I’d love to discuss using technology to create more meaningful assignments and assessments. I want students to learn by doing and for there to be a connection between their in-class and out-of-class lives. I also want to be interested in what they’re producing! Traditional essay assignments don’t usually accomplish any of this, and essay overload (link through Brian’s post to http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/tenuredradical/2012/12/grading-in-the-age-of-mechanical-reproduction/) is a huge problem for both students and instructors, especially in a situation where almost none of the students are native speakers of English. I agree with Tenured Radical who asks why students should put effort into writing essays that they don’t want to write and we don’t want to read.
I’ve used Facebook and discussion lists to encourage out-of-class conversation but this is still very text-based work (and I suspect, already old school). As someone with a literature background, I’m certainly not talking about doing away with textual analysis, but I’d also like to give students a chance to react to their reading in non-textual ways or in ways that combine text and non-text.
This is an important topic. Since I have not received the email that would allow me to post my own suggestion on this board, but can only comment, let me add that I’d like to learn how to use new ways for instructors to respond to student work via MP3 recordings, or even short videos. I’ve heard good things about doing this, rather than responding with illegible writing or too many Track Changes comments. So often having the student read a sentence aloud in conference, or my reading it aloud, lets the student see where there’s a writing problem more directly.
I agree this is a vital topic, especially as I try to integrate Tumblr, WordPress, and Prezi into my Comp Class starting in 13 days, just because I think it would be wrong not to! My facility with these tools is not great, and I’m eager for ideas.
My questions/concerns are two-fold: it is clear to me how various digital pedagogies can enhance and make student learning outside the classroom more interesting and how they can facilitate instructor and peer intervention. But how can we use technology more effectively during our face-to-face meetings with students in the classroom. It seems to me that the “digital” aspects are often somewhat separated from what we do in class with our students. I would also like to discuss meaningful ways to incorporate digital pedagogy into the teaching of upper-level literature courses in a second language.