The Office of Open Learning is launching a new Book Club to discuss critical issues in online, open, and technology-enabled teaching and learning.

These are flexible, informal gatherings intended to bring together members of the UWindsor community to have conversations that advance the pedagogy of online and blended teaching and learning, while discussing books by leading thinkers in the field. Wherever possible, these books will be free and openly licenced.

The first book selected to discuss is An Urgency of Teachers: the work of Critical Digital Pedagogy by Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel. This collection of essays explores the authors’ work in and the trends, techniques, hopes, fears, and possibilities of digital pedagogy. In the age of artificial intelligence and machines, the authors posit that pedagogy, specifically critical digital pedagogy, is the lever for change. They urge us to put humans at the centre of our educational practices; indeed, to put care and justice for humans at the fore of our institutions and our ideologies.

“You can join the conversation on campus or online,” says organizer Nobuko Fujita. “We will be using the Hypothes.is tool to annotate the web version of the book. While we have a private group for the Book Club, you can also choose to annotate privately or publicly.”

Dr. Fujita encourages the campus community to join the group in the Leddy Library, participate in the conversation asynchronously online using Hypothesis, or choose a combination of the face-to-face and online modes that is meaningful to them.

The first session is scheduled for noon to 1 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 18, in the library’s first-floor room 1101. Register at https://ctl2.uwindsor.ca/openlearning/workshops/9/#wkshp-105.

For more information, contact Fujita by email nfujita@uwindsor.ca, or phone at 519-253-3000, ext. 2105.