Gathering Voices Tracy Mendham’s Writing-to-Learn Online Assignment Calderwood Writing Initiative at Franklin Pierce August 16, 2007

Mission

Sometimes We’re Afraid to Write

But Everyone Wants to Be Heard

Technology Should be a Bridge…

…not a Locked Door

Context

College Writing I Keene GPS campus An unwired classroom No on-site tech support No money

I Need an Early Informal Assignment That Will: Break the ice Encourage pre-writing Generate topic ideas Build community Enhance student confidence

How to Do it?

“Technology” is Whatever Was Invented After You Were Born My GPS students may not have computers at home, or Internet access except on our commuter campus

How Can I Use High Tech? in the background facilitate and showcase student ideas

Everyone Has a Phone (almost)

Blogger Lets Me Build a Blog An extension of the classroom for students who want to wander there A place for me to store information A window out of the classroom to the world of information A window into the classroom for colleagues, future students, others

Students Can View Links and Announcements But no one is required to use it

I Set Up a Channel on Gabcast

It’s a Workspace for Me; No One Else Need Go There

I Give Students a Handout and Ask Them to Call In Their Messages

I Go to Gabcast/Manage Episodes

From Gabcast

I Post Episodes to Blogger (That Part Takes Too Long…)

Students Can Hear Each Other’s Voices by going to the blog on the weekend or waiting for class on Monday

I Listen to the Messages So I can comment on them in class

I Save the Episodes to a Folder on my Computer

I Burn Them on a CD (iTunes Makes It Easy) To play in class or loan to students who can’t listen online

Bonus Features

If I Have Time for a Big Project I Use Audacity to Paste Together the Episodes with Background Music

The Audacity Compilation Can Be Listened to As One Track In Future Classes Or used to share my work with colleagues

This Will Test the Tech Mid-semester and end-of-semester I can have students use voice messaging to complete journal assignments when I have their physical journals. This initial assignment will be a way to test the feasibility of the technology.

Stay Tuned I invite you to visit my work this semester at…

Bigger Classroom

Tracy’s Office

My Academic Website

End