Creative teaching

Gardner may be the most creative teacher I have yet to come across, and his work with social media in the classroom still stands as a model I aspire to. So having the opportunity to talk with him about creative teaching, the joy of learning, and the current state of higher ed’s ghettoization of social media was quite fun. Re-listening to this discussion now puts ds106 in a more focused frame for me, it’s a model to start thinking about in terms of really engaging the internet and to stop ghettoizing the web in higher ed—granted it’s only one model for online learning, but damnit it’s a damn good one. Our courses should have their own radio stations, our students should be creating stuff regularly, we should be interrogating the mediascape right ow (it has never been more crucial), we should be mashing up our culture(s), our assignments should be crowd sourced, and the internet should be our teaching platform—not some fake-ass “teaching and learning centric” LMS. We need more, they want more, and it can and is being done—what the hell are you waiting for? Anyway, here is the audio…

Download “E10 Podcast: Gardner Campbell and Jim Groom Discuss Faculty Attitudes and the Joy of Learning”

Special thanks to Gerry Bayne and Teddy Diggs for getting this in the latest issue of EDUCAUSE Review as well as posting the full audio on the EDUCAUSE site here. What’s more, I was excited to see that my main man Brian Lamb and my own article “Never Mind the EDUPUNKS” was the 6th most popular ER article of the year. Another collaboration that in many ways paved the way for what I think is the next stage of my own thinking about onine teaching and learning as an edtech—how do we make open education in praxis fun, accessible, and basically rock!! DS106 is the beginning of this movement, and it isn’t about me, just look around ds106. I mean people all over the world are doing Colleen‘s Playlist Poetry assignment, she is shaping this class not only by her willingness to create an participate, but by our ability to connect that urge with many, many others who share her desire. That is the beginning of a new dynamic that is not simply transactional. The idea of creative teaching hopefully re-imagines that locus—and I need to spend some more time framing this out more because I know it’s right. I feel it deeply in my heart of heart’s, and as Gardner notes in the discussion above, it is time to reinvest our hearts in the process of teaching and learning—I couldn’t agree more with that sentiment and I want to make it so.

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4 Responses to Creative teaching

  1. Sarah says:

    I must say, as a participant in this DICKINSON versus faulkner “deathmatch” (excellent way of putting it), I feel more invested in this class than any other I’ve had in recent memory. With so many teachers requiring blog work (especially open blog work) nowadays, it can unfortunately turn into something of a chore, as it loses the newness and starts to take on the pressures of other types of homework. Thank the god of the internet for things like this that take it to a whole ‘nother level.

    Another of my professors is also using the blog assignment idea in an interesting way, by requiring us to adopt opera singer diva personas and blog from their (extravagant) perspective the entire semester. Catfights ensue. See it here: http://ravel.umwblogs.org/ (The music department class, Women in Opera, is taught by Jessie Fillerup).

    • Reverend says:

      Sarah,

      I totally hear you about blog work as more and more of a chore. So seeing what Scanlon, Richards, and Fillerup do, not to mention many more here at UMW, really does suggest that sense of play and the important banter between courses can be found in this online space, which for me was something that is totally absent ins spaces like BlackBoard. I mean that is simply impossible, just think of that. Thanks for you comment here, sarah, I appreciate it—and I have to admit, i ams secretly rooting for Billy dumbhead.

  2. Teddy Diggs says:

    Can’t thank you enough, Jim, for sharing your enthusiasm with EDUCAUSE REVIEW readers. As for ds106, you may still be in week 5, but it obviously rocks. ds – digital storytelling? daily shoot? damn straight!

  3. Pingback: Tell this story. | Adventures in a Gifted Classroom

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