OpenLab @ Tech Day

We’re excited to be presenting at Tech Day @ City Tech on Wednesday, March 18!  We’ll be in room G-604, from 11:45am-12:45pm.

For our interactive session, “City Tech’s OpenLab: Enhancing the College Experience through Open Digital Technologies,” we’ll be exploring the sites below as a way of thinking through how to enhance the college experience (in the classroom, in our community, and among peers).

ENG 2426: Science Fiction

There’s a lot happening on Prof. Jill Belli’s Science Fiction course site, which is well-structured so it’s easy to explore and access specific information and resources.  The site is very active, with frequent student posts and interaction in the comments sections.  There are also some great discussions generated in the Class Discussion Posts, where conversation is extended beyond class time.  You can tell from reading through any of these comment threads that students are very engaged with the material they’re studying, as well as their classmates’ ideas.  Each week the class votes on which student post they think should be featured on the site, and the winner is chosen as the People’s Choice Post of the week. We also love that the course avatar (pictured above) was created by a student in the class, Andrew Dutt.

FIRST YEAR LEARNING COMMUNITY: ”The Art of Food” HMGT1203/1204 & ARTH1100

“The Art of Food” is an exciting learning community between Professor Garcelon’s Culinary I, Professor Jacus’s Baking & Pastry I, and Professor Cheng’s History of Photography courses.  In their course, their students explore whether or not it’s possible to appreciate food like a work of art and how food can be viewed in terms of aesthetic categories like beauty and taste.  The course site is very dynamic and very well-structured with great multimedia assignments from photographing food texture to blogging about Civil War soldier’s diets and foods that would be impossible to live without!  Take a look and enjoy!

#TheGuide

#TheGuide project, organized by Professor Karen Goodlad in the Hospitality Management department and Professor Laura Westengard in the English department, and created by their students, offers the OpenLab community a friendly neighborhood guide to local resources ranging from information about college skills, to tours of Brooklyn Bridge Park, to where to find the best local grub! This site is very well-organized and makes good use of widgets in the right-hand sidebar. Just check out all of those great categories! This site is a great example of how collaborative work done on the OpenLab can benefit the entire City Tech community.

The Buzz

The Buzz is the blog for our excellent group of student bloggers, who are writing on a wide variety of topics, including fashion, food, NYC events and activities, and more.  This semester the group also includes a few photobloggers who will be posting and writing about their photographs.  There are new posts nearly every day, as well as an active comments section.  Check it out, and leave a comment!

Biological Sciences Department

The Biological Sciences Department has created an excellent site on the OpenLab, which is full of resources, news, and helpful information.  It’s well-structured so that everything is easy to find, both on the home page, and in the top menu.  They also have a helpful feed of upcoming departmental events and deadlines in the sidebar.  Take a look!