Two sessions at two conferences this year changed and inspired my professional interests like never before. In January of 2011, I heard Melissa Peet of the University of Michigan speak about generative learning and e-portfolios at the Association of American Collages and Universities (AACU) conference in San Francisco. I understood that moving towards the portfolio for our students at UC Berkeley was the way of the future. Portfolios could further connect their experiences across disciplines, their courses, their passions, and their learning – both academically and worldly. I understood we might be sometimes missing connection opportunities on campus in everyone’s attempt to lecture information at the students, have them pass their exams, and move on to the next subject. (Of course I recognize much of this is about lack of resources and the rising costs of education.) But focusing on the portfolio as an expression of learning, thinking, and engaging with the world, changes the student. It helps them to know what they know and therefore they can better see themselves as leaders and change-makers… check out Melissa’s work at Michigan online here.
What this post is really about, though, is what happened to me after I attended the annual ELI (Educause Learning Initiative) conference in February, 2011 in Washington D.C. and had the pleasure of absorbing a presentation that focused and inspired my professional goals. Gardner Campbell, Director of Professional Development and Innovative Initiatives in the Division of Learning Technologies as well as Associate Professor of English at Virginia Tech, shared his experiences and successes of a new faculty development model in his session (at 8:00am on the final day of the conference) which can be found here on the Educause site.
Gardner introduced us to the challenge of supporting faculty in their teaching with technology. He spoke of how we hold workshops and play with tools, but the faculty don’t really leave with a deep understanding of, or comfort level in using, the technology. Because he had taught an undergraduate seminar on the history of new media before, it occurred to him that this might be a better approach for faculty as well. So, he came up with a seminar-style course for faculty, staff, and graduate students. It was a success. (You can hear his weekly podcasts on the New Media Consortium’s site here.) He talked about what makes this course different and why it works. I remember I had goosebumps and tears welling up (literally) because I was so inspired. I felt that joy in my chest. I knew this is what we had to do at Berkeley. “At that moment I knew – I knew the way you know about a good melon.“
So, what is this seminar? This is a hybrid seminar for faculty (and staff with an academic focus) who wish to understand more about the historical, theoretical, and cultural contexts in which new media and innovative computing happens. This seminar is hands-on as we will experiment with new media and web 2.0 tools that exist today, using them to interact with, discuss, and reflect upon the content found in the seminar’s main text, MIT Press’s The New Media Reader, edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort.
By the end of the semester, faculty will have a greater understanding of the cross-disciplinary foundation from which these tools were created, why social media came about, and they will (hopefully) become more comfortable using these tools to help them meet their own learning and research goals. Ultimately, my goal is to help them utilize this technology in supporting students to facilitate their own learning.
I have chosen the same title as Gardner created one year, Awakening the Digital Imagination, and I’m basing my syllabus on his success. This course will be a full-blown adventure complete with at least three identified pilots: We are piloting this intellectual seminar-style approach to faculty development. We are the first course to be using CalCentral as our online collaboration space. And, we are one of the first two classes being held in our new active learning classroom in Dwinelle 127.
Each week our use of online tools to interact with this content will increase and deepen. We hope to build a collection of content and media from the blogs by all local participants, Twitter feeds, and social bookmarking. There are also at least six other universities teaching this course concurrently. We are hoping to find ways to interact with them as part of a larger cohort. Stay tuned for more on this…
The seminar will be held on Thursdays from 12:30 – 2:00pm, in person, at UC Berkeley. After each meeting, Cathy Cockrell of UC Public Relations will be interviewing me (and later our faculty) on how this course is progressing. We will be publishing these weekly podcasts on our iTunes U channel by the following Monday.
More information can be found in the ever-dynamically changing online syllabus.
I wish to thank Gardner Campbell for his inspiration and support, along with my colleagues on campus in ETS for helping me get this journey started. I would also like to thank the fabulous faculty and dedicated staff who eagerly enrolled in this seminar and are embarking on this adventure with me.
Cheers,
Bobby
