This Whole Spring Semester Thing…

This is a pretty choppy entry…

So here is my thought: base the classroom activities around the final objective of creating some sort of area guide to UMass/Amherst/surrounding areas published on the web. Students can use their own names or pseudonyms to publish, and will have the option of serving as editors or other “behind the scenes” roles (this part I need to think about more…).

Goals addressed:

• helping students orient to new area (OK, second semester students, but really, how much do they know about the area?)

• encouraging students to interact with local attractions, businesses, service opportunities, community – fostering a knowledge of the area in which one lives to locate various resources available and create a knowledge of one’s community (as well as encourage students to then be active in their community – so perhaps we should add a sense of belonging in the area and some sort of responsibility towards its maintenance, though perhaps this is really stretching it)

• work on writing to a “real” audience (I say “real” because who knows who will be reading this, but perhaps it could be actually linked somewhere from the school)

• create a classroom community that extends beyond the walls of the classroom to encourage more engaged participation and activity

• collaborative writing

• context – both local (literally) and more global – how do students navigate a new context, a new place, a changing sense of self

Specific Ideas:

• stuff to do on campus, reviews of different food options, different study nooks, etc
• local resturants
• historicize markers (town commons, the mural at Food for Thought)
• local farms (so maybe I do have some sort of agenda…)
• music scene
• bookshops, clothing stores, neighborhoods, coffee shops, community events, community service opportunities/local non-profits
• a quick history of the area giving historical context to the University and to the Pioneer Valley

Reading the pieces for this week I was struck first by Hocks’ piece examining Christine Boese’s fan site dissertation, described as an exploration “of the constellations of social forces in cyberspace, which have led to the success of noncommercial, highly trafficked dynamic culture or what is sometimes called a ‘community’” (Boese quoted in Hocks 639). The fan sites achieved a level of community through common interest, interacting regularly and with zeal to create resources and relationships. This got me to thinking – how neat would it be to try to form a space for students to do this with a focus revolving around their community instead of media images (or drinking, as the “Zoo-Mass” sites already in existence have done). In approaching this project I am bringing a lot of my own values to the surface, but perhaps with an introduction to the project centering around critical multi-modal literacy and the principles of design brought forth by the New London Group, those values can be instead pedagogy at work? (I guess what I am really asking here, is at what point am I forcing students to do what I want them to do in creating this “community” that they may or may not be interested in themselves…) This project gives the class the chance to create a space for knowledge to be formed and transmitted about the area, perhaps giving space for responses to UMass/Amherst, discussion about ways to stay entertained, and maybe even an evaluation of the area in terms of its ability to foster learning and development outside the classroom or University campus.

The questions to answer now, are how to fit this into the 112 curriculum and what type of technology to use that will not require me (or my students) to have to learn something terribly complicated and intricate. I want accessibility and enfranchisement – meaning something students can gain access to through use of public computers (open software) and that will be simple enough to use that they can carry away from this project skills to use again. Hm.