about

About This Wiki
The podcast series is a project that I worked on with **[|Dr. Norbert Elliot]**, Professor of English at NJIT. Norbert had given a presentation for the [|NJEDge.Net DLAAB group] called "The End of the Essay: Writing in a Mediated Environment." I thought it was something he should develop into a book, but he was already deep into another book project.

A month later, I did an interview with him for [|NJIT on iTunes U] about some of the ideas in that presentation. We both received some feedback from that (positive and negative), so I suggested that he turn the topic into a podcast series.

Norbert had been one of our earliest podcasting professors. His two world literature courses are offered in our iTunes U "Open Courseware" area and are two of our most downloaded podcasts.

We decided that we'd like this series to be more than just a podcast though. Something I had not seen in iTunes U were podcasts (courses or otherwise) that were interactive in any way. Podcast 1.0 rather than 2.0. You download the podcast, listen and then... what?

I created this wiki in the hope of starting a kind of interactive podcast series. Our goal is to invite discussion on the strengths and limits of education's dominant reporting structure - the essay - and we hope that you might join the conversation here online.

Since we started in fall 2007, I have moved from working in instructional technology at NJIT to [|Passaic County Community College] as the director of writing. In my new position, the essay plays an even greater role, so this topic is still of great interest to me.

I have written more about this podcast project on my blog, Serendipity35.