Tag Archives: projects

Teaching- this turned into kind of a longish thing…

by AJ Gulyas Posted on April 9, 2013

The recently ended 2013 Day of Digital Humanities was a great opportunity for me to take a quick look at what I do in a typical day and how “the digital” intersects with my work.

Being a full-time faculty member at a large community college, my work is first and foremost teaching.  This semester, I’ve got five sections (3 “traditional”, 2 online) and in all of them, I’ve been thinking of ways to change up what I’m doing.  Many of these potential changes involve digital things.  Since the next classes I’m teaching will be compressed 7 1/2 week classes, a rethink is in order, regardless.  Here are some things I’m thinking about (subject to change–few of these ideas will be set in stone before the first day of classes and, maybe, not even then).

Visual Dynamism

I really enjoyed using Google Earth in the classroom (see below) and the students seemed to be more engaged with historical data mapped over satellite imagery than they usually are with the maps that I use.  This got me thinking about other, more visually dynamic ways to present information.  Prezi, of course, is popular, but I can’t afford the amount of Dramamine necessary for me to cope with using it.  There are a variety of interactive timeline tools which may be useful as well.

Get the students to talk more

I’ve been teaching, in one way or another, for around a decade at this point and the biggest weakness I have is–without a doubt–encouraging useful discussion in the classroom.  Whether it’s because I like the sound of my own voice too much (likely) or because the mass of students are intimidated (or annoyed) by the usual handful of students who do 90% of the talking, it’s something that I need to work on.  One key, clearly, is to find ways to ensure that students are familiar enough with material to usefully discuss it.

Exams are terrible

I hate grading them, students hate taking them, and my assurance that they’re the best (or even a good) way to assess students is decreasing every semester.  In my online classes, I’ve been experimenting with weekly cumulative assessment as a way to replace exams in a manner that is relatively low-stress, but “high-yield” (yes, I think of student learning as a field full of soy beans).  It needs tweaking, but I may be on to something.  Or not.

Students, in general, seem to like history, hate history classes

I am, however, teaching a history class, so…yeah.  Problem here.  Working on it.

BlackBoard

Over the past few years, I’ve used both BlackBoard and self-hosted websites as a means of digitally-disseminating information to students as well as for recording grades.  This semester, I’ve been using Bb exclusively and while there have been headaches, the students seem to engaged with the material there more than they do on non-Bb sites.  Despite my usability concern with Bb and my desire for more open tools, I also have a compelling need to consider the students.  I’m still thinking this one over.

Omnia Mutantur

Everything changes, all the time.  What works one semester may not work the next.  What works one day might not work the next.  We often have to adjust and adapt to the students to whatever degree that it is practical.  If it is the students who must adjust to us, then we must provide tools to support and guide that change.  Often, we are in the position of having to not only teach our subjects, but also the skills of being a student.  These skills change over time.

These are disconnected thoughts, rather than a solution or manifesto.  There are dozens of books about teaching “today’s” students.  Some of them are worth reading, if only to argue with.  

This ended up longer than I expected.  TIme to hit the publish button and get back to work.

 

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New Projects

by AJ Gulyas Posted on December 4, 2012

I’m in the beginning and middle stages of a whole bunch of new things, many of which are exciting to one degree or another.  I’m a colossal dork, so I use the Project Name Generator to categorize projects in ways I’ll (hopefully) remember.  I use Trello to keep track of the different stages and (again, hopefully) keep myself on track.

Some of these projects are purely internal and self-contained–new class ideas, new assessment ideas, and the like.  Others will (once again, hopefully) see the public light of day in some way.  I like code names because they’re fun, but also they allow me to talk about things publicly (like this) without giving too much away.  There’s no legal reason why I shouldn’t talk about these things too much, but I’m becoming superstitious in my old age and don’t want to jinx anything.  So, here’s a brief rundown.

  • OPERATION LEMURIA is a project so utterly secret and potentially cool that I’m barely allowing myself to think about it.  If this works out, it will become public in some way in the Spring.
  • POSEIDON DREADED is a conference paper which is not–surprisingly–about Doctor Who.  At least, not directly.
  • STEAMY FREAKY PARACHUTE is a nifty little set of very brief history writing gigs.
  • SWIFT WOODEN JUPITER is a paranormal/history themed project.
  • RANDOM ANACONDA is not on the list above, but is a course re-development/updating project I’ll be working on in the Winter semester.

I need to get back in that habit of using this site as a place for keeping track of what I’ve been doing with my work-related time.  Stay tuned.

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Hack and Slash

by AJ Gulyas Posted on July 12, 2012
271 Marked-up Pages

I’m about 2/3 of the way through the first major, full on edit of the Saucer Book Project and I’ve been pleasantly surprised so far.  More words stayed than I thought would and I’ve been able to add a few thousand here and there, making connections more explicit and strengthening the argument.

And, of course, adding in the section about Billy Meier, the Swiss Contactee whose story spans decades.  Whole lot of information to sort through there, but I think I have an approach that’s narrow enough that it doesn’t become the Billy Meier chapter (it’s in with the 1970s stuff).  One of the biggest issues with the Meier material is that the original translations of the 1970s notes are pretty heavily edited (editor Wendelle Stevens removed inflamatory statements about religion and politics.  I mean, what’s the point?  Oh, and I think I met Stevens once, back in ’96 at a UFO slideshow in a hotel conference room.  Not sure though…)  Still, I think it works for my over all approach and, besides, a book about Contactees without Billy Meier doesn’t really work…

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And that’s the First, Complete Draft Done

by AJ Gulyas Posted on July 7, 2012

[progpress title="Flying Saucers, Space Brothers, and Interplanetary Femme Fatales" goal="79586" current="79586"]

First Draft
That’s quite a stack of paper…

It came in a bit under 80,000 words, but that’s fine.  I still have some filling out to do, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s chapter and the conclusion is pretty under-developed. I strongly suspect that the final word total will be closer to 90,000 than 80,000 but I am happy to have some leeway for shaping the thing.  I know there are places that are kind of flabby that could use some tightening up.  I had a real fear that I’d get to, say, 45k and have absolutely nothing left to say.  This will not, apparently, be a problem.  Saying it well, however, is going to be the real challenge…

So now, I begin editing, with two more significant chunks of writing left.  Then polishing, finalizing, and shipping the blasted thing off so I don’t have to think about it for a while!

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Final Lap (of the time trials)

by AJ Gulyas Posted on June 30, 2012

[progpress title="Flying Saucers, Space Brothers, and Interplanetary Femme Fatales" goal="85000" current="72000"]

Venus
“Venus in a New Light” from the Smithsonian

I’m closing in on the end of the full rough draft–a little later than I wanted to, but still with a good few weeks for editing and finalizing everything.  Things:

  • This is probably going to be longer than 85K words, which is good, because I’m sure a bunch of the words are coming out in the editing process.
  • I’d forgotten about writing captions for photos, so that’s another item for the to do list.
  • I’ve been talking about some of the themes of the book in various venues:
  • People ask me when the book will finally be out and I really have no idea.  I deliver the manuscript by August 31 and then its in the hands of the publishers as they edit, layout, make changes, after which I approve changes, create an index, and so on.  I’m doing the best I can to make sure the manuscript I send them is as trouble free as possible.

So I ‘m on the final part of the first part of the whole process.  I’m finding the process of working with a publisher to be almost as interesting as the actual subject material.  So far, the editor I’m working with has been helpful and friendly, which is all I ask.

And now, back to work.

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Aetherius! George King, Writing, and Progress Report

by AJ Gulyas Posted on June 5, 2012

 

[progpress title="Space Brothers on Patrol" goal="85000" current="60175"]

I hit 60K words last week.  Hoping for as much production this week (shortened due to a trip out of town).  I’m still on pace to finish when I want/need to–sooner, if I can find a healthy way to do without sleep.

Today’s work will involve the Aetherius Society and Rev. George King–the Contactee who looked least like a Contactee.  British, dignified, master of Yoga (rather than master of the Royal Order of Tibet, which wasn’t even a thing, really), King founded the Aetherius Society, the first actual, registered non-profit flying saucer religion.  It’s still going strong and there’s a branch down the road in Royal Oak that I feel I should visit.

So, today’s goal is a couple thousand words.  Hit 3400 in one day last week–kind of a fluke, as I seemed to be in some manner of trance.  Perhaps, from the aether, Rev. King will send me some sort of yogic motivation.  that would be much appreciated, as I’m just about out of coffee.

 

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Pushing Ahead

by AJ Gulyas Posted on May 22, 2012

[progpress title="Space Brothers on Patrol" goal="85000" current="51106"]

End of the semester = more time for writing.  I’m teaching online-only over Spring and Summer sessions so I am getting some traction.  My goal is to have all the words down by the end of June, enabling me to hack most them away and replace them with better ones during July and August, giving me plenty of time before the August 31 delivery deadline.

(One thing I need to remember to do is place the photos and write captions.  That’s going to be a new experience.)

I am slowly but surely overcoming my compulsion (borne of procrastination) to edit as I write.  I’ve never really been a multiple revision sort of writer (or any sort of writer–I still feel very new at this sort of thing, despite having written professionally.  This is just so many more words!), so it’s a luxury to still have 3+ months to finish up.

Speaking of finishing up, it’s time to hit “publish” and get into the office.  I need to finish up thinking about Contactee romance today, if I can stand it.

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Visiting the Gray Barker Collection

by AJ Gulyas Posted on April 1, 2012

Door to the Barker Room

Visiting The Gray Barker UFO collection, based at the Clarksburg-Harrison Public Library in Clarksburg, West Virginia, was not a dream come true.  It was a dream come true ten years ago on my first visit.  This time, it was work. 

Of course, Ten years ago, it was work as well.  I was finishing the research phase of my MA thesis for the history department at IUPUI.  The problem, back in December 2002, was that that I was

(a)not as a good a researcher as I am not (and I’m still not great) and

(b) I was overcome by the awesomeness of being in the town where Gray Barker wrote They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers.  I was unfocused—not having started the writing on the thesis, I wasn’t entire sure what I needed—and pushed for time. 

This time, however, I had more than enough time (a day and a half), resources (better laptop, a scanner, 3G hotspot for quick research), and focus (I needed correspondence with a number of people I’m writing about).

A stack of zines

The trip was a success (not least because of lunch at the Ritzy Lunch, home of the best Italian sausage sandwich I’ve ever tasted)—I found some great letters between Barker and figures like George King and Truman Bethurum.  I also examined some books that I hadn’t been able to track down myself—Marla Baxter’s My Saturnian Lover is probably the best find, although Bethurum’s Voices from the Planet Clarion is  exceedingly useful as well.

David Houchin, who’s in charge of special collections at the library, was a great host; very helpful and full of great stories about Gray Barker and information about the Clarksburg area. 

But now that I’m home…back to work.

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Creating videos for online classes

by AJ Gulyas Posted on July 22, 2010

As much for my own record keeping as anything else, I thought I’d run down how I create video PowerPoints for my online classes.  I use these videos for course content and also to explain, through screen captures, how to accomplish various menial course tasks.

In general, these are some things I like to keep in mind:

  • Each presentation should be no more than 20 minutes–less if possible.  Sometimes this means doing 2 or three separate videos per chapter, broken up topically.  The way our World History text is structured, the individual chapters are pretty large.  For example, for the chapter on 1500-1600, I had three presentations: Exploration and Colonization, The Reformation, and East Asia.
  • Another thing I do is not cover every topic under the sun– the presentations are a supplement to the textbook, not a replacement.  I try to provide broad overviews and explanations to assist the students in comprehending the text.

This is what I do:

  1. Figure out what topics (usually 2 or 3) would be best explained by me talking about them.
  2. Work up a brief PowerPoint presentation on my Macbook with enough bullets to give me talking points as I record.  I try to include as many maps as possible as well, and I use the slide-show’s “pen” feature during recording to explain geographical stuff.
  3. Review the slide-show a few times, sketching out what I want to talk about, relating it to things I’m not talking about (that they’ll read in the book) and–hopefully–tie everything together.
  4. Record.  I use Techsmith’s Camtasia: Mac for recording.  It’s affordable ($99), made by a local company (Techsmith is down the road in Okemos, MI) and works incredibly well.  Although the mic built into the Macbook is pretty good, I added a Samson Go Mic ($50).
  5. HIT SAVE IN CAMTASIA BEFORE DOING ANYTHING ELSE!
  6. Edit. Camtasia’s editing functions are excellent and pretty intuitive.  Usually, I only need to trim the beginnings and endings of the video so students don’t have to sit through me switching between windows and such.
  7. Sometimes, when I’ve got some time or am bored, I make some goofy intro music with Garageband and my M-Audio O2 MIDI controller.
  8. Export.  We use Blackboard for our online course management, but uploading videos directly into the course shell can be a hassle.  One thing I like about Camtasia is that it will create ready-made webpages with your video embedded into them as Flash.  I use that feature to render the videos.
  9. Upload.  I upload the folders containing the video and associated HTML code to my school-supplied webspace using Flow.
  10. Link.  I provide a link to students in the chapter’s Blackboard folder.  So far, I haven’t had students running into tech problems with this.

That’s basically what I do.  It’s, clearly, not the only way to do it.  It might not even be the best way to do it.

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