Length: 15-25 pages, double-spaced
Examine at least one, but preferably several, specific technological practice(s), piece(s) of software, program(s), and/or course website(s) in your specific academic discipline or area of interest that use digital technology to help teach and/or do research and publication in your field. In what specific ways are these tools effective? In what ways are they ineffective? How might they be strengthened, expanded, or built upon? How might those uses of academic technology and/or pedagogy be improved and/or reconceptualized?
In your examination, you must make reference to the conceptual and pedagogical models and approaches described in at least three of our readings this semester (e.g., Dewey, Bass, Freire, Elbow, How People Learn, the Visible Knowledge Project, McGann, Moretti, Gee, Benkler, Bogost, etc.). You might supplement your analysis with references to the growing body of scholarship of teaching and learning and the Digital Humanities in order to assess the ways in which your field might benefit from new, imaginative uses of technology in research and/or inside and outside of the classroom. You might consider technological practices like peer production and other forms of intellectual and social organization, as well as the ways in which some forms of technology-enhanced scholarship can lend themselves to adaptation as pedagogical or research tools.*
You must also couch your analysis in a broader discussion of the state of technology usage in your academic field or area of interest. How does the subject of your examination compare to broader trends in technology usage in the field? Which scholars and teachers in your field are pushing the boundaries in their use of academic technology to teach and/or do research, and what makes their work with technology cutting edge? Also, what insights might be drawn from the uses of technology in other disciplines to help reshape the use of technology in your field?
* Online and print journals that you might consider consulting include, but are not limited to: Computers and Composition, Computers and Education, Educause Quarterly, The Journal of Interactive Technology & Pedagogy, Journal of Digital Humanities, The Journal of Scholarship on Teaching and Learning, Kairos, Pedagogy, and Radical Teacher, as well as numerous academic blogs and educational websites. You would do well, also, to consult articles in both versions (2012 & 2016) of Matthew Gold’s Debates in the Digital Humanities. The latter publications tend to be more current and useful than the formal journals (even the online ones), so feel free to mix and match what you use to help bolster your analysis.
**The final paper is due via email to both of us, in Word format, on or before Thursday, December 21, 2017.**
