Workshop Description:
Computer technology and the world wide web are quickly changing the ways in which information is produced, stored, and retrieved.  This means that liberal arts educators are challenged to find new ways of teaching students both the traditional skills of reading and writing necessary to any literate culture as well as the new forms in which reading and writing are taking place.  With many schools computer-equipped and wired for the Internet, teachers can find themselves overwhelmed with the demands of finding sound instructional uses for the new technology available to us and our students.  Both those currently teaching Language Arts in our high schools and those preparing to teach face the difficult dilemma of transitioning from teaching content and practices that evolved with and have been primarily structured by print technology and the printed book to teaching through the new mediums of electronic text and the computer screen.  To help current and future educators learn  how to use our new technologies and develop exciting and innovative classroom practices, Georgia Southern University is offering a two week summer institute, Integrating New Technologies into the English Curriculum.  This institute will take a three-prong approach to developing technology-based teaching strategies:

• Participants will learn how to use some of the most common software and applications, including advanced uses of email, professional discussion lists, web authoring and Internet courseware packages, and file transfer protocols, as well as how to identify, find, download, and independently learn how to use software on one's own, including Internet plug-ins and freeware;
• As participants practice using various technologies, we will read about and discuss the ways in which others are using these technologies in the Language Arts curricula.  We'll study several technology models, including course uses of class mailing lists, newsgroups, discussion forums and chat rooms, and Web-based reading and writing.  In conjunction with this, we'll be learning effective Internet search strategies, including how to find, evaluate, and use online information resources;
• Putting our practice and study to work, participants will develop technology-based classroom assignments and practices, including instructional web sites of their own.  With resources such as the United Nations CyberSchoolbus and Great Teacher Net, we'll design reading and writing activities that use the Internet and synchronous and asynchronous discussion for meaningful content learning while also teaching digital literacy skills.  Participants will also contribute to the course's collaborative web site, which will provide ongoing instructional and technical support for all institute members.  The institute's collaborative page will house assignment and course archives, maintain a  mailing list for all participants, and form an ongoing base for further developing cross-school collaborations for the upcoming school year and beyond.

Goals Addressed-- Participants Will:

• Consider how changes in technology are impacting our students’ literacy practices and what this means for our classroom practices;
• Survey various courseware, software, and technology applications in order to understand, evaluate, and assess their potential usefulness to liberal arts pedagogy;
• Approach learning and using new technologies with the creative energy of exploration and play in which learning is discovery and discovery is fun;
• Through a creative exploration of technology, engage in a critical inquiry of technology and culture which will inform the ways in which we integrate technology into our classrooms to enrich students' learning experiences and prepare them for reading and writing in the 21st century;
• Review multiple on-line resources and design technology activities that teach Language Arts content, higher order thinking skills, and digital literacy.

Improvement Practices:

In order to develop humanities pedagogies for the 21st century, this course will be presented as a hands-on interactive workshop.  We will introduce participants to a variety of applications and protocols, such as synchronous and asynchronous communications, Web page authoring, evaluative techniques for online scholarship, and courseware packages designed for the classroom.  Participants will learn how to find, evaluate, and use online humanities information and resources; how to think critically about using emerging technologies in the humanities; and how to develop informed classroom activities that will foster student learning and technological literacy skills.   Besides the individual projects each participant defines and develops, the entire group will contribute to a collaborative Web page through which participants may engage in ongoing communication, professional support and development, and collaboration.  Throughout the 2000-2001 academic year, program participants will use the project discussion forums to assess the effectiveness of the tecnology-based humanities assignments they develop during the summer.   Georgia Southern faculty will be available throughout the year to help assess and design classroom uses of information and instructional technology, and all participants will be encouraged to collaborate on publications about using technology in the humanities.   In addition, program participants will help GSU faculty evaluate and assess the effectiveness of the program design, focus, and instruction; contribute to the design of the summer 2001 program; and be encouraged to participate in future projects as online project consultants and facilitators.

Competencies-- As a result of this course, participants will:

• Know how to find, evaluate, and independently learn to use various software packages;
• Know how to design and author a Web site and how to use Web authoring in writing, literature, and Language Arts curricula;
• Know how to help students do research using the modern electronic library catalogue, online databases, and the World Wide Web, and how to evaluate and cite sources accessed electronically;
• Understand the uses and literacy practices of chat spaces such IRC, MOO, chat rooms, Daedalus Interchange, and Web CT;
• Know how to use email, class and professional list serves, and newsgroups.

Performance Indicator-- By the end of this course, participants will demonstrate their ability to use technology in a liberal arts education by:

• Participation in synchronous and asynchronous course activities, including email, MOO, and professional list serves;
• Submission to the collaborative course Web site of online resources discovered and created during the course;
• Creation of a personal/professional Web site for classroom use;
• Creation of online research, writing, and collaborative course activities;
• Final presentation using technology of choice (such as Powerpoint, online MOO or chat, or Web page) that critically engages key humanities issues through information and instructional technologies.

Participants will demonstrate mastery through their successful creation of Web sites, technology applications, and their final presentation.  An integral feature of this course is the collaborative course Web site, which will house an archive and discussion list; participants will be able to contribute to their own and each other’s ongoing assessment and development of technology pedagogy through participating in the course’s discussion list and contributing to the course archives.  While undergraduate students will complete each of the reading and curriculum development requirements for the course, this course places greater emphasis on graduate students (who, we presume, are either now or will soon be working with students) developing actual assignment modules and technology-based teaching strategies.  Graduate students will use the computerized classrooms and institute resources to conduct usability testing of their technology modules and will be especially encouraged to use their own research and teaching experience to help develop the collaborative class homepage and assignment archives.

Principal faculty:
Dr. Lori E. Amy, Department of Writing and Linguistics, Georgia Southern University
Dr. Janice Walker, Department of Writing and Linguistics, Georgia Southern University

The Project Director, Dr. Lori E. Amy, brings to the program her experience teaching high school and preparing graduate students at the University of Florida and Cleveland State University to teach writing and literature in networked writing environments.  At Cleveland State, she won a grant to design an instructional Web site, Teaching Shakespeare (http://www.csuohio.edu/shakespeare).  Dr. Janice Walker, co-author of Bookmarks, is a nationally recognized leader in writing and technology and a front-runner in developing innovative classroom uses of synchronous communications.

Maximum number of participants for class: 50
This workshop on Integrating New Technologies into the English Curriculum is equally important to current high school teachers and graduate students preparing to enter the high-school classroom.  We will thus bring high school teachers and graduate students from across the state of Georgia together to learn how to effectively use new information and instructional technologies for a liberal arts education.  Workshop participation is limited to 50 in order to insure maximum hands-on and face-to-face help from the principal faculty and to facilitate collaboration on current and future technology based liberal arts projects.