Those of us who work in technology and faculty development know that there are huge challenges if one wants to move beyond the “low-hanging fruit” (low-hanging? I practically jumped into the harvester’s lap) and get to truly systemic innovation and progress. The UMW Teaching, Learning, and Technology Fellows’ program is our effort to get to that kind of progress. Our 2006-2007 Fellows did some fine work, individually and as a cohort, ably led by John Morello and the DTLT team. Here’s a picture of the crew in the spring of 2006 as they began their efforts. A description of the program accompanies the photo. It was thrilling to see the results as the faculty shared them with us at Faculty Academy 2007. Marjorie Och’s (Art History) virtual Venice exhibit is beautiful and inspiring, and Marjorie’s blogs this year are a huge part of UMW Blogs’ success. Charlie Sharpless (Chemistry) persuaded his students that “Chem is Cool” with an imaginative re-thinking of the freshman chemistry lab. Steve Gallik (Biology), a longtime fellow-journeyer in teaching and learning technologies, continued his innovations in developing an online Cell Biology lab manual. Craig Vasey (Philosophy) put together an impressive online learning space to support his Logic course. For copyright reasons it’s password protected, but you can see the header here, and a few of Craig’s early thoughts here. Project leader John Morello even joined in the fun with his own “MiniTube” project.

Now a second season begins. The 2007-2008 Teaching, Learning, and Technology Fellows met two weeks ago for an introduction to Bluehost and blogging. Today we’re going deeper into the blogosphere with the University of Tennessee’s fantastically helpful “Anatomy of a Blog.”We’ll also touch on Friend of a Friend (FOAF) and RSS. The rest of the time we’ll make some space for shared reflection. (I’m always up for the conversation.)

Already there’s activity from this cohort. Sarah Allen (English, Linguistics, and Speech) has her blog up, educating us about Thoth (I’m a sucker for language-play), and I’m looking forward to her leading us into a deeper understanding of the way writing and rhetoric underlie the work we’re doing this year. Go Sarah! Steve Greenlaw (Economics), like last year’s Steve, is a longtime fellow traveler, and his blog is a treasure-trove for anyone trying to understand pedagogy, economics, or the process of inspiration and creativity. And the still-waters-run-deep winner is Donald Rallis (Geography), a colleague who started at UMW the same year I did, but whom I’ve never had the chance or pleasure to get to know. I am delighted to say that Donald too has the soul of a born blogger. The site he’s set up for his Geography 101 class is a stunner. I’ve already learned a ton from it, and I can’t wait to read what Donald writes in the weeks and months ahead. I hope Donald likes comments (what blogger doesn’t?), for he’s sure to get a lot of them Start anywhere–but here’s one of my favorites to date.

Watch this space for more dispatches as the Fellows program continues. And even more importantly, watch their spaces, and enjoy their stories–and of course, comment early and often.