ELI7014.pdf (application/pdf Object)
The Educause Learning Initiative produces a series of short handouts that provide concise information on emerging learning practices and technologies like podcasting, wikis, and “little clickers.” Each brief focuses on a single practice or technology and describes what it is, how it works, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. The most recent entry is on Google Jockeying.
A Google jockey is a participant in a presentation or class who surfs the Internet for terms, ideas, Web sites, or resources mentioned by the presenter or related to the topic. The jockey’s searches are displayed simultaneously with the presentation, helping to clarify the main topic and extend learning opportunities.
Not sure that I see wide adoption of this one at W&M, but it’s an interesting thought in light of the fears of many faculty that students won’t use their notebooks at all for class related work.
You may be right that this won’t be widely adopted at W&M … but I know Jason Alley does this!
Jim Whittenburg does something akin to this in his class. He’ll ask them what, say, the relationship is between a piece of classical music (I forget the composer he mentioned in telling me about this) and the founding of Jamestown, and set them loose searching. I imagine sometimes they come up with the relationship he had in mind, and other times come up with relationships he would never have thought of. I can’t see this kind of exercise catching on widely either, but I can definitely see how it engages his students in learning information and doing the interpretative thinking necessary to connect to seemingly unconnected people, places, or things.
It sure ought to catch on widely. The moments of serendipity and true discovery (not simply acting out what’s anticipated) are the fuel for all authentic research, and school affords all too few opportunities for students to burn that fuel for themselves.
I can see that some instructors would say it takes too much time. Maybe so, or maybe the “time management” we practice in institutional schooling–contact hours, credit hours, required hours, FTEs, all these specious life-in-the-institution metrics–has allowed us to sink into the worst kind of Kierkegaardian despair, the despair that doesn’t know its own desperation.
Higher education may collapse under the weight of its own fictions, eventually. In time.