First Day - Notes

Jan 19 at 1 pm (CT) ELI Annual Meeting – Austin, Texas
General Assembly Welcome from Committee Chair (didn't catch his name)

There are three different layers of participants for this conference….in person, on-line (streaming) and Second Life.

Learning Environments for a Web 2.0 world (see white paper on ELI web page)
ELI 2010 – Who are we?
*495 enrolled participants (probably more now)
*seven countries represented (Canada,Egypt,Japan,Spain…more)
*faculty 39% of those in attendance (the most)

This meeting is concentrating on social networks. Tool selection to try while we are here. Two different ways.
Eli2010.pathable.com – ELI social networking hub (probably similar to Merlot Voices) includes contact list of registered guests.
GoogleWave-ELI annual meeting wave.

SESSION Speaker 1 p.m. - Digital Histories for the Digital Age -- How Do We Teach Writing Now?
Dr. William G. Thomas, III - University of Nebraska

Open with a story/discussion about experience in his curriculum (this might be of interest to folks in the History department as well as Archives and English).

Challenge – find ways to bring together archives/ example of railroad….new social history of the railroads. Developed a hypertextual history. How would faculty members use this in their teaching? (Fall 2007) Not yet begun to think about as web 2.0 approaches.

Description of History Survey courses – Univ. Nebraska
Fundamental problems existed – needed to improve digital literary skills.
Interdisciplinary team (English, Computer Science and History) 8 team members between three areas (most from History).

EDUCAUSE – conference that encourages interdisciplinary thinking.

Problem – how to write in digital age. (initial rationale – grant narrative). Students entry level. Seeking new model. Informal. Digital media. Students expect but cannot find digital materials…collaborative learning styles…..

Much of this is his verbatim....as best as I could type.

Tried to define digital history and what this scholarship might look like. Found myself arguing that digital histories make us think differently. When we digitize a text (diary, newspaper, etc.) we work through the partial…the contingent nature of our history. We are reminded that people lived complex interconnected lives, not always found in photos maps books, etc…
If we’re beginning to compose new forms of history – new forms of written work. We expect our students to do the same. Maybe produce their analysis in these formats.

Digital pedagogy. Marilyn Lombardi (ELI Publications) pointed out difficulty in teaching survey courses. Traditional modes of assessment….but…we should be asking ourselves. Research studies – content coverage less valuable than independent thinking….FACULTY know how difficult it is to move in this direction. Faculty development is essential to spur an active learning pedagogy.

Digital information overload. Underdevelopment of digital knowledge. Digital generation consumes, but does not produce digital media.

The novice in the archive. We expect students to know and how to behave.
We need to cultivate skills.

Writing Models for students – Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia
Challenge – largely, physically confined. Often first person and in Wikipedia, many times anonymous.

FORMS of writing – run counter in their objectives to humanities.
#1 - Problem/example – “Comment box” what is the genre of the comment box. Say something extreme. Phrase something Instantly effective. Longer and sustained analysis fades.

#2 - Problem – probanauts – where do things come from? Copies of copies of copies.
YouTube/Mtv (example Born in the USA…dozens of replications – what is original)
Is what students are looking at a primary source?!?! (Extreme examples) This is important. Students are confronted with COPIES of digital artifacts.

#3 – problem of inter-faces. Whole range of interfaces….google books, library of congress, national archives, LexisNexis, proQuest (particularly significant) ------------ WHAT is the classic catalog? They will get returns on searches….dissertation abstracts to
Can students discyfer these?

Fall 2008 – planned effort to run a new large survy lecture class.
Pilot with Blackboard in fall 1009
Ran course in spring 2009 with black board
Evaluate the process with classroom Wiki in Spring 2009 course to get close tracking and analysis beyond Blackboard.

160 students (2 TAs)

Made major changes to the way we taught the course.

Team writing assignments for Wikis (research topic…would work together to come together to compose thesis). *Progressive Era (topics) *Rise of U.S. as a World Power (1945-present topics)
One of the first things that happened….All sorts of bigger issues came into focus.
What should I do with the three hours of lecture?
Should I teach writing…with what tools.
What is the value of content coverage?
What do students need me to do?
What to do with three hours with 160 students?

Big changes – first, dropped textbook. No textbook. Symbolic.
Change some of the class time – focus on significant of events.
Explaining events.
Wouldn’t concern myself with how much content I could cover.
Instead – work – model historic thinking wanted students to bring to assignments.
Tests – essays only.
Use primary source documents from a reader to formulate thesis.
Took time out of lectures –
“how to” read a document.
“how to analysis sources”
How to write a thesis”
The way we approach historical events.
They would have the opportunity to be their own historian.
Focus of enterprise – historical THINKING. Habits of mind necessary to DO history.
Writing/practice doing history/see themselves doing history.
Emphasizes writing as a process of learning and disciplinary thinking
Uses digital sources to expose students to the complexity of the past
Requires collaboration in digital formats to formulate interpretation about sources.
EVALUATE approach!
Specially designed WIKI. (blackboard wouldn’t allow some things)
Wanted approach to be used in other systems – system to design for other faculty.

Key issue – what could we learn about pedagogy approach from our system?

What happened -
Objective – historical analysis and thinking
Technology – WIKI
Faculty friends in computer science – developed their own system. Allowed faculty to track students better.
Writing assignments were carefully put together.
Began by helping them become better readers of historical documents.
What questions do historians ask?

First assignment - WIKI in blackboard

Second assignment – Classroom WIKI (their own system)

#1 – (Progressive Era) with blackboard (many students had trouble with interfaces with library interface). Despite how-tos. Moderate high level…highly achieving students…group project affect grade negativity (burden to carry others). We found most groups…spent time meeting face to face….even though we expected to work asynchronously. (sounds like CTIP group) Using texting, IMs…no record of the process of that collaboration in the system!!! No record of them doing history. Blackboard didn’t have an easy connection. This was social…they thought they were doing what they should be doing. Last 30 minutes of assignment deadline. Half of class uploaded (broke blackboard). They did work off-line and uploaded.

#2 – (Rise of US as Power) This was a risk to switch technology in the middle of semester. Worked out. Highlights – gave clear direction about PURPOSE of assignment. Gave them more often and more consistently. More they engaged on-line, higher their scores. Informed them that our new system…tracked individually (much more than blackboard). Saw more discussion. Higher performance overall. Ability to track individual level work. These in effect became collaboratively assignments individual accountability. Found that students did slightly…but significantly better. More purpose to group’s formation. We saw better final exam essays. Not hard numbers, but after second WIKI project…we could literally see the students putting into practice.

Evaluation (preliminary):
Treatment Group earned higher average scores and had lower standard deviation – group able to work better
Total interaction counts similar
Treatment group rated peers slight better.

Comparisons hard to direct because first assignment wasn’t tracked as clearly as second (i.e. texting, IMing, etc)

Student Comments (not full quotes)

“It’s one thing to read a history text book. It’s quite another to play the part of historian and to develop an opinion about historical events…”

“Felt unsure what was required at first.”

“Wikis different kind of analysis…communication skills…new experience…”

Students are given choices of topics…use sources to find primary sources and do work of historian and compose essay from primary sources.

Faculty – found that when looking at historical analysis…

System handles multimedia.

What are the lessons learned.
First, whether or not we used a textbook. Students were fine with no textbook. But textbook would be handled differently.
Second lesson, we need better tools. We need more innovation in this area.
Third, digital literary skills are so important. Students need help with these materials.
Fourth, most important. We can adjust what we do in the classroom in a major way. We are emphasizing a mastery of a process…how to be a historian.

Why go to a residential college when information is available at fingertips?
What is a lecture course for?
Million of books on-line?

Other questions – students need this experience to gain mastery over a process. They should in these courses.
How to be a historian.
How to be a sociologist.
How to be a ________?

THIS requires student faculty interaction.
Teach students critical inquiry!
Conclusion – faculty are looking for guidance. Teaching is changing. Single example. Faculty need/want technology in their teaching. To build up critical thinking!!


SESSION Speakers at 2:45 p.m.
Digital Storytelling (need to review handwritten notes)

Crib notes from memory - this session showed participants how students at this college build digital "essays" based on what they were learning in philosophy. Librarian and Digital Media representative from the college (not faculty) were presenting. Small school (1200). Class appeared very small (maybe 12-15 students).
Students would work on writing first.
Storyboard second (both hand drawn or on-line, student choice)
collecting images
maybe voice over and music
editing together
showing in class and at a "film festival" for faculty

These "stories" appeared to be how the students interpreted material learned and instead of taking a test or writing a paper, they had to create this digital essay.

The first question - "how is this storytelling" which I thought was an appropriate question. It appears the word choice is confusing. I would call it a digital essay, but these people called it digital storytelling. Two very different things in my opinion. I see digital storytelling working for study abroad students who keep a video journal while doing field work in Peru (let's say) and then producing a digital story of their experience upon their return home and showing to an audience of peers, faculty, public -- whoever....

My question was second - "How do you deal with Copyright?" They seemed to think that they covered those bases with "free" stuff on-line, but clips we saw included copyrighted material. Should this stay within Moodle (password protected) that's one thing, but they did have a "film festival" for faculty (and possibly even a wider audience). That is a bit blurry to me.

Another question was about institutional support and these speakers did not know how to answer this question because things were in motion and it seemed too soon. My theory is that institutional support would need to be multidimensional ...I'll start with the top (should be of value of the instution) but also an investment from both faculty and students (a valuable tool) and support to make sure things work correctly (i.e. CITE in our case).

I will review my notes to get the exact college at a later time. Or Carolyn L. might post before I do that. She was there with me.


SESSION at 4 p.m. Google Wave
This was a "hands-on" session. I am a hands-on learner so I was eager to sign up for this session. Sorry, I must start with one complaint -- technology (like so many other aspects of our lives) is becoming even more compartmentalized, more seperated, more specific....

So this (google wave) is yet another platform to create my own ID, password, profile...etc.etc. This is actually SO new that it is not public and people must be invited. Unfortunately, a couple of things happened here --- (I'm sure the presenters are very nice people...but...)

#1 - there were way too many people in this session for a hands-on demonstration,
#2 - participants had different levels of experience (me = none)
#3 - technology was not our friend for the first 10 minutes (precious time wasted - so the presenters skipped some potentially valuable information)
#4 - the presenters were not familiar with how to apply a pedagogical approach to explaining/teaching GoogleWave....and...
#5 - presenters not aware of microphones/sounds - we couldn't always hear and acoustics weren't helpful.

As you can ascertain, I was disappointed with this session. On a positive note, I will say that Liz and I found a good website with explanations and guidelines. [see www.mashable.com]. But...I don't think I will be using this anytime soon.

*****NOT CONFERENCE RELATED BELOW

Our group opted to forego the "reception" and as a group we went out to eat just a bit out of town in Driftwood at the Salt Lick (thanks Mitch K for suggesting this). Luckily, my friends Scott and Shawn W (both NMU alums) helped out a great deal by driving ALL of us out there (and probably saving us tons of money in cab fare). Carolyn didn't join us due to her teaching commitment, but the nine of us who went had a wonderful time getting to know each other outside of CTIP/NMU/Conference...I appreciate the time getting to know people on a different level like that. And everyone loved the BBQ!

Once we were back in Austin, a few of us went "on the town" with a colleague from MTU (Chad). We all just exchanged first names. (that's important later).

Okay...talk about small world. There are weird connections to share... I knew the blues performer, Erin James, in the club we happened to check out (free cover) whose husband's family lives in Harvey. Needless to say, she (Erin) was trippin' to see so many Yoopers in an Austin bar since she and her husband live and work in Austin. She played at the Marquette Area Blues Fest in 2008. SO...I call my husband to say..."hey I bumped into Erin James down here" and while I'm on the phone Chad from MTU realizes that my last name is Lindala. He says(while I'm talking to Walt),
"I know Mrs. Lindala."
to which I reply...
"Yes, you're looking at her."
"No. I know MRS. LINDALA on Lindala Road."
So Chad knows my MIL who lives in Chassell just south of MTU.
Yeah...kinds of an amazing night to an adventure-filled day!
I'm probably going to post pics on Facebook and Flickr. Will post links once they are up.

Thanks for reading.