Hello
Welcome to The Spaces in Between, a weekly newsletter on culture, language, and technology written by Stephan Caspar. If you’re new here, then welcome, feel free to subscribe.
We’ve had three kinds of weather this week, rain, snow, and sunshine. It would be nice to get out a bit more, weekends are all about leaf collection, we rake up piles of leaves and leave them along the roads in time for Tuesdays when the lorry arrives to suck them up. Gardens look good for about half a day and by the weekend it is definitely time to sweep up again.
The shorter days and seasonal changes are playing havoc with my sleep, I need to exercise and get out more but we’ve received a stay at home advisory that recommends only essential travel. It’s no excuse, and I’m still allowed walks and cycles, so I must do that. It’s a worry, but I have the feeling that we’ve held out a bit better than some other states.
We have been supported by an excellent team of health experts in Alleghany County and Pennsylvania, including Dr. Rachel Levine, one of the very few transgender public officials in America. She is our physician general and along with Dr. Debra Bogen, our county health director, they inform and advise (with great patience) on how best we should fight the pandemic in the region.
Talking of brilliant women, we’re also indebted to Dolly’s efforts in making sure we have new vaccines that might help to make life a little rosier next year.
Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance which memorializes those who have been murdered as a result of transphobia. In the US this year a record number of transgender people have died, and many of those stories are not told or ignored. We can all do our bit for transgender colleagues, friends, and students in our role as educators and good neighbors. If including gender pronouns in your email seems trivial, then know that it is positive, it says “I see you” and just one action among many that can support an inclusive environment.
In this week’s issue, we’re revisiting some lockdown learning, looking at tools to create graphics and teaching materials, and listening to some great tunes.
Stephan
Teaching & Learning
When everything gets back to normal I’d quite like to hang onto some of the learning, and the time I had to be creative.
I’m teaching a class called Everyday Learning: Designing Learning Experiences in Times of Unrest and Uncertainty which references some of the lockdown learning that people have used to occupy their time. Some of my personal highlights have included Laura Marlin’s guitar lessons, Isolation Art School duo Susie and Anton, and trying out some of Chetna Makan’s Indian recipes (we had the cheesy potato peas balls this week, delicious). I feel as if I’ve got all bases covered.
Those mentioned are natural educators and engage skillfully, pitching the level perfectly to their audiences/learners. There’s a great deal we can learn from them. My students are creating Everyday Learning using video, audio, and HTML content types such as H5P. I really like overhead videos and was using the baked bean can stack before I thought it was time to invest in a proper tripod with a horizontal arm. Here’s the setup for an unboxing video of an Oculus Quest 2 (more about that in a future issue), you can see I’ve used a Pixel Ultra-Slim LED panel on a magic arm to balance out the light from the window.
I’m also encouraging my students to create short animated walk-throughs and tutorials using Explain Everything and a new platform that I mentioned in the ML digest called Iorad which creates steps from screen recordings. It took me a little while to figure out what was happening, but it is well worth looking into, the walkthroughs that you produce are easy to edit and share, students have told me that it is incredibly straightforward to use.
I want to know more, particularly if there are any other language teachers out there that have created learning objects in an instructional style? Just leave a comment below.
Life Lessons
This week the department held its third and final Anti-racist pedagogy seminar, that is to say, it won’t be the last one, but one of three that we’ve held with Dr. Anita Davis Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut.
These sessions have been thoughtful and important. They helped me a great deal to think about ways in which I might facilitate difficult conversations with students and colleagues. We have discussed social justice concepts, understanding the language around anti-racism, and the need for race dialogues. Almost every social justice issue in America relates to race, including health, housing, education, incarceration, and the climate emergency, which disproportionally affects African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. It is becoming the lens through which I see America’s issues and challenges as a society.
Of course, I’m speaking from the point of view of someone with immense privilege, but I can be a constant and vigilant ally, demonstrate my solidarity and keep learning, unlearning, and talking about race with other white people.
Recognizing privilege is the aim of Taking steps towards greater inclusivity, an open-source resource published by Laura Hilliger, it provides an exercise for participants to help develop an awareness of themselves which can improve how they relate to others.
Lost and Found
Last week I mentioned Canva as a way of creating graphics that you can use in teaching, social media, or anywhere else you need them. There are a ton of templates…ok I said all that. And just after posting, I was introduced to another similar but different platform called Genial.ly which seems slightly less cluttered and offers simple forms for creating learning objects including quizzes, games, and interactive maps.
The organization behind Digital Learning Day is putting together a film festival to “highlight the ways that schools have overcome adversity and championed innovation. They are looking for short 2-minute films that highlight how teaching and student learning have changed and improved during the past year, celebrate innovation, and document how students and teachers benefit from digital learning strategies.” It could be challenging, many don’t think learning has improved during the pandemic, but perhaps you could show how learners have overcome the challenges of remote and hybrid learning.
If you’re looking for inspirational filmmaking, then you might want to check out Filmed by Bike and noticed a BIPOC filmmaker grant as part of their drive to foster new and emerging filmmakers. Here’s a sample of one of the movies you can watch on the site.
I rewrote my syllabus for my forthcoming Spring Semester course 82-888 Language Acquisition and Technology. This course introduces students to topics in TEL and CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning). Last year we started off talking about technology adoption, and as hoped the conversation moved quickly into a discussion of active learning and in particular models for blended learning.
This is a graduate course for students who are teaching a second language, so it was great when some would say that they’d adapted their curriculum or used a particular tool in class and could talk about how it had been received. Although we’ll have a delayed start and the first day of classes with be February 1st, it is time to start thinking about ways to update and adapt courses from the feedback that has been received from the previous cohort.
See you later…
I wanted to leave you with a band from Houston, Texas called Khruangbin which means airplane in Thai (or literally “engine-fly”). I’m enjoying the range of influences, from Thai rock, Afgan and Middle Eastern music, 70’s funk, Jamaican dub, and Iranian pop. I’ve been playing this track as an intro to my lessons, or “zoom waiting room” music. I’ve had no complaints.
I hope that you’re keeping well, apologies for the late arrival, I woke up with a bit of a migraine, so I’ve been on the back foot all day. I’m afraid I’ve suffered from migraines since childhood and I know my triggers, which are chocolate, low light, and literature reviews (that last one might be relatively new).
I’m wishing you a restful and fruitful weekend. Take care.
Thank you
This newsletter is published once a week on Fridays. You might recommend it to friends and colleagues and reassure them that occasionally there will be content that will inform, inspire, and hopefully help with their teaching and research. Please feel free to email or comment, if you’re receiving this as an email you can simply click reply.