(image originally uploaded by Eric Shalov via Creative Commons License)

Hope you had a wonderful Cinco de Mayo!  As the term winds down, a few things, one of which we could very much use your thoughts on…

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Featured Request:  What Would You Like From a Grader?

In our ongoing efforts to make the OpenLab the best teaching and learning platform it can be, The OpenLab team is in the middle of evaluating grading options, including the feasibility of creating a tool to support grading.  We’re asking for your help in determining the community needs, and the bet way to meet them.  We’d love your general thoughts, but here are some specific questions:

a) What do you currently use for grading? (Blackboard, spreadsheet, another tool?)
b) What do you like about your current tool? What don’t you like?
c) What are the minimum features you would need in a grading tool on the OpenLab?
d) In your dream world, what features would you like to see?
e) Any other input you would like to provide?

We’re also evaluating our current grader, the KB gradebook.  If you have used it, either here on the OL or in other settings, we’d love to hear what you think, what issues you might have had, what you like about it, etc.

Leave a comment below, or contact us here anytime.  We greatly appreciate your help and look forward to seeing your feedback!

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Featured Features:  New Plug-Ins

(photo by Qurren (talk) via creative commons license)

If you’ve visited the Plug-Ins page in your site’s dashboard, you might have noticed there are some new plug-ins available, including Easy Table, a convenient way to add a table to any post or page.   We’ll have a tutorial for it in the coming weeks, but for now just know that there are always improvements happening to the OpenLab:  some you’ll notice, some that just make the site work better.  Feel free to ask questions about anything new you see, and know that we’ll have updates and tutorials on all of it  in time for the summer sessions. 

(image in the public domain)

Happy May!

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Upcoming Workshops

We have two faculty workshops on Wednesday of this week!  Come!  Learn!

We’re also having a student showcase on Thursday at 1pm.  Here you can learn about all the great things students are doing on the OpenLab, and develop ideas for your own projects.

RSVP here!

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OpenLab Statistics!

We posted this elsewhere on The Open Road last week, but we’re going to repost it here, since we’re so very proud.  These are the statistics for the OpenLab over the last three months:

Number of users broken down by students, faculty, staff:

Students: 5654

Faculty: 353

Staff: 68

Number of courses, projects, clubs, portfolios:

Courses: 457

Projects: 966

Clubs: 39

Portfolios: 783

Featured Site:  Undergraduate Research

This week we’re featuring the Undergraduate Research project, dedicated to bringing students and faculty together to do research.  It gives students a chance to gain credit, get close to a professor, and improve their resumes, and it gives professors a unique way to passing on knowledge and skills, discover with students, support their professional discipline, and apply for grants targeted to undergraduate institutions.

As the home page of the site says:

(image by v-collins via Creative Commons Licence)

Happy Earth Day!  And welcome to this week’s This Week in the OpenLab!

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FEATURED CLUBS:  Arch(itecture) Fellowship, Mobile Application Developers

This week we’re featuring a couple of promising yet still underpopulated clubs:  Arch Fellowship and Mobile Application Developers.  The first of these hopes to “get to know our fellow classmates, build a network, and share the different points of view regarding architecture and other subjects.”  If you’re an architecture major, or just interested, you certainly should join here.  The second of these, M.A.D. proposes to be a place for app developers to share and ideas and create new projects.  Join that one here!

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FEATURED CONTEST: WHAT DOES GEN ED MEAN TO YOU?

The contest, “What Does Gen Ed Mean to You?” has officially begun. You have from now until April 29 at 5pm to submit a creative work that represents an answer to this question. Examples of accepted submission forms are audio visual works (in .MP4 and .MOV), art projects, posters, and other creative media.

Remember, three prizes will be awarded. One from each school: Technology and Design, Arts and Sciences, and Professional Studies. The winning submissions will be used to promote General Education in the college starting next semester.

This is a great opportunity for you to think about what the goal of General Education is, and what it means to you. Group submissions will be accepted, however the prize will be $250 per winning entry no matter the size of the group.

Make sure that you submit the release forms with your entry. They can befound under files on the project site. https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/groups/what-does-gen-ed-mean/files/

For general questions, submit in the Discussion labeled Questions. For individual questions, email genedcontest@gmail.com

You can learn more here, and view the pdf here.  Good luck!

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FEATURED SITE:  Brooklyn Waterfront Research Center

It’s been a while since we caught up with our friends at the Brooklyn Waterfront Research Center, part of the larger City Tech project of which the OpenLab is a part.  They’ve been active:  they held a Bikes on the Brooklyn Waterfront Conference (with photos!), and have an upcoming breakfast talk on May 10th ( 8:30am to 10:00am at CityTech (CUNY): 300 Jay Street, Room N119).  The subject is “What’s There Now and What Might Be Coming: A Look at Land Use along the Brooklyn Waterfront” with Richard Bearak, Director, Land Use, Brooklyn Borough President’s Office

Once opened, registration (which is free) for the talk will be found here.

FEATURED ASSIGNMENT:  IND2401 Furniture Design

There’s a great series of images of furniture models here on Professor Nakamura’s Furniture Design course site.  An online contest to see who had the most attractive and effective design–rendered, yes, with popsicle sticks–is a great way to use the Open Lab.  And if you’ve never seen Professor Nakamura’s unique visual attendance technique, you most definitely should.

And congratulations Leon!

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FEATURED FEATURE: CHANGES TO THE TUTORIAL PAGE

We’ve made a few changes to the “Useful Tools” page here on the Open Road.  We’re hoping to revamp the organization of the site a bit as it expands, and are always looking for your feedback.  Let us know if this format can better work for you!

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FEATURED UPDATE:  APRIL 5TH EVENT

Last week we mentioned the April 5th Open Pedagogy event, what a great event it was.  This week we wanted to share a few things from the event that weren’t ready yet.  In particular, we’d like to share the powerpoint from the event:

We also want to share the notes for the assignments that were developed during the event, and also the game cards on which they were based.  You can find all that here.

And pictures!  Look at our nice pictures!

(image by misocrazyvia Creative Commons Search)

NOW it feels like spring!  Enjoy!  A couple things…

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FEATURED POST:  “Ten Things the Years Have Taught Us in Ten Years.”

This week we read Jody Rosen’s wonderful post “Ten Things the Years Have Taught Us in Ten Years.”  In it she talks about George Otte‘s presentation at last month’s forum on instructional technology sponsored by City College’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.  At the forum, George shared “some wisdom he’s earned through working as the University Director of Academic Technology and the other positions he holds at CUNY.”  Here are his ten points (as transcribed by Jody):

1. Don’t wait until you’re ensured the necessary wherewithal. As Otte put it in other words, “If you build it, they will fund.”
2. Put things in writing. As that is all I wrote down for this point, and it’s not clear what he was referring to specifically, I already wish I had followed that advice!
3. Always focus on the why and not just the what. It’s important not to use the tools for the sake of the tools, but for the opportunities for learning, working, and sharing that the tools afford.
4. A Corrollary: Be wary of trends for trends’ sake.
5. A Caution: Don’t sit and wait for things to stabilize: they won’t.
6. Principles before all other Ps (procedures, programs, even pilots). 
7. People matter more than technology. 
8. Ends matter more than means. For any project, there is a need to articulate goals and demonstrate usefulness.
9. Expect change, because change is the expectation.
10. Network, network, network. That is, make sure others know about what you’re doing, and also know what’s out there so you don’t reinvent the wheel.

It brings up an interesting point that applies to the OpenLab, but really to any platform like ours, including all those that will follow.  An important goal for our project is to act as a model for future similar projects, and disseminating our successes and processes.  And this brings us to George’s point number 1:  Don’t wait until you’re ensured the necessary wherewithal.   As we’ve worked on creating and now developing the OpenLab, we’ve been constantly surprised by what’s happened, what’s been necessary, what is needed.  For example:  we expected nothing like 6,000 members at this point in the process.  But there are many many examples of things we might not have expected (which is, ironically, exactly what one should probably expect from a community-driven project like this!)

“Necessary wherewithal” here refers to funding, but it also strikes us that it could refer to almost anything one isn’t sure about.  In large projects like ours, there is no end to the possible ramifications and surprises that might, if one let them, give one pause and maybe even stop one from the start.  The brave folks that started the OpenLab (this writer not being one, he can say so with an almost complete lack of bias!) trusted that they had created a framework which would accomodate all these surprises, and they trusted that they could lean on an adept and intelligent community to help create (and continue creating) an ever better OpenLab.

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FEATURED EVENT:  OPEN PEDAGOGY WORKSHOP

On Friday, April 5th, we invited all the Living Lab Fellows (and others) to a large meeting and workshop on Open Pedagogy.  Much wildness ensued (just kidding), but it was tremendous fun.  The highlight of the event was certainly an assignment generation exercise, led by Libby Clark and Maura Smale (though the whole team–especially Jody Rossen and Charlie Edwards–were instrumental in its development).

In the exercise, groups of participants were to create an assignment based on three cards, drawn at random:  a Gen Ed Student Learning Object, an Open Pedagogy Practice, and a game.  The games were all common games:  Clue, Battleship, The Sims, etc.  From there, the groups created an assignment in which they met the SLO, used the Open Pedagogy practice, and included an element of the game.  Sounds daunting, but the participants launched in and, in just a few minutes, developed some amazing assignments.

There was a great deal of variety:  some projects were semester-long assignments,  others were quick, single-use assignments (a math problem worked out in twitter’s 140 characters, for example).  The exercise and the resulting assignments will be valuable to anyone who teaches, and we’ll be sure to post them soon on the Open Lab.  And thanks to everyone who participated!

That’s all for this week!  Enjoy the weather!

(image by sheshakes via creative commons license)

We’ll save you the picture of James Franco that you probably expected here, and stick to business.  As we head off into spring break, we want to leave you with a few thoughts…

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6000!

Last week the OpenLab passed 6000 members!  We keep growing and growing, and couldn’t be prouder.  A big thank you to all of our newest members!  Next stop, 10,000!

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FEATURED SITE: FUSE LAB

If you haven’t seen Fuse Lab, you need to check it out now!   “Fuse Lab: Collaborative Education for Tomorrow’s Technology in Architecture, Engineering & Construction” is a collaborative curriculum project funded by the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technology Education grant program.  In addition, the site is the hub for several OpenLab teaching sites, like this one, and as such is a great model for how to link and coordinate different parts of a project.  Add to that, it’s just a very very very nice looking site, one we’re happy to have as part of the Openlab.

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FEATURED POST:  A GUIDE TO FERPA GUIDES

Our own Andy McKinney, who moonlights as a CUNY digital fellow, or perhaps moonlights for the OpenLab, or perhaps moonlights as a graduate student, depending on your perspective, wrote this wonderful digest/guide to the knotty and chaotic world of FERPA guides.  As he writes:

“The Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1973, or FERPA, was designed to give students the right to access their own educational records, lodge a request to have those records amended, and also allow for students and parents to be able to control who has access to those records.  This is an important law that gives students more power in regards to their academic records. However, there is a great deal of fear and confusion that surrounds the law with a rather large case law history only further deepening that problem.  In addition, the passing of the act in 1973 leaves it open to a wide variety of interpretations in a contemporary milieu of higher education where the privacy of students using various online platforms to both access and contribute content is particularly important.”

You can find the whole, very useful post here.  Thanks Andy!

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APRIL WORKSHOPS!

April approaches.  We have two upcoming workshops:

FACULTY:  4/18: 2:30-4:30 (G604) – Tools, Tips and Tricks for the OpenLab (Experience Required!)

STUDENTS:  4/18: 1:00-2:15 (G604) – OpenLab and Eportfolios: learn about both in one workshop!

Please RSVP here, and contact us with any questions.  And have a wonderful break!

(image of Buzz Aldrin by photo by cliff1066™ via Creative Commons Liscence)

This week we’re going to again shamelessly promote our new student community team’s blog, called The Buzz!  We’ve been doing good work there, and would love it if you joined to get the regular updates through your email.  If you’re logged in to the OpenLab, you can do that here.  Share it with friends, comment, be a part!

Here are a few excerpts from our most discussed posts:

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Anyone else sick of these MTA fare and toll hikes?!

“”I don’t know about anyone else, but I for one am sick of this! It seems like just yesterday tokens cost $1.50.  Boy, look how far we’ve come. Now, twenty five cents more, may not seem like a much, but when you make multiple trips along with having other expenses, such as bills and tuition, it sure does add up to a lot.

Oh, how I miss the days of high school, when we were given free metro cards. Now, looking back, I realize what a life saver those things were. What really pisses me off, though, is the fact that you now have to pay an extra dollar to buy a new metro card. Oh, but wait, the MTA was “gracious” enough, to let us exchange our expired, or worn out cards, for a free new one. Um…thanks guys?”

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Sleepless Nights Can Shut Down Your Genes

“Your genes get a beating every week you deprive yourself of sleep, so as Professor Colin Smith was saying, to those who experience less than 6 hours of sleep every single day for a longer period of time that can lead to a weaker immune system since your genes aren’t producing any protein and damaged tissues aren’t being replaced. It can also lead to obesity since it affects your metabolism as well as raise stress levels tremendously

So guys don’t deprive yourself of sleep. The next time your mom or whomever yells at you to get out of bed, just tell show them this article, then hop right back into bed and, get all cozy and hug yourself to sleep… because you know that’s not awkward at all… Remember a rested you means a happier you.”

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Finding a Faculty Mentor; That’s What they Get Paid for

(image by tedeytan via Creative Commons)

This week!  Featuring a new tutorial and a quick, idiosyncratic moment from an OL class!

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Featured Tutorial:  Social

Social is a new plug-in on the OL, taking over for the moment as our primary Twitter and Facebook broadcasting plug-in.  While Twitter Tools (which is being updated) is a more robust option, offering url shortening, category exclusion, and other options.  The benefits of Social are ease of use (Twitter Tools takes some setting up), and overall lightness.

Once Twitter Tools is updated, the two plug-ins will work together, and the tutorial will be expanded.  For now, If you’re interested in a simple way to send your posts to Twitter or Facebook, Social may just be the plug-in for you.

You can find more about this here.  Enjoy!

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FEATURED SITE:  IND1112 Engineering Drawing I

There’s a number of interesting things going on over at Professor Nakamura’s course site, but maybe none so much as his attendance policy, which involves having students post comments to mark their own attendance.  What struck us is not just the novelty of the approach, but also the rapport that even such a simple interaction can create between students and a professor.  As here:

There’s something about this that’s very revealing and very charming.  Maybe not a big deal, just a Professor taking attendance, but a nice example of the warm, informal interaction that takes place in our classrooms every day.