In the shameless self-promotion department: if you are an undergraduate or graduate student at EMU who has an interest in technology and teaching and who likes the idea of spending a week in August in Traverse City, sign up for a class I’m teaching, ENGL 479/592: Technology for Teaching and Learning. I’ve set up a blog and a wiki for the class, though both are drafts at this point– I’m already pretty sure I’m going to make a few changes. Here’s the description I have right now:
This will be a “hands on the keyboards” workshop on using technology for the teaching and learning of writing, and it is designed for Composition, English, and Language Arts teachers K-College. We will have extensive in-class activities designed to learn how to use a variety of internet applications in present and future teaching– email, web sites, blogs, wikis, bookmarking sites, image sharing sites, podcasing, online video, and so forth. Students will build their own basic web sites and complete a post-class exercise on using technology in their teaching. No previous experience with the technologies covered in this class will be necessary.
As a “special topics” course, our regular ongoing undergraduate and graduate students could take the course as an elective. However, it is not be a suitable substitution for required courses in either the undergraduate programs in writing or the graduate program in written communication (e.g., courses like ENGL 328, ENGL 444, ENGL 516, or the “Topics In” courses in the MA program, ENGL 517, ENGL 518, ENGL 526, and ENGL 527).
The CRN for the undergrad version of the class is 41988 and the CRN for the graduate version of the class is 41989. We’ll have a month worth of online discussion starting July 1 (mostly discussing some readings about how we use technology now to teach and learn and how we want to after the class) and we’ll meet in Traverse City from August 1 through August 7.
These Traverse City classes have declined in numbers in recent years as online classes have become more workable and popular. As much as I like teaching online, I think it’s a shame because the Traverse City environment is a really great way to both teach and learn. The class is “on the bubble” in terms of getting enough students to make, so if you are reading this and are thinking that you were going to sign up eventually, do so right away! Like yesterday!