Digital Pedagogy Lab (DPL) is a series of professional development events at University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA. Open to teachers, students, librarians, administrators, and technologists looking to explore the role and application of technology in education.
DPL has been at sites around the world including University of Wisconsin-Madison, American University in Cairo, University of Prince Edward Island, and Kwantlen University in Vancouver. Our annual 5-day Institute is currently being held each year at University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. DPL was launched in 2012 by Jesse Stommel and Sean Michael Morris. The first on-ground institute was held at University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2015. DPL has been featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed., PC Magazine, HASTAC, Edtech Magazine, Hack Education, Cathy Davidson’s recent book The New Education, and more. We have welcomed an international group of renowned keynotes and instructors, including Cathy Davidson, Tressie McMillan Cottom, Audrey Watters, and Sara Goldrick-Rab.
The hardest work of Digital Pedagogy is that of dialogue — between teachers and learners, between learners and learners, and between teachers, learners, and the digital tools they use.
Starting in 2016, DPL began a conversation with University of Mary Washington with the goal of having the main Institute housed every year on campus. The first UMW event was held in August 2016. Now, DPL is a DTLT staple and will be held at UMW once during the year. DPL provides the opportunity for UMW faculty to collaborate with a growing international network of teachers and technologists.
The work of Digital Pedagogy Lab helps advance UMW’s focus on the Digital Liberal Arts. The tracks of the institute are focused less on the hows of teaching with technology and more on the whens, whys, and whethers. The event helps UMW faculty and staff engage in a discussion of how the liberal arts find themselves inflected ethically within edtech, initiatives like Domain of One’s Own, fully online learning, and non-traditional education. DPL helps UMW grow in these areas while continuing to integrate the core values of the liberal arts. This is what makes UMW’s (and Digital Pedagogy Lab’s) approach to technology distinctive.
