Open Pedagogy Event (Th 2/23): Annotating Texts in Open Digital Pedagogy

A close-up of books on a series of bookshelves.
Image Source: Stewart Butterfield

Thursday February 23, 2017, 5:30-7:30pm (Faculty Commons, N227)

*Refreshments will be served. (Thanks to the Faculty Commons for its generous support of this event!)

*Part-time City Tech faculty are eligible to receive a stipend for participation.

*Please RSVP by commenting on this post. Please share this invitation with your colleagues!

Join the OpenLab Team, City Tech faculty and staff, and CUNY colleagues at our next Open Pedagogy event where we’ll be discussing annotating texts in open digital pedagogy. There is an increased push to use digital texts and open educational resources to save students money on textbooks (and to save paper!), but using digital texts in the classroom is often perceived as preventing students from fully and critically engaging with a text. Thanks to the development of new digital technologies, it has become easier to annotate texts digitally, and during this Open Pedagogy session, we’ll share a sampling of tools to use for digital annotation, showcase examples of them in action, and discuss best practices for cultivating close reading and conversation in digital spaces.

We’ll consider the following questions:

  • What challenges have faculty encountered while working with digital texts (perhaps as opposed to printed or hard copy texts)?
  • How can annotating digital texts impact student learning? How can they impact the teaching process?
  • How can you (and your students) use the OpenLab (and/or other open digital tools) to annotate texts digitally?
  • What does the future of annotating texts and open digital pedagogy look like?

Want to learn more about annotating texts in open digital pedagogy and digital reading more generally? Here are a few short pieces for reference:

Recap: Writing and Open Digital Pedagogies

A hand typing on a keyboard.
Image Source: Toshiyuki IMAI

On Thursday night we gathered to engage with questions of Writing Across the Curriculum!

We wondered about:

  • What challenges have faculty encountered while developing or considering developing writing assignments using open online tools and platforms?
  • How can writing-to-learn strategies impact student learning? How can they impact the teaching process?
  • How can you (and your students) use the OpenLab to realize the writing assignments you design?
  • What does the future of writing assignments and open digital pedagogies look like?

Writing Fellow Elisa Jane Boyton opened the conversation with a discussion of Writing and Social Media. Boynton shared an exciting assignment where undergraduates told the story of Jane Eyre on Instagram! The assignment intended to create a place for students to engage in alternative and creative storytelling practices, but ended up also inspiring them to engage the material in complex and sophisticated ways.

Rebecca Devers, WAC Co-Coordinator and Assistant Professor of English discussed Using the OpenLab to Bridge Creative Writing and Critical Analysis. Dever’s demonstrated how her students write and then use literary analysis to respond to their classmates fictional narratives on the OpenLab.

Marianna Bonanome, WAC Co-Coordinator and Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, presented her experiences Incorporating Low-Stakes Writing in a STEM Class. Bonanome talked about how although she wasn’t trained to incorporate writing, when she did she found that it provided a way for students to interact with course content, connect new concepts with previous knowledge and retain key concepts.

This was our final Open Pedagogy event for the fall and we are planning two more for the spring. So please be in touch with ideas, reach out, stop by our office hours or come to a workshop! And if you haven’t already, don’t forget to “join” Open Pedagogy on the OpenLab to stay in the loop about upcoming events and discussions about open digital pedagogy at City Tech.

Want to learn more about writing-to-learn strategies and open digital pedagogies? Here are a few short pieces for reference:

Open Pedagogy Event (Th 11/3): Writing and Open Digital Pedagogies

Open Pedagogy Event: Writing and Open Digital Pedagogies
Thursday November 3, 5:30-7:00pm (Faculty Commons, N227)

*Refreshments will be served. (Thanks to the Faculty Commons for its generous support of this event!)

*Part-time faculty are eligible to receive a stipend for participation.

*RSVP by commenting on this post. Please share this invitation with your colleagues!

Sun filtering through a dandelion.
Image Credit: Hartwig HKD

Join faculty and staff around the college at the next Open Pedagogy event, where we will be partnering with City Tech’s Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) program to discuss writing and open digital pedagogies (which is the support of teaching and learning by using open, online, cost-free, publicly available digital platforms and tools). Together we’ll discuss how to translate the most successful pedagogies which support student learning into the digital world. Emphasis will be placed on writing-to-learn strategies.

City Tech faculty and WAC fellows will share their assignments centered around writing in social media, formal writing and the OpenLab as well as the benefits of low-stakes writing. In doing so, we’ll consider the following questions:

  • What challenges have faculty encountered while developing or considering developing writing assignments using open online tools and platforms?
  • How can writing-to-learn strategies impact student learning? How can they impact the teaching process?
  • How can you (and your students) use the OpenLab to realize the writing assignments you design?
  • What does the future of writing assignments and open digital pedagogies look like?

Want to learn more about writing-to-learn strategies and open digital pedagogies? Here are a few short pieces for reference:

Recap: Open Educational Resources at City Tech

A logo for OERs.
Image: Ron Madar

Last Thursday evening we held the first Open Pedagogy event of the semester, Open Educational Resources at City Tech. The event centered around presentations of self-developed OERs from three of CityTech’s OER Fellows, Ari Maller, David Lee, Sue Brandt, and Andrew Parker, Opening Gateways Co-Director of OER Development. The presentations sparked a lively conversation about the about the joys and challenges OERs present, and the potential they hold for our classrooms here at CityTech.

To recap:

Assistant Professor and City Tech librarian Cailean Cooney opened the event by contrasting open educational resources (OER) with the average amount a college student spends on textbooks a year ($1,200!). As many attendees concurred, textbook fees often prevent students from completing course readings or assignments, or present serious obstacles to doing so. OERs, which are free and openly licensed (public domain, Creative Commons) educational materials that can be used for teaching – as well as learning, research and other purposes – help students circumvent these prohibitive costs when accessing course material. Faculty noted that when they used OERs, as compared to traditional textbooks, students were able to access materials and complete courses more regularly. Presenters also commented on and shared how OERs allowed them to include more interactive elements into their class, including movie and audio clips, as well as allowed them more flexibility than a traditional textbook in terms of crafting the content for their course. Relatedly, Sue Brandt discussed how her OER allowed her to keep course content current in a way that traditional textbooks could not, David Lee discussed using learning management systems in tandem with the OpenLab, while Ari Maller and Andrew Parker highlighted the flexibility of updating assignments year to year to avoid cheating.

The discussion also highlighted OER-related anxieties and challenges. In particular, navigating licensure agreements and WordPress as a technological tool were of utmost of concern. Presenters shared their insights on navigating these domains, while the OpenLab Team chimed in to ensure the group that we are here to answer questions such as these through our workshops, office hours and email support.

Beyond the content of the presentations, OpenLab Community Facilitator Andy McKinney initiated a discussion about the potential for synergies between open pedagogy and OERs with respect to the potential for student-professor collaborations in the creation of OERs. For example, by building a shared resource like a glossary or even a set of test review questions, faculty can use open pedagogy techniques to collaborate with students to build OERs that have value beyond that particular class. This elicited much interest from the group and is something we’re looking forward to discussing more in the future.

All in all, this event was a tremendous success! Thank you to everyone who participated!

We look forward to seeing you at our next Open Pedagogy event with Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) on November 3rd, 5:30-7:00pm in the Faculty Commons (N227). If you haven’t already, don’t forget to “join” Open Pedagogy on the OpenLab to stay in the loop about upcoming events and discussions about open digital pedagogy at City TEch.

For more reading on OERs:

Or Become an OER Fellow! The call for Spring 2017 fellows will go out October 17, 2016.

Open Pedagogy Event (Th 9/22): Open Educational Resources at City Tech

Open Pedagogy Event: Open Educational Resources at City Tech
Thursday September 22, 5:30-7:00pm (Faculty Commons, N227)

*Refreshments will be served. (Thanks to the Faculty Commons for its generous support of this event!)

*Part-time faculty are eligible to receive a stipend for participation.

*RSVP by commenting on this post. Please share this invitation with your colleagues!

Join faculty and staff around the college at the next Open Pedagogy event, where we will be partnering with the Library to discuss open educational resources (OERs): logo saying 'Open Education Resources - Property of Everyone' laid over a shelf of booksteaching materials that are free to redistribute, revise, and remix. Together, we’ll deconstruct the nebulous acronym “OER,” and distinguish what makes a resource free and what makes it open. We’ll discuss examples of several homegrown OERs and hear from the City Tech faculty who developed them.

We’ll also share updates on OER initiatives at City Tech and throughout CUNY, considering the following questions:

  • What challenges have faculty encountered while developing or considering developing OERs?
  • How can OERs impact student learning? How can they impact the teaching process?
  • How might OERs support course coordination and fill the gaps in course sequencing?
  • How can you use the OpenLab to create and circulate OERs you design?
  • What does the future of OERs and curricular materials look like?

Want to learn more about OERs? Here are a few short pieces for reference:

  • “Into the Open” (August 5, 2016). Karen Cangiolosi, Professor of Biology, Keene State College

*Image credit: opensource.com

Recap: Getting Hands-On with Research Projects on the OpenLab

Thursday evening brought the last Open Pedagogy event of the semester, Getting Hands-On with Research Projects on the OpenLab. A working session, the workshop focused on tools and strategies to implement research practices on the site. Faculty who attended were especially interested in exploring methods to support web-based student research. The event began with OpenLab Community Team members presenting strong examples of research and collaboration on the OpenLab, including Prof. Raffi Katchadourian’s professional portfolio, the collaborative Opening Gateways site, and Prof. Jody Rosen’s interactive map assignment, a Being in Brooklyn Walking Tour.

Participants then broke into working groups to begin to implement particular strategies according to their needs. For example, one group discussed integrating visual mathematical elements, like graphs, into posts as a way to build resources for students in Economics classes. An OpenLab Community Team member is now looking into possible WordPress plugins to enable this kind of activity. Another group considered using the OpenLab to facilitate the design and implementation of a survey, as well as its results. How exciting to see faculty members begin to implement ideas that they had been developing in Open Pedagogy events throughout the semester!

To that end, thank you to all who participated in Open Pedagogy events this spring! We look forward to following your ideas, projects, research, and collaboration on the OpenLab!

Join us on Th 4/7: Getting Hands-On with Research Projects on the OpenLab

computer from the 1990s
Remember to bring your devices on Thursday — hopefully one a little less dated than this. (Image by Javier Carcamo)

Getting Hands-On with Research Projects on the OpenLab
Thursday, April 7th, 5:00 – 6:30 pm (N227)

Refreshments will be served.

Interested in building a space for your research on the OpenLab? Bring your own laptop or device to this follow-up working session on research projects on the OpenLab, where we will explore and build projects on the OpenLab centered on specific research questions. Participants will leave with a collaborative space on the OpenLab for organizing, archiving, and publicly displaying their research.

Please email us at OpenLab@citytech.cuny.edu or comment below to let us know your ideas for the session. What research project do you want to work on?

And remember to bring your devices, as this will be a working session!

Recap: Exploring Research Projects on the OpenLab

Last week’s Open Pedagogy event, Exploring Research Projects on the OpenLab, was a great success, with lots of time for faculty members to explore opportunities for collaboration and research on the site. Attendees agreed on their interest in research design that sends students into the world to investigate a question, followed by opportunities to share and discuss their findings on the OpenLab. There was particular excitement about the possibility of mapping research, as Prof. Jody Rosen’s students did in her2013 course Being in Brooklyn. You can explore her students’ interactive map here.

Our final Open Pedagogy event of the semester, Getting Hands-On with Research Projects on the OpenLab, will serve as a working session to follow-up ideas that emerged from last week’s session. All faculty and staff are welcome, even those unable attend the last session, and all attendees should bring their own devices. Stay tuned, too, for a list of open pedagogy resources for research that we will share in anticipation of that event.

Join us on Th 3/17: Exploring Research Projects on the OpenLab

Exploring Research Projects on the OpenLab 
Thursday, March 17, 5:00-6:30pm (N227)

Refreshments will be served.

Interested in learning more about how scabblethe OpenLab can support your research? Previous events have focused on courses, but we’re seeing more research projects appear on the OpenLab. This session showcases this exciting work happening at City Tech, and explores some of the ways faculty and staff are using the OpenLab to collaborate with colleagues and students on research projects.

Please share the invitation, and feel free to comment on this post to let your colleagues know you’re planning to come!

Part-time faculty are eligible to receive a stipend for participation.

Image credit: janneke staaks

Join us on Th 2/18: Knowing Brooklyn through Place-Based Open Digital Pedagogy

Knowing Brooklyn through Place-Based Open Digital Pedagogy

Thursday, February 18, 2016, 5:00-6:30pm (Faculty Commons, N227)

Refreshments will be served

Interested in using the OpenLab to engage with the college’s current City Tech GenEdge bird's view of the brooklyn bridgetheme, Knowing Brooklyn? A companion event to this college-wide effort, this session takes a place-based approach to open digital pedagogy. Together we will think through ways to integrate place-based learning around City Tech’s Brooklyn location with open pedagogy on the OpenLab, as we design our courses, activities, and assignments. In partnership with the Brooklyn Waterfront Research Center.

 

Photo by The Buzz student blogger, Jean-Luc. See more here.

Part-time faculty are eligible to receive a stipend for participation.