Collaborative Learning & Transmedia Teaching

John Fenn & Doug BlandyArts Administrati on ProgramUniversity of Oregon

This poster session presents our eff orts to create a dynamic, collaborati ve environment for student-teacher interacti on via the "remixing" of an existi ng course using

transmedia perspecti ves & tools.

AAD 450/550 Art and Society is a core requirement in the Master’s Program in Arts Management at the University of Oregon. Over the past two years we have remixed this course to reinforce our belief that our students should learn both about and throughthe media technologies that they will use in the arts and cultural sector positi ons they will take aft er graduati on. Equally important is our commitment to the collaborati ve process in teaching and learning. Our approach to the remix was informed by theory associated with material culture, improvisati on, transmedia, and criti cal pedagogy. The questi ons guiding our ongoing remix include the following:

What does a criti cal parti cipatory / transmedia pedagogy look like?

How does parti cipati ng in a criti cal parti cipatory /transmedia pedagogy prepare leaders in the arts and culture?

How do students and teachers learn together in the criti cal parti cipatory transmedia environment?

What literacies are required by criti cal parti cipatory /transmedia pedagogy?

What literacies emerge in criti cal parti cipatory/transmedia pedagogy?

How do you culti vate a learning commons using WordPress coupled with other Web 2.0 platf orms?

Student fi eld guides: the fi nal assignment was to create a transmedia fi eld guide to an art world of the students’ choosing...

The course site: Built in WordPress MU (now WordPress 3.0), the site aggregated & delivered content associated withstudent responses to readings, student essays, diigo, class captures, andother materials support-ing learning and teaching.

Transmedia Tools: online engagement, assignments, and content creati on

Collaborati ve Environment: the classroom, parti cipatory exercises, and “live” media

The classroom and our ti me in it extended the transmedia components of our class via dialogue, dynamic presentati ons, and doing...

EVA

LUAT

ION • Responses to the questi ons that guided our remix of AAD 450/550 are evi-

dent in the design and implementati on of the remix; student learning objecti ves, course refl ecti ons, and a comparison of the two, and the online evaluati on of the course by students.

• Student learning objecti ves and course refl ecti ons are presented using Wordle and Tagxedo (see our Prezi poster).

• Student course evaluati ons are expressed in the following stati sti cs and com-ments extracted from the online evaluati ons. Scale is 5 excepti onal, 4 good, 3 ad-equate, 2 somewhat adequate, and 1 unsati sfactory:

ELEMENTS OF INSTRUCTION

Course quality: 4.2 Instructi onal quality: 4.4 Organizati on: 3.8

Amount learned: 4.1 Course assignments: 4.4 Student parti cipati on: 4

• Narrati ve comments received through the UO course evaluati on system relevant to questi ons guiding the remix were generally positi ve. Students commented on the course blog and diigo as good tools for “ongoing engagement, parti cipati on, and learning beyond the classroom and past the term’s end.” Some students did fi nd the course blog confusing in design and had diffi culty disti nguishing content posted in Spring 2010 from Fall 2010.

Please feel free to explore our course site via the laptop and experience an interacti ve “poster” via the Prezi we have created (projected from a second laptop)! course site = htt p://aaablogs.uoregon.edu/artsustainablesociety Prezi = htt p://prezi.com/wrxvjmofl dtr/educauseeli-2011-poster-presentati on/