August 12, 2004
Enabling Pedagogy through New Media
Pedagogy is currently experiencing a renaissance with regards to technology and the enabling capacity of new media. Web CT, Blackboard, electronic reserves and other internet technologies offer a range of methods to present, disseminate and digitally archive current academic curricula. This entry looks at my UM colleague, Dr. Lyn MacCorkle's online application for enabling a recent team taught course at UMiami on "The Sixties". This entry abstracts parameters to open discussion regarding this type of application as a way of assisting academics but also providing students with learning tools.
"The Sixties" is a cross-listed interdisciplinary course (English/History/American Studies) taught by Dr. Zack Bowen (English) and Dr. Donald Spivey (History). Innovatively, the course utilizes UM faculty in week by week 'thematic panels' to introduce students to relevant sixties themes through the polyphony of UM faculty experience.
Method and Video Possibility
For this course, faculty members were videotaped on panels surrounding thematic-based topics. These tapes were then digitized and edited so that individual speaker's comments regarding particular themes (i.e. Civil Rights, Kennedy Era, Vietnam) became digital clips. Methodology here on the one hand deals with a university's interdisciplinary 'collective expertise', 'oral histories' but also setting up speaker panels and the mechanics/politics of videotaping.
Online Presentation
The presentation of the larger sixties site is elegant, following an unobtrusive visual design to foreground course materials through information retrieval. The site is simultaneously a 'learning tool', archive and information portal. Methodologically, visual design 'themes' course parameters with accompanying visual images but also university specific video regarding the sixties ranging from early UM university President Dr. Henry Stanford to UM student body figures recalling events.
Homepage
On a homepage, the site, visually divides into two areas. On the left sections divide into a video archive, bibliography and chronology. On the right a list provides a thematic breakdown of major course sections: WWI & the 50s, the Beats and Counter Culture, Civil Rights, Kennedy, Vietnam, Student Unrest, Gender, Age of Aquarius, Urban Riots. Underneath this is a link to the course syllabus. Each of these links further breakdown. The information design presents a university-level academic course enabled by electronic 'information retrievable methodologies in a succinct, easy navigable manner.
Syllabus
The syllabus is presented online with course summary and associated speakers by date. Students/later audience may review talks at their leisure, follow readings, assignments etc. and trace the original course.
The panel speaker videos are also placed within and connected to a database (MySQL/PHP). Users search videos by speaker, theme (i.e. Age of Aquarius, gender issues) or keywords. Innovatively, the videos and 'live course' becomes an 'archive' for future generations - the collective historical faculty expertise becomes codified as digital library.
Metadata and Video
In developing this site, Dr. MacCorkle worked with metadata librarian Fiona Kelleghan to on the one hand abstract the content of various speakers' videos and on the other provide keywords and subject headings for later database search and retrieval. The higher level of metadata (information describing information) is evident. With videos ranging from 2-60 minutes, summaries from a professional abstracting librarian provided precise, controlled and detailed commentary of otherwise lengthy video data that would be difficult to search. The summaries, controlled vocabularies and 'keywords also provide grist - more precise search capabilities are enabled.
Course Bibliography
A bibliography link provides a further page which can be searched in six ways. Visitors can search the course by course theme, browse various media by assigned subject headings or search terms by title and associated annotation. Succinct annotated lists are provided of selective websites, books and videos in the UM libraries collection regarding the sixties. The key here within websites is the selective and discriminating function of the digital librarian/subject specialist. Faculty expertise could also be used here to draw up these bibliographic lists. The innovation comes in annotation of titles which again provide precision of material. Material can later be quickly searched through a database. All books and videos link to present library resources through the catalog for easy retrieval by faculty and students.
Chronology and Organizational Parameters
A detailed chronology is also built. Each year's breakdown contains a list of significant selected events, highlighted keywords for scanning and link to a wealth of internet related resources. The chronology attests to the wealth of information present on the wider internet and electronically relates to the larger course 'organizational parameters'. In terms of information design and metaphor, the specificity of this model (chronological, thematic) could be abstracted on a course by course basis (i.e. Molecular Biology, Sections of the molecule or cell etc.) in consultation with faculty presenting specific courses. While not pursued in this iteration, this chronological area could also be further be broken down into a searchable database.
Thematic Course Breakdown
On the right of the homepage is a thematic course breakdown, moving from WWII to Kennedy and Vietnam to Gender. Each of these clickable headings leads to a respective page further describing/detailing the particular topic. Images elegantly frame each section branding the theme and giving larger immediate visual cue to the section's content. Within these 'thematic pages', larger course context is preserved. The entire course subject breakdown is presented on the right. A set of buttons (bibliography, videos,chronology) searches the bibliographic database, course video database by thematic topic area. The innovation here is the 'remix' and 'repurposing of resources for information retrieval.
Larger Models
To reflect on the wider applicability of the model, the digital video clips and easy retrievability as a database forms the centre of this application. Future value as a 'digital archive' is undeniable. Because of the intense and large amount of work involved here, this perhaps is not a recommended methodology for every course. This result is the work of many voices. Here also its value lies. Every university has a few of these jewels. With regards to academics taking the time to organize courses that are university-wide labors of love and interdisciplinary endeavors, these are large efforts. This model is one that should be developed further. It opens larger questions regarding, methodology, learning methods and future digital archives.
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