Sunday, July 29, 2007
Well, I've spent the past 5 years doing my best to avoid this position, having to speak in front of the faculty, but alas, here I stand, despite my best efforts. The best I can figure, I can blame my mother because it was she who let me stay up late on Sunday nights with her watching reruns of the original Star Trek. If you'll allow me, and have some patience, I promise I will draw together my mother, Star Trek, and the iPod-enhanced 101 course I'm teaching this fall.
To me, Star Trek is an incredible cultural keystone. Gene Roddenbery, and those that followed him, created a world of social, political, and technological wonders that has left an enormous imprint on who I am as an adult person. In particular, it's the technological wonder that has landed me where I stand right now.
Don't get me wrong here: I'm not a tech-geek or a first adopter. I don't own an iPhone and I didn't own an iPod until I became involved with the iPod Innovators group, but what I do own unequivocally is the belief that technologically, tempered by human intellect and wisdom, can be an enormous tool for good. In Roddenberry's case, it was a tool for the benefit of humankind. For me, now, a tool that might benefit students beginning their academic writing careers.
After I agreed to present this material to you all, Amanda Starkey asked me if I would need a laptop and projector for the presentation, and I thought, "What on earth would I need that technology for?!?" But it occurred to me that that only makes sense, that assumption, and I felt a bit guilty in saying that none of that is necessary. When people think of iPods, I suppose they think of its video and music capabilities, the go-anywhere micro media center, a tool for delivering content to students, and, honestly, when I started to dream up the ways that an iPod might be used to enhance writing education, I thought about these things as well.
I thought about putting together fancy podcasts about the writing process, or revision tactics, and honestly, that might be something coming down the road, but initially, when dreaming up this course, I was trying to think of concrete ways that an iPod could enhance a student's writing education, not just compliment it. And this line of thinking brought me to questioning the sorts of things that I feel work in my writing classroom and what doesn't.
From this, I realized that there are two consistent complaints I have about how my 101 course proceeds: one is prewriting and the other is revision. In both cases, I feel like most students learn these principles in a rote manner, rather than absorbing or understanding their fundamental importance to them as writers and students. Then I asked myself whether there was anyway that an iPod could help to enhance, not just compliment, this learning.
In each case, prewriting and revision processes, I realized there is an aural element. For prewriting, it's the talking that goes on in a writer's head as they begin to form thoughts, ideas, and purposes. Students use prewriting to write about what they already know or think they want to write about, and that's fine, but they're missing out on an even larger benefit of prewriting, and that is helping writers discover new meaning, discover what they might want to say with a piece of writing. In revision, there is some of this self-talk, but it's far more complicated than just that because good revision processes requires outsiders, other voices.
So, while I don't have any fancy material at this point for students to download on to their iPods, I do have a purpose for them. Student will be using the iPods to generate material orally in the prewriting stages of the writing process, and also using them to share feedback with their peers during revision stages. I'll also record my feedback for students. I want the feedback to more closely emulate the kinds of feedback professional writers share and receive on their work, feedback that relays to the writer the reader's response to the material, the ideas, the purpose and structure and style of the piece, not just advice on where to use a semicolon.
To me, Star Trek is an incredible cultural keystone. Gene Roddenbery, and those that followed him, created a world of social, political, and technological wonders that has left an enormous imprint on who I am as an adult person. In particular, it's the technological wonder that has landed me where I stand right now.
Don't get me wrong here: I'm not a tech-geek or a first adopter. I don't own an iPhone and I didn't own an iPod until I became involved with the iPod Innovators group, but what I do own unequivocally is the belief that technologically, tempered by human intellect and wisdom, can be an enormous tool for good. In Roddenberry's case, it was a tool for the benefit of humankind. For me, now, a tool that might benefit students beginning their academic writing careers.
After I agreed to present this material to you all, Amanda Starkey asked me if I would need a laptop and projector for the presentation, and I thought, "What on earth would I need that technology for?!?" But it occurred to me that that only makes sense, that assumption, and I felt a bit guilty in saying that none of that is necessary. When people think of iPods, I suppose they think of its video and music capabilities, the go-anywhere micro media center, a tool for delivering content to students, and, honestly, when I started to dream up the ways that an iPod might be used to enhance writing education, I thought about these things as well.
I thought about putting together fancy podcasts about the writing process, or revision tactics, and honestly, that might be something coming down the road, but initially, when dreaming up this course, I was trying to think of concrete ways that an iPod could enhance a student's writing education, not just compliment it. And this line of thinking brought me to questioning the sorts of things that I feel work in my writing classroom and what doesn't.
From this, I realized that there are two consistent complaints I have about how my 101 course proceeds: one is prewriting and the other is revision. In both cases, I feel like most students learn these principles in a rote manner, rather than absorbing or understanding their fundamental importance to them as writers and students. Then I asked myself whether there was anyway that an iPod could help to enhance, not just compliment, this learning.
In each case, prewriting and revision processes, I realized there is an aural element. For prewriting, it's the talking that goes on in a writer's head as they begin to form thoughts, ideas, and purposes. Students use prewriting to write about what they already know or think they want to write about, and that's fine, but they're missing out on an even larger benefit of prewriting, and that is helping writers discover new meaning, discover what they might want to say with a piece of writing. In revision, there is some of this self-talk, but it's far more complicated than just that because good revision processes requires outsiders, other voices.
So, while I don't have any fancy material at this point for students to download on to their iPods, I do have a purpose for them. Student will be using the iPods to generate material orally in the prewriting stages of the writing process, and also using them to share feedback with their peers during revision stages. I'll also record my feedback for students. I want the feedback to more closely emulate the kinds of feedback professional writers share and receive on their work, feedback that relays to the writer the reader's response to the material, the ideas, the purpose and structure and style of the piece, not just advice on where to use a semicolon.
Labels: Faculty iPod Presentation
