I learned lots from iTeach. I have completed several new projects and/or incorporated things I learned from iTeach. But frankly, I’m just beginning. I have plans for more stuff to incorporate, and hope to have more things to report in January. But for the upcoming iTeach reunion:

1) I was introduced to the academic side of blogs–I have suffered from sociological intellectual isolation since a colleague who I co-wrote with left in 2006. At iTeach, I was introduced to the world of academic blogs. Sociologists blog!!! No more isolation! I can’t tell you how excited I have been to connect with my virtual colleagues through sociological blogs.

2) iTeach put digital film editing within my grasp. I have used iMovie and Moviemaker to edit short podcasts. I have completed two podcasts, and currently have two others in the works on my blog. For an example, see this entry on Equal Pay. If I can finish the editing on part of my documentary film, “Race Stories” (see below), I’ll send it along before the Nov 10 deadline. I hope to put elements of “Race Stories” online for future SOC 308 Race and Ethnic Relations students to use. I also plan to put clips of excellent student presentations online for my future SOC 405 Social Movement students.

3) blogs–as a result of iTeach, I created and refined an online identity as an academic sociologist. I use blogspot.com, introduced to me by iTeach. I have also taught others how to create blogs. With help from a neighbor, I created a blog for my neighborhood that we successfully used as a tool to unify us against Borough incursion. I also am working with a MA student to create a blog for the proposed Safe Zones project. My sociology blog: http://www.socioked.blogspot.com/ My neighborhood blog: http://www.ORTNeighbors.blogspot.com/

4) through Chris Lott’s technological suggestions, I purchased a Wacom tablet that I use to create graphics. I have used my own graphic creations to jazz up my existing CDE course webpages, as well as my syllabi and other material for my F2F courses, and for my departments and committee work. For example, here is a new syllabus that uses graphics I created using the Wacom and my own photos.

5) the conversations at iTeach were helpful in my decision to purchase a digital camcorder, which I use to tape student presentations in my oral intensive course. As luck would have it, my oral intensive course was selected for evaluation this year. I am using my new digital camcorder, along with my Moviemaker experience, to create podcasts the evaluation committee can use as evaluation data. The chair of the committee was quite excited to hear that they would not have to view 23 hours of videotape, but instead would be treated to a short, edited, and enjoyable podcast.

6) iTeach expanded my appreciation of YouTube and similar video sites. I incorporated many short videos into my oral intensive course, e.g. 3 minute clips of famous social movement speakers, which the students then analyzed. In this class, I focus on teaching students the performance aspects of oral presentations using data from social movements. In the past, I have had to show films in class, winding and rewinding, cueing up multiple videos to show just a few minutes of film so students could complete the assignment. But this semester, using wifi and a laptop, I was able to show the students 2 or 3 minutes of the specific clips I desired. Here is an example of a speech we analyzed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znQe9nUKzvQ

Two students missed class that day because of illness, but they were able to view the clips on their own. In the past, students would have had to check out videos from the library, and struggle to find the exact clips I wanted them to analyze. What a time saver! And so convenient for me and my students. There is also much more variety on YouTube compared to the variety of social movement speeches our library can afford to own. And I could email the links to the students who could just click on them to listen to them.

7) as a result of iTeach, my department has been discussing how we can improve the quality of the SOC courses we offer through CDE. We have a dismal completion rate in at least three of our courses, and an excellent complete rate in one. In one of our courses, students fail miserably at the assignments. We are brainshowering how we can incorporate short videos of explanations, demonstrations, other online materials to improve student performance.

finally, and most excitingly… iTeach gave me the confidence I needed to actually start work on the documentary video I have been hoping to do for years. The film is called “Race Stories,” and features my students analyzing their own personal stories about race. The connection with iTeach is complex… The workshops gave me the confidence I needed to actually DO the filming and the editing (using Final Cut Pro). But iTeach gave me something else, and this is what is complicated. I was frustrated several times during the iTeach seminar, frustrated that we were spending our time evaluating student learning without talking about how students actually GET course content. For example, how do they learn how to analyze race sociologically? I shared a participant’s frustration when she said something like, “students don’t just discover the Pythogorean Theorem on their own.” Exactly. But what tools can we use to help students learn that parallel the good things about F2F teaching? My experiences at iTeach spurred many conversations about this. Some of these conversations occurred on sociology blogs, by the way. And ultimately, what happened for me is that I woke up at 4:00 AM one morning, unable to sleep. And I realized that iTeach had given me the confidence to believe that I had enough technological expertise to do the documentary film, and that I would learn what I needed to know as I went along. And that “experts” or at least online how-to guides and how-to books would appear when I needed them to. This is a huge paradigm shift for me.

That day, I went into my class, and I suggested that we do the film together, and the students were socioked. Student participation in the class is very high; student attendance is consistent; and over half of our film is on tape. Editing the film is still a few weeks away, and I will let ya’ll know in January how this part of my project goes. Before iTeach, I knew I had the sociological expertise to do the film. But iTeach gave me the confidence I need to just shoot it and work out the technological details as I go. In a sense, iTeach dared me to step outside the box. And I did.

Thank you for iTeach, both to the CDE and to the participants. I am eager to hear how others incorporated the workshop into their teaching.

Update 1: One more thing from iTeach… While cruising sites for royalty free sounds and music, I stumbled on simplynoise.com. I have been plagued with noise in my workplace. My office walls are thin, my colleagues boisterous. I can’t work with distracting noises. With the headset CDE gave me at iTeach, I play brown noise to mask the hubbub. Finally, I can actually work in my office even though the world outside my door is noisy and full of distractions! http://www.simplynoise.com/

Update 2: New video as part of the Race Stories project: There is Color and Race: Why?

This entry was posted on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 1:24 pm and is filed under followup session 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.