Interested Observer: Liberal Arts Scholarship/Tech Summit all about building a community of learning
This inaugural edition of Interested Observer, a monthly column by Daily Buzz editor Jamie Oberdick, takes a look at the Liberal Arts Scholarship and Technology Summit.
Photo courtesy of the College of Liberal Arts
The College of Liberal Arts’ innovation in educational technology was on display at the recent Liberal Arts Scholarship and Technology Summit held August 15 in the Paterno Library. The event featured a keynote from Christopher Long, associate dean of undergraduate studies with the College, brief talks on a variety of subjects, break out sessions and both staff/faculty and student panel discussions.
I attended the event at the invitation of John Dolan of the College. I always enjoy talking to Liberal Arts people because they are doing such interesting things in educational technology. People at the College really embrace technology for learning, especially social media.
The event opened with Dean Long’s keynote, which was quite interesting to me as a writer, especially the second half where talked about how digital literacy reinforces print (traditional) literacy. He showed examples, such as using tools like the free annotation application Diigo, to comment on a recent review of one of his book in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review.
This stuff is game changing for education and for writing. As Dean Long pointed out, the printed word is “final” but the digital word can be annotated with tools like Diigo, and then easily shared with others.
While Dean Long was speaking, I thought about a previous conversation we had about course blogs. Producing a post for a class blog is quite different than writing a paper for a class due to audience. When writing a paper, you’re writing only for your teacher, as often he or she is the only person who will see it. When writing a blog post, you are writing for a community, which could be your classmates or the entire world, depending on permissions set on the blog.
Community was definitely a theme of this event. A panel featuring Allan Gyorke, director of Education Technology Services (ETS); Jeff Swain, ETS instructional designer; Sam Richards, senior lecture in sociology; and Dean Long discussed the National Survey of Student Engagement and how it relates to the student experience at Penn State. Jeff pointed that a student’s social life and learning life are being blurred together and are no longer separate.
Personally I think given social media, blurring together a student’s social life with their academic life is inevitable. Another presenter, Dirk Mateer, senior lecturer in economics, talked about using Facebook groups for classes. This to me was interesting because just a few years ago, students viewed Facebook as most definitely off limits for anything school related. Facebook was for social life, not for class. There was a strict boundary - but has this changed? Is Facebook something that can be used to build learning communities, not just social ones?
Another session by Cori Wong, a philosophy graduate student in the College, looked at a different way of mixing social life and education to build a learning community. Cori produces these excellent videos, called “Think for a Change,” where she discusses philosophical concepts, often tied to current events and technology. She has a blog along the same lines.
Her presentation talked about the tension that exists between establishing herself as a serious scholar and using social media to communicate philosophical ideas to the masses. I found this to be rather sad. Why would it affect the level of “seriousness” of her scholarship that she uses social media to discuss philosophy? If this is supposed to be academia, why is it a bad thing to attempt to educate and build a community around your ideas?
After hearing her talk, it struck me that the challenges she faced made an event like the Summit that much more important. Technology and scholarship should not be at odds. Social media doesn’t make one less “serious.”
Technology use doesn’t hurt education and scholarship. Building a community using social media doesn’t hurt education and scholarship. I think if you spent a day at this event, you would find this to be quite true.
Note: despite the event being over, you can still view the presentations via Ustream at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/lasts11. The videos are broken into segments with each presentation separate. To view brief descriptions of each presentation to find one or more that most interests you, please go to: https://wikispaces.psu.edu/display/LASTS/Schedule.
I attended the event at the invitation of John Dolan of the College. I always enjoy talking to Liberal Arts people because they are doing such interesting things in educational technology. People at the College really embrace technology for learning, especially social media.
The event opened with Dean Long’s keynote, which was quite interesting to me as a writer, especially the second half where talked about how digital literacy reinforces print (traditional) literacy. He showed examples, such as using tools like the free annotation application Diigo, to comment on a recent review of one of his book in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review.
This stuff is game changing for education and for writing. As Dean Long pointed out, the printed word is “final” but the digital word can be annotated with tools like Diigo, and then easily shared with others.
While Dean Long was speaking, I thought about a previous conversation we had about course blogs. Producing a post for a class blog is quite different than writing a paper for a class due to audience. When writing a paper, you’re writing only for your teacher, as often he or she is the only person who will see it. When writing a blog post, you are writing for a community, which could be your classmates or the entire world, depending on permissions set on the blog.
Community was definitely a theme of this event. A panel featuring Allan Gyorke, director of Education Technology Services (ETS); Jeff Swain, ETS instructional designer; Sam Richards, senior lecture in sociology; and Dean Long discussed the National Survey of Student Engagement and how it relates to the student experience at Penn State. Jeff pointed that a student’s social life and learning life are being blurred together and are no longer separate.
Personally I think given social media, blurring together a student’s social life with their academic life is inevitable. Another presenter, Dirk Mateer, senior lecturer in economics, talked about using Facebook groups for classes. This to me was interesting because just a few years ago, students viewed Facebook as most definitely off limits for anything school related. Facebook was for social life, not for class. There was a strict boundary - but has this changed? Is Facebook something that can be used to build learning communities, not just social ones?
Another session by Cori Wong, a philosophy graduate student in the College, looked at a different way of mixing social life and education to build a learning community. Cori produces these excellent videos, called “Think for a Change,” where she discusses philosophical concepts, often tied to current events and technology. She has a blog along the same lines.
Her presentation talked about the tension that exists between establishing herself as a serious scholar and using social media to communicate philosophical ideas to the masses. I found this to be rather sad. Why would it affect the level of “seriousness” of her scholarship that she uses social media to discuss philosophy? If this is supposed to be academia, why is it a bad thing to attempt to educate and build a community around your ideas?
After hearing her talk, it struck me that the challenges she faced made an event like the Summit that much more important. Technology and scholarship should not be at odds. Social media doesn’t make one less “serious.”
Technology use doesn’t hurt education and scholarship. Building a community using social media doesn’t hurt education and scholarship. I think if you spent a day at this event, you would find this to be quite true.
Note: despite the event being over, you can still view the presentations via Ustream at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/lasts11. The videos are broken into segments with each presentation separate. To view brief descriptions of each presentation to find one or more that most interests you, please go to: https://wikispaces.psu.edu/display/LASTS/Schedule.
