Next week, I’m headed to Coventry University with Jesse Stommel to participate in Expo 16: University Remixed hosted by the Disruptive Media Learning Lab. For the last six weeks or so, Jesse and I had been regularly talking with the folks at DMLL about the event and planning how we could most meaningfully contribute to their program. The event is designed to bring together people to talk about the future of higher education, with a few featured voices as well as opportunities for the participants to work together on creative responses to a set of critical questions around the topic.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
A Tribute to the Bullpen
Last week, Jim and I presented in Richmond at Open VCU about the experience of teaching #ds106. It was a lot of fun — but talking about #ds106 with Jim is always a lot of fun. We prepared a different kind of presentation, in which we examined the course/community through three different lenses of openness, and we used it as an opportunity to circle through a number of ideas while looking through those various lenses. You can find the presentation here, though I’m told the audio leaves a bit to be desired. We’ll just have to do it again at some point. 🙂
During the Q&A Jeff Nugent of VCU’s Center for Teaching Excellence asked a question about how other schools can push forward with the “community design process” that we described as being so critical to the success of #ds106. It’s a good question, and it echoes questions I hear a lot when I speak to others about the successes that we’ve enjoyed at UMW with our work in DTLT. Jeff’s question was specific to a particular aspect of #ds106 that we had brought up in the presentation — the notion that the “course” wasn’t designed by a single person nor was the design process even led by a single person — and my response was what I often say to similar questions which is that a) we’ve enjoyed tremendous success in DTLT over the last decade with projects we’ve worked on and developed, and b) I’m incredibly proud of that work we’ve done, but c) I can honestly say we absolutely never sit down and engineer our project design. Our approach is organic and messy — the projects that have become huge successes have all percolated up naturally through our community, our shared interests, and our individual passions. I spoke to this a bit in my recent post about organic project development.
Six months into Domain of One’s Own
It’s been months since I did my first status report on Domain of One’s Own, and it’s definitely time to revisit the topic. As it turns out, a few weeks ago I completed a interim report about the project to share with our University’s Board of Visitors. So, I actually have spent a fair amount of time over the last month or so considering the first semester of Domain of One’s Own as well as thinking about the next year or so of the project.
A Newish Post
And a newish theme. And a newish About page.
In Defense of Organic Project Development
Over on his blog, Tim is talking about some very exciting work we’re doing with Domain of One’s Own right now, and he’s inspired me to add my own post to the conversation. Tim’s outlined beautifully some of the initial steps we’re taking to build a community space around Domain of One’s Own — a space that can capture information about the various installations that our users are doing in the system, and display that information in ways that allow us to easily filter and expose the work that’s happening. I truly believe we’ve only just begun to imagine what we could do with a space like this, and I can’t say how exciting it is to be working on this with Tim right now.
What I want to talk about specifically is the approach we’ve taken to Domain of One’s Own and how the work we’re doing is informed by that approach.
WordPress as a Data Collection Tool
A few weeks ago (actually, I think it’s more like months at this point), I blogged about publishing my first plugin on the WordPress Repository. I thought I’d take a moment to write about what that plugin is — and the projects I’ve been working on that inspired it.
Packaging A Domain of One’s Own
I’m REALLY excited about an idea I had yesterday that, thanks to the previous work of my colleague Tim Owens and his assistance today, I think we may be able to realize as part of A Domain of One’s Own.
.75 Weeks into A Domain of One’s Own
We’re not quite a week into the start of the semester at UMW, but I thought I’d take a moment to reflect upon the launch of A Domain of One’s Own — as much to record for myself some lessons I’ve learned over the last few days.
Domain of One’s Own: When the Planets Align
A LOT has been going on around these parts — and given all the things that have to happen between now and the start of classes next week it feels a bit indulgent to take time to write a blog post right now. But, quite frankly, I need a break from mentally scanning the lists of tasks I need to complete so that I can reflect for a moment upon what all those tasks actually add up to.
Continue reading Domain of One’s Own: When the Planets Align
The Longest Time Coming
Sometimes, it can take you a long, long time to learn something new.
Sometimes, you set out to learn something new before you even know what that thing is.
Sometimes, what seemed like a finish line when you started turns out to just be a pit stop along the way when you get there.