author, tags and/or categories used for the post, a preview, and what sites the post links to. You can focus in on any of those aspects by clicking on the information in the four boxes below (kinda like focusing on the little treasure chest, or on the log, or on the kelp, etc.). Enjoy the variety of ways to look at our time together (just don’t ask who’s the plecostomus).

How it works

First, we asked attendees who plan to be blogging the conference to register their blogs, so we have a list of the blogs, who owns them, and their RSS feeds. (The RSS feeds are also used by Jim Groom to use WordPress-O-Matic to collect all the posts to the Faculty Academy blog page). A (somewhat hastily cobbled) PHP script uses RAP and Triplr to look for posts with “FA07″ as the tag or category put that info into a big, beautiful RDF Graph. Along the way, I add in some extra SIOC data. This much is reworking earlier work I blogged about here. Then, parts of that graph are exported into a JSON file to be used by SIMILE’s Exhibit. And “ta-daa!” you’ve got the exhibit of people blogging the Faculty Academy.

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One more day until the Faculty Academy. If this post seems a little shallow, it might be because it’s a test of the FA broadcasting system. More soon!

Wednesday and Thursday, May 16 & 17 at UMW’s College for Graduate and Professional Studies. See http://blog07.facultyacademy.org/ for more information.

My real blogging began about a year ago, soon after the last Faculty Academy. I’m presenting this year on my class-based wiki projects. Hope to see you all there.

Well, it’s hard to believe, but the University of Mary Washington’s Faculty Academy is just five short days away -May 16th and 17th. For those of you who may be new to it, this is a unique event that has been ongoing for the last 12 years that focuses upon the use of technology to enhance, augment and re-imagine various approaches to teaching and learning. We have an action packed line up for you this year, and leading the charge some of the finest. We have Barbara Ganley, Director of the Project for Integrated Expression and Lecturer in the Writing Program and in English at Middlebury College. She has been doing nothing less than stellar work with blogs in her writing courses, and UMW is extremely fortunate to have lured her down to these parts.

We were also lucky enough to catch Alan Levine (aka the CogDog), who some might argue is the Babe Ruth of instructional technologists. Alan was recently named Vice President for Community and Chief Technical Officer of the New Media Consortium, and he is certain to inspire, challenge, and entertain any and all attendees.

Finally, our keynote, Dr. Karen Stephenson, is a corporate anthropologist lauded as a pioneer and “leader in the growing field of social-network business consultants.” Founder and CEO of Netform, Inc., she will be speaking on social network analysis as a transformative agent in higher education. To find out more about Dr. Stephenson’s talk click here.

Needless to say, it is going to be a phenomenal two days of teaching, learning, technology, philosophy, and Web 2.0 Online Educational Video Parties. So, I would strongly urge anyone who may be in harm’s way to register for this 100% free and open conference here, then get yourself down to Fredericksburg to see what the bleeding edge of educational technology looks like!

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