As I prepare to teach a course in the spring called “Media Ecologies and Cultural Politics,” I’m weighing out the benefits and risks of opening the course to an online audience.<\/p>\n
This would involve sharing the syllabus online (though not the readings themselves, which would have to be purchased or “found” elsewhere) and moving some of our discussions to a public blog, as opposed to using the password-protected, registered-students-only Blackboard software (which many courses at this university now use).<\/p>\n
It’s not an online course, and much of the class would still take place in a formal classroom setting. But my hope is that the public dimension could enrich class discussions both by allowing others (around the world) to participate to some extent, and by making our public conversation more accountable and potentially more meaningful. Seems to me that a commitment to open-access education calls for this sort of thing.<\/p>\n
The University of Vermont may be a public university (though, technically, it’s a bit of a public-private hybrid) but it is far from being an open<\/em> university — in fact, it’s quite expensive to attend — and I’m sure that my own little effort at making it a bit more open may carry risks I haven’t yet anticipated.<\/p>\n One that I have<\/em> anticipated is that public speech carries responsibility: thoughts shared online have a way of coming back to haunt us, and students could learn that the hard way if they don’t internalize it at the outset. (Of course we could all use pseudonyms — except for me, that is.)<\/p>\n I’m curious to know about other experiments in university courses going public. If anyone has thoughts on this sort of thing, let me know.<\/p>\n The brief course description reads as follows:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Media Ecologies and Cultural Politics<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n This course presents an advanced introduction to media studies in the context of social, political, and environmental movements that make use of, and in the process transform, the new media environments in which social and political life increasingly takes place. <\/em><\/p>\n We will study debates in \u201cmedia ecology\u201d and the cultural politics of new media, from Marshall McLuhan\u2019s notion of media as sensory extensions of humanity to theories of \u201cmedia convergence\u201d and of new media as open, dynamic, and complex socio-techno-ecological systems. <\/em><\/p>\n We will draw on these theories to study and assess media use in such social movements as the anti-corporate globalization movement, the Occupy movement, Wikileaks, the \u201cArab Spring,\u201d backlash to the \u201cInnocence of Muslims\u201d film trailer, the climate change and climate justice movements, \u201ctactical media\u201d interventions such as \u201cculture jamming\u201d and \u201chacktivism,\u201d and various forms of \u201cecomedia\u201d and \u201cbiomedia\u201d activism. <\/em><\/p>\n In addition to readings, discussions, and writing exercises, students will be expected to carry out, individually or in teams, (i) an in-depth critical analysis of some media form, product, or text, and (ii) an applied media production project. One goal of the course may be to contribute to the development of an open-access, online Ecomedia Research Network.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I prepare to teach a course in the spring called “Media Ecologies and Cultural Politics,” I’m weighing out the benefits and risks of opening the course to an online audience. This would involve sharing the syllabus online (though not the readings themselves, which would have to be purchased or “found” elsewhere) and moving some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[203],"tags":[123664],"class_list":["post-6321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academe","tag-academe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-1DX","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7229,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2014\/01\/21\/announcing-ascene\/","url_meta":{"origin":6321,"position":0},"title":"Announcing A(S)CENE","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"A new blog has been launched in conjunction with my class \"Environment, Science, and Society in the Anthropocene.\" It's called A(S)CENE and its tag line is \"Beyond the Anthropocene: Bracketing an Era.\" A(S)CENE is a blog dedicated to discussions of the Anthropo(s)cene \u2014 the scene of humanity\u2019s ascendance to a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6882,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2013\/09\/08\/digital-environmental-humanities\/","url_meta":{"origin":6321,"position":1},"title":"Digital environmental humanities","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"September 8, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"It's the second day of the Digital Environmental Humanities Workshop at McGill University. Yesterday was devoted to the environmental humanities, today to the digital. One of the main goals is to bring the two together in new and productive ways. Many exciting developments... Geoff Rockwell has been posting his notes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4530,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/06\/06\/the-state-of-higher-ed\/","url_meta":{"origin":6321,"position":2},"title":"The state of higher ed","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 6, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The Chronicle of Higher Ed has a good article by Tom Lutz on the state of declining education in this country. 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And because that passion derives from a sense that the world needs certain kinds of engagement\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/f7tuOHbim2M\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1832,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/12\/20\/the-science-gene\/","url_meta":{"origin":6321,"position":4},"title":"The science gene","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Pretty funny, if you haven't seen it yet... http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-M-vnmejwXo?fs=1&hl=en_US H\/t to Tom Cheetham.","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/-M-vnmejwXo\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1351,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/10\/01\/where-was-bart-when-i-needed-him\/","url_meta":{"origin":6321,"position":5},"title":"where was Bart when I needed him?","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"October 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XViCOAu6UC0?fs=1&hl=en_US","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/XViCOAu6UC0\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6321"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6331,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6321\/revisions\/6331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}