Community at AAW

It takes a community to build a wrestling promotion. We have been going to AAW shows now for over a year. We have been to see them in the various venues they use in Chicago — Logan Square Auditorium, 115 Bourbon Street, the Berwyn Eagles Club, and Joe’s Live at Rosemont. We have watched some […]

Online Learning Communities with a Dominican Flair

Online Learning Communities with a Dominican Flair: Arguing for applying the Dominican ethos to online higher education CarrieLynn D. Reinhard and Claire Noonan (Dominican University) Introduction It seems that everywhere one looks in the world of contemporary higher education, someone is making an argument for the elimination of faculty in favor of technology as the […]

Online Learning Communities with a Catholic Flair

For a year now, I have been working through some ideas on how to ensure that a Catholic higher education institution, such as my own, maintains its Catholic identity when offering more online courses and programs. In particular, I wanted to work through how to ensure that the focus on communities and relationship-centered teaching and […]

Relating Sacramentally in Online Teaching

Originally posted on Daily Theology:
By Daniella Zsupan-Jerome, Ph.D. What does sacramentality look like in an online classroom? Stephen Okey’s recent reflection on “Catholic Identity and Online Education” is a timely conversation starter, and I appreciate his framework of focusing especially on five key areas of concern around Catholic identity. Of these five, the third…

Avatars, Audiences and Interactive Television

This presentation was given at the 100th National Communication Association Conference in Chicago on November 21, 2014. This presentation reflects the work I have done with Pooky Amsterdam to understand the nature and potential of virtual world television as reported in the Journal of Virtual World Research. This presentation was awarded one of the Top […]

Community in Online Learning: Thoughts from EDUCAUSE

Every year, there is a special gathering of individuals interested in improving the technologies of higher education. Faculty, IT administrators, inventors, entrepreneurs, the Big Dogs (i.e. Google, Microsoft, Dell, etc) convene for several days of talks, presentations, pitches, sales, and ideas. This get annual, international together is sponsored by EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit dedicated to improving […]

Online Learning Communities: A Dominican Conversation

At my school on Tuesday, September 23rd, Dominican University hosted our fifth annual Caritas Veritas Symposium. These symposiums are times for our community of faculty, staff, and students to reflect upon the university’s Catholic mission of care and truth, of working to create a more just and humane world. There are presentations, discussions, and activities […]

Fan Privilege and Fractured Fandom

Lately, almost every day reveals another story that could be related to a phenomenon I have been discussing on this blog: fractured fandom. Just within the past week, we have had stories about Men’s Rights Activists being misogynists in video gaming communities (here and here), a consideration of how the generation gap is causing problems […]

An Autoethnography of Collegium – Applications for Higher Education

As reported by The Atlantic, secular beliefs are on the rise among young people, and conservative Christians are withdrawing from secular society whilst demanding their religious beliefs be tolerated, even if it means discrimination and intolerance. And this week’s Supreme Court ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby and other similar businesses that are owned by […]

An Autoethnography of Collegium – Day Five

Day 5: Wednesday, June 25th A normal academic conference might go for three, four days. A big one could be upwards of five days. Each day would have numerous panels and presentations scheduled, giving you the opportunity to go where you want, when you want, for however long you want. And if you want, they […]