Growing the New Technopolis

Using this as a template, any institution can substitute their regional, state, local compacts, along with partnering local school systems and agencies.

Well, we’ve got TSU assets ready to submit to ETSU’s iTunes U for Sandbox Tournament Spring 07. We collected, from a cohort of seven classes creating 30 assets, an asset for each of the five categories.

 You can view the tournament’s process at www.tnsandbox.com

We’re working on program model build-out, which is fascinating and exciting. The TN Sandbox was nominated for a Technology Innovation award offered by Campus Technology magazine. Doug and I will be attending their national conference July 30-August 2. I will include the submission text in my next post.

challenge or inspiration:

How best to engage 21st Century learners with emergent technologies? Hypothesis:  A replicable-to-desired-scale curriculum based on active learning in educational technology and deployed by pedagogy of service learning and civic engagement. Adaptable to any subject area, the model evolves the ideation of technology through reconceptualization of digital assets as learning objects. In short, the challenge is: how to create a digital media production company in any learning community?

key beneficiaries:

Participating students and faculty in Tennessee Board of Regents and University of Tennessee systems, as well as community partners; model seeks to open higher education  to general public in Tennessee, as all podcasts (and subsequent digital assets) are available to the public through the open iTunes U archive on East Tennessee State University’s website, with a special emphasis on bridging the digital divide in underserved rural and urban communities through Service Learning pedagogy.

Project results:

Using Zoomerang survey to gather data, model increased directed learning outcomes in all fields of study, created opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations; allowed learning to occur around the clock and the globe, not specifically in the confines of the classroom. Initiating dissemination of educational tech through service learning and civic engagement best practices built bridges between higher ed institutions and surrounding community stakeholders, thus fostering learning communities in underserved rural and urban settings in
Tennessee.

suprises and aha moments: 

Epiphany 1: The existing readiness factor (without knowing it) of insitutions, corporate partners and community partners to engage diruptive technologies to create 21^st century learning opportunities.

Epiphany 2: Recurrent, reiterative visions of scalability dancing in the our heads.

Epiphany 3: scaling initiative to national level, leveraged by strategic partnerships with Campus Compact, Campus Technology, Apple and other corporate, institutional, and educational partners to create a quality-controlled Youtube or NCAA of 21^st Century competetive scholarship.

Technology choices:

Zoomerang survey software

Audacity and LAME mp3 encoder

Apple Garageband

Apple
iTunes
U.

reasons for technology choices: 

Bridge digital divide in a state ranked in the lowest percentile range nationally in educational outcomes and per-student expenditures by offering availability to students, faculty and community partners. Maximize least costly resources for project for partners with limited budgets, while assuring high-quality resources for production of quality digital assets and products.

next steps:

Program will expand to include both audio and video digital assets and reusable learning objects. Program will triple sponsor donations to 27,000.00 to facilitate expansion.

Program will also double the number of
Tennessee institutions. New York, New Jersey and
North Carolina are partnering for 07-08 school year. Based on experience with Tennessee State University HUD HBCU  program, “Growing the New Technopolis,” detailed in websites below, extend to public schools as replicable k-20 model.

advice 

Trust a chaotic propogation; from that, others will likewise trust the chaos.  In fact, incorporate chaos into program development in order to ‘stir’ the churn of disruptive technologies and their continued proliferation. Follow a simple, three-tier approach to digitizing traditional scholarship for re-purposing:

1. Digital Content Creation

2. Website creation for content archiving and delivery

3. Leverage social networking resources to create traffic

4. Utilize Service Learning Civic Engagement pedagogy to faciliate technology and knowledge transfer to underserved learning communities.

Additional info: 

Dr. Clark Maddux:

Tennessee
State
University Literature, Service Learning and Technology website:

http://faculty.tnstate.edu/hmaddux/Friendship/friendship.html

Dr. Clark Maddux:

Tennessee
State
University Technology Integration in Curriculum:

http://faculty.tnstate.edu/hmaddux/resources/tips.html

University of
Tennessee Podcast Tournament website:

http://volcasting.utk.edu/tournament/

East Tennessee State University iTunes U. website  

            http://www.etsu.edu/itunesu/index.jsp

Tennessee
State
University and

University of
North Carolina-Chapel Hill blog

            http://thenewtechnopolis.edublogs.org/

From my THEJournal newsletter:

Kennedy Middle School Stimulates Learning with Multimedia, Computing Power

By Charlie White
Middle school students in Germantown, WI who are eager to learn about the latest technology have a fervent ally in their principal, Steve Bold. As principal of the 890-student Kennedy Middle School there for the last 11 years, he has been a passionate proponent of implementing computer training, presentation technology, and video production into the curriculum whenever he can. The result is more engaged, interested and involved students. We talked to him at his bustling middle school about how he uses tech to teach, experiments with new tools, and how he envisions the use of this technology in the future….

Read Complete Article:
http://www.thejournal.com/articles/20572

Doug and I presented at the 2007 TLT Conference on Friday, March 23. We received great feedback from our community digital media arts centers presentation from North Carolina School for the Arts and others. The Conference was packed with outstanding presentations which provided much food for thought. In particular, Appalachian State University’s preso on virtual worlds was powerful. Collaboration between TSU and UNC-Chapel Hill continues to develop through conversations with Paul Jones of ibiblio.

Again, anyone interested in convergence of Civic Engagement and Educational Technology should consult the Tennessee Sandbox site at:

www.tnsandbox.com

More later!!

Some wonderful work being done halfway between our respective institutions, down in beautiful Asheville, NC. The Media Arts Project has developed a conceptual plan for building what it calls “creative clusters” by way of A Community-Based Media Development Center. (this links to a PDF)

This idea is not unlike the one we’re putting forward: the creation of what we’re calling DMACs, or digital media arts centers, in historically underprivileged neighborhoods. The DMAC model could serve as a powerful multidisciplinary service-learning project that results in all kinds of action research, civic engagement, and social entrepreneurship. The key is to build strong partnerships at the local, state, and even national level to foster such projects along and grow the model out.

I can’t believe I hadn’t come across his work until earlier this week, but Henry Jenkins is someone who is way out in front on the whole digital literacy advocacy front. He’s currently the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities. Yeah, basically a super genius. Seriously, his work is well worth your time, and his very active blog is a fine place to start.

Since the blog you’re reading is based on WordPress, which I love, I feel a little guilty posting this. But it’s a great resource for educators and students looking for an easy solution to podcasting. Many people in K-16 education already use Blogger, and this article explains how to integrate podcasts seemlessly and easily. Worth bookmarking:

http://www.podcastingnews.com/articles/Make_Podcast_Blogger.html

Following on the heals of our presentation later this month at the North Carolina Campus Compact Conference, we’ll also be presenting at the UNC Teaching & Learning with Technology Conference on March 23, in Raleigh, NC. The UNC TLT conference is a wonderful forum for educators across the UNC system and beyond to share ideas, best practices, and strategies for incorporating technology into higher ed. This year’s conference theme seems especially appropriate for our New Technopolis vision: “Building Connections.”

Learn more about the conference here: http://conference.unctlt.org/

This is an example of the kind of initiative being driven by our vision of the New Technopolis. Kudos to my friend and colleague, Bob Bradley, for getting this going.

http://www.tnsandbox.com