Hacking Together A Class On Medium
Great. We got Medium up and running. Now what can we do as teachers to leverage this platform/network/kitchen appliance/writing space? How can @medium help our learners?
I have been thinking about this issue since I ran a session on teaching with Medium at an unconference I organized with W. Ian O'Byrne back in 2013. Interesting enough it was attended by only one teacher Paul Bogush. The rest of the attendees were K-12 students. They wanted to be where the writers were.
That has always been the power of Medium. A force I want to share with young authors.
So as a follow up to W. Ian O'Byrne’s excellent post on getting started with Medium I decided to do a post on teaching with Medium.
It is almost a near perfect place for a federated classroom (by near perfect I mean one I would almost hate the least). I have been watching other teachers such as Sara Goldrick-Rab use Medium for her classes and have thought about all of our efforts to teach in the open.
Using Medium as a class allows students to own their content, export material when class is over, and choose how to license materials. Now with the release of the publication API students can now syndicate from somewhere they own on the Web and publish here.
In other words you can create a classroom that empowers users rather than serving just institutional needs. I believe, at least my style of instructional design, that a good online classroom contains four components:
- Class Hub: The place where links to all of your content are hosted. Usually organized in units or modules.
- Stream: A firehose of class activity that students can follow.
- Control Panel: More of a management tool. Somewhere that organizes posts by topic or due date.
- Portfolio: A place for students to publish their pride.
You can hack together this classroom on Medium by leveraging the affordances of tags and publications.
Class Hub
For my class hubs I simplify. I have a landing page, an about this class page, and links to the syllabus or other course locations on the Web (such as Medium publications).
I usually organize classes into modules and have a launch page for each module. If you are teaching with Medium create one story for each module.
I keep the pages brief with predictable text structure. Usually my module pages have:
- Intro video 2–5 minutes reviewing key details and vocabulary. Ham it up to keep em interested.
- Reading section with links to articles, videos and posts
- Learning activities list of tasks that need to completed. I link to a tutorial page for each activity.
To make this in Medium as I said, make each module its own story. Then write a story for the other “pages” you want to include in the hub. Next create a publication.
When you create a publication in Medium you can add multiple sections. Make an Intro section and then one section for each module.
You can then add storied to this Publication using tags. Medium allows for three tags. Use one for your class #edu106 for example, and then one for the section of the hub such as #IntroHub or #module1(note pound sign not necessary for tags, just for illustrative purposes).
Only you as a teacher need access to this publication. Just make sure all of your students follow the class hub. You can of course, and I encourage this, have students create their own modules. If this occurs just add students as authors for the publication.
Stream
A class stream captures all of the activity. You want every published story, comment, and response to appear. It is the firehose.
To create a Stream make a new publication and then set it up.
First make the publication have only one section. A blank publication has a default setting of two sections. Delete the bottom section. You do this by hitting the trash can.
Then maximize the number of stories in your remaining section. Medium allows a 25. Make sure you stay with the Stream view. Set the stories to be organized by a tag. Use a class tag such as #edu106.
Then as students publish stories on Medium they would add it to the “Class Stream” publication and make sure to add the class tag when they publish.
This is where things could, and will go wrong. Creating a class Stream requires your students to complete two steps: tagging and adding to publication. Failure at either step would cause an orpahned story.
I am not even sure the class Stream publication is needed. You can search Medium for tags. So if everyone in class remembered to include the generic class tag in every story, response, or annotation it will display in the tag stream.
Humans will consistently suck at tagging even if they do not have to add to publication some of the stream will be lost. The only sure fire way to create a successful classroom stream would be to use RSS and add every single student.
Control Panel
Another feature I add to open and federated classroom is the control panel. This is a place that organizes submissions around assignments. It would include the major submissions by students and not their inline comments or short responses.
To create the control panel we will once again turn to tagging and publications. Create a publication. Invite every student as an author.
Medium allows an author to add three tags. It auto suggests two tags. We are already using one tag to add to the Class Stream. We will use another tag to add a story to the control panel.
First make a third publication. Call it the Control Panel, or whatever you want really. Set up one section for each of your modules. Then on each of your module pages make it very explicit what tag students should use.
So for example I would create a tag such as blogpost1. I would then organize my Publication with sections for: blogpost1, reflection1, blogpost2, etc. Then when students publish a story on Medium. They will now add a tag for the class strea, #edu106, and a tag for the assignment: #blogpost1.
Throughout the module remember to remind students of the correct tags and publication. Then remember to tell students what publication and tag to use.
Portfolio
The portfolio is the last piece of the puzzle. In many of my classes stduents can create their own final, have to submit a portfolio, or show evidence of revision. Its usually all three actually.
I recently used Medium as a portfolio and found the affordances of the tool useful in telling my story.
To create a portfolio we will take advantage of the final third tag allowed in Medium. Students just need to first map out what sections to include in the module. I recommend some paper prototyping here (rarely do I not recommend paper prototyping).
Once students have settled on their sections they can choose a tag for each section. For example I used ptbinder, ptteaching, ptcreativity, ptservice, and pddevelopment. Just have them choose a system that makes sense to them and reduces inferential reasoning for any potential audience.
I might suggest adding a backstage or revision section. Students can publish their show pieces “above the fold” and include the back story of how they got to that point or track major revisions the made through the learning and writing process.
Looking Forward
I have never used Medium as a hub for an open and federated classroom. It seems though that the values, especially with the write API, and the features of Medium, such as tags and publications, make this possible.
If anyone wants to experiment let me know. I am always looking to play with toys.
