Executive Director of the Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies Jesse Stommel and Digital Knowledge Center Director Martha Burtis’ recent EdSurge.com interview on Critical Digital Pedagogy was discussed on the Connected Teaching and Learning Blog. The author shared highlights from the interview, specifically focusing on their views on grading in the classroom. Read more.
What Is Critical Digital Pedagory? (annmichaelsen.com)
Stommel and Burtis Interviewed on Critical Digital Pedagogy
Executive Director of the Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies Jesse Stommel and Digital Knowledge Center Director Martha Burtis participated in EdSurge Live, a monthly online town hall about the future of education, presented by EdSurge Higher Education. In a discussion called “What is Critical Digital Pedagogy, and Why does Higher Ed need it,” Stommel and Burtis discussed the downsides of using letter grades and other relevant topics. Read more.
Martha Burtis Interviewed By Inside Higher Ed
The End of a Blogging Era at Harvard (Inside Higher Ed)
The University of Mary Washington still has an active institutionally hosted blogging platform called UMW blogs, said Martha Burtis, director of the digital knowledge center of the university. But the popularity of the platform has diminished since the university started offering faculty and students the opportunity to control their own blogs through an initiative called Domain of One’s Own.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/08/20/end-era-old-harvard-blogging-site
The End of a Blogging Era at Harvard (Inside Higher Ed)
Thinking about how to create media instead of consume it at UMW’s Digital Pedagogy Lab (The Free Lance-Star)
Smith and Burtis Publish on Tools for Preservation
In January, Andréa Livi Smith and Martha Burtis had their article, “A Practical Cultural Resource Survey Tool for Preservation,” published in a special issue of the Association for Preservation Technology Bulletin. The piece shares a project Smith and Burtis have collaborated on since fall 2013 when they decided to develop an online tool to facilitate student collection of data during culture-resource surveys around Fredericksburg.
Prior to the project, data was collected in paper form, transcribed by students to numerous Excel spreadsheets, and then merged together by Smith. The process involved numerous opportunities for introducing errors and was laborious and time-consuming.
Using WordPress as a platform for building a database application, the two developed a new approach resulting in the Historic Environment Resource Assessment tool found at survey.andrealivismith.com. While conducting surveys in the field, students can login to the site on their mobile devices, and add their own data, including uploading photos of the sites they’re surveying. Later, they can return to entries to edit and refine their own or to comment upon their classmates’. At the end of the semester, Smith can easily export all the data in a standard CSV file, which can be imported into SPSS for further analysis by the class.
In addition to making it easier and smoother for students to collect data, the tool also makes is straightforward for Smith to update and tailor the collection form each fall semester, as students tackle new neighborhoods.
On the whole, the project is a fine example of what can be accomplished when faculty and instructional technologists collaborate to create new kinds of online experiences for UMW students using free and low-cost technology.
Smith Presents at International Preservation Conference
Andréa Livi Smith, associate professor of historic preservation, presented at the Association of Preservation Technology International’s annual conference in Québec City on Oct. 29. She discussed the use of technology for cultural resource data collection in preservation. Her peer reviewed talk, translated live into French and Spanish, highlighted the survey site developed on the UMWBlogs platform with Martha Burtis of DTLT, and its application for the capstone preservation course. The survey tool is a new model for preservation and is at the bleeding edge of the use of technology in the field. Smith emphasized its practicality for practitioners and researchers. The survey itself can be found at survey.umwblogs.org