The resulting course site designed by the inimitable Tim Owens is a highly attractive, intensely visual course space on UMW Blogs that streamlines posting for students thanks to the Gravity Forms plugin (which is premium—what is happening to us!). What I love about this experiment is how beautiful the images of these mammal cells are, and how the students’ brief description coupled with the gorgeous images tell a story about the life and death of cells. Not only that, but it reinforces the idea that new approaches to storytelling with media cuts across all disciplines—it’s not an exclusive a concern of the humanities.

Here at UMW, Professor George Meadows and Tim Owens of the Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies have been spearheading an effort to incorporate this nascent technology into the classroom. Follow their adventure here.

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This course is about analyzing works that were inspired and adapted from other works.  Currently, the students of ENGL251yy are making an intricate web of connected media.   Each student is expected to complete 10 different “vectors”, by connecting them to other vectors already placed on the web.  Check out their ongoing vector project here on a Google Doc.

Open courseware is not the only way online learning is going to change higher education. DeMillo observes that whereas the traditional college class involves the broadcasting of information from the professor to (doubtfully alert) students, blogs involve rich connection networks where students and instructors interact and share their questions and information.

In that regard, DeMillo points to a little-known school where there is great educational ferment: “At the University of Mary Washington, learning takes place in the digital spaces engineered by Jim Groom and his band of Edupunks. At UMW, learning takes place in blogs.”

And when highlighting the importance of a networked culture for the future of learning at institutions UMW is highlighted as a model. UMW Blogs provides more than open resources and lectures on the internet, it also enables the ability to interact and share ideas and resources that helps bridge the gap between institutions of higher learning and the web.

James Bacon, proprietor of the Bacon’s Rebellion blog that focuses on all things Virginia, not only gave UMW kudos in for it’s work with UMW Blogs in his post on the DeMillo book, but also points out what remains the most important lesson of UMW Blogs. The open publishing platform is not remarkable because it is single-handedly transforming higher education (such an assertion would be absurd), but rather it is how this platform embodies “the process of experimentation” that is still in its infancy when it comes to the future of higher education. To Mary Washington’s great credit, it has been on the bleeding edge of innovation in this regard for more than seven years. What’s more, I’m glad people are recognizing it as a vital investment in not only the institution’s future, but in a larger discourse around the future of educational institutions.

Image credit:  Ethan Hein’s “Hyperbolic orthogonal dodecahedral honeycomb”

To portray with some depth the university’s chase for reaccreditation, what students do with their free time, and what happens to students after graduation, the class worked on three beats and completed these reports.

After listening to a presentation on Women’s Fashion and Cross-Dressing in the Modernist Era, I have to say I’m glad that this is a course requirement.  Not only does this help students in the course figure out how to use new technology for educational purposes, it also allows those who are thinking about taking the course get a sneak peek at the topics studied throughout the semester.

I highly enjoyed these presentations and I hope this becomes a new trend for professors to follow.

The discussion around trust and academic blogging platforms was ignited by a post by Mark Smithers on “Blogging and tust in Universities”. He highlighted UMW as a rare example of trust in Higher Education:

Now the question is why aren’t universities doing the same thing? To be fair, there are some very good examples of university blogging environments where numerous members of the university run a blog. One of the best known is the University of Mary Washington blogs site but even this runs from its own domain and not from the UMW main site. These sites, though, are the exception rather than the rule.

Fact is, this is just the beginning of UMW’s experiment with openly sharing the work we do with the world. over the coming academic year our main website, http://umw.edu, which is now running on WordPress will feature more department bogs/sites (see here, here, and here for examples), individual sites/blogs, and cross-fertilize content from specific departments and class sites into the umw.edu space. This open, fishbowl approach to teaching and learning on a university’s website brings a new idea of open engagement to a university’s web presence. UMW’s website is not just a brochure anymore—it is an open educational experience and a resource all at once!

Dr. Mikahalevsky brings a philosophical perspective to this subject: Students are required to read classic works by Plato, Aristotle, and Hume, and apply their research to understanding what makes a piece of art “dangerous.”  They also tackle the question of why we ban art, and even more difficult, the question of what art really is.

"Purim," by Marc Chagall, has been on banned art lists.

The website is stocked with links to books, music, and artwork that have come under fire by various institutions and countries over the years. Check out the lists, if only to be surprised by what makes the list. Dr. Mikalevsky has included the main questions her students are expected to answer about each piece, which may stimulate your own philosophizing.

Dangerous, beautiful, or both, art never fails to incite conversation.

Students look at several intriguing works over the course of the semester.  Possibly the most interesting of the five required texts are two by Mark

Inside Foer's "Tree of Codes"

Danielewski and one by Jonathan Safran Foer, which contrive to use the medium in unique ways.  “Only Revolutions” by Danielewski requires the reader to flip the book around every eight pages and includes a colorful “history gutter” running down the center of the pages.  His other novel, “House of Leaves,” is a work that features stenographic codes hidden throughout.  These codes only add to the mind-bending narrative. Foer’s “Tree of Codes” is a tough nut to crack in itself, particularly because of the way its format (pictured).  It’s hard to imagine the paperback industry dying with fascinating creations such as these.

Students are in charge of possessing their own digital spaces where they must reflect on the class each week. These posts then agregate at a course hub set up pre-semester by Whalen. It is possible to follow along with their work, tweets, and even the bibliography generated by the course.

The course culminates in a major project, the type of which is left open to the individual: One can follow the traditional route of writing an in-depth essay, or create a unique project that

demonstrates understanding of the content and explores a concept.  With the unique texts being considered, either path is sure to generate an interesting outcome.

This is definitely a class worth following.