We’re excited to share a video about the OpenLab made by the EdLab team at Teachers College:
We’d love to hear feedback about the video–add your comments here and/or on the Vialogues site.
Open Digital Pedagogy at Play
The OpenLab team is facilitating a Play Session at this year’s THATCamp Digital Writing, so we would like to welcome colleagues from THATCamp Digital Writing 2014! If you’d like to follow along with the day’s activities, follow the #tcdw14 Twitter feed.
For the Open Digital Pedagogy at Play, we’d love for participants to share their products with the OpenLab community. Use the format below to share your assignment ideas as comments to this post–or revise it to fit the needs of what you’ve made. We’re glad to have you join our efforts on the OpenLab!
Our three cards were
General Education Student Learning Outcome:
Open Pedagogy Technique:
Game:
Our group developed a/an [formal/informal/ group/ classroom] assignment that asks students to [what they’ll do] and then [what else they’ll do] and [finally what else they’ll do] using [specific tools, materials, skills] so they can learn [course goal] while also developing [specific and or general skills]
Thanks for playing with us!
WAC Workshop: The Creative Classroom, 5/6, 1:00pm
The Writing Across the Curriculum program’s final workshop of the semester, Tuesday May 6, will focus on creative classroom activities that engage active learning and promote student engagement. This sounds like a great opportunity to learn about opening the classroom to creative possibilities!
Download  The Creative Classroom poster
Check out the WAC OpenLab site
OpenLab Tour 2.0
We created our first OpenLab Tour post in 2012, and there have been so many great things happening since then that we thought it was time for an OpenLab Tour 2.0. As before, please add anything else you’d like to highlight in the comments!
 _____________________
Homepage
The OpenLab homepage offers a dynamic peek into all of the current activity on the site. The courses, projects, clubs, and portfolios that appear on the homepage are constantly refreshed, with the most recently active groups appearing at the top of the page.  We also have a section called “In the Spotlight,” where we can feature great work from around the OpenLab, and a slider where communicate with our community of members.  From the homepage you can access our listings of courses, projects, clubs, and portfolios, as well as My OpenLab (for logged-in OpenLab users) and the Help section.
 _____________________
People: Our Community
We have over 9000 members, including over 8600 students, and are growing daily!  We’ve improved the search options on the People page, and you can now sort by school, department, and member type – student, faculty, or staff.
_____________________
Courses: Extending the Classroom
Each semester we’ve seen more and more faculty from a diverse variety of departments using the OpenLab for their courses. Courses on the OpenLab provide an open online extension of the classroom-learning environment, offering a space to share and discuss each other’s work.  They can provide a forum for students and faculty to maintain ongoing conversations and collaborate outside of a set course time.  Since they can be open to others outside of the classroom, they have the potential to broaden the conversation and share the great work happening in City Tech courses with a wider audience. Indeed, we’ve had students tell us they enjoyed being able to follow along and learn from courses they weren’t taking.
Jennifer Sears – Advanced Career Writing (English 3771)
In her Advanced Career Writing Course, Jennifer Sears had students create blogs on the OpenLab that they worked on during the entire semester through a series of scaffolded assignments, culminating in a well-developed final project. Students became adept at integrating media such as images and video in their posts, and writing different genres of posts. They also interacted with the other blogs in the class, writing guest posts and commenting on one other’s posts. They did excellent work and we featured a few of the blogs in our Spotlight section the OpenLab homepage, including Andie Lessa’s New York Type blog about typography in New York City, Ryan Melendez’s Phototype, blog about Graphic Design, and Josel De la Cruz’s Custom and Aesthetically Pleasing Carpentry blog about remodeling and carpentry.
Jonas Reitz – Proofs and Logic (Math 2070)
If you’ve been following along since the last tour, you may remember Jonas’s courses for their innovative assignments and great sense of community. He keeps up the tradition in this course, and we particularly liked his MIU puzzle assignment. Part 1 of the assignment asks students to create a puzzle following a set of rules and post on the course site. For extra credit students could solve a classmate’s puzzle and add the solution as a comment on their post. Part 2 of the assignment asked students to either consider a conjecture about the puzzle and post a proof showing that it was true or false, or write about what they thought the proof might be and also reflect on their experience working on the assignment. For extra credit they could comment on a classmate’s reflection. This assignment does many great things, including encouraging interaction and community building, but one of our favorite things is that you see students reflecting on the process of seriously engaging with each others’ ideas.
Damon Baker – Ins and Outs of Physical Computing (Entertainment Technology 2180)
Damon Baker’s students completed impressive semester-long group projects in this course, and we enjoyed following along on the course site where they detailed their progress. Reading through the posts on the course site, their engagement and enthusiasm is apparent, as is the sense of community and teamwork. Students posted photos and detailed descriptions of their progress and challenges encountered along the way, and finally videos of the finished project, including the LED illuminated Raver’s Blazer, a functioning Submarine, and a creepy, interactive red-eyed Hell Bunny.
_____________________
Projects: For Research and Service
Projects on the OpenLab can encompass anything including research projects, course projects, official City Tech committees, events, and everything in-between.  In browsing through the projects page on the OpenLab, it’s clear that they cover a diversity of purposes.
In its own words, The Guide “includes tips and advice about City Tech’s campus and the surrounding community, including the Brooklyn Waterfront.” It was developed by students in a First Year Learning Community including three courses: Laura Westengard’s English 1101 course, and Karen Goodlad’s HGMT 1101 and John Akana’s HMGT 1102 (Hospitality Management) courses. The site includes helpful advice on college skills, guides to buildings and student spaces within the City Tech campus, and reviews of local restaurants, businesses, Brooklyn Waterfront attractions, and tours of downtown Brooklyn. The Guide is an Academic Service Learning Project aimed at an audience of new students, faculty, and staff, that came out of work developed by Laura Westengard during her time as a Living Laboratory Fellow. The site was conceived of and designed by students, and all content is written by students. The students also planned and held a release party to promote their hard work.
The Hospitality Garden is an organic garden run by students and faculty in the Hospitality Management department, located on a rooftop at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  They grow flowers and delicious vegetables that we’ve even had the pleasure of sampling in City Tech’s Janet Lefler Dining Room. The garden’s OpenLab site keeps the college community updated on what’s growing, as well as their calendar of events and activities.
This is the official site for the Title V grant-funded initiative, “A Living Laboratory: Revitalizing General Education for a 21st-Century College of Technology,” of which the OpenLab is a part. The site includes information about the grant and fellows programs, and announces upcoming events and application deadlines. It also showcases the excellent work Living Lab fellows have been doing in their classes.
Living Lab Fourth Year Fellows
Each year, the above-mentioned Living Laboratory grant chooses a cohort of fellows to participate in a General Education Seminar. The Living Lab Fourth Year Fellows project is a collaborative space for Fourth Year Fellows. They use the project profile to create, edit, and comment on collaborative documents and use the Fourth Year Fellows site to post information and announcements, discuss group activities, post and comment on course assignments, and maintain a working bibliography for the group.
 _____________________
Clubs: Building Communities
The clubs section on the OpenLab includes both officially chartered student clubs, and also more informal groups using the OpenLab as a space to share information and interact around a common interest.
The Printmaking Club is new to both City Tech and the OpenLab. The site is still under development, but it already includes interesting videos, a description and pictures of their Valentine’s Day card printing event, and more information to come on the history of printmaking, techniques for printmaking, and more.
The City Tech Times is City Tech’s student-run newspaper. They already had an externally-hosted WordPress site featuring the online version of the newspaper, which they were able to link their OpenLab club profile. They use the club profile to post their office and contact information, and announce upcoming meetings and other events.
_____________________
Portfolios: Sharing our Work
Jan Michael Maluto – Student, Mechanical Engineering Technology
Jan Michael Maluto has done an excellent job with the layout and design of his ePortfolio. It includes plenty of examples of his work, and makes effective use of images, video and links.
Faculty Portfolios: Jill Bouratoglou (Architectural Technology) and Masato Nakamura (Mechanical Engineering Technology)
These two portfolios take different approaches, and are both excellent examples of what faculty can do with their portfolio. Both include examples from their teaching, research, and professional work.
_____________________
Help
We have a new and improved help section that includes all the main steps involved in created an OpenLab account and profile, and setting up and participating in a course, project, club, or portfolio.  Recently, we added Best Practices and FAQs. We continue to add to and improve the help section as we grow.
_____________________
This concludes our short tour of the OpenLab.  Since we have limited space, there are many great courses, projects, clubs, and portfolios we didn’t include here, but please add a comment with anything you’ve seen or created that you’d like to share. Thanks!
This Thursday, 11/21, 4-6:00pm: Fostering Conversation on the OpenLab
You’ve saved the date–now let us know you can join us!
This Thursday afternoon, we’ll reconvene the group of us interested in Open Pedagogy on the OpenLab at an event focused on fostering conversation on (and with) the OpenLab. A few colleagues will briefly share some of their methods for generating and fostering conversation, and then we’ll continue our conversation by hearing from anyone who wants to share, ask questions, comment, etc. And we’ll have snacks, too! That’s where the RSVP comes it–it would be good to know how much snacking will take place. You can simply reply to this post letting us know if you can make it.
The details:
Fostering Conversation on the OpenLab
Thursday, November 21st
4:00-6:00 pm
Faculty Commons (N227)
Lively conversation plus snacks
image courtesy of Marc Wathieu
Save the Date!
This semester’s Open Pedagogy event will take place on Thursday, November 21st from 4:00-6:00 in the Faculty Commons. Our focus will be on generating conversation in online spaces. If you are interested in attending, let us know here.
We would also love to chat beyond this event, so some after-event conversation (perhaps at reBar–other venue suggestions welcome) is on the agenda as well!
What Is Grammar? Blog Post Assignment (Professor Rodgers)
Blog Assignment: What Is Grammar?
Professor Rodgers
Please complete the following. At the end, and after you have completed these steps by writing out your findings either on paper or in a separate electronic file, you will be asked to post your findings in a one paragraph blog post.
1/ Please describe your understanding of the term grammar and the basis for that definition, e.g., I’ve been told that I have bad grammar by teachers because I cannot spell well, etc.
2/ Look up the definition of grammar in a dictionary. Write down the definition. Please also include the title of the dictionary from which you took the definition and the page number on which the definition was found. For example: Definition of the term grammar. The Oxford American College Dictionary (2002), p. 707.
- 3/ Your response to Question 1 is your own connotative definition of grammar. Your response to Question 2 is a denotative definition of grammar. In one to three sentences, please compare and contrast these. Are these two statements similar or different? What is the major similarity or difference between them?
- 4/ Create a blog post in which you write one paragraph explaining your findings and what you have learned from this exercise. Finally, please list one to three questions that you have about grammar(s).
New semester, new assignments!
Each semester, I want to begin with an introduction not only to the course, but also to the OpenLab, so that students have a sense of where they will be working. I ask them to choose an avatar, and to think carefully about how they represent them. In the past, I’ve incorporated into an assignment a question about an image that represents them, asking them to describe it and show how it depicts them, but also to think about how it might be misunderstood by someone else, how that image can be read differently than they intend.
What made this more effective this semester was starting one step back from there, asking students to look through the People section of the OpenLab and find an avatar that they wanted to think about. Then they had to write a comment about that avatar, how they understood what it represented. Only after writing could they look to see who the person was, what they study, etc. In staging the assignment this way, they had the opportunity to themselves misread someone’s avatar, which they could then apply to their own writing about how someone might misread their chosen visual representation.
I’d love to hear from others how you orient students to the OpenLab, if you incorporate it into assignments, and how you introduce the notion of thinking critically about how we represent ourselves online.
Developing an Open Digital Pedagogy Assignment
Welcome, colleagues from Computers and Writing 2013! Use the format below to share your assignment ideas as comments to this post. We’re glad to have you join our efforts on the OpenLab.
Our three cards were
Open Pedagogy Technique:
General Education Student Learning Outcome:
Game:
Our group developed a/an [formal/informal/ group/ classroom] assignment that asks students to [what they’ll do] and then [what else they’ll do] and [finally what else they’ll do] using [specific tools, materials, skills] so they can learn [course goal] while also developing [specific and or general skills]
CFP: Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy
Hi everyone, I saw this CFP and thought it might interest those who are engaging in open pedagogy. I think it’s an innovative journal and valuable resource for all of us who are interested in strengthening our pedagogical strategies. In the interest of full disclosure, I peer review for this journal.
Here’s the call:
JITP, The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy (http://cuny.is/jitp), cordially invites submissions for all sections.
JITP welcomes work that explores critical and creative uses of interactive technology in teaching, learning, and research. We invite submissions of audio or visual presentations, interviews, dialogues, or conversations, creative works, manifestos, or jeremiads as well as traditional long-form articles. Submissions might explore content-neutral uses of technology, such as blogs, clickers, or multimedia projects, used in any discipline. Submissions might also focus on disciplinary uses of technology, such as software designed specifically to aid language learning or physics instruction. Discipline-specific submissions should be written for non-specialists.
Submissions that focus on pedagogy should balance theoretical frameworks with practical considerations of how new technologies play out in the classroom. Research-based submissions should include discussions of approach, method, and analysis. Successes and interesting failures are equally welcome (although see the Teaching Fails section below for an alternative outlet).
We intend that the journal itself – both in process and in product – serve as an opportunity to reveal, reflect on, and revise academic publication and classroom practice. All submissions will be considered for our Behind the Seams feature, in which we publish dynamic representations of the revision and editorial processes, including reflections from the participants.
All work appearing in the Issues section of JITP is reviewed independently by two scholars in the field, who provide formative feedback to the author during the review process. The submission deadline for the Fall 2013 issue is June 5, 2013 (Deadline Extended). Tool Tips, Teaching Fails, Assignments, and Book Reviews sections operate under a publish-then-peer-review model. Submissions for these sections are accepted on a rolling basis.
All work should be original and previously unpublished. Essays or presentations posted on a personal blog may be accepted, provided they are substantially revised; please contact us with any questions at editors@jitpedagogy.org.
As a courtesy to our reviewers, we will not consider simultaneous submissions, but we will do our best to reply to you within 2-3 months of the submission deadline.
To view the journal, read the full guidelines, or submit, please go to http://cuny.is/jitp
For technical details – file formats, documentation style, etc – please see our complete guidelines at http://cuny.is/jitpguidelines
