Thing 22

Last spring our library was awarded one of the Picturing America grants from NEH and I had the pleasure of attending a summer workshop in Boston hosted by Primary Source on the "democratic vistas" of American realism. We were tasked with developing lesson plans that could be shared with other educators about at least one painting in the collection and one theme relevant to our students. I chose to explore further the Rowing Pictures of Thomas Eakins. Thing 22 motivated me to think of different ways of sharing this information. We have to submit a 5 page paper that I suspect some truly dedicated faculty will find on the NEH pages. A wiki, by contrast, is quick and very public way of engaging your peers in a conversation about best practices. I have started working on http://eakins.wikispaces.com/ and expect to spend the next month adding better links and more interactive widgets for faculty to explore as they consider the contribution that Eakins made to our our shared appreciation of amateur sports. I expect that the final product will be organized around three central questions: 1) what is a sport? 2) who is an athlete? and 3) how can you tell an amateur from a professional? At present the Navigation menu on the left hand side only lists home, Introduction to Thomas Eakins and Resources as place holders. A wiki fundamentally differs from a blog in this respect: thise who consult the wiki will likely share 1) an affinity for the subject matter, 2) a controlled vocabulary and 3) an expectation that the subject matter rather than the wiki author is central. With blogs (this one is no exception), I often get the sense that one voice dominates. With a wiki, I will strive to contribute to an apen discussion where many people share authority of experience and may contribute useful resources and insights. I think that a wiki is most appropriate for collaborative curricular projects and that a blog supports journaling and introspection.