Faculty Academy 2008

Gardner Campbell, Patrick Gosetti Murray-John, Jerry Slezak (UMW)

The last four years at UMW have seen sea changes in how we think about and use digital technologies to augment teaching and learning at the University. This year's successful launch of UMW Blogs is the latest development in a movement towards thinking boldly and bravely about technology not as merely a helpful "additive" to our pedagogical toolkit but as an integrated (and emergent) force for intellectual and educational transformation. Technology isn't just providing us with methods to improve our classrooms and it is altering the very landscape of those spaces. With these sea changes come both great rewards and great responsibilities. Join us for a discussion of those future directions, as we focus first on specific goals and challenges facing us with UMW Blogs and then, more generally, on the horizons ahead.

Patrick's talk will look at these links:

Preliminary 'Directory'

Preliminary Image Gallery

Central Bank Independence

Visual Arts

Zambia on Wikipedia

Patrick's talk will in large part be a demo of the UMW Amiatinus Sidebar. You can install it in Firefox 2 (not yet ready for Firefox 3) here. If you install it, please add your name to this wiki page and/or otherwise contact me so I can ask you about feature requests and bug reports, and so that I can contact you when feature requests and bug reports have been addressed in a new version.

I've tried the UMW Amiatinus Sidebar: Jeff M.

Other info from Patrick's talk: a University Ontology Two of the core parts of how I'm trying to describe a university course are what the course studies ('studies'), and the tools used in the course of that study ('studiesWith')

'studies' = The texts, people, places, things, concepts, movements, etc. that a course studies. Please help me by contributing possible sub-divisions you imagine to this (e.g. studies-person, studies-place, studies-era, studies-culture, etc.). I would like to follow up, so if you would like please also note who you are.

Suggested subdivisions for 'studies':

'studiesWith' = The editions of texts, software, hardware, online resources, or other tools that you use in pursuing the study of things above -- things like Norton Anthology of Literature, Edirols, iPods, Omeka installations, Mathematica, SPSS, etc. Please help me by contributing possible sub-divisions you imagine to this (e.g. studiesWith-software, studiesWith-device, studiesWith-text, studiesWith-onlineSpace, etc.). I would like to follow up, so if you would like please also note who you are.

Suggested subdivisions for 'studiesWith':

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[edit] Any Computer, Any Software, Anywhere: The Virtual Computer Lab

Jerry Slezak, Assistant Director (Division of Teaching and Learning Technology)

Co-presenter: Clay Calvert, Director (Information Technologies Security, UMW)

"Imagine the ability to log into a web site, make a reservation, and remotely access a computer that has the operating system, settings and software that you need to teach a course or perform your own research. Instead of you or your students having to go to a physical machine located in a lab on campus to get to specialized software, this can be done from anywhere they have a fast web connection. This is computer virtualization, and it looks to be the next big thing in setting up computer labs that have much more flexibility and usability for students and faculty.

This presentation will show you the basics of virtualization and how it could have the potential to change everything in the way we think about not just computer lab spaces on campus but how we could ultimately teach and learn by making more tools available in a much more flexible way."

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[edit] Web-TNG in Context

George Brett (Internet2)

"The Next Generation of the Web will be different, yet at the same time it will be more of the same." This presentation will provide context for that statement. In the 1980's university faculty were mandated to develop Computer Assisted Instruction with microcomputers when general purpose tools (Wordstar, Multiplan, dBaseII) may have been more appropriate. Later in that decade came HyperCard and ToolBook which introduced educators to hypermedia. Meanwhile, faculty were exploring online bulletin board systems and collaboration with electronic mail lists. In the 1990's, WAIS, Archie, and Gopher emerged to simplify our network access to libraries and information resources. Soon, these tools were sidelined by the World Wide Web. Today we have Social Media of all sorts in text, audio, video, and 3-D formats. It's always a challenge to say where technology for research and education will go next--but I will take that challenge by observing that technology in the future may seem to be different, but it will still fall into the same categories of use and intent that it has for the past twenty years.

I will briefly explore that idea of continuation and change, examining these six functional categories:

• General Purpose Tools - build better tool kits
• Bridging the Gap - new media, but is message still the same?
• Formal versus Informal - when do marginal notes become research?
• One Room Schoolhouse - a model for collaboration and learning
• Story Telling - adding context to content
• The Viral Thing - value of the "word of mouth"

The talk page

Misc Info:

• twitter id: @ghbrett
• olde website: ghb-web
• Flickr: My fotos

[edit] Resources recommended by me for reasons based on lateral thinking

Books

• Early Hypertext 1989 - Robert Horn
  • Robert's books are an amazing resource for shifting one's perspective on information. His hyertext book explores "chunking information" and is amazingly on target about the web even though written before the World Wide Web was around.
  • Mapping Hypertext: The Analysis, Organization, and Display of Knowledge for the Next Generation of On-Line Text and Graphics
  • Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century
• Cyberspace: First Steps - M. Benedikt
  • Some friends feel this is not up to par. I think that it is a useful source of thinking of the etheral cyber / mental space in physical, architectural, directional terms.
  • Amazon
• The Social Life of Information - J.Seely Brown
  • A Classic
  • Google Book version
  • Amazon
• The Hidden Power of Social Networks - Cross & parker
  • Google Book version
  • Amazon
• The Tipping Point - Gladwell
  • When does a fad become mainstream?
  • Book Version
  • Amazon
• Wikinomics - Tapscott & Williams
  • Amazon
• Everything is Miscellaneous - Weinberger
  • Blog
  • Amazon
• Out of Control - Kevin Kelly
  • It's about self organizing systems. Published in 1995 - but still relevant
  • Amazon
• New Rules for a New Economy - Kevin Kelly
  • Pragmatic information. Amazing how scary practical advise can be.
  • Read the book online
• Contextual Design: designing customer-centered systems -Beyer, Holtzblatt
  • Uses a social anthropology approach to design.
  • Google Book
  • Amazon
• Computers as Theater - B.Laurel
  • On one level relationship of computers and users as stage and actors. On anther level 17 years later an thoughtful perspective on virtual environments.
  • Amazon
  • Google Search "Computer as Theater" laurel
• When Old Technologies were new - C. Marvin
  • Farmers placing seed orders by cramming paper notes into telephone cones way back when. So, what are we doing wrong with tech now?
  • Amazon
  • Google Search
• Computer Mediated Communications - M. Rappaport
  • An early survey of computers and computing. Context & History.
  • Amazon
• The Cluetrain Manifesto - Levine, Locke, Searls, Weinberger
  • book online
  • Amazon
• Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers
  • Stop and think -- I challenge you to engage Wabi-Sabi for your blogging.
  • Amazon
  • Design philosophy
    • "Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature."
• Timeless Way of Building - C.Alexander
  • Core principles from the physical world of architecture to apply to the virtual worlds of portals, cms's, blogs and of course Second Life.
  • Amazon
• Pattern Language - C.Alexander
  • Amazon
• Everyday Matters -D. Gregory
  • Danny is an artist, journalist, blogger Amazon
  • Blog
• Pedagogical Sketchbook - P.Klee
  • Klee's notebook's about design and art. A language for 2D space of design. Good food for thought.
  • Amazon
  • Google Search
• The RSVP Cycles - L.Halprin
  • Another book about process of using groups to brainstorm, design and make change. Design processes - cycles - happenings
  • page with an illustration from the book
  • Amazon
• How to Make a Journal of Your Life - D.Price
  • Book about creating personal journal which could be applied to thinikng about one's blog.
  • Amazon
  • website
  • flickr

Web Stuff

• The Horizon Report
  • PDF
  • Horizon Project Wiki
• Social Media and Social Networking Starting Points - C.Brogan
  • Blog Entry
• Top 100 Tools for Learning
• Conference Connections: Rewiring the Circuit - Siemens, Tittenberger, Anderson
  • PDF
  • EDUCAUSE Review Article
• Visionary Videos
  • Sun Microsystems' Starfire -- Bruce Tognazzini
    • Weblink
  • Videos from Apple circa 1987 but still incredible
    • Knowledge Navigator
      • • Wikipedia entry
        • Video Download
    • Future Shock Video
  • There were other videos: classroom, engineering lab, and adult
  • if anyone knows where to find these, please let me know ghbrett@mindspring.com
• Stuff in Plain Engllish from Commoncraft
  • Great Videos about Web 2.0 Apps -- Try it you'll like it.
• TED - Ideas worth sharing
  • web site with videos
  • Podcast versions can be found on iTunes too.
  • Imagine hearing a speech from a neurosurgeon who analyzed her own stroke while she was suffering it. It took 8 years for her to reach this presentation.
• Old files from my past
  • Supper with Richard Perlman ca. 1997 Queen Bee Restaurant, Arlington, VA.
  • "... to demonstrate new paths through olde information"
  • early morning thoughts

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[edit] Plenary Presentation: "Integration, Technology, and the Meaning of Life"

Gene Roche (College of William and Mary)

This presentation was triggered by a series of blog entries and comments written this spring by UMW students and faculty on a wide range of issues. The conversation ranged from existential reflections on the overall purpose of higher education and the philosophy of curriculum design to more pragmatic concerns about the use of little clickers or the value of tablet PC's. The goal of the presentation will be to help us think more clearly and creatively about our personal motivations, perceptions, and beliefs and to better understand how they shape the kind of decisions we make about integrating technology into our curriculum, courses, and classes.

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[edit] Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control: Blogging as an Extension of the Art Studio

Carole Garmon (Art and Art History)

Every studio art major in any university program knows that when they sign on to art, they have committed to much more than the six contact hours per week in each studio. They are well aware of the sleepless nights and the days when the professor cannot give them the individual attention and support that is sometimes needed to press ahead and make work from an informed level of understanding.

The studio major must develop a “support system” comprised of faculty and fellow art students. In upper-level studio art courses the emphasis shifts from basic technical expertise to more advanced conceptual and analytical thinking as students develop a more focused body of work. Fast, Cheap and Out Of Control, is my answer to extending the “physicality” of the studio beyond the limitations of the Melchers building. While students meet at the “mother blog” to speculate about Fast, Cheap and Out Of Control blog and then turn its focus on a student blog/portfolio.

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