Digital Pedagogy Workshop

Description of the video:

Hello everyone. My name is Vanessa Elias and I'm a digital pedagogy consulting specialist at the Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities. And I work alongside Dr. Kalani Craig and Michelle Dalmau, who are the co-directors of the Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities. Or as we like to call it, IDAH. So this workshop, we're going to look at the intersection of digital arts and humanities in teaching. So how can we begin to sort of use digital methods within the classroom? So to sort of begin, who are we and what do we do? So the Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities focuses on digital approaches to research, pedagogy, and artistic practices. We do a wide variety of activities, ranging from discussion groups to lecture series to one-on-one consultations. Some of the areas that we focus on are how do we start to analyze large body of texts, or corpora? How do we analyze space and time? And how do they sort of affect what we're analyzing? And then also how are people interconnected? What are the relationships that people have with other individuals and with other organizations that sort of help us see what connections are available or are established? The Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities is a research center under the Office of the Vice Provost for Research. And we help support faculty, students, librarians, and technologists who engage with digital methods and tools by fostering a network among people and campus services with theoretical, disciplinary and technical expertise. So at the forefront of our organization or our center is outreach, and we sort of do this in different ways. One of the main ways is helping folks with their research projects, and also instructors with instruction and pedagogy support. And then through digital publishing. And we have a wide series of events or programs to help support folks, both for professors and graduate students alike. That's sort of how our center is organized. If you want more information on a particular program that we offer, please do not hesitate to visit our website, idah.indiana.edu. Also feel free to reach out to us and sign up for our newsletter. But we have different events and programming to help support students, not only with the technology side, but also financially. So to begin, there's a link posted below on the site that will guide you to a Google Sheet. And what we want you to do is to first think about what questions or course objectives do you have for your students? This is not thinking right now in terms of the digital methods, but sort of in the traditional space in which you teach and what are some of the questions that you try to have your students answer at the end of the course, at the end of the semester. We're going to go back and revisit these questions or course objectives that you all enter into the sheet to sort of see how can we begin to add a digital method to it. But first, let's just think about what you do now. You can go ahead and pause the video and go ahead and do that and then come back. So the goals for this workshop are, by the end of the workshop, you will be able to identify how digital tools enhance education in the humanities and beyond; identify skills and resources and strategies for creating digitally-inflected lesson plans; also see examples of digitally inflected course projects; and identify at least one teaching goal that could be met using digital methods. So we will go back and revisit those questions that you already wrote in the Google sheet to sort of see how we can begin to add digital methods to it. So why use digital arts and humanities? Using digitally inflected methods help students engage more with the material, especially for those disciplines in which we are more lecture-based. Adding a digital method allows students to engage with the content that they may not have been able to do in a more traditional classroom setting. It also helps them to think more critically about what it is that they're doing. So it helps students engage with the material in ways that we may not have thought of before. It also encourages digital literacy. We live in a technology-driven era, especially given COVID. So students need to be able to possess certain digital literacy skills once they leave. So we want to make sure that we're setting them up for success. Once they leave our classroom and once they leave IU and go into their own careers, it helps encourage critical engagement with digital methods inside and outside of the classroom. Sort of what are the best practices for software that we already use? Or how can we sort of improve upon technology that already exists? Then it also encourages the transfer from what we do in the classroom to outside of the classroom. We want to make sure that students understand that what we do in the classroom is something that will be useful to them in the real world or once they enter their career. We have developed a methodology matrix for folks who are new to the digital arts, to sort of help you understand in what area your idea or project might fall into. So we have this matrix to sort of help folks make that help folks make that, sort of decide where they are. So it helps them continue their research project if they understand what area they're working under. The link below, the go.iu.edu link is a link that directly takes you to the webpage in which we have this matrix, in case you want to sort of explore it a little more. So feel free to visit that site. So how do we sort of begin to integrate digital pedagogy into our classroom? Well, first we want to make sure that we prioritize what we model in our classroom. Students absorb the energy or what we bring to the classroom. So if we are enthusiastic about incorporating these digital methods into the classroom, students will also be excited to incorporate them into their own learning environment. So we just want to make sure that we are modeling how students should be reacting to incorporating digital methods. Especially for students who might feel a little uneasy about using technology. Even though, especially with students now, they grew up in this digital era, but they might not necessarily know how to produce things using technology. So we want to make sure that we foster an environment that is exciting for them, especially in areas that typically we don't use technology. This will be important. We also focus sort of on the research process. So what do we need before we produce something digitally? This goes alongside the doing our research, gathering our data, gathering our sources to be able to put all of this into some sort of digital form. We also want to begin with easier ways of incorporating technology into the classroom, especially for students that don't have a whole lot of experience. So we sort of build upon what students are able to do. We want to continue to challenge them by increasing the level of difficulty. This sort of goes alongside with the previous point, and we want to scaffold the activities for students, especially if you have students that might not have a whole lot of experience using digital methods. And we want to break it down into smaller and easier components for students so that they can digest that information more easily. So this can be done through resources, our IDAH resources, how you break things down in Canvas, and then also in your syllabus. And then also be explicit about how these skills transfer for students into their own lives. Helping them make that connection with what we do in the classroom and how it affects the real world is important for them. And that will also help them be more proactive and more engaging with using the digital methods inside of the classroom and then be able to expand those skills once they leave your course. So how can we help you? One of the ways that we help folks with digital pedagogy is by offering teaching consultations for professors and instructors. Given the COVID era, right now we are working remotely, so all our consultations are held via Zoom. They're on Tuesdays from ten to eleven, Wednesdays from two to three, and Fridays from two to three. So please schedule a consult with us if you are thinking that you might want to incorporate some sort of digital method into your classroom. And we can certainly help support you with that. We also do in-classroom pedagogy visits, especially for instructors who are new to this area and might not feel as comfortable presenting how to use something, a digital method with their students. So we can certainly provide this type of support for instructors. We do need advanced notice for this. Typically we need about four weeks or so in order to help develop the lesson plan for you. So please come and consult with us early when you have an idea so that we have enough time to work with you and see what is the best approach that your course needs and what your students need. And then we also helps support end-of-semester project planning and project management. We can help you in the development of lesson plans, breaking the projects down into more digestible parts. And we can also provide office hours, especially if there's a more technical skill that students need to develop. And if they're having issues, we can certainly provide them with support, especially if you are unable to do that. So we can offer students office hours as the due date for projects is approaching. The areas that we mostly support are text analysis, mapping, and network analysis. These aren't the only areas that we support, but these are the main ones that IDAH focuses on. And it's what our workshop will focus on, at least for now - these three areas. So just to let you all know where we sort of fall And we'll be giving you more information about these three areas in the other components of this workshop. So now what we're gonna do is we're going to go back and revisit those questions or those course objectives that we wrote in the Excel sheet earlier. So what we want you to do now is go back and think about how we can begin to incorporate a digital method within this research and question. Now that you sort of know a little bit about what we do, how can you sort of see where we can incorporate a digital tool? You may also want to refer back to that digital matrix that we talked about. The link for it is below. So, yeah, start to think about how we can begin to incorporate a digital method. The remainder of the workshop will be split into the three areas that we cover, network analysis, mapping, and text analysis. Each one of them is its own module to make it easier for folks to digest information. We will also have interactive activities for the three areas just for you to consider. But yes - please continue watching our workshop and let us know if you have any questions. any questions. Also, if you want to incorporate digital methods into your classroom, please schedule a consult with us.