This past winter term, I taught a course, Oral Rhetoric, a third-year university course, for the second time. The first time, I taught it using two-hour classroom meetings, once a week for the term. The second time I taught Oral Rhetoric, I used Web-tools to supplement the classroom time. This is the story of the impact of a community blog on Elgg, a course wiki on Wikispaces, and the audio-editing freeware, Audacity on this course. This is a story about Web 2.0, the Social Web, and learning. 

My story begins, sort of, with my initially agreeing to teach Oral Rhetoric. The name caught my imagination, because, as an English teacher, I had studied “oracy” – the practice and impact of speaking, - and I liked teaching people how to speak well and powerfully. I taught both theory and practice to the students in the first iteration of this course. Most of them learned more about how to speak, a little linguistics, and some theory about language and speaking. But when I planned to teach Oral Rhetoric a second time, I began to dream up some changes. (I rarely teach exactly the some material exactly the same way twice, because I learn something from each class, and I am constantly learning more about communicating.)

Another beginning to this story is tangled up in my belief in teaching from the past and into the future. When I planned the most recent iteration of this course, it was 2005, the year that the word, “podcast” was declared Word of the Year. The Web, and Web 2.0 in particular, had implications, I believed, for oral rhetoric, as did Aristotle’s work, Walter Ong’s theories about “secondary orality”, Deborah Tannen’s research on linguistics, Marshall McLuhan’s concepts about the impacts of the media, and, of course, the digital generation’s facility with the online world.

I resolved to use the communication tools that are evolving in our culture as part of this course, because that would support an understanding of the craft of speaking (and communicating) as it is developing online today. I would teach cultural roots and, using theory and practice (which includes technology), create a learning environment where students could build a foundational understanding that would allow them to extend and develop their learning into the future.

My ambition was to have students understand the power of communicating using the physical voice in a variety of modes, from face-to face to media-delivered situations. I wanted them, in our media-saturated environment, to understand how media alters the impact of individual voice communications. I decided to focus on storytelling, formal presentations, a requirement to be filmed, so they could see and hear themselves speaking, and the creation of an audio file (an mp3) of their story to be posted online. I wanted them to understand, as speakers and listeners, on a visceral as well as a theoretical level, how the physical voice communicates.

My research evolved out of what I was already studying: Aristotle, Havelock, Ong, Farb (Word Play) Tannen, McLuhan, and, of course, Web 2.0. (I had been building my knowledge in these areas for years, using fascination, work assignments and graduate studies.)

As I began developing my upcoming iteration of Oral Rhetoric, I, almost accidentally, set up a situation that came to inspire me to take early retirement. When I was presented with a fulltime work assignment that was uninspiring and unattractive to me, an assignment that might interfere with teaching this part-time course the way I wanted to, the way I believed was most valuable to the students, I baulked. After a brief review of my situation, I decided to leave my long-term fulltime employment, and focus on this part-time teaching, some tutoring, and consulting on educational uses of Web 2.0. My focus on planning Oral Rhetoric intensified.

I am an elder in the field of education, both in terms of my hands-on experience and my studies. I have been teaching for the great majority of my working life, over 35 years. During that time I have studied, both formally and informally, how people learn to write, read, and communicate. I have also studied, both theoretically and through my teaching practice, how people learn. I know a lot about pedagogy (or androgogy) and curriculum theory, but I don’t think and plan using theories directly, except sometimes as final checklists after planning.

As a teacher, I intuit, I use my tacit (Polanyi) know-how about what will help people learn. I have learned the theory, and use it, but I don’t label what I’m doing with it. (For me, planning is like dancing, and, in dancing, if you think directly about the moves, you become clumsy.) At this stage in my career, I design and plan by imagining, by almost feeling how something will work for learning. I get indistinct ‘senses’ of what is possible and develop them by talking and/or writing about how and what I want to teach.

While planning Oral Rhetoric, I talked to my husband, Jim Cox, also a career teacher. Our rich conversation has extended years as we discuss, in phenomenological detail, with conceptual overviews, how we humans perceive and learn. I also discussed my ideas with Guy Allen, the head of Professional Writing and Communications at the University of Toronto in Mississauga, the program hosting Oral Rhetoric. (I had read Guy’s work on how people learn language developmentally (Allen, 2002) and audited him teaching the required introductory course and I was delighted to be teaching in a program with a pedagogy that matched my experiences and understanding of how people learn language.) In particular, Guy’s suggestion of using the CBC program, Outfront,  became central to my thinking about Oral Rhetoric.

The other place where I got help was online, both in my ongoing survey of the blogosphere, focussed on education and technology, and through my Elgg blog. I searched and read about podcasting wherever I could, but found it technologically intimidating. Although I have taught myself enough html to be able to add bits to my blog sidebars, and copy and paste RSS feeds into my Bloglines account, I am not from a technical background; I am from a communications background. I knew about Audioblogger, and had played with it, but I wanted something more sophisticated.

Somewhere online, I read about Audacity, a free, downloadable application for recording and editing sound. It had very positive reviews, so I downloaded it and began playing with it. My husband had taught audio, and although he wasn’t familiar with Audacity, it resembled other (more sophisticated) audio recording and editing applications enough that , between him and the online tutorials, I created my very own mp3 of myself lecturing.

Somehow, I can’t remember clearly how, I realized that I could use Elgg blogs to post mp3s, and you can see and hear the result here - a rather dry recording. When I listen to it after hearing the work my students did, I would give my recording a ‘D’. But what was central was that if I, a non-technical “digital immigrant” could create and post an mp3, I reasoned that my students, “digital natives”, could surely do the same. And if any of them couldn’t, for sure they would be able to use a phone, which is all that is required for Audioblogger.

I explored the Elgg site a little more and discovered “Community blogs” – where I could set up my class so all the members could post in the same blog, and add their mp3 assignments. I needed one more technical component. With blogs, postings are chronological with the most recent at the top. With wikis, pages look like a regular Web site, but you can create and edit them online, without using html or ftp. I had used a wiki application in a previous course, JotSpot, when it was in beta (or development) and free. It was visually attractive, and as easy as using a simple word processor, but no longer completely free. (Free Web applications are handy because students can download them on their own computers, and because teachers don’t have to ask for funding, i.e. permission.) After some exploring, I found Wikispaces, which was free, if you accepted the ads along the side, and WYSIWYG (“What you see is what you get”) meaning little technical learning was needed.

So I had the technology and some of the ideas lined up, but I needed more thinking. So I wrote in my personal Elgg blog, imagining students as my audience  I found the feedback both affirming and helpful. It was time, and I was ready, to open a calendar and a calculator and begin the onerous task of planning what assignments, worth how much, and when due. The dreaming was mostly (but never completely) past and the intensive planning was next.

I will post on those specifics in a few days.

Works Cited
Allen, G. (2002). "The 'Good Enough' Teacher and the Authentic Student". In J. Mills (Ed.), A Pedagogy of Becoming (pp. 141 - 176). NYC: Rodopi.

 

After dreaming the curriculum, I set about organizing it. I wanted a coherent, cohesive course that would develop students’ speaking skills, give them some theory about how we humans speak and the impact of using media, and, finally, help them understand that theory at an experiential level.

(Too many people ”know” descriptions of theory without actually understanding what the theory means. I’ve had “constructivist” teachers who told classes the “correct” answers and I’ve had truly constructivist teachers who created courses and environments where students developed their understanding and skills both individually and cooperatively. I know the difference; I try to create developmental spaces in my courses.)

So … what to do when trying to teach the whole of Oral Rhetoric in one course? First, set up strands and weave them together. I would have to start many aspects almost simultaneously. As I was requiring students to use three pieces of software, one quite complex, and develop their understandings of the (little studied) oral/aural environment, I decided to plan the topics and timing of the PowerPoint aspect of the course first.

PowerPoint presentations are ubiquitous, in education and in business. I thought students should know how to create and present an effective one. For me, that meant two things:

• The presentation should fulfill a real need for information; and
• The presentation should communicate effectively.
  

For real needs, I asked the small groups to do their presentations about the software or concepts that we were going to use in class. The presentations covered -

• how to use the course’s Elgg community blog;
• how to use the course’s Wikispaces wiki; 
• how to tell a story;
• how to research using the library, its databases and the Web;
• how to use Audacity, the free audio recording and editing software;
• how to incorporate research into narratives;
• what the elements of effective audio documentaries were; and
• what the elements of effective (aural and visual) commercials were.
  

A truly daunting set of requirements, I thought.

For communicating effectively, I decided to show a couple of good examples I’d found on the Web, and give the students prescriptive requirements. (If the whole course had been on presenting with PowerPoint, we could have done some discovery/development but I made an “executive” decision that I would simply tell them what was acceptable.) Here is a copy of my requirements:
__________________________________________________________
Criteria for PowerPoint Presentations
If any of the following are ignored, you can get no higher than a C- on your PowerPoint mark.

Structure
Introduce the presentation, as well as the topic
Make the body detailed enough, though not too much
Conclude by re-iterating your central points and thanking the audience

Appearance
You may use a story of how you made your discoveries, or organize the material linearly
No template or a very simple one (design-wise).
Use only a few basic colours that you are sure will project well
NO animation except for showing one line at a time. Brief screencasts are acceptable
No more that 6 words a line, and no more than 6 lines on a slide.
(No full sentences and a full paragraph will take your group down to a D- no matter how otherwise brilliant it is.)
All images must contribute directly to the content of the presentation.

Presentation
Greet the audience and introduce the speakers – and as each speaker turns the floor over to another, he or she will refer to them by name. They will thank you and proceed with their section
NO staring at the screen or reading from the screen. You may use small cue cards, but only for glancing at. You must be making eye contact most of the time.
You must be looking at the current speaker during the whole presentation. Any whispering behind their backs or overt disinterest will cause loss of marks.

Timing
You must keep within the time limits set - 15 minutes.

Handouts/Posting in Wiki
You may give handouts to support your presentation.
You must post the information on the course wiki. You may use the presentation page in the course wiki or create a separate page for your presentation material. (If you do so, you must also add the link to the navigation bar on the left.)
_______________________________________________________

I did not want to start with just a series of PowerPoints. I wanted to start up other strands early in the course too, so I scheduled the presentations according to when the knowledge contained in each would be needed, spaced over the first few weeks of the course.

(The results were quite wonderful. The students followed the criteria, and added humour as an essential element. They posted their work, often more than just the PowerPoint file, on the course wiki, and made themselves available for requests for help from the other students. When I saw this happening, I described what a learning community was and encouraged them to work as one.)

The first week, I started up three strands

• Thinking about how we talk – with Tannen’s “Conversational Rituals”, an excerpt from her Talking from 9 to 5; and with Farb’s “The Play and the Players”, an excerpt from his Word Play. 
• Learning practical basics about public speaking – with http://www.elise.com/web/a/public_speaking_tips.php. 
• Learning how to listen analytically to audio documentaries - with the CBC’s Outfront programs - http://www.cbc.ca/outfront/pastshows.html
  

In the second week, I started the course blogging and PowerPoint presentation basics. By the third week, I was establishing criteria for their course blog postings and asking students to prepare to tell their personal narratives in a class face-to-face environment, and I considered the course well launched.

I posted assignments on the course wiki. Mimicking blog layout, I simply added the assignments for each week at the top of the assignments list. (The one bug I found with Wikispaces was that space was added between posting on a page, thus the gaps between one week’s assignment and the next.) -

In my next post, I will write more about what actually happen during the course.

The computer changed everything. Using a Word Processing application is different from typing, because there are so many design possibilities that design must become an essential part of the message.

In the EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 41, no. 3 (May/June 2006): 80–81
Susan E. Metros and Kristina Woolsey have written an excellent article on Visual Literacy: An Institutional Imperative. In it, they say - 
 

• In 1984, Apple Computer announced the Macintosh, and overnight, everyone was an “expert” desktop publisher. Similarly, the visual revolution today has produced its share of novice design and overestimated competencies. Students, both immersed in and enthused about visual imagery, often lack the skills, precision, and depth, as well as the education, that allow them to be masters of the medium. For example, Susan Metros recently taught a freshman seminar on visual literacy. As the class progressed, it became obvious that although these students were indeed visual learners and traveled seamlessly in a world rich with sight (and sound), they lacked the ability to express themselves visually. They could view images but could not make images. They could read a map but could not map data. They could input numbers to build a chart but could not understand why one chart would be better than another. They could copy images from the Web but could not create an original composition. They could string together video clips to make a movie but could not script a story.

• Faculty who bravely choose to use visuals in teaching or research face another set of daunting challenges. They have difficulty locating the professional resources and the support services required to produce high-quality visuals. And they have even more difficulty finding the time to learn, and the consultants to teach them, how to create their own solutions. Furthermore, when students request to fulfill an assignment graphically, and many do, faculty often lack the experience and confidence to critically evaluate work that wanders outside the print norm. If faculty members’ interest is piqued and they succeed in developing and honing their visual skills, they run the risk of being ostracized by their colleagues, professional societies, and promotion and tenure committees and having their work discounted as frivolous.

I agree wholeheartedly, having written a Ph.D. thesis where I was able to show as well as tell what the computer can do, (and how I learned how to use it) even even when restricted just to print and some images. I know and knew that many academics would demand a rigid and anachronistic format that evolved during the age of the typewriter. Luckily my thesis supervisor (Patrick Diamond) and committee members (Jean Mason and Mary Kooy) as well as my external examiner (Cheryl Craig) understood what I was doing and recognized the scholarship, learning and discoveries involved.

For a number of years I taught an Interior Design thesis course, and used Robin Williams’ The Non-Designer’s Design Book   as a text, so students would compose their work visually as well as verbally. After all, reading is a visual act, tied to visual perception. We judge a piece of writing initially, before we decode even one word, by what it looks like. Whenever I ask students to write, I require that they think about how their work looks, as well as how it reads, and send them to my wiki where I have basic advice on how to set up Attractive Pages.

As a society, we are increasingly visual, and have increasing visual possibilities available to us. Teachers and students must learn to think and create visually as well as verbally in order to successfully communicate.

 

photo by Meryle Cox

Yesterday my daughter, Meryle, (who has performed some of his songs) and I (both fans) went to the Bay-Bloor Indigo bookstore for the Leonard Cohen Tribute Concert, with Anjani, Ron Sexsmith, and the Bare Naked Ladies. I'd won Front-of-the-Line tickets in an Indigo contest (thanks Heather) so we had great seating! It was wonderful.

Here's a link to some of Meryle's photos of the concert on my Flickr account.

Ron Sexsmith knew all Cohen's lyrics. He and Steven Page gave great support to Cohen, and Anjani was like a female version of Leonard Cohen. Leonard, himself, both read a poem and sang. I waved my vintage 1968 Leonard Cohen album cover. Sigh!

mesh, the conference in Toronto on Web 2.0, was both a rich information experience, and a rich cultural experience. This was not an academic conference, which is what I'm used to, but a conference aimed at PR, marketing, Web-business and media people, and it was fascinating.

I did some live blogging for the first time; it's much like taking notes in a class, or that was my experience. I did a series of posts in my WebToolsFor Learners blog and here are the relevant links in chronological order -

• Blogging at mesh 
  
• mesh - Day 2 
  
• mesh - Day 2 - More - Tara Hunt 
  
• mesh - Viable Web Applications 
  
• mesh06 - Reflections 
  

I am more than ever sure that we need to be teaching about and using the Web at all level of education. It is where our culture, which includes business, is going.

From Abject Learning -

• This keynote finds Willinsky in fine form. He discusses the power of the human voice, the revolution in knowledge, the "pure, unadulterated self-interest" of open access in scholarship, riffs extensively on wikis and weblogs (first time I had heard him go at length on these subjects) and intersperses the lecture with compelling historical digressions and frequent wisecracks. I hate to reduce his points, but to me the grand theme is the imperative (and potential) for technology to facilitate genuine learning in service of an education that transcends skills training.
  

I'm not that fond of listening to lectures online, and an hour sounds way too long, but Willinsky is erudite, rhetorically skilled, visionary, and funny. I strongly recommend you take the time to listen.

For those about to travel, and those who yearn to travel, Eric the Friendly Parisian (I couldn't find his last name) says it all in his blog name, ParisDailyPhoto. He posts a beautiful and interesting photo with a brief commentary every day. http://parisdailyphoto.blogspot.com/

Here's the image that first captured my attention

Beautiful, unusual, I can use the word "surreal" accurately for this. To find out more about it - go to http://parisdailyphoto.blogspot.com/2006/05/be-nosy.html