Alvarado2007

Teaching with Digital Text

R. C. Alvarado

Academic Technology Lunch 'n' Learn Series

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Introduction

• Welcome
• Thank yous and introductions

About this series

• Purpose
• Content

Segue to today's topic

• Begin with the less familiar
• Provide some framing ideas

What is digital text?

Three Kinds of work

• Digital text is highly variable -- PDFs, Word, Web Pages, Blog entries, Wiki pages, Databases, XML, etc.
• Its forms are a function of its contexts of its use
• In academia, these are three: (1) Publishing, (2) Teaching, and (3) Research:

Digital Publishing

• A lot of work has been done at Dickinson in this area
  • James Gerencser and John Osborne's DEILA projects

Instructional Technology

• ATS, in particular Todd Bryant, has spear-headed a lot of work in this area
  • The Dickinson Blog and Dickinson Wiki

Digital Scholarship

• Includes Humanities computing and e-science
• Less developed on campus
• My area of interest, and what I want to focus on

"Textualities"

• AKA "Discourse Genres"
• Form, Content, Practice

Mark-up

• Think of this as close-reading, text-criticism
• A methodology that merges the (old) New Criticism with the discourse analysis of the socio-linguist with the Qualitative Data Analysis of the sociologist
• EXAMPLES
  • TEI
  • XML in general
  • Grizzard

Collaboration

• Wikis and Blogs

Linking

• An overlaying dimension to the previous technologies
• Text as Database → from Sequence to Random Access
• Has the most profound and difficult to control effects:
  • Challenges the the notion of the text itself
  • Narrative
• EXAMPLES
  • [Ovid]
  • [Figura]

Why work with digital text?

Technology breaks things

• Describe the principle

"The times, they are a' changin'

• The changes are happening now
• The macro forces are beyond are control
  • Economics will drive the move to e-books
  • The Googlefication of Everything

Mediations

Research and Teaching

• Collections-based teaching possible

Research and Publishing

• New models of publishing
• New engagements with audiences

Remarks

• Research mediates between Teaching and the two other areas of academic work
• Technology mediates between both Research and Teaching, and Research and Publishing

Conclusion

• Scholars have the opportunity to shape practice and discourse genres by working the technology
  • AKA hacking, bricolage
• The point is not to give you ready made examples of examples of how to teach with digital text, complete with rubrics, outcomes, and best practices
• Rather, it is to engage you in your historical role as producers not only of knowledge but of knowledge practice
• From theory to method . . .

ALTERNATE

Technology Breaks Things

• Discuss the rationalization effect
• Opportunity for teaching
• Obligation for academics