Research

writing, marketing, branding, education, higher education research

My Experience on History’s UnXplained with William Shatner

This was the most positive experience. History channel producers are so professional. I never thought I would ever be on the History channel, much less on this excellent show.

I am surprised at the interest that my second book, Underwater Ghost Towns of North Georgia. I get calls on a regular basis from producers wanting to pitch stories about Lake Lanier. Mind you that this is only one chapter in the 5 books I have written about Georgia History. It is a hot topic. One thing I tell the producers who call me, I will not make things up. I will not turn the story into a ghost story. Thank goodness, the producers on Shatner’s show are not interested in made up ghost stories. We talked about “curses.”

The stories of Lake Lanier are interesting enough with out making up sensational stories. History is sensational in all its truths. That said, I have also been accused by ignorant people of white washing history. They are ignorant, because the comments come from people who do not read what I wrote. They do not put things into context. In my next book, Lost Mills of Fulton County, I included stories about the evil treatment of African Americans at the turn of the twentieth century. I do not sensationalize the stories, just offer them as a terrible part of Georgia history.

Look up this episode and watch it on streaming History, Discovery+, or Google TV: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20234954/?ref_=ttep_ep8

Lost Mills of North Georgia on You Tube

The Haunting of Allatoona Pass

While writing Lost Towns of North Georgia and Underwater Ghost Towns of North Georgia, I came across a late 1800 Atlanta newspaper article about sightings of phantom soldiers on trains going through Allatoona Pass. I do not like to include myths and folklore in my books because I need evidence. I figured if the credible Atlanta newspaper could print this story, I could write about in my books. So, here is one of the very few ghost stories in my books:

The Haunting of Allatoona Pass
The night was soaked with an inky darkness just seven years after the Civil War as the steam engine powered through Allatoona Pass on its way north. Just as the engine entered the pass, the W&A Railroad conductor noticed a soldier sitting on the top of the car. He climbed up into the darkness to collect the fare. The conductor walked toward the figure. Steps away, it disappeared. The soldier had melted into the night.

The disconcerted conductor reported to the engineer, “He was dressed in a soldier’s uniform.” Leaving the engine in the fireman’s hands, the W&A engineer investigated. A thick layer of clouds covered the moon; the cool night left a mist in the air. Through the fog, the engineer saw a figure sitting on the top of the third car.

The engineer advanced on top of the train, his attention focused on the man sitting on his train. Sweat trickled down the engineer’s back. He locked eyes with the gray shadow man. As he neared the transparent figure, it faded and then disappeared. The engineer searched the entire train and looked everywhere someone might hide. He climbed back on the top of the train and there the man was, sitting again on top of the train.

This time, the engineer marched in a quick step toward the ghost, but it disappeared again. The engineer walked back to the engine of the speeding train. Before he descended, the engineer glanced over his shoulder to glimpse the soldier back in his place. Cold air caused the engineer to shiver before he returned to relieve his fireman. The conductor kept watch and reported that the mysterious figure remained on the train for a few more miles, and then he was gone.

Perhaps the specter was reenacting this scene on the southbound train about to go through Allatoona Pass. Ghost stories are just symptoms of what lies beneath the surface, what came before and what refuses to leave.

Allatoona Pass has a reputation. It’s haunted. The unnatural cut into the mountain was the pass for nineteenth-century trains. The untracked bed follows along a sinking shore that secrets the drowned town of Allatoona. Phantom seekers claim to hear the ghost train and see specter soldiers on board. Walking through the pass today, you often hear the ghostly sounds of the trains on the repositioned tracks and wonder if they might be from another time or a current train in the distance.

The pass and the lost town of Allatoona have every reason to be haunted. The Battle of Allatoona Pass—a forgotten battle won by fake news and in defense of some bread—destroyed the trackside town. This pointless battle made a few heroes but ruined a town that was later drowned and lost forever. Residual energy disturbs the pass and the shores of Lake Allatoona, but the scariest story began and ended on October 5, 1864.

Read more about the Battle of Allatoona Pass in my books:

Cover Underwater Ghost Towns of North Georgia — Underwater Ghost Towns of North Georgia

Grab Your Demons by the Neck

I suggest you stalk your demons. Embrace them. If you are a writer, especially one who has been unable to make your work count or stick, you must grab your demons by the neck and face them down. And whatever you do, don’t censor yourself. There’s always time and editors for that (Lerner).

Betsy Lerner in The Forest for the Trees, encourages “The Ambivalent Writer”
to find the real reason they write. Writers who do extensive research and read broadly in the face of a deadline are called – procrastinators. Learner describes ambivalent writers as those too frightened to share their emotional truth. This writer is stuck and sadly that writing may never stick.

Lerner speaks the truth with a mentor’s heart. She says we write because we are haunted, bothered, and uneasy in the world. Writers suffer from excessive feelings and must bleed on-screen to find motivation – the reason they write. Nobody has to read this first vent, but it is part of the process. If you do not connect with your own heart – you will not connect with anyone else’s. There is enough writing out there for the head. People want writing for the heart. This explains the reason Creative Nonfiction is so popular . They want history, biography, and science in story form; they want narrative to matter.

Recently while watching Book TV on CSPAN, I was mesmerized by Rebecca Skloot discuss her book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. She writes about science, a topic I am not normally interested. She was talking about a woman, known to most medical researchers only by her cells, the HeLa cells. The author tells Henrietta’s little known story:

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the effects of the atom bomb; helped lead to important advances like invitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

I would have switched the channels if they had told me the story of the women in their books that changed their world of medicine. They wrote science as narrative. I wanted to read this science book and know more about Henrietta Lacks. Rebecca Skloot allowed Henrietta’s life touch her own and it touches our heart. Skloot does more than write a textbook about cancer cells, she tells a

story she that haunted her about a poor black woman. “Doctors took her cells without asking. Those cells never died. They launched a medical revolution and a multi million-dollar industry.”

Writers carry around demons. Some of those demons are emotional, some are physical, some are spiritual, some are just stories that won’t go away – they haunt us and taunt us to deal with them. Writers are gifted with the opportunity to reach around and grab those things by the neck and wrestle it into words.

A wise graduate professor suggested that before we write anything else, that we deal with the elephant in the room. My Creative Nonfiction class has been a profound journey. It has forced me to look deep into the eyes of my demon and decide if I want to keep doing this writing thing. Why would anyone want to go through the agony of digging into the foundation of your soul, scaffolding your sentences so others can safely see what you are building? Then submit to the final humiliation – exposing your grammatical disability and giving your editor the power of life and death over your work? Why bother? That’s the question every writer must ask and answer. In that answer – you will find your motivation to write.

Digital Rhetoric: Doing Things with Words Online

It is with great joy and relief that I can post my capstone, “Digital Rhetoric: Doing Things with Words Online”. The free download is located in the digital commons on Kennesaw State University library site. I would love to hear your thoughts on this project. Here is the abstract:

Abstract

“Digital Rhetoric: Doing Things with Words Online”.

It is through rhetorical principles applied to digital writing that online writers can be heard above the din confronting weary online browsers. The synergy between classical rhetoric and new media practices leads to persuasive and memorable digital writing. Despite the hurried clip and the complex nature of technology, grounding writing in firm rhetorical concepts can produce compelling online content. The purpose of this capstone project is to teach specific audiences how to do things with words online through a series of three modules whose unifying themes include the broad topics of targeting niche audiences, persuasive writing, and using the digital medium of communications.

And One More Thing . . .

Steve Jobs would introduce the next Apple creation and leave the best for last. He would reveal something new by saying, “And one more thing . . .” I feel that we are on the verge of a wave of new instructional technologies. This will make learning online a smart choice for most adult learners.

My first semester in graduate school involved two writing courses, one was online and the other was a face-to-face traditional class. Several graduate students shared both classes. By the end of the summer semester, the students who took both the online and the traditional class compared notes and agreed to a more intimate learning experience online than in the classroom interaction. The reason may be the online professor’s ability to create community in a distant environment. Skillfully written discussion thread questions prompted students to comment beyond the three required posts. A class blog did not add busy work, but more ways to interact and learn from each other. The professor would then synthesize the posts into something with take away value. The online course requirements fostered a cohesive cyber writing group that lingered beyond the grade posting. In the traditional class that same semester, the same collegial connection was absent.

An interaction in the Wired Campus blog on The Chronicles of Higher Education, a Kennesaw State University study was conducted to determine how to keep students from dropping out of online courses. The post begins, “Nothing works.” The original published in The International Journal of Management in Education by professors in the Coles School of Business, concluded that students drop out of an online class at a rate 12-percent to 20-percent higher than traditional classes. The study by the team of business professors was set up to discover retention strategies. They tried calling students, quizzing on the syllabus and tour-guiding through the virtual classroom. They attempted to connect students in small groups calling for team projects. Parry reports the study concluded that nothing mattered and none of it worked. The results seem to blame the students and not the online class management and teaching style. Marc Parry, the blogger reports the conclusion of the researchers, ‘“If someone was going to drop out of the class, they were going to drop out of the class,’ says Stacy M. Campbell, assistant professor of management at Kennesaw State” (Parry, Preventing Online Dropouts).

However, another online learning expert Ray Schroeder, director of the Center for Online Learning, Research, and Service at the University of Illinois at Springfield assigns program coordinators or online student peer mentors to help students navigate an online course. The blogger concludes with input from Mr. Schroeder, “The practices tried by Kennesaw State promote engagement and deeper learning . . . but they could be more directly focused on preventing dropouts (Parry, Preventing Online Dropouts).

New ways of teaching online are emerging. Research at Texas Technical University by Dr. Rich Rice is producing new ways to respond to student’s writing online. In his studies of andragogy (the study of teaching adult students) he is creating with Dr. Fred Kemp “Smart Casting.” “Smart Casting,” according to Rice is “a media interface that allows for ‘just –in-time’ video to be delivered at the point of need. It is target content and high production quality content that is attached to teacher’s commentary on a student’s writing” (Rice). Comments are specific and fit the needs of the student. Rice says in his audio file describing his research interests, Instead of generic comments or content at beginning of writing process we are trying to deliver specific content in the middle of writing process. If doing this when you provide comments and the type of comments perhaps supplementing with video or audio. Other research includes using electronic portfolios (selection collection of work) allowing students to have a portal to have reflective writing in final work. Another area he is adding to the research to discover ways to provide new support mechanism for distance learning students working on difficult topics such as the students in the only online Technical Communication and Rhetoric programs (Rice).

Another lingering attitude about distance learning is that students would rather be in a traditional class, but because of lifestyle issues they must take online classes. The facts are the demand for online courses exceeds what is currently being offered. According to a report in Online Learning, the number of “students who learn online has tripled in a decade” (6 Online Learning Trends B21). This patronizing among academics might hinder the development of inventive online teaching strategies.

Personally, I would rather take an online class for many reasons beyond my schedule. I learn better and have time to savor the truths. I interact better on discussion boards than in a traditional class discussion. I simply will not compete in that environment. I am sure my learning style is more suited to online learning and another student does better pontificating in front of peers. The simple truth is online education is growing for whatever the reason.

In a study managed by the Babson Survey Research Group for Going the Distance: Online Education in the United States, 2011 based on responses from more that 2,500 colleges and universities, the results show that while online enrollment has slowed in 2011, the overall growth rate far exceeds the growth of traditional enrollment. “The ten percent growth rate for online enrollments far exceeds the less than one percent growth of the overall higher education student population.” In addition the study found, “Thirty-one percent of all higher education students now take at least one course online” (Allen, p. 8). The 2011 report offers proof, “That number is now sixty-seven percent of academic leaders rate the learning outcomes in online education as the same or superior to those in fact to face (Allen 9).

The slate blackboard, invented in 1801 by James Pillans, headmaster of the Old High School of Edinburgh, Scotland, was considered innovative. In 1841 Josiah F. Bumstead said, “The inventor of the blackboard deserves to be ranked among the best contributors to learning and science, if not among the greatest benefactors of mankind.” (The Blackboard) It took forty years for educators to recognize to significance of using a visual tool in teaching. In 2011, the Internet has become ubiquitous and an effective tool for education in less than forty years. With all the challenges associated with accreditation of online institutions and the problems of putting “old wine into a new wine skin” distance learning, it is a new frontier that will redefine the way we teach and the way students learn.

“We need to read the things that are not yet on the page” Steve Jobs says, “Edwin Land of Polaroid talked about the interaction of the humanities and science. I like that pace there is something magical about that place.” (Isaacson, chapter 54)

We are standing at an intersection that really needs a merge lane. We don’t need to decide one way or the other; we need both cautious observation and full Internet speed ahead.

I would like to see how Steve Jobs might have changed education the way he changed the telephone, music and movie industry. We have educators taking up the “imantle” that Jobs left behind. These educators are innovating ways for students to learn and professors to connect while expanding the definition of rhetoric in a new age.

Who will have the courage in the academe to change the way we teach online? There are better ways to teach online yet to be envisioned – things not yet written on the “page.” Techniques that will use digital wisdom to create rewarding online class experiences. Students will want the online experience, not because it fits a work schedule, but it may just be the better way to learn.

Will we be able to integrate current pedagogy or andragogy with new inventions and innovative ways to teach? Will we help students to navigate and aggregate information giving students a view of the intersection of humanities and science? How will poetry and processors unite? It is a wild frontier and it will take adventurous spirits to pioneer the next big thing. And that’s not all . . . *

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“6 Online Learning Trends.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 11th ser. 11 (2011): B20-21. Print.

Allen, J. Elaine. “Going the Distance: Online Education in the United States, 2011 | The Sloan Consortium®.” The Sloan Consortium® | Individuals, Institutions and Organizations Committed to Quality Online Education. Babson Survey Research Group Babson College, 2011. Web. 07 Dec. 2011. <http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/going_distance_2011>.

Bunge, Nancy. “Why I No Longer Teach Online.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 11th ser. 11 (2011): B36. Print.

Isaacson, Walter. “Chapter 49.” Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011. Print. Audio Book

Isaacson, Walter. “Chapter 51.” Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011. Print. Audio Book

Isaacson, Walter. “Chapter 52.” Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011. Print. Audio Book

Isaacson, Walter. “Chapter 54.” Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011. Print. Audio Book

Kelderman, Eric. “Oversight on the Rise.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 11th ser. Nov (2011): B4-B5. Print.

Mendenhall, Robert W. “How Technology Can Improve Online Learning – and Learning in General.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 11th ser. 11 (2011): B23-25. Print.

Mims, J. “The Term “Digital Natives” – OwnLocal.com.” Own Local – A Newspaper & Local Market Software Company. Web. 07 Dec. 2011. <http://ownlocal.com/newspaper-support-group/the-term-digital-natives/>.

Parry, Marc. “Online-Course Enrollments Grow, but at a Slower Pace. Is a Plateau Approaching? – Wired Campus – The Chronicle of Higher Education.” Home – The Chronicle of Higher Education. 9 Nov. 2011. Web. 07 Dec. 2011. <http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/online-course-enrollments-grow-but-at-a-slower-pace-is-a-plateau-approaching/34150>.

Parry, Marc. “Preventing Online Dropouts: Does Anything Work?” Wired Campus. The Chronicles of Higher Education, 22 Sept. 2010. Web. 7 Dec. 2011. <http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/preventing-online-dropouts-does-anything-work/27108>

Prensky, Mark. “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.” On the Horizon 9.5 (2001): 1-6. Print.

Prensky, Mark. “Digital Natives Digital Immigrants, Part II: Do They Really Think Differently?” On the Horizon 9.6 (2001): 1-9. 2001. Web. 5 Dec. 2011. <http://www.rtmsd.org/744112551813560/lib/744112551813560/Prensky_-_Digital_Natives,_Digital_Immigrants_-_Part2.pdf, p. 1%u20139.>.

Prensky, Mark. “H. Sapiens Digital: From Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom.” Journal of Online Education (2009): 5. Web.

Rich Rice. Texas Tech University PhD. Program. Web. 5 Dec. 2011. <http://www.english.ttu.edu/tcr/Media_Files/rice.mp3>. Podcast introducing Dr. Rice to explain his research interests.

“The Blackboard.” Web page. MEAPA. http://meapa.com/toolbox/the-blackboard/. 5 Dec. 2011. Web.

*Steve Jobs often used this phrase when he was introducing the iPod, iPad, the iPhone, and other innovations. He always saved the best for last and introduced it by saying, “And one more thing . . .”

by Lisa Russell
Posted on February 15, 2012July 4, 2019
Leave a comment on And One More Thing . . .

Online Instruction: What would Steve Jobs Do?

I got this in my email today: Russell_Lisa (1). In case you do not click, it is my certification to teach online through Quality Matter standards. I am not sure I will use this, but it was nice to see this come to my mail after a particularly difficulty two weeks both professionally and physically. Whether I am ever able to put this training to work or not, I am a committed evangelist for online instruction – distance learning as some call it.

The following are a series of blogs on my thoughts about distance learning:

Distance Education: What Would Jobs Do?

“All books, learning materials and assessments should be digital and interactive tailored to each student and provide feedback in real time.” Steve Jobs told President Barak Obama in an airport meeting. After Jobs told President Obama that he was headed for a one-term presidency, he laid out his view of how education must change (Isaacson, Ch 51). Jobs was struggling with the cancer that would end his life in early October 2012, while plodding his next conquest.

Jobs wanted to, “ . . .disrupt the textbook industry and save the spines of spavin students bearing the backpacks by creating electronic text and curriculum materials for iPad” (Isaacson, Ch. 51). He was not alone. Bill Gates visited his old rival Jobs one last time in 2011. The

wealthy and prematurely retired innovators looked back over their asynchronous success with a longing to do more for education. Gates agreed with Jobs when he said, “Computers have made surprisingly little impact on schools unlike other industries like media, medicine and the law. For that to change, computers and mobile devices will have to focus on delivering more personal lessons and provide motivational feedback” (Isaacson, Ch. 51).

Given time, I wonder if Steve Jobs might have had the same effect on higher education and distance learning as he had on the music industry and mobile phones? What innovation would have displaced the misconceptions of distance education? Considering how Jobs’ unsettling genius remodeled the movie, music, media, and mobile industries, what would Jobs do with online learning?

While there are concerns about distance education, we do not want to miss the potential and possibilities. Beyond the myths and the fallacies fueled by regulation and hubris from the academe, there is a new frontier emerging in higher education. We are standing at the crossroads of the humanities and the digital.

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Works Cited