RAPC

Gale's RAP Students Shared Visual Literacy Images Via Social Media

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Jun 2015 16:30:00 +0000

Gale's RAP Students Shared Visual Literacy Images Via Social Media Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 06/24/2015 - 10:30

Kendra Gale, PhD, is an instructor in the Communication and Society Residential Academic Program at CU �鶹ӰԺ. Gale completed the Fall 2014 ASSETT Teaching with Technology Seminar. She introduced a social media page into her class as a mechanism for sharing and discussing interesting images in the media.

[video:https://youtu.be/wXFiHMsT0MM]

Teaching and Learning Challenge

I teach introductory communication courses in the Communication and Society Residential Academic Program (Comm RAP). These are all course with first year students, taught in the residence hall in sections of 19 or less. The enduring idea of the courses is social construction through communication, i.e., how we communicate shapes our understanding of reality.

I used the Teaching with Technology Workshop to explore image delivery mechanisms for students in my Visual Literacy course. One of the goals of the course is for students to master basic vocabulary of semiotics, design, photography and film to use in the discussion of images. But learning a new vocabulary requires practice and repetition.

While I have literally thousands of images in my electronic archive, using them to create exercises for students has been a challenge. I use images on D2L for quizzes but the process of uploading and labeling images for that format is extremely cumbersome and inefficient. While I will continue to use the quiz function for quick learning checks, it is not feasible for uploading large quantities.

In the past, I have posted PowerPoint slides online with questions on the slide and answers in the notes section, created binders of images for students to peruse and practice and required students to create a portfolio of images examples for terms. All of these approaches are extremely labor intensive for me and the interaction is primarily one to one where I am providing feedback individually.

Plans for Implementation

Technology

The goal for using technology is to create a “space” for students to apply the visual vocabulary to a range of images. My vision was to create the equivalent of a “language lab” or sets of electronic flashcards for practice outside of class time.

The tool I choose to explore was a closed group on Facebook because:

Students are already adept at using Facebook so, unlike creating a blog site, there was no learning curve for a new technology;
It is a site they already visit frequently;
A closed group allows students to practice without all of their friends being notified every time they post an image or comment so it respects the boundary between academic and social life. But knowing their classmates would see the posts creates some performance expectation;
Posts and comments are dated;
It is fast and easy both to upload images and to comment on posts on Facebook.

Learning Exercise

Students were required to post 4 times, roughly once every 2-3 weeks, and to comment on at least eight posts from classmates. I provided a list of terms for select modules in the course (semiotics, intertextuality, camera terms, and design choices) and asked students to select one of the terms, provide a visual example of the term in use and briefly discuss how that particular choice contributes to a preferred reading of the image. I also required them to use images that hadn’t already been used. That compelled them to look at all the previous posts before contributing their own as did the requirement to comment on other posts.

Evaluation of the posts was based primarily on completion:

0 = no post or late post
1 = student posted but didn’t complete all the requirements or the post was duplicate of what someone else has already posted
2 = posted and completed all the discussion requirements

Indicators of Success

Assessment of the Technique

Student Self-Assessment

Students were asked about the Facebook posts and assignments in a peer evaluation of my teaching as well as in an anonymous end-of-semester survey. On scaled items students strongly agreed on the ease of use as well as the benefit of having additional examples outside of class (4.5 out of 5). There was less agreement on the number of required posts with some students suggesting that more posts be required in the future. Several also commented on the value of my comments in response to other students posts. They also appreciated the validation when I used their examples in class.

From my perspective, this was also successful as a formative assessment,

I was able to detect patterns of misunderstanding quickly and address them in class.
My feedback on individual posts and comments was visible to the whole group so the learning experience extended beyond the individual.

Unexpected Additional Affordances

Having students contribute images from their own lives provided me with a range of images to which I wouldn’t normally be exposed. It allows me to easily update some of my own examples, to incorporate their images into class discussion and to use the same image several times to help them understand multiple ways of analyzing an image. Analysis and commentary on images from their own lives helped connect daily experience with larger social discourses.
Generally the students who posted first were some of the more successful and high achieving students in the class. They set a high standard for the posts that followed. But that also meant that those who procrastinated until the last minute had to review all the previous posts. Often times, the last-minute-students are not as strong and I suspect the extra review was beneficial for them.
Since students mostly used their real names and faces in the profile pictures, it helped everyone learn the names of all their classmates.
Because they set their social media accounts to notify them via text when anything is posted, notifications about classmate postings helped remind the potentially less organized students that something was due soon. The immediacy of the social media platform also encouraged conversations to continue after and between classes.
Instant cross-platform connection also allowed students to post from both phones and computers. It seemed easier to post images from daily life when they didn’t have to download it from a camera to the computer and then upload it again.
Their comments to each other sometimes strayed away from discussion of the images, but I believe some of the light banter, commentary on each other’s musical preferences, etc. helped them bond more as a community of learners. They were generous with their praise of each other for posting unusual images, original photographs or enlightening commentary, and disagreed respectfully.

Reflection

Overall, using Facebook as a site for posting and commenting moved this class closer to the kind of learning partnership I would like in all my class. They help each other learn and I am learning from them as well.

The workshop also exposed me to several other easy to use technologies that I have adopted in other courses. In addition, the conversation with colleagues was enormously beneficial for troubleshooting problems, generating new ideas and tapping into collective expertise.

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Lights, Camera, This is What Beautiful Looks Like!

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 06:00:00 +0000

Lights, Camera, This is What Beautiful Looks Like! Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 09/30/2011 - 00:00

,“If only I were four inches taller…,” “If only I were skinnier….,” “If only I had bigger breasts...,” “If only I had a smaller nose…,” “If only if only…”. For many young women, these thoughts accompany them in their daily lives and can even lead to harmful behaviors. From childhood to womanhood, a woman’s body is monitored constantly to fit a certain stereotype. Through the media, a woman is told how she should dress, look, and act. It becomes hard to reject these images the media tries to feed us. Dr. Kayann Short, a professor at CU �鶹ӰԺ in the Farrand Academic Program, realizes how media can be influential in shaping a person’s identity and confidence. She also sees the danger involved in exposure to stereotypical images bolstered by the media. In response to such threatening images, she developed the Women’s Wellness Service Learning practicum for her ‘Coming of Age in Multicultural Women's Literature’ class. This is course is offered at the University of Colorado-�鶹ӰԺ, where students find innovative ways to reject the unrealistic and degrading images of women found in the media these days.

A brief insight on the Coming of Age Multicultural Women’s Literature course

This course approaches students’ learning by incorporating different literary genres to examine coming-of-age experience in works by women writers. Dr. Short states, “In this course, we analyze works of fiction, poetry, memoir, film and essay to study how girls from diverse backgrounds confront the social expectations regarding gender, race, class, religion, and sexuality that determine their transition from girlhood to womanhood.” It also explores ways in which students see themselves in the future in a society that doubts young women’s potential. She explains, “From classics like Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi to the award-winning young adult novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, we examine how the discursive strategies of women writers create possibilities for artistic expression and social agency.”

Additionally, this course includes a service-learning practicum. Dr. Short and her students work with CU’s Community Health program to organize outreach events on topics such as breast cancer, nutrition, eating disorders, and the impact of body image on women’s health.

How it all started

Note to Self: This is What Beautiful Looks Like, a digital story about students’ positive representations of themselves, emerged spontaneously when Dr. Short and her students were brainstorming ideas for potential outreach projects for the Women’s Wellness service learning practicum. She states, “As the theme for the digital stories emerged organically from our conversations with CU’s Community Health about body image and their Rock Your Body Day event, I realized that each student’s input would be powerful when combined with the others in a collaborative digital story.” Consequently, her students seemed interested in making a digital story that rejected unrealistic and degrading images of women found in the media. They began with the question, “How can I feel good about myself when everything else tells me to feel bad?”

Students taking the course, 'Coming of Age in Multicultural Women's Literature,' express their love for womanhood through digital story telling.

Each student wrote a scene from their own experience that reflected an answer to that question. Dr. Short then recorded their voiceovers as one script and added a musical soundtrack. After compiling all these scenes, she illustrated them with personal images picked by each student. She also included images from advertisements and from Community Health’s Rock Your Body event in March. The title came from visual “notes” that appear throughout the story. “For each scene, the students created a “note to self” that illustrated their own positive ideas,” said Dr. Short. She adds, “Given the short amount of production time, I edited the piece in Final Cut myself but we screened it as a class to make final editing changes together.”

Challenges faced while creating the digital story

According to Dr. Short, the students worked well together while creating the digital story. “Students were excited about creating something they could share not only with friends and family, but with a larger audience through social networking and public campaigns like Love Your Body Day,” she said. She mentions that the only challenge they faced was finding a quiet place to record since the location in which their class meets is a busy place.

The importance of technology in her class

Dr. Short is aware of the important role of technology in teaching. According to her, the technology we use today is another tool that helps us accomplish some of the central goals of higher education: to think critically about facts, concepts, and ideas; to research and write about that knowledge; and to share findings with others. She states, “Because students today are immersed in media and understand its ability to communicate widely with a shared audience, it makes sense to use communication technologies as a mode of inquiry into course topics as well.” According to her, technology in the form of digital storytelling has allowed students to view and evaluate their experience in a new, multi-modal way.

Should other professors adopt digital story telling too?

Dr. Short recommends that other professors integrate digital storytelling into their teaching. She has used it in other classes both for student assignments and service-learning projects with community members.

One feature of digital storytelling that Dr. Short highlights is its ability to foster collaborative work. Dr. Short adds, “When the course doesn’t allow time for individual projects, having the students work collaboratively is wonderful because it involves them in group discourse, debate, and decision-making.”

Future goals and plans

'The National Organization of Women' selected the video created by Dr. Short’s students for their 'Love Your Body Day' campaign.

The National Organization of Women selected the video created by Dr. Short’s students for their Love Your Body Day campaign. Students will be glad to hear that this video is also available on the CUs’ iTunes and YouTube. In addition, students are sharing this video on their social networks as well.

Dr. Short strongly encourages women of all ages to adopt alternative definitions of beauty rather than rely on corporate media sources. “Our class also wants young women to examine the role appearance plays in their lives,” says Dr. Short. She adds, “We hope that Note to Self: This is What Beautiful Looks Like will inspire all of us to create messages reminding each other that beauty is not defined by what we don’t have, but rather by what already exists in our own hearts and minds.”

Written By Manaslu Bista, ASSETT reporter

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Digital Storytelling: Media In Your Own Voice

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:00:00 +0000

Digital Storytelling: Media In Your Own Voice Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 07/15/2009 - 00:00

While searching for teaching ideas in the summer of 2006, Farrand RAP Senior Instructor Kayann Short “serendipitously” stumbled upon something that would change the course of her teaching interests: digital storytelling.

Digital Storytelling is about the story first and foremost: a first-person narrative focusing on a meaningful personal experience. Unlike text-only essays [traditional tales], these stories are then coupled with photos, video clips, music and personal voiceovers to create a short movie about the experience they want to share.

Short is planning to bring digital storytelling to CU classrooms, after applying and teaching it within the �鶹ӰԺ community.

To Short, the shift from pen-and-paper stories to digital ones is intuitive; in a culture where YouTube videos gain world-wide attention, video is becoming the modern way to share information. The summer she discovered digital storytelling, Short attended a workshop held by the Center for Digital Storytelling at their satellite office in Denver.

After the three day workshop taught her how to produce a digital story, Short knew she had to share the experience with others. “Digital Storytelling empowers literacy,” Short explains as her reason for wanting to share the process with others. “The storyteller has a purpose, an audience. They feel like they see what literacy can really mean.”

Short speaks from experience. In the summer of 2008, with a CU Outreach Grant, she taught 4 women from �鶹ӰԺReads!, �鶹ӰԺ’s literacy program, the process of digital storytelling. Two spoke English as a second language, and all had missed out on learning to read and write in her past. The opportunity to tell their story meant the world to these women, who otherwise may have not had the audience or the chance to do so.

Inspired by these women, Short received one of ASSETT’s Dean’s Fund for Excellence awards that allowed her to present what she’d learned at a MELUS conference this spring. Short showed one the women’s stories, and used it to illustrate how empowering the process of sharing through digital mediums can be.

The success Short has seen with digital stories has motivated her to include it in her teaching at CU. Besides using digital storytelling in her classes as a mode of inquiry for student learning, she is working to invite the Center for Digital Storytelling to host a digital storytelling workshop at CU. She hopes this will show faculty and organizations around campus what digital storytelling can do for them. Short will also incorporate digital storytelling into an INVST (International and National Volunteer Service Training) class she is planning to teach in 2010.

In case you didn’t know, the INVST Community Studies Program is filled with students whose interests lie in volunteering in the community. Short’s plan is to create a collection of multi-generational stories about activism in �鶹ӰԺ. The students in her class will complete one portion of this puzzle, while elders involved with local organizations will fill in another. By the end, she hopes to have a compilation of inspirational stories that ask each person the question: What does community work mean to you?

These stories will then be put on the web, to inspire others to make a difference in their community. Finding the meaning in a personal experience is empowering not only for the storymaker, Short explains, but for the audience as well. She continues, “Once the digital story is out there, it can get a life of its own.”

Short hopes to show students that they can decide what is worth sharing with the world, and to inspire them to use these affordable technologies to expand the way they communicate with others. Short put it best when describing it to me:

“It’s not just those with a ton of money and access to media who decide what stories get to be told. Now the student makes the decision about what stories are important to tell.”

-- Written By: Kate Vander Wiede, CU '09, ASSETT Staff

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