Teaching Literature at a Distance: Open, Online and Blended Learning

219 Pages·2010·1.89 MB·English

by  Takis Kayalis

Teaching Literature at a Distance
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Teaching Literature
at a Distance
Open, Online and Blended Learning
Edited by
Takis Kayalis
and
Anastasia Natsina
Continuum International Publishing Group
The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane
11 York Road Suite 704
London SE1 7NX New York, NY 10038
www.continuumbooks.com
© Takis Kayalis, Anastasia Natsina and Contributors 2010
Takis Kayalis and Anastasia Natsina have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as editors of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or on
any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-0-8264-2703-8 (hardcover)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Teaching literature at a distance: open, online and blended learning/edited by Takis Kayalis
and Anastasia Natsina.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8264-2703-8
1. Educational technology. 2. Language and languages—Study and teaching—Technological
innovations. 3. Literature—Study and teaching—Technological innovations. 4. Web-based
instruction. I. Kayalis, Takis. II. Natsina, Anastasia, 1975– III. Title.
LB1028.3.T387 2010
807.8'5–dc22 2009045432
Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group Ltd
Contents
List of Images vii
List of Tables viii
Notes on Contributors ix
Introduction 1
Part One Open and Distance Learning: Curricula and Pedagogies
Chapter 1 T endencies and Stakes of Literary Studies in European
Open and Distance Learning Universities 7
Anastasia Natsina
Chapter 2 T eaching First-year Students in Open and Distance Education:
Aims and Methods 19
Ellie Chambers
Chapter 3 M aster’s-level Study in Literature at the Open University:
Pedagogic Challenges and Solutions 33
W. R. Owens
Chapter 4 D ecolonizing the Distance Curriculum 44
Dennis Walder
Chapter 5 T he Need for a Community: A Case for World Literature
in Open and Distance Learning 53
Takis Kayalis
Part Two Pedagogical Challenges in Online and Blended Learning
Chapter 6 D elivering Literary Studies in the Twenty-fi rst Century:
The Relevance of Online Pedagogies 67
Kristine L. Blair
Chapter 7 D igital Pedagogy: Taming the Palantíri 79
Ian Lancashire
Chapter 8 T eaching Literature in a Virtual Campus: Uses of
Hypertext 87
Laura Borràs-Castanyer
vi Contents
Chapter 9 F rom Passive to Active Voices: Technology, Community,
and Literary Studies 99
Louise Marshall and Will Slocombe
Chapter 10 Using Technology to Overcome Cultural Restrictions:
A Case Study of Teaching English Literature Online to
Arab Students 113
Ayesha Heble
Part Three Digital Tools and Web Applications
Chapter 11 Literature in Digital Culture: Pedagogical Possibilities 123
Raine Koskimaa
Chapter 12 Teaching Poetry with New Media 137
Rui Torres
Chapter 13 Metamedievalism, Videogaming, and Teaching Medieval
Literature in the Digital Age 148
Daniel T. Kline
Chapter 14 From Virtuality to Actuality: Representations and Enactments
of Critical Theory on the World Wide Web 163
Anastasia Natsina and Takis Kayalis
Chapter 15 HyperCities: Building a Web 2.0 Learning Platform 171
Todd Samuel Presner
Chapter 16 Affect and Narrative Encoding: The Problematics of
Representing and Teaching Yanyuwa Narratives in
Cyberspace 183
John Bradley and Frances Devlin-Glass
Index 195
List of Images
Image 11.1 A screenshot from The Impermanence Agent 130
Image 11.2 A screenshot from The Impermanence Agent, after some
web browsing 131
Image 12.1 ‘Poema encontrado’ (‘Found poem’) by António Aragão (1964)
(fi rst published in Poesia Experimental: 1 caderno antológico).
Org. António Aragão and Herberto Helder (Lisboa, 1964).
Reproduced with permission by the author’s son. 142
Image 12.2 Digital recreation of Aragão’s poem. Actionscript code
by Jared Tarbel. 143
Image 12.3 Digital recreation of Aragão’s poem using RSS newsfeeds of
The New York Times (22 November 2008). Actionscript code by
Jared Tarbel and Nuno F. Ferreira; PHP by Nuno F. Ferreira. 144
List of Tables
Table 1.1 Literature programmes 8
Table 1.2 Culture/humanities programmes 9
Table 1.3 Single-language literature programmes 10
Table 1.4 Literature programmes (general) 10
Table 1.5 Specifi c-cultures programmes 11
Table 1.6 Culture/humanities programmes (general) 11
Table 10.1 Comparative results of WebCT class/f-2-f class 117
Table 13.1 Character options in World of Warcraft 152
Table 13.2 Medieval genres and representative texts vs. gaming elements 155
Notes on Contributors
KRISTINE L. BLAIR is Professor and Chair of the English Department at
Bowling Green State University, OH, USA where she teaches in the Rhetoric
and Writing doctoral program. Since 2002, she has served as editor of Computers
and Composition Online, and in 2007 she received the Technology Innovator
Award from the Conference on College Composition and Communication’s
Committee on Computers and Composition. Her most recent project is the
co-edited Webbing Cyberfeminist Practice: Communities, Pedagogies, and Social Action
(Hampton Press, 2008), and she currently directs a computer camp for girls in
grades 6–8 titled ‘The Digital Mirror’. ([email protected])
LAURA BORRÀS-CASTANYER is Professor of Literary Theory at the Univer-
sity of Barcelona (UB), Spain. She has devoted the last 11 years to the teaching
of literature in virtual environments as a professor at the Open University of
Catalunya (UOC), Spain, where she developed the ODL programme for literary
studies. She directs the International Research Group ‘Hermeneia’ whose mis-
sion is to study connections between literary studies and digital technologies.
She has been Academic Director of the Postgraduate Studies of the Languages
and Culture Studies as well as Academic Director of the Master’s in Literature
in the Digital Era at the UOC. She is member of the Literary Advisory Board
of the Electronic Literature Organization, editor of the Electronic Literature
Collection (vol. II) and coordinator of the Interzones International Doctorate
Programme for the UB. She is the author and editor of numerous publications;
her books include: Més enllà de la raó: formes de la follia a l’Edat Mitjana (1999),
Textualidades electrónicas (2005) and La literatura digital (forthcoming). (lborras@
ub.edu)
JOHN BRADLEY has worked with the Yanyuwa people of the south-west
Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia, for the last 30 years. In this time he has been a
primary- and high-school teacher in the community, as well as a community
linguist working with the last speakers of Yanyuwa. He has been a senior
anthropologist for two land claims and often works in positions that require
communication between Yanyuwa traditional knowledge and Western scientifi c
knowledge. His more recent work has been focused on developing a series of
animations in order to see if they can assist in the cross-generational transfer of
traditional knowledge. He is a senior lecturer and deputy director of the Centre
for Australian Indigenous Knowledge at Monash University in Melbourne,
Australia. ([email protected])