T 6-8 Car Barn 301
Teaching Team: Randy Bass, Edward Maloney, William Garr and Robyn Russo
Texts:
Marie Laure-Ryan, Avatars of Story
James Paul Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy
Greg Ulmer, Internet Invention: From Literacy to Electracy
Michael Lesy, Wisconsin Death Trip
Articles, essays, digital resources, installations, games, etc.
This course will look at new media representations of culture through the lens of learning. On the one hand, we will explore how certain core ideas in the study of literature and culture—such as those related to reading, textuality, narrative, and encoded meaning—can be understood in the context of digital representations; at the same time we will focus our inquiry into these questions through practical and conceptual frameworks for understanding how people learn, in formal and informal environments. In looking at the intersection of these two fields—digital humanities and research on learning—our focus will be both on imagining the future of pedagogy in the humanities and understanding how a scholarship of teaching and learning could inform ongoing inquiry into the impact of innovation. As such, this course is primarily a design course with a studio emphasis: We will understand the history, theory and practice of new media through our study and creation of new media designs. From the beginning we will engage in the creation of digital materials as expressions of disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge, focusing both on linear narratives (digital storytelling) and non-linear applications (gaming and hypermedia environments).
Course Goals:
In order to accomplish those two primary goals we need to engage in the following:
3.
Explore how certain core ideas in the study of literature and culture—such as those related to reading, textuality, narrative, dialogue, and encoded meaning—can be understood separate from the “accidents of literacy” and in the context of digital media culture;
1.
Imagine the future of pedagogy in the humanities and understanding how a scholarship of teaching and learning could inform ongoing inquiry into the impact of innovation.
2.
Develop a personalized framework for evaluating and designing pedagogies (and materials used in pedagogies) for whatever learning and knowledge contexts are relevant to your interests.
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4.
Develop practical and conceptual frameworks for understanding how people learn effectively, in formal and informal environments;
5.
Understand something about the history, theory and practice of new media, especially relating to culture and the humanities;
6.
Have some personal experience both engaging in close readings of digital cultural materials and creating digital representations as expressions of disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge, focusing both on linear narratives (e.g., digital storytelling) and non-linear applications (e.g., gaming and hypermedia environments).
Student Work:

Course Concept Wiki for a New Pedagogy in the Humanities

Course Blog Postings

Wide Images, Mystories, Digital Stories, Dialogic critical reflections

Critical Pedagogical Practice Portfolios (CP3)
Portfolio of components of a digital pedagogy include: o Intellectual framework o Sample wide image site(s) revealing framework o Practices for critical reading of the digital o Practices for critical authoring/creating o Digital prototype/models
The first half of the course is designed to be relatively convergent in that we will mostly be doing the same reading, analyses, and building a base knowledge together. The emphasis is on reading and concept building, and secondarily on constructing digital projects and designing pedagogical frameworks. Separating core elements of the humanities from the “accidents of literacy”
Ongoing Student work
Create Wiki nodes on key terms/idea clusters in teams. Map class interests as well as baseline vocabulary and key issues.
1/15: Introduction and Overview pre-reading: Jan Meyer and Ray Land, “Threshold Concepts and Troublesome
Knowledge: Linkages to Ways of Thinking and Practising within the disciplines”
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pre-posting: What is an example of a threshold concept and troublesome knowledge in the humanities?
1/22: Image, Narrative, Dialogue
Introduction from Ulmer, first two sections from Bruner, and “Paulo Freire” by hooks
Project: one image that represents a threshold concept; wide image with context piece
1/29: Image (visual culture, image and meaning, metaphor)
Readings: Greg Ulmer, Internet Invention: From Literacy to Electracy (ch. 1-2)
Project: using slideroll or the blog create a 3-5 image paragraph definition a mystory definition of your threshold concepts; write up a context similar to the student reflections in the Ulmer; post both to the blog.
2/5: Narrative (story-telling, culture, cognitive approaches to narrative)
Readings: Marie Laure-Ryan, Avatars of Story ; Jerome Bruner, “The Narrative
Construction of Reality”; David Herman, “Stories as a Tool for Thinking”
Project: begin work on digital story: text/image; one minute, 90 seconds; micronarrative
2/12: Transmedial Knowledge: Image, Narrative, Archive
Case: Wisconsin Death Trip
Readings: Michael Lesy, Wisconsin Death Trip; Film: Wisconsin Death Trip;
Performance (Gonda Theater): Wisconsin Death Trip, Tim Raphael, et. al.
Project: digital story: text/image; 3 minute micronarrative
Either (a) story of your experience learning your threshold concept or (b) teaching the threshold concept in the fullness of the experience of knowing
2/19: Principles of Good Learning I: Threshold Concepts, Liminality and Uncertainty
Meyer and Land (2005), “Threshold Knowledge and Troublesome Knowledge(2):
Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning.”
(on blog)
In-class: discussion of readings, Shulman on uncertainty; look at select digital models; review each other’s designs/ drafts.
2/26: Dialogics (dialogue, ideology, engaged learning and inquiry): narrative and non-narrative designs for digital learning environments.
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Readings: Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (ch 2-3); Readings: José Alfonso
Feito, “ Allowing Not-Knowing in a Dialogic Discussion” http://www.georgiasouthern.edu/ijsotl/v1n1/feito/ij_feito.htm
Projects Due: Micro-narratives on threshold concepts.
Projects start: Imagine a design for a dialogic discussion/ re-interpretation of your micronarrative on your threshold concept; critical reflection on how a dialogic interpretation differs from a narrative one; You will not build the dialogic version, just imagine/design one.
3/4: SPRING BREAK
3/11:
Pedagogies of Electracy
Visit by Greg Ulmer, University of Florida
Reading: Greg Ulmer, Internet Invention: From Literacy to Electracy
Project designs and studio reflections due: Dialogic designs and reflection on studio segment due.
The second half of the course is designed to be relatively divergent in that students will primarily be working on their Critical Pedagogical Practice Portfolios, which include intellectual rationale, pedagogical designs, and digital models/prototypes. The emphasis is primarily on independent work on “projects” and frameworks, and secondarily on readings, discussion, and group critique.
As of the opening of the semester, the details of the second half are being left open so that the class can determine, in collaboration with the teaching, what is the best use of class time and content of readings.
3/18:
Principles of Good Learning II: Situated Learning and Digital Media
Readings: Gee, Bruner; The Impermanence Agent: Project and Context. Introducing the idea of the Critical Pedagogical Practice.
Student work: Evaluation of a digital learning environment/resource: its learning values and potential as Critical Pedagogical Practice
3/25:
Principles of Good Learning III:
Gaming, Game Structure, and Situated Learning
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Readings (possibilities):
Ryan, Chapters 7 and 8; Gee, remaining chapters; additional readings on gaming
4/1, 4/8, 4/15, 4/22: Open and to be shaped by spring break (and by class)
Develop Critical Pedagogical Practice Portfolios
Readings and Close Readings
Studio development & idea exchange
Group critique
FINAL: Critical Pedagogical Practice Portfolios due May 10
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