Instructional Technology
Conference 2007

Title: Growing the New Technopolis from the Local Sandbox: A New Media Curriculum

Name: Robert R. Bradley

Audience Level: all

Audience: general

Length: 1 hour

Abstract:
Tennessee State University has implemented a pilot project for integrating curriculum and technology through an evolving archive of podcasts and vodcasts with a special focus on Humanities and Service Learning outreach to historically underserved populations. This presentation will provide examples of content creation, detail curriculum development and suggest strategies for replication.

Description:
Tennessee State University’s “Unpacking the Podcast” will present findings from an initial pilot study designed to address the gap between curriculum development and technology. In spring of 2006, TSU engaged this dynamic and flexible system of content creation and delivery, targeting historically underserved populations at a land-grant, Historically Black College and University. To address this need, TSU Project Podcast created linkage between curriculum studies and technology applications to produce an evolving archive of community-produced offerings. Special focus of the TSU “Unpacking the Podcast” presentation will address development of Humanities course content and its delivery through Podcasts and Vodcasts. Examples will be provided. A unique aspect of the on-going pilot will explore possibilities of extending technology to a wider underserved population in Metro Nashville by way of outreach through its Center for Service Learning and Civic Engagement. The completed project, with its emphasis on rigorous student and faculty scholarship, will also extend TSU’s mission of outreach. More importantly, perhaps, the program will act as a model of content development and delivery by:

• Fostering awareness of students' approaches to meeting their learning needs and the technologies available to them;
• Empowering faculty through professional development of skills needed to implement systemic change; and
• Articulating and measuring institutional benefits from integration of pedagogy, learning space design and technology.

TSU’s “Unpacking the Podcast” presentation will recount our ongoing efforts to embed technology resources across the curriculum this spring at TSU to provide education to populations that have historically been denied the advantages afforded by technology. The presentation will also serve as demonstration of our intent is to leverage resources to initiate and sustain an educational curriculum that has realized the following goals, objectives and activities:

Goal 1: Phase I—Unpacking the Podcast: To improve instruction through available technology

Goal 2: Phase II—New Media Praxis: To increase community outreach by offering curriculum to Metro community through Service Learning application

In addition, two vodcasts from TSU’s newly-formed Office of Service Learning and Civic Engagement will be shown. The first features John Seigenthaler commenting on Service Learning’s power to extend the Civil Rights Movement into the 21 st century. The second, “The Ballad of Birmingham,” features the song as soundtrack to footage from “The Black Unicorn,” a documentary on “Ballad” poet Dudley Randall, produced by his literary executrix, Dr. Melba Joyce Boyd, of Wayne State University. Because Boyd’s granting of rights to the lyrics of the song paved the way for “Ballad’s” evolution as a unique and powerful product of student learning at TSU, this vodcast will represent the possibilities of collaboration between institutions. “The Ballad of Birmingham” project was awarded an HBCU New Media production grant in Fall of 2006.

The importance and/or relevance to audiences centers around the creation of an evolving archive of content based on rigorous scholarship and technology application to impact student learning objectives, recruitment and retention, faculty development, alumni connectivity and other institutional benefits from an integrated approach to curriculum and technology The outreach component will be of particular interest to institutions seeking to extend their impact and influence on their respective communities.

Session Type: Lecture/Presentation

Contact information/affiliation:
Robert R. Bradley, MFA
Director of Technology Integration
Department of Technology and Administrative Services
Tennessee State University
3500 John Merritt Blvd.
Nashville, TN 37209
615.579.7446
Fax: 615.963.1371
rbradley@tnstate.edu