Tag Archives: project

Adam’s 2 project proposals

Sorry for the late post, I was working til almost 4am last night and woke up a little later than I planned.  See you all in a few hours.

1)

Introduction

As a subject, philosophy has always been contextual.  The seminal works of philosophy are perpetually situated in a time and a place, with a particular historical foundation, and those elements are essential for understanding the theories and postulations of a particular work.  However, without a proper training in philosophy, it can be hard to keep a clear conception of context and history when reading and studying.  Therefore, Atlastotle aims to create an interactive world map that can move through the different centuries and essential periods of philosophy, while allowing the user to scroll over different highlighted regions to view a list of seminal authors of said region at said time, while also linking to certain important texts and theories of each author.  Incorporated into each author’s pop up will be a brief synopsis of the philosopher’s contributions and theories, as well as, a short list of historical connections to previous authors.

Personas

Phil O. Sophy – A second year college student who is focusing on his Bachelor’s in philosophy, Phil is extremely interested in the subject but has a hard time keeping up with the wealth of information available and isn’t sure where to start or where to continue in his studies.

Dr. Vitz – A professor in Modern Philosophy, Dr. Vitz attempts to teach the era of philosophy keeping a chronological and historical context to illustrate how each theory builds off another (either by adding to or critiquing particulars).

Existential Emily – A high school student who is trying to find her place.  She got her hands on a copy of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and has a budding interest in Nietzsche but wants to learn more.

Use

Phil stumbled upon this map online searching for philosophy and was able to obtain a good sense of the history of the subject and the context for particular disciplines.  From here, Phil was able to find his favorite authors, discover others in that discipline and connect to authors involved in that conversation during that era.  Dr. Vitz uses this tool as a reference resource to follow along the chronological and historical course so that his students can keep the era organized throughout the semester.  Existential Emily searched Nietzsche and came across the map which took her through a journey as she is now exploring a degree in philosophy after high school.

Full Version and Time Expectations

The full version would use a mapping platform such as ArcGIS or CartoDB.  These tools already have pop up abilities and some java included in the application, however, to customize this to my specific needs would require a lot of extra java.  I would like to partner with an organization such as Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to help manage the content.

I feel this project would require a significant amount of time and effort. I am studying mapping resources currently for a project I am on and I feel if this were to be realized, I wouldn’t need much time on that.  However, with that said, the javascript needed to build the popups and such would take time.  The real time constraint for the project involves the organization and research.  Because philosophy is such an extensive subject, a lot of time and effort would go into organizing the content to decipher who would be included and what content to be highlighted.  Depending on support from outside sources, I feel this project could be completed in a year.  Organizing the content would require at least ¾ of the project, while the actual building of the tool could be completed in ¼ of the time.

Stripped Down Version and Time Expectations

A stripped down version of this tool would be one era of philosophy mapped without the links to other philosophers.  This would get at the spirit of the project and allow people to see the importance this tool provides without the time it takes to organize an entire subject.  This would also provide the experience needed to expand the map in a much quicker fashion, technically.  I could accomplish this task in 4-6 months given the technical skills needed to complete the map.

 

2)

Introduction

Teachers can help each other in so many ways.  With the connectivity of technology increasing, I propose a social media style site for teachers to share tips, teaching suggestions, and anecdotes.  It could easily be organized into categories and tags by department, subjects, grade, and/or region.  Teachers would sign up using school assigned email addresses and could connect with thousands of other teachers to collaborate and ultimately raise the bar in pedagogy.  Threads and forums could be archived as a resource and added to at later dates.  Based on an environmental scan, there are sites dedicated to teacher blogs and certain forum sites that involve teachers, but the usability is limited and none have succeeded in creating a significant community for teachers to use each others’ experience and knowledge across the world.

Personas

Adjunct Alan – As a recent PhD student, Alan is teaching his first courses.  Although confident in his abilities and knowledge, he is inexperienced.  He would benefit from understanding certain early tips for organization and structure.

Early Education Erin – Knowing she wanted to teach but not sure exactly what, young Erin hasn’t lead a room of young children by herself.  There are others like her that could help.

Tenure Tim – Tim has been teaching for years and has all the tips and tools of the trade.  He remembers starting out and wants to share his knowledge with up and coming academics.

DH Dan – Heavily influenced by the potential of digital technology on pedagogy and research, Dan wants to share his experiences and exciting new tools for relaying knowledge and creating excitement for learning.

Use

Alan would benefit from a community of peers that can help him get over the hump of his first classes and feel comfortable with his skills.  It’s tough teaching a group of kids and keeping their attention for an entire school day.  Erin hasn’t been around kids too much but is passionate about early education.  She’s connected with others like her and is now inundated with valuable resources and tips.  Tim has done it all in his academic career and has been rewarded with tenure.  Tim is very passionate about his studies and about his career and its benefits and wants to share his knowledge and experiences.  This tool allows Tim to connect with young teachers and mentor and guide them directly and/or remotely through the tips he posts.  Dan is excited about the opportunities he sees as inherent in digital technology and teaching/research.  Dan uses this tool as a way to spread the word of new tools and techniques that allow digital technology to be utilized in the classroom.  Dan also connects with others involved in DH to grow the community and learn more from his peers.

Full Version and Time Expectations

This tool could be set up using a WordPress/Commons in a Box set up.  I am relatively new to both and I would need to learn how to utilize these tools to customize a site like this.  Since CUNY Commons would be a model for the tool, I have several resources to tap into to learn how to build this.  Outreach and marketing this tool to the academic community would be the difficulty in this project.  The tool is not completely unique, however, none have been overly successful in creating a space to build a community of teachers and educators.  Therefore, the interface and usability would need to be a major focus on the tool itself, making it easy to sign up, make a profile, connect with others and navigate communities and forums.  This project would take time to put together and launch, but ultimately, the time would be in marketing and outreach and upkeep.  As with the CUNY Commons, putting it up online wasn’t the hardest part, nor the most time consuming; it was more the subsequent releases and upkeep.  Therefore, I would put a several year timetable on this project to its full potential.

Stripped Down Version and Time Expectations

The stripped down version would be the soft rollout of the tool, possibly to a select few schools or so to not only find the bugs and the usability problems, but also to build intrigue through a limited release.  This soft rollout would still require building the site and learning the WordPress/Commons in a Box but would not yet include the subsequent releases and upkeep so I estimate the stripped down version would still be close to a year long project.

Kelly’s midterm project

Teaching assignments app

Most teachers (adjuncts) have very little time to be as creative as they would like to be in the classroom, and creativity is part of the main teaching strengths when teaching literature to non-literature majors. This mobile friendly app will be an exchange of technology-based assignments. It will also provide a very user-friendly platform to upload assignments, teaching methodology, etc. as most great ideas happen in the classroom and are later forgotten.

  1. Personas:
    1. Floridian Paper – is a fourth year 31 year old English grad student at NYU, he has been exploited as a teaching assistant for the past three years and is ready to jump into a classroom all for himself. He has a tattoo on his forearm of a very obscure James quote, which reminds him of why he is doing what he is doing. He taught kindergarten in Maine right after college while he figured out what he wanted to do with his life. He overthinks the teaching he wants to do, preparing for an undergrad class three months in advance.
    2. Chelsea Piers – Is a 23 year old in her second year in her French Masters at Hunter College. She has been working as a restaurant manager in Queens, which is where she grew up. She is starting to teach next year and is very confused as to what is expected of her. She has been doing a lot of research online to figure out what it is she needs to do, reading sparknotes and finding a few discussion points she can use.
    3. Trillian Potter – is a 42 year old Comp Lit PhD student at the GC. She got married very young and her kids are now in college, so she decided to do what she had always wanted to do. She taught grade school when she was raising her kids, but now wants to go in deeper. She is about to start her second year and has been assigned to teach at BMCC. Her two boys make fun of her fear of technology. She is scared regarding the technology generation gap with her students.
    4. Adam Douglas – is a 29 year old Comp Lit PhD student at the GC. He moved to NY from Colombia where he used to teach college. He is in his third year and has already taught for one year at Baruch. He feels very overwhelmed by the teaching and the studying and feels he is designing things in such a way that he spends most of his time grading. He would like to change that but still give his best to his students.
    5. Use case scenario:

–        Adam Douglas and Trillian Potter meet at the comp lit lounge. They are both teaching “Things fall apart” in the respective colleges. They both disagree with how to enter the discussion, while Adam wants to bring in videos of Nigeria, Trillian wants to do a close text analysis. They see the strengths in each others views but have to rush out before they can actually sit and exchange methodologies. They decide to use the app. As they are both on their way to teach they upload the teaching approaches to the apps o the other can access it and take a peek.

  1. the full version would be have both app and website versions. The app would have several options, a search window in order to find assignments according to a specific reading, author, or by school, or even by grade. the user would have to sign in and provide an .edu email address in order to do so. The app would have a 2.99 dollar cost and would also be subsidized by a few scholarly institutions (such as digital humanities things).
    1. It would also have a button for “quick upload”, this button can be pressed right after class to upload ideas and teaching methods which came up during the said class. It would have very specific blanks to fill in:

i.     Reading – text discussed

ii.     School – students level

iii.     Class size

iv.     Smart classroom yes or no

v.     Form of discussion: in small groups, in pairs, class activity.

vi.     Use of technology yes or no

vii.     Question based assignment yes or no

viii.     Production based assignment yes or no (by this I mean that the students need to ‘produce’ something at the end  of the class in regards to the text)

ix.     Homework based yes or no

x.     Goals:____

xi.     Difficulties:____

xii.     Innovativeness in five words

xiii.     Hashtags

xiv.     Category

  1. This would all be in a user friendly setup that would take less than three minutes to fill out.
  2. The app would have several ways of ‘accessing’. By buying it for 2.99 you have full access. A free version would let you access just two assignments per reading. A free version with exchange feature would allow you to access as many assignments as you upload. (since the uploading process does require the assignments to be real, it would not be a problem)
  3. The website would be a little more complete, with assignments divided by specific categories, more advanced search engines, links, and advertisements.
  4. This would take about 200 hours. I need to know how to develop an app, how to design it, monetize it, upload it. how to keep it up. I need a lot of skills.
  5. The strip down version is just a User-friendly website into which teachers can type in their assignments to look at them at a later date or to exchange them. (I have no idea what tools to use for this) You can ‘befriend’ other teachers who have teaching methodologies you are interested in. the way of uploading the assignments would be based on five questions:
    1. Text
    2. Group size
    3. Technology yes or no
    4. Goal
    5. Description
    6.  I need to learn everything. I don’t even know what I would need to do this. I don’t think a wordpress would work, but who knows? If it is wordpress then tinkering with it more. 200 hours.

 

 

Wiki-Spanish

Wikipedia is the largest Encyclopedia and yet there is a huge disadvantage and imbalance between the wikipedias in different languages. Wiki in Spanish is very poor, it has very few cited works and is quite unserious, although students keep using it as a primary source of information. Thru awareness, workshops and events with universities in Mexico, we will promote a change in the Spanish Wikipedia.

  1. Personas:
    1. Luis – Is a full professor at the Universidad Iberoamericana. He teaches in the Latin-American Literature department teaching research. He is also part of the Library. One of his biggest problems with his students is that they don’t believe research is necessary, or useful, in the way that he thinks of it, and that they use Wikipedia as a primary source when he knows it is not useful in that way.
    2. Dany – works in the communication department at the Universidad Iberoamericana. He is the coordinator of the largest undergrad group and also teaches radio. He is a bit anachronological since he just acquired a smart phone a year ago, but he knows how important technology is for his students.
    3. Triny – is a second year communications undergrad at the Universidad iberoamericana. She failed a class last semester because most of her research was done online and she still does not see why her teacher didn’t think it was appropriate.
    4. Jesus – is a third year undergrad in Media design at the Universidad Iberoamericana. His writing skills are terrible, but he is an ace where technology is involved.
    5. Luis gives his students the assignment of looking up an article in Wikipedia which is not well researched and asks them to edit it by going to the library and researching in books. Jesus gives them a workshop on how to do the editing beforehand. Dany sees how cool this is and wants to implement a whole wiki editing program.
    6. Full version: wiki editing workshops as a requirement in all programs at the Universidad Iberoamericana. It would later spread to other universities, public and private. There would be massive wiki editing events all over the country and would later spread to the rest of Latin America. Wiki in Spanish would be as good as it is in English.
    7. 50 hours. I need to get a handle on more wiki editing skills. Contact people, organize workshops. Implore.
    8. Stripped sown version: organize a few workshops at the said university (my alma mater) with professors and then with students. Organize at día ibero (the public day of the university) a few editing sessions with specific focus (feminist session, music session, etc). Assess and re-do. Propose more workshops and more editing assignments to professors.
    9. 50 hours. Bit more wiki skills

Jared’s Project Proposal 1: Experiencing Greenwich Village

Project 1: Experiencing Greenwich Village

Introduction

In the traditional classroom cultural studies are limited to text based approaches, which can be supplemented with occasional audio and visual recordings. A New York based education has the benefit of allowing students access to many of the places where the cultural products they read about were produced. “Experiencing Greenwich Village” is an augmented reality app that expands the cultural classroom into the City itself. The app provides the user with a real-time, spatially embodied experience of Greenwich Village; while simultaneously, providing a unique glimpse into the cultural past.

Personas

Faculty Felicia– Felicia is an English literature professor at a CUNY community college. She is looking to enhance her teaching of early 20th century American literature. She has tried to incorporate audio and video into her powerpoint lectures but still finds that students do not connect the literature to the larger cultural zeitgeist.

Dyslexic Dolly- Dolly is very interested in the subject Felicia is teaching and wants to learn; however, she struggles with reading and has a hard time getting through some of the material.

Disinterested Darren- Darren doesn’t see the point in studying literature or culture. He sees these academic pursuits as dusty books that have no relevance to his lived experience.

Tina Tourista-   Tina is a middle aged woman from the Midwest. She is a tourist who travels the world looking for unique experiences that allow her to feel as if she has walked into a different time period (Very much like Owen Wilson in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris).

Use

Felicia heard about the app though discussion on the CUNY Academic Commons and thought it would be a perfect solution for her class on Early 20th century American literature. She assigned her students to use the app to explore Greenwich Village and its cultural history and write a paper about their experience. Dolly found the experience of approaching the text from this direction to be liberating because it allowed her to experience the texts through her body and bypass her reading difficulties. By walking through Greenwich Village and seeing connections ad differences between current Village culture and historical culture, Darren is able to see culture and literature as a lived experience rather than just words in a dusty book.

Tina Tourista found the app in the app store of her phone and downloaded it for her recent trip to NYC. While not in a structured course, Tina is excited to learn about the history of the city while walking and seeing the current sites.

Full Version and Time Expectations

The full version of “Experiencing Greenwich Village” would include multiple periods of Greenwich Village cultural history which would be experienced through a geo-located soundscape (including musical compositions, significant documents, letters, diaries, poems, etc.) combined with an augmented reality app that would provide historical images and textual information about the locations and aural selections.  Ideally, these periods would be experienced diachronically where moving through space would also be moving through time (as in Allen’s Midnight in Paris). The app would also provide a filter option in which a single period could be experienced.

I expect this project would take approximately three years for completion. It would take a little bit of time for me to learn the specific programming for the mobile app. However, I tend to pick up programming languages fairly quickly. I suspect the bulk of the time would be spent creating the aural collection and making the requisite recordings that would be necessary. Another major time consideration would be negotiating with museums and archives for access to collections and funding partnerships.

Reduced Version and Time Expectations

A reduced version of the app would simplify to only a single period of Village culture such as the 1930s or Beatnik period. The reduced app would also only focus on the sonic mapping aspect.

I expect this version would reduce the amount of time to a year to 18 months. I would still need to learn the programming for the sonic mapping and would negotiate access to collections; however, time is saved by removing the image and text aspects of the augmented reality and reducing the amount of material that must be collected.

Hamad’s 3 Project Abstracts

  1. Sociology Inter-textbook: In an effort to diminish the power of heavy and pricy textbooks in an intro class, I propose an online ‘inter-textbook’. Students will use the Internet’s many ‘texts’ (written, pictures, videos, audio, games) to create their own chapters on a very large online cork board-type space (pinterest?). As the professor, I would provide lots of structure, like taking the main concepts found in one textbook chapter and setting them up on the board in a logical manner, and guiding the students to figure out what is a good source and what is an unreliable source of information. The students will then post (under their assigned concept) any relevant texts that provide the definition of the concept, examples of the concept, people associated with the concept, etc, with a brief explanation of what the post is and how it relates to the concept. Students will also be required to comment upon and question the postings of other students and thereby engage in a dialogue about their interpretation of the concepts. To make this as close to a traditional textbook as possible, the questions on any quizzes or tests will relate directly back to the boards they create. In short, I envision this as a space for students to create their own chapters, still working with the concepts that any traditional textbook would contain, but making it their own by posting texts that make sense of the ideas to them and engaging with other students about the validity of their sources and the level of understanding they have about the concepts. Class time would be used to go over the board the students have created during the week and fill in any gaps or correct any inaccurate information.
  2. Culture-jamming/Meme-building: Applying sociological concepts to everyday activities and messages is one of the hardest skills to instill in intro level students. I’ve been thinking about how students can use the everyday material that is presented to them online and remix it to create sociologically relevant messages. ‘Culture-jamming’ is a a technique used by activists who engage with mainstream messages (especially advertisements), point out the fallacies inherent in those messages, and sometimes change the script of those messages to relay the truth about a specific product or service – a popular example is when Adbusters took existing tobacco and alcohol ads and remixed them to convey messages about the deleterious health consequences of using those products. ‘Memes’ are continuously reproduced cultural messages, usually visual in nature with some changeable text, that are usually found on social media sites. Memes are also a highly effective way of learning and reproducing the transient cultural norms of the time. Students in an intro level sociology class will learn how to build memes, and produce sociologically relevant memes to spread on social media sites. Each week, students (working in teams) will look for memes relevant to the topic of the week and tweak (jam) it to convey a sociological message instead. In class, teams will present their memes, and the class will vote for the ‘Best Meme’ prize. The winning team’s meme will then be spread around by all students on their social media networks. At the next class, students will reflect on any feedback or responses they receive about the meme from their social networks, and how they responded to those reactions.
  3. What Would Marx Tweet?: In an effort to include students in the ongoing online cultural conversations on topics like race, gender, inequality, education, etc., I want to scaffold intro students into such conversations as informed and engaged participants with a defined perspective. The aim of this project is to have students use Twitter to tweet a series of messages they think their assigned social thinker would say about the world today. Since this will be for an intro class, students will use the topic they are reading about that week and create a series of tweets (4-5 per week) that uses the concepts learned that week to their everyday life. To give the students a sense of perspective, the instructor will assign prominent social theorists to students, and the students will combine their knowledge of the work of the assigned social theorist/perspective and the concepts of the week to come up with appropriate tweets. Later on in the semester, students will also be required to engage with other students’ tweets and start a conversation or debate on the topic (which will inevitable be based on the perspective they are assigned). Toward the end of the semester, students will also be required to engage in ongoing Twitter conversations that is also connected to the topic they would study during that week (the instructor will identify and assign these conversations to groups of students). Students will be required to use class-specific hashtags (#marx, #introsoc, #race) to track conversations between themselves as well as make it easier for the instructor to track the work students are doing.

Jared’s Single Paragraph Projects

Idea #1: Experience Greenwich Village

My first idea is a modification of the original idea I developed earlier this semester. I am interested in developing an augmented reality app that would would provide a guided walking tour of Greenwich Village in the 1920’s. Using programming similar to Roundware, I would map audio information (music, oral histories, radio programming, news stories) onto Washington Square Park to bring the cultural history of Greenwich village to life. This project would target students interested in arts history and cultural tourists.

Idea #2: Hybrid Theatre Curriculum

This project would explore the possibilities of creating a hybrid curriculum for an Introduction to theatre class. Rather than the course work being primarily focused on a lecture based model, this curriculum would explore the use of online discussion, interactive instructional modules, and games to enhance the learning experience. These online activities would substitute for the traditional textbook and better prepare students for in-class discussion. Such a model would extend the students’ exposure to various forms of theatrical performance around the world and throughout history that cannot be understood only by reading.

Idea #3: Platform for Works-in-Progress

I recently heard a podcast “Reshaping the Book” in which Bob Stein stressed the important contribution that social reading and writing can contribute to scholarship. While I am still leary of mass collaboration, I think that peer input can be incredibly helpful in the development of our work. I know form my own experience that I often find myself in a situation where I cannot find a solution to a particular problem; or, I am no longer able to recognize certain flaws in my logic. Stein introduced the Beta version of “SocialBook” as a way to build community through social reading and collaborative writing. Inspired by SocialBook and CommentPress, this project would build a digital platform for theatre scholars to share and respond to research projects-in-progress. It would begin with current GC theatre students and could then easily branch out through the network of GC Theatre alumni.

my project ideas

Project ideas

 

  1. Yesterday I went to the wiki-editing event and, it was so much fun! I did most of my editing and writing into the wiki in Spanish and realized why when I was teaching in Mexico I didn’t allow my students to use Wikipedia and here I do. The wiki in Spanish is AWFUL! No sources, bad writing, etc, etc. So I was thinking of doing an event, or a series of events, inviting people from all over (especially in NY and Mexico, which is where I have contacts) to edit and add to the wiki in Spanish. I could even promote an event at Baruch (where I teach) for everyone to add to the wiki in their own language (being it that the student body is so diverse).

2. My topic of research is Erotic Literature. I am still unsure of what my dissertation will look like, but my ultimate goal has always been to find out what makes a text erotic. (in comparison to just plain cheesy or pornographic). I could go different ways – techwise- with this. DO a data anaylsis of texts, repetition of particular words, or set of words, and how they work.

3. The other way I could go would be to create a database of some sort, a place, perhaps a website, which is an erotic literature encyclopedia, indicating where to go, what to read, what can be expected, etc. I am talking about high quality erotic literature, which is really hard to find, considering most of the smut and corniness around.

4. Another erotic diagram could be on influences of literature, very visual as to who has influenced who in forms of writing. It could also be following the way something has been described, i.e. the orgasm, or even more specifically, female or male orgasm. by compiling the data some form of analysis could be made, no? (or description of particular parts of the body?) (it could also be compiled in different languages and even compare translations)

5. Something else erotic related…

6. Create an app or website which teachers can approach to get teaching approaches. I would do this for literature classes for non-lit majors. I love teaching non English majors, students who, for the most part, dislike literature. I love the challenge of the turning of the screw, of finding a way to connect with the students, helping them find a way to connect with the texts. I know many teachers struggle on how to teach particular texts, so this could be a peer-to-peer, user generated content site. Many students who are not literature or art oriented usually don’t like to read. The kind of requirement courses we often teach are the last resort we have to enamor students to literature. I have found that by using alternative and more tech oriented forms of teaching, students find a way to connect to the texts better and find reason, joy and pleasure in reading.

7. Why not make students teach other students? If students use ‘rate my professor’, why couldn’t they use a similar ‘rate my reading’ site? What to look for in a class, what assignments with a particular teaching or in a particular requirement class are harder and what is easier.

8. Another part of this last idea would be to give the students a place where they can share their works. It happens that they work very hard on certain projects and then it doesn’t go beyond the teachers eyes, or sometimes their fellow peers. What would happen if we could build a platform where the students could ‘paste’ their work, in an anonymous way, but also in a way that would help their peers study for the exam, come more prepared to class, etc. (Like I make them do Tumblrs, why not share what they have made? Another class has them do tiki-tokis. I will also have them do, as an optional assignment, youtube-book reviews)