Walt Whitman Archive

It is very interesting how this article tackles some issues in “Looking For Whitman: A Multi-Campus Experiment in Digital Pedagogy”; I feel it is an extension for it. First, this article starts with touching on the idea that fossil minds always resist change, especially the change that leads to development and growth, which are necessary to humankind’s prosperity. The history is full of examples of intelligent creatives and discoverers whose ideas and innovations were severely resisted. Ironically, the coming years reveal their exceptional potentialities, and then they are classified as premature because their ideas become authentic and valid even over the following century.

“The Walt Whitman Archive” is a good website that provides a collection of poems with commentaries on them. It can be considered as a good start for education if an educator considers this poet in his/ her syllabus. Whitman has an educational background besides being a poet. Whitman ideas about innovating were seen as unsuitable and did not fit educational positions initially; however, they seem valid after awhile. Digital humanities and recent pedagogy are somehow extensions to such innovations that took place early. It is true that the introduction of a computer inside a classroom was something new that received different reactions, including the fear of approaching technology or the optimism to engage that in education. With the passing of time, using computers and technology become vital components inside classrooms that their use cannot be avoided and becomes an integral part of the educational process. Some of the modernity in education has its roots in the past, and it is considered as an extension to pedagogues’ premature ideologies regarding novelty in education. Today, classrooms members do not need to exist in the same place, there are many programs that connects students with educators while they are away. Digital humanities creates virtual environment through tools and digitals media. Students interact with each other through many activities that universities websites provide. “Looking for Whitman” becomes a pedagogy today, in which educators look for “open education” that is not framed through dull routine. Students learn through fun activities better than many traditional ways. The online learning is part of that activities and part of that fun where students learn at their own pace if limitations and restrictions do not accompany their tasks. “Looking for Whitman” has a great significance to education nowadays, and it seems as if it becomes as a symbol for applying critical pedagogies inside classrooms, exploiting any possible technology to achieve lessons’ goals.