on course-planning

It’s not very nice to put out a little teaser on something, promise to tell you more about it, and then just about disappear for three weeks, now is it? Of course, I’m speaking about the course I mentioned. The truth is, I haven’t buckled down to work on it nearly as conscientiously as I should have. I gave myself a couple of weeks off at the end of May, and then June rolled in and that time off was too good to give up, so I extended it a little. Now I’m looking at the calendar on my wall and it tells me that it’s almost mid-June, which leaves me with two and a half months to get it all in order, and I’d be lying if I said I’m not at least a little jittery over that deadline.

So, anyway, I’ve been mulling things over in my head (because even if you’ve given yourself “time off”, you never truly check out, do you? I don’t. I feel like I’m constantly thinking about this course, obsessing even) and I thought I’d jot some thoughts down just to stop them from rattling around in my brain. Here they are then, some random thoughts, loosely related to one another, if at all (note: this will make more sense to you if you read the course syllabus first).

To start with, this is a course about technology but it’s not a course about technology. The technology is important, yes, but the focus of the course is public service and how (and why, if, etc.) social software and related technologies can play a role in providing better service to library patrons. OK, good, we’ve got that hammered down. BUT, how much do the students need to know about the actual nuts & bolts technology? I’ve never been fond of the “you don’t have to know how it works, you just need to know how to use it” school of pedagogy when it comes to the under-the-hood technology details (and it’s too easy to fall into that trap with Web 2.0 tools since they are designed to keep you out from under-the-hood!) and, anyway, these are graduate students, so I don’t think they can expect to be let off the hook that easy. Fine. But where to draw the line? For example, yes they need to know about RSS; yes, they need to have a general idea of the XML structure that makes an RSS feed do what it does; but do they need to know the initmate differences between RSS 0.90, 1.0, 2.0, atom, … etc.? That’s just one little example (when issues like these muddy the brain I find myself vacillating between “jeez, a 13-week course” and “jeez, only 13-weeks for this course!”).

So. What’s the best way to get everyone to the same level of understanding when it comes to the technologies? If this was an in-person class, I’d probably be inclined to split the students up into groups and have the groups present a “this is what it is, this is how it works” overview to the rest of the class, allowing everyone to gain a good understanding off all the technolgies and a really in-depth understanding of one of them. BUT, this is an online course. What’s the online equivalent to group presentations? (I know, I know, blogs and wikis. What else? Seriously, I’m actually wondering what else. Because I can’t very well expect a group of students to use a wiki to present their material to the rest of the class three weeks before wikis are covered in the course. Or can I?).

And speaking of wikis, what about the class blog? Or the class blogs (yes, plural). I read a lot of the comments and constructive criticism about the way various technologies were implemented for the ALA L2 bootcamp (sorry, I’m being link-lazy. But this discussion was so well blogged up that you probably know where to find the posts, don’t you? Do let me know if you don’t!) and I have to agree with those who felt that a single class blog made more sense than forcing participants to keep their own blogs (especially when some of those participants already blog in other venues). I’ve had a similar experience myself with the various continuing ed courses I teach on blogging. However, the one key difference between a continuing ed course and a grad course might be on my side here: the grade! If part of your grade rides on your blog posts, I’ll wager that students will blog wherever I tell them to! Of couse, I’m being partly facetious here because I really do want to do whatever provides the best possible learning experience and I’m honestly not sure what that is. I’m leaning towards a single class blog but I don’t know that I have a good reason why. Same goes for the class wiki. And the class del.icio.us account. You get the idea.

These are just a few of the prelim thoughts that have been sucking up brain power over the last few weeks. If you have comments/ideas about any/all of this, if you’ve tried some of these things and they failed miserably/suceeded beyond your wildest expectations – I’d love to hear about it! And I’ll probably keep going with these thought-dump posts as I work out the planning and logistics because the mere act of articulation somehow helps me get the issues straight in my mind! (That’s not too supremely selfish of me, is it?)

I did a group paper/presentation for an online MLS course (UIUC LEEP) using a wiki. Of the group of 5, none of us had contributed to a wiki before; two of use were techie enough to know that it couldn’t possibly be that hard; one of those two (me) became the de facto tech help for the group when someone couldn’t figure out how to do something. It worked out just fine. For the second group project (same group), we were all old hands at the wiki (and glad for it). Note, though, that using the wiki was an option the professor gave, not a requirement. Other groups collaborated via BB or Word doc and designated a group member to cobble things together at the end. Also, the two techie members of our group promised that we would bail on the wiki if the others just couldn’t get it. They did get it, of course, but up front they seemed to need the “out” before they would agree to try. We also designated someone to edit the whole document at the end because we weren’t sure that the multiple voices coming through would be acceptable to the prof.

re: class presentations by distance students, do you have a synchronous collaboration tool like Elluminate or Live Meeting at your disposal? That might do the trick…

It’s fun to read about your course planning, and I add my name to the list of folks that wish they could attend!

Oh, and serendipitously I had this post flagged in my aggregator as well – http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/brian/archives/027606.html – two articles dealing with using social software to teach social software!

Well, the course is in SOCIAL software, is it not? What about having students choose one or two applications, and group together to set up and contribute to that application, then report back to the class on their experiences? You might have time to make them experience 2 or 3 each. For example, a bunch of people could contribute to a wiki. You might give them scenarios to play out (e.g. you are creating a science research resource for grades 5 and 6) Or even if they individually set one up to see how it works and let others look at it…it would give the hands-on experience, give you things to discuss. You might need to monitor it closely to make sure progress is being made, cooperation is happening, and that not everyone picks the last software being explored.

I like the idea of using conferencing software to discuss the experiences, too.

All the best! I think it is terrific you are doing this.

Cheers,
Connie Crosby