Archive for March, 2009

53rd Annual Conference of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES): The Politics of Comparison


2009
03.25

53rd Annual Conference of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES): The Politics of Comparison

Date: Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Location: Bell 207

Time: 10:00am – 11:30am

Chair: E. Moore Quinn, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Anthropology, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, College of Charleston, SC 29424 – New Pedagogies of Expressive Culture: Integrating Technologies and Broadening Definitions

Integrating new technologies and undertaking practice-driven, creative research that reflects an increasingly digital approach to scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences, four (4) educators at the College of Charleston, South Carolina, are initializing a unique classroom called The Center for Expressive Culture (CEC). Its purposes are to train anthropology and sociology majors to interpret expressive culture beyond traditional definitions and to study art, film, media, poetry, dance, and performance in their many cross-cultural manifestations. This interactive session will be held in the CEC so that conference-goers can witness the site in action. In a panel-discussion format, the four faculty members will demonstrate its key features and explore the challenges and benefits of undertaking interdisciplinary collaboration. They will explain how digital media and technology are affecting learning, teaching and scholarship in this ever-changing environment, and they will share how “best practices” are transferring from one discipline to another. Featuring student projects informed by digital tools, methods, and state-of-the-art technologies, they will discuss how the CEC enables them to work beyond disciplinary and geographical boundaries and to access the “best practices” in education. Finally, they will explore how other cultures’ ideas about expressive culture may influence their future designs and directions.

The Center For Expressive Culture Website

Panelist: William Danaher, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, College of Charleston, SC 29424 – Teaching the Sociology of Music

Sociology of music focuses on how the sociological perspective can be illuminated by using music as the unit of analysis. This session discusses how the use of visual elements and musical performance helps students to more clearly understand the role of music in society.

 

Jerry Spiller, M.S.I.S., Language Resource Center Director, College of Charleston, SC 29424Resource Selection and Evaluation in the Multimedia Classroom

Information professionals today must address both the hard and soft needs of users under no shortage of real world restraints. This session will explore the issues in resource selection and evaluation in a newly developed course in a new facility. Care must be taken to address a range of technical proficiencies among both students and faculty, with a realization the classroom time is finite and valuable. Further, familiarity with a technology may be a help or hindrance its adoption for new uses. Budgeting and institutional issues must always be taken into careful consideration. Heuristics for resource selection will be examined and taken from theory to practice in light of the development of the Center for Expressive Culture.

  1. 1) Coordination between Center for Expressive Culture and Language Resource Center, each learning lessons from the other
    http://delicious.com/yeri/anthropology.center
  2. 2) Adapting Jakob Nielson’s Heuristics for Usabiity (http://iqcontent.com/publications/features/article_32/ )
    • 3) User Control and Freedom
    • 4) Consistency and Standards
    • 7) Flexibility and Efficiency of Use
  3. Some Issues:
    • Portability: Flip Cams, Belkin recorders
    • Open Source software: Available for students on personal machines
    • Mac Lab on a non-Mac campus
Panelist: Jolanda-Pieta van Arnhem, M.F.A. Visual Art, Educational Technologist, College of Charleston Libraries, College of Charleston, SC 29424 - Lessons Learned in Teaching Visual EthnographyThe design of an interdisciplinary course in visual research methods presents many challenges en route to new opportunities. This session will explore the lessons learned after the first semester of a course aimed at teaching visual, ethnographic research methods to undergraduates. Best practices are examined in light of caveats such as the time consuming nature of both ethnographic research and multimedia production, the need to teach both theory and practice in depth, and the need to address ancillary but important issues such as ethics and social responsibility in changing landscapes of social media, intellectual property, and information literacy.
1)  My experience in designing the lab (the selection of hardware, software and curriculum) with the goal of introducing students to the
intellectual understanding and the hands-on practical skills necessary to make anthropologically-informed films or videos, and/or to
effectively incorporate visuals (stills/film/video) into their research.

Q&A / Show and Tell:

 

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Women's Roller Derby Comes to Charleston!


2009
03.17
Help support our first local Roller Derby Team! I’ll be there taking pictures so check back!
WHAT: Spring Equi-Knocks: Charleston’s first roller derby event.
WHO: Lowcountry Highrollers vs. Soul City Sirens.
WHEN: 6 p.m. March 22. (Doors open at 5 p.m.)
WHERE: Omar Shrine Temple, 176 Patriots Point Road, Mount Pleasant.
COST: Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 day of. Kids 10 and under get in free.
Available at brownpapertickets.com.
Want to Know More?
Lowcountry Highrollers - linked from the News and Courier
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It has been a long time…


2009
03.15
January Class Excursion into SecondLifeIt has been a long time since I posted last and we can play “ketchup” in the near future. Here’s another “slice of life.”  Thought I would post it since I ran across it while I was cleaning up files on my computer and it made me laugh … it is a screen capture of a class excursion into SecondLife.  I keep winding up in the UK, not really sure how I got there, and can’t seem to find my way home:)
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Addlestone Thursday@Three Workshop Today


2009
03.12

Digital Audio: Where can I put my podcast and how do I put it there?
Thursday March, 12, 2009
Addlestone Room 122
3pm – 4:30pm

Web 2.0 confusion be gone. The enlightenment shall now commence……..
What do I do with my podcast once I have made it? Where do I put it? In this enlightening Addlestone Session, we shall tell you where to put it. Honest. Your confusion will be eased and more questions shall be inspired concerning podcasts and podcasting.

This session will cover basic methods of distribution (blog, website, iTunes) and the requirements for each.  For example, embedding an audio file in your blog or website, creating an RSS feed, and uploading files to College of Charleston iTunes U. Now, if your head is spinning about now (and we would be concerned if it isn’t), no worries. This only shows that you are enlighten-able.

Basically we shall give you the Oprah explanation of podcasting*.  Which means (in this instance at least) that we shall make it easily understandable and practical to your life and life’s work.

Link here to register for this session.
Please indicate the March 12 Session.

* Despite our Oprah connection, access to Tom Cruise cannot be guaranteed.

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Photosynth of the Addlestone Library


2009
03.10

Tracy, Jared, Jerry and I have been exploring Photosynth technology, which creates 3-D environments from overlapping photographs.  With a little screen capturing, some Public Domain music from Internet Archive and a bit of video editing we turned it into a little tour for the library.  If your curious how we did it we will be going over the process in an upcoming Thursday@3@Addlestone session: Video 101 on April 2nd.

This Thursday (March 12th) we will be covering Podcasting How To’s.

We hope you enjoy the tour and hope to see you at Thursday@3@Addlestone!.  Let us know what you think:)

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