Notes from “Using Social Media to Define the New Humanities” – Antonio Viva
- Thinking about new humanities
- Context, conversation, collaboration
- How do we educate our students for success in the web 2.0 world?
- Can we harness the power of social media to provide students with a vehicle for exploring and creating original content?
- Old School Creative Writing
- Genre based instruction
- Anthology as primary class text
- Student work not published
- Blogging/journaling
- Assessments were traditional and rubric based
- Mostly fiction and poetry
- Workshop style with peer editing and review
- In depth study of literary elements and terms as a vehicle for creation
- What is the basis of the new humanities?
- Richard Miller’s presentation to MLA, December 2008
- See Digital Digs for a reflection and embedded video
- Personal paradigm shift
- Communicating instantly and globally
- English is about human expression
- Humanists should be at the cutting edge of this
- Multimedia composition
- Why should we reconsider thinking this whole thing? — connecting to panel discussion last night
- Creativity, collaboration, and courage
- Schools should be a place where student generate ideas
- Ability to try out new ideas
- Fostering new humanities rich environments
- Provide opportunities for students to convey concepts and original ideas through thoughtful technology rich collaboration
- Schools should be about communication
- The WA Mash – Worcester Academy Mash Up
- What do we want to communicate?
- To whom and how best do we communicate this message?
- Model after Salon.com and Slate.com as an outlet for creative writing publication
- Publishing Tools
- YouTube
- Flickr
- WordPress
- Conversation with students about WAMash
- How do you get students engaged — turn some of the control of creating and sharing content over to the students
- What have you learned as a part of taking the class?
- More technology
- Enjoy writing more
- What does it mean to be a writer?
- Before, I considered writing as an essay style, but now it has really expanded my horizons about writing and there are more ways than just essays and school work
- What has changed for me is that I am a lot more willing to put myself out there for people to examine and I was questioning my own ability, but there are so many ways to express yourself in writing. I am more able to accept criticism now and having a good support group from peers and teacher.
- For the past few years, just writing essays, now I have learned that I can express myself more; writing from different perspectives
- Before the class, I thought that it was limited and you had to just write, but now I realize that writing is more about expressing and getting the word out there about something that you care about because people will listen. Writing is important, and I respect it. It is more of an art than I thought it was.
- Thinking about change
- Change needs to be organic — comprehensive school change does not work
- It will cause chaos — people will not be doing substantive and good work with students
- Establish a culture for creativity, innovation, and the appetite to try new things are the norm
- Support the inventors, creative thinkers, risk takers, and innovators with resources, PD, and public accolades
- Don’t follow the trends, create them
Troy,
Great post and especially inspiring to us at Little Did We Know. We are currently working on preparations for a private beta launch – and would be interested in your feedback.
You can sign up for beta testing at http://www.littledidweknow.com
Kindest Regards,
Gianni Arone
Co-Founder
Little Did We Know