project site – The Open Road

In the Spotlight: Building an ePortfolio

Draft and Finished Postcards, by Adrika Hoque

As students get started showing their work–for further studies or when applying for jobs–an ePortfolio is a great way to get started demonstrating their experience!

This spotlight brings an example of a sophomore student portfolio to show how students can take advantage of class assignments to start building their own portfolios to highlight relevant job skills. Even classes and topics that are not the student’s main interest will give variety to one’s curriculum and contribute to show experience with different tools and approaches.

Adrika Hoque’s ePortfolio also gives some nice examples on how blog posts can be a great format for image analysis, as it lets the author pick their preferred balance between text and images. Even though social media platforms such as Instagram are great in their reach, posts on an ePortfolio allow for a better balance of image and text, allowing for a deeper examination and comparison.

A good example of the potential is the Visual Quote Project post (created in her first year at City Tech) in which Adrika shows her work with different concept drafts and explains each of them. In the end, after the reader is acquainted with the logic behind each, she puts them all side-by-side so we can compare and better appreciate each of the images.

Students working on getting an ePortfolio started can browse through all the great ePortfolio examples from their classmates. As you find other ePortfolios you’d like us to spotlight, let us know!

In the Spotlight: The Fifth Annual Science Fiction Symposium

This week, we spotlight the Fifth Annual Science Fiction Symposium on Race and Science Fiction, to be held on Thursday, Nov. 19 from 9:00am-5:00pm online via Zoom Webinar.

This year’s symposium is co-organized by Wanett Clyde, Jason W. Ellis, Lucas Kwong, and A. Lavelle Porter, and features a keynote address by Jonathan W. Gray on “Past Tense, Future Perfect: American Atrocities in HBO’s Watchmen and Lovecraft Country.”

To participate in this free event, attendees will need to (1) Signup for a free Zoom account here (if you don’t already have one), and (2) Register here to receive access instructions to the Zoom Webinar. Participants may register any time before or during the event!

For those who would like to watch the event without registering, you can join the YouTube Livestream here.

You can also click here to view the full conference program and learn more about the presenters.

Hope to see you there!

New OpenLab Screencast: Pages and Posts

We are pleased to offer a new set of support materials for OpenLab users: screencasts! With video, audio, and captions, these screencasts provide step-by-step instructions for how to use different OpenLab features in a multimodal format.

Today, we’re introducing a new video in our series on the basic building blocks of OpenLab sites. In this one, we’ll focus on how to create pages and posts. This series could be particularly useful for students creating eportfolios in the second half of the semester, for staff beginning new projects, or for faculty designing course sites for the winter term.

To see our other screencasts, click here or visit our YouTube channel.

In the Spotlight: The Open Road

colored pencils arranged in a circle with 'back to school' in the middle — Image source: George Hodan

Hello all, happy new year, and welcome back (nearly)! It’s that time of the year again when professors are scrambling to finish composing their classes, finalize assignments and get their course sites up and running on the OpenLab. With this in mind, this week we’d like to, once again, bring your attention to the Open Road, your one-stop-shop for ‘all things OpenLab’. The site houses information about our monthly updates, office hours, detailed information about our upcoming workshops and our weekly blog series, ‘In the Spotlight’.

Here at the OpenLab we are committed to helping you start the semester off right. With this in mind, we are offering numerous workshops in the next couple of weeks. We have workshops for everyone from first- or second-time to more advanced users (our ‘Open Hours’ are most appropriate for the latter) and remember, newly-attending part-time faculty receive a stipend. RSVP today (January / Spring 2017) !

‘In the Spotlight’ is another resource on the Open Road that may be helpful in making sure you are prepared this Spring. ‘In the Spotlight’ is a weekly blog that highlights best practices in site-making and course design here on the OpenLab. Thus, the archive – being full of analytic course reviews – is an important resource for thinking about how your site or course might be structured or what kinds of assignments might be possible when hosted on the OpenLab. In case you didn’t know, ‘In the Spotlight’ also has a participatory feature, ‘People’s Choice’, wherein you have the opportunity to recommend sites to be featured in the weekly series. Check it out and make a recommendation!

We look forward to hearing from you and working with you more closely this semester!

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: Open Pedagogy on the Open Lab!

Image: opensource.com

Open Pedagogy on the OpenLab is a forum where our community can ask questions, stimulate discussion, and access/share resources related to teaching and learning on the OpenLab. This site is a good place to find ideas for digital pedagogy assignments, access information on best practices and tips for open digital pedagogy, and engage other faculty members in discussions about what open pedagogy is and what shape it can take in our classrooms at City Tech. With this in mind, faculty members are encouraged to join and contribute to the site, to help expand the available resources and generate further the discussion. If you join, you will also receive notifications when new content is added or discussion is happening on the site.

In addition to this site, the OpenLab also hosts a series of Open Pedagogy events each semester. Our first event for the Fall of 2016, held in conjunction with the Library, will focus on open educational resources (OERs) at City Tech. In addition to deconstructing the term “OER,” we will hear from several City Tech faculty on OERs they have developed. Refreshments will be served (thanks to the Faculty commons for its generous support of this event!) and part-time faculty are eligible to receive a stipend for participation. Visit the event posting for more information and to RSVP! We hope to see you there!

In the Spotlight: COMD Internship Coordination Site

It’s that time of year when students are searching for internships. Luckily, Prof. Tanya Goetz’s Communication Design Internship Coordination Site is a one-stop shop designed to help students in the COMD Department find internships to meet fieldwork and study requirements. These internships can include placements at advertising agencies, graphic design firms, corporate design offices, and more. The site is self-explanatory, with pages for necessary internship documents, links to resources and databases for finding an internship such as the City Tech Professional Development Center, support for student networking, and resources for both academic and professional writing. Have no fear, students. The COMD Internship site is here.

In the Spotlight: New Features on The Open Road

The Open Road has been updated, with new easy-to-use features! Check out our OpenLab Calendar where you can see the month’s upcoming workshops, events, and office hours. See OpenLab News for weekly announcements and updates. And stay tuned for This Month in the OpenLab, a monthly post that will announce new developments on the site, including the plugins that you’ve requested. As always, we will continue to highlight noteworthy courses, projects, clubs, and ePortfolios in the Spotlight, and you will always be able to RSVP to workshops from the Workshops and Events menu item.

In the Spotlight: Literary Arts Festival

Planning for the 2016 City Tech Literary Arts Festival is underway, and the organizing committee is making full use of their site to get out the word. Check it out to see a great example of a Project on the OpenLab. You can find information about previous festivals, this year’s featured writer Mary Gaitskill, and the 2016 Writing Competition. And don’t forget to submit your writing to the competition; the deadline is February 25th! Have questions? Contact Festival Directors Professor Robert Ostrom and Professor Jennifer Sears.

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!

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