In the Spotlight: Thomas Ahrens International Work/Study Programs – Paris

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A group of Hospitality Management students is participating in an exchange program with students from Universite d’Evry in Paris for the month of June.  They’re taking turns writing “Paris Correspondent” blog posts reflecting on their activities each day, including plenty of photographs!  It looks like a great experience, and we’re happy they’re sharing it with the OpenLab community and beyond!

In the Spotlight: CUE Conference with “The Buzz”

Brianna Vasquez, a student blogger for The Buzz, has written a wonderful post about her experience writing for The Buzz and presenting on it at the CUNY CUE Conference.  As Scott Henkle writes about the conference, “Brianna remained her charming self, speaking knowledgeably and well about her role on the team, and our presentation wouldn’t have been the same without her.”  She also baked an incredible cake (pictured above) for the occasion, which we all got to sample!

Brianna’s thoughts about community on the OpenLab touch on one of the central purposes of the platform, the creation of a virtual space where all members of the City Tech community can come together in a way that doesn’t always get to happen as much as we’d like on City Tech’s physical campus.

This Week in the OpenLab: May 13th Edition

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Last week the community team attended the CUNY CUE Conference, and we were happy to do so. Our presentation, Engaging a College Community Through Open Digital Technologies: City Tech’s OpenLab, discussed our ongoing efforts to increase students’ sense of community at City Tech. As we’ve said before, it’s not always easy to connect on a largely-commuter campus such as ours, and it’s our belief that the OL can play a central part in that process. In fact, with student membership increasing every day, we’d like to think we already are!

We’d also especially like to note the role of student community team member Brianna Vasquez. At a CUNY event largely attended by faculty and administrators, when we asked Brianna to be part of our presentation, she did not balk–in fact she jumped at the chance. And when her two fellow teammates fell ill and could not present with her, she happily spoke on the student team’s behalf to an audience of faculty from across CUNY.  Brianna remained her charming self, speaking knowledgeably and well about her role on the team, and our presentation wouldn’t have been the same without her.

And on top of that, she made the cake in the picture above! Thanks Brianna!

This may be our last post of the year, so happy summer to all!

In the Spotlight: Exploring Quantitative Reasoning

Created by Quantitative Reasoning Fellow, Yoonhee Kang, as a part of the Math Department’s Quantitative Reasoning (QR) program, this site features many great resources on QR and offers a space where those interested in QR can share and discuss ideas.  The site is well-designed, and contains information on QR, workshops for students, posts on QR in everyday life and various professions, and videos about QR.  Take a look!

This Week in the OpenLab: April 30th Edition

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We have a couple of events coming up featuring our student community team we’d like to let you know about!

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CUE CONFERENCE

First, our team will be presenting at the CUNY CUE conference on May 8th. The conference starts at 9 am at City College, and you can register here. Our team will be presenting at 3:15 in Room SH 210.

Engaging a College Community through Open Digital Technologies: City Tech’s OpenLab

Jill Belli, Konyca Francis, Scott Henkle, Andrew McKinney, Mandy Mei, Jody Rosen, Brianna Vasquez, Bree Zuckerman, New York City College of Technology

The OpenLab is an open online space where members can work together, experiment, and innovate. We will share compelling uses of the platform and discuss the possibilities such technologies create for teaching, learning, and collaboration in an open Digital CUNY.

You can find out more about the conference here.

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HONORS AND EMERGING SCHOLARS POSTER PRESENTATION

We’ll also be presenting at the Honors and Emerging Scholars Poster Presentation, scheduled for Wednesday, May 6, 2015 from 11-4 PM and Thursday, May 7, 2015 from 10-3 PM (The awards ceremony is scheduled to start at 12:30 PM on May 7th). The poster presentation will take place in the Atrium First and Ground Floors. The awards ceremony  will take place in the atrium amphitheater.

We hope you can attend one or both of these events!

In the Spotlight: Words Have Lives

Words Have Lives is a companion to the course Developmental Writing.  While it focuses on material being discussed in class, it can nonetheless be helpful to any students who may have questions about the writing process.  The site offers many resources, from help with essay grammar, structure, and strategy, to specific resources offered at City Tech, such as the Learning Center where students can go for help with their writing.  It is also well-structured and designed, and makes great use of image and video!

In the Spotlight: Irene Iarochevitch’s ePortfolio

Irene’s Iarochevitch’s excellent portfolio is well-designed and structured, highlighting her work in a number of courses through video, photographs, and writing.  The portfolio focuses on her ambitious senior thesis project, or “culmination project,” for which she is building a laser harp, an electronic musical instrument.  Her portfolio was also discovered by another harp-maker, who left a comment with some suggestions for the harp. It’s always great to see these kinds of interactions on the OpenLab, where student work can indeed attract an audience that reaches beyond the classroom!

In the Spotlight: Gothic NYC

This project was created by students in Prof. Laura Westengard’s course, ENG 3407: Gothic Literature and Visual Culture.  Students have posted photographs, video, and written about numerous Gothic sites in New York City, analyzing them through the theories and concepts they’ve been learning in class.  For those interested in taking their own spooky tour, the students created a Google Map that includes all the locations on the site.  Check it out, but as they warn, enter at your own risk!