This is a tentative syllabus, just to give you an idea about what is likely to happen in the 2010 version of the class. Stay tuned for official details once the class begins!
Prof. Steven D. Krause
skrause@emich.edu (by far, the best way to get a hold of me)
734-487-1363 (I only ocassionally check my voice mail)
Office hours during summer 2010 term: TBA
Description
This will be a “hands on the keyboards” workshop on using technology for the teaching and learning of writing, and it is designed for Composition, English, and Language Arts teachers K-College. We will have extensive in-class activities designed to learn how to use a variety of internet applications in present and future teaching– email, web sites, blogs, wikis, bookmarking sites, image sharing sites, podcasting, online video, and so forth. Students will build their own basic web sites and complete a post-class exercise on using technology in their teaching. No previous experience with the technologies covered in this class will be necessary.
As a “special topics” course, our regular ongoing undergraduate and graduate students could take the course as an elective. However, it is not be a suitable substitution for required courses in either the undergraduate programs in writing or the graduate program in written communication (e.g., courses like ENGL 328, ENGL 444, ENGL 516).
Readings
All assigned readings will be available online, either via this web site, the class wiki, or via eReserves.
Course Requirements/Stuff you will do
Attendance: This is probably obvious, but given that the face-to-face portion of the class lasts only 6 days, it will be critical that students attend all of the session in Traverse City. Students will also be expected to attend and demonstrate presence by participating in the online pre-class portions of the class.
Pre-class work, 20%
The “pre-class” online components of the course will consist of the following parts:
- Diligent participation in the online forum. Students will participate in an online discussion that will begin about three weeks before our face to face workshop in Traverse City. This discussion will either be hosted on this blog space, and it will be an opportunity for students to introduce themselves to each other, to discuss the readings on “digital literacy narratives” (see below), and to discuss activities for our workshop time in Traverse City.
- Pre-class “where we’re at/where we’re going” narrative essay. We’ll begin the term online by reading and discussing some selections from Cindy Selfe and Gail Hawisher’s Literate Lives in the Information Age (available via eReserves) and the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives web site.In their book, Selfe and Hawisher report on a long-term and comprehensive series of case studies where subjects offer self-reflective narratives on how they became “technologically literate.” Their concluding chapter outlines eight “themes” they see as demonstrated by/emerging from their study (e.g., “Schools, workplaces, communities, and homes are the four primary gateways through which those living in the United States have gained access to digital literacy in the decades since the invention and successful marketing of the personal computer,” and “Faculty members, school administrators, educational policymakers, and parents need to recognize the importance of digital literacies that young people are developing, as well as the increasingly complex global contexts within which these self-sponsored literacies function. We need to expand our national understanding of literacy beyond the narrow bounds of print and beyond the alphabetic.”) Selfe and Hawisher include an appendix in the book that describes their interview protocol and that provides the questions they asked subjects. The DALN project continues the premise of the book.Drawing from these readings, our discussion, and teaching/personal experiences with digital literacy skills, students will write a seven to ten page reflective essay. The goal of this essay will be for students to articulate their own personal and teaching experiences with technology, and to discuss what they ideally would like to learn and take away from our workshop. In other words, this essay will both be a measure of students’ starting points (where we’re at) and goals (where we’re going) in respect to learning about and teaching with technology.This essay will be due electronically by July 27. Students will receive my comments and we’ll discuss it at the first “face to face” meeting.
Traverse City Participation, 50%
Traverse City Participation means following:
- Try hard and work diligently during class sessions on a wide variety of technologies and projects: This class is unusual in that it is primarily a hands-on workshop where the main work students will be doing is learning and exploring the Internet on either on their own or with small groups of classmates. Every day, students will be creating and writing with blogs, wikis, social networks, bookmarking systems, Google documents, image sharing sites, video sharing sites, etc., etc. Sometimes this can be kind of intimidating and frustrating, especially for students who are coming to the class with less previous experience with these technologies. That’s okay, but it is important that students try, remain positive, give these new things an “honest effort,” etc. Hopefully, through this hard work and diligent participation, students will be inspired to see new and interesting ways these tools can positively impact their teaching.
- Create and revise a personal/professional web site: Even with all the “Web 2.0” tools out there, HTML and basic CSS knowledge are still important technological literacy skills. Students will make a very simple version of a web site from “raw HTML” and then revise this site with the help of basic and free HTML editing software. The workshop format of this course means we’ll be able to do all of this during the class meetings. This web site will also be where students will publish their post-class writing projects.
Post-class assignment, 30%
The details of this assignment will emerge out of our discussions throughout the week in Traverse City. But basically, each student will complete an Internet-based exercise/project/lesson plan appropriate for either the teaching that student does now or the teaching that the student imagines doing in the near future. Besides the exercise/project/lesson itself, students will need to write a five to ten page essay explaining the rationale for the project. All of this material will need to be published on each student’s personal/professional web site. The post-class assignment and short essay will need to be posted by August 20.
