Tuesday, September 24, 2002
Catching up on my Friday class--
i took ten minutes to try and review course goals and give people a sense of where they should be, where we are heading. Then I asked for feedback--gave them about 15 minutes to answer three questions about the class. One Q about the need to structure the research component, one Q about collaboration, and one Q about writing arguments. I'll report findings later.
Then I talked for another 15--tried to do a little oprah thingy, tried to get a little discussion going. Went okay--wish I had had a better interactive component planned, but c'est la vie. Feeling more rested and hopeful again, thinking way ahead to next year:
1. Start with short writing assignments--one a week, more or less. Keep things structured, keep in good touch with everyone. Last time I taught 110 (1999), I did this and it worked very well. I thought the blogs would provide this, but no.
2. Save this question: blogs, what's the use, until the final unit. Cindy mentioned this.
3. Start with class blog or just Blackboard discussion. Actually, if you are both game next fall, I guess I would like to stick with the blogs--each of us have one community blog for our class, and try to simply get some cross-class blog interaction. Let those who want to branch out into the personal blog do so (as part of unit 2, defining myNewLiteracy).
4. Coming full circle back to Sybil's instincts (and what I use to do): start with "SElf in the Information Age." Maybe we don't need to start with Gergen's essay, but we can bring in some of his ideas, and start with other material that asks them to think about who they are, starting college, moving into a high-tech, digital environment (whether they like it or not).
5. Maybe the "blog" component of the first unit can be very non-threatening--entries about movies and books that deal with "identity" generally and "self in the information age" specifically.
Enough planning for now. I got knocked down pretty badly last week, but I am ready to get back on the horse. I think I can even pull in the reins for this course and make it go roughly in the direction I want it to go.
i took ten minutes to try and review course goals and give people a sense of where they should be, where we are heading. Then I asked for feedback--gave them about 15 minutes to answer three questions about the class. One Q about the need to structure the research component, one Q about collaboration, and one Q about writing arguments. I'll report findings later.
Then I talked for another 15--tried to do a little oprah thingy, tried to get a little discussion going. Went okay--wish I had had a better interactive component planned, but c'est la vie. Feeling more rested and hopeful again, thinking way ahead to next year:
1. Start with short writing assignments--one a week, more or less. Keep things structured, keep in good touch with everyone. Last time I taught 110 (1999), I did this and it worked very well. I thought the blogs would provide this, but no.
2. Save this question: blogs, what's the use, until the final unit. Cindy mentioned this.
3. Start with class blog or just Blackboard discussion. Actually, if you are both game next fall, I guess I would like to stick with the blogs--each of us have one community blog for our class, and try to simply get some cross-class blog interaction. Let those who want to branch out into the personal blog do so (as part of unit 2, defining myNewLiteracy).
4. Coming full circle back to Sybil's instincts (and what I use to do): start with "SElf in the Information Age." Maybe we don't need to start with Gergen's essay, but we can bring in some of his ideas, and start with other material that asks them to think about who they are, starting college, moving into a high-tech, digital environment (whether they like it or not).
5. Maybe the "blog" component of the first unit can be very non-threatening--entries about movies and books that deal with "identity" generally and "self in the information age" specifically.
Enough planning for now. I got knocked down pretty badly last week, but I am ready to get back on the horse. I think I can even pull in the reins for this course and make it go roughly in the direction I want it to go.
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