Nov 27: Synthesize and Share 403x

How might we synthesize and share a "Schoolhouse Rock" version of our discussions this quarter? Let's pick up where the "what happened in class" synopses leave off. From now until December 4, students will be synthesizing the most intriguing and thought-provoking Piazza posts and class content into a collection of six structured summaries that will each form a mini white-paper of sorts. The final document will be shared with the larger EDF community and made publicly available online.

Students will be assigned to small groups of six people, each based on one of the following six topics:

• "What is a university?" (Oct. 30th)
• "Living digitally" (Oct. 2nd)
• "The changing relationship between school and work / 21st century competencies" (Oct. 23rd)
• "Reflections on online higher education" (Oct. 9th and 16th)
• "Panel on digital technologies in K12" (Nov. 6th)
• "Panel on the future of assessment" (Nov. 13th)

The job of each team will be to curate, frame, and edit their choice of representative Piazza posts and discussions for their one topic into approximately 10-15 pages of coherent, succinct discussion. Note that students don't need to write these pages from scratch — everyone should be framing, organizing, and curating the posts to help readers make meaning from them as a whole. Students should also assume an intelligent-layperson audience that has not attended any 403x classes. Include front-end synthesis that introduces the reader to the topic and situates it in the larger landscape of education's digital future.

Class on November 27 will be a work session, and all text should be finalized by December 4, after which the CAs will review and edit each team's text. Mitchell, Roy, and Abby will then respond to each team's writing. The text from each team's effort will be published on the EDF website by December 25, downloadable as a PDF by individual topic or as a compiled "book." If you have any questions about the assignment, please to contact us.