Our Future Environment

 Updates to Come:

5:00 p.m.: EDUCHUDS, The Gentrification of Web-Based Education; Jim Groom
Best presentation of the day. Post to come.

4:30 p.m.:What it Really Takes to Support eportfolios; Lisa Brundage, a Tech Fellow with the Macaulay Honors College.

The Honors College uses WordPressMU for their eportfolio program. Lisa showed a few eportfolios and how they represent the goals within the Macaulay Honors College. For example: A group eportfolio for students who study abroad and one on race and gender that has become popular in the ‘general internet’. Lisa also talked about how they turned a nightmare scenario into progress. This took the form of the techfair two years ago when many students wanted an introduction to their mac. Too many students signed up for what they could logistically handle so they made this site and a two hour introduction course.

4:00 p.m.: Using Eportfolios; Joe Ugoretz

Joe opens with a quick presentation on the Macaulay Honors College. If you weren’t confused before about CUNY organization you will be now! The Macaulay Honors College “offers academically gifted students an exceptional undergraduate education, integrating the vast resources of the City University with New York’s cultural, scientific, and business communities. Macaulay Honors College enables talented students to develop the multiple perspectives they need to respond to the challenges of the 21st century.”
Joe is the director of the Honors College and is talking today about their eportfolio program. His interest in using portfolios for writing assignments started in the ‘90s with student work on paper. He knew no one assessment gives a good picture of a student and wanted a way for students to document their knowledge acquisition. A portfolio slowly emerged as not just text as written letters, but also as math formulas, images, videos, audio, news articles and so on.  He wanted a system to reflect the paths students want to take through their learning. Every student in the Honors College now has an eportfolio; organized using WordPressMU. Joe used the “Cabinet of Curiosity” as a metaphor for what the eportfolio can be. He encourages students to think of the eportfolios, blogs, and other online projects as occuring along a conceptual continuum. There can be multiple functions for these online tools. Students need a place to evoke the social and the intellectual and to become scholars by their own will.

Questions and comments from the audience:

Students who create eportfolios have better retention.
Content analysis and participant observation can be used as assessment, if assessment is needed.

Are alumni encouraged to continue using their eportfolios? Yes, they exist in a public space and are owned by the student. There are no alumni yet who were eportfolio users but they will be encouraged to do so when that happens (next year).

A users theme plugin allows students to alter their theme if desired without disturbing the otherwise available themes.

3:15 p.m.:Discussion- CUNY Academic Commons; Matt Gold

Matt introduces the “one university, many institutions” flavor of CUNY, using the same map as Boone. He discusses how fruitful a CUNY collaboration could be because of our diverse interests.
Part of the AC goal is to create a political and legal shift to help academia get comfortable with sharing and opening up information.  We want to be a beararktopus. We want to better, stronger, faster.

More notes to come. His presentation is here.

2:30 p.m.: Discussion- Developing BuddyPress as a Collaboration Hub; Boone Gorges
He has a blogpost on this presentation here.
Boone opened with an introduction of the CUNY Academic Commons and CUNY itself. I like how he shows the map of CUNY locations and discusses how everyone is researching so many topics. CUNY is both geographically and intellectually disconnected. So, the AC is hoping to connect faculty and graduate student research topics and foster collaboration.
He opens with what developments he has done and exist to foster connection using BuddyPress. Custom Profile Filters allow one to bracket their [interests] within their profile description so that everyone who puts that same tag in their profile can connect.

What developments he has done and exist to foster Collaboration: First, he uses a hub and spoke analogy to describe the relationship between buddypress, bbpress, wordpress and mediawiki. Using these platforms together allows one to create by themselves, with a partner, and with a group. Authorship can be fully attributable or melted into a group. Boone also describes these developments he’s done: bbPress Group Forum Subscription, Forum Attachments, WP/MW Single Sign-on, Displaying the buddybar in other application (using postslug, jquery), and BuddyPressActivity (posting one’s wiki edits in one’s activity feed)

 Noon: Comedic Presentation on Wordpress addiction- wa.serenae.com

Note: The majority of comments and questions after each speaker so far are from nervous faculty who are concerned about what students will say and think online.

11:05 a.m.: Discussion- WordPress K-12: Winning Hearts and Minds; Tom Woodward, Tech Instructor at a Richmond, Virginia middle school; ByrdMiddle.org
Tom began as a regular history teacher at a middle school. He wanted to integrate blogs and technology into the school. He was continuously shut down by the administration for two years because Tom was “the scary monster who wants minors to write in the open space of the internet!” Finally, Tom bought his own server and started something himself. He made a site using the school’s name even though it might be a risky move. He started out simple and allowed teachers a lot of control. Students are first were not allowed to to comment, only read the teacher’s writing and download documents. Students were not considered collaborators. As in most schools, teachers and administrators were afraid of what students will say or do and are afraid to lose control over their students. As the past 4 years have passed the students have become collaborators but at a very slow pace.  Slowly students were given the option to comment. Then, Tom created a simple wordpress about Richard III. Tom played the role of Richard III and changed the basic php to reflect the time period theme. Tom wanted student groups to take on a character role and talk back and forth, eventually creating a social network that mirrors the drama of Richard III’s life. An opportunity accidentally cropped up for students to learn how their conversation exists in the public realm. The president of the Richard III Society in England commented on a student post (the blogs are open). This created a situation for the president to talk with the class online. The school administration then saw it was not necessary to be afraid of students talking in a public forum.

From this point, students moved from commenting to collaboration. Multiple student groups had a password protected blog to plan a debate strategy against the other student group. Students then opened up their blog and students could see other’s work. Students were excited to have a secret space to create their work and and prepare for competition.

Tom argues that within the pubic school system it can be necessary to slowly push towards full student collaboration so that the administration doesn’t become too frightened at the prospect of student’s ideas let loose.

10:00 a.m.: Discussion- Using WordPress to Share Research; Jeremy Boggs, Creative Lead at George Mason University, Center for History and New Media

Jeremy presents his discussion as more as a series of questions and thoughts on how to gather and share research using wordpress or other online spaces. He wants to make the current means of collecting information easier to use for critical reflection and discussion. His dissertation is on the history of cascading style sheets (seriously).

Jeremy asks- What happens when you are working on your dissertation and you realize there is so much information available to you and you will never tackle it all? “If you use all your research, you haven’t done enough research.” (Robertson quote)
From this point on Jeremy presents different APIs and ideas he is working on. He highlights great bibliography sites with API including Connotea, LibraryThing, and Zotero (but it’s API not public).

He show the possibilities available at chroniclingamerica.loc.gov

Jeremy argues that we need code and examples for using these APIs. Example: phpZotero- http://github.com/clioweb/phpZotero

Jeremy presents some plugins to help improve blogs as a mechanism for critical research and discussion.
Plugins: Commentpress allows comments on individual paragraphs within a post, this helps specify the conversation and make immediate edits. Citationaggregator: this adds delicious (or other social bookmarking) login info and aggregates citations into wordpress. This plugin does not allow easy sorting of citations though.

Jeremy is working on his own plugin, he calls Atelier:
“Lets say I use a host of web services for research (zotero citations, flickr images related to research, etc). I want to easily sort through that content for writing posts and pages in wordpress. What have I already said or found somewhere that I can use? This plugin puts a panel from the selected source you want to bring in, you can toggle through the sources you want to draw from (the plugin is basically a box with tabs for google reader, zotero, delicious, flickr, etc.; you click on each to import into your post).
The audience suggests other plugins: One that imports google docs into posts (not sure of title); and, Omeka: a “serious web publisher” for museums and scholars.
Jeremy closes with the point again that it is monumentally important that we turn our blogs into a powerful, respected, collaboration tool for research. How can we push information literacy and management tools in a progressive direction? What can academics learn from journalists who use collaborative online editing spaces?

9:30 a.m.: Discussion- Every Freshman at Baruch College is Blogging: Now What?; Luke Waltzer, Project Manager for Digital Learning, Bernard L. Schwartz Communication Institute

Baruch college decided to run a media literacy (blogging) component with their incoming freshman this Fall 2009. The green light wasn’t given until June 2009 and Luke Waltzer was given the task of figuring out how this would work and then making it happen. Baruch now has 60 blogs, each maintained by a group of 20 freshman and a junior or senior mentor. The blogs are aggregated into one mother blog here: blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu/fro

The purpose of the program, from Luke’s perspective, is to change edtech culture from one of customer service orientation to student run media and information literacy. From my understanding the program is not affiliated with the CUNY Macaulay Honors College but it sounds very similar in scope and goal. The program is part of the required freshman seminar but is not necessarily a graded project. The program is overseen by freshman seminar office and associate director of student life (how is it funded?).

As part of freshman seminar, students attend events within Baruch and NYC. The events loosely fit into these enrichment areas: global community awareness, academic enrichment, career exploration, arts at Baruch, student life, and personal enrichment.

Luke presented a list of technical, pedagogical, and administration challenges.
Technical challenges: Designing a theme for all section blogs; and, Creating a system to keep track of all the updates, needed changes, and user reports. How do we encourage students to dialogue across blogs (see comments in mother blog)?
Pedagogical: How do we teach students to write for different audiences and consider how they are conversing in a public forum? Do we teach this in a physical classroom in relation to each student’s group blog? How do we convince the students that their blog can become personally meaningful and beneficial? How do we encourage students to dialogue across blogs?
Administration: How do we challenge culture of admin and teacher control over student voices? How do we present this project as part of media and information literacy?

9:00 a.m.: Today and tomorrow is the NYC conference for Wordpress users- WordCamp. There are multiple tracks throughout the day for different wordpress uses. I am mostly attending the Academic Track. Here will be some notes and updates about the day.

Filed under: technology, goals on November 14th, 2009 | No Comments »

I just ordered this book, The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka. It was published in an English edition in 1978 and is considered influential to various ‘back to nature’ farming and gardening movements.

Fukuoka worked as a research scientist in Japan specializing in plant pathology but he eventually left his career in pursuit of understanding ‘nature’ without scientific structure. After moving to his family farm in southern Japan, he developed what some call “do nothing farming”. In essence he tried to reproduce natural conditions as much as possible.

 ”All the wheat, corn, and other crops that are produced on big American farms may be alive and growing, but they’re not products of real nature or real agriculture. They’re manufactured rather than grown.”- Fukuoka

My interest in this ‘manual’ lies less in Fukuoka’s claim that we are separate from ‘nature’ because of our various practices and use of technologies and more in reading an East Asian account of what we typically conceive to be a Thoreau (and now Pollan) line of thought.  I’m looking forward to reading this classic and comparing it the dizzying array of other ‘back to the land’ accounts.

 

Filed under: farm, future, natural landscape on September 29th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

“Ecotourism appeals to ecologically and socially conscious individuals. Generally speaking, it focuses on volunteering, personal growth and learning new ways to live on the planet. It typically involves travel to destinations where flora, fauna, and cultural heritage are the primary attractions. Ecotourism is a conceptual experience, enriching those who delve into researching and understanding the environment around them. It gives us insight into our impacts as human beings and also a greater appreciation of our own natural habitats.

Responsible ecotourism includes programs that minimize the negative aspects of conventional tourism on the environment and enhance the cultural integrity of local people. Therefore, in addition to evaluating environmental and cultural factors, an integral part of ecotourism is the promotion of recycling, energy efficiency, water conservation and creation of economic opportunities for the local communities.”

-Ecotourism and Sustainable Development, Second Edition: Who Owns Paradise? Martha Honey, Ph.D.

Filed under: eco-tourism on August 24th, 2009 | No Comments »

Last week I visited a friend of mine, Luke, who lives in a co-op in New Cross, South London. The Sanford Co-op has been around since the early 1970s and is known for its sustainable energy use and communal atmosphere.

Up until last week everyone has claimed a bike parking space next to a tree, picnic table, or various other objects. There are almost 200 people living in the flats; most have bikes.
An architect Christos Choraitis designed this beautiful and smartly designed bike “shed” to house everyone’s scattered bikes.

It is constructed out of re-used railway ties, perhaps referencing the industrial surroundings, and was built using co-op resident labor. (You can read about the planned design of this structure when it was reported in 2006). One can climb the outside and tend to the garden on top. Or, enter through the passcode-protected, swing-hinged door to access a bike.

The grand opening party was in full ride when I visited last Wednesday night and the “shed” makes for a natural gathering spot. We sat on top and enjoyed some sangria while others hung out by the vegetable/dip table set up inside. Luke and some others discovered the inside makes for a good climbing gym as well.

I was amazed by the co-op itself; not to mention Choraitis’ design. The area surrounding the living spaces is full of gigantic plants, koi ponds and raised garden beds. The co-op was bought on the cheap due to the high levels of lead in the soil (thus the raised beds).

The houses each have their own flavor and design. The kitchens were recently refurbished and each house competed to design the best slate tile pattern. I was lucky enough to join in on the party that night and crash in one of the rooms. Everyone I met was varied in their interests and nationality. But, they all seemed to appreciate bikes, traveling and enjoying life. If I don’t return to NYC it’s because I moved in here.

Filed under: city, gardens, future, caves, environmental planning on June 22nd, 2009 | No Comments »

The idea to use a moodle, rather than blackboard or some other alternative, has been an on-again, off-again discussion for me for what amounts to a couple of years.

As mentioned a few days ago, I set up a moodle for my social psychology class this summer. The course starts July 13th at Hunter. If you want to look at what’s up so far, you must enrol: ourfutureenvironment.org/moodle

If you have taught social psychology or used the moodle with college students, please give me some advice!

I decided to set my moodle up just a few weeks ago (as opposed to talking about doing it) after discussing with a friend (as most ideas tend to happen) about whether we liked bluehost and what it offered compared to other hosts. I had never explored any of the extra available plugins on the bluehost c-panel, and was surprised to see they endorse/make available a moodle. Setting up a basic moodle within bluehost was a simple point and click operation.

(I briefly considered buying a new domain separate from my blog but thought keeping the two related might help me maintain my blog and moodle if this process is more transparent to students. What have other instructors done in this situation?  Are there very many out there who run an online learning environment separate from the institution?)

I would think an instructor with at least a blog, regardless of technical ability level, would be more likely to take the initiative to use a moodle within a class if he or she knew it was easy to set up and use. I know I’m being too optimistic. But, from my current work experience as a fellow in a technology and literacy program in NYC public schools, the teachers who are in their 20s to mid 30s and have been teaching only a few years are more likely than others to spend time using technology in the classroom. This translates into only the CUNY adjuncts who dislike blackboard or the commodification of education being the only ones most likely to use a moodle….

Blog posts to come:

Help, everyone thinks I’m spam!

Moodle, despite its tendency to one-sided creation, does incite creativity and interaction unheard of in blackboard. 

Ok, so its set up, now what?

Filed under: education, goals on June 8th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

“…[a sensible quality, like the color blue,] which is on the point of being felt sets a kind of muddled problem for my body to solve. I must find the attitude which will provide it with the means of becoming determinate, of showing up as blue; I must find the reply to the question which is obscurely expressed. And yet I do so only when I am invited by it; my attitude is never sufficient to make me really see blue or really touch a hard surface. The sensible gives back to me what I lent to it, but this is only what I took from it in the first place. As I contemplate the blue of the sky…I abandon myself to it and plunge into this mystery, it ‘thinks itself within me,’ I am the sky itself as it is drawn together and unified, and as it begins to exist for itself; my consciousness is saturated with this limitless blue…”

merleau-ponty, phenomenology of perception, p.214

Filed under: observations and opinions on June 5th, 2009 | No Comments »

The other day my good friends Michael and Gregory and I were talking about zoo environments. I said something about how when I was a child I remember the school trips to the zoo and how much I loved watching the animals’ every move. I remember learning about how flamingos are less pink when they don’t have adequate nutrition and a healthy environment.

But of course, we all agreed that zoos are less than adequate for animals. Each animal is limited on space, freedom, experience. Some call them prisoners.

I am reluctant to place ‘animals in captivity’ in an evil human actions file. Partly because I’ve been to a couple of small animal sanctuaries in Arkansas for ‘retired’ circus elephants and tigers, and racing greyhounds. The people there were needed and caring and those animals were in the best place they could realistically be. But, regardless of your viewpoint on this, the question I have is how to introduce children to animals outside of their immediate environment? Beyond watching a video or reading a book, how can a child learn to appreciate their global ecology?

The conversation led to a pondering of the existence of an immersive virtual environment. Could there be a museum of sorts that would have 3D dome IMAX rooms where one would enter in a virtual Serengeti, for example, with animals running past you, realistic temperature and wind? I can imagine this existing in  museums already. I was thinking it would be an interesting new model of ecotourism. It could eliminate travel costs and infringement upon land that most ecotours can’t avoid. And, the absence of captured animals is obviously key here.

I was investigating this online and found this article: Immersive Interactive Virtual Reality in the Museum (Roussou 2001)

Article Abstract:

“The use of immersive Virtual Reality (VR) technology is a relatively recent trend enjoyed almost exclusively by the academic, military, and industrial research and development communities. However, as VR technologies mature, research is expanding from the military and scientific visualisation realm into more multidisciplinary areas, such as education, art, culture, and the humanities. As representative institutions involved in the research and presentation of these fields, museums, cultural centres, and entertainment venues may be in a better position to make use of advanced virtual reality technologies in order to investigate their educational potential while effectively shaping how they deliver public education and recreation. This paper will discuss the issues involved in using state-of-the-art interactive virtual environments in cultural public spaces by presenting the virtual environments developed for learners of all ages at the Foundation of the Hellenic World (FHW), a cultural heritage institution of informal education located in Athens.”

The author is the director and co-founder of makebelieve. Check out their portfolio.

Lastly, Aga suggested I visit the Bartlett school while I’m in London this summer. Apparently they have a virtual ‘cave’ room for any kind of uploaded environment.

The leading question from this is whether a virtual environment design organization is working/has worked with social scientists/learning theorists  to develop an immersive, interactive “zoo”?

Filed under: leisure, education, eco-tourism, future, fostering identity, goals on June 4th, 2009 | No Comments »

This video has been blogged about a couple of years ago but I just watched it via Facebook (from Matt C.). The clip below is from an “educational” 1967 film by Philco-Ford company titled 1999 A.D. The entire film shows different scenarios of how we would use technology in the future. This clip shows what could be a version of the internet. It’s conceptually not far off.

I looked up information on the company that made the film. Cause why did they make it?
From Wikipedia:
“[Philco], acquired by Ford Motor Company on December 11, 1961 and renamed Philco-Ford, continued to make many car radios for Ford vehicles as well as its other products. Eventually, the name was abandoned. Ford sold Philco to General Telephone and Electronics (who also owned Sylvania) in 1974. The Aerospace portion of Philco Ford was renamed Ford Aerospace in 1976.

The company was acquired by Philips in 1981 in order to gain the rights to use the Philips trademark in the United States. (Philco had been able to keep Philips from using its trademark legally because of the similarly sounding names.) Philips continues to use the Philco name for promotional consumer electronics and has licensed the name for private brands and retro style consumer electronics. Philips also is using the Philco brand name for digital converter boxes for analog TVs in the USA.[4] The Philco brand in this case is being licensed by Philips to Funai, who is manufacturing these boxes.”

Filed under: future on June 3rd, 2009 | 1 Comment »

I’ve installed a moodle to use for my Social Psych class this summer.

I hope it will augment social interaction and get some creative juices flowing. I don’t know if I’ll make a page here or not; the more visible it is the more likely I’ll get spam.

Here it is so far: www.ourfutureenvironment.org/moodle (You will have to register for an account before you can see the course).

I will blog about setting it up (here and on the Graduate Center Mac IT blog) as an alternative to blackboard and all the pros and cons so far. My class doesn’t start till July 13th; I anticipate lots of pros and cons arising then.

Filed under: education, goals on June 1st, 2009 | No Comments »

“When I had a car I was always tense. I’m much happier this way,” said Heidrun Walter, a media trainer and mother of two, as she walked verdant streets where the swish of bicycles and the chatter of wandering children drown out the occasional distant motor.

Vauban, completed in 2006, is an example of a growing trend in Europe, the United States and elsewhere to separate suburban life from auto use, as a component of a movement called “smart planning.”

continue reading….

Filed under: city, future, environmental planning on May 13th, 2009 | No Comments »