Expert

TOUR

Our second essential question for this course is: What are some of the socio-technological practices of particular academic disciplines & their associated career fields? By 'socio-technological,' I mean that our technologies do not exist in a vacuum. Much of what's 'new' with technologies are the human social practices (ways of doing things) that evolve with technologies as they mediate our learning and meaning making. This challenge is designed to help you explore this question by giving you the opportunity to inquire into how technologies are influencing the disciplinary practices of those in the career fields that stem from academic disciplines. You will consider how technologies mediate what people do, mean, relate, think, and be. You will ask someone in your chosen discipline’s field to provide a tour (in person or virtual) of their work life. You will observe with an eye to their socio-technological practices. Follow the steps below to complete the challenge.

To Annotate

To begin to explore this question, please view the video "From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-ABLE" on VideoAnt & create at least two annotations and reply to at least two of your colleagues' annotations using VideoAnt.

To Explore

Check out a report (or more than one) from the Pew Research Center on technology use (your choice which one). There are lots of topics and lots of possible reports under each topic. So, here are a few broad topics that you may be interested in: Technology Adoption, Teens and Technology, Emerging Technology Impacts, E-Reading, The Digital Divide. You might also consider reading reports that are related to issues or careers in your discipline. Try to pick a report that will inform your thinking when you tour/observe your expert at work.
To continue to explore our second essential question, read excerpts from "Multimodality in the Study of Subjects." It provides a few examples of the ways technologies are shifting our disciplines. Then, Slack me, and I will send you a discipline-specific chapter to read from M. D. Roblyer's Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching. (Copyright prohibits me from posting them all here.) As you read both of these, consider what you might see and hear from your disciplinary expert during your tour.

To Create

Understanding how disciplinary experts engage with content knowledge and technologies can help inform our practices in the classroom. By observing their thinking and actions, we can better prepare our students who may want to pursue future careers in the discipline. This challenge takes you out of the classroom and into the field so that you can explore how technologies impact the way experts work. To complete this challenge:

Arrange with a friend or friend-of-a-friend who is an expert in your chosen discipline to give you a tour of their work life. You may do this in-person or virtually (Zoom, FaceTime, GoogleDuo, etc.). While this course is self-paced, this tour should be complete by June 27 to ensure you have plenty of time to complete the following challenges. Please remember to complete Challenge 2 prior to engaging in this tour.
Observe and document (take screenshots, photographs, and doodles about the actions, environments, interactions, materials, technologies, and users you see). The more curious you are, the better! To support you in preparing and conducting this tour, you can print off this downloadable journal before your tour to help you think about what you want to ask your expert, take observational fieldnotes, and reflect on what you see, hear, and wonder.
Ask questions about what you did not understand from watching and interacting.
Reflect on your notes, considering how technologies mediate what people could "do, mean, relate, think, and be" in that career field as they work, and the possible implications for teaching that discipline.
Create a blog post that includes images and notations about what you found out about technology use in your discipline, and the possible implications for teaching. Be sure to tag it as a Disciplinary Expert Tour post. Comment on at least two of your classmates' posts.