Saturday, June 9, 2018

Digital devices and African American literary studies



During the first week of the African American Literatures and Cultures Institute, I coordinated activities utilizing tablets, audio devices, and flash drives. The content for the projects included digital collections on Frederick Douglass and Octavia Butler, an audio production on Malcolm X speeches, and a file with more than a dozen black women poets reciting their works on YouTube.

The uses of digital devices and preparation of various digital collections have expanded all kinds of possibilities for what materials I can share with students related to African American literary studies. So that students have more freedom on the sequence of exploring various items, I created audio compositions on various topics. They can choose the order of the short discussions on topics by me that they would like to hear first, second, and third.

What next, though, with the use of various digital devices? How do we optimize the possibilities? I'm certainly going to want to talk to more students about their responses to the different modes and methods of delivering content. That'll help me get a sense of limits and possibilities, what I need to do more and less of in the future.

Related:
A Notebook on African American Literatures and Cultures Institute

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