A few questions and concerns I have about the project.
I'm still not quite sure how I want to pursue the project. I have this idea that's big, and that will take a lot longer than the time left in the semester, but I want to have some sort of functional preview thing of it ready for the presentation. So I'm having a hard time narrowing down which aspect of the utility to focus on - what would most applicable to this class?
So most of these are concerns of scale and a sense of impending failure to address all the concerns I have.
I've decided small comment boxes are annoying! Anyway I'm repasting your ideas from you previous post so I can more easily respond.
ReplyDeleteYou write, "One thing I really want to look at involves self-learning some of the basics of language. I'd like to get multiple sources to present some basic grammar lessons the way they might teach it in a classroom, and then offer a way to switch between sources until students find a teacher that "works" for them."
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I'm curious here what you mean about grammar or how you define it. Grammar itself is such a broad term! Have you read "Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar" by Patrick Hartwell. He has passed away now, but there is a memorial website that has some of the grammar games he developed online: http://www.ou.edu/hartwell/games.html
Anyway, I think rather than lessons, if there was some type of interactive program that would encourage language play and manipulation that would make for a very interesting project! In terms of the time you have, you may not have time for a complete program yet, but if you continue this idea into next semester for your 701 project/ course release thing, you will have the time to more fully develop it.
In the other project you write: "Another thing that I've been thinking about is stems from our last class, where we started thinking about the forms of writing we're teaching. Maybe I'd like to look at developing a beginning writing class that focuses less on analyzing "reader texts" and more on a dynamic sort of project-focused class. Maybe one where students manage a blog/website/content generating sort of thing. Part of the class would focus on curating material, always with proper attribution, but also on the creation of content."
This one seems to coincide a bit with what Keegan proposed, except rather than focusing on networked writing class focusing on more blatantly with transferable skills, maybe you you create a multimodal version of ENG101. If you do this, I think it may be interesting to also include non-internet technology in the classroom--have students choose paper, colors, the type of writing utensil they use, paint, clay, made objects, chalk, etc. I wanna take that class!