2015-16 Seminar: Digital By Design

2015-16 Seminar: Digital By Design

In an age of social media, digital connectedness, and rapidly changing expectations of work and personal interactions with technology, what is the role of the digital pedagogue? What role does technology play in our disciplines, in the classroom, in our curriculum, in our lives? How do faculty and students alike negotiate the powerful world of digital technology and learn what it means to live, teach, and work with a carefully considered digital identity?

This seminar focuses on the philosophical, the pedagogical, and the personal. What does technology mean in our lives today? How are we all “Dancing with Robots” as we look towards the future? How does technology impact the classroom and curriculum? What are the best ways to seamlessly integrate technology as a complement to what we already do? Where do we need to make affordances for new technology? When is it okay to ignore or exclude technology in the classroom? How do our personal choices about technology outside of the classroom impact our pedagogical choices?

This seminar invites participants to engage in these questions both theoretically, through the lens of shared texts, and practically, through hands-on, how-to application of the principles we explore to the classroom environment. We explore emerging models for scaffolding digital production with students, engaging in questions of how to publish, teach, and mentor in today’s higher ed environment. Considering LaGuardia’s Core Competencies of Integrative Learning and Digital Communication as exciting, engaging points of entry for curriculum design, the seminar will give particular attention to creating a digital classroom with intention: not adding on bells and whistles for effect. Instead, what does a carefully and intentionally designed digital pedagogy look like? How does technology afford us new opportunities to think about scholarship and collaboration with students in new areas of open educational resources: scholarly, scientific, and creative?  How might we use technology to leverage what happens in our classrooms to share with the outside world so that our knowledge serves everyone?