The Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies is pleased to announce that it has partnered with MediaCore to run a pilot installation of their media platform. MediaCore will give members of the UMW community the ability to control and curate their own media collections. It will be more than just a “campus YouTube”. Students having their [...] … [Read more...]
UMW Domains in the News
January 30, 2014 by
UMW’s innovative initiative Domain of One’s Own has been receiving recognition in trade and academic publications alike. University Business, a publication for IT managers, published an article last week framing this innovative new approach to giving members of their campus the keys to the server. The author of the article for University Business, Matt Zalaznick, talked with Tim Owens of the [...] … [Read more...]
ds106 Showcased as Model of Online, Participatory Learning
January 30, 2014 by
Howard Rheingold has written a case study using ds106 (UMW’s open, online version of the Computer Science Digital Storytelling course) as a model of participatory learning. The case study was published by the Connected Learning site, which is the community arm of the Digital Media Lab and Learning Research Hub at the University of California, Irvine. ds106 was [...] … [Read more...]
Domain of One’s Own is ALL BUSINESS
January 29, 2014 by
Somehow I missed the fact that the article about Domain of One’s Own published in University Business has already been out for a week. I’m slipping. I love that this article was published in an IT management-centered publication. IT management might not be our particular focus at DTLT—we’re all about the teaching and learning—but that’s part of the genius of Domain of One’s Own: it’s protean. And this isn’t the first time a more business-centered publication picked this initaitive up, last semester by Nicole Henderson wrote an article about UMW Domains on the Web Host Industry Review. The author of the article for University Business, Matt Zalaznick, talked with Tim “the wizard” Owens about the project, and it all sounds so good: The tools provided by the “Domain of One’s Own” initiative make it easier for students to carve out their own space on the web, and control and customize it… “Students want to make … [Read more...]
Digital Scholars Institute
January 26, 2014 by
Image by Kyle Bean: “The Future of Books.” One of the more exciting things to grow out of the Domain of One’s Own Faculty Initiative—the second cohort starts this week!—is Mary Kayler’s beautiful brainchild the Digital Scholars Institute. The Digital Scholars Institue is a way to continue the work started in the faculty initiative for those interested in sharing out the digital projects they are working on. It’s a way to bring a small group of faculty (5-7) together to talk about what they’re currently working on in the digital realm. The institute can provide a space for faculty to share the details of their work, get feedback from their peers, and publish their ongoing reflections at the end of the year. We’re roughly thinking of this being a series of 5-7 meetings a semester, each of which discusses one faculty member’s digital project (kind of like a dissertation group). They’ll be a cohort of faculty that continues to provide … [Read more...]
Technical Vistas: Flat Files and APIs
January 26, 2014 by
It’s been an exciting time at DTLT for a bunch of reasons, not least of which is that the Domain of One’s Own project, much like the Death Star, has been fully operational for more than a semester now. We’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t, and we have much more to learn this semester. We’ll be sharing out what we learned in more detail shortly, but in short: curricular integration is king. Moving beyond the cultural work we’re working towards with Domain on campus, there’s some technical stuff we’ve been exploring that’s pretty exciting. I’ve already wrote about the student coding projects we’re working on with professor Karen Anewalt’s Software Engineering course which should bare much fruit in the way of WordPress plugins for Domain of One’s Own and UMW Blogs. The other technical stuff we’ve been experimenting with is sharing our documentation for Domain of One’s Own. Tim … [Read more...]
Student Coded Projects for DTLT
January 26, 2014 by
This semester students in Karen Anewalt’s Software Engineering course (CPSC 430) will be working with DTLT to create a series of WordPress plugins/themes for UMW Blogs and Domain of One’s Own. This is pretty awesome because we could always use some development, and it gives these students experience working with clients who need particular functionality for an open source application. Traditionally students in this course put a call out to the community for projects and built applications for any takers from scratch. This model had some success, but the issue with this approach was that there was no one to take care of the application after the students graduated. Under this new approach, DTLT will be maintaing whatever they program. Major kudos to Martha Burtis for coming up with this model as well as taking the lead on organizing it. Below is a list of the projects we are asking the Computer Science students to develop. The descriptions are in italics and were written … [Read more...]
The Academic GIF
January 9, 2014 by
GIF from In the Mood for Love I wrote several months ago about the experience of working alongside UMW’s Chinese History scholar Sue Fernsebner to start imagining how she might integrate animated GIFs into a curriculum centered around film analysis. I tongue-and-cheek referred to it as GIFiculum, or GIF as curriculum. Sue has been doing some serious work on this front, and she recently emailed me about how she will be re-structuring her Chinese History through Film course to make the GIF work central to the film analysis in the final paper. Framing it, to use Sue’s words, as “an exercise in visual and thematic analysis.” How cool is this? A few of us from DTLT will be heading to her class around mid-semester to run a workshop for the students on creating GIFs. This is something Andy Rush and I did last semester and it was a blast. There will also be a GIF Awards ceremony the final week of the course to collectively analyze and discuss what makes an effective “visual and … [Read more...]
UMW Domains a Win for Open
December 23, 2013 by
Audrey Watters has been on an all-out tear over at Hack Education as she wraps up the year in edtech. Few, if any, in the field are sharper, more concise, and resolutely independent of the institutional and corporate entanglements that pervade this space. I’ll echo so many others who have recognized how unbelievably important her voice is as a result. That said, working independently, speaking freely, and calling out so many on their nonsense doesn’t always pay the rent, so to help ameliorate this UMW’s DTLT would like to provide a standing offer of a job for Audrey when she finally decides to settle down Until then, I totally support her writing things like what follows when ennumerating the many “wins for open” in her recent post “Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2013: The Battle for ‘Open’:” University of Mary Washington’s “Domain of One’s Own” initiative (one of the very best things in ed-tech right now) has been picked up by other universities, including Emory and Davidson. Also, in … [Read more...]
Faculty Focus: Andreá Livi Smith Teaches, Learns, and Lives By Design
December 12, 2013 by
DTLT Today: Episode 109 – Andreá Livi Smith from Jim Groom on Vimeo. It’s finals week and everyone is slammed for time right now on campus, but Historic Preservation professor Andreá Livi Smith was still generous enough to sit with me for a half hour and talk about the work she’s done as part of the Domain of One’s Own faculty initiative and beyond. Andi is a remarkable faculty member, and she is behind some of the most exciting work happening at UMW right now. She not only blogs like it’s her job at Digital Bridging, but she’s also designed a brilliant homepage for her courses, research, and social media presences, something we explore at length in this video. We also talk about the work she has done with Martha Burtis designing a database on UMW Blogs called Surveying the Burg. This site enables students to survey houses from around Fredericksburg on smart phones from the field. It’s remarkable in that it starts to demonstrate just how much more than a blog this open source, … [Read more...]