{"id":32209,"date":"2019-10-03T09:30:51","date_gmt":"2019-10-03T13:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=32209"},"modified":"2024-07-02T17:12:35","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T17:12:35","slug":"dan-anderson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=32209","title":{"rendered":"Expanding the boundaries of scholarship in the digital age"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniel Anderson has been at the forefront of computer-based teaching and learning for decades and helped develop IDEAs in Action, the new general education curriculum to be implemented in fall 2021.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Daniel
Daniel Anderson directs the Digital Innovation Lab and is co-principal investigator of the Carolina Digital Humanities Initiative. (photo by Jon Gardiner)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Daniel Anderson\u2019s English classes, the students don\u2019t just write term papers. Class projects in one of his introductory courses include podcasts, mashups, videos and screencasts. That\u2019s because this distinguished English professor also directs the Digital Innovation Lab and is co-principal investigator of the Carolina Digital Humanities Initiative.<\/p>\n

Anderson has been at the forefront of computer-based teaching and learning for decades and helped develop IDEAs in Action, the new general education curriculum for undergraduates that will be used in fall 2021.<\/p>\n

The English professor became an early adapter of technology almost by accident back in 1994. He entered graduate school at the University of Texas planning to get a doctorate in poetry, but his adviser had a different idea.<\/p>\n

The English department had received a grant to start a computer lab for classroom instruction. If Anderson could figure out how to teach with those computers, his adviser suggested, it could help him get a job quicker.<\/p>\n

And with that advice, Anderson\u2019s life and career took a new turn.<\/p>\n

\"In
In his research, Anderson is experimenting with videos and screen composing to create a new form of scholarship about multimedia through multimedia. (photo by Jon Gardiner)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Joining the revolution<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anderson\u2019s early embrace of technology helped prepare him for the challenges and opportunities to come. He has always been in search of what he calls \u201cthe sweet spot\u201d \u2014 that fertile space between the familiar and the unknown where magic can happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was beneficial for me to have begun with both feet firmly planted in print literacy and a love of language,\u201d said Anderson, now the Zachary Smith Distinguished Term Professor in the English and comparative literature department.<\/p>\n

Anderson joined Carolina\u2019s English department in fall of 1997, weeks after then-Chancellor Michael Hooker announced the Carolina Computing Initiative, which required undergraduates entering the University in fall 2000 and later to have a laptop computer. (To ensure equal access, every first-year undergraduate student receiving need-based financial aid also gets a laptop grant to cover the cost.)<\/p>\n

Anderson joined a select group of professors who developed pilot courses to show students how to use these computers.<\/p>\n

In his pilot seminar, students explored how technology influences the study of literature, using the hypertext capabilities of the web to put together critical remarks and annotations that were less accessible in traditional formats. The computers also allowed students to talk about their ideas both in and out of class.<\/p>\n

Redesigning the curriculum<\/strong><\/p>\n

All of it may seem a bit quaint in today\u2019s smartphone era, but then he was stepping into a world that would fundamentally change the instructor\u2019s role, Anderson said.<\/p>\n

Those changes are reflected in IDEAs in Action<\/a>. Anderson served three years on the coordinating committee that helped shape the new curriculum.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are shifting the focus away from somebody standing in front of students and lecturing to creating opportunities for student to work on something or make something on their own,\u201d he said. \u201cNo matter what the context, we know the ability to collaborate and to work iteratively will be helpful to them. So much of it is about critical thinking, the ability to analyze and make judgments that you can learn from studying Shakespeare or Picasso or any other subject matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

New forms of scholarship<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his research, Anderson is experimenting with videos and screen composing to create a new form of scholarship<\/a> about multimedia through multimedia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book I am working on now is actually a collection of videos, and the only rationale behind calling it a book is so that it can be recognized as scholarship in university structures,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose videos are allowing me to track what is going on with our lives and our intellects with technology because they are based on the computer screen as a composing space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Video scholarship\u2014which adds images, sounds and motion to academic writing\u2014focuses on ways of knowing that are \u201cwindowed, layered and multimodal,\u201d Anderson said. The images, sounds and motion allow for ambiguity and affect that words cannot.<\/p>\n

\u201cScholarship based on video and screen composing may open up alternative modes of thinking that move beyond words into the realm of sensing and feeling. If I play a video so people can hear a baby cry or the sound of the ocean, they are likely to be moved in a different way than they would by a logical, philosophical argument.\u201d<\/p>\n

A playlist for \u2018Pi\u2019<\/strong>
\nAs one alternative to a written essay, Anderson asks his students to create a playlist of songs appropriate for a character\u2019s experience in a literary work. The exercise engages students with sonic literacy<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book, The Life of Pi, for instance, has a character on a boat with a tiger in the middle of the ocean, and if a student would put \u2018Eye of the Tiger\u2019 on a playlist, I would say, \u2018Stop and listen to that song that starts with these loud guitars. Does that fit the experience of this young boy who has just lost his family and is surrounded by thousands of miles of water?\u2019 Probably not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thinking about sounds in the context of literature opens new possibilities. It\u2019s all about homing in on that sweet spot, Anderson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not going to say that is better than other modes of teaching, but when that happens in a classroom, you can see that students are discovering something new, and they have spent a lot of time in classrooms where they don\u2019t get that feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Gary Moss, The Well<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daniel Anderson has been at the forefront of computer-based teaching and learning for decades and helped develop IDEAs in Action, the new general education curriculum to be implemented in fall 2021. In Daniel Anderson\u2019s English classes, the students don\u2019t just write term papers. Class projects in one of his introductory courses include podcasts, mashups, videos 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