Teaching Digitally

I have spent some time (actually too much time) over the last three-four weeks figuring out all the details to my syllabi for this coming semester. I will be teaching two courses which I have not taught before (one grad, one undergrad) although the topics are similar, meaning that I didn’t have to design two completely new syllabi, I did have to do quite a bit of research. Each class will be covering narratives in the age of the digital, so I wanted to think about how to incorporate new technologies in the classroom both in terms of what we will be studying and what students will produce. Thus I spent many hours looking at the syllabi of others, seeing what had worked for them, and looking to “borrow” some of the best ideas of others.
While I found many useful syllabi, and posts regarding teaching digital rhetoric, I wanted to highlight one which was perhaps the most useful: Elizabeth Losh’s reflections on teaching Digital Rhetoric. Elizabeth teaches at the University of California at Irvine and is the author of VirtualPolitik one of those blogs that is often mentioned in academic circles. At any rate, read the above mentioned reflection/list by Elizabeth. While, the advice is aimed at those who will be teaching digital rhetoric many of the points she raises are useful for anyone thinking of incorporating technology (specifically “Web 2.0” technology) into the classroom. Not only does her advice cover blogs, wikis, and assignments, she does a thorough job of linking to other places/sites of information. (This is definitely one of those pages to bookmark.)