Final!

Wow.

This has been tough for me in a lot of ways. I remember when I was a kid in elementary school--and to be honest, high school as well--and there were things I just could not do. Math. Language. Nowadays one might say, "Oh, if you only had the right teacher!" It wouldn't have made a difference. My mind could not wrap itself around certain concepts and tasks. Luckily, I went to college in a time when I was able to skip math and language (and science), and concentrate on what I loved and could do--lit, history, the social sciences like political science and into psych. I hate the feeling of being unable to do something--the feeling of being incapable and helpless. Of being a failure. And to a great degree that's how I often feel when working with technology. The last part of the course, particularly the portion on delicious, made me feel like I was doing a task with my thumbs amputated and the directions written in Sanskrit. I was lost beyond lost. Thankfully, Anna Watkins helped me out, guided me through this section. And for me, for the kind of learner I am, that was essential. I really couldn't have done this part without her. I felt that need only a couple times this summer, and the times I did, there was Brandon, Tami, and Amy to walk me through the task, and, honestly, pushing the right buttons for me. I've done that with my students. I don't know if it's ethical or acceptable, but it's kind, and I appreciate it.

I was talking about this course with Jack Bross today. He struggled with it, too, but certainly not as much as I did; but also, he saw ways he could use this in class. And I'm thinking about that too, not just because the course expects me too, but because all this...stuff is out there for me as a teacher. Honestly, much of what I've touched on during this course I wouldn't use in my class. I'm old school: at the end of the day, it's still the book and the student. Not even much secondary material. Certainly not at the freshman and sophomore levels. But at the same time, as I write this, I realize that with something like Delicious could use more secondary material for a class like my War and Peace seminar: it would be a practical way to incorporate much of the secondary material I do use in that particular class. As I wrote on an earlier blog, I could see using a Wiki with my younger students as a way to work on writing, particularly with revision and editing. I am, as I wrote many times, much taken with the blog and the way it has allowed me to link to material, visual and written, that allows for lots of discussion and questioning. I really enjoyed putting together and learning to use my War and Peace blog this past year, with lots of encouragement and help from, as always, Brandon, Tami, and Amy. I will keep using the blog.

Not surprisingly, the early part of the course was the easiest for me: as it went on, with the Wiki and that !@#$%%^ Delicious, it got much harder. None of this is instinctual nor natural for me. I am, I discovered, like many of my students, a hands on learner with material I don't understand. The directions to Delicious didn't work for me. I missed point B, which then made doing C,D, F, and G impossible. And then there was the signing up for Yahoo, which wasn't in the directions. A suggestion? Update the course to reflect the changes that have occurred since it was first designed and implemented.

I still am a Luddite. But I am a much more open minded one for taking this course. And the best part of this was working with Tami, Brandon, Amy, and Anna. As Bruce Springtseen once wrote, "I need that human touch." I am not as frightened by the web and technology as I was. I am possibly one of the most advanced, technologically speaking, in my department. That's a scary thought. Who'd a ever thunk it?

Task 12. What I plan to do.

Now remember: I exist in a department where one member only recently--in the last five years--began typing his evaluations and another recoils at the word "blog". At the same time we have a couple of younger members who are I'm sure well versed in the world of the web and another, a veteran even, who shows no fear of it. And there's me, who some in my department think has gone over the edge into techno-land. And as this course has shown me, I am so far from techno-land that it's ridiculous. Yet given that, I still will push what I know and have learned to use successfully.

What I have done in short term classes I have taught with two separate colleagues this past year is use the blog. And both Clark Cloyd and Rick Goldstein with appreciated its usefulness in the classroom. Not that either of them is about to begin using it on their own, but they know that when we teach a class together again, we will probably continue to use the blog. I will have no problem talking this up for the rest of the department, and I will, if not this year, but certainly next year, continue to use it in my own upper level classes and in short term film and literature classes.

Task 9: Delicious

Delicious it is not.

This is the first task I have really had a struggle with. In theory I can see how this could work -- thanks to the help of Anna Watkins, bless her heart. As a storing house my students could use, yes, this makes sense. But the mechanics of this system have left me absolutely befuddled. I don't get it. Again, as so often happens in these situations, I have a glimpse into the befuddlement some of my students have when I explain to them, for example, the MLA system of quoting.

I don't see myself using this. I am metaphorically tearing my hair out at this moment.