Leading Lines

In late March 2020, most institutions of higher education in the US and around the world have closed their campuses in response to the coronavirus pandemic, and in most cases those institutions have shifted the entirety of their instruction to online and other alternative methods. In the next few episodes of Leading Lines, we’re going to explore what this means for higher education, both in the short-term as faculty and other instructors find practical ways to navigate this transition to remote teaching and learning and in the long-term, considering how educational technology and, indeed, all of higher education might change in response to what’s happening here in 2020.

To help us understand that longer-term impact, we reached out to Bryan Alexander. Bryan has a PhD in English language and literature from the University of Michigan, and he taught for a number of years at Centenary College in Louisiana. From 2002 to 2014, Bryan worked with the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education, or NITLE, a non-profit working to help small colleges and universities best integrate digital technologies. These days, Bryan is a futurist, researcher, writer, speaker, consultant, teacher, and a senior scholar at Georgetown University. His latest book, Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press earlier this year.

Bryan talks about higher education’s current pivot to online teaching, and ways to think about the potential long-term impact of the coronavirus pandemic. As you’ll hear, Bryan is informed, insightful, and compassionate, and we are glad to share the conversation here on the podcast.

Links

• The Future of Education Observatory, http://futureofeducation.us/

• Bryan Alexander’s website and blog, https://bryanalexander.org/

• @BryanAlexander on Twitter, https://twitter.com/BryanAlexander

• Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education (Johns Hopkins Press, 2020, https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/academia-next

• The Future Trends Forum, https://bryanalexander.org/the-future-trends-forum/

• Colleges and universities closed / migrating online for COVID-19 [spreadsheet], https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19wJZekxpewDQmApULkvZRBpBwcnd5gZlZF2SEU2WQD8/edit#gid=0

Like most other colleges in the country, Vanderbilt is moving to remote teaching and learning through the end of the spring semester. Stacey reached out to two teaching experts currently helping faculty teach online at their respective institutions. Jennifer Townes and Joshua Eyler weigh in on how faculty who do not normally teach online can use technology to teach from a distance and what instructors should keep in mind as they conduct class for the next weeks. Jennifer is Associate Dean of Professional Development at Southwest TN Community College, and Joshua is Director of Faculty Development at the University of Mississippi.

Links

• Joshua's faculty page: https://news.olemiss.edu/um-hires-new-faculty-development-director/

• Jennifer' faculty page: http://www.southwest.tn.edu/faculty-support/meet-the-staff.htm

Some resources from Vanderbilt University

• Resources for Just-in-Time Online Teaching by Derek Bruff https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/resources-for-just-in-time-online-teaching/

• Dealing with the Unexpected: Teaching When You or Your Students Can’t Make it to Class by Stacey Margarita Johnson and Rhett McDaniel https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/dealing-with-the-unexpected/

• Putting some of your course content online in a hurry? We have resources for you! By Stacey Margarita Johnson https://www.vanderbilt.edu/brightspace/2020/03/06/putting-some-of-your-course-content-online-in-a-hurry-we-have-resources-for-you/

• Asynchronous Teaching Tools on Brightspace https://www.vanderbilt.edu/brightspace/2020/03/13/asynchronous-teaching-tools-on-brightspace/

• Communicating with your students about the move to online classes by Joe Bandy https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/2020/03/communicating-with-your-students-about-the-move-to-online-classes/

• Accessibility and Remote Teaching https://www.vanderbilt.edu/brightspace/2020/03/12/accessibility-and-remote-teaching/

• Vanderbilt Libraries remote teaching, learning, and research support page https://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/remote-teaching.php

Resources from around the web

• How to make your online pivot less brutal by Kevin Gannon https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-to-Make-Your-Online-Pivot/248239

• Going Online in a Hurry: What to Do and Where to Start by Michelle D. Miller https://www.chronicle.com/article/Going-Online-in-a-Hurry-What/248207?cid=cp275

• This Google Doc Teaching Effectively During Times of Disruption by Jenae Cohn and Beth Seltzer https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ccsudB2vwZ_GJYoKlFzGbtnmftGcXwCIwxzf-jkkoCU/preview#heading=h.bsm2vj54ofq4

In past episodes, we’ve interviewed other members of the Leading Lines podcast producer team: John Sloop, Melissa Mallon, former producer Ole Molvig, and Derek Bruff. We continue that trend in this episode with an interview with Cliff Anderson, associate university librarian for research and digital initiatives here at Vanderbilt and another Leading Lines producer.

Cliff has been teaching a new course called “The Beauty and Joy of Computing” for a few semesters now. It’s an introduction to computer science and computational thinking aimed at students who aren’t majoring in computer science. This semester, another Leading Lines producer, Gayathri Narasimham, research assistant professor in electrical engineering and computer science, has started teaching it. Gayathri thought it would be interesting to interview Cliff about his experiences designing and teaching the course. We are excited to present their conversation here on Leading Lines.

In the course, Cliff and Gayathri use NetsBlox as their programming language. It’s a blocks-based language, like Scratch or Snap, designed to teach computing concepts visually without having to work through lines of code. Here, Cliff discusses the pros and cons of this approach to teaching computer science, and he shares a little about his interdisciplinary background as a scholar of religion turned librarian turned technologist.

Links

• Clifford Anderson’s website, https://www.cliffordanderson.net/

• CS1000 website, https://github.com/CliffordAnderson/CS1000

• XQuery for Humanists by Clifford Anderson and Joseph Wicentowski, https://www.tamupress.com/book/9781623498290/xquery-for-humanists/

• The Beauty and Joy of Computing, UC-Berkeley, https://bjc.berkeley.edu/

• Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet, by Claire L. Evans, https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/545427/broad-band-by-claire-l-evans/

• NetsBlox, https://netsblox.org/

• Leading Lines Ep. 72: Mark Sample, http://leadinglinespod.com/uncategorized/episode-72mark-sample/

• Leading Lines Ep. 68: Ian Bogost, http://leadinglinespod.com/episodes/episode-68ian-bogost/

• Leading Lines Ep. 28: Ákos Lédeczi, http://leadinglinespod.com/episodes/episode-028-akos-ledeczi/

In this crossover episode with the podcast We Teach Languages, Leading Lines producer Stacey Johnson talks with Robert Elliott, associate director of the Northwest Indian Language Institute at the University of Oregon. The institute works with Native American tribes to support and strengthen language preservation and revitalization efforts.

Robert helps teachers of indigenous languages through teacher training and curriculum development. Unlike those who work with more commonly spoken languages, Robert’s work also involves language documentation, often capturing tribal elders speaking endangered languages via video and audio. In his conversation with Stacey, Robert shares his path into this work, the role of technology in language revitalization, and the impact the work has on indigenous people.

Links

• Northwest Indian Language Institute (NILI) at the University of Oregon, https://nili.uoregon.edu/

• Language Teaching Studies (NTS) at the University of Oregon, https://lts.uoregon.edu/

• Subtitle, a podcast about languages and the people who speak them, https://subtitlepod.com/

• We Teach Languages, a podcast about language teaching from the diverse perspectives of teachers, https://weteachlang.com/

• The We Teach Languages episode can be found as on Feb 21, 2020 at https://weteachlang.com/2020/02/21/135-with-robert-elliott/

• Leading Lines Ep. 5: Lee Forester & Bill VanPatten, https://leadinglinespod.com/episodes/episode-005-lee-forester-bill-vanpatten/

• Leading Lines Ep. 7: Lynn Ramey https://leadinglinespod.com/episodes/episode-007-lynn-ramey/

• Leading Lines Ep. 13: Tim Foster, https://leadinglinespod.com/episodes/episode-013-tim-foster/

• Leading Lines Ep. 44: Gabrielle Dillman, http://leadinglinespod.com/episodes/episode-44-gabriele-dillmann/

• Leading Lines Ep. 43: Ingeborg Walther, https://leadinglinespod.com/episodes/episode-045ingeborg-waltehr/

• Leading Lines Ep. 53: Kylie Korsnack, http://leadinglinespod.com/uncategorized/episode-053kylie-korsnack/

In this episode, Mark Sample, associate professor and chair of digital studies at Davidson College talks with Derek Bruff. Sample was the keynote speaker at Vanderbilt’s Learning at Play: a one-day symposium on games for learning and social change. Sample didn’t have a chance to sit down for a Leading Lines interview while he was on campus in November. But he and Derek Bruff got to catch up via Zoom earlier this month, and we are very excited to share that conversation with the Leading Lines audience. He talks about teaching digital studies, designing counterfactual games, and learning through play. As you’ll hear in the interview, Mark Sample is an incredibly thoughtful educator, and we are glad to have him here on the podcast.

Links

• Mark Sample’s faculty page, https://www.davidson.edu/people/mark-sample

• Mark Sample’s website and blog, https://www.samplereality.com/

• @samplereality on Twitter, https://twitter.com/samplereality

• Ring™ Log, https://fugitivetexts.net/ring/

• Mark Sample’s Twitter bot, https://twitter.com/i/lists/93507157

• Twine, https://twinery.org/

• Learning at Play, https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/play/

• Learning at Play recaps by Derek Bruff, https://derekbruff.org/?s=%23LearningatPlay

One of our producers, Melissa Mallon, took advantage of the holiday time to get some work done. Melissa had been wanting to interview her sister, Megan, for a little while, and since they were both home over break visiting their parents, Melissa brought along a microphone to talk with Megan in person.

Melissa and Megan have perhaps a little more in common than your typical sisters. Both are educators, Melissa as a librarian here at Vanderbilt University and Megan as a fifth grade teacher at Bluemont Elementary School in Manhattan, Kansas. Both are technologists, weaving digital and information literacy instruction in the work they do with students. Both help other teachers develop their teaching skills, Melissa working with librarians here in her capacity of director of teaching and learning at the Vanderbilt libraries and Megan working with pre-service teachers in the Masters of Arts in Teaching program at Kansas State University. And, as it happens, they’re also identical twins!

During this episode, Megan shares some stories from her experience teaching fifth graders, including the ways she introduces them to technology, and she offers some advice for college and university educators on teaching the students they’ll see in their classrooms in the coming years.

Links

• Megan Mallon, @mallon3: https://twitter.com/mallon3

• Melissa Mallon, @librarianliss: https://twitter.com/librarianliss

• Megan & Melissa, @mallontechtwins: https://twitter.com/mallontechtwins

• Common Sense Media, https://www.commonsensemedia.org/

• Kidblog, https://kidblog.org/home/

• Ribble, M. (2007). Digital Citizenship in Schools. Chambersburg, PA: International Society for Technology in Education. https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Citizenship-Schools-Mike-Ribble/dp/1564842320

In this episode, you’ll hear from Jay Todd and Bart Everson from Xavier University of Louisiana, Tenisha Baca and Beth Eyres from Glendale Community College in Arizona, and our own Derek Bruff from Vanderbilt University, talk about their respective podcasts on teaching and learning. Jay and Bart are two of the producers of Teaching, Learning, and Everything Else, a production of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development at Xavier. Beth and Tenisha are the hosts of Two Profs in a Pod from the Center for Teaching, Learning and Engagement at Glendale. The panelists talk about the origins of their podcasts and the structure and missions of their podcasts, and they name a few of their favorite episodes.

Links

• Teaching, Learning, and Everything Else, https://cat.xula.edu/food/podcast/

• Two Profs in a Pod, https://twoprofsinapod.blogspot.com/

• Tea for Teaching, http://teaforteaching.com/

• Teaching in Higher Education, https://teachinginhighered.com/episodes/

• The New Professor, https://thenewprofessor.com/

• Life101, http://life101.audio/

Viji Sathy and Kelly Hogan both work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where they not only teach hundreds of students a year, but also support their fellow UNC educators in a variety of ways. Viji is a teaching associate professor in the department of psychology and neuroscience and special projects assistant to the senior associate dean of undergraduate education. Kelly is a STEM teaching professor in the department of biology and associate dean of the Office of Instructional Innovation. Their work inspiring and equipping educators extends far beyond UNC, however. You may have seem them in the Chronicle of Higher Education or the New York Times or the Atlantic, or heard them on the Teaching in Higher Education podcast with Bonni Stachowiak. Viji and Kelly have a way of talking about inclusive teaching strategies that helps faculty in all disciplines make meaningful changes in their teaching. Leading Lines host and producer, Derek Bruff, was lucky enough to steal a little bit of their time at the POD conference to ask them about the intersection of inclusive teaching and educational technology.

Links

• Viji Sathy’s website, https://sites.google.com/view/vijisathy/

• @vijisathy on Twitter, https://twitter.com/vijisathy

• Kelly Hogan’s faculty page, https://bio.unc.edu/faculty-profile/hogan/

• @DrMrsKellyHogan on Twitter, https://twitter.com/DrMrsKellyHogan

• Sathy & Hogan’s Chronicle of Higher Education guide to inclusive teaching, https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/20190719_inclusive_teaching

• The POD Network, https://podnetwork.org/

Ian Bogost is the Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and Professor of Interactive Computing at the George Institute of Technology. He’s an author of multiple books, an award-winning game designer, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. Ian studies games by making games and is an incredibly deep thinker about an impressively broad array of topics, as you’ll hear from this conversation.

Links

• Ian Bogost’s website, http://bogost.com/

• @ibogost on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ibogost

• What Video Games Have To Teach Us about Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee (2007), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Video_Games_Have_to_Teach_Us_About_Learning_and_Literacy

• Play Anything by Ian Bogost (2016), http://bogost.com/books/play-anything/

• “The Curse of Cow Clicker: How a Cheeky Satire Became a Videogame Hit,” by Jason Tanz in Wired (2011), https://www.wired.com/2011/12/ff-cowclicker/

• Put Words Between Buns, http://bogost.com/projects/buns-life/

Christopher Cayari is an assistant professor of music education at Purdue University. He teaches college students, mostly pre-service teachers, but his research considers how musicians use technology, particularly the internet and social media, to make music. Just as YouTube is changing how music is created and shared, Cayari is using YouTube and other video tools to change how his students learn about music. He uses technology to turn his classroom into a learning community, where students learn from and with each other.

Links

• Christopher Cayari’s faculty page, https://cla.purdue.edu/directory/profiles/christopher-cayari.html

• Eric Whitcare, “A Virtual Choir 2,000 Voices Strong,” TED Talk, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NENlXsW4pM

• “Two Birds” Recorder Virtual Ensemble, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiYUqG_bGL4&feature=youtu.be

• “Two Birds” Recorder Instructions, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wspHWUBHUeQ

• “Viva La Vida” Ukulele Virtual Ensemble, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iK2I26DdlI&feature=youtu.be

• Cayari, C. (2015). Participatory culture and informal music learning through video creation in the curriculum. International Journal of Community Music, 8:1 (41-57). https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/intellect/ijcm/2015/00000008/00000001/art00004

• Vlogbrothers (Hank and John Green), https://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers

• Collaborative blog examples, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIbKDN7SYIU

• Reply All podcast, https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all

• The Anthropocene Reviewed podcast, https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/anthropocene-reviewed