This is an excerpt of what I wrote, I think it is interesting on its own as it starts to encapsulate what I have been working on in June:
Desire2Learn (d2l): is a learning management system (LMS) that allows for structured content to be metered to participating students, it is good at hosting online discussions, and has fairly robust quizzing and assessment tools. As one can imagine it favors discrete answer spaces (abcd, t/f) but there is room for open ended / hand graded assignments and TA involvement. I have been talking to Dore about integrating this with one of her classes as a test of the system.
Elluminate: is a powerful conferencing tool that is integrated with d2l. I plan to use it for synchronous learning within the classroom, live lectures, group work, and critique. My classes are smaller than yours in general, but I do believe this scales pretty well.
Google Docs / Google Forms : provide a platform for student collaboration and open ended assessment. I use forms to take the pulse of my class on a weekly basis and to provide instant feedback on how they feel about their class performance, what they are struggling with and to get students to reflect on learning. Here is a video I made on how to get started, which I thing provides an interesting overview: http://dma.sjsu.edu/james/movies/forms3.mov
Now I also have at my disposal media services. Basically I am working with Chris Laxton and his media production team Keith and Terri. I am trying to develop a half hour video format that is a) dense with information, b) fast paced, c) stable so that the student can rewatch and index it as necessary. This has been the focus of my work over the summer so far. My format is as follows: in a 30 minute lecture the first 6:40 are dedicated to 20 slides that automatically advance after 20 seconds each (note I am adopting a liberal interpretation of the word slide here too), this is followed by 23:15 of detail and explanation. My plan is to license each of my lectures with a Creative Commons Attribution License (which permits others to use the materials as long as they credit the original author), and to post the first 6:40 to youtube (with a link to the remaining lecture). I know this seems pretty complex but there is a method to my madness.
So I am developing 13-16 of these 30 minute lectures to be aired on SJSU’s community access TV station. I have gone through my class and found some interesting places for overlap with Art History. This is my full list, of which I am trying to fill out with experts:
1) What is DMA? New Media Art – Definition and Antecedents (james)
2) Mashup (james)
3) Conceptual Art (dore)
4) Image, authenticity and authorship
4a) CC – licensing, IP and contemporary landscape
5) Collaboration / Participation / Open Source
6) performance (david)
7) Intervention / Culture Jamming (Thomas)
8) Identity
9) Telepresence and Surveillance
10) Hacking / Hactivism – Corp Parody – Yes Men?
11) memes
12) games (Ian Schreiber)
-13) medium as medium (web etc)
14) Objects – Shannon
15) Materials – Shannon
-16) emergence
Now all of these relate to contemporary art, but historical antecedents are relevant and even necessary. I have a small stipend that I am offering for each of these and of course the author will have full rights to use, reuse and repurpose the lecture as they see fit.
I would like to talk about possible points to jump in here, I am offering my services to your project in any way that you can find me useful. In return I ask that you consider picking up one of my lectures if the subject seems like something you could work with.
I look forward to your response, and though I am out of town for the next several days, I should be on email. Perhaps we could schedule a meeting in the next week or so. My production team has been working furiously to get the technology down to the level that they can understand and work well with, and I think we are about ready to start real production.
a musing 