2015

Using New Visualizations in Teaching at the Fiske Planetarium

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 07:00:00 +0000

Using New Visualizations in Teaching at the Fiske Planetarium Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 11/03/2015 - 00:00

Photo credit: http://www.colorado.edu/insidecu/editions/2005/9-13/

Professor John Bally, a professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, was awarded a Fall 2014 ASSETT Development Award, which he used towards making new visualizations in the Fiske Planetarium to use with undergraduate introductory astrophysics classes. The visualizations were created from data from multiple expeditions and even GIS projections of Mars. Bally used these new visualizations along with trying a new way of teaching ASTR 1200—Stars and Galaxies—by having classes in the Fiske Planetarium part time. Every Thursday the class would meet in the Fiske Planetarium and utilize the new visualizations that were developed using the money from the Development Award.

The class consisted of 15 dome lectures, while the rest of the lectures all took part in a traditional classroom setting. When asked about the experience, Bally said that while the planetarium provides a unique an immersive experience, the risks of teaching in such an environment cannot be ignored. Because of the comfy chairs, the dark area, and the overall relaxing atmosphere, students can sometimes drift off and even end up falling asleep. To combat this, Bally interspersed lectures in the planetarium with clicker questions, discussion questions, and even sometimes with loud noises and bright flashes of light—like those that come from simulating a supernova.

Bally’s biggest message from this is that the planetarium is a great learning supplement, and is great with visualizations and putting things in perspective: like why Pluto is no longer considered a planet. There’s other features such as the ability to move around with a joystick and look at far off stars, or even the Mars landscape, that makes using the planetarium interactive and provides experiences that can’t be achieved in a classroom with a computer.

“With some sparing things, you can provide some absolutely unique experiences for the students… I think the message is you’ve got to use it sparingly… I’m glad we did it. We learned some things. We put together some stunning materials that people can use and will use; we also learned not to do it full time.”

Bally also mentioned that while all of the new visualizations and learning modules used for this class are partially documented and are available for other teachers and professors to use, at the time, it’d be a bit of a challenge because of the lack of a user manual.

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HelloTalk: A New Way of Language Exchange

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Oct 2015 20:42:00 +0000

HelloTalk: A New Way of Language Exchange Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/27/2015 - 14:42

HelloTalk is a language app that I’ve personally found really helpful in the language learning process. As someone who’s studying Japanese (and majoring in it) it can be a little hard to find people nearby to converse with. While CU offers many opportunities for language exchange with other students (including foreign exchange students), those can sometimes be hard to get to depending on the scheduling. While classes are great and offer practice, out of class practice is also an important part of learning any language. HelloTalk helps with exactly that.

A sample conversation from one of my partners and I.

As said before, the premise of HelloTalk is that of a language exchange app. It’s main purpose is to connect you with people all over the world who’re either proficient or native speakers of the language you’re trying to learn, who’re in turn trying to learn the language you’re proficient in (in my case, this would be Japanese and English, respectively). Who you can contact and who can contact you is also customizable; you can set the search function to limit by age, gender, location, and even proficiency. This is especially helpful if you’re looking for a partner who’s around the same age as you—that way you can feel more of like you’re talking with peers. Some more features of HelloTalk include voice messaging, translation, transliteration (especially helpful with languages that aren’t Romanized—it’s really come in handy for kanji I don’t know), and there’s even a feature for voice calling. What’s more, is that you can mark conversations or grammar points that get brought up for later studying. You can even send photos. It’s all the convenience of a messaging app plus the advantages of practicing another language at the same time.

The app is available for both iOS and Android, and is free aside from some minor things like unlimited translations/transliterations (which can be easily remedied by looking at other translation options online). Premium membership is around one dollar per month, but I’ve been able to get by without having to upgrade. Another really great function of HelloTalk is the ability to correct grammar easily—either you or your partner can correct each other, and it’s a simple process of just rewriting the correct way to say something.

Personally, I’ve had a great experience with HelloTalk. While I haven’t used it too much recently, it’s great practice outside of classes if you’re learning another language. Not only can you practice your target language, but you can also make friends with native speakers and learn about their culture as well. I’ve had a few people I’ve met on the app become good friends, and a friend of mine has even skyped with a couple of people she’s met with on the app. It’s a great way to practice, learn, and meet people that you might otherwise have a hard time meeting.

Here’s another helpful article on the pros and cons of HelloTalk, and below are some more screenshots of the app.

Another sample conversation.

The grammar correction feature.

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Hybrid French Language Course Development

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 18:02:00 +0000

Hybrid French Language Course Development Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 08/10/2015 - 12:02

CU Boulder French language Graduate Part Time Instructors (GPTIs) taught hybrid French language courses this past spring thanks to ASSETT-funded training. The combination of online and in-classroom teaching methods can benefit undergraduate students who are enrolled in foreign language courses. The Associate Dean of the Arts and Humanities and Professor of Italian Valerio Ferme received an ASSETT Development Award last year to fund the graduate students' time in training in hybrid teaching methods.

Learning to Teach with Hybrid Methods

In Fall 2014, graduate students Erik Nesse and Cecile Rebolledo prepared to teach introductory hybrid French language classes for the Spring 2015 semesters. They met with CU Boulder's ALTEC (Anderson Language and Technology Center) and ASSETT staff over several months to brainstorm hybrid teaching methods and plan lessons and activities. Nesse explained:

Edwige [Simon, Language Technology Coordinator of ALTEC] and Nisha [Azimova, former Teaching and Learning Consultant of ASSETT] helped with technical aspects and pedagogical theory and brainstorming. [They] were great and very available. And they would set up meetings immediately ... We gained a lot of knowledge about how to structure things and feedback about what worked.

Nesse and Rebolledo said that they learned more about D2L's capabilities for foreign language learning, like voice recordings, as well as implementing other online learning activities.

Rebolledo agreed that the time spent learning new technologies and planning activities was essential: "At the beginning, we really needed that help [from ALTEC and ASSETT]. We didn’t know where to start. It’s a tall order." Nesse says that learning the new programs, planning how to teach students how to use the new programs, planning activities for students, troubleshooting technical difficulties with the new programs, and grading activities takes more time for the instructor than does planning for and teaching a traditional, in-person class, especially considering that most instructors have learned through traditional classes, themselves. Despite the challenges, Nesse explained how ALTEC and ASSETT challenged him to think more about how to improve undergraduate teaching: "It was a good experience pedagogically, figuring out, 'How would I get someone to learn this online and not in person?' You start thinking about what are the key things to help someone learn these things."

Implementation of Hybrid Teaching Methods in Undergraduate French Language Courses

This past spring, Rebolledo and Nesse taught beginning French language courses French 1010 and French 1020, respectively. They each taught three days each week in person and two days each week online. During their days of online instruction, the undergraduate students enrolled in hybrid French language courses are expected to record themselves speaking online so that their instructor can listen to their recordings. Other programs, like Voicethread, allow students to listen to one another's recordings, and 'respond' to one another in their own time. Then, after the days of online instruction, students are expected to come back to class ready to use what they had taught themselves in their own time through the online activities. This way, students may actually receive more individual feedback than they would in a traditional classroom setting. Also, since some classwork is conducted online, students have greater flexibility in managing their time. In this vein, Rebolledo and Nesse both emphasized that succeeding in a hybrid course requires autonomous study habits on the parts of the students. Rebolledo explained that to succeed in a hybrid course, "Students should be independent and not need to be guided every step of the way."

Consistency Among Traditional, Hybrid, and Online French Language Courses

Ferme and Rebolledo explained how important it was for the French Department that undergraduate students receive consistent instruction, and succeed in standard assessments as they progress along the introductory French language courses, whether those courses are taught with hybrid, online, or traditional, in-person methods. To make this goal a reality, Rebolledo said that she and Nesse continued to collaborate in planning to ensure that they were on the same page: "Erik and I also compared notes and shared ideas ... We have the same goals."

Ferme says that the Department of French and Italian plans to continue to train graduate student instructors in hybrid methods:

... the reason I asked [GPTIs] Erik and Cecile to participate in this course development was to begin the practice of training our graduate students in online/hybrid education ... and so we are instituting a practice by which our hybrid/online graduate students are going to be shadowed by other students in the summer, so as to prepare them to teach those same courses.
We currently have a cadre of 3 GPTIs who have taught or are teaching hybrid/online (Cecile [Rebolledo] and Erik [Nesse] are two of them), and two more who have been shadowing this summer, and will be able to move in the classroom in the near future.

ASSETT supports excellence in teaching and learning with technology in the CU Boulder College of Arts and Sciences. ASSETT Development Awards are granted to CU Boulder College of Arts and Sciences faculty and graduate students each Spring and Fall semester. More information about ASSETT Development Awards can be found on the Development Awards page.

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ASSETT Award Funds Stange's Drawing Videos that Explain Math Concepts

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 17:10:00 +0000

ASSETT Award Funds Stange's Drawing Videos that Explain Math Concepts Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 07/15/2015 - 11:10

CU Boulder Math Professor Kate Stange Solves Math Equations on the Wacom Tablet that She Purchased with her 2014 ASSETT Development Award

CU Boulder Mathematics Department Assistant Professor Kate Stange won a 2014 ASSETT Development Award to make math videos for Linear Algebra and other classes for flipping the linear algebra classroom. Stange used the award to purchase a WACOM tablet. "The tablet is fantastic," says Stange. The videos that she has made so far with tablet and Camtasia software explain core concepts for Discrete Math students. Stange uses a stylus pen to draw on the tablet in Autodesk Sketchbook software. She says drawing on the tablet is: "... just like a mouse, except your hand has better control if you want to draw something. You can sketch much more naturally."

Stange records her drawings in Camtasia software. She can accelerate the drawing videos and records herself explaining the concept. This way, Stange says that she can show much more visually in less time, than if she were drawing and writing equations live on the board in front of students in class. Stange says:

In class sometimes I find that I'm lecturing and I want to put something up on the blackboard, but it takes too long, so I don't do it. This [tablet and software] is perfect for that because you can draw it [ahead of time], and speed it up ... Then you don't have to use classroom time for it.

Now, she is using more and more class time to lead students to work through concepts that they studied for homework. "For me the visual is a big component of learning," says Stange. She says when students can watch a video that explains a core concept for homework that frees up class time to build on core concepts with students. Stange has implemented Think-Pair-Share Clicker question and answer time, group work, and manipulatives into her lecture hour.

Stange's videos last between three and five minutes. They currently support MATH 2001, Introduction to Discrete Mathematics.

The tablet belongs to the Math Department. Stange hopes that her first videos will inspire more Math faculty to make their own videos! "Once you've made one you can use it forever," she says. "It's really pretty fun."

Watch the first videos that Stange created with the Wacom tablet here:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGnb-ctTQE8]

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ_LCmlCftc]

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Watkins's Neuroscience Students Learn More Through Video Lecture Capture

Anonymous — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 16:17:00 +0000

Watkins's Neuroscience Students Learn More Through Video Lecture Capture Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 07/02/2015 - 10:17

Asking the instructor a question in class from home is possible with Be Boulder Anywhere's technology. When CU Boulder Department of Psychology's Linda Watkins taught with Be Boulder Anywhere technology for this first time this past spring semester, she could call on distance learning students during class to ask questions. First, distance learning students log in via Blue Jeans Video Conferencing--the program that Be Boulder Anywhere currently uses to engage distance learning students. Watkins explains it this way: "Students tap in by web. In real time. They can ask questions in class." Be Boulder Anywhere provides staff to film the instructor while they lecture. This way, cameras zoom in, and track the instructor throughout the classroom as she walks and talks. Watkins says that the distance learning students, "... can see and hear everything in the classroom." Like the video capture system that OIT provides for CU Boulder lectures, two screens are captured simultaneously. Students can see the corresponding PowerPoint slides at the same time that they watch their instructor lecture. However, with Be Boulder Anywhere, the instructor can include distance learning students live, during class. The instructor can call on a distance learning student, and everyone present in the Engineering Center classroom, as well as all of the students watching the class in real time from home, would hear that distance learning student's voice projected.

This past spring was also the first time that Watkins taught the Introduction to Neuroscience course that was aimed specifically toward Neuroscience majors. That requirement meant that the course material was more intensive than the Biopsychology course that Watkins had taught in the past. However, thanks to Be Boulder Anywhere's video capture technology, students could re-watch lectures if they missed class or for consecutive times to, "refresh their memories," Watkins said.

Through D2L, Watkins tracked the statistics of students' usage of the video capture technology. She says that she observed that many students logged into the video capture system regularly. Watkins said that students told her that they used the program to review course material and to fill in anything they missed while taking notes during lecture.

91��Ƭ�� 100 students enrolled in the course. All students had the option of coming to class or watching the course live from home. This spring, the students in Watkin's Introduction to Neuroscience course nominated her for an ASSETT Teaching with Technology Award. They wrote about the value of video capture for their learning.

The ASSETT award is not the first formal recognition for excellence in teaching that Watkins has received. She became a Colorado Presidential Teaching Scholar in 1996. Watkins says that she thinks video capture technology is valuable to students' learning, and she says that she plans to use video capture in her future classes.

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Gale's RAP Students Shared Visual Literacy Images Via Social Media

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Jun 2015 16:30:00 +0000

Gale's RAP Students Shared Visual Literacy Images Via Social Media Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 06/24/2015 - 10:30

Kendra Gale, PhD, is an instructor in the Communication and Society Residential Academic Program at CU Boulder. Gale completed the Fall 2014 ASSETT Teaching with Technology Seminar. She introduced a social media page into her class as a mechanism for sharing and discussing interesting images in the media.

[video:https://youtu.be/wXFiHMsT0MM]

Teaching and Learning Challenge

I teach introductory communication courses in the Communication and Society Residential Academic Program (Comm RAP). These are all course with first year students, taught in the residence hall in sections of 19 or less. The enduring idea of the courses is social construction through communication, i.e., how we communicate shapes our understanding of reality.

I used the Teaching with Technology Workshop to explore image delivery mechanisms for students in my Visual Literacy course. One of the goals of the course is for students to master basic vocabulary of semiotics, design, photography and film to use in the discussion of images. But learning a new vocabulary requires practice and repetition.

While I have literally thousands of images in my electronic archive, using them to create exercises for students has been a challenge. I use images on D2L for quizzes but the process of uploading and labeling images for that format is extremely cumbersome and inefficient. While I will continue to use the quiz function for quick learning checks, it is not feasible for uploading large quantities.

In the past, I have posted PowerPoint slides online with questions on the slide and answers in the notes section, created binders of images for students to peruse and practice and required students to create a portfolio of images examples for terms. All of these approaches are extremely labor intensive for me and the interaction is primarily one to one where I am providing feedback individually.

Plans for Implementation

Technology

The goal for using technology is to create a “space” for students to apply the visual vocabulary to a range of images. My vision was to create the equivalent of a “language lab” or sets of electronic flashcards for practice outside of class time.

The tool I choose to explore was a closed group on Facebook because:

Students are already adept at using Facebook so, unlike creating a blog site, there was no learning curve for a new technology;
It is a site they already visit frequently;
A closed group allows students to practice without all of their friends being notified every time they post an image or comment so it respects the boundary between academic and social life. But knowing their classmates would see the posts creates some performance expectation;
Posts and comments are dated;
It is fast and easy both to upload images and to comment on posts on Facebook.

Learning Exercise

Students were required to post 4 times, roughly once every 2-3 weeks, and to comment on at least eight posts from classmates. I provided a list of terms for select modules in the course (semiotics, intertextuality, camera terms, and design choices) and asked students to select one of the terms, provide a visual example of the term in use and briefly discuss how that particular choice contributes to a preferred reading of the image. I also required them to use images that hadn’t already been used. That compelled them to look at all the previous posts before contributing their own as did the requirement to comment on other posts.

Evaluation of the posts was based primarily on completion:

0 = no post or late post
1 = student posted but didn’t complete all the requirements or the post was duplicate of what someone else has already posted
2 = posted and completed all the discussion requirements

Indicators of Success

Assessment of the Technique

Student Self-Assessment

Students were asked about the Facebook posts and assignments in a peer evaluation of my teaching as well as in an anonymous end-of-semester survey. On scaled items students strongly agreed on the ease of use as well as the benefit of having additional examples outside of class (4.5 out of 5). There was less agreement on the number of required posts with some students suggesting that more posts be required in the future. Several also commented on the value of my comments in response to other students posts. They also appreciated the validation when I used their examples in class.

From my perspective, this was also successful as a formative assessment,

I was able to detect patterns of misunderstanding quickly and address them in class.
My feedback on individual posts and comments was visible to the whole group so the learning experience extended beyond the individual.

Unexpected Additional Affordances

Having students contribute images from their own lives provided me with a range of images to which I wouldn’t normally be exposed. It allows me to easily update some of my own examples, to incorporate their images into class discussion and to use the same image several times to help them understand multiple ways of analyzing an image. Analysis and commentary on images from their own lives helped connect daily experience with larger social discourses.
Generally the students who posted first were some of the more successful and high achieving students in the class. They set a high standard for the posts that followed. But that also meant that those who procrastinated until the last minute had to review all the previous posts. Often times, the last-minute-students are not as strong and I suspect the extra review was beneficial for them.
Since students mostly used their real names and faces in the profile pictures, it helped everyone learn the names of all their classmates.
Because they set their social media accounts to notify them via text when anything is posted, notifications about classmate postings helped remind the potentially less organized students that something was due soon. The immediacy of the social media platform also encouraged conversations to continue after and between classes.
Instant cross-platform connection also allowed students to post from both phones and computers. It seemed easier to post images from daily life when they didn’t have to download it from a camera to the computer and then upload it again.
Their comments to each other sometimes strayed away from discussion of the images, but I believe some of the light banter, commentary on each other’s musical preferences, etc. helped them bond more as a community of learners. They were generous with their praise of each other for posting unusual images, original photographs or enlightening commentary, and disagreed respectfully.

Reflection

Overall, using Facebook as a site for posting and commenting moved this class closer to the kind of learning partnership I would like in all my class. They help each other learn and I am learning from them as well.

The workshop also exposed me to several other easy to use technologies that I have adopted in other courses. In addition, the conversation with colleagues was enormously beneficial for troubleshooting problems, generating new ideas and tapping into collective expertise.

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Students Nominate Emerson's Use of Media Archaeology Lab for Teaching with Tech Award

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Jun 2015 16:01:00 +0000

Students Nominate Emerson's Use of Media Archaeology Lab for Teaching with Tech Award Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 06/24/2015 - 10:01

Does new media correlate with technological progress? That's what students investigate in Assistant Professor of English Lori Emerson's Introduction to Media Studies course. To understand the extent to which technological media has progressed over the past century, Emerson asks her students to handle old computers, typewriters, record players, etc. at the Media Archaeology Lab on Grandview Avenue in Boulder. There, students, "Take things apart, and see what's going on underneath the hood ... I really believe that you can't understand how media work without using it. You can't understand without hands on access," says Emerson. She created the Media Archaeology Lab in 2009 and continues to direct it. The lab collects older word processors, sound equipment, and recording devices. Emerson cites that one such recent addition to the lab is a 1920s era Edison phonograph. "It works with a crank," she says.

In Introduction to Media Studies, Emerson teaches students about the history of computing and about the progression of media from past to present. She says that she helps students "... think about how things could work otherwise and could be otherwise--how to reimagine possibilities for computing." Emerson encouraged her students to bring their own media devices into the lab during their monthly visits there to compare the artifacts in the lab "... up against new media." Emerson says that spending time with older machines allows students to consider "... how long their computers and old cell phones could last ... Some old machines can do things better than our machines today." She says that she tries to challenge students to reconsider the value of older technologies and:

... think critically about old and new media of all kinds ... I get [students] to see that every new technology that comes out isn't necessarily better. One of the ways that I do that is bringing them into the Media Archaeology Lab.

Students in the Spring 2015 semester of the class enjoyed their time in the lab so much that they nominated Emerson for an ASSETT Excellence in Teaching with Technology Award. One student wrote that Emerson “... [centered] the class around forms of technology–new and old, visiting the multi-media archaeology lab, and using technology to teach.”

Emerson's students wrote blog posts to reflect on their time in the Media Archaeology Lab. Then, they wrote research papers and collaborated for final group creative projects. Groups' projects responded to topics that they talked about in class. One group created a sound art project about the sounds that old machines made in the lab. Another group created a typewriter art exhibit.

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Creating Virtual History Exhibits with Young's ASSETT Development Award

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Jun 2015 16:35:00 +0000

Creating Virtual History Exhibits with Young's ASSETT Development Award Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/15/2015 - 10:35

CU Boulder Professor of History Phoebe Young won a Spring 2014 ASSETT Development Award to obtain student training support for digital exhibition software. Young integrated Omeka digital exhibition software into her course, History 4546: Popular Culture in Modern America. Young's students created online exhibits of pop culture themes. They uploaded images and sound clips and recorded the items' source information. The source information, such as the date of creation and who owns rights to it, is searchable through Omeka. Then, students selected artifacts and collaborated with one another to create exhibits about particular pop culture themes. Students wrote captions about the pieces that they selected. Each exhibit consists of several web pages that explain how a collection of artifacts exemplifies their chosen pop culture themes. The exhibits are like illustrated, digital, research papers, except they're written so that the visitor can approach the artifacts in any order.

Young's students learned to digitize objects--upload photos and sound clips--and write source information and captions about them. Students collected artifacts into a digital exhibit--like an online webpage. Young used the ASSETT Development Award to hire an undergraduate History Major as a Technology Learning Assistant to serve as a peer trainer for students. Young said, "[The ASSETT Development Award] paid for student labor to help fellow students do peer-to-peer teaching around technology." The student assistant created a Sandbox on the class's Omeka site with How Tos to support students technically.

Young's Students Created Virtual History Exhibits. This exhibit is about the history of portable music.

Young taught her students about what metadata is and why archiving a large amount of information into a searchable database is important to scholars of history. She asked Norlin Library to speak to her students about public domain rights to information. Young said that students' creating a public exhibit, "demonstrated the value of students of being able to create work that will have a public audience." She said that in creating an online exhibition, "[Students] make their work a public object, and it gives them a sense of agency."

Young contrasted creating something online with writing a traditional term paper. "The sense of permanence of students' work was incredibly valuable." She also said that an online exhibition is something that students can take with them after the course is over and share with friends and family.

Young said that in creating an online exhibition: "Students may see more value of what they do. Students may take more ownership in the project itself when it's something that belongs to them." Even further, Young sees a bigger picture for History students' creations of digital exhibits. She says, "For the Humanities, it enhances the work for people outside of the University to see what your students are doing. Students can say, 'This is what I've done. This is what I've produced. This is what I've learned.'" See Young's students' exhibits here: https://omeka.colorado.edu/hist4546/exhibits.

Young also said that once she received the ASSETT Development Award provided a first step to further matching grants from the History Department to support the project. The History Department's grant provided a one day Omeka training session. The one-day training session was led by a national expert on Omeka. Faculty, staff, and students from across the university attended.

Omeka is an open source software that was developed by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Washington University. Young says that she thinks that, because of the metadata searchable software that Omeka software provides, it would be most appropriate for a larger digitization project. ASSETT is hosting Omeka through the end of 2015, and CU Libraries and other CU departments are welcome to investigate.

This past spring, Young joined the ASSETT team as its Interim Director. She continues to teach History at CU.

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Storify Curated Social Media Conversations in Albert's Writing Class

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 17:00:00 +0000

Storify Curated Social Media Conversations in Albert's Writing Class Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/11/2015 - 11:00

PWR Instructor Michelle Albert

Michelle Albert, a Senior Instructor in the Program for Writing and Rhetoric, implemented Storify into her First-Year Writing and Rhetoric Class. Albert hoped that when students tracked the threads of their social media conversations using Storify, they would be able to visualize the developments of their research inquiries. Albert completed the Spring 2015 ASSETT Teaching with Technology Seminar.

[soundcloud width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/298660350&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false"][/soundcloud]

Teaching and Learning Challenge

One of the six primary learning objectives for First-Year Writing and Rhetoric classes in the PWR states that students will develop their information literacy, making critical choices as they identify a specific research need, locate and evaluate information and sources, and draw connections among their own and others' ideas in their writing. To achieve this goal, most instructors include an Inquiry Project that typically culminates in a traditional print-based academic research paper. However, the new complex and dynamic information and media landscape in which we and our students live and work -- the near-ubiquity of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in our lives -- requires new kinds of information literacies and thus new information literacy curricula.

As with writing, the creation and sharing of information is subject to social, cultural, political, and technological forces. However, many students (and instructors) have outdated assumptions about the role of research and its relationship with writing. Students associate “research” with library databases, and assume the “research paper” they (dread to) write will be formal and boring, just another hoop to jump through to get the grade they want in the class. Students still commonly assume that their role as learners is to consume information, that their role as researchers is a passive one, and that their writing has no significance beyond the classroom and no audience beyond the instructor.

My project challenges these common perceptions and expectations. A re-designed FYC Inquiry Project will address our new information literacy needs and teach students to think critically about their roles in information and digital landscapes in the both academic and public/civic realms.

Plans for Implementation

Overall, throughout the course of an eight-week Inquiry Project (IP), students will develop practices of self-directed and open inquiry as they pose research questions, navigate conversations, formulate arguments, and compose and circulate their own texts in a variety of modes and media. The IP includes objectives that will help students learn to:

Think critically about the way they seek out, use, and interact with information within ever-changing digital landscapes;
Think critically about the digital identity they create in the process of interacting with information;
Use research to construct knowledge and contribute to networks of information;
Make informed rhetorical choices as they compose a variety of texts in multiple modes and media and for a variety of audiences;
Recognize that authority is constructed, and it is constructed differently in different contexts.

For my ASSETT Teaching With Technology Seminar project, I focused on one particular learning objective from the larger Inquiry Project:

Students will investigate and recognize inquiry and communication practices in new media environments.

More specifically, as part of this objective, students will:

Understand that ideas and theories are formulated, debated, and reformulated over time;
Understand how authority is constructed in different new media contexts and learn to determine if specific information matches their needs and purpose;
Learn to identify meaningful, current, ongoing conversations about an issue or topic they are interested in

Currently, one set of tools people use to share information -- the dominant space in which public conversations take place -- is social media. It’s important for students to learn how people create and share their knowledge via social media, and to learn to think critically about the way they seek out, evaluate, and synthesize information they find in these public spaces.

To help students think critically about information they find in new media, they will complete a short assignment using Storify, an online tool that allows users to create timelines from a wide variety of social and new media elements. This assignment will be introduced about 3 or 4 weeks into the larger Inquiry Project. Prior to beginning this assignment, I will have taught students about assessing and evaluating information to understand how expertise and authority are constructed, and how to determine whether information and sources are useful and relevant to their purposes. Also, I’ll teach students some skills for doing searches on new and social media.

In this Storify project, students will:

Track a conversation about the issue they’re exploring in their Inquiry Project in a variety of new and social media.
Curate the conversation (show how they’ve tracked it) and create a narrative using Storify;
Present their Storify to the class.
Reflect on their process in a short paper they will submit to me.

Indicators of Success

The students’ Storify narration will begin to address their driving research question. They will write and talk about how the information they’ve found gives them new understandings about the topic they’re investigating. Presenting their Storify to the class will require them to organize their ideas and sort through the information they’ve found to determine what is most important for their audience to know, and will also give them the opportunity to get feedback from their peers. Finally, students will write a short reflection paper for me responding to prompts I will give them to get them to think about how and why they chose the sources they did, among other things.

Students will likely refer back to their Storify and use some of the skills and insights they learned through this assignment as they move on to other pieces of the Inquiry Project. The Storify piece will be included in a final electronic portfolio that students will submit at the conclusion of the whole project.

A screenshot from a sample Storify I created as a model for students:

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ASSETT's 3D Printer Could Come to Your Class

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Jun 2015 18:05:00 +0000

ASSETT's 3D Printer Could Come to Your Class Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 06/10/2015 - 12:05

ASSETT student staff investigated the uses of the ASSETT 3D printer that is available to CU Boulder College of Arts and Sciences courses for demonstration purposes.

What could you with the 3D printer? First, get ideas. Consider how you could use the ASSETT 3D printer to support students' learning. Some great ideas are at http://3dprint.com/27743/3d-printing-benefits-schools/. Make a 3D model of a polyhedron in math class. Create a three dimensional topographic map that shows variations in terrain. Print your own fossils to bring museum artifacts into your classroom. Create a cross section of the heart or a larger than life cellular organelle for Biology class. Imagine the possibilities in art class. ASSETT students decided to design something functional: enhanced ski goggles that feed information as you glide.

Now that you have your idea, write your design. Learn to draw in 3D for free with Sketchup.com, or take free online 3D printing tutorials at Shapeways.com. The ASSETT students pictured here designed plastic products in Blender software. Blender allows the user to design products on a virtual three dimensional coordinate plane. You can even write your design in Photoshop!

Third, purchase your materials. ASSETT is happy to share its 3D printer for educational purposes for College of Arts and Sciences classes. Next, you need to purchase filament to feed into the 3D printer. The ASSETT students purchased the colored filament that feeds into the printer at local hardware stores.

Learn more about how 3D Printers work.

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