I Want to Go There: Teaching Inspiration

TED Talks: http://www.ted.com/talks
Most folks know about this site, but I use it extra often. Whenever I'm in need of teaching tools or sites of invention that don't involve me talking, I turn to TED for compelling approaches to common concerns/issues. This last semester, one TED talk and the activity I designed around it unexpectedly changed the entire structure of learning in my class. Students understood audience strategies in ways I never imagined, and the students took over and taught each other nuances in the concepts I was hoping they would at least see, let alone apply. For me, this is a great site for scholarly invention and innovation. 

Public Knowledge Project: http://pkp.sfu.ca/
My decisions about constructing pedagogy, whether online or not, are deeply tied to my ideological commitments. I am dedicated to the dismantling of corporate and capitalist initiatives to maintain elite educational models designed for private profit. The Public Knowledge Project is a collection of individuals and institutional entities working together to improve the process of scholarly production in digital environments. Not only do they develop tools and technology toward this end, but they do so with a deep commitment to increasing access to and the impact of scholarly work. I loves me some democracy. Especially when it comes to free software for building conferences and self publishing digital journals.

EduFactory:  http://www.edu-factory.org/wp/
EduFactory is an organization that I rely on for international perspectives and reports related to transforming global university projects. Updated regularly, this site interrogates the problematics and tensions related to the notion of "the university as factory." Situating my teaching practice in a larger movement such as this is helpful for thinking through the implications of teaching and learning outside of my own classes, which helps me make decisions about how I want to engage my students on particular topics.