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Category: Pedagogy

September 2, 2012
Diane Jakacki
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Report from the Grading Trenches: Dispatch One

Posted in Digital Pedagogy, Pedagogy, and Reflections

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Wrestling with my marking demons (ft_edm_park__0103.jpg by stormwarning on Flickr)

I spent a lot of time this summer thinking about how to streamline my grading process. I spoke with colleagues, read many Profhacker articles (just search Profhacker by “assessment” and you’ll get 101 hits), and looked at my past approaches to embracing a syllabus that expects students to experiment with multimodal forms of composition without having what I consider to be the proper tools for assessing those forms (how the hell DO you properly assess a Google Map?) Sometimes it feels as though I’m marking up a play-text to evaluate a live performance. Not sure if that metaphor works for anyone else, but I’ll stick with it for now.

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August 19, 2012
Diane Jakacki
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A Lesson in Digital Publishing

Posted in Digital Humanities, and Pedagogy

P9120077
P9120077 by kepps, on Flickr

I spent a few hours yesterday working on the Tarlton Project, testing out some theories about Queen’s Men touring practices and split troupe touring (not sure if that’s actually a phrase, but I like it). I found it extremely cathartic (and a justifiable procrastination technique) to juggle ArcGIS Online, Google spreadsheets, and WordPress and see what I could accomplish in a short time. As I wrote in the blog post, the observations were absolutely preliminary, but helped as I begin to frame my paper for the October Sixteenth Century Society and Conference.

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August 12, 2012
Diane Jakacki
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One Week and Counting

Posted in Digital Pedagogy, Pedagogy, and Social Media

Bungee
“Bungee” by Strocchi on Flickr.

I’m taking today to finalize my syllabus for the ENGL1102 courses I’ll be teaching this fall. Classes start a week from tomorrow, so it’s probably a good idea for me to get a move on. Last night I shifted my plans somewhat and made the decision to conduct the entire course in WordPress (except for the absolute minimum in the LMS for essay submission and grading purposes). This is not a complete surprise – I’ve used WordPress as a central component of the composition courses I’ve taught at Georgia Tech for the past two years. But in the past I’ve dabbled in other platforms as well: Mediawiki and Twitter, primarily. This semester I’m going to use WordPress as the core of the work we do. I want to see how far I can stretch it to reinforce the multimodal foundation of the writing and communication courses we teach here.

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October 8, 2011
Diane Jakacki
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Skiles Breezeway or Blackfriars Theatre?

Posted in Brittain Fellowship, and Pedagogy

[reposted from TECHStyle]

Woodblock print of a mounted knight.This week I’m teaching Francis Beaumont’s The Knight of the Burning Pestle as part of my English 1102 course on London City Comedy. The play is usually identified as a breakthrough Early Modern parody (of other plays like The Shoemaker’s Holiday and The Four Prentises) and one of the first English plays to break the fourth wall. It is also a very challenging read, since at any time there are some three interweaving plot lines – not to mention the added noodle-twist of trying to imagine a boys acting company playing both cast and planted audience members.

Read moreSkiles Breezeway or Blackfriars Theatre?