Teaching -- Learning -- Technology

In "Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites," danah boyd tries to answer the following questions:

Why do teenagers flock to these sites? What are they expressing on them? How do these sites fit into their lives? What are they learning from their participation? Are these online activities like face-to-face friendships – or are they different, or complementary?

She argues that social network sites "are a type of networked public with four properties that are not typically present in face-to-face public life: persistence, searchability, exact copyability, and invisible audiences."

She describes the rise of MySpace as a site first for musicians to promote their music, and then for their younger fans, mainly because of the "available social voyeurism and the opportunity to craft a personal representation in an increasingly popular online community."

She then turns to the main features of social network sites: profiles, friends, and comments, in order to demonstrate the ways in which teens express themselves, and communicate with others.

Social network sites, she explains, allow teens to work through issues of "impression management" (named by Erving Goffman) and "identity performance," without requiring physical interaction.

While confusing to adults, boyd concludes:

Social network sites have complicated our lives because they have made this rapid shift in public life very visible. Perhaps instead of trying to stop them or regulate usage, we should learn from what teens are experiencing? They are learning to navigate networked publics; it is in our better interest to figure out how to help them.

Perhaps our ePortfolio collection is a good place to begin.

Professor Bianco is a graduate of the PhD program in English at the CUNY Graduate Center, and while working at Queens College, conceived of (and implemented) the "Cyber Comp" model for teaching freshman composition. For these reasons, I was very interested to read her article, "Composing and Compositing: Integrated Digital Writing and Academic Pedagogy" (2007). 

Bianco encourages us to think of digital writing in general, and digital student writing in particular, in terms of a set of "practices of cross media movement." She cites Kathleen Yancey's definition of the "writing public" that has emerged as a result of the proliferation of online and/or technological outlets for writing, in order to ask how we, as teachers, might harness our students' familiarity with various technologies of writing for academic ends.

Bianco also questions composition courses, as a whole, because their emphasis on clarity, as theorized by Trinh Minh-ha, often results in the smoothing-away of complexity, nuance, and individual voice.  

In order to address these issues, as well as the "disjoint of writing inside and outside of the academy," Bianco proposes that composition assignments be reimagined so that they become capable of the "cross media movement" that she describes, allowing for the very things-- complexity, nuance, voice-- that "clarity" filters out.

She describes an assignment in which she required each student to make and maintain a personal web site. She did not specify which editing software students should use, or the format the sites should take. The range of results illustrated not only cross media movement, but also "rhetorical movement," a desired result in any composition class.

Later, when tasked with envisioning Cyber Comp at Queens, Bianco designed a curriculum that utlized digital platforms such as MySpace, instant and text messaging, blogs, wikis, web sites, etc, in order to pratice a range of personal, analytical, and research writing. Her conclusion: "Our students are collaborative and capable of collective knowledge making practices. They have yet to write a ‘paper’ and yet they have written well and written more than any other writing class."

"Finally," Bianco writes, "I will share my mantras, delivered at nearly all pedagogy development workshops: 1) if students write prolifically for fun or competition outside class then we can find a way to hack that sense of social pleasure for academic writing, and 2) if students know how to operate the hardware or navigate the software better than the teacher, take notes and let the student teach the class."

A valuable perspective, and relevant to all our work.

In December, a few months after rolling out our eportfolio system, I did a roundup of the sites that stood out. Well, another semester has come and (almost) gone, so I've decided to do it again.

A few of the sites that I mentioned from last semester have continued to grow. To wit:

The Greener Apple now has expanded editorial content, article summaries, and contributor info. It's a great example of how a site gains scholarly heft in accordance with increased content, and sustained (i.e. longer than one semester) student invovlement.

Along those lines, two course blogs also really took off. Both Professor Bernstein's Cultural Encounters blog, and Professor Saslow's Form, Content, Context are worth a return visit-- Prof. Bernstein's for the additional multimedia projects and related (online) commentary, and Prof. Saslow's as an example of a site that combines course management with scholarly discussion.

In addition, Professor Quinby's course blog for the Honors Thesis Colloquium is worth a look, as an example of how the blog format (and imputed "bloggy" writing style) can s academic assignments and personal posts. Compare, for instance, these thesis proposals with this personal reflection on the research process. 

But enough of the old!

Perhaps my most favorite new contribution to the Macaulay ePortfolio Collection is Away and Abroad, a site that aggregates posts from blogs of MHC students' studying abroad. In terms of variety of experience, profusion of content, and sheer enthusiasm, this site can't beat.

In terms of traditional eportfolios, to the extent that any of the MHC eportfolios can be called traditional, two eportfolios really stood out: Lindsey Freer's and Jeff Drouin's. Both make use of the range of features available to students-- or in this case, to ITFs (both Jeff and Lindsey are Instructional Technology Fellows here at MHC). Lindsey and Jeff's sites each incorporate blog posts, static pages, and traditional resume-type information (1, 2), in a way that takes full advantage of the writing-centric, linkable WordPress system.

In general, it seems that MHC students have taken longer to set up individual eportfolios. Here are a few eportfolios, still in development, that seem to be heading in interesting directions:

• Vadim's creative writing eportfolio
• Jocelyne's poster design eportfolio
• Eunice's music eportfolio and
• Abbey's art eportfolio

I also really like the trend of personal/professional fusion, which I hope to see more of in the future. For instance:

• Francico's Portfolio Test and
• Argent

which are each based on the blog format, but also contain resume-type information.

And a few final mentions:

This blog about the Obama Inauguration is a great read, and a testament to how the ease of creation of the WordPress Multi-User system leads to fascinating short-term projects.

Amy Lu's eportfolio, Semicolons and Full Stops, doesn't have any content yet, but her customized header is terrific.

And the following four eportfolios, also in progress, have compelling personal content. I look forward to watching them evolve:

• Jiayan: Life Life Without Regret
  
• Katie Alarcon: Art for Arts Sake
• Yuriy's Blog and
• Shanna Kofman
  

I'm sure I've missed some. Do you have any to contribute?

In researching for an article about the Macaulay ePortfolio Collection, I've been reading a lot of articles about what the business world thinks is important about Web 2.0 technologies. What's interesting is how these business types are struggling to pin down the "value"-- which, in this case, means economic (or related) value-- of the kinds of communication that Web 2.0 technologies, especially social and collaborative technologies, enable, and (long sentence, I know), how the field of Comp/Rhet can provide a lot of the answers to their questions and concerns. Consider this passage from a post from the FastForward blog, "Understanding the role of Enterprise 2.0 and moving towards a Social Business":

The result of this so far has been an incredible amount of progress in the thought behind the technical underpinnings of collaboration, but little real progress in understanding the effects of these same concepts on the larger organization and marketplace.

Now, I'm no Comp/Rhet expert, but hasn't the challenge in Comp/Rhet over the past however many years been the exact opposite? That is-- an incredible amount of attention to "understanding the effects" of collaboration, while lamenting the various, primarily technological obstacles that impede truly collaborative work. 

That being said, Jevon McDonald's musings confirm some of the basic tenets of current Comp/Rhet thought

1. The "incremental" nature of the progress that results from better opportunities for communication and collaboration. And,

2. The empowerment that takes place when the emphasis is on process and not product.

Anyway. Thoughts for the day.

Small Items

• Surveillance conference at MHC this weekend (macaulay.cuny.edu/conference/, $30 for full conference or $20 for one day, onsite registration available)
• CUNY WordCamp Ed: May 22 (Friday), 10-3, co-hosted with Schwartz Institute @ Baruch and NYCCT. Limited to CUNY-affiliated people (macaulay.cuny.edu/cunywordcamped/)
  • Volunteers needed to show off Wordpress/E-Portfolios from MHC core seminars from 12-1:30 in a “poster session”-style (low-key breakout sessions over lunch).
  • Volunteers also needed to help do hands-on workshops from 1-2. 
  • Free, but you must register.
  • Registration is using a CAPTCHA program (“ReCAPTCHA”) we should consider—helps correct scanning of old books.
• New FTP passwords distributed. (They are unique, so see Joe for yours if you couldn’t make the meeting.)
• Macaulay Yield Event—the Flip Cam giveaway has extended Macaulay’s name into high schools, with lots of student YouTube videos
• Next year’s Macs: we’ll be giving away sleeves again with new laptops
  • We got such a good deal on the laptops that they are under CUNY’s price threshold, and will thus not need to be reinventoried annually.
• Tech Fair Task Force—organizational meeting after today’s ITF meeting
  
  • Seems like introducing e-portfolios on Tech Day was a mistake
  • Joe U: Tech Day will focus on introductory skills, probably some video work. The first Tech Fair will become the e-portfolio introduction—the e-portfolio will be the glue for the Tech Fair
  • Some students will already have “basic Wordpress” down because of class blogs
  • Sending students to online help for “basic Wordpress”, training them to find resources on their own—task force will discuss

Broadway Show for Fall

• West Side Story! Definite RSVP required—please tell Joe soon if you CANNOT come.

New ITFs

• All campuses have made their selections except for Baruch
• We had more strong candidates than we could use, Joe is trying to place some people in other spots
• Possible we’ll get a few new ones before the end
• Will be scheduling a New ITF Orientation soon! Volunteers wanted!

Seminar 2 and 4 Final Event Details
 

• Information was initially sent by Mike Teitel to the ITF list
• Seminar 2
  • No competition for “the best wiki”, so no prizes
  • Whole classes will be interacting with whole other classes
  • Presentations should be approx. 20 minutes in length, with some time for discussion afterwards. If your session only has three classes, you can have a bit more time, but if your session has four classes, you should be a bit more restrained
  • ITFs should attend the night that your class is presenting
• Seminar 4
  • Monday May 11, 5-9 PM, Graduate Center
  • Presentations of 12 minutes
  • All students required to attend, even if they aren’t presenting
  • Maximum 3 presentations per class
  • Monday, May 4: Titles of presentations, student presenters, and number of presentations due to Mike Teitel.All ITFs are expected to attend—will need to help out at the end of the night with the distribution of prizes.

ITF Roundtable: Last-minute issues, Wiki concerns, other questions

• Seminar 2: To what extent do you “tolerate” a not-so-good-looking student site, or when do you step in and clean it up for a smoother look?
  • Seek opportunities to give students design/style feedback
  • Is the goal for the site to look impressive?
  • Wiki style does limit the students to some degree
  • Have students make a banner
  • Work with students to customize the CSS to their specifications (background color, etc)
  • Otherwise let them make their own choices, generally? Room leans towards the “hands off” approach
  • Same “hands off” approach can work well with Seminar 3 posters
  • Best practice for “intervention” in Seminar 2 would be to do photography workshops—teaching people to work on their visual senses, “what makes a good picture”, and some photo editing
  • Making it look “shiny and bright” misses the learning opportunity
  • Teaching students to revise academic content for the web already takes a lot of time!
  • Some professors want to intervene—clean up sites—because they are concerned about their own public image.
• As soon as students are really DONE with their wikis, the wikis need to be Locked Down.
  • Several ways to do this—turn off log in availability in LocalSettings
  • Jeff will repost instructions to ITF-L
• Coming to crunch time—do your best to be available, practice good time management
  • How to head off that last-minute stuff? Ask students to sign up for your office hours in slots—post it right on the wiki. Put up an announcement of your availability/unavailability.

Second hour—breakout sessions/hands-on time

• Wireless networks: MACAULAY vs. MACAULAY GUEST
• Logo stuff/Paul Gu Skins & image sizing
• CSS w/ PG Skins
• Note: Paul Gu has answered a lot of typical questions in his site’s Forums.
• Google Video—embedding in wiki
• LocalSettings issues

There are four pedagogical principles that underlie the work we do as Instructional Technology Fellows. Here's a little bit about each one, with examples from the ePortfolio system we set up this year.

The first relates to merging physical and digital worlds. Macaulay Honors College students spend a lot of time outside—traveling to classes at several campuses, commuting to school and to their jobs, and attending performances and events throughout the city. The required seminar series, focused on New York, is designed to engage students in the city. Students take seminars on the arts, immigration and community development, public policy, and scientific and technological issues, all with an emphasis on particular events, neighborhoods, and issues that are taking place in New York today.

When people think about the possibilities of instructional technology, they often talk about distance learning, computing from home, or alternative forms of communication. In each of these cases, the emphasis is digital or online, in contrast to the "real world." At the Macaulay Honors College, our emphasis is on these things, but also—and importantly—on connecting the physical world to the virtual one. The ePortfolio system has made it incredibly easy for individual students, and sometimes entire classes, to create blog-like websites that act as repositories of commentary, criticism, and documentation of the real life experiences of Macaulay students.

Here’s an example: Professor Roslyn Berstein’s course blog, “Cultural Encounters.” She teaches in the English Department at Baruch. The ITF working on this site is Craig Willse.

Professor Bernstein uses a model that many of our classes have adopted, which is to use the course site as a place for students to post reviews of arts performances and events that they’ve attended. You can see student reviews of the musical, Clay, other reviews of a photography show at the ICP, and more.

You can also see the ways in which Craig worked with Professor Bernstein to come up with creative alternatives that go beyond the model of experience then response. Here, for example, is a street photography project. Students were asked to take a series of street images, and write one-line captions for each. Then, they were asked to submit a journalistic account of any challenges they encountered while taking the pictures, as well as a description of their unifying theme. Each student made a slideshow of his or her images, and posted that, with their journalistic account, on the site. Here's a good one. This multimedia assignment had the effect of integrating a real world experience—taking pictures—with a written reflection on that experience, in an online format that makes use of new technologies, in the form of the slideshows. Also, the first-person blog format is conducive to narrative accounts, as well as community response. Check out the comments, which range from "I love your project," to thoughtful discussions of graffiti and art.

The "Cultural Encounters" site takes a second approach to integrating physical and digital worlds. This second example is less about individual encounters with the physical world, and more about the individual—and tactile—experience of physical objects. Take a look at the collage project. For this assignment, which is the culminating assignment of the class, students create individual, themed collages that express a quote cultural encounter. They are encouraged to use a range of physical materials, including found objects, and are then asked to write a short essay describing their collage. Each collage is scanned and put on the site. See, for instance, "Eastern Cherub." This is an assignment that Professor Bernstein has assigned for several years, and since this year’s is still in the process of being completed, you should take a look at previous years' collage projects.

The interesting thing about this project is that the process of creating the collages, with its emphasis on materiality, in contrast to the process of scanning the collages, which flattens and digitizes the images, always encourages discussions among students about what is lost and what is gained in the online, digital format.

The collage project transitions really well into the second pedagogical focus of our work, which is our emphasis on critical multimedia. I’m a PhD student in the English department, and I’ve taught composition, so you don’t need to convince me about the importance of teaching of critical thinking skills through writing. What we try to do here, though, is encourage students to cultivate these skills in a range of media, not only in writing.

Here’s an ePortfolio that uses podcasts as alternative to written assignments. This is Professor Zoe Sheehan-Saldana’s class at Baruch. The ITF for this course is Lynn Horridge. Along with arts reviews, as discussed above, are a series of podcasts.  This is one that I like, about the Guggenheim Museum.

There’s a lot of discussion about alternative forms of expression, so that students are given opportunities to express themselves and their ideas in a format that’s comfortable for them. The Guggenheim podcast, as you can hear, contains much of the same critical information as blog post or even an essay. But the tour guide kind of context seems to empower the students; you can literally hear their critical voice. In addition, the context of the walkthrough, I think, makes students more attuned to—and critical of—their  physical surroundings. I’m not sure that a paper on the same subject would emphasize these aspects in the same way, or at least without prompting.

Here’s another example that’s become popular in our classes: the Public Service Announcement.  Take a look at Professor Alexandratos’s Science and Technology in New York blog, "The Greener Apple." The tech fellow is Brooks Hefner. Here, students present research in the form of a PSA. Watch this one about Newtown Creek. As you can see, the students really enjoyed putting this together. But more than that, the video format encouraged students to think about the framing of the issue—pollution—as well as examples in their lives that they could relate to. There’s a very sophisticated—and compelling—rhetorical move here, that the students easily conceptualized, perhaps because the video format made them think of the commercials and PSAs that they see on a daily basis. The process of producing this assignment, we hope, has encouraged these students to think more critically about the variety of media they’re exposed to, and how video works on a rhetorical as well as literal level.
I should emphasize that we’re deeply committed to the tradition of process oriented writing-- this is the third of our pedagogical principles. We see the ePortfolio system as a flexible way of encouraging a range of writing styles, developing comfort with writing skills, encouraging peer response through the comment feature, and using the “Editor” function on the blog as a way for the professor to comment on student work.

Here’s an example of that: Professor J. Saslow’s arts seminar at Queens College, "The Arts in New York City: Form, Content, Context." The Tech Fellow is Tsai-Shiou Hsieh. In this class, students worked on group presentations in written and oral form. They posted their written presentations on the site, where the professor provided inline comments. See, for example, this report on the Guggenheim Museum. Because students can have the ability to edit each others’ posts (although this is not default), the ePortfolio system can be a way to collaborate on written assignments. In addition, it’s a way to distribute comments to a group through a single page. We also use wikis, which are another way to encourage collaboration, and especially iterative writing processes, but the ePortfolio system requires none of the training, so it’s sometimes an appealing option.

This posting of the grades online segues nicely into the final pedagogical principle I want to emphasize, which is the public-facing nature of the sites. One of the limitations of undergraduate research is that it rarely leaves the classroom. To combat this, all Macaulay course projects are made open the public. Our ePortfolio system is not password protected, although it can be. The idea is to encourage the participation of the outside world, as well as to engender a sense of scholarly significance among contributors. I’ll point back to "The Greener Apple" blog. It’s designed to track the progress of the PlaNYC initiative, and the goal is to develop the site as a resource over several years. Ideally, it will become a resource for New York, with comments from the community. 

The public-facing aspect of our ePortfolio system also means that it’s ideally suited for individual student blogs. Here’s a blog that was created for the summer Habitat for Humanity trip to South Dakota: http://macaulay.cuny.edu/eportfolios/southdakota/. It’s a fairly conventional blog, with posts and reflections from several members of the group. The chatty, informal style encouraged each person to post, resulting in a touching record of the trip. There are a few posts from the beginning, documenting a sort of nervous anticipation, and then a bunch from the end, showing genuine reflection and learning.

Here’s another interesting one, from a student who took a semester off to volunteer for the Obama Campaign: http://macaulay.cuny.edu/eportfolios/demsabroad08/. Check it out, then visit the Macaualy ePortfolio gateway. You won't be disappointed.

A few of the ITFs are on a panel tomorrow at the CUNY IT Conference. We're talking about our new ePortfolio system. In order to prepare, I decided to take a look at all of the ePortfolios created so far. Some of the highlights (in no particular order):

The Greener Apple : A project that tracks the progress of PlaNYC over the course of each year's "Science and Technology in NYC" semiar. Contributors include 2 or 3 students from each class. Site includes student-written articles and video PSAs.

Macaulay at South Dakota: A traditional multi-person blog about a MHC summer trip to a Native American reservation in South Dakota.

Cultural Encounters: Professor Roslyn's Bernstein's course blog for the "Arts in NYC" seminar, with art reviews, student projects, class discussion, and lots of comments. Note the tweaking of the category feature to identify and sort individual student contributors.

Art is Where You Find It: Another more free-form "Arts in NYC" seminar blog, with written reviews, student-produced podcasts, and discussion threads.

Arts in NYC: Professor Judell's "Arts in NYC" blog, with reviews and comments.

Honors Thesis Colloquium: Professor Lee Quinby's course blog for the Honors Thesis Colloquium. An example of how to adapt the ePortfolio system to a conventional course blog. With course information and student work.

7-10 Million Americans Live Abroad: One student's account of her experiences working for the Obama campaign and Democrats Abroad.

Visiting London: Another student's account of a summer abroad in London.

Form, Content, Context: A well-organizied Arts in NYC blog, with written reports and evaluation posted online. Emphasis on response.

Altermania: MHC student Tyler Alterman's professional ePortfolio.

Christine's ePortfolio: A spirited blog that blends academic commentary and notes on life.

A quick screencast with instructions on using podpress

Using Podpress

Instructional Technology Fellows (ITFs) are doctoral students in various disciplines whose role is to collaborate with faculty on the design and implementation of learning activities. As experienced teachers, researchers, and technologists, ITFs are able to develop technological solutions to pedagogical problems. The relationship begins during syllabus design in order to ensure that projects and assignments are contiguous with the course's learning objectives. ITFs also help students to perform in course activities by giving workshops and private coaching, either in class or outside of it.

(1) Identify Goals: During syllabus design, sit down with your ITF to identify the course learning objectives.
 

(2) Problems and Successes: Discuss with your ITF what has worked well in the past that you might like to repeat. What has not worked so well, and why? What would you change?  What would you like students to do more of, or to do better, in your class? 

(3) Design and Planning: Your ITF will help you design assignments and activities that make use of technology for achieving the course learning goals.

(4) Execution: The ITF sets up the technology and works with the faculty member to ensure s/he understands it.

(5) Educational Experience: The students complete the project(s), receiving any intellectual or technical assistance from the ITF and faculty member as needed.

(6) Evaluation and Documentation: The faculty member and ITF discuss what was successful and unsuccessful in the activities designed, and lay out suggestions for further improvement. Ideally, the faculty member or ITF would then write up the experience on the Case Studies Page.

On Sunday at the old Brooklyn Ferry landing I saw this thing called the Telectroscope. True to its 19th century sci-fi roots, it looks like something from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It's a riveted brass tube with "gauges" and "dials," the end of which is a portal where people peer and are peered at via a real-time video link between the Brooklyn and London bridges. With no audio link, people on both sides wrote messages on whiteboards ("U Rock!", "Blimey!") and waved giddily.

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/telectroscope/home.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telectroscope

The "history" of the Telectroscope at its official website tells the (fictional) backstory of Paul St George, an artist who discovered the papers of his Victorian ancestor, Alexander Stanhope St George, detailing the plans and diaries of a trans-Atlantic tunnel. After a rough sea passage to view the engineering marvels of the Brooklyn Bridge, Alexander had been inspired to create a tunnel for safer travel. But instead, he became more obsessed with inventing an optical "device for the suppression of absence" called the Telectroscope. The project met several tragic setbacks that forced the workers to mutiny but Paul, after discovering Alexander's papers, completed it (sculptures of the Telectroscope's arrival preceded the exhibit in London [right] and Brooklyn). Information on how and why this was done is not provided, but the site features several period-like diagrams, workers' artifacts, and other objects that lend the exhibit an air of authenticity.

I thought it funny that a public art installation would present an old technology (videoconferencing) as a spectacle of innovation. But given the 125th anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge, roughly contemporary with Jules Verne's novel (not that I'm suggesting an intertextual relationship), the iron-clad aesthetic really evokes that late Victorian imagination of the future of industrial and communication technologies. It helps to contextualize technologies we habitually think were invented by ouselves, when in fact they were conceived and at least partially produced more than a century ago.

According to the Wikipedia article linked above, the fictional "telectroscope" was envisioned in a New York Sun article of 29 March 1877 in terms of what we now call a web browser: a device that "would allow merchants to transmit pictures of their wares to their customers, the contents of museum collections would be made available to scholars in distant cities, and (combined with the telephone), operas and plays could be broadcast into people's homes." The article is reproduced here from papers in the Thomas Edison archive at Rutgers.

While Paul St George's project is basically a pair of webcams housed in retro-styled sculptures, its public, monumental size provokes that child-like excitement that most of us feel in the presence of a shiny new gadget. Among people participating in the exhibit, there was a giddy sense of curiosity and eagerness to communicate. I like the association of linking, bridging, connecting: bridge to bridge, a make-believe tunnel, the Internet, public expressions of goodwill.

One interesting phenomenon is the debate in some Flickr image comments about whether the portal shows pre-recorded video. When I was at the exhibit, there was generally so much chaos both at the local and remote portals that you couldn't tell if responses were being made between the participants. It could easily be a dupe, eliciting "interactive" responses based on perceived gestures. Nonetheless, people on both sides viewed each other with wonder, and that's about the best humanistic response that such technologies produce.

All photos from Flickr public commons: (top) David Reeves, (drill bit) taskerweb, (guages) David Reeves, (portal sign) crowbot, (portal crowd) David Reeves.