Did you know that you can host your own website, portfolio, or course project on FOR FREE??!! There’s no catch. No “as seen on TV” shenanigans. No 30-day trial period, no in-app purchases, no subscriptions. So, what are you waiting for? 

We’ve created a simple activity for you to try BuffsCreate and see what you could do with your own domain. Check out our where you can add your best tips for succeeding in online classes, studying for exams, and surviving finals week. Have a recipe, a study app, a way to make your room cozy, or something else? Contribute to the site by December 7 to share your best tips and you’ll be entered to win one of five $25 Amazon gift cards. Don’t have a tip? Come check out what other students are saying. 

Once you see how easy it is, you’ll want to get started creating your very own site. You can attend our BuffsCreate drop-in office hours every Thursday from 12:00 to 1:00 pm on Zoom.

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We want to send a big thank you to everyone who participated in our Spring 2020 Buffscreate contest and helped make it a success. is a hosting platform provided by ASSETT and University Libraries to support students and faculty in teaching and learning about digital identity as well as digital and information literacies while building websites of their own. Contestants were asked to submit their websites, portfolios, course projects, and/or blogs hosted on BuffsCreate. We received several great submissions, and we want to extend a special congratulations to our winners! Below you will find links to the winning sites and a short description of their work.

And the winners are...

Splitting the grand prize is Sawyer Gander, Kayleigh Cornell, Nicole Humphrey, Klara Smith, and Shanel Wu for their amazing work on a site created in their anthropology class. Each of them will receive a $25 gift card from Amazon!

As part of Professor Kathryn Goldfarb’s Practicing Anthropology class, this website was created to showcase a semester-long research project on ozone pollution in the Front Range. These group members practiced ethnographic research skills in interviewing scientists, lawyers, and CU professors to learn how scientific knowledge and policy interact.

We also want to recognize Madison Greenly and Roya Gessel. Both contestants submitted personal sites and will each receive a second place prize of a $50 Amazon gift card! 

Madison created this site primarily to show to employers who she is and the type of work she’s interested in doing. It features her resume, a writing profile, and a bit of information about herself and her interests. She wanted it to aesthetically represent her interests and personality, so she went for a sleek theme to show professionalism with some pink tones and photos to add brightness. While simple, Madison’s site has already helped her get a job with a publishing company, so she is so glad she took the opportunity to freely host her site while here at CU. 

This blog was part of a class assignment for Professor Christopher Haynes’ Topics in Popular Culture class. The assignment was to pick a current fandom to elaborate on based on specific guidelines for the class. While Roya felt her work wasn’t elaborate, she found it was motivating enough to get something out there. Roya summed up the learning experience in Dr. Haynes’ course like this: 

The benefit of being encouraged to make your own website is a memory and sense of gratitude I can’t replace. The academic importance of this platform in our world today has never been as important as it is now. It is a basic blog, although most blogs and websites are, it's the content that captivates the audience, peers/cohorts and mentors. If my simple blog inspires anyone to be encouraged to just open up buffscreat.net, whether it’s fancy or not, it would put a little more grin to my smile.

We look forward to holding this contest again in the coming year! So what are you waiting for? Go ahead, log in at with your CU identikey credentials and get started on your projects today! For more information or help getting started, email us at bcsupport@colorado.edu. 

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Over the summer, Nii Armah Sowah and I created a lesson plan for a brave space activity that supports productive dialogue and helps to cultivate brave spaces in our classrooms. This resource is open source and can be used in any educational or organizational setting—online conferencing or in-person—to put anti-racism and equity into action. We developed this over the years as co-teachers of Performance and Community Engagement through the University of Colorado Department of Theatre & Dance. This lesson plan is included in our  under our “toolbox” tab through .

In this lesson, we recommend a useful tool for teaching with technology, , which allows students to co-author their responses to various prompts. We offer free use of this lesson plan to anyone who might find it useful for supporting productive dialogue about anti-racism and other relevant social issues with respect and courage. This lesson plan supports an instructor in facilitating the co-creation of a class’s own guidelines for critical engagement on challenging issues. In alignment with Universal Design for Learning, we will soon have a version of the reading that accompanies this lesson plan—"From Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces”—that is fully accessible. We are working with Anna Reid in the Digital Accessibility Office to get the reading ready and posted soon to our BuffsCreate site. Ensuring all course materials, such as reading assignments, are accessible minimizes barriers to learning and reduces the need for individual accommodations and helps to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to participate. We offer this  to the public domain as a part of CU’s initiative to support free use and repurposing of information produced by this public institution.

Download the "From Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces" lesson plan (.doc)

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Communicating Serious Content in Fun Online Forms

One of my great pleasures that is part of my research and creative work is working with a group of �鶹ӰԺ middle and high school girls known as Young Women’s Voices for Climate. We meet weekly and use arts-based methods for climate action and vocal empowerment through , which I co-founded with Chelsea Hackett.

Along with CU students Lianna Nixon, Jeneé LeBlanc, and Sarah Fahmy, we worked together to create an online gallery exhibit entitled Recipes for Change, which was originally designed to be displayed at the �鶹ӰԺ Public Library Canyon Gallery in May 2020, now due to the library closure because of the pandemic. Don’t forget to check out the music video of them as rapping fruits and vegetables at the end!

As the Faculty Advisor for ASSETT, I share this example of an online gallery to help spark ways you might guide students in creating an online platform for whatever you are teaching. could be used as a platform for this type of a project. We used this exhibit to share arts-based approaches focused on food to help reverse global warming. It may seem a bit frivolous when perusing the exhibit, but this online platform is being used to creatively communicate a solution that can ensure our survivability as a species. 

By partnering with , we are focusing on top climate solutions. The term “drawdown” refers to “the future point in time when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline (The Drawdown Review, page 2).” According to Drawdown’s 2020 revised list of the top solutions for reversing global warming, Reduced Food Waste is the #1 solution and a Plant-Rich Diet is #3. (For the scenario that seeks to reach drawdown in 2060, see The Drawdown Review, page 86, available for free download at ). In scenario number two (The Drawdown Review, page 88) in which projections of top solutions are based on achieving drawdown by the mid-2040s, Reduce Food Waste is #3 and Plant-Rich Diets is #4. By adding the total CO2 and equivalent greenhouse gases reduced and/or sequestered by these two solutions--according to either scenario-- focusing on food is clearly the number one solution for reversing global warming!

Online platforms that feature fun and creative communication strategies can effectively communicate important content. I wish all of you and yours good health and a vibrant adjustment to whatever integration of online learning we employ in the future.

* in HowlRound.

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Submit your website hosted on to be entered to win one of several Amazon gift cards up to $100 in value. Already have a site on Buffscreate? Send it in! Don’t have a site yet? It’s pretty easy to get started and host your WordPress site with BuffsCreate.

While we’re stuck at home, what better time to work on your professional portfolio, blog, photo gallery or that website you’ve been meaning to build. Besides, who couldn’t use a few extra bucks right now? Need help or have questions? Email bcsupport@colorado.edu or go to our

Winners will have their sites featured on our . The deadline for submission is May 15, 2020. Any submissions received after this date will not be considered. Winners will be notified by the end of May.

Contest Rules

1. In order to participate you must be an undergraduate student in the College of Arts and Sciences, or a graduate student who is actively teaching undergraduates in A&S. 
2. Your site must be hosted on BuffsCreate. (If you made your site elsewhere, but migrated to BuffsCreate, you are eligible.)
3. Commercial sites and official CU sites (e.g., a CU-sponsored club's site) are ineligible for consideration.

By submitting this form you give us permission to feature your site on our showcase site located at .

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What is ? And SPLOTs*? Sounds like a made up word... (Well, it kind of is. Read on.) 

Let’s start with BuffsCreate. It’s simply a web hosting pilot project offered for the College of Arts & Sciences, which gives students a . We’re very excited about all the possibilities for students to host online portfolios, course projects, and blogs, and to begin building digital identities that they own and control. With a variety of open source applications available in BuffsCreate, the possibilities for teaching and learning are endless!  

Ok, now, what the heck is a ? Why, it’s the Smallest Possible Learning Online Tool! This tiny teaching tool makes a big impact but doesn’t require complicated technology. SPLOTs are WordPress templates that allow students to contribute content without any kind of log-in or sign-up process. In a nutshell, the template enables a student to automatically publish content to a shared course site using a simple form. It presents the opportunity for students to consider why and how to openly publish their work. Numerous options within the template allow for: 

• password protection for individual student entries or an entire course site

• public entries that appear anonymous, yet notify the instructor of the submitting student’s identity

• instructor moderation of posts before publishing.

Take for a test run! Just click the Add to Collection link in the left-hand navigation menu to post some content on the site.

SPLOTs can be used for a number of purposes such as blogging, collecting resources, or class introductions. Pedagogical benefits of SPLOTS include writing for a more authentic audience and developing essential employable information and digital literacy skills. To spark your imagination, here are a few examples of Arts & Sciences faculty using SPLOTs:

• Beth Osnes, Associate Professor in Theatre & Dance and ASSETT’s Faculty Advisor, and Nii Armah Sowah, Senior Instructor in Theatre & Dance are currently using the TRU Writer SPLOT in their Performance and Community Engagement course. Students learn and develop performance techniques and activities to effect positive social change and encourage community building. For their SPLOT entries, students create a very short video of one of these activities and upload it along with a title, description, and logistical information. This course resource, the , is meant to serve as a living repository for students as they move into careers as practitioners of community engagement.

• , Instructor in the Program for Writing & Rhetoric, is participating in our BuffsCreate Special Interest Group and using the TRU Collector SPLOT in his course, . Students find and analyze examples of the purpose and uses of documentary techniques. He makes use of the available privacy settings as he learns more about students’ response to the tool. Students find and explore examples of documentary techniques such as:

  • Analysis of cinematic technique

  • Short-form cinematic interpretation 

  • Analysis of forms of documentation 

  • Conceptual / philosophical analysis of cinema

  • Analysis of contemporary visual culture.

Professor Abiragi finds this assignment to be a productive relation of “word and image,” which is a common topic in visual culture studies. Additionally, he makes use of the available privacy settings as he learns more about students’ response to participating in this kind of assignment. Below is a screenshot of his application of this tiny teaching tool.

• Two other faculty members are currently preparing course assignments using SPLOTs. Nicole Jobin teaches history in the Sewell RAP and is using the TRU Collector SPLOT to emphasize media literacy by asking students to evaluate online resources relevant to the course and create an entry for the curated list. Dianne Mitchell, who teaches literary analysis in the English department, will be using the TRU Writer SPLOT to analyze and annotate the poetry of Hester Poulter. 

These are just a few examples of what you can do with SPLOTs, which are a great way to get your feet wet with BuffsCreate. And BuffsCreate provides so many more opportunities to let students be creative with wikis, photo galleries, or podcasts. Yet, the real value is that they can do this while owning their work and data and not giving it over to third-party corporate interests. It provides possibilities to experiment with and learn the inner workings of the internet; to learn practical, employable digital skills; to grapple with complexities such as building a digital identity, , and data ownership; and to experience the internet as the “open web” it was initially intended to be. It’s the world our students live in. Let them play and learn there.  

For more information and how to get started using SPLOTs and BuffsCreate, contact Amanda McAndrew and Caroline Sinkinson. 

*SPLOTs are the work of , developed during an Open Learning Fellowship at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) in Kamloops, British Columbia. 

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Position Description

ASSETT seeks an undergraduate student to support the BuffsCreate pilot project for Domain of One’s Own (DoOO) through technical support and user-population building. gives all learners in Arts & Sciences the opportunity to own a domain and provides server space to freely design a web page to host their academic, research, professional, and/or creative works. The ideal candidate will be a self-starter who enjoys learning about and using various technologies, is comfortable speaking to large groups, and is open to working with students and faculty alike.

Responsibilities

• Become familiar with several open-source applications associated with BuffsCreate
• Provide technical support and answer questions about BuffsCreate and associated applications
• Help with student outreach efforts
• Give presentations in classrooms and to student groups in order to introduce BuffsCreate
• Host weekly drop-in support sessions for buffscreate
• Co-facilitate student focus groups
• Collect other feedback from BuffsCreate users
• Curate or develop tutorials for open-source applications hosted with BuffsCreate
• Other duties as needed

Required Qualifications

• Currently enrolled undergraduate student
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Dependable and organized, with the ability to work independently and collaboratively
• Ability and desire to learn new technologies quickly

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiar with website design and development, ideally open-source applications
• Familiar with and interested in information and digital literacy
• Experience giving workshops or presentations to groups

Application Instructions

This is a paid undergraduate position requiring a commitment of approximately 10 hours per week. This position reports to the ASSETT Faculty Services Portfolio Manager, but works closely with other staff members. To apply, please submit a cover letter addressing your interest and qualifications related to this position, along with your resume, to Sara Myers. This position is open until filled.

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provides all Arts & Sciences learners with the opportunity to take control of their digital identities by designing and hosting their own web presence for academic, research, professional, and/or creative works via a panel of open source applications.

Whether you’re on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, LinkedIn (or all of them!), have you ever found yourself wishing you could do something different, something you can design yourself and call your very own? Take charge of your digital future by designing your own little piece of the web.

• Learn about BuffsCreate free website hosting
• Register your domain name
• Work with BuffsCreate design mentors
• Start designing your new website, blog, portfolio, photo gallery, and more
• Share your design with new friends

With Buffscreate, you can practice essential digital and information literacies, explore digital tools, and begin to make choices about how you participate. You’ll have opportunities to shape, resist, consume, and contribute to the complexities of digital spaces.

Students and faculty are welcome to join us in for drop-in information sessions on the following dates:

• Wednesday, September 25, 2019, from 12:00–1:00pm
• Thursday, October 10, 2019, from 4:00–5:00pm
• Monday, November 4, 2019, from 12:00–1:00pm

Hosted by and the University Libraries. 

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ASSETT invites Arts & Sciences faculty (including graduate students with instructional duties) to join one of our Fall 2019 Special Interest Groups (SIGs). A SIG is a community of learners exploring themes in teaching, learning, and technology. 

Current offerings include:

Maximizing Student Engagement with Course Readings: This SIG will explore ways of maximizing student engagement through course readings. Participants will be guided through four different activities and encouraged to discuss how they might use the activities during class. We will meet four times throughout the semester. Light snacks will be provided.

(Re)Envisioning Learning Spaces: Participants in this SIG will engage in hands-on exploration of the affordances of learning spaces, both physical and virtual. They will then collaborate with peers to develop strategies to maximize the opportunities of their learning space while mitigating its limitations. Approximate total time commitment is 8 to 10 hours.

BuffsCreate: Participants will receive a domain and web hosting, support and training, to initiate a web-based scholarly or pedagogical project in conversation with colleagues from across the college. While building our own individual domains, this group will consider how digital technologies are entwined in how we teach, learn, and create.

Spaces are limited. Sign up by September 16 to reserve your spot.

For more information or to register, visit the Upcoming Events page on the ASSETT website.

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With spring classes behind us and fall a few months away, now’s a perfect time to reflect on the past semester and begin brainstorming for the semester ahead!

Join ASSETT’s summer book club to mingle with colleagues while discussing by John Spencer and A. J. Juliani. This visually engaging book is a light read, but it’s chock-full of meaningful reflections and profound insights into ways instructors can deepen student engagement and motivation. For a taste of what’s in store, by John Spencer, which outlines seven ways students benefit when they take charge of their own learning.

The book club will meet three times:

• Thursday, May 23: Kickoff meeting to distribute books and meet the participants;

• Wednesday, May 29: Hands-on workshop on to explore BuffsCreate, a new service that provides students with a web space to cultivate their digital identities and showcase their research, professional, and creative works;

• Thursday, June 6: Wrap-up discussion and course planning activities.

Meetings will be held from 1:00 to 3:00 pm on each of the above dates.

ASSETT will provide free copies of the book, limited-edition BuffsCreate swag, and light refreshments for all registered participants. This opportunity is open to Arts & Sciences faculty and staff, including graduate students with instructional duties.

Only 10 spaces are available -- register soon! For additional information, contact Amanda McAndrew.

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