What You're Doing, Where We're Going
We’re happy to see more and more college committees on the OpenLab, including the Interdisciplinary Committee! They have a great site, which is well organized and informative, making it easy to find anything visitors want to know about what the committee does, joining the committee, or submitting an application to designate a course as interdisciplinary. We also love their eye-catching header and logo!
In Inna Guzenfeld’s Historical Preservation course, students are considering questions such as how historical significance is determined, and researching examples of cultural heritage preservation. They’ve also done field research at a historic district in NYC, documenting their observations about the site and its architectural significance. The course site is clean and well-structured, making everything easy to find. Take a look!
This senior design project was created by a team of mechanical engineering students, Josel De la Cruz, Ronald Valenzuela, Jeffrey Lim, and Raymond Persaud. We didn’t know anything about router tables before looking through this project, but we thought it was a great example of how the OpenLab can be used to organize and showcase group projects. It turns out we learned something new, too!
This week we’re featuring Professor Rob Ostrom’s ENG 1101 section, Not Only the Dead Know Brooklyn. Students have just posted some excellent multimedia presentations, in which each group researched a neighborhood in Brooklyn and explored the changes in that neighborhood over time. Students did a great job, and have posted their work on the course site in multiple formats including video, sound, and Prezi and PowerPoint presentations. Take a look!
This club, for students interested in the new Biomedical Informatics major at City Tech, has a great site featuring lots of information on club and other local activities and events. It also includes resources on jobs, internships, and the field of Biomedical Informatics in general. We’re happy to see them on the OpenLab!
Professor Michael Krondl‘s Culinary Tourism course is, as the site tagline says, “exploring New York’s exciting food landscape,” and one of the great things about the course site is that it shares those experiences with us on the OpenLab! The class has already taken a few culinary field trips–or walking food tours–of the Flatiron, Astoria, and Williamsburg neighborhoods, during which they sampled food in each neighborhood and wrote about their experience on the course site. By the end of the semester students will be creating a culinary walking tour of their own. They’ve also been trying out a new food and blogging about it, under the “food first” category. In addition to the great interactive work students are doing, the site includes many resources for all the foodies out there in the Blogroll and Links sections in the right-hand sidebar. Check it out!
“Ways of Seeing” is a First Year Learning Community for ADGA students who are taking Professor Jenna Spevak’s Graphic Design Principles I and Professor Jody Rosen’s English Composition I courses. Students are creatively reflecting on the world around them through image and text, from New York City more generally, to local field trips, City Tech, the view from their window, and more. The course site is well-structured, making it easy to browse through the projects for both courses. Students have also created ePortfolios, which can be accessed from the course profile. Do take a look at their great work!
Our Places: How We Commemorate
This project is associated with Mary Sue Donsky’s LAW 2301 course, Estates, Trusts, and Wills. Students researched a commemoration for someone who had died, and posted photos and descriptions of the commemoration sites, which were located in neighborhoods all over the city. The types of commemorations were diverse, ranging from buildings, sculptures, photographs, street signs, and murals. The work provides a deeper look at sites we might normally just pass by each day without taking much notice.
Skateboard Filming – Muhammad Floyd
Another site from Jennifer Sears’s Advanced Career Writing course, Muhammad Floyd’s blog is about his passion for making skating videos. He writes helpful reviews and provides advice about equipment and software. We especially like how he includes video reviews he has created himself. Also be sure to check out the link included on the About page to one of his skating videos. While the blog is focused on skateboarding, the information Muhammad provides would be helpful for anyone with an interest in video, especially related to shooting sports or other kinds of action.
The Writing Across the Curriculum program has developed an excellent site on the OpenLab, full of helpful resources and great information about writing pedagogy. The site is well-structured to make information easy to find, and they’ve made great use of their right-hand sidebar. You can find advice from writing fellows, resources for faculty, information about workshops, and even materials from past workshops in case you’ve missed one.
Read through the Fellows Corner and WAC in Practice sections for discussions about pedagogy and examples of writing intensive courses and assignments on the OpenLab.
The OpenLab is an open-source, digital platform designed to support teaching and learning at City Tech (New York City College of Technology), and to promote student and faculty engagement in the intellectual and social life of the college community.
