Friday, December 27, 2013

Some Initial Goals & Ideas

Okay.

So here are some initial thoughts about what I would like to set out to do.  I think if we understand what we're after first, then we can play with applications and ideas to see how they develop and fit our goals.

I'm considering goals in a few areas: Value to Community/Consumers/Readers, Personal Value, and perhaps Resources.

Value to Community

  • High interest topics
    Some teachers might be mad finding a selfie on the computer.
  • Unique or original approaches (I'm thinking theoretical models, mostly, but also a variety of semiotic analyses and applications)
  • Provocative and academic content
  • Open-ended "lessons"
  • Options for further investigation
  • Options for collaboration
  • Options for projects
  • Meme-ic or "Shareable" bits through social media
  • Applicable to multiple audiences
    • Global/developing
    • Young readers to seniors
    • Schools/teachers
  • Short lengths (3-7 minutes)
  • "Collections" which work together:  by title, approach, activity, etc.  That suggests a framing of these that is fairly predictable.
  • Broaden appeal of literature, new authors, global writers, etc.

Personal Value

  • Teaches in a new model, a step further than Khan Academy, for instance
  • Keeps me thinking/talking in important ways
  • Builds community of like-minded folks
  • Doesn't monopolize time in maintenance
  • Ultimately, monetized 
  • Fun!

Resources

  • Tests new technologies: multi-modal discourse
  • Not complex tech. The work must be reproducible for others.
  • Works with a selected platform (Udemy?) with like-minded philosophy
  • Built collaboratively
We'll have a lot of roles to fill, I suspect.  I imagine there is Concept, Design, Content Selection, Research and Content Development, Production, Promotion. The easy and fun part for me is content selection and development/scripting.  We might want to start with some of that to see how what we develop might be spun or built differently. 

A for instance:  Reading Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, we produce an analysis of the evolution of horror, its modern tropes, and/or hybrid genres in literature. But we follow this with a New Historicist take on the publishing of "literary" fiction or a psychological analysis of the naive/ironic narrator.

Some initial thoughts. 



No comments:

Post a Comment