Failing Gloriously At ASOR
I am currently at the American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR) conference in Boston for the next few days. I presented on my experience using Obsidian.md as a digital archaeological tool for the classroom. I would like to say the talk went well, but...
Before I go into what failed, let me tell you about what was suppose to happen. As those of you who actually read this blog know, I am a staunch advocate for Obsidian.md as a tool for personal knowledge management and a tool for various forms of academic research. In the fall of 2023, I used Obsidian for my Digital History class. The objective was to promote Generous Thinking and collaborative processes in the classroom. Furthermore, I believe Obsidian is an excellent medium to promote digital literacy. This is because of its simplicity in functionality as a simple text editor. Because the program uses markdown language, a plain text format that any computer can read, making notes in essence future proof (See Obsidian.md), my hope was that students who were not digitally literate (whatever that means?) could ease into the markdown basics; [[]] for wiki links, # for tags ## for headers and so on and so on. Some students excelled while others struggled but overall, it was well received. The students who excelled...excelled. Implementing well structured Notes linked with others through wikis and tags, while others deployed Javascript and created beautiful mindmaps with the Canvas plugin. By the end of the term, students were connecting their notes, creating knowledge and meaning making in a collaborative digital ecosystem that promoted Generous Thinking. Successes!
For ASOR, I wanted to showcase the programs potential. I prepared the presentation using Canva, an online and free web-based program for creating visual presentations, webpage graphics, etc. The presentation looked great and I was excited to present on this topic. There is an untapped pedagogical opportunity for deploying Obsidian in the classroom that I believe can promote a form of academic community between professors and students many analog and digital tools do not have. One of these opportunities is overcoming failure, specifically tech failure - when a digital tool just does not do what you want it to do. This little failure gremlin poked out its head in a significant way yesterday.
As I walked up during my introduction, nerves started to set and the gremlin decided to make its first appearance by not allowing the presenter screen (where all of my notes were) to be displayed on the computer alongside the main presentation. I should say I did run the program multiple times throughout the day and everything was working seamlessly. So, in the interest of time, I decided to "wing it". I am not sure if there was a collective gasp or shudder when I made this known. Enter Gremlin number two.
Gremlins basking in their well executed work
Click the Button to See my Presentation
As I started to "wing it" the slides began to glitch. As I hit the arrow to move to the next slide, they either did not change or changed too much, jumping around all over the place and throwing off my groove! And since the gremlin needed more chaos, it decided to penetrate into my pre-recorded videos that demonstrated how Obsidian works. These videos were meant to demonstrate the key functionality of Obsidian while demonstrating the amazing work my students performed. Videos either did not play or played at such a slow rate it would be an hour before anyone saw how to make a wiki [[]] link. By the end, thoroughly devastated, defeated and exhausted, the gremlin had won...or did it?
As Generous Thinking and Failing Gloriously were key tenants for the course, indeed the presentation, I demonstrated the very lessons that I discussed in the classroom. TECH FAILS. HUMANS FAIL. GREMLINS EXIST. This disaster in itself is a wonderful lesson on how generosity and failing in such epic style can co-exist and, in fact, is not necessarily a failure overall. The audience were understanding and supportive, accepting and sympathetic. The presentation's central themes were disseminated and received in a very experiential learning sort of way. I practiced what I preached. Tech failure happens, but the presentation was not an overall failure, but a pedagogical lesson on how shit happens, and being open, transparent and accepting that things are out of your control at times is just life. Many have come up to me and said how I handled the situation with grace, humility and comedic entertainment. I made people laugh while introducing a program to them many did not know existed and now can explore for their own possible pedagogical use. I navigated the debacle these digital gremlins handed to me. Even just now, as I have my coffee, an audience member showed her appreciation on how I incorporated the tech failure into the central themes of the presentation and how Failing in the classroom is not end. Indeed, its liberating for students. It gives students the opportunity to explore and navigate history in a critical way that is not beholden to traditional academia. Knowledge is produce in all forms and manners. Exploring new digital tools while teaching (and presenting) the ancient world is bound to break. So in the end, as my supervisor noted in his book Failing Gloriously "To fail gloriously is to use the privileges that you have, as you are able, to make it safe for others to fail" (Graham, 2019: 3). I believe I have accomplished the latter.