What is out title?
MHC TUBE
NYTube
NapoliTube
“Nap”sterTube
PhilTube
PNapsTube
Post 1945 New York City
Visions of Gotham
–pfn–
Peopling the Decades
Writing with Light: New York Since 1945
Fun-o-Movie
I’ve Worked D* Hard On This
You Know I Have Other Classes Too, Right?
You can easily upload your project to Slideshare (see the links section of this blog) and embed it back into this blog.
Just make sure that when you are posting it you select the “html” tab, and then select the embedding code to the right of the slideshow on the Slideshare page. At this time the “Post to” –> Wordpress does not work due to a version conflict between the plugin and the Wordpress version we are using.
About this Project
This year I wanted to try something different in my section of the Macaulay College Seminar 2, The Peopling of New York City.
This is the third semester that I have taught the course. In previous semesters students have elected to take on topics such as specific neighborhoods and specific immigrant groups as the focus of their research. One significant problem emerged fairly quickly. Students interested in the 19th century history of some neighborhoods simpler were not able to find any information. This led to the development of projects that clearly demonstrated much work, but did not have adequate primary source material.
I also wanted to try to make this project more fun than the standard website. While I have no objection to websites, I wanted to see if something more was possible; something that intimately connected course content with the web projects.
I therefore decided to focus the class on my own research interest, which is New York City after 1945. I assigned four good books on the subject as material for reading and discussion. I also asked students to think about the people in of New York City in a new and slightly different way than I had before.
While in the past I had treated this class as strictly an immigration course, I wanted to acknowledge that immigration is not the only way the city is ‘peopled.’ Yes, certainly there were immigrants both before and after 1945 and the course did not ignore that fact. But other things also shaped the people of New York City.
So, I allow the students to pick any topic they wanted to take on. The students could have selected immigrant groups to follow, especially after 1965. But they understood, as I do, that New York City is a place to invent and reinvent yourself, and that way ‘people’ the city. A quick look at the autobiographies of the students will demonstrate the truth of this claim.
Therefore, for example, one group elected to look at the history of Vietnam veterans in New York City. Veterans had gone abroad, served in Vietnam, and had come back changed. Some were wounded, others hurt in other ways, but all had to forge lives for themselves here, back home in New York City.
Most significantly I asked the students to create documentary movies based on their research. The results appear on this website.
The College had provided each student with a flip camera that takes excellent video and has terrific sound. This permitted students to conduct quite a large number of interviews for their projects. They had to learn how to interview, and how difficult it is to find interviewees.
To do this, they had to read. So they read outside their own comfort zones. Having picked topics about which they knew little, they had to become experts and quickly.
In preparing a film, students also had to write. A lot. They had to figure out precisely what they wanted their film to say and how best to deliver that on a screen.
They also had to learn to think critically about the sources they use. Some were of greater value than others. Some were trustworthy and others not. Not even interviews can be taken at face value.
Finally, they had to learn the technology in order to put the film together. Most students used iMovie, a facility built into their Apple computers.
They quickly found out that moviemaking is not as easy as it looks. Movies gobble up information. In order to make a film of even 10 or 15 minutes they had to have a lot of information to work with. And so they went out and found it.
I am intensely proud of the results. These students have worked very hard, and I believe as you watch their products, you will agree.
Philip F. Napoli
April 30, 2009
Hello Seminar 2! Looking forward to a productive and interesting semester. And in case you hadn’t heard, Rick Rolling is the new pass-time…
Your Tech Fellow,
John