Emily Dolan, Gardner Cowles Associate Professor of the Humanities, co-teaches graduate seminar Instruments and Instrumentalities with Professor Jonathan Sterne of McGill University. The Bok Center's Learning Lab helped Professor Dolan with the first iteration of the course in 2016, assisting with the pedagogical and technical challenges of teaching a course for students located at two separate campuses.
Below, Professor Dolan and some of the students from the 2016 iteration of the course discuss the unique challenges and surprising findings uncovered in running a course from multiple locations.
Backchannel - using Google Docs as a means of discussion
Interface: Empower, Estrange, Party! - forming a language of discussion in a unique classroom setting
Ambient Computing - the value of personal computers in various types of classrooms
(Tele)Presence - the challenges of teaching to a classroom and to a camera
Splitting the Time - benefits of making changes to the course midway through
Glitches - integrating the challenges of web conferencing into the classroom dynamic