Who's Afraid of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and the Big Bad CMS? A Digi-Drama About Fear 2.0

A presentation from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative conference, 2008.

Abstract

Web 2.0 tools have the power to transform education. Such a transformation requires that faculty, students, and institutions take risks. With those risks comes fear, which is often unarticulated. How do you tackle this fear and make real change? Join us to face this fear together in a multimedia, interactive miniplay.

Presenters:

• Laura Blankenship, Senior Instructional Technologist, Bryn Mawr College
  
• Martha Burtis, Director, Teaching and Learning Technologies, University of Mary Washington
  
• Barbara Ganley, Lecturer in English and Writing Program, Middlebury College
  
• Leslie Madsen-Brooks, Coordinator of Faculty and TA Programs, Teaching Resources Center, University of California, Davis
  
• Barbara Sawhill, Director, Cooper International Learning Center, and Lecturer, Hispanic Studies, Oberlin College
  

The following multimedia presentations began the ELI session.

Please feel free to register for a free Voicethread account, and then comment on any of the slides below.

Following these presentations, we had participants generate solutions for combatting the fear and anxiety felt by faculty, students, and staff surrounding faculty issues. Laura posted this list on her blog:

• having the conversation
  
• pool your strengths
  
• accountability
  
• make mistakes
  
• new skills
  
• understand the problem
  
• how to get people to pay attention
  
• need a decision-making process
  
• make yourself aware of what's out there
  
• need a way to disseminate the information
  
• appreciating the new role of faculty in embracing technology
  
• working with faculty more closely
  
• role of students
  
• need time to adopt new technology--using students to be a part of the process to build resources
  
• discovery--play around with something for a while before incorporating into courses
  
• storm the walls
  
• overthrow the system
  
• experimenting
  
• talk to students
  
• preparing for constant change--perpetual beta
  
• encouraging students to support faculty
  
• working together
  
• identity
  
• know something truthful about the learner
  
• learner knows something truthful about us
  
• reason to use the technology
  
• examples--show vs. tell
  
• partnerships among faculty, students, & IT
  
• appreciate the technology as a consumer
  
• don't feel the need to master everything
  
• faculty getting other faculty on board
  
• break out of structures
  
• bringing diverse people together to talk
  
• naming it--find a place for it

Join Us

Want to participate in the conversation? Blog about it, link back to this page, and/or tag your post (or any other posts you find regarding this kind of fear) "eli08fear" in del.icio.us. A link to your post will appear on the Got Fear? blog.

To share further fear resources, feel free to contact Leslie at ljmadsen -at- ucdavis -dot- edu. Thanks!