I was in charge of running an introductory workshop at both the first and second sessions of the Fall 2010 Tech Fair. The goals of the introduction were to get students thinking about why and how they could use our eportfolio system, and to teach some WordPress vocabulary, so that they’d go into the next session with some familiarity of the back end. I had some great help from my floaters: Valerie and Scott in Session 1, and Valerie and Lauren in Session 2. (Thank you all!)
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Posted in Macaulay ,Pedagogy ,Photography September 27, 2010
![[shoes in] Alyson Shotz,](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4104/4985313462_415422d04e.jpg)
[shoes in] Alyson Shotz, “Mirror Fence,” 2003/2010 [detail]
taken at the Storm King Art Center, Mountainville NY, 09.11.10.
Posted in Photography September 12, 2010
I spent a chunk of my summer transcribing interviews between poets. It’s not for my own work, though there is some transcribing I need to do for the third chapter of my dissertation, and probably also for the fourth. I signed a confidentiality agreement for this job, so I’m not going to get into the details of the project, but working on it this summer (I began in April, and I think it will likely run through the end of the year) taught me a few things.
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Posted in Dissertation ,Rants September 9, 2010
Tech Day 2010 went amazingly well. Jill & I had 28 intermediate-level freshmen–and we put them through their paces! Everyone signed up for the ePortfolio system, and joined our group Tech Day ePortfolio. They split off into ten groups, 2-3 students per group, and generated some content for our ePortfolio on a particular piece of software, web app, or idea.
Our students really took to this. They didn’t need the very basic “how does this Mac work?” refresher–though there is a handy checklist on the ePortfolio for anyone still seeking help getting started. So it didn’t take very long before they were hard at work on one of ten topics:
- System Preferences
- Flickr and social photo sharing
- Photo Booth
- Video conferencing
- Jing
- iMovie
- YouTube
- GarageBand
- Maps and timelines
- Copyright
After generating some content and writing a post, each group presented their material to the group as a whole. It was a rousing success! Not only did they educate their peers–nearly every group taught Jill or I something we didn’t know! We did have some embedding issues–I hope we can resolve that, and in any case, it generated some discussion about the difference between “upload” and “embed.” Also, this was a pretty flexible exercise–the YouTube and iMovie groups merged, making a video, then using YouTube’s annotation features to add material to their creation. It was great to see an energized, dynamic crew of students learn something new, and then turn around and share it. A promising start to a new school year.
Next year, I think I might refine the tasks somewhat–but I think that after 4 years, I’ve hit on a really good model for Tech Day. Jill’s collaboration on the pedagogy made a big difference–it was great to have someone to think through things with beforehand. I also think this is a transportable exercise across levels–instead of asking beginners to master, say, GarageBand, you could ask them to learn and demonstrate simpler things about the Mac.
To prepare for this exercise, we created an ePortfolio, added some basic how-to content, came up with ten topics and short project explanations (they’re all available here as a PDF, for anyone interested; I printed each one out and put it on a card), got some prizes from the dollar store (everyone got a prize), and decided on an order of events. When students were settled in their groups (we had them count off, so they’d meet new people from other campuses), they got a card at random. And then they got down to SRS BZNS!
Jill and I were both very impressed by the quality of content generated in such a relatively short period of time. The time frame helped the students prevent the perfect from becoming the enemy of the good, as it were. Their perfectionism can get the better of them, sometimes–and forcing them to work on a very straightforward small scale was a good move. Hey… maybe I can apply that to my dissertation…?
Posted in Macaulay ,Pedagogy August 24, 2010
Gratuitous photos of my niece, below, as I experiment with Podpress:
[display_podcast]
Posted in Photography May 12, 2010
We’re almost done! These are my last office hours of the year, so I’m spending them on a short report. Here’s where I think I made progress this year:
- I did a better job of teaching technology. I got better at explaining complex tools, and better at demonstrating the relevance and the possibilities of each new cool toy. The spring tech fair and the workshop I gave for some visiting high schoolers really helped me grow in this respect. I think that every year in the fellowship I get better at judging how best to connect with a given audience.
- I learned a lot, skills-wise. I am a lot better with video in all respects than I was before. I am better with photography, too, and GIMP. All things visual got bumped up this year. I’m hoping to really see more skill development next year on the code end of things.
- I thought more about group dynamics and group work. This, I mostly got through watching others—I think my own efforts were sometimes ill-advised. But I spent a lot of time watching how other people negotiated group dynamics, and I think I’ll have ample opportunity to apply what I’ve learned in the coming year. I also feel like I was able to position myself as a resource—something I want to do next year as well.
- I gained faith in myself as a budding expert. Now, obviously, I have far to go on many fronts. That said, I had some productive one-on-one sessions with other ITFs, especially this spring. And the lesson I taught for the thesis colloquium showed me (perhaps more than anyone) just how much I have to teach.
- I didn’t let my attitude get me down too much. In past years, it was pretty easy to get extremely upset and frustrated with my job—enough so that for weeks at a time I’d check out, mentally if not physically. This year, well, I’m fighting that attitude, these last few weeks, but this really is the first time it’s shown up (probably due to our impending furloughs, as well as personal stressors).
Here’s where I want to make progress next year:
- Group work. Trying to develop one’s own leadership skills while still remaining part of a group is a tricky business. I’m not always striking the best balance that I could.
- Interactivity in technical instruction. I got started on this, this year, but I want to make my workshops and time with students even more dynamic and energetic. I stepped back from it this year, for a bit, in order to focus on clarity. Now I want to make the clarity I have found even more exciting.
- Networking, networking, networking. Not just past ITFs and others with similar jobs across the University, either—I think we need to get beyond the CUNY bubble and talk to other universities, as well as the private sector. (For instance, I would love to talk to those folks at Stanford who kind of do a similar job, but all have doctorates and stuff already. Could we get together and do a Skype roundtable?)
- Techie stuff. I want to get back to the excitement of learning new (computer) languages again. I want to learn server admin stuff, and I want to see if I, too, can learn to build a WordPress plug-in, or possibly a custom template. And I should probably mess around with Drupal some more, too.
Posted in Macaulay ,Pedagogy May 12, 2010
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Posted in Photography April 20, 2010
Today, my doctoral program’s student association sponsored a “Workshop on University Administration and Other Non-Teaching Careers.” I hadn’t intended to go. Today was my first stop by the Graduate Center in about ten days, and I really had come in simply to run errands: print a few items, file for travel reimbursement, etcetera. But a friend was going, so I tagged along — and honestly, I’m so glad I did.
Is it hubris, to say that I want a job like Joe’s? ‘Cause I do. I adore teaching, and I’m pretty darn good at it. But I’m at my best when I have a slate of different sorts of tasks to accomplish, when teaching is one piece of a larger portfolio. I like to create. (The videography I currently do for Macaulay is quite satisfying, because it feels so tangible to me.) I also like to lead. (My AmeriCorps supervisor once said during a review, “Face it, Lindsey, you’re a leader.” At the time I was caught off-guard. I hadn’t thought of myself that way. I thought of myself as forward-thinking, and someone who liked to take on new challenges, but I didn’t really see myself as the vanguard of a bigger community. Since then I have tried to think critically about what leadership is, and how it can be deployed effectively. And while I definitely have much to learn, I think I’m growing into a leadership style that might work well both inside and outside of the university.) And I like to think about how universities work–something which my service record at the Graduate Center most assuredly demonstrates. (It’s going to be a relief to give up my service commitments at the end of this term, and spend a year in close company with my dissertation. But I have gained a heck of a lot from that work–not the least of which is an abiding interest in the structural features of institutions, and how they can be made to work better.)
Given these characteristics, as well as a certain amount of techie geekitude (in this I am aided and abetted by my sweetheart, who keeps plying me with delectable science fiction, as well as the odd bit of database programming knowledge), becoming a Central ITF this year was a deeply gratifying move. And as I muse on what I want to do in my fourth year in this fellowship, I can come up with a list of specific technical skills I’d like to develop (*cough* I want to learn how to do Jeff’s thing with the servers, as well as how to write a WPMU plug-in. And I’m going to get the sweetie to teach me Perl), but I also want to work on further refining my leadership style, and on working with various constituencies within and outside of Macaulay. I think my question for the fourth year is: how can I bring groups of people together to accomplish new things?
So given that I have all of these interests and concerns outside of my scholarship–and given, too, that I hope to move to a particular region of the world in the summer of 2011, PhD in hand or not–it turned out to be probably the best Friday afternoon I’ve spent at the Graduate Center in ages. The three speakers–Tom Harford, Dan Porterfield, and Peter Taback–were all English PhD alumni, and are currently working in university administration, though Taback, at least, has also worked in the nonprofit world (most recently at amfAR). And while the message each of the three gave was slightly different, I gained quite a lot from what every one of them had to say.
Taback, the first speaker, emphasized two things that recurred in the other two talks. One, you need to be your own best advocate, and make an argument for the relevance of your doctoral study no matter what field you enter. And two, that the training an English PhD receives results in a unique ability to understand and manipulate narrative, and that that is something that is almost universally transferrable (if, of course, you can make your case). It was flattering to be told that I know how to tell stories better than a lot of the population (even if it sounded a little bit like what we say to undergraduates who want to know what you can do with a B.A. in English. *cough* Cue the Avenue Q song, please). The truth is, I think that the more time you spend reading and thinking about stories, the more you know how to work with narrative to achieve your goals. It doesn’t have to happen in an institutional setting, but the rituals of academia do help reinforce that knowledge. At the very least, I think that in graduate school you begin to better understand that universities have narratives too, and that you can be a part of how those are constructed. You can influence the story of anything, if you’re in a job where they’ll let you at it. Taback’s positive energy was ever so slightly contagious–it was about at this point that I was glad to be in the room. And his obvious belief that the payoff is worth it made me feel slightly more optimistic about my murky future.
The second speaker was Tom Harford, who probably gave the best examples of “how to get a foot in the door” of the three alumni. And he reminded me that developing new interests and new skills is never a bad thing. While he emphasized that you should choose “what creates a fire in your belly,” that you should do what you have passion for–and not to consider administrative jobs “consolation prizes” for those who don’t “make it” on the tenure-track job market gauntlet–he also discussed his ability to get a lot of work “by accident.” And I think that part of that was about allowing his varied interests to emerge as they would, without shutting something off in favor of a single-minded, “I WILL HAVE TENURE” sort of perspective.
The final speaker, Dan Porterfield, probably had the most circuitous route to his current position–having found his way back to Georgetown via positions within the federal government. He mentioned in passing that if he were younger he’d be intrigued by the idea of trying to get a job in the Obama administration–something I have to admit I considered for a while, myself. But he also said something that the other two speakers didn’t emphasize as much, and it was good to hear it: graduate study is intrinsically valuable. It may also become instrumentally valuable as part of a larger career path, to be sure, be that a faculty career or something else. But the education itself, the degree itself, it has a value all its own.
I can’t really find a good way to explain just how helpful it was to be reminded of all of these things. I knew some of them before I walked in the door. But I left feeling affirmed in ways that I rarely do at the Graduate Center. (Which isn’t an indictment of anyone. I have a great dissertation director, a solid committee, and good working relationships and friendships around the building. But sometimes I think people don’t think I need positive feedback. Everyone needs mentoring.) I was 22 when I began the doctoral program in English. I’ll be 29 in a few weeks. So much has changed in that time frame. My own career goals are completely different from when I began. I didn’t really know enough about myself back at the beginning–certainly not enough to be able to determine what I might like to do when I was finished with my degree. I had been shaped by my undergraduate professors into the near-perfect, ready-for-graduate-school package. But now, as I think about my future, I haven’t got overwhelming tenure-track priorities. Sure, it’d be nice. But there’s so much more that’s important to me besides that. There are more skills I want to develop. More challenges I want to take on. And as I think about the near future–and what will likely (though not absolutely) be my final year as a technology fellow at Macaulay–I want to make sure that I remain committed to growing and learning and being a positive force for change, however small.
Today really was the push out of the Slough of Despond that I’d been seeking.
Posted in Dissertation ,Macaulay ,Pedagogy ,Rants April 16, 2010
- Study Abroad Student Video
- Prepare For Other Videos
- Get information on next year’s Faculty-in-Residence
- Confer with Joe, Lee, and students about making a video ‘advert’ for the Thesis Colloquium
- Restart Grad A group on the Academic Commons site
- Invite more people to join
- Post an ad about it — the GC? Virtually?
- Begin planning ITF Job Forum
- Write alumni survey
- Solicit help from others
- Get alumni list from Joe
Posted in Macaulay ,Pedagogy April 14, 2010
That’s the best verb I can come up with to describe my state of being at the moment. I am mired. Not admired, unfortunately–though there’s at least one person I can count on who feels that way. But between being completely stalled out on my diss, financially and logistically screwed by a roommate suddenly departing months ahead of schedule, and honest-to-god nervous about my 9 April conference talk… I’m wading hip-deep in sludge, unable to see what dangers and/or toxins might lurk below the surface.
(Is it any wonder that I’m so tired?)
My goal for the week of spring break is not so much practical–I already know what tasks I must accomplish–but psychological. Please, let me find something spiritually uplifting. Let me find some joy again, already. I am not an undeserving creature. I am doing my level best to be a good person in this world.
Posted in Rants March 28, 2010
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