Tag Archives: SIF

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The SIF and graduate education

  February 16, 2015

Today in the exchange, I overheard Ryan mention to Justin that he often thinks about ways to “market” the SIF, a program which has, as best I can tell, very little in the way of reputation even at GSU. This is not surprising since the program is less than a year old and much of the work that we do is in an ancillary role and/or is long-term work that hasn’t yet shown up in the classroom. My work for the hybrid American history survey is a good example of this. It is trickling into the classroom, but any students who encounter it will have no reason to associate it with the SIF program and my conversations with professors in the department leads me to think that for most part, few are aware of the SIF involvement in the development of content for the course. Assuming that the SIF funding is renewed (and I would that it is as we have been a ton of good work for the university), time should take care of some of this. Hopefully in years to come more faculty will know about the chance to intersect with our labor and expertise, more students will seek positions in the program, and the general profile of the SIF will increase within the GSU community. Which is not to say that Ryan’s suggestion that some marketing and brand development would not be worthwhile. I have been also been thinking about the public profile of the SIF of … Continue reading

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Look at all the Lights

  December 7, 2014 ,

Well it has been a great week here at the Exchange after a month hiatus in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Most of my week has been spent fine tuning the details of the Vacufuge safety video in Captivate 8.  Yep! You heard right! We have switched from Captivate 7 to Captivate 8.  And to boot I have transitioned from using a PC to a Mac.  All of this has culminated in quite the learning curve on how to navigate and to manipulate items in Captivate. And without a proper instructional video on how to use new items like the Drag and Drop interaction on a Mac, most of my time has been spent on poking around, using trial and error to find out why my interaction was not responding in the same ways as the PC version. However, after several hours and sheer persistence, I am happy to say we have it working the way we wanted it to!! Learning to customize Drag and Drop Interactions in Captivate 8 on a Mac Key take aways from the experience include: Captivate 8 tool windows are hidden until manually turned on for a Mac. In order to only have one correct answer for a Drag and Drop Interaction, you have to click on the Drop Location, click on the Format tab, click on the Object Actions… button, and then select the appropriate Drag Source Type on a Mac — not intuitive or parallel to a PC.  When you preview the file th Drag items … Continue reading

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SIF: positivity, morale and accomplishments

  November 9, 2014 ,

This week, the SIF overlords contacted me and asked me to collect and catalog SIF accomplishments so far. As someone whose default setting is >excited with bouncy option – I am excited that I get to do this job. And while it may seem a little early to start talking about accomplishments, I know that I’ve already learned enough to fill a whole brain noodle – and I’m hoping that others feel the same way. So I created a Google Forms survey to send out to everyone – and Joe, and Brennan already beta-tested it! That was so fast! I’ve used Google  Forms before, but only as someone filling out the form. This time I got to make, not one, but TWO forms! I made one today for the beta test for the Tools Wiki, which I will send to a few of you in the next week or so, and one for SIF Accomplishments. The forms are really easy to make, and have a variety of options for users to answer – like multiple choice, scale, text, and so on. My favorite part though is that they have lots of themes to choose from that make the forms look a little more fun. By the time you read this, you’ll probably have already filled out my form, and some of you may have already met with me. My hope is that by all of us thinking about the most positive and helpful aspects of SIFdom, we will be able … Continue reading

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Rhet/Comp, Durkheim, Hybrid Pedagogy, and Me

  October 20, 2014 , , , ,

In the last 7 or so weeks as a SIF, I have learned more than I ever imagined I would. A few weeks ago, I decided to write an article featuring the SIF program. In a stroke of benevolence, Brennan gave me permission to spend some of my hours developing the article. So I set to work – basing the article on a footnote I harvested from Emile Durkheim’s sociologically ground breaking book The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life written in 1912: “A tool is material accumulated capital.” When I read that note, I knew I was going to use it for something – but I wasn’t sure what – until I began to read Writing Teachers Writing Software by rhetoric and composition scholar Paul LeBlanc. The article I wrote went live this morning at 3am on Hybrid Pedagogy. Here is the link: Addressing the Elephant: The Importance of Infrastructure