Volume 13, Issue 1: Archiving Lab Memory
by Clay Spinuzzi
CWRL Director
When I took over as CWRL Director in Fall 2004, the task was daunting. When entering a well-run unit, it's not obvious where to start or how to improve the institution further. How could we move the CWRL forward?
Part of the answer came from conversations with my predecessor, Peg Syverson, about the CWRL's rapid growth. The CWRL had scaled up quickly, but its information infrastructure had not scaled with it and consequently, we had a hard time maintaining an organizational memory and managing the website. So we're developing a set of information technologies, including content management systems that will collect and record our work, learning course management systems that provide specialized opensource alternatives to Blackboard, and administrative software that will help us run the CWRL.
Another part of the answer came from discussions with my assistant directors, Olin Bjork, Tom Nelson, and Lee Rumbarger. We agreed that the CWRL should provide additional scaffolding for computeraided pedagogy. So, starting this fall, we'll revise the structure of our cohorts, so that the staffers who meet in these small groups will progressively develop, workshop, and share their teaching philosophies and pedagogical work. The result, we hope, will be a set of innovations suitable for staffers' teaching portfolios as well as inspiration for future staffers. Finally, we plan a renewed focus on research. The CWRL has long supported individual pedagogical research, as well as some collective multiyear research and development projects. We plan to extend that work through workshops and cohort focuses; through attention to LAITS and other grant opportunities; and through connections to other units' funded research projects.
Infrastructure, pedagogy, and research--these opportunities should help us to consolidate the gains we've made in computer-aided pedagogy, and should support our continuing efforts for some time to come.