ZackaryHegarty
Excel giving you troubles? Photoshop keeping you up at night? Have no fear, the Tech Tutors are here! The Penn State Tech Tutors provide free, personalized technology assistance with the software associated with your homework or hobbies. Come visit us at the IT Service Desk in the Knowledge Commons or in Pollock Computer Lab above the Testing Center, Monday through Thursday 11:00am-8:00pm, and Friday 11:00am-6:00pm, or online at techtutors.psu.edu/help from Sunday to Thursday 1:00pm-10pm. No appointment is necessary- just walk in or log on!
Fall 2012 Liberal Arts Scholarship and Technology Summit
The third iteration of the Liberal Arts Scholarship and Technology Summit (LASTS) will be held on Thursday, August 16, 2012, in Foster Auditorium. The College of the Liberal Arts is again partnering with Education Technology Services (ETS) and University Libraries to provide Liberal Arts faculty and graduate students a forum in which to share insights and learn from one another regarding the use of technology for teaching and research.
A new feature to LASTS is the addition of a pre-conference workshop to be held on Wednesday, August 15, 2012. The workshop will provide a forum for attendees to explore and discuss the nature of digital humanities and its role at Penn State. More information about the pre-conference workshop can be found on the Humanities @ Penn State Libraries blog.
Thursday’s event will feature presenters from Liberal Arts, Education Technology Services, and the Libraries, as well as a keynote address from Cole Camplese, Senior Director for Penn State Teaching & Learning with Technology. Below is an overview of the presenters and their topics:
9:05-9:15: Dawn Childress (University Libraries)
Brief summary of the pre-conference workshop on digital humanities.
9:15-9:50: Cole Camplese (TLT)
Keynote address from the Senior Director of Penn State’s Teaching and Learning with Technology.
9:50-10:05: Christopher Long (LAUS/Philosophy)
Discussion on how the research for his book, Socratic and Platonic Politics, was carried out in public through his Digital Dialogue podcast and his blog, The Long Road.
10:05-10:20: Mike Furlough (University Libraries)
Overview of how some libraries around the country have supported digital humanities research, as well as one example at Penn State.
10:20-10:35: Allan Gyorke (ETS)
Overview of key technology trends in higher education–including MOOCs, badge systems, learning analytics, and electronic textbooks–and how they are connected to activities occurring across the university.
10:55-11:10: Brian Young (ETS)
Demonstration of Doceri, a software that allows control of a computer (podium computer or laptop) with an iPad.
11:10-11:25: Jessica O’Hara (ENGL)
Discussion on how “intensive blogging” has been implemented in first-year honors rhetoric and composition courses.
1:20-1:35: Mark Fisher (PHIL) and Christopher Long (LAUS/PHIL)
Description of plans for an open peer-reviewed online journal of public philosophy.
1:35-1:50: Daniel Tripp (ENGL)
Discussion on instances when the technologies that make digital scholarship possible threaten it with obsolescence, as related to the post-publication history of Red Planet: Scientific and Cultural Encounters with Mars.
1:50-2:05: Chris Stubbs (ETS)
Overview of the creation, design, and student testing of EconU, a brand new web-based economics game.
2:05-2:20: Emily Rimland (Libraries)
Discussion of the Research Project Calculator and the Penn State iPad User Group.
More information on the presenters and their topics can be found on the complete schedule.
For those unable to attend in person, we invite you to join us online, where we will be streaming live at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/lasts-12.
The event can also be followed on Twitter at hashtag #LASTS12.
Videos and slide handouts will be posted here after the event, so be sure to check back for additional resources.
Working with Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Daniel Tosh
I came into this internship with a wealth of knowledge about Event Marketing/Advertising thanks to the Student Programming Association. In this organization (which you should join), I learned what it was like to deal directly with clients/talent, manage the logistics and budget planning of an event and provide a hospitable and fun environment for large scale audiences/talent. More important than anything else however, this organization taught me how fun Marketing was for me. I created advertisements including posters, postcards, fliers, digital still images and videos for our organization’s events, and was involved with a massive street team promoting the events for our students. I learned about what is aesthetically pleasing to the eye on an advertisement, heightening my creative and design skills. I also learned what people identified with on these advertisements, and learned how to spread information quickly via our social networks and street teams.
I also came into this internship with a skill set that I can attribute to my Economics degree. My Econometrics courses gave me a bit of insight about the world of competitive analysis, which was very important in my internship. In competitive analysis, any number or statistic that you can find can help you analyze your competition. In these courses, I developed my skills in interpreting these numbers and learned how these interpretations can lead to results. More importantly, I learned how simple competitive analysis can lead to a monumental change in even the largest business plans. This quantitative skill set is universally accepted and welcomed in the business world, and helped me to succeed in my internship.
Despite all of this knowledge, my internship began with a challenge. The challenge was that I had no idea how big the marketing/advertising field really was. There were so many aspects to the process that I just never knew before entering. At first I was overwhelmed, but soon realized that the internship is a learning process. I realized that I didn’t necessarily have to enter this experience with all of the answers, but I needed to know how to ask the right questions. It also became apparent that I had so many resources to utilize and many people who were so willing to help me.
With that knowledge and motivation, I really began to shine. I created many marketing packages tailored to specific clients and firms and truly dived deep into the Digital Integrated Marketing process. I also created competitive analysis decks highlighting what our competition was doing wrong and right, giving us insight on what we are doing wrong and right as well. I learned how stressful communication between multiple parties can be, and how several parties can conflict with others’ interests so easily.
I also learned that marketing is a huge collaborative process and that our team really brings it all together (and does a fantastic job at doing that). As our VP of Digital Integrated Marketing once said, Integrated Marketing is the Jason Bateman of the Marketing/Advertising Field. Of Course, this was referring to the show Arrested Development, and referred specifically to the fact that Jason Bateman is the glue that brings the rest of the characters together. Integrated Marketing is the glue that brings it all together as well.
Looking back, I feel that there was a significant difference between my internship and others that I have heard of from friends in the past. I wasn’t the intern delivering coffee, but I was delivering marketing packages going straight to well-known and respected companies. I wasn’t the inadequate and unused intern, but I was giving it my all and allowed to express my creativity throughout many different projects and outlets. I was not treated unfairly, but treated like an equal among the team. I worked my hardest, and it most certainly paid off.
Now, whenever I look at any website, the first thing that catches my eye is the advertisements on the web page. I see the hard work and dedication that comes with filling the space of a 300×250 Premium Rectangle. I reflect upon how many hours of work it takes to place a promotional tout or another editorial promotion for a specific sponsorship. I love seeing the finished product and love that there is such a complicated art to something that once seemed so simple to me.
This internship opened my eyes to many things, and opened up a path for me to continue building my career. I am very grateful for everything the team at MTV Networks has given me this summer, and am very excited for the future of this field.
High Schooler Challenges the Internet Generation
On April 8th, the Composition Program held its banquet for the Annual Pennsylvania High School Writing Contest. It’s now in its 29th year! We recognized 20 students: 17 finalists and the top 3. The winner was Joy Wang, a student from Council Rock High School, South, which is in Holland, PA.
The essay question this year was on globalization and the Internet:
In “Global Village Idiocy,”New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman provides a relatively pessimistic view of how the Internet affects users, especially in an age of extended social relationships. Based on your personal experiences, what is your take on his arguments and on the global dimensions of the Internet? Do your experiences, views, and opinions align with those of Friedman? Have your experiences been more positive? If global networks are here to stay, and they appear to be, how might we use them for learning, community building, and other productive purposes? In your response, (1) describe and evaluate your experiences with the Internet and (2) explain how the Internet has assisted you in becoming a member of a more global community, or has failed to live up to its potential to do so. Use your personal experience with school, community service, and other programs to illustrate and support your points.
Below is a post Joyce has written for LAUS@PSU about the essay she wrote:
Hello everyone, guest blogger here. I’m Joy Wang, a junior at Council Rock High School South. And you may ask, with good reason, “Joy, why are you writing for the LAUS blog?” It’s a long story that starts with an essay contest, of all things–the one that Penn State’s composition department runs for high school juniors.
So on a frosty day in December, I was locked in a computer lab with two other juniors from my school and was told to agree, disagree, or qualify a prompt which included an article by the New York Times columnist, Thomas L. Friedman, that ran in 2002, titled “Global Village Idiocy.” My essay, entitled “Information Overload: Skepticism and Social Organization in the Internet Era,” was apparently sufficiently ingenious to catch some reader’s eye for a reason I’ve yet to discern.
In any case, the thesis of Friedman’s argument is this: That the internet, however convenient and accessible, has fundamentally become a force for polarization and misunderstanding rather than a catalyst for harmony and societal interaction. A bold claim, to be sure, but one that has some traction given the horror and blind stupidity of the dregs of internet forums and comment threads. (For a particularly telling cross-section of these internet denizens, I recommend the comment section on CNN.)
The luxury of near-complete anonymity, Friedman argues, has brought out the virulent haters, the extremists, the fringe elements of our society who would have otherwise remained isolated, quarantined from the rest of the world by the analog divide. And this is not untrue–but it’s only half of the story.
I cited the death of Neda Agha-Soltan in the street protests that followed the Iranian elections of 2009. Her death, captured on video, became a rallying cry for the Iranian people in the wake of brutal government crackdowns. Little did I know or anticipate any of the events in the Middle East that would occur a little over a week after I wrote my essay. The self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi on December 17, 2010 in Tunisia has since then sparked a series of protests and revolutions that has spread throughout the Arab world to Egypt and Libya, Syria and Bahrain. Unsurprisingly, social networking and the Internet have played a critical role in these revolutions even more directly than it did in Iran two years ago.
In Egypt, for example, the We Are All Khaled Said movement, a Facebook-based dissident network and protest group started by Google executive Wael Ghonim, was formed to mourn and decry the senseless beating at the hands of Egyptian authorities that led to Said’s death. In the days after the initial revolution, Egypt’s government even tried to shut down all Internet access–a clear indicator of exactly how important of a role the Internet itself played in the organization of this popular revolt. In truth, even before there was the spark of revolution in Tunisia that touched off the dry tinder of the Arab world’s underrepresented class, there were the rumblings of discontent and social activism on the Internet.
As it stands, the last paragraph of my essay still has as much resonance as it did when I first typed it almost five months ago:
The world has changed drastically in the past twenty years, in no small part because of the Internet and all its trappings, both good and bad. But in the end, the Internet–like any other technology–is only a tool. Just like the use of nuclear fission in bombs and power plants can both kill and sustain (respectively), so too can the Internet breed both hatred and hope. In the end, it is the actions that its users choose to take that will determine history’s ultimate verdict. Which road shall we take? In the years to come–in the generations that follow–will the Internet be known as the technology that forged a better world, or the one that tore it asunder?
We are the Internet generation. Where do you think this brave new world will lead?
Lector: A Virtual Book Club – The New Frontier in Reading
At Lector, our motto is “elevate the conversation.” The key concepts that separate Lector from regular student blogs or the course-discussion systems on Angel are focus and exposure. Labeled as a virtual book club, Lector is the first of its kind among American universities: a hub for students to talk about the books they read in class, expanding upon discussions from class or making their own observations. Although it operates on WordPress, Lector has its own URL, which gives it strength in terms of branding. Unaffiliated with any particular class or content, Lector has the markings of a strong brand: abstract and broad, yet official. Unlike other student blogs, which can be randomly titled and scattered from subject to subject, Lector’s central home for these comments promotes solidarity and a form of legitimacy: it has all the markings of a professional website, and it seems as though that helps the students take it more seriously. The students who participate in Lector are not assigned topics; they either bring up aspects of the texts that gnaw at them, or respond to others’ comments. Although the students are required to post at least once a week, they post with a zeal that has defied our expectations. Each student produces substantive, worthwhile content each and every week.
We can only “elevate the conversation” if we can affect the conversation–and we can only affect the conversation if we can get our arguments into the hands of the people. Lector’s other great strength comes from the chance of exposure. In my experience, professors have assigned blog-like tasks to be posted on Penn State’s Angel course-management system. Normally, these experiences have not gone so well, due to either problems with the Angel interface or a lack of motivation–what’s the point of posting to a website when no one can see your work? Lector makes sure that students have the opportunity to make comments that the world can see and interact with. Moreover, anyone and everyone are encouraged to contribute in some way, by commenting on the students’ remarks. This feature is currently open to the public, and therefore must be policed by my fellow administrators and myself, but it allows outside parties to contribute to the classroom conversation. Parents and family members have the opportunity to share in their students’ activities; alumnus who miss strong, intellectual conversation can participate; and we’re even trying to get some professionals to weigh in on the discussion (Mr. Gladwell, we’re looking at you!).
If asked to describe Lector in one word, we would say: promise. Lector has promised to accomplish so many things: to elevate the conversation, to provide students with a platform to have their voices heard, to shatter restrictions on intellectual conversation, and to prove to alumni that age-old adage, “you can always come home again” holds true. Right now, Lector is in its infancy. We only cover one reading list for two small sections, but we chose to begin with readings that cover issues with vast contemporary importance. As of the writing, we have over 5,000 hits, a number that greatly exceeds our expectations. Not all of these hits can be from ours students; it shows that people are taking notice. The eyes of the academic world are focused on Penn State to determine the legitimacy of a virtual book club, and it’s up to us to remind the world that books matter. We invite you to check out our website. If you’re familiar with the books we’re discussing, or the topics they’re based upon, feel free to chime in on the students’ remarks. Follow us on twitter (@Lectorbookclub) or “like” us on Facebook (search “Lector: A Virtual Book Club“), and watch as the social network and intellectual network combine.
Welcome to the new frontier in reading.
Liberal Arts Voices: Episode 26
John Dolan, College of the Liberal Arts Director of Digital Media and Pedagogy, and Geoff Halberstadt, Liberal Arts Undergraduate Council President join Dean Long for episode 26 of Liberal Arts Voices.
In this episode, the group discusses their recent presentation at the 2011 Teaching and Learning with Technology Symposium. Dean Long, John, Geoff, and Jillian collaborated on a panel session titled “Engagement and Community in the College of the Liberal Arts” at this year’s TLT Symposium.
In this podcast, the group discusses many of the themes incorporated in their presentation. Specifically, they talk about the ways in which the Liberal Arts Undergraduate Studies office is attempting to use social media to cultivate a community of education. They speak about how their technology initiatives are rooted in the educational mission of the University and the College. They discuss the strategies and tactics they are using with digital and social media in hopes of empowering students, faculty and staff to give voice to their educational experiences. Geoff also spends some time discussing how social media has impacted the dynamics of the Liberal Arts Undergraduate Council.
For more information about the 2011 TLT Symposium, visit their website.
Liberal Arts Voices: Episode 26
We encourage all of our listeners to write to us with comments, questions, or suggestions at laus@la.psu.edu. We may even respond to these comments on the next episode of Liberal Arts Voices.
Liberal Arts Voices: Episode 21
In episode 21 of our bi-weekly Liberal Arts Voices podcast, John Dolan joins the program to discuss his new position as the Director of Digital Media and Pedagogy, a shared position between the College of the Liberal Arts and Penn State’s Education Technology Services (ETS).
As a liaison between the College of the Liberal Arts and ETS, John discusses how he is working to make the classroom experience more engaging and interactive for students. John talks about some of the initiatives he is currently working on, including: the liberal arts Faculty Advisory Board (“The FAB”), technology-focused professional development opportunities, and the CLA Social Media Forum. Each of these initiatives is designed to provide CLA staff and faculty with the opportunity to share information about and to get more familiar with the variety of available technology.
Heather Summerlin, CLA Information Technology Consultant, also explains how the College is working to make technology opportunities more available and streamlined for departments. For instance, Heather has helped set up a new blog platform through Blogs at Penn State for CLA departments interested in creating a blog.
Also, make sure to check out John’s U Report podcast which highlights the many different jobs around the Penn State campus. Lastly, take a look at the Xtranormal video John made for his COMM 471 course this semester (you have to listen to the podcast to figure out what this is!)
Liberal Arts Voices: Episode 21
To subscribe to Liberal Arts Voices through iTunes, click here.
We encourage all of our listeners to write to us with comments, questions, or suggestions at laus@la.psu.edu. We may even respond to these comments on the next episode of Liberal Arts Voices.
Associate Dean Long on New Media Literacies
On Saturday, November 13th, I gave the keynote address at the Media Commons Tailgate, a community organized “unconference” where students, faculty and staff gathered to explore the impact new media technologies are having on teaching and learning.
There is little question that new media technologies are transforming the practice of education, and our practices of education must change in the wake of the emergence of new media technologies.
I conclude the presentation with some examples of how we have sought to cultivate enriching new media literacies with our students in the Liberal Arts Undergraduate Studies office. I specifically discuss the work of Nicole Zinni and Justin Ogden, and I highlight some of the things we discussed in Liberal Arts Voices 15, when we focused on our DC interns.
Please take some time to watch the video. I welcome feedback in the comments on this blog.
For those of you who want to investigate the videos associated with this post a bit further, I have embedded a playlist that includes all the videos I touch upon in the presentation. They give articulate voice to the kinds of enriching literacies our students are cultivating in and through their engagement with social media on our site.
Finally, I include a link to the Traditional and New Media Literacies Prezi itself for those who want to navigate through in more detail.
A Few Thoughts on Learning Design Summer Camp 2010
A little over a week ago, I had the opportunity to attend the third annual Learning Design Summer Camp (LDSC), hosted by Teaching and Learning with Technology at Penn State. The goal of this event is to create a platform that brings together staff, faculty, instructional designers, and other professionals to share ideas and discuss topics related to technology and higher education.
As most of you are aware, this past spring, Liberal Arts Undergraduate Studies began to implement a variety of social media in the daily functioning of our office. Our ultimate goal for these technologies was and is to create a community centered on the Liberal Arts undergraduate experience. (To read more about the trials and tribulations, hopes and fears, lessons learned etc. that have accompanied our exploits into the world of social media, see our blog post “Hacking the Liberal Arts“). The Learning and Design Summer Camp was a welcomed opportunity to meet with representatives across the campus and throughout Penn State at large who are thinking through similar issues.
As more and more universities begin to use social media and technology, the main questions seem to be: is this kind of technology truly beneficial within higher education and if so, what is the best way to implement these technologies? The key note speaker of LDSC, Sam Richards, professor of Sociology and Race Relations Project co-director, helped to show how students’ educational experiences can be positively impacted by this kind of technology. Everyone should watch the trailer of his SOC 119 course just to get a glimpse of the kind of dialogue and the level of engagement that he is able to generate in this project.
Later in the day, I was also able to attend a breakout session titled “Undergraduate Education Technology Ecosystem @ Penn State ” led by Bart Pursel, researcher and consultation specialist for the Schreyer Institute for Teaching and Excellence. In this session, Bart showed us some of the recent research he had collected on the use of wikis and blogs at Penn State. Basically, he broke down data collected about the users of these platforms. He looked at student profiles, faculty user rates, colleges and departments making pedagogical use of these technologies, and the university-wide adoption rate as well. You can find the actual content of this presentation at The Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence blog. It was interesting to see that statistics related to the College of the Liberal Arts consistently ranked somewhere in the middle and even sometimes near the top. This is not to say that our numbers were all that impressive across the board. But it is important to note that because we are one of the biggest colleges at University Park, we seem to have a great deal of potential for growth within all of these categories.
Overall, the Learning Design Summer Camp was an extremely positive experience. It is always helpful and refreshing to meet with colleagues who are interested in and experimenting with similar initiatives. Indeed, as our office continues to strive to create the online community we are hoping for, it is nice to be reminded that this group of colleagues, on which we can rely, exists right here on campus.
Technology and the Liberal Arts
Tomorrow I am meeting with a group of Penn State alums to talk about about how we at the College of the Liberal Arts are using social media technology to enrich the liberal arts education of our students.
The main point of the presentation is to illustrate how technology can be used to reinforce the traditional virtues of the liberal arts: ethical imagination, excellence in communication, professional leadership, global perspectives and an openness to diversity.
We have received written comments on the initial YouTube video, and via email from some of the alums with whom we shared the video prior to our meeting. I have gathered some of these comments below.
It is striking that when the conversation is opened to the public by social media, the modes by which people respond is so varied: video, written comments, emails and even tweets (thanks @jeffswain). On one hand, it is difficult to follow a coherent thread of the conversation unless someone gathers them together – as I have tried to do here. On the other hand, the variety of different modes of response and the different ways the ideas in this diverse conversation are shared adds a dimension to the conversation that extends beyond what might have happened had we limited ourselves to written or in person communication.
What does this teach us about the power and the limits of social media technology? How are we to best prepare students and ourselves not only to live in, but more importantly to thrive in a world of such dynamic and variegated communication?
Response gathered from emails from alums
David Eltringham linked to three videos here:
Skip Lange suggests that technology is a medium of communication and that “information is not power, but the application of information is.” He emphasizes too, that technology connects people and links us “to ideas and the experiences of others not readily available ever before.”
Patricia Aguer makes the point that “as we become so immersed in technology, human contact and nostalgia are going to become extremely important to us.”
Beverly Sobel-Redler reminds us that different students learn differently and that having a variety of ways to engage students will help more succeed. She also rightly emphasizes how important it is not to pursue technology for the sake of being seen as innovative, but because it helps us reach our educational goals.
From written comments to the initial video posted on YouTube:
JohnZangPSU writes:
“As the world ‘flattens out’, students are able to easily interact with other cultures and expand their understandings of the world and their specific interests. The possibilities of videos conferencing across oceans seem an enticing opportunity.”
glh77 writes:
“I think there are two important aspects here: communication and community. Emerging technologies are increasingly connecting people from across the globe. Specifically, the virtues of the Liberal Arts can be championed and discussed in different mediums that reach untapped audiences. Diversity, democracy, civic engagement can be discussed in a framework of Liberal Arts values and ideals. This discourse will strengthen community ties and hopefully lead to better communities for tomorrow’s world.”
The Presentation