About

This is an example of a Wo

My personal business card says I’m a Digital Medievalist.

It’s the best way to describe my training, my vocation, and my interests.

Until quite late in my education, I was an ordinary medievalist, albeit one with a good grounding and teaching experience in English literature through the Romantic era. I looked forward to a fairly standard academic career teaching English literature and composition classes at a small liberal arts college or at a university with a strong humanities program. But halfway through my Ph.D. I began to transform into a digital medievalist.

I am still very much interested in early literature and conventional humanist scholarship, but I have earned most of my living in the digital realm since 1989, often working for commercial software publishers. I have used technology in my teaching and scholarship, and supported others using digital technology in their teaching and scholarship for about that long as well.

As much as I am personally fond of things geeky and digital, quite often I see technology in instruction being used simply because it’s there, rather than because using technology eases understanding, or because using technology enhances student learning. I also see a lot of silliness in terms of technology and instruction, where a particular technology is forced upon students and faculty because some manager or administrative person thinks technology is cool, or that using technology will draw fame and fortune to his career, rather than because the technology is effective or appropriate. Frequently faculty who would like to use technology are bewildered by the jargon and by the unfortunate arrogance of the technical experts they must work with, who, for all their technical expertise are, not surprisingly, sometimes woefully ignorant about pedagogy, and have no interest or understanding of the humanities.

This blog is my attempt to keep informed about the kinds of tools, approaches, and technologies that are available, how others are using them to teach, administer or create content, what open source alternatives are available, what works and what doesn’t, and share that with others who are interested in technology for teaching and scholarship, in a way that is understandable to the less technically inclined.