Category Archives: Assignments

Ian’s one-paragraph project ideas

1. So, my number one idea is still creating The Linguist’s Kitchen—a suite of tools for analyzing language in the home and community—because (1) I’m really getting attached to the name and (2) it would be a tremendous resource for teaching, learning, and the discipline. In the end, I’d like the suite to have tool sets for syntactic, phonetic/phonological, and morphological analysis, but for now I think it’s only realistic to consider building a subset of these. Considering the project feasibility and its usefulness, it might be best to start just with a web-based application with the ability to upload recorded speech, a place to transcribe it, some capability to categorize sentences by type, label words by syntactic category, and compare word order across sentences, as well as storage and sharing capabilities. My main concern is figuring out how/where to get free storage space for speech and analysis files and how to make the interface ‘drag and drop’.

2. Number two is a reworking of my original idea to create a database for research participants. I know CUNY Academic Commons is all about collaboration and community, but I haven’t been able to find any kind of ‘help wanted’ board. I’m wondering if it’s possible to create some kind of Commons ‘collaborators needed’ board or an add-on that functions to connect Commons members looking for individuals with expertise in some area or qualified research participants with those willing/able to offer assistance. This could be for all kinds of work, and could help community members connect with individuals that have particular skills or knowledge. I definitely see a need for something like this. The lab I work in is always looking for CUNY people with certain language backgrounds for experiments and paid RA positions, but it’s always so difficult to find people because word of mouth only goes so far.

3. Number three is a shift in my thinking about modifying CommentPress to better suit the needs of my small writing group. We’re on the verge of using CommentPress now, so I don’t yet have any additional insight into how the functionality of CommentPress might be enhanced for a small writing group dynamic. The shift is this: Our writing group has been helpful and I know that another two or three have popped up in the department, so what about creating a Writing Group Theme for Word Press? It would be a simple theme with just the necessary writing group functionality: a calendar, a log book for recording writing goals, and CommentPress. (Currently, we each use our own recording systems and Google docs). I don’t know if this project would be adequate in terms of scope, but I believe creating a ready-to-use package for writing groups would useful to individuals interested in starting one and may even encourage them to engage in writing as a social process.

Kelly’s 1-paragraph project ideas

pardon the tardiness… orals has hijacked my brain.

Kelly’s 1 – paragraph Project ideas

 

  1.     Erotic niche Create an erotic database from feeds. It will be a user-generated database where people go to in order to find “good erotic literary material”. The way it would work since it will be UGC is that whenever someone wants to ‘add’ a certain text and comment it, they get a certification, or star system (a bit like vine), or an approval after several ‘let’s see’ posts just to clarify that they are good critic-readers-reviewers (and don’t think ‘Fifty Shades’ is it!). The website would be subsidized by websites which sell the said books. It would not be restricted by languages.
  2.   Wiki-Spanish Tap into the wiki community in Mexico and promote real time projects with higher education institutions in order to put Spanish Wiki up to speed with the English one. Promote workshops in order to teach teachers how to edit so they can teach students how to do it as well.
  3.    Literature for all  My goal in teaching world-literature-requirement classes for non English majors is to make them fall in love with literature. I use not very traditional tech based methods which seem to work. I would create an app for teachers who want to tap into non traditional pedagogical methodology. It would be an exchange system so that teachers who upload assignments don’t feel they are being ripped off. So you give one, you take one. The assignments would be starred and it would create an ‘honor system’ in which you give credit to whom credit is due.

 

Alek’s 1-Paragraph Project Descriptions

Idea #1: Directory website for Secondary Math Teachers in New York City

Over the years working as an educator I have come to realize that there is no centralized location on the Internet or otherwise where educators can go to find all the resources they need to teach secondary math in New York City. The teachers that I am currently teaching as well as my colleagues all seem to have a common struggle and complaint when it comes to easily finding resources to aid them in their teaching. I propose creating a centralized website, a database, which can serve as a guide for all New York City educators that are teaching secondary math. The guide would provide links to different resources such as: ideas for lesson plans, free games and interactive activities, ideas for field trips in the NYC area that would directly relate to the curriculum with the explanation on how it relates and feedback from other educators on set locations. Furthermore it would also provide links to professional development opportunities for teachers, along with updated policy documents that directly effect and relate to education in NYC. The website would be fluid with the ability to grow and possibly expand.

Idea #2: Interactive Textbook (IBook)

I have worked with underprivileged high-school students in a high-need school for over five years. During that time it has always been a struggle to keep these students excited about math. They consistently seem to have a hard time relating to the material or having any interest in the material as it is provided through their textbook.  In order to overcome this to prepare them for their annual standardized test I have consistently had to get creative in my approach to teach them the material. This is why I propose to create an interactive I-Book to diversify the types of materials and activities my students would use on a day-to-day basis to prepare them for the annual standardized test as well as make them proficient in the material from the curriculum. Features of the IBook would include: the ability to add personalized notes to the existing material and highlight anything in the IBook. Ibook would include interactive activities, practice quizzes and tests, that would provide instant feedback for the students, links to relevant instructional videos and other material that is relevant to the curriculum

Idea #3:  Math-Test-Prep App

It has been my observation over the years that many of my high-school students spend a large amount of time on their daily commuting to and from school. This is time that has been lost to study in favor of smart-phone activities like Facebook or Youtube. I propose creating an app, which would give them an easy alternative to these time consuming activities, yet still be easy enough to use while on a bus or subway. This app would provide a rigorous regiment of exercises that would prepare them for standardize test. A feature of the app would be a push alert system reminding the user/student of what activity they need to complete for the day, the time remaining until their exam and a gauge of their progress with the material.

Pamela’s 1-Paragraph Project Descriptions

Beacause I will have limited internet access this week, I am posting these a little early. Here are my three project descriptions and in the spirit of “getting real” they are fairly short and reasonably modest in scope (I hope).

Idea #1: Mapping for Humanists
One of the most attractive types of project for humanists interested in experimenting with digital tools is mapping. The software is readily available (the Graduate Center and other CUNY schools provide institutional access to ArcGIS and there is an open source version as well) and the end product is has clear use as a research or teaching tool. There is a workshop in the CUNY system on the workings of ArcGIS but it assumes that the mapper will be working from existing data files, like census information. However, most humanists are working from information that does not already exist in appropriate file formats, if it available electronically at all. I propose to present a mapping workshop for graduate students in the humanities who have little or no experience with GIS software. The workshop would cover how to identify the kind of information that is map-able, how to get that information into a format that GIS software can use, and turning that information into a basic map.

Idea #2: The CUNY Graduate Center Theatre Project
The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, in association with the Theatre Department at the Graduate Center, maintains a database of around 10,000 image of theatre for educational use. The database is a great resource for theatre students but even within the department not everyone knows about it, and few actively use it. The site was recently changed over to Omeka, making it a lot more functional, which provides a good opportunity to revisit what it can do and be for GC theatre students. My proposal would be to survey student use of the database, and also investigate what the Segal Center and the professor overseeing the collection would optimally like to see from it. Ideally this would lead to one or more strategies to increase student use and/or improve usability that I could implement.

Idea #3: Technology in Introductory Level Theatre Courses at CUNY
In her article on mediated performance in theatre studies Sarah Bay-Cheng highlights the need to consider how recorded performances are used to teach theatre. [Bay-Cheng, Sarah. “Theatre Squared: Theatre History in the Age of Media.” Theatre topics 17.1 (2007): 37-50. Project Muse. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.] I would go further to suggest that beyond recordings of performances, there are other technological tools that have made their way into the theatre studies classroom that have not received much scrutiny in terms of the way that they work pedagogically. To address this, my project would begin with a survey of instructors of introductory level theatre classes in the CUNY system (these would be the 1000-level courses or equivalent that fulfill the Creative Expression requirement of the core curriculum) to find out what technologies are in use and how they are being used. This would be followed by 2-3 more in-depth case studies which would entail discussion with the instructor and classroom visits. The resulting paper would record the general habits of CUNY instructors of introductory level theatre courses with regard to technology use, and evaluate the effectiveness of a select number of tools as defined by a yet-to-be-determined rubric.

question – assignment this week

hello world, and fellow colleagues.

I have been traveling and I have orals in two weeks and I am coming down with the flu, and so on and so forth… plus the cold freezes my brain cells.

so, I am a bit off as to the assignment for this week. As I remember it is one or two liners for our projects, correct? I looked at the assignments page but it was not there.

help?

thanks

K.