I am a third year student in the Urban Education PhD Program. I am in the somewhat curious position of auditing Core 2, having just completed the class last spring, so I would like to offer my experience with project development (hint: a lot of failure) instead of just being a creepy lurker. Another ITPer and I chose to collaborate, and we submitted a proposal for a series of salon-style meetups/workshops. We imagined that scholars, technologists, and artists (some GC-based, some not) would muse on tech tools through presentations and hands-on activities. By emphasizing the sensual and social — such as through incorporating musical and theatrical performance, visual art, and food — we wanted to challenge the disembodied assumptions that accompany much of our thinking, teaching, and learning about the digital. While we ultimately shelved this particular project idea, the process of collaborating was enormously valuable, and we are now working together on a project in tandem with the CUNY Academic Commons development team (which I’d be happy to explain in class).

When I’m not sitting in on classes, I’m the social media fellow for my program. You can follow us on Twitter @UrbanEdCUNY. I am also part of the editorial collective for Theory, Research, and Action in Urban Education, our program’s online, open-source, peer-reviewed journal. This year, I’m a co-organizer (with Michael Mandiberg) in a series of seminars on Experiments in Extra-Institutional Education through the GC’s Center for the Humanities. Finally, I work at the Stanton/Heiskell Center, which helps public school teachers incorporate digital tools in their teaching.