NARRATIVE
Rationale
The
Institute for Research in African American Studies (IRAAS) and the Columbia
Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL), two of Columbia
University’s research and development groups, have formed a partnership to
produce and disseminate a web-based Multimedia Study Environment (MSE) focusing
on The Autobiography of Malcolm X, published posthumously in 1965. IRAAS
(http://www.columbia.edu/cu/iraas) and CCNMTL (http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/) bring to this project a combined
expertise and experience that ensures its successful completion, dissemination,
and evaluation. IRAAS, with its staff of 25 scholar-teachers and researchers,
provides rigorous scholarship and historical insight, while CCNMTL, with its 60
programmers, designers, education technologists, and research and development
staff, has expertise in knowledge architecture, interface and pedagogical
design, and web-based delivery systems that will support the creation of a
critical study of this highly influential and significant historical work. (See
Appendices A and B.)
The goal of the IRAAS and CCNMTL partnership is to extend
Columbia University’s purposeful use of digital media in the teaching,
learning, and study of the humanities. In the past few years, CCNMTL has
pioneered the development of various Multimedia Study Environments intended to
serve both the classroom and the online learner. Taking the position that
genuine learning and study are achieved by combining the constancy of a core
text as a “spine” with relevant multimedia resources linked to that spine,
CCNMTL's MSE projects attempt to harness the power of the Internet without
falling prey to the distractions inherent in much web-based production. The
primary goal of this joint project is to provide a teaching and learning
environment that will enhance the understanding and appreciation of The
Autobiography of Malcolm X, a significant work of the contemporary
educational canon. (See Appendices C and D.)
IRAAS and CCNMTL have assembled a team of qualified scholars, researchers, programmers, and designers to explore the life and legacy of Malcolm X and measure the impact of his ideas and actions on American politics and culture at large. (See Appendix E.) In partnership with the Shabazz family and Columbia University, IRAAS is establishing and will maintain the first comprehensive archive of Malcolm X’s correspondence, speeches, interviews, and audio and video recordings as well subsidiary documents and records garnered from family, friends, and colleagues that are germane to his life and legacy. The MSE version of The Autobiography of Malcolm X will tap into this enormous store of resources.
The proposed MSE will be second in a line of educational experiences, developed through the collaboration of IRAAS and CCNMTL. An e-seminar entitled “Malcolm X: Life after Death” (http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/ecourse/0402) has already been produced.
In fact, the proposed MSE is part of a larger Malcolm X Project that consists of nine distinct, but interrelated components:
Malcolm X, or El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, had been a prominent public figure for less than a decade when he was assassinated on 21 February 1965 at the Audubon Ball Room in Manhattan at the age of 39. Malcolm X had formerly been the National Spokesperson of the Nation of Islam, a conservative Muslim sect that had exerted little influence on mainstream American life before Malcolm X's involvement. Malcolm’s new civil rights group, based in Harlem, The Organization of Afro-American Unity, had existed barely a year and could boast of only several hundred members and supporters at the time of the assassination. Published within a year after his death, The Autobiography of Malcolm X was written with the assistance of journalist Alex Haley, and is now widely recognized as an American classic. The Autobiography is a remarkable narrative about the complex journey of a man caught in the currents and countercurrents of American life from his birth in 1929 until his untimely death. His search for self-knowledge and his crusade to bring freedom and dignity to people of color are celebrated in this work. The quest of an African American looking for a religious foundation in Islam described in the book is of great moment for American culture owing to recent tragic events in New York City and Washington D.C.
Within a generation after his assassination, the image and reputation of Malcolm X had been profoundly transformed and his legacy of leadership in the civil rights movement confirmed. Most historians of the black experience now consider Malcolm X among the most influential personalities in African American history, joining the ranks of such figures as Frederick Douglas, Booker T. Washington, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey and, of course, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Like these men, Malcolm X has become a genuine cultural icon for millions of African Americans as well as many others throughout the world especially since the early 1990s.
Although Malcolm X’s story is deeply rooted in the unique cultural and historical terrain of the black experience, its appeal transcends boundaries of race, class, and language. Soon after its publication in November 1965, The Autobiography became a bestseller. Over the next 35 years, it sold over three million copies. Collections of Malcolm X's speeches and writings were published subsequently, including Malcolm X Speaks (1965), The End of White World Supremacy (1971), and The Final Speeches (1992); but none of these works attained the phenomenal popularity of The Autobiography. In 1999, Time magazine named The Autobiography of Malcolm X as one of the ten most influential works of non-fiction written in the twentieth century.
Because of the existence of a rich set of resources that can illuminate its meaning, The Autobiography of Malcolm X is especially suited for development as one of CCNMTL’s Multimedia Study Environments (MSE). The media elements that can be associated with The Autobiography are not mere appendages of the text, but genuine, meaningful extensions of the core text that provide students sundry study options in a range of disciplines: history, cultural studies, political science, religion, literature, economics, and philosophy.
The Center’s first MSE was designed to expand and enhance students’ learning experiences with a singularly important and complex text, namely Frederick Jameson’s “Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism (1984)” (http://www.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/jameson). Within an enriched digital environment, complete with film and audio clips, original annotations, artistic images, and active web links, the new media treatment of this seminal article became the archetype from which a number of other MSEs have been made. Rigorous, knowledge-based digital presentations of significant works allow students to maintain simultaneously a focus on the core text while easily accessing related primary and secondary materials. The architecture allows students more time to engage in analysis, interpretation and production of their own work. Other CCNMTL Multimedia Study Environments include, among others:
· Shakespeare’s The Tragedie of King Lear (http://www.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/lear/)
· Saint Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine (http://www.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/augustine/)
· W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk (http://www.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/dubois/)
· Arthur Danto’s “The Artworld” (http://www.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/danto/index.html)
Each successive project has allowed CCNMTL content researchers, designers and technical developers to enhance the pedagogical utility of the MSE. The Autobiography of Malcolm X will represent the most ambitious MSE undertaking to date.
The basic concept of the MSE represents a commitment to student-directed learning. The intention is to foster a fundamental change in teaching and learning by providing students a wealth of carefully selected study resources that amplify the power of the selected work. The goal is to provide students with extended and powerful resources related to a specific work in an accessible architecture ubiquitously available on the Internet. Accordingly, the MSE version of The Autobiography of Malcolm X will eliminate the distance between the core text and the living presence of historical actors by presenting them in a variety of media, including audio and archival film footage, as well as specially produced interviews. This use of video commentary by four Columbia University professors that forms an important part of the presentation has been successfully employed in the MSE version of W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk (for which see http://www.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/dubois/, paragraph 74).
The MSE version of The Autobiography will provide teachers with a range of disciplinary options for approaching the text through alternative thematic points of access--politics or religion, for example--and media enhancements that bring a reader into direct contact with the core text and its concepts (for which see http://www.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/danto/index.html, paragraph 3, information gloss icon). The MSE version of The Autobiography will promote the notion that at all levels young scholars and their teachers can have equal access to the wealth of materials needed to understanding the work at many levels of detail and depth. The idea has been employed in earlier projects using the MSE. For example, the MSE version of Saint Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine allows students to understand better the complexity of the world of Late Antiquity through research annotations and links (for which see http://www.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/augustine/, paragraph 117, "Eusebius" annotation). With its multiple perspectives, or multi-lens approach, the MSE version of The Autobiography will promote interdisciplinary learning that extends the student’s understanding of significant complex historical and cultural phenomena. The principle is illustrated in Todd Gitlin’s “Television's Screens: Hegemony in Transition," where political and media theory are juxtaposed to enhance the user's understanding of the nature of popular culture (for which see http://www.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/gitlin/, paragraph 2). Furthermore, the MSE version of The Autobiography, in conjunction with a newly developed study tool known as the Columbia University Analyzer, will demonstrate an effort to combine generic cognitive tools that allow the student to capture and analyze selected data with the focused publishing protocol of the MSE platform. (For a description and demonstration of the Analyzer as a powerful pedagogical tool, see http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/cuanalyzer/cuademo.ram.) In summary, the MSE is intended to harness the power of distributed learning and scholarship in the interests of focused study for a wide range of student users to provide them with the experience of authentic research in a meaningful academic context.
A complex work that demands an informed, critical reading, The Autobiography of Malcolm X is a significant historical source whose meaning can be considerably enhanced within the MSE. There is no question that the possibility of extending knowledge of the work and the man still exists. Although Alex Haley presented in the book new dimensions of a prominent black leader’s personality and political transformation, the fact that the book is structured as a personal account means that Malcolm X as an historical figure is not placed in the critical socioeconomic and political contexts that gave birth to his ideas. Given the inherent selectivity of historical memory, autobiography presents special problems when used as an historical source. Malcolm X had met Alex Haley in the early 1960s, when Haley was writing for Playboy. He successfully approached Malcolm for an interview, which was eventually published in the magazine. Some people have said that Malcolm's motivation in accepting the interview was to show his loyalty and fidelity to Elijah Muhammad, for by that time tensions existed within the Nation of Islam. Many of Mr. Muhammed's followers had become suspicious of Malcolm X's prominence and his national exposure, and felt that Malcolm X should be removed as the national spokesperson for the NOI.
After the initial interview, Haley and Malcolm X decided to coauthor The Autobiography. Haley collected material for the work in a series of about fifty interviews taking place over several years. At the beginning of the process, Malcolm’s purpose seems to have been to cast himself as a person who had been degraded and then transformed through the intervention of the saintly Elijah Muhammad. But by 1963 and 1964, Malcolm, and his story, began to change. Although an excellent journalist, Haley was not an historian of the black experience. Thus, in telling the story of Malcolm X, he tended to focus on personality rather than on the complex conditions under which Malcolm expanded his vision and thought or on the context in which what began as a philosophy of separatism and hate became a creed of ecumenicalism.
As noted earlier, IRAAS is currently engaged in a multifaceted program to examine critically the life and times of this central figure in American history. An investigation and analysis of The Autobiography constitutes a major part of this larger project. A more comprehensive treatment and analysis of The Autobiography is now possible owing in part to the fact that the National Archives in Washington D.C. has recently made available over 19,000 pages of documents derived from FBI’s illegal surveillance of Malcolm X. These newly declassified documents, which will help considerably in the historical reconstruction of his life, include copies of official letters and personal correspondences sent through the U.S. Postal service as well as transcripts of tape recordings of Malcolm X's private and public meetings and conversations. Although The Autobiography is a wonderful introduction to the life of an extraordinary human being, it must be situated within this broader range of resources now available so the larger biography of Malcolm X may emerge.
IRASS and CCNMTL will produce and disseminate a multimedia, web-based edition of The Autobiography of Malcolm X that incorporates four distinct, yet interrelated perspectives, or “lenses.” (See Appendix F.) From the vantage points of (1) Politics and Black Nationalism, (2) African American Culture and Youth Subcultures, (3) Internationalism, Third-World Socialism and Pan-Africanism, and (4) Black Religion, Christianity, and Islam, scholars and researchers will provide and assemble materials that will constitute the MSE version of The Autobiography. CCNMTL and IRAAS have already determined salient educational objectives that are served by available digital technologies. (See Appendix G.) User profiles, which are used to determine functionality, navigational schemes, and reading/comprehension levels, have been established. With funding secured from Columbia University, CCNMTL and IRAAS have begun the first phase of MSE construction, which includes the knowledge and navigation architectures, interface design, and research and development of one lens--that is, Politics and Black Nationalism.
We are seeking support from the National Endowment for the
Humanities for the research, design, technical execution, and dissemination of
two additional lenses--namely, African American Culture and Youth Subcultures and
Black Religion, Christianity, and Islam. These are highly important to current
discourse in the United States and throughout the world. Since it is trenchantly clear that popular
culture is a global phenomenon and that Islam is as well--particularly given
the present moment--IRAAS and CCNMTL will start with the creation of these two
lenses in mid 2002. The development of these two lenses will contribute to and
serve as a catalyst for the fourth lens, Internationalism, Third-World
Socialism and Pan-Africanism, which will be built in the following year. When
completed, the MSE version of The Autobiography of Malcolm X will act as
a comprehensive case study of many salient themes of the twentieth century. Because this MSE is part of a much
larger collaborative enterprise being undertaken by IRAAS and CCNMTL, many
elements of this project overlap with others germane to the Malcolm X Project
and the general daily operations of IRAAS and CCNMTL.
The MSE platform for The Autobiography
is designed for specific user groups based on established user profiles. Age,
educational level, and familiarity with the subject as well as technical
connectivity and levels of computer literacy have been considered. The intended
audience is middle or high school through college/university students who want
to learn more about Malcolm X’s political and historical significance and
influence--whether or not The Autobiography is “required reading.”
Teachers will be given access to curricula relevant to the MSE version of The
Autobiography of Malcolm X. At the same time, it should be recognized that
the structure of the MSE version of The Autobiography is intended to
serve as a vehicle for faculty to develop their own curricular approaches that
will be nurtured and supported by CCNMTL and IRAAS.
The MSE concept is continually evolving, and
as with earlier iterations of CCNMTL’s multimedia study environments, The
Autobiography will incorporate innovations. (See Appendix H.) In
addition having access to the scholarly resources provided by IRAAS
professionals, student users will be able to add their own comments to those of
mature scholars. A "user annotation" function will allow
students to mark or 'dog-ear' pages, record impressions of specific
paragraphs from the core text, or comment on scholarly references to the
text and new media assets. Students will also be able to print a their comments
and store them for ready access whenever they open the MSE version of The
Autobiography. The goal is to encourage a wider range of commentary and to
increase the MSE’s capacity to foster the development of a digital learning
community focused on The Autobiography. To support the continued growth
of this digital learning community, The Autobiography of Malcolm X will
be accompanied by a homepage and Digital Community Center to meet additional
needs of users--many of whom will arrive at the site via educational partners,
such as the New York City Public Schools. Some of the special features of the
Digital Community Center include:
·
Teacher's curriculum
guides;
· Independent user's guide;
·
Community and
scholarly message boards;
·
Supplemental
offerings, such as “How to Buy a Computer on a Budget” and “How to Choose
an ISP in your neighborhood” and “Community Colleges in Your Area Offering
Courses on Malcolm X”;
·
Daily quotes
from the works of Malcolm X sent directly to users through Personal
Digital Assistant technology, such as the Palm Pilot;
·
Messages
from Professor Manning Marable on the progress of the IRAAS Malcolm X
Project.
Like some of the other Multimedia Study
Environments, The Autobiography of Malcolm X will be incorporated in the
online component of the core curriculum required of all Columbia University
undergraduates. This proposal has received the support of CCNMTL, IRAAS, the
Columbia University Libraries, and Office of the Provost as well as other
individuals and organizations external to the University. (See Appendix I.)
The MSE version of The Autobiography is a logical continuation
of the missions and past experiences of CCNMTL and IRAAS, both of which are
integrated, critical, and successful parts of Columbia University. Reporting directly to the Provost’s office,
CCNMTL is focused on the purposeful use of digital media and web-based technologies;
in the past three years, it has worked to develop a platform for the creation
of MSEs. CCNMTL was founded as a separate University entity to provide support
and advice to faculty using new media technologies; its core activities are
funded annually at $3,000,000, with institutional partnerships having been
established with both Columbia University Libraries' Academic Information
Systems and the Institute for Learning Technologies (of which CCNMTL's
executive director is the co-director). IRAAS is an academic research center at
Columbia University, fortuitously located near the heart of Harlem, the world's
most famous African American community. Established in 1993, the Institute
administers an undergraduate major and concentration in African American
Studies as well as a graduate program in African American Studies. IRAAS also
sponsors academic conferences, lectures, and forums on a wide variety of
topics, bringing together scholars, researchers, and representatives from the
public and private sectors. IRAAS is funded by grants and through the
University’s general operating budget. The larger Malcolm X Project is
supported, in part, by the Office of Strategic Initiatives of the Executive
Vice-Provost at Columbia University.
The following individuals will undertake the development of the MSE for The Autobiography of Malcolm X:
·
Dr. Manning Marable,
Professor of History and Political Science and Founding Director of the
Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University in
New York City, will provide overall direction and guidance for the development
and scope of the project’s content.
·
Cheryll Greene, Managing
Editor of Columbia University’s Malcolm X Project, will use her experience as
an editor and film producer to help guide content development for the
Multimedia Study Environment.
·
Zaheer Ali, Associate
Editor of the Malcolm X Project and Ph. D. candidate in History, and Regina
Bernard, Assistant Editor, will coordinate researchers’ efforts to collect MSE
assets.
· Dr. Frank Moretti, Executive Director of Columbia University’s Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, Columbia University, and Research Professor of Communications and Instructional Technologies and Co-director of the Institute for Learning Technologies, Teachers College, will be providing general oversight for the pedagogical and technical development of the MSE.
· David J. Frost, Project Manager, is responsible for managing the daily tasks of constructing the multimedia study environment and coordinating the content research of the IRAAS staff.
· Anders Pearson, Programmer, and Zarina Mustapha, Webmaster, will be responsible for creating the technical architecture and designing the digital environment and navigation schemes.
· Stephanie Ogden, Senior Digital Video Specialist, will film and digitize all special interviews and archival films.
· Robert McClintock, Co-Director, Institute for Learning Technologies, will orchestrate outreach efforts and initial user testing of The Autobiography through ILT’s Eiffel Project.
· Thomas Reeves, Professor of Education, University of Georgia, will direct efforts of full-scale evaluation of the MSE.
· Bill Tally, Center for Children and Technology, New York City, will assist in the evaluation of the MSE.
When completed, the MSE version of The Autobiography of Malcolm X Project will be disseminated widely. Among other dissemination efforts, Mark Gura, Director of the Office of Institutional Technology, NYC Board of Education, will provide necessary assistance in making this program available to New York City Public High Schools. Also, Katee Tully, Associate Dean, Borough of Manhattan Community College (CUNY), will help implement the use of the MSE.
IRAAS and CCNMTL, in concert with the Institute for Learning Technologies, plan to promote the site among community colleges, colleges, and universities as well as high schools in New York City and other urban areas around the United States. The Borough of Manhattan Community College, a member institution of the CUNY system, is already committed to using the MSE to extend higher educational opportunities to a diverse urban student population. Other strategic partners, including the New York City Board of Education and the Eiffel Project of the Institute for Learning Technologies, Teachers College, Columbia University, have committed themselves to the further dissemination of the MSE version of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
As the MSE develops, the Quality Assurance protocol of CCNMTL will be employed to guarantee a high standard of technical execution. Through the use of focus groups, CCNMTL's Director of Education will simultaneously be assessing alpha versions of MSE elements for pedagogical efficacy. Once the MSE is published, two forms of evaluation within Columbia University will be pursued. First, CCNMTL will employ its existing apparatus of graduate researchers and the combination of data from online and hardcopy questionnaires and qualitative descriptions of student use. (See Appendix J.) These efforts will be complemented by the work of an external evaluator, Dr. Thomas Reeves, University of Georgia, who will provide a detailed report based on explicit project goals. CCNMTL and IRAAS will also rely on Teachers College's Institute for Learning Technologies (http://www.ilt.columbia.edu), which possesses significant field experience in evaluation of digital technologies in schools, in tandem with The Center for Children and Technology (http://www.edc.org/CCT).
As an online multimedia study environment, The Autobiography of Malcolm X will be made available through the Internet. As such, the project establishes an online study space in which the original text, scholarly hypertext, and hypermedia and digital media are collected and organized. These materials will be available any time and anywhere Internet connectivity is available. Students and teachers will be able to access The Autobiography of Malcolm X through a secure we-based environment. Securing the site is necessary to protect its educational content.
The website will be complemented and supplemented by on-site and online support. A series of workshops held for teachers and students to consider viable curricular approaches to the material. At the workshops, instructors will develop various ideas, skills, and pedagogical strategies and work toward the implementation in their respective schools, colleges, and universities. Workshops will emphasize collaborative design, implementation, and assessment of the MSE version of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Once the MSE has been disseminated and follow-up research conducted on its use, CCNMTL will actively seek to share its findings in educational venues, such as the American Educational Research Association (AERA). After the period of the grant expires, CCNMTL and IRAAS will continue to support Columbia University’s Malcolm X Project as other components are implemented.