ThatCamp Philadelphia: Working With Students Who Have Low Technology Skills

After my initial panel proposal was accepted, I ran this panel on working with students who have low technology skills as the opening panel for ThatCamp Philadelphia. I wanted to run this panel because this is an issue I deal with on a day to day basis and I am always trying to find new ways to initiate learning for my students. Technology skills are extremely important in this job market, so I really stress them in my classes.

Janine Utell took notes for this panel as well.

  • Digital citizenship is important. Not just for student work, but also for the job force (applications, etc)
  • Many participants noted that their students had a hard time interpreting what they found online. An example given a lot was clicking on “sponsored links” on a Google search.
  • Some schools offer a one credit technology course (that can be tested out of by students)
  • Library sessions are helpful, but more time needs to be spent on evaluating sources
  • This whole “digital natives” thing is nonsense. Many students don’t even know how to use ctrl-f!
  • Solutions to this need to come from the curriculum side, not just the classroom
  • An issue brought up, and I have heard this from students, is going from high tech classes back to really analog ones
  • A list needs to be made, on a school by school basis, of what students need to know for composition level technology skills
  • A big requirement that should be built into school handbooks is mandating that they check their email
  • There should be “technology across the curriculum” ala writing across the curriculum
  • An idea Sherrie Block and I have talked about here at BCC is doing workshops for students on a monthly basis.
  • There was a large concern in the room to not just outsource all of this to the library
  • I require my students to send me an email from their BCC email to prove they can open it and that it works. I use this for their first quiz grade
  • Another great idea that happens in my classes anyway is to have high tech students team up with low tech students
  • Walmart has computer only applications now. If you can’t figure it out, you can’t apply
  • New Jersey does have a K-12 information literary requirement according to Deb Gussman
  • There needs to be outreach to local principals/superintendents
  • Have students do a tech survey on their way into college
  • Gussman gives her online students a list of what they need to know before taking the class
  • I’ve introduced Zotero to my sophomores in the past
  • An idea I had was to have to students put programs like Zotero, Firefox, Google Chrome, etc on a flash drive using Portable Apps
  • Students absolutely need to learn how to cite before being allowed to use Easybib, Zotero, Moodle, etc
  • As Deb Gussman points out, Easybib, Zotero, Evernote and others output errors sometimes
  • An idea Utell had was to do coffee sessions with faculty who could be allies

There are so many great ideas here. I am forwarding this post to my Dean and program director because there is so much we could implement into our program.

ThatCamp Philadelphia: Small Scale Publications & Digital Editions

The Stockton family ran a number of sessions at ThatCamp Philadelphia, including Deb Gussman’s session on small scale publications and digital editions.

  • Gussman is doing a digital edition of the works of Catharine Maria Sedgwick.
  • Deb’s steps of a digital project: Strategy and Approach, Scope, Content, Design, Development, Testing, Support.
  • Collaboration is very important. Need to find others who have skills you don’t have.
  • There are no guarantees that apps, websites, etc will work in a year.
  • I suggested the use of emulators ala what is done in modern times with classic interactive fiction.
  • Deciding on what app/website/cms to use can often come from other colleagues/friends.
  • I brought up the work of Cory Doctorow and how, by releasing his work under a Creative Commons license, readers can create versions of his works for different platforms.
  • It is helpful to be familiar with remix culture in general.
  • A great idea from John Theibault: in grant applications, include money for development of emulators for later editions when platforms become obsolete.
  • Creative Commons licensing allows others to care more about the preservation of your work than you do.
  • A lot of Gussman’s work with Sedgwick is coming from Google Books.
  • Theibault’s students digitized Philadelphia’s directories.
  • Back in 2003, I worked on the digitization of the American Weekly Mercury in one of Tom Kinsella’s classes.

Deb leading the discussion.

Adeline Koh, John Thebault, and Rebecca Goldman listen to the discussion.

ThatCamp Philadelphia: Digital Humanities Integration Into Regular Literature Classrooms

The final session I attended at ThatCamp Philadelphia was run bu Janine Utell on integrating the digital humanities into regular literature classrooms.

  • Amanda French defines the digital humanities as “open access”
  • How can student work be put online? WordPress, PBWorks, etc
  • Digital Humanities Quarterly given as example of open access
  • Should give students option to take down work at the end of the semester
  • I am going to try out commonplace blogs with my eng102 classes next semester
  • Utell: Digital humanities is essential to keeping the humanities alive
  • Some discussion about establishing comment policies
  • Crowd sourcing comment policy to students
  • Peer review is important before work goes online
  • Instructor comments on blogs tapers off as semester goes on
  • French and Siobhan Phillips bring out Google’s ngrams, wordles
  • I’ve had students A/B an Obama speech to a Jefferson speech
  • More incorportation of audio, video, etc into literary classes
  • Modernist Journals Project
  • Amanda French stresses the need to teach bibliographic software like Noodle, Evernote, and Zotero

ThatCamp Philadelphia: Digital Scholarship & The Unpress

A newer member of the Stockton family, Adeline Koh, ran a session on digital scholarship that was equally interesting and very engaging. Being off of the tenure track, and not at a university, I had a different perspective than some others brought to it. Others like Amanda French, who aren’t teaching right now, brought a unique perspective as well.

  • Ulyssesseen.com is an app for Ulysses. Cool.
  • Big question about whether digital publications count towards tenure.
  • Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s Planned Obselence and Shakespeare Quarterly’s move to open peer review are brought up.
  • Deb Gussman asks for a definition of what “open access” means.
  • Cost and institutional support are important.
  • Siobhan Phillips asks about differences in cost between open and closed peer review.
  • How much worth do you get out of a two year process for a scholarly journal?
  • I blurt out “very little!”
  • Amanda French asks at what point in the process should peer review come in?
  • Creating an epub is so easy now. I need to create an epub/mobi of my MA thesis.
  • Amanda also mentioned Press Forward.
  • Deb about two big factors in self publication…moving from format to format and lessening interest over time…
  • Siobhan Phillips had a great idea about having organizations in various fields creating open access bibliographies.
  • Discipline loyalties are more important than institutional loyalties.
  • Because I am not on tenure track, I definitely have different relationships to these issues than others in the room. I mentioned that I don’t feel comfortable publishing in something that couldn’t easily be accessed by my grandparents and there was definitely some amused looks. Whatever. I’d rather people have access to my work than worry about being “legitimate” or whatever.
  • Gussman wonders if outside tenure review can be applied to peer review? Digital Humanities Quarterly already does I believe.
  • Amanda and I discussed the impact of self published or open access published works. We both get comments, emails, and know where readers are coming from.
  • Janine Utell: Decide what your career could look like and make best case you can.

Adeline's notes on the white board. 

A good shot of some of the room including Siobhan, Deb, Adeline, and my TweetDeck. 

Amanda and Adeline listen to Janine Utell speak near the end of the session.

ThatCamp Philadelphia: An Overview

A few weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of attending ThatCamp Philadelphia at Chemical Heritage in Philadelphia. After getting a little lost (4th and Chestnut was closed for a protest), I made it to the conference and found out that the session I proposed a few days before had been picked. I really appreciate that, despite not being there, people still voted for my session. I met up with old friends like Amanda French (lots of ohhhs and ahhh when she mentions she is ThatCamp coordinator), Deb Gussman (10 years ago, she was my first literature professor and now she is attending my panels. Wow.), and John Theibault and settled in at the conference, which had very impressive coffee. I also met longtime Twitter friend Janine Utell and became acquainted at lunch with very awesome people like Siobhan Phillips and Rebecca Goldman and Adeline Koh, a new friend from the Stockton family.

(although I wish I could have been at lunch with John and Amanda because I hear they discussed Edna St. Vincent Millay, one of my favorite poets)

The main meeting room was packed by the time I got to the conference. I got a little lost on the way towards 4th street because of traffic being blocked by a protest march. Google Maps on my phone, run through my speakers, really saved me. 

I spent a lot of time during the day with Amanda French, who is That Camp Coordinator (oohhh, aahhh). 

One of the most interesting aspects of this unconference was how good the coffee is at Chemical Heritage. 

The day was planned via a series of poster boards. 

New Posts @ Blogging Woolf + Prof Hacker

Now that we are caught up on conference notes (which will begin again next week after ThatCamp Philly), I thought I would announce some recent blogging I have done in other places. I have a post up on Blogging Woolf about plagiarism accusations against Woolf after the publication of Mrs. Dalloway. I also have a new post over at Prof Hacker on stocking a teaching tool box before beginning your first job.

Hopefully, I will have more for both blogs soon.

NJCEA: Chaucer, Linguistics, & Parentage

Perhaps the most interesting presentation I saw at NJCEA was Glenn Steinberg’s on Chaucer, Linguistics, and Parentage. A lot of very interesting data mining in this presentation.

  • Chaucer doesn’t stylistically deviate from his peers.
  • There were some interesting handouts about The Book of The Dutchess and Daphnaida.
  • Handout compares number of word uses between Spender, Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate.
  • I would love to see wordles of these. That might make for an interesting student project. Maybe each wiki page needs a wordle.
  • Spenser has more phrases in common with Lydgate than Chaucer, but could be because of evolving language.
  • Spenser’s claim that Chaucer highly influenced him greatly exaggerated.