Theatrics

This past weekend I performed as part of the Arena Fair Theater production of Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I haven't done anything similar since I was a child and played the part of Tiny Tim in a community theater production of A Christmas Carol. It was truly a blast to sing and dance on the stage in the lights for family, friends, and community members. The fresh experience and getting to perform in our Chappelear Drama Center got me thinking about technology in theater and how theater relates to teaching, fascinating subjects to contemplate.

I don't know a lot about technology used in drama. I got to thinking about this when I setup a BishopGuest wireless account for the troupe. I can see all the lights on the stages and the wireless microphones used on the cast with solos. I also got to ride a couple times the elevator-like lift that creates an organ pit in front of the main stage. These are all examples of modern technology--as well as the sound system and the Music Director's synthesizer--used in modern drama, much as dry erase white boards and electronic projectors are used in modern teaching. The Stage Manager and I weren't sure how wireless Internet access might be used by a theater troupe other than members of the cast checking email and Facebook during breaks and intermission. This would be a topic--how Internet and Web 2.0 technology is used in theatrics nowadays--that I would love to learn more of. I plan to continue in any production Arena Fair has in the future, so I'm sure there will be opportunities to ask around.

The other topic of reflection is the similarities between theater and teaching. Both convey a story or a message. I imagine some faculty might quibble and say that they are imparting facts and principles. I would counter that with the notion that (at least at the college level) we're trying to get students to synthesize knowledge into wisdom. Thesis and antithesis can be seen as tandem heroes in an adventure story; their working together results in something larger than the sum of its parts that is the climax of the story. In Biology there are stories of evolution and stories of cells that have a birth, a lifespan, and a death. In Mathematics, I just learned that the term Algebra comes from the Arabic al-jabr which was originally used to indicate restoration in a medical sense. So Algebra is the science of restoring equations back to balance. What a story! When educators share such stories with their students, it has a natural effect of drawing the learner into the subject. We are the result of and unconscious participants in evolution; our bodies are elaborate networks of cells; and we are the (in many cases ignorant) beneficiaries of Arabic civilization. In other words, we are part of the story. Good pedagogy should be just as absorbing and inspiring as good theater.

On a related note, there is much talk lately about digital storytelling, especially in higher ed, and Bryan Alexander from NITLE has just published a book about it. I feel it all relates together: teaching, drama, storytelling, as strands of thread or yarn in a loom.

Teaching higher ed vis-a-vis congregational ministry

While my undergrad degree is in Computer Information Systems, my graduate work prepared me for religious ministry. Now that my role is promoting and supporting faculty in their use of technology, I've often felt, and sometimes had to argue*, that there's a lot of similarities between teaching in a university and ministering in a congregation.

Both faculty and clergy lecture or preach, and most give homework to their pupils. Both are expected to research or study in their respective fields and become authorities in their subject areas. Both depend on feedback from their constituents to know how well they're doing in their work. Both jobs can be physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausting, and therefore require self-care. Both academia and the church (at least the clergy) are historic ivory towers with long credentialing processes of entry. Both roles are respected as community leaders, and sometimes approached by media or primary students for their sage advice.

While there are many overlaps or commonalities, there are also some differences. Professors are subject to peer review and are often expected to publish. Ministers on the other hand may have little peer review (depending on denomination) or may be subject to periodic judicatory review. Ministers work with the same congregation--albeit with some fluctuations--year after year; teachers work with different groups of students from term to term with the whole lot changing every four years.

How do salaries compare? I have no data... I hope they're both doing what they love. ;)

Do you see any other points of commonality or departure?

I graduated from MTSO in 2007 (photo by DeaPeaJay)

*The one time I argued for the likeness between the two was when I was applying for the position of Instructional Technologist that I now hold here at OWU. I still feel that my training has served me well and is useful in this position.

Higher Education Bubble?

There is ample debate and conversation today about whether or not the higher education market is a bubble about to burst, just as the housing market burst a few years ago and the dot com bubble burst before that. I read an editor's column by Rob Preston in Information Week that tipped me off to it, and then found two articles (A and B) in The Economist that describe the debate and weigh in on it. Mainly, people are noticing the steadily rising cost of a college degree out-pacing inflation and salaries. There's also the fact that national student loan debt surpassed credit card debt for the first time last year.

Preston suggests that technology could be a dynamic change agent in this industry. (I'm hoping so and working toward that end.) Technology isn't so prevalent in the housing industry, but it's really making inroads in higher ed. Of course, his argument is for web-based, online education changing the sector similarly to how the Internet has changed the publishing and financial industries. But OWU does not offer online courses.

However, OWU has many tech resources to augment traditional classroom learning: campus-wide WiFi, Google Apps, wikis, Blackboard, multi-function devices, and increasingly tech-savvy faculty. Moreover, our travel learning courses, Sagan National Colloquium, and Theory into Practice programs really expose our students to more than a traditional college campus. Despite our current budget shortfall, I feel Ohio Wesleyan is a good position to weather the potential storm.

Pardon the interruption

You probably couldn't see this apology, as the blog was MIA while we resolved some technical difficulties in the switch to a custom domain. When all DNS issues are fixed this blog will reside at edtech.owu.edu.

In the meantime, here's a blog I'd like to recommend: Texas Wesleyan's Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.

Update: the subdomain is working, and this blog is now searchable with the Search box on the University's home page.

Open Educational Resources

There is an expanding field of digital materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and reuse. Social media is being used to spread awareness and use of OER. Such resources include courses, course materials, content modules, learning objects, collections, and journals. There are growing online communities developing and sharing these resources. Here are some example sites:

OER Commons
Issuelab's OER Research
The California State University's Affordable Learning Solutions
MIT's OpenCourseWare

Campus Technology article on Student-Driven Content

How might this impact the liberal arts campus? The first thing that comes to mind is students searching for low-cost alternatives to their textbooks. I doubt they'll find free (legal) versions of their textbooks, but they may find many other resources for research or plain old study helps. Faculty will probably have to lead by example in selecting or suggesting OER resources for their students. Instructors may also find materials they can use to help build a course, especially online content. There are many opportunities here for collaboration and knowledge building.

This development of OER reminds me of a conversation in a recent Teaching Circle that illuminated the distinction between a culture of cheating and a culture of sharing. Cheating represents the negative aspects of  our society: piracy, cheat codes, doping, the present-day expansion of the fiercely independent "me-first" strain in American culture. Sharing represents the positive aspects of this shift fueled by social media: open source, collaborative, Creative Commons, remixing, sampling, Groupon, the present-day expansion of the "We the people" stick-together strain in American culture. Now that I actually articulate that spectrum, it sounds almost like the Native American story of the two wolves: which one grows stronger depends entirely on which one you feed. Here at OWU we crack down on cheating. We also practice and promote sharing. OER is one way to expand that positive trend.

(For example, the OER image above was voluntarily released by the copyright holder into the public domain.)

Augmented reality is spreading

I recently learned of a new augmented reality app that instantly shows librarians books that are misfiled on shelves:

This got me thinking about augmented reality (AR,) an artificial environment created through the combination of real-world and computer generated data, as I'm seeing more and more of it. One of my first posts to this blog was of an app that instantly translates printed text. And then there's my nephew, who recently got a Nintendo 3DS and was showing us Face Raiders:

AR is still a new field, and shows lots of exciting potential. We are only beginning to imagine the applications of this technology. I can easily see it being used in education across the disciplines.

Got any other examples?

Wikinomics, Grouponomics, Social Media is changing the world

I was wowed this morning when I learned that Groupon is the fastest growing company ever. (I was also surprised to find that the second fastest growing company was Priceline.com.) As the Forbes article mentions, "Groupon" has taken a place in the lexicon of online shopping and is moving into our cultural consciousness. It was even mentioned in a comic in the latest New Yorker Magazine.

This is just the latest example of how social media is changing our economics and thereby our society. The terms for these new ways of doing business, such as "grouponomics" or "wikinomics" are as innovative as the methods themselves, and capture the spirit of the enterprise.

It's exciting to watch the change all around and to take up our tablet iDevices and play, knowing that we're a part of this transformation as well. Who knows, the next great idea for utilizing the read/write Web might come from a small liberal arts college student in central Ohio, encouraged by forward-thinking faculty...