STELAR Partnerships with Faculty – St. Thomas E-Learning And Research
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STELAR Partnerships with Faculty

Future of Higher Education, STELAR Partnerships with Faculty, Technology Tools, Upcoming Technologies

Digital Humanities Grant: Updates and Invitation for New Proposals!

Digital Humanities is a field that aims to explore traditional subjects such as language, literature, philosophy, history, music, law, politics, religion, theater and art in new ways via the use of technology. The St. Thomas College of Arts and Sciences and St. Thomas E-Learning and Research (STELAR) are partners in a grant program that supports and encourages this exploration by funding projects for Faculty and Grad Students in this area.

The first round of grant-supported projects are underway, with grantees engaged in projects that range from ethnographic virtual reality, an interactive StoryMap that links indigenous art and culture to geography, and machine learning Thoreau for hidden insight. On Thursday, December 5th, the Digital Humanities Grant Committee held a well-attended session to provide information on the next round of grants, along with sample projects from many disciplines. Graduate Student Scott Larkin showed off his master’s project that traced the publication and performance history of an long-forgotten poem called Shamus O’Brien, using ArcGIS StoryMaps to trace the rise and fall of its popularity across Europe and the Americas in the 19th century. Attendees also saw examples of interactive virtual museums such as John Ashbury’s Nest, maps of endangered languages and their current vitality, an “Emotional Map” of Victorian London that traced works of art linked to prominent city features: Mapping Emotions in Victorian London, and an interactive statistical analysis of art collectors in New York that explores who collected what based on a variety of socio-economic factors: Colleague Collectors.

We saw the works of  Shakespeare visualized by number of citations Visualizing Shakespeare, heard a singing artificial intelligence called Spawn interacting with human singers, Holly Herndon and Spawn, and a musical work composed entirely by AI! Attendees commented on how fascinating and inspiring the examples were.

Don’t worry if you missed the session- you can still apply! To apply for the grant, follow this link to the application form: Digital Humanities Grant Application. Note that there are two different forms, the first for Faculty and the second for Graduate Students.  There are two deadlines: a 300-word abstract is due by February 14th, 2020. The deadline for full proposals is February 28th, 2020.

You don’t need to worry about technology or detail in these documents- let your imagination run free! The DHG committee will review the applications for interest and viability, and facilitate the coordination of technology. The committee will select up to three projects for funding. More information is available on the application website. The committee is eager to see what you come up with!

This post was written by Eric Tornoe, Associate Director of Research and High-Performance Computing with the St. Thomas E-Learning and Research (STELAR) Center at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. To learn more about this topic, please visit our website at www.stthomas.edu/stelar or email us at stelar@stthomas.edu.

STELAR Events, STELAR Partnerships with Faculty, Technology Tools

Art + Technology: New Perspectives on the Humanities

What is the Digital Humanities Grant Program?   

The Digital Humanities Grant Program is a collaborative effort between the College of Arts and Sciences and STELAR (St. Thomas E-Learning and Research), which was established to increase awareness and participation in the blending of two complementary fields of study, Art and Technology. It offers grant funding for faculty and graduate students whose proposals are chosen by the selection committee. Sound interesting?  Come to the information session on how to apply for the next round of grants on Thursday, December 5th (5:00-6:00 pm) in the STELAR Smart Classroom (OSF LIB LL21 St Paul campus) to get details on the application process and see project examples. Read on for a rundown of currently funded projects that recently participated in a mid-point showcase.

In the spring of 2019, the Digital Humanities Grant Program awarded three grants to support projects that merge art and technology in the areas of Virtual Reality, Story Mapping, and Machine Learning. On 10/29/19, the grant winners participated in a showcase to display their work in progress. In addition to faculty and staff, the gathering included students from Emily James (Associate Professor of English) “Modernism and Its Afterlives” class.    

Learning together Oct 29     Eric presenting learning

The Arts provide boundless content and expertise which can be exhibited and explored in novel ways using emerging technology. The grant program is funded by generous donations from Dean Yohuru Williams and STELAR, who provided seed money and technological expertise for the initial round of grants. 

Presenting This Year’s Projects 

 The committee reviewed proposals last year and chose three excellent and diverse projects for funding. Two faculty projects and one graduate student project were funded. A recap of the projects:  

Professor Gretchen Burau submitted a project on the culture and art of the Asmat people in Indonesia that utilizes ArcGIS Story Map technology to create interactive maps that allow viewers to regional cultural differences and similarities tied to the geographic locations of this diverse tribal culture. 

Gretchen presenting learning

Professor Laura Zebuhr is exploring the nature of Eros in the writing of Thoreau. This project uses machine learning and a contextual word search algorithm developed by STELAR to explore all 10,000+ pages of Thoreau’s published works and private journals for commonalities, correlations and coded messages that would be impossible to notice through reading and study alone.  

Laura presenting learning

Graduate student Theresa Malloy’s project is an Ethnographic Virtual Reality work that highlights the activity of Appetite for Change, which works in North Minneapolis to build community through urban gardens and food markets. Theresa’s work allows the viewer to step into the garden to experience it in three dimensions while learning more about the organization and their work. 

Theresa presenting learning

 When completed in late Spring 2020, the projects, as well as the technology used to produce them, will be highlighted in the STELAR Showcase, allowing visitors to interact with the three works and to learn more about how the technology is used in order to inspire further works that blend art and technology. 

More Background on this Partnership 

How the Partnership DevelopedThe program grew out of the vision and initiative of Professor Alexis Easley (English Department) who then reached out to Brett Coup (AVP of Academic Technology) to discuss the concept of Digital Humanities and how we could promote and support them. From that conversation evolved the idea of a grant program. Alexis took the idea to Dean Yohuru Williams (College of Arts and Science) who provided funding, while STELAR agreed to provide the coordination and technical resources necessary to produce the projects.   

Leadership TeamThe DHGP committee members are representative of interested parties across the university, with Ann Zawistoski. Associate Director of Research and Instruction for Libraries and Information Services, Tommie Marrinan, Assistant Professor in Computer and Information Sciences, Salvatore Pane, Associate Professor of English, Alexis Easley, Professor of English, Brett Coup, AVP of Academic Technology, and Eric Tornoe, Associate Director of Research and High-Performance Computing. This group creates the documents, runs the application process, selects grantees from the applicant pool, and assists the grantees in the execution of their project. Heather Shirey, Associate Professor of Art History, served as Faculty Mentor to Theresa Malloy, the grad student winner.  

For questions on the grant, contact Eric Tornoe or anyone on the leadership team! And watch for a future STELAR Stream announcement on the spring 2020 in-person learning showcase.   

This post was written by Eric Tornoe, Associate Director of Research and High-Performance Computing with the St. Thomas E-Learning and Research (STELAR) Center at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. To learn more about this topic, please visit our website at www.stthomas.edu/stelar or email us at stelar@stthomas.edu.

STELAR Partnerships with Faculty

Dean Yohuru Williams Visits Media Production Students in OEC Multimedia Production Studio

Dean Yohuru Williams of the university’s College of Arts and Sciences visited the OEC Multimedia Production Studio on May 2 to observe TommieMedia staff producing two segments of their Locker Room sports report program.

TommieMedia production team with Dean Yohuru Williams

TommieMedia production team with CAS dean Yohuru Williams

 

During his visit, Dean Williams offered words of praise and encouragement to the students, saying how impressed he was with their level of commitment to their work and that their commitment shows in the quality of their recordings.

 

Mark Neuzil, Communication Journalism professor noted, “The student journalists were very appreciative of the visit by the dean. Many of them were in new roles for the broadcast, and they did their jobs well. And they didn’t seem too nervous with a celebrity in the control room.”

 

Inside the control room during production

“My favorite memory of his visit was when he joined me during my debriefing after the show.”, said Studio Producer MacKenzie Bailey.  “He shared his thoughts on how well our show ran in comparison with his prior experience in other high-level media productions. I’m glad we had the chance to show him part of what student media is capable of at the University of St. Thomas.”

 

Dean Williams is no stranger to high-level media production.

Chatting with students and staff after the day’s recording

 

Dan Lamatsch, STELAR video engineer and OEC studio manager noted, “It’s pretty neat to know that the dean of the university’s College of Arts and Sciences knows exactly what it takes to make high-quality media.  He’s been interviewed by many media outlets and has recorded several segments for CNN docuseries on broadcast television and on Netflix.”

 

STELAR supports the OEC Multimedia Production Studio in OEC.  TommieMedia is the university’s student-run multimedia news production organization.  It is an immersive on-campus employment option for students enrolled in a Communication Journalism (COJO) degree track including journalism, reporting, graphic design, public relations, media production, videography, photography, or advertising.

 

Watch “TommieMedia’s The Locker Room”

 

This post was written by Dan Lamatsch, Senior Engineer for AV Technologies for the St. Thomas E-Learning and Research (STELAR) Center at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. To learn more about this topic, please visit our website at www.stthomas.edu/stelar or email us at stelar@stthomas.edu.

STELAR Partnerships with Faculty

STELAR presents workshops at the STAR Symposium

St. Thomas staff members from STELAR recently presented at the STAR Symposium, a virtual-only conference hosted by the Minnesota Online Quality Initiative.  The conference held on February 8, drew approximately 155 participants from around the state and country, with a large representation from Minnesota state colleges and universities.  The all-day Symposium was conducted in a Zoom webinar format.

One of STLEAR’s Instructional Designers, Michael Wilder, offered a workshop called “Increasing Engagement with Multimedia-based Projects & Presentations” which had approximately 58 attendees in the afternoon session.

In his workshop, Wilder heightened awareness of instructional video and the importance it plays for students. Participants learned about non-complex strategies for using video to deliver instruction. They also explored options for creating multimedia projects and presentations that can increase interaction and engagement. Taken from his workshop description:

Video is the new “text” for 21st century learners and is replacing traditional delivery systems as a way to communicate content and demonstrate authentic learning. Today’s students consume much more video than they read in text.* Using multimedia video in your course opens up options for communicating and presenting your subject in ways two-dimensional text just can’t do.

Wilder’s presentation materials can be accessed here.

Jo MontieLisa Burke, and John Kinsella presented a session called “Online Orientation Learning Sites: Student Success Resources” and shared the story about STELAR’s development of two student orientation and success sites.  

The presenters illustrated numerous benefits in using Canvas, our learning management system (LMS), to attend to student onboarding needs in online, blended and face to face programs. 

They shared a student success framework from the ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2018 Report (Galanek, Gierdowski, & Brooks, 2018). The findings illuminate ways that success tools benefit students, and emphasize ways to involve faculty and staff who play pivotal roles in helping students notice and use digital success tools.  

The presenters also shared how a self-assessment tool can assist students to better identify what they already know (which helps them to better connect new learning to prior learning) and points them to content that addresses their own prioritized needs.

Many of the 59 attendees in this session, engaged in the conversation via chat which reflects a shared commitment and high interest around creating effective orientation experiences with students.  

See the Online Orientation presentation materials.

Our St. Thomas team members found significant benefit in the task of preparing to share our collective learning (we practiced with each other!); then the actual presenting and interacting with participants sparked further learning.  

In addition, that opportunity to attend other Star Symposium sessions widened our own understandings about what is possible and might be possible. For example, attending the conference modeled numerous best practices around using video conferencing tools (like Zoom) for an entire all online conference, including the importance of having room moderators in an online conference. 

This post was co-written by Michael Wilder and Jo Montie on behalf of the St. Thomas E-Learning and Research (STELAR) Center at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. Please visit our website at www.stthomas.edu/stelar or email us at stelar@stthomas.edu.

STELAR Partnerships with Faculty

Reflecting on Code and Chords

Members of Cantus perform with a projection in the background during a collaborative multimedia performance with the University of St. Thomas Playful Learning Lab and singing group Cantus at the Science Museum of Minnesota in downtown St. Paul.

One of the things I love most about being an Instructional Designer is the opportunity to create friendships with faculty members as we partner together to develop online or blended courses. One instructor that I’ve had the privilege of working with and getting to know is AnnMarie Thomas from the College of Engineering. A few weeks back, as we were wrapping up a meeting about her online course, she mentioned to me that she was working on a project called Code + Chords (you may have seen this Newsroom article about it). She and her students were planning to present the project at the Science Museum in downtown St. Paul, and she invited me to come. I jumped at the opportunity to support my colleague and gladly accepted. Little did I know that this concert would show me an entirely new way of experiencing music.

I arrived at the Science Museum with only a vague idea of what I was going to be seeing. I took my seat and a few minutes later, the presentation began. There was a screen on stage with a white circle on it. A woman then took the stage and as she sang, the circle began to change colors depending on the notes she was singing. There were a few different singers that took turns at the microphone before AnnMarie’s Playful Learning Lab students took some time to explain the effort that went into writing the code that makes the production possible. I realized what an undertaking this was for everyone involved and it made me appreciate even more the time and effort AnnMarie puts forth to mentor her students.

Emily Meuer (computer science) left, and Amanda Tenhoff (mechanical engineering) right, work at a laptop during a collaborative multimedia performance with the University of St. Thomas Playful Learning Lab and Twin Cities based singing group Cantus at the Science Museum of Minnesota in downtown St. Paul.

As the evening went on, the circle on the screen changed to different shapes. Different types of songs were sung, with increasingly more singers. We’ve all seen how well video and music work together, but static shapes with colors that change in response to the music were an entirely new experience. And with each new song, my appreciation for the way the color and the shapes enhanced the music grew. I found that I experienced music in a new way when I watched the changing colors. I also found myself thinking about how this could change the way those with hearing loss experience music and how it could reach an audience for whom music has historically been inaccessible. The potential of this project to reach those with hearing impairments, to me, is a prime example of STELAR (who helped fund the project) living out the St. Thomas mission of Advancing the Common Good. As I left the museum, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride at being part of a team that helps make projects like this possible.

This post was written by Karin Brown, an Instructional Designer for the St. Thomas E-Learning and Research (STELAR) Center at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. To learn more about this topic, please visit our website at www.stthomas.edu/stelar or email us at stelar@stthomas.edu.