The Archaeology of the Mediterranean World

Technology and Pedagogy

Last week Anne Kelsch, the director of our Office of Instructional Development at the University of North Dakota, suggested that we might have a conversation about the relationship between pedagogy and teaching.  In her email she reckoned that "people think in terms of technology inherently either enhancing or detracting from student learning and teaching".  And she should know, as she regularly deals with the whole range of issue from the simple implementation of technology to the pedagogical and philosophical underpinnings of various innovations.

I have tried on various ways of understanding how to use technology in the classroom from various perspectives.the biggest issue at stake with technology and pedagogy is that to use technology successfully in the classroom, you have to understand the recent increase in "technology" as a change in the way in which people think about  that you seek to use and how the application, device, or i

From my conversations on campus, people tend to see "technology" (broadly construed) in one of three ways:

1. A Tool.  My initial effort to engage and use technology was as a tool that could optimize some long standing pedagogical practice.  For example, I could use a threaded discussion to take a classroom discussion from the confines of the classroom and expand it throughout the week.  Thus, technology could help us do what we have always done -- but do it in a more efficient way and extend what we do in the classroom beyond its traditional boundaries.

2. A Medium. After a while of thinking about technology in this way, I gradually came to see it as less a tool and more a medium of communication.  Unlike a tool, which (in my simple assessment) allowed me to perform some established task (typically established within the traditional pedagogical discourse) better, a medium functioned according to its unique set of rules, standards, and processes.  Over time, the medium effects the message (or as well all know, becomes the message).  Thus, it's even possible to manipulate the medium as an end to itself -- the processes becomes the product.  An emphasis on technology as a medium for disseminating information and shaping information encouraged me to experiment more with wikis, podcasts, blogs and the like.  Each new medium provided new challenges -- how do I make a podcast that they will listen to? how do I encourage them to use wikis?  how do I write for a blog and how does that effect my writing?

3. A Network.  Most recently, however, influenced by the works of B. Latour, I've begun to think about technology and pedagogy in terms of networks.  Unlike tools which, in my initial assessment had distinct boundaries and functions, or media, which remain in some way subordinate to the messages that they carry, networks link together media, tools, users, producers, expectations and assumptions.  In a pedagogical context, the complexity of the networks which impart technology with both meaning and function as a teaching tool, make it important to attempt to consider the implementation, student perceptions, extent of use in the institution, legacy (or history) of the various technological components, and our need and ability to assess the success or failure of the overall pedagogical goals.  By attempting to understand technology in the classroom (variously defined) from a network perspective, we approach teaching technologies as social and political phenomena that have social and political goals.  Thus, technology becomes something as deeply embedded in all aspects of the educational process including content, teaching methods, pedagogy, and, of course, the politics of curriculum development (and it's articulation).  For example, in this method of reading technology and pedagogy, using a wiki in the webbased component of a classroom-taught class requires us to understand how students view wikis.  In my History 101 class (Western Civilization I), it is clear that students see wikis as a source of authority and are therefore very reluctant to contribute to it -- even though it is behind a password protected interface.  Students likely associate my classroom wiki with Wikipedia which they receive passively as a source of "valid" knowledge.  Moreover, the idea of collective intelligence and collaborative learning upon which a wiki depends, runs counter to the individualized grading and evaluation that characterizes most higher education.  In the discipline of history, there tends to be an assumption that certain valid facts exist within a fairly rigid narrative.  While scholars obviously do not believe this, students tend to see history this way at the introductory level.  So a wiki which encourages them to view knowledge in a more fluid way challenges basic assumptions  that students tend to hold regarding the discipline.  This could be good, but also could challenge their ability to engage the material and technology thoughtfully.   There is also the learning curve, even the most basic wysiwyg interface will intimidate an inexperienced user and limit their ability to take full advantage of the medium.  At the end, even the most simple technology -- a wiki -- is not merely a tool that allows students to work together toward a pedagogical goal, but a node in a series of networks that undergird student assumptions regarding the university experience, the discipline, and the function of technology in a wider context.  (And, this does not even delve into the assumptions that faculty have about technology and how they attempt to use them in the classroom -- whether they are simply replacing an earlier "analog" technology or introducing a "new" learning environment with new goals.).

We hope to offer some posts on teaching with technology over at Teaching Thursday this week, so check us out!

A Few Thoughts on Formation Processes and Sacred Space

I spent little bits of time this weekend meandering through the most recent volume in the Late Antique Archaeology series from Brill: L. Lavan, E. Swift, and T. Putzey eds., Objects in Context, Objects in Use Material Spatiality in Late Antiquity.  Leiden 2007.  Aside from the sort of silly notion of material spatiality, which seems to imply that there could be spatial relationships that are somehow not material, this imposing tome has a bunch of interesting "stuff" in it.  Byrn Mawr Classical Review has offered a complete early review here.

The volume contained, among other things, a series of articles on object in Early Christian space.  The articles by B. Caseau, V. Michel, and Z. Fiema, employed various textual and archaeological methods to survey the range of objects associated with religious space in an Early Christian context.  Of particular note was Z. Fiema's discussion of documents in the storeroom of the Petra Church.  The careful excavation revealed a fairly substantial archive originally arranged on shelves and in cabinets. The two articles by B. Caseau examined textual sources for the various objects that they associate with Late Antique churches.  Her work reminds us how few of the objects recorded in Late Antique church inventories or in more literary sources are regularly found in excavated churches.  Her discussion of the objects associated in texts with healing shrines reminds us how how most of things present in the everyday life of even the most imposing churches were perishable.  Brooms, wooden buckets, leather, metal and papyrus only survive in very particular archaeological and cultural environments and consequently remain invisible to excavators.

These articles reminded me of a short paper that I wrote, probably 8 years ago, with Tim Gregory and David Pettegrew, ("Archaeological 'Signatures' of Byzantine Churches: Survey Archaeology and the Creation of a Byzantine Landscape," Byzantine Studies Conference Abstracts of Papers 27 (2001), p. 38.).  We did very intensive archaeological survey in the immediate vicinity of Byzantine Churches on the island of Kythera hoping to discover some kind of material signature for Byzantine churches.  We were not particularly successful.  The tendency to keep church yards clean, the position of churches on the tops of hills or ridges, and the generally overgrown condition of the island made it difficult for us to find much material that was distinct to the religious function or chronological range of these buildings.

This all led me to think a bit about the distinct set of formation processes that create the archaeological evidence for religious space.  The tendency for the community to regard some religious spaces as sacred and consequently to continue to function on some level after catastrophic events like earthquakes and fires.  Later burials in the remains of Early Christian basilicas is one example of post-destruction re-use.  The functioning of informal and sometimes open air shrines at collapsed churches is another.  The religious significance of various objects associated with churches might prompt more significant kinds of intervention in prior to total abandonment.  Easily recognizable architectural forms (particularly the apse) made churches particularly visible even centuries after their initial abandonment and led to patterns of episodic reuse separated by centuries.

The studies pertaining to religious space presented in Objects in Context, Objects in Use, focused almost exclusively on the link between the location of objects in an archaeological context and their primary use within space.  In general, the archaeological studies avoided over reliance on the so-called Pompeii Premise, which assumed that objects found in an archaeological context revealed the function of those spaces in antiquity.   While carefully wrought observations regarding the location of objects and the function of space remain significant for unpacking the difficult matters surrounding the function of space in an Early Christian context, it provides less help understanding the dynamic processes that form the archaeological record and reveal persistent attitudes toward space in antiquity and in subsequent centuries.

Friday Varia and Quick Thoughts...

I've been thinking a good bit about the web site for our proposed Working Group in Digital and New Media.  I can remember when it was pretty easy to set up a website -- throw up some links, perhaps frames or a nice stable menu bar, add a photo or a bit of music (if you were flash-y). 

Now things are different.  First, the number of applications, add-on, languages, style sheets, and the like have proliferated.  It's hard to figure out exactly how to combine various forms of java, flash, shockwave, php, CSS, et c. to make an appealing and manageable interface.  And we have to contend with multiple browsers. 

It's also hard to figure out what kind of devices the page will appear on.  A page will look great on my 17 inch Macbook Pro, but not so good on my 9 inch Dell Mini and damn near illegible on my iPod touch or Samsung Omnia (running Opera Mobile).  So, do we create multiple pages for multiple devices?

How often do we change our looks?  Do we run the page as a blog with that allows up to update easily into a new theme to keep the page fresh.  Do we strip the page down and run it as a wiki which could be changed collaboratively, impulsively, and tracked historically?  Or do we combine multiple options to capture the dynamism of the web in it's various facets?

Some other little hits:

• I like this and impressed with the interface that Tumblr provides.  I am going on a little road trip and want to create a small blog to document my travels.  Perhaps Tumblr is the solution?
• Here's another in the growing list of Digital Humanities White Papers.  It would be cool to produce an index of these.
• Keep an eye on the Grand Forks Herald's flood headlines and keep the folks in Fargo-Moorhead in your thought and prayers.
• It sure would be fun to hear about the Corinthia Archaeology conference in Loutraki!  Can anyone send along a copy of the program?

Have a good weekend and stay dry.

Teaching Thursday: Teaching Uncertainty

This has been a wild week in the Red River Valley with blizzards and floods.  Last Thursday, I asked people to share how they were teaching the "worldwide financial crisis" and we'll post a response by David Flynn, a professor of economics here at the University of North Dakota over on our Teaching Thursday blog.  One thing his post brings out -- and it is certainly relevant to this particular moment in the region -- is the need to be able to teach uncertainty.

Teaching uncertainty is surely among the most difficult things for me to do.  Historians, particularly in the classroom, find themselves in a position where they transform complex and confusing networks of events into more easily understood causal relationships.  In fact, history is particular adept at demonstrating how individuals in the past did not grasp the complexity or consequences of their own situations.  Surely Caesar could not have realized how crossing the Rubicon or engaging in a Civil War would have impacted the long term stability of the Roman Republic (although it is hard to imagine that he thought it would help the Republic).  Likewise Constantine could not have fully understood the consequences of his decision to support the fledgling Christian church in the 4th century.  Unpacking the consequences of these individuals' actions with the benefit of hindsight is certainly one of the key responsibilities of the historian and playing with such omniscience gives us a kind of authority in relation to historical actors.  While most historians would readily admit that their command over the past offers very little in the way of command over the present, the public and our students sometimes see it that way.  After all, there are still many who look to history for cautionary tales and take quite literally the old proverb about repeating the past if you can't learn from it. 

During uncertain economic (or environmental!) times, historians (not exclusively, of course) tend to become more visible.  The Obama election and economic turmoil of the last six months has led to more historians appearing in the media and speaking with confidence about the present.  While this is certainly appealing and empowering to those of us who keep a comparatively lower profile, it certainly exposes us to a different set of expectation than we are likely to experience in more certain times.  At the same time, budget crunches at universities and colleges have forced the humanities to defend themselves more vigorously and to demonstrate in ways that the general public can understand the relevance of their academic pursuits.  The pressure is on to demonstrate our worth to a society that is undergoing challenges.

Uncertainty is a difficult sell in uncertain times.  Of course, we all would readily accept that history is full of uncertainty and even the rhetorically omniscient perspective of the professional historian can only present a plausible interpretation of past events on the basis of a small fraction of the real variables present.  The study of the past, just like our understanding of the present, is, in fact, plagued by uncertainty.  Scholars, paradoxically, have found a certain amount of confidence by accepting the variability of the events that they study and the inability of their own methods, approaches, and tools to produce definitive and unchallengeable explanations of past events.  In effect, we frame our entire discipline within the expectation that things will change with how we view the past; this is to say that we brace our own interpretations against an inevitable feeling of uncertainty.

So perhaps the current economic and environmental crisis is a good opportunity to present a counterpoint to the confidence projected in the classroom and formed around the internal cohesion of historical narratives.  The past like the present is contingent, uncertain, and subject to change.

Weather

With the weather we're having it's hard to think of much beyond our front door right now.  The best I can do is to point out, in a rather mundane way, how new media applications have helped our community communicate during a difficult time.  For example, the University of North Dakota community is kept up to date via a Flood blog. Our automated emergency notification system simultaneously sent our emails and contacted us via our mobile phones to tell us that the university was closed (while I was shoveling our car out!).

The Grand Forks Herald's flood web page is updated regularly allows folks to monitor the rising waters in the local communities.

And there at least two video feeds which show important communication routes across the Red River.  The top feed is Grand Forks and the lower one is Fargo.  The Sorlie Memorial Bridge in the top video should close by 10 am today.

Watch live video from Grand Forks Herald on Justin.tv

Online TV Shows by Ustream

Modern Greek Studies Association Symposium 2009

We heard this past week that the Modern Greek Studies Association accepted a panel coordinated by Kostis Kourelis and Effie Athanassopoulos under the auspices of the Medieval and Post-Medieval Archaeology in the Mediterranean Interest Group of the Archaeological Institute of America. 

The panel is entitled "From Town to Country: The Archaeology of Modern Greek Landscapes" and here's the description:

Since the birth of the nation-state, the identity of Modern Greece has been defined by its relationship to antiquity. The discipline of archaeology has, thus, played a central role in the construction of Greece, but only in so far as it concerns ancient periods (archaia). For Greece, the archaeology of the recent past is an etymological contradiction. Material culture dating to after 1850 is considered non-archaeological; it can be exported and traded freely. Archaeological studies on 19th- and 20th-century Greece are greatly lacking, leaving a huge disciplinary gap with Historical Archaeology, a discipline that flourishes in the United States.

This panel brings together recent work applying archaeological perspectives to the material culture of Modern Greece spanning a spectrum of ecological milieus from the metropolis, to the small town, the village, the monastery and the rural landscape. The theme that connects the individual papers is that of “landscape” approached through the lens of archaeology. Landscape as a concept refers to the external world mediated through subjective human experience. In archaeology, approaches to landscape have changed drastically over time, from economic and ecological perspectives of the 1960s to more recent post-modern views that focus on the social and symbolic construction of landscapes. In Greece, the field of landscape archaeology has grown out of the tradition of archaeological regional surveys, introduced by American scholars during the 1950s.

The individual papers offer diverse perspectives and examine a wide variety of landscapes in the 19th and 20th century. The settings range from the urban space of 19th century Athens to the town of Corinth, to rural space in the upland basins of Corinthia, to monastic space in Mount Menoikeion in northern Greece, and to landscape features such as Mt. Pentadaktylos in Cyprus. Each paper applies a different methodological tactic. Some revisit older historical records, others collect new data or re-conceptualize physical relationships. Collectively, they represent the richness of a growing field. Susan Buck Sutton, who pioneered the study of the Modern Greek countryside and single-handedly developed the discipline of ethno-archaeology, has agreed to serve as the panel’s respondent.

The panel is sponsored by the Medieval and Post-Medieval Archaeology in Greece Interest Group of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA). The Group consists of AIA members with an interest in the archaeology of post-classical Greece, and in promoting its understanding through various programs and publications.

Here are the papers (for full abstracts):

"Athens in the 19th Century: Archaeological Landscapes and Competing Pasts"
Effie Athanassopoulos (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)

"Ancient Corinth from the Ottoman Empire to the Archaeologists"
Amelia R. Brown (American School of Classical Studies at Athens)

"Between Sea and Mountain: The Archaeology of a 20th-Century “Small World” in he Upland Basins of the Southeastern Korinthia"
William R. Caraher (University of North Dakota)
David K. Pettegrew (Messiah College)
Timothy E. Gregory (Ohio State University Excavations at Isthmia)
Lita Tzortzopoulou-Gregory (Ohio State University Excavations at Isthmia)

"The Sacred Grip: Landscape, Art and Architecture in Mount Menoikeion (19th-20th Centuries)"
Nikolas Bakirtzis (The Cyprus Institute)
Kostis Kourelis (Connecticut College)
Matthew Milliner (Princeton University)

Red River Flood 2

Red River Flood

Talk on Thursday: Socialism, Serbofilia, Sex, and Suicide

If you are in the Grand Forks area, I encourage you come to hear Prof. John Cox, the chair of the Department of History at North Dakota State speak on Socialism, Serbofilia, Sex, and Suicide: The Mad World of Slovene Literature and Politics around 1900.  The talk will be in Gamble Hall 280, March 26, 2009, at 4:00 pm.

 His talk will explore the changing landscape of Slovene politics and culture in the twilight years of the Habsburg Empire. In particular, he will focus on the ideas of Ivan Cankar (1876-1918). Cankar was a highly regarded and prolific prose writer whose quests for esthetic authenticity and for Slovene political rights led him to embrace socialist, pro-Balkan political views that complicate today's dominant narrative of the Slovene "national awakening." Cox will also read selected (potentially amusing!) passages from his newly released translation of Cankar's novel Martin Kacur: Biography of an Idealist (Central European University Press, 2009), which treats the moral decline and catastrophic fall of a progressive schoolteacher in the Slovene countryside about 1900.  

Gamble Hall 280 · March 26, 2009 · 4:00 pm

Thaw

Things are thawing here in Grand Forks and people are nervous.