1	Notes from the Edge Robert Keel Department of Sociology Focus on Teaching and Technology UM-St. Louis November 7, 2003
2	Meanderings "If Rip Van Winkle had slept through the past thirty years, the tangible devices and spaces of today would for the most part seem familiar to him. But one realm that has newly opened up might quite surprise if not unsettle him--the intangible region we call cyberspace."¹ Greetings I've been unsettling myself on the Internet for about nine years now--I really am just beginning to find my place. I teach out of the Department of Sociology with special interest in the areas of the social construction of deviance, alcohol and drug use studies, and the social reality of technology. I'm also a "Specialist" in Information Technology Services helping to coordinate the introduction and use of Internet courseware programs on our campus. 1. Albert Borgmann, 1999. Holding on to Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium, The University of Chicago Press: Chicago. Page 178.
3	The Sociological Imagination
4	Teaching Sociology Think with imagination. Engage in “talk” that reflects (sociological) thinking. Dealing with, and using technology (it is the 21^st Century, after all.
5	Technology and Teaching Teaching today requires adjusting to the changing contours of information. 87% of Public Elementary Schools and High Schools are Online, 51% of Instructional Classrooms¹. In Missouri: 95% of schools and 74% of classrooms²are connected. Computers/Internet are basic teaching tools. Teaching also requires developing new ways of providing students with access to information. Information Literacy: Access to Information. Evaluating Information. Effective Use of Information. Using Text and Images versus Face-to-Face Instruction. 1. National Center for Education Statistics, "Internet Access in Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994-98, (http://nces.ed.gov/pubs99/1999017.html). February 1999. 2. Terence Samuel, "As More Schools Gain Access to Net, Efficient Use Lags, U. S. Official Says," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Wednesday, March 15, 2000
6	Teaching, Learning, and Technology
7	Blended Learning
8	Cautionary Notes What if you gave a lecture and nobody came?¹ Motivating Students: Rationalizing Rewards or Rewarding Rationality? Is this going to be on the test? Making Something out of Nothing (“…a social form that is generally centrally conceived, controlled, and comparatively devoid of distinctive substantive content.”²) Education or Information: David Noble and Control of Resources. 1. Jeffery R. Young, "At Iowa, An Experimental On-Line Course for 1,900 Students Runs Into Problems," The Chronicle of Higher Education, Tuesday, November 16, 1999. (http://chronicle.com/free/99/11/99111601t.htm). 2. George Ritzer, 2004. The Globalization of Nothing, Pine Forge Press Press: Thousand Oaks, California. Page 3.
9	What’s Next? Course Design The Virtual Classroom Streaming Video, Movies, ITV Synchronous, Online Discussions: Centra Online Collaboration Back to chalk?
10	Contact Rocky Keel 314.516.6538 rok@umsl.edu