Hi everyone, I’m starting this thread so we have a place to share any websites or other projects and platforms that we find in our travels – including any that might be directly or indirectly related to the research or project concept that one of is is working on, or just any that are interesting or inspiring… I will share a few I’ve found below, and would love it if you would do the same!

             This week’s readings addressed effective pedagogy and practical teaching/learning methods. In A Hippocratic Oath for Ed Tech, Audrey Watters compares medical professions to educational ones. Although the Hippocratic Oath is not a legal document, it is a widely known set of ethics that medical professionals are expected to abide by. The main tenet of the oath is to “do no harm”. When we approach education, there are also many ethical questions we must address. Watters writes about the political and economic power sewn into the educational-technology sphere, however those who wish to teach should generally agree with the idea of “doing no harm”. Teaching is a selfless and labor intensive profession, and regardless of the amount of money available in ed-tech, I wonder how many incentives are actually obtainable by the majority of CUNY faculty. In medicine, many doctors have the opportunity to profit from the bribes and coercion of tech companies, and we hear stories of doctors straying from the Hippocratic Oath all the time.

• If we were to adopt a sort of oath for educators, would you see this as being effective and respected by the faculty at CUNY? I don’t know what the statistics are here on instructors sponsored by Pearson, Google Certified Educators, and the like that Watters mentioned.
• What are some messages in the Hippocratic Oath that are important in your own education or pedagogy? For me I feel it is essential to be able to admit when I do not know something, rely on and respect the knowledge of colleagues, use warmth, sympathy, and understanding, respect the privacy of students and treat them as people rather than statistics or numbers on a “chart”, and fulfill my obligation to all students regardless of their abilities.
• What would an educational oath need to include, especially here at CUNY?

             We also read Bill Pelz’s three principles of effective online pedagogy. These were to let the students do (most of) the work, use interactivity, and strive for presence. Educators are encouraged to provide tasks for students to take the lead, interact with others, and establish presence through discussion. The presence could be social, cognitive, or teaching. Mainly Pelz seems concerned with facilitating the class through discussions either between students, with the instructor, or online. There are many examples laid out in the article of activities that fit the model.

• This was written in 2004. I was wondering if anyone thought these techniques would be useful in their own courses. Do you already use or participate in some of these activities?

             Ryan Cordell recounts an early teaching experience with the hindsight that his proposal was rightfully turned down. He writes “How not to Teach Digital Humanities” using his own experiences. The article is mainly concerned with how to present the idea of digital humanities to undergrads who aren’t concerned with the meta-arguments and semantics of academia. He argues that we should find a new term for Digital Humanities, as these two words no longer accurately describe the study. In addition, both the title and the content often turn students away. Cordell suggests starting slowly, with small increments, scaffolding to ease students in, and thinking locally to make the matter relatable.

• The other day I read a sign at City College calling for a student action meeting to discuss the inadequacies of everything from curriculum to MTA schedules. Do you find that CUNY students aren’t interested in the politics of academia? As Cordell says, they may find the topics of digital humanities interesting if they were introduced to it in small doses.

             I enjoyed the One Feminist Online Media Mantrafesto from Feminist Online Spaces. The “mantra” and “manifesto” essentially emphasizes the need for access to facilitate a long chain of other desires. These include, but are not limited to democracy, safe spaces, and visibility. The list starts and ends with access.

• Is accessibility the proper starting point to create progress? This assessment seems to be fair. We need to start somewhere so why not here. Also, how can we facilitate more accessibility here at CUNY?

Finally, I just wanted to provide a space to talk about the Digital Sustainability lab we had on Monday because I feel like we rarely have an outlet to discuss it, since this is as good a place as any. While I did not find a lot of what we reviewed to be very relevant to my current project, I was wondering if anyone else had concrete plans concerning the preservation of their digital project? What are your experiences using archive.org (if any)? Also, if you are coding HTML/CSS, python, and etc, which of the tools that Stephen showed did you find most and least helpful (archive, bagit, webaim, emulation, WARC, etc)? I’ve barely gotten started learning how I might develop code, so a lot of those resources were too advanced for me, but I am interested to learn what works for others.

The Socio-Technical Sustainability Roadmap, an online training module presented by the National Endowment for the Humanities, offers a project planning guide for anyone designing a “web-based, user-facing, digital humanities project.” Poking around on the site a bit, I was curious to notice that it was hard to find any explicit mention on the site of who, exactly, the site and training program are intended for – maybe a bit surprising, since one of the key recommendations offered in the modules is that project planners should identify the “designated communities” of users for their products. Nonetheless, it’s pretty clear that the training is designed to be useful for individuals or teams working in a wide range of settings (academia, arts, public service, entrepreneurial, any combination of the above), and is relevant and helpful for us.

A key principle and purpose of the training program, as indicated in the title, is to support project planners in planning for the sustainability of their products. Coming from the world of humanitarian aid, I feel a special appreciation for their emphasis on this principle, as well as admiration for the concrete, clear approaches they offer.* Section A, the Project Survey, begins by recommending that we begin by determining what “sustainability” could and should look mean for our projects, and planning toward that vision from inception. Module 1-A, then, gives us a translation and application of the concept of “sustainability” into even simpler and more specific terms by naming and discussing the phases and sub-phases of the typical arc of the “life” of a digital product or platform. I found the descriptions of what these phases might look like especially useful in imaging concrete possibilities for my own project.

A second principle we have started to discussion, and that I see addressed in the design and purpose of the training program, is “failing well.” The “About” page of the site explains that the concept of the program originates from experiences with MedArt, a digital collection of medieval art and architecture that was a great success in the first phase of its availability and use, but which over time had become less frequently used and updated. The Sustainability Roadmap doesn’t actually use the word “fail,” but I was still impressed that the training program had been developed through a process that began with their team’s recognition and acknowledgment of a project’s flaws and limitations, and then synthesizing and sharing real and applicable lessons from that experience.

Here are a few questions that I hoped we could discuss to compare our experiences as we worked through Module A:

1) What are some of the questions from any of the module that you would have expected, were already thinking about and/or felt well prepared to answer?

2) What are some of the questions, from any module, that you didn’t expect, and/or addressed issues that you had not (yet) been thinking about? Of these, which did you find:

• Helpful, inspiring or evocative? (I could also say “generative” but am tired of that word at the moment, no offense to anyone who likes it. Include it if it works for you, though.).
• Overwhelming, discouraging, or confounding?
• Not relevant or applicable to your project?

3) Our readings on project planning, most of which are addressed to software design projects, give quite a bit of attention to questions around who the end-users of our projects may be, and their experiences in using what we produce. In my post for last week I mentioned that I especially like the idea of thinking about who the users or “designated communities” of research findings might be, especially because with respect to my own work, it seems like a strong way of operationalizing my accountability to the people (youth, communities) that I’m ostensibly working with and for. I’ll add that I was fascinated and inspired to learn more about everyone else’s projects, and especially to see how many of you are working on projects that are very explicitly intended to be practical, useful tools and resources to benefit educators, students and others, within and beyond the academy. (And that’s not meant to imply criticism for anyone who’s projects focus more on studies and uses within the academy). To continue that conversation:

• Has your thinking about who your users or “designated communities” may be changed or evolved in the past couple of weeks?
• Are there new potential “unintended” communities that might use or benefit from your work?