This Academy is founded on the wisdom of the crowd, as the program should get opinions from and find consensus among many stakeholders.
Surowiecki found four characteristics that make a crowd wiser than an individual: diversity (group members come to the
project with their own areas of knowledge or expertise), independence (each person’s opinions are formed apart from
those also in the group), decentralization (group members are able to draw on individual, local knowledge rather than
one person dictating the group’s direction), and aggregation (the group must have a way of creating one decision, plan,
or opinion; p. 10). (4)
In the Academy, it is important to start with the pedagogy – the principles, goals, and objectives – of the course before thinking about the technology teachers will use. Also, it’s important to think about the design of the actual digital space, ensuring that it matches the goals of the course and the pedagogy of the teacher. A Hybrid Academy must individualize the program from each discipline’s needs. The Academy must also have teacher buy-ins.
Seasoned teachers of writing rarely have the opportunity to reconsider so completely their pedagogical assumptions, their teaching styles, and the effects these may or may not have on students. Participating in a Hybrid Academy where the
training does not simply facilitate or replicate current teaching practices, but provides the valuable opportunity for
instructors to experiment with and improve their pedagogies enables instructors to become aware of pedagogy in a way
that does not often occur in typical training workshops” (16).
Other incentives like course releases, extra technology and so on may be offered as well.
Sustainability and Culture of Use
The authors argue, “A cutting-edge mentality, while useful and necessary for a transitional period of time, has on the whole failed to drive the massive shift needed to affect a sustainable technological culture of use in our classes and on our campuses” (1). Instead, “[s]ustainability depends not only on the success of the early adopters, but also on the strength of the culture of use across campus” (8). A culture of use is an “environment in which the ongoing criticism and revision of technological tools and/or concepts moves toward a gradual deeper overall acceptance (5). This culture “involves more than a cool new gadget and its end user; it also involves a network of people (designers, marketers, developers, etc.), the context of use (the “need”), and the culture (the “want”; van der Veer, 2006)” (7).