In the Spotlight: The Buzz is Hiring!

The Buzz is hiring for the upcoming academic year, and we’re seeking motivated, creative students to join our team! The Buzz is an OpenLab student project where students blog about themselves and topics of their choice (e.g., architecture in NYC, food, motherhood, academic discovery, the immigrant experience, and “Humans of City Tech”).

Why Join the OpenLab Student Blogging Team?

Publish your work on the OpenLab and develop a public portfolio of professional writing
Gain real-world blogging experience, build your resume, and get paid $500 per semester
Learn best practices for developing an online presence, personal brand, and using social media

Please help us to spread the word to any eligible students at City Tech. Applications are due Tuesday, May 16, 2016 by 5pm. We can’t wait to hear from you!

Faculty and staff, we welcome (and encourage!) your recommendations of strong candidates. If there is a student (or students) you would like to recommend for the position, please email Professor Jill Belli, Co-Director of the OpenLab, at jbelli@citytech.cuny.edu and cc the OpenLab (openlab@citytech.cuny.edu).

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In the Spotlight: ENG1121-D433 – English Composition 2

This week we’re spotlighting Professor Iddings’ English Composition 2 course site (ENG 1121-D433). After a quick tour around Professor Iddings’ course site, it is easy to see how this site functions as an important hub for her students and aims to support them in being successful in the course. With this in mind there are a number of features I’d like to highlight:

At 15 points of their overall grade, Blogging is an important component of this english course. For Professor Iddings, blogging is a part of the larger motto of the class: “Writing—and writing frequently, with intention, and with significant feedback—is a great way to improve your understanding of the texts we will read.” With this in mind, Professor Iddings gives extensive details on how to approach the assignment including the requirements and deadlines, notes on how to post and what should be included, and a grading rubric. In addition, she gives an overview of what blogging is and how its style and etiquette compare and contrast with other forms of class writing. This last component seems particularly important given the likelihood that many students haven’t had the opportunity to blog before.

A second feature I’d like to highlight is her main menu item entitled ‘Classwork’. As her page description states, “This is where all kind of handouts, slide shows, and student-generated work will land.” While the page contains only slide shows at the moment, I think it’s worthwhile to note the facility of having a place where any loose-leaf handouts can be stored digitally. Undoubtedly, there will be a student or two (or 10!) who will lose track of handouts that will prove useful to them throughout the course. By uploading them here, Professor Iddings never has to worry about students in her losing access to these documents.

The last feature I will highlight here – though there are many more and I encourage you to check out the site! – is the “Helpful Links” section and RSS Feed for the NYTimes which she has in her widget area (the menu on the right side of the course site). While each of these offers different content – the first providing students with easy access to educational resources around City Tech and beyond, and the second linking to the latest articles from the Times – both work to connect the student’s classroom experience to the outside world. This is an important capability of the OpenLab platform that we encourage instructors to take advantage of!

In the Spotlight: Science Fiction at City Tech

This week we’re spotlighting the faculty-run site, “Science Fiction at City Tech”. This site strives to “connect individual and collective efforts that study Science Fiction directly or leverage it to enrich City Tech’s students’ experiences, deepen classroom learning with archival research, and connect City Tech to the networks of science fiction research around the world”. In this way, the site operates as a hub connecting interested parties at City Tech with each other, with other resources at the college, and beyond. This ambition is embedded in the infrastructure of site, which includes information on City Tech courses and faculty members, a growing list of resources, and an active blog that shares updates about science-fiction-related events at City Tech such as the recently held Symposium on Amazing Stories: Inspiration, Learning and Adventure in Science Fiction.

An important service of the site is to provide a digital presence for The City Tech Science Fiction Collection, which is held in the Archives and Special Collections of the Ursula C. Schwerin Library at City Tech. Gifted to the college by an anonymous science fiction scholar, this collection spans approximately 600 linear feet and contains monographs, anthologies, over 4000 magazines (including nearly full runs of every professional science fiction magazine from 1950 to 2010), scholarly journals and novels. Though the collection is still being processed, the site provides two way for students to see just what the collection contains: a searchable PDF that catalogs the magazine portion of the collection and a shelf-by-shelf photographic inventory. In addition, updates about the progress of the collection – such as a visit from CUNY Graduate Center Digital Initiatives – can be found on the blog. Learn more about the collection from the video below!

In the Spotlight: Student Kim Mohammed’s ePortfolio

Though many of us may more readily think ‘coursework’ or ‘group project coordination’ when we think of the OpenLab, the platform also offers an important opportunity for displaying individual work in a unique and professional way. City Tech student, Kim Mohammed offers an excellent example of how this can be accomplished. Kim’s site is clear on her professional ambitions – to be a graphic designer – and aims to highlight the various academic and professional stepping stones that are preparing her for and leading her in that direction. For example, Kim has posted a 5-part-series documenting her experience finding and securing an internship (Part 1 here), a link to well-designed resume, and an ‘About Me’ page with a brief overview of her ambitions and link to an external site displaying her design work. Kim has also shared and summarized webinars and interviews with role models in her field and reviewed apps in her blog. In addition to the functionality of the site, Kim’s site is clean and easy to navigate, as well as – with a selected quote, image, and brief professional biography framing each page – unique and personalized. All-in-all, Kim’s site is a great example of how the OpenLab can be used to store one’s work in an organized and presentable manner so that it may be used in the pursuit of larger ambitions beyond your time at City Tech.

In the Spotlight: Apply to become an OpenLab Student Blogger or Photoblogger!

Apply to become an OpenLab Student Blogger or Photoblogger!

The Buzz is hiring! We are an Openlab student project dedicated to all things City Tech, where students blog about themselves and/or topics of their choice. We seek enthusiastic student bloggers to join The Buzz and create conversation, community, and engagement on the OpenLab and strengthen the intellectual and social life of the college community.

Why join the OpenLab student blogging team?

Publish your work on the OpenLab and develop a public portfolio of professional writing
Learn best practices for managing an online presence, social media writing professionally, and developing a personal brand
Build your resume and get paid $500/semester

Contact us at openlab@citytech.cuny.edu & jbelli@citytech.cuny.edu if you’re interested. See the full call below and submit the complete application by Monday, October 10th at 12 pm. Interviews will be conducted shortly after.

Download (PDF, 63KB)

In the Spotlight: Prof. Jason Montgomery’s ePortfolio

The upcoming summer is a great opportunity for faculty and students alike to work on developing their ePortfolios. For inspiration, look no further than Prof. Jason Montgomery’s example. Prof. Montgomery’s site draws on a clean, well-organized architecture to highlight his skills and accomplishments. Visually appealing images drive the site’s content, and Prof. Montgomery has smartly streamlined the appearance of images and text across the site’s pages. Examples of his scholarly work, teaching experience, and institutional service are easy to find, as is a link to his blog. Check out the site, and let us know if you update yours! We are always excited to highlight the excellent work that is happening on the OpenLab in the Spotlight!

In the Spotlight: ENG2003 – Intro to Literature: Poetry

Prof. Cecily Iddings’ course ENG2003 – Intro to Literature: Poetry offers a great example of OpenLab use to encourage student writing and feedback. Students blog on assigned topics like close reading or language, sound, and form in poetry. They are also required to comment on each other’s posts, creating an ongoing discussion about course readings that extends from classroom to site. Especially exciting too is the course Glossary that students continually upgrade with definitions, examples of word use in poems, and their own analysis of the word in context. Be sure to check out the course site for new ideas to generate student engagement online!

In the Spotlight: HMGT1102 – Intro to Hospitality Management

In Prof. Michael Krondl’s section of HMGT 1102 – Introduction to Hospitality Management, students can easily find the course syllabus, assignments, and readings. But most exciting about the site is the space it offers for students to blog about their visits to Smorgasburg and the Chelsea Market, complete with descriptions of the venues and mouth-watering photographs of the food. As a final project, teams of students will further use the OpenLab site to complete a concept of a New York City food truck, including a menu, standardized recipes, and spec sheets for the central ingredient of each menu item. Check out this site for a great example of student reflection, photography, and teamwork on the OpenLab — but not if you’re already hungry.

In the Spotlight: Rogue Bayron’s ePortfolio

City Tech students, have you wondered what to do with your ePortfolio? If so, head over to Rogue Bayron’s site for an excellent example of an ePortfolio that showcases talent. The site includes all the essential elements of a portfolio that positions Rogue for the job market: a bio, cover letter and resume, and examples of classwork. Rogue takes their portfolio a step further by also including a weekly blog about an internship experience and posts from a student club where they serve as vice president. Any prospective employer needs only visit Rogue’s ePortfolio to capture an immediate snapshot of who they are and what they are capable of. We encourage students of all industries — from graphic design to hospitality management — to take advantage of your free ePortfolio in order to showcase your best work!

In the Spotlight: The Buzz

Welcome back to all all who are returning to City Tech and the OpenLab! With the restart of the semester comes the restart of The Buzz, our student blogging site dedicated to all things City Tech. Our student bloggers write about everything from National Cookie Day to the magic of the universe. They give advice and take magnificent photographs. Get to know our team of top-rate writers and photographers, and stay tuned for posts from our newest members to the team — Samantha, who will blog about her full-time life pursuing her degree while parenting full-time; and Pamela, who will post tips and stories about professional development for her fellow students. Check back in throughout the semester for these posts and more from our amazing team of students on The Buzz!

Tag: blogging