I found this fascinating quote today:
Indeed, knowledge workers of the nineties (teachers, librarians) are nowadays a kind of blue collar workers.Fredzimny, Fredzimny’s CCCCC Blog, Jul 2009
Read the whole article.
Friday, July 10, 2009
reBlog from Fredzimny: Fredzimny’s CCCCC Blog
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
The Language of Digital Learning Objects: A Cross-disciplinary Study
This article addresses how different disciplines use the language of teaching and learning, JOLT - Merlot Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, Vol. 5, No. 2, June 2009
Abstract
In order to determine the similarities and differences between disciplines in how each uses the language of teaching and learning, this study undertook linguistic analysis of 1,691 peer reviews in the MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Online Teaching) digital learning objects collection. Language concordancing software was used to identify trends particular to the sciences, the humanities and education. Findings specify the variation in word choice, sentence length, sentence structure and descriptive/ analytic uses of language that emerged between the disciplines. Analyses suggest both points of convergence and divergence that can guide principles and standards for instructional design and cross-disciplinary dialogue and collaborations around teaching and learning.
Abstract
In order to determine the similarities and differences between disciplines in how each uses the language of teaching and learning, this study undertook linguistic analysis of 1,691 peer reviews in the MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Online Teaching) digital learning objects collection. Language concordancing software was used to identify trends particular to the sciences, the humanities and education. Findings specify the variation in word choice, sentence length, sentence structure and descriptive/ analytic uses of language that emerged between the disciplines. Analyses suggest both points of convergence and divergence that can guide principles and standards for instructional design and cross-disciplinary dialogue and collaborations around teaching and learning.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Software teaches writing online for credit
Would pairing this up with applying mass mailing strategies to "personalize" large online classes = classroom of the future? Surely software is in the works to further automate personalization.
Administration and accounting no doubt view the potential for cost effectiveness of reducing overhead, eliminating labor problems (teach those pesky adjuncts expecting equity or at least a living wage a lesson) and automating class/ course administration as 100% win-win.
General education courses as students know them now are undergoing change. A team of UA instructors and software programmers is currently developing an online writing course that will soon be paired with general education classes across campus. The course will be introduced as a one-credit supplement to the typical three-credit general education class. It is intended to provide an interactive and self-paced online environment in which students' writing skills are diagnosed and improved.UA adds online writing credit to gen-ed system - News
Administration and accounting no doubt view the potential for cost effectiveness of reducing overhead, eliminating labor problems (teach those pesky adjuncts expecting equity or at least a living wage a lesson) and automating class/ course administration as 100% win-win.
Friday, June 26, 2009
personalizing the impersonal
How do you "personalize" a 150 student online course - and make it real?
According to marketing prof Roger Barry in his article, "Meeting the Challenges of Teaching Large Online Classes" in the March issue of JOLT (Journal of Online Teaching), personalizing a course is key to teaching large online classes. Reading on, I realize that to Barry, a marketing prof, "personal" does not mean the same as it does to me. What he really means is marketing personalization as a simulacrum of the real and personal. What a jolt...
It's also about language and writing - just not about students learning how to write. Both "Study Buddy Notes" (class notes rewritten for cozy casual "I'm right here with you" effect) and direct mass mailing depend on the knowledge-marketer/teacher's wording and tone in both study notes and mass emailings.
According to marketing prof Roger Barry in his article, "Meeting the Challenges of Teaching Large Online Classes" in the March issue of JOLT (Journal of Online Teaching), personalizing a course is key to teaching large online classes. Reading on, I realize that to Barry, a marketing prof, "personal" does not mean the same as it does to me. What he really means is marketing personalization as a simulacrum of the real and personal. What a jolt...
In an effort to personalize a large online class, the author applies a marketing approach called direct mass marketing to communicate with students. Direct mass marketing is an approach used by marketers to send a message that is perceived as being personalized to a large market segment. So, how and why is this approach effective in an online course? Certainly the best approach to personalizing an e-mail is to send it directly to an individual. But, how can you accomplish this in a large class section with 150 students? To accomplish this, the author uses an approach he refers to as direct mass e-mailing.Teaching meets marketing. The personal is no longer real but all about perception.
It's also about language and writing - just not about students learning how to write. Both "Study Buddy Notes" (class notes rewritten for cozy casual "I'm right here with you" effect) and direct mass mailing depend on the knowledge-marketer/teacher's wording and tone in both study notes and mass emailings.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
The future of college writing
What is the future of writing and the teaching of writing? Not good. It's labor intensive, time consuming and undervalued in the marketplace. Already sweatshopped to the max composition adjuncts are at their limits. No one is going to give them more money and smaller classes in these trying economic times. More likely, class sizes and administrative paper work will increase. Where will the cuts come?
Requiring Revision http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/06/25/deans
I keep finding and reading articles like these – and then comparing them to writing and attitudes toward it outside the academy. Is it research or masochism, obsession or idle curiosity? Blog fodder?
My reading: revision is on the way out, less for pedagogical than administrative reasons - too labor intensive unless admin can get it done on the cheap. Raised class caps in composition will put numbers too high to afford time for revision – even by academic sweatshop labor. The revision process no longer takes place in a meaningful way, shortened and corner cut to meaningless. Writing standards in the courses 1st year composition is supposed to prepare students for are already next to non-existent in most institutions.
Even graduate students, especially in more "commercial", less academic disciplines, write badly and are revision resistant for all that. Convinced they have already learned everything they need to know about writing in English 101, with perhaps a “business writing” (oxymoron alert) course thrown in for good measure. These students are neither stupid nor inarticulate – just never truly expected to write well or exposed to intellectual rigor. Perhaps gullible as well - first buying into self-esteem and then higher education seat-filling sales pitches.
Business and the relevance of Liberal Arts http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/05/07/ho
In no way does this give a free pass to atrociously unreadable academic writing - jargon on steroids. That's another case for another time.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Update of sorts
Over a month and no post - shame on me. EVO is over. My online presentation was on writing feedback and strategies for managing paper overload without shortchanging students on meaningful feedback for their writing. Am I describing the impossible or what?
The week came down to a shout out between canned boilerplate & automated writing assessment (AWE) versus peer review, the blind leading the blind. At first it seemed as though group's interest was leaning toward computer assessment. Tempting to hand an onerous, labor intensive task over to software. But by the time we came to the end of the week, closing with real time discussion using web conferencing tools, the tide had turned - against AWE and in favor of group work and peer review. I reminded the instructors in the session that establishing review groups takes time - does not just happen with the flip a handout and asked them to let me know how groups worked for them
The turn pleased me no end. I came prepared to make the best of bad choices and work with them on using computer text analysis in the least destructive way possible. AWE is not awesome: it is creepy. But is it any creepier than non-computer assisted boring writing, boring for being formulaic suck up, boring for so strenuously striving to please and never offend whoever might read it? No, it is not. There is something somehow cleaner, in some warped way, about being able to say the computer made me do it. Not having to admit that another human asked you to surrender mind and will - and you did it.
I forgot to remind the non-native speaker teachers in my workshop not to control peer review group opinions or tell them what they should think.
What happens to writing (and thinking) when composition instructors know their rhetoric and mechanics but are short on original thinking - doing, recognizing, appreciating, cultivating? Or worse, short on tolerance, expecting students' opinions to mirror their own, perhaps rationalizing the expectation as something less craven.
If you are wondering what this has to do with computers, I'll think on it and get back to you.
The week came down to a shout out between canned boilerplate & automated writing assessment (AWE) versus peer review, the blind leading the blind. At first it seemed as though group's interest was leaning toward computer assessment. Tempting to hand an onerous, labor intensive task over to software. But by the time we came to the end of the week, closing with real time discussion using web conferencing tools, the tide had turned - against AWE and in favor of group work and peer review. I reminded the instructors in the session that establishing review groups takes time - does not just happen with the flip a handout and asked them to let me know how groups worked for them
The turn pleased me no end. I came prepared to make the best of bad choices and work with them on using computer text analysis in the least destructive way possible. AWE is not awesome: it is creepy. But is it any creepier than non-computer assisted boring writing, boring for being formulaic suck up, boring for so strenuously striving to please and never offend whoever might read it? No, it is not. There is something somehow cleaner, in some warped way, about being able to say the computer made me do it. Not having to admit that another human asked you to surrender mind and will - and you did it.
I forgot to remind the non-native speaker teachers in my workshop not to control peer review group opinions or tell them what they should think.
What happens to writing (and thinking) when composition instructors know their rhetoric and mechanics but are short on original thinking - doing, recognizing, appreciating, cultivating? Or worse, short on tolerance, expecting students' opinions to mirror their own, perhaps rationalizing the expectation as something less craven.
If you are wondering what this has to do with computers, I'll think on it and get back to you.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Writing Prompts
Those who teach writing must design writing prompts with great care and attention to detail, considering the wording, the mode of discourse, the rhetorical specifications, and the subject matter of each writing assignment. The same is equally true teaching any writing class, whether ESL, emerging NS writers (developmental) and presumable developed writers in lower division college composition and writing intensive course
A well designed writing prompt guides the writer through drafting a main idea statement and from there onto essay organization and structure as well. Despite practice of attributing "assignment description information gap" problems to cultural context of prompts and assignments, most writing prompt problems are the fault of bad design, lack of clarity, insufficient specifics. Not even native speakers with high skill level can make sense enough of a poorly designed and written writing prompt to write the assignment expected of them.
This consideration does not eliminate the cultural context: rather it add another layer of complexity to the deciphering process. It is the writing instructor's responsibility to write good prompts. Students should not have to be mind-readers in order to figure out writing assignments. When confronted with unclear, less than precise prompts, L2 writers face greater obstacles than NS writers. Unfamiliar cultural context makes the task of decoding the prompt thornier and with it interpreting "how" the prompt sets up and organizes the writing assignment.
Understanding academic writing prompts and the culture giving birth to them can be even trickier, affecting their writing abilities. Writing teachers do their students a disservice when they accept writing that does not address the requirements of a prompt. Students must be given opportunities to become aware of the constraints of Admittedly, United States academic prose is a peculiar and not always logical genre. However, those expecting to play the game must learn both the rules of and the expectations of their presumptive audience if they are to succeed.
A few links to shed light on prompts and their kinship to thesis statements:
Good prompts are authentic and contain a clearly expressed writing topic, put it in context, and provide clear directions to help students respond. "Analyze, classify, compare, contrast, define, describe, discuss, and explain" are examples of key words that tell writers what to do.
Ask the questions:
A well designed writing prompt guides the writer through drafting a main idea statement and from there onto essay organization and structure as well. Despite practice of attributing "assignment description information gap" problems to cultural context of prompts and assignments, most writing prompt problems are the fault of bad design, lack of clarity, insufficient specifics. Not even native speakers with high skill level can make sense enough of a poorly designed and written writing prompt to write the assignment expected of them.
This consideration does not eliminate the cultural context: rather it add another layer of complexity to the deciphering process. It is the writing instructor's responsibility to write good prompts. Students should not have to be mind-readers in order to figure out writing assignments. When confronted with unclear, less than precise prompts, L2 writers face greater obstacles than NS writers. Unfamiliar cultural context makes the task of decoding the prompt thornier and with it interpreting "how" the prompt sets up and organizes the writing assignment.
Understanding academic writing prompts and the culture giving birth to them can be even trickier, affecting their writing abilities. Writing teachers do their students a disservice when they accept writing that does not address the requirements of a prompt. Students must be given opportunities to become aware of the constraints of Admittedly, United States academic prose is a peculiar and not always logical genre. However, those expecting to play the game must learn both the rules of and the expectations of their presumptive audience if they are to succeed.
A few links to shed light on prompts and their kinship to thesis statements:
- http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/readassign.html
- http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/EngPaper/thesis.html
- http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/thesis_statement.shtml#assigned
- http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/thesis.html
Good prompts are authentic and contain a clearly expressed writing topic, put it in context, and provide clear directions to help students respond. "Analyze, classify, compare, contrast, define, describe, discuss, and explain" are examples of key words that tell writers what to do.
Ask the questions:
- What are the purpose(s) of the assignment?
- What information do I need to complete the task?
- What problems does the topic suggest?
- Who is my audience?
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