Since last week was a short week due to Thanksgiving break, I'm a little late with my Friday's Pick so this week will begin and end with this feature.
On November 16 Henry Jenkins, director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, answered questions during a Chronicle of Higher Education chat on "how changing technologies and media culture are affecting colleges, and how colleges can take advantage of those changes to better teach students."
Jenkins points out that using the "concept of "digital natives" to refer to students who grew up in a world where interactive media and participatory culture are normative and the term "digital immigrant" to refer to people for whom the digital is a second language... may be too simple. We know that even among college age students there are a range of different experiences and accesses to new media technologies and practices."
Though Jenkins feels that there are "some significant potentials for the use of games, podcasts, blogs, and social networks for education", he also admits that "we are still some years away from having definitive research on many of these questions>"
Following are some of the highlights of this online forum:
From Web 1.0 - Course Management Systems (Blackboard) to Web 3.0 Second Life
"We have had a whole bunch of new tools dumped on us in recent years -- from Wikipedia to Google Maps -- which change what we mean by digital technologies. Witness the introduction of the term, Web 2.0 to describe what people are seeing as a paradigm shift in our relation to new media technology and people are already describing Second Life and other immersive game worlds as Web 3.0."
Using Blogs with Students
Jenkins advice is to structure assignments so that students have options in how they contribute but all feel some urge to contribute:
"blogs work well to solicit response to the readings or other course materials before the class session" or have students "students send a few substantive questions to the class mailing list before class to jump start discussion"
Social Networking Tools and Faculty
Jenkins took on the question about integrating social networking tools such as blogs in faculty daily work with the following ideas:
1. Use blogs “as a way of sharing insights and experiences teaching -- as part of the process of mentorship within a department.”
“If a department created some blog or wiki that allowed for people to trade positive or negative teaching experiences -- everything from dumb things student wrote on tests to innovative ideas about classroom activities -- I think this would create a context for support for pedagogy within departments.”
2. Use social networking tools as “resources within professional organizations to help people find others working on similar problems or who may have resources/background scholars need to pursue their work.”
3. Use discussion or live chat forums… “as a way of broadening the kinds of guest speakers you can bring into your classes.”
“ I am using Skype more and more to connect my students with the authors of readings from the class or real world media makers who have experiences relevant to our content. We are also doing this to expand the pool of outside readers on thesis committees, etc.”
iPods and Podcasting
“..it may make sense to tap technologies that students are already widely using -- think here about the use of ipods as a platform for course related podcasts say. Here, you are offering ways that students might better integrate your content into the routines of their day to day life and you are building off of an existing interest or enthusiasm.”
For more on this discussion, return for the next Friday's Pick
The transcript of the chat can be found at: How to Teach High-Tech
http://chronicle.com/live/2006/11/jenkins/.
