The Speaking Center and the Office of Admissions co-sponsored the Public Speaking and Advocacy Workshop Feb. 1, 2014. The workshop included instruction on effective speaking, delivery skills, handling communication apprehension, and advocacy, given by Anand Rao and Tim O’Donnell. Students gave a three to five minute speech that they prepared in advance, and also participated in a town hall debate. Speaking center consultants observed those speeches and debates and provided feedback to the students. A total of 20 students participated, including students from Colonial Forge High School, Mountain View High School, Stafford High School, Spotsylvania High School, Riverbend High School, and the Fredericksburg home school speech and debate club. You can find more information about the workshop at: http://academics.umw.edu/speaking/speaking-intensive-program/public-speaking-advocacy-workshop-feb-1-2014/
UMW Awarded $18,000 Grant for Japanese Studies
On Jan. 29 the UMW Leidecker Center for Asian Studies was awarded a one-year $18,000 grant from the Japan Foundation for Japanese studies at the University. In 2014 it will fund a course in Japanese literature, nine visiting presentations, and $5,000 in books and films for the libraries. The presentations will include lectures on Japanese politics, society and culture, a performance of Japanese music, a tea ceremony demonstration, and a guided session of Zen meditation.
Alum Gives Back Through UMW Play Lab
H. Nicole Myers, left, coordinates the UMW Play Lab.
Rob Eidson ‘01 spends his free time raising awareness and funds for people who have autism spectrum disorder.
When the University of Mary Washington graduate learned about the UMW Play Lab class, he combined his extracurricular activities with his alma mater.
Eidson works as a human resources director for Microsoft in Redmond, Wash., but in his free time the business major serves as a supervisory board member with the board of trustees for the Charitable Organization for Autism Spectrum Tech and Educational Research Studies or COASTERS. COASTERS mission is to raise awareness and funds for research into the aid and improvement of the lives of people who have autism spectrum disorders.
When Eidson read an article in UMW Magazine about the Play Lab, he knew this would the perfect venue to put the COASTERS mission to work.
Play Lab teaches College of Education and psychology students how to work with students with disabilities in real-world setting by pairing community children with UMW students for one semester.
“It is an authentic learning environment which allows UMW students to gain teaching experience and provide a much needed service to the community by providing educational activities to support children and train their parents in ways to help their child at home, school, and in the community,” said H. Nicole Frye Myers, associate professor of education and Play Lab coordinator.
Eidson’s organization is sponsoring the cost of two children to attend the Play Lab class in the fall with a $300 grant.
“Rob’s organization’s donation means a lot to the UMW Play Lab,” said Myers. “Not only will children get to go to Play Lab and receive assistance, their parents will receive training, and each of those teachers who participated in the class will be better equipped to teach children with disabilities. His gift is truly a gift that will keep on giving year after year in that future teacher’s classroom.”
News from Human Resources
Professional Development Month is January at UMW – due to the snow last week and this week, some seminars have been rescheduled to February – more information will be sent out in the next week with the new dates and times. Please mark your calendars for the Keys for Effective Leadership, brown-bag session RESCHEDULED for Wednesday, Feb. 12 at 11:30 a.m. in Lee Hall 411. Presented by Dr. Lynne Richardson, Dean, College of Business (please rsvp to jcooper4@umw.edu)
Please join us in extending a warm UMW welcome to our newest employees
Patinya Ambuel joined the Campus Recreation Department as a Fitness Instructor on Jan. 17.
Ashley Ehlert joined the Admissions Department as an Administrative Assistant on Jan. 25.
Joshua Lawson joined the HVAC-Facilities Department as a HVAC Assistant on Jan. 25.
Jennifer Ludwig joined the Center for Honor, Leadership, and Service Department as an Administrative Assistant on Jan. 29.
Heidi Hunter-Goldsworthy joined the Financial Aid Department as a Director of Financial Aid on Jan. 29.
UMW Debate Seniors Place Third at Round Robin
Colin McElhinny ’14
University of Mary Washington Debate Team seniors Colin McElhinny (’14, Erie, Pa.) and Thomas Pacheco (’14, Baltimore, Md.) recently placed third at the Herbert L. James Round Robin held at Dartmouth College, Jan. 25 to 26.
Seven schools received invitations to the prestigious round robin, based on their performance at tournaments in the fall. The invitees included teams from UMW, Michigan, Northwestern, Georgetown, Harvard, Rutgers and Wake Forest. After six debates, UMW recorded four wins, including a win against the first place team from Michigan.
Thomas Pacheco ’14
“This award represents a significant competitive milestone in UMW Debate – it is the first time we’ve place in the top three at a round robin,” said Adrienne F. Brovero, director of debate at UMW. “We are looking forward to finishing our season strong.”
In early February, the UMW Debate Team will compete at the last tournament of the regular season at the University of Texas-Austin. After that, the team will compete at the district qualifying tournament, American Debate Association Nationals at Liberty University, and then the National Debate Tournament at Indiana University. Follow the team on Twitter @UMWDebate.
Announcing MediaCore
The Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies is pleased to announce that it has partnered with MediaCore to run a pilot installation of their media platform. MediaCore will give members of the UMW community the ability to control and curate their own media collections. It will be more than just a “campus YouTube”.
Students having their own media space is crucial for their experimentation and expression (kind of like “Domain of One’s Own“). What better way to do it than within an educational context and a platform that is specifically geared toward educational media hosting. MediaCore will serve that function and allow students to share their media work locally behind a login, or make their work public when they want/need to.
The other idea behind using MediaCore is the idea of curating “collections”. Youtube, Vimeo, and even content from TED Talks and Archive.org can be curated by a user to share unique combinations of media elements. It allows the viewer to go to one place to view media from disparate places. “Playlists” can then be easily incorporated into a WordPress site, or in Instructure Canvas – the university Learning Management System.
MediaCore is also “mobile ready”, from both a viewing aspect as well as an “ingestion” aspect. MediaCore’s Capture app for mobile devices allows a user to capture video and upload directly into their MediaCore space. However, it’s not limited to video. It might also include images, screenshots, screencasts, or other video produced in any app that saves to your smartphone.
Finally, what will make MediaCore special to the UMW community is the integration with WordPress (both UMW Blogs and the Domain of One’s Own initiative) and with Canvas. MediaCore makes available a WordPress plugin and Canvas integration that will allow users to post video to a WordPress post or page, and any Canvas area (pages, modules, etc.) that uses the visual text editor. You can also upload video to MediaCore through the WordPress or Canvas plugin interfaces.
The UMW instance of MediaCore will be located at http://mediahub.umw.edu. We will be limited to 100 accounts that will be able to view and upload content privately, but all of the UMW community will be able to see any video that is made public. For more information on the UMW MediaCore installation, visit the UMW New Media MediaCore page.
UMW Domains in the News
UMW’s innovative initiative Domain of One’s Own has been receiving recognition in trade and academic publications alike. University Business, a publication for IT managers, published an article last week framing this innovative new approach to giving members of their campus the keys to the server. The author of the article for University Business, Matt Zalaznick, talked with Tim Owens of the Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies about the project and below is an excerpt from the article.
The tools provided by the “Domain of One’s Own” initiative make it easier for students to carve out their own space on the web, and control and customize it…
“Students want to make something their own—to personalize it and say this is my space, this is who I am, in a way to personify themselves on the web,” Owens says.
Users have complete control over the content and the design of the page. Mary Washington students can install a variety of open source software, such as the blogging platform WordPress, to help them design their sites.
Additionally, David Morgen (Emory University) and Pete Rorbaugh (Southern Polytechnic State University) published an article in Hybrid Pedagogy this week framing the theoretical context for building a cross-institutional community around web literacies at this moment. What’s more, they used the work happening at the Unviersity of Mary Washington with UWM Domains as their inspiration:
UMW’s Domain of One’s Own initiative offers a possible link between the experimental workings of a connectivist MOOC and an on-ground or hybrid course offered at an institution. The move toward hybridity goes both ways, and while higher education has been mostly exploring how to export a serviceable replica of face-to-face culture into online space (short answer: we can’t, and that culture has to be re-imagined in a fresh context) some of us have been interested in taking the networked values of viable online communities and dragging them across the boundary into our classrooms.
ds106 Showcased as Model of Online, Participatory Learning
Howard Rheingold has written a case study using ds106 (UMW’s open, online version of the Computer Science Digital Storytelling course) as a model of participatory learning. The case study was published by the Connected Learning site, which is the community arm of the Digital Media Lab and Learning Research Hub at the University of California, Irvine.
ds106 was conceptualized, designed and taught by Martha Burtis, Jim Groom, and Alan Levine as part of the research and development they have been a part of at the Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies. The case study highlights a few approaches of the course:
- Faculty have to confront their discomfort with giving up some control to students, enabling students to help shape the assignments, set the tenor of the class, and even help form assessment criteria.
- Instructors must blog themselves. Groom finds that his blogging has particular benefits for him in terms of being a networked scholar, technologist, and teacher.
- Levine adds: “It’s more than blogging – as instructors, we do the same work we ask our students to do. This shifts the power dynamic of the teacher-student relationship.”
You can read the entire case study here, or check out the ds106 course here.
Spring Variety Show, Feb. 8
On Feb. 8 at 7:30 p.m. in Dodd Auditorium, UMW Community Outreach and Resources is hosting its annual Spring Variety Show to benefit Habitat for Humanity and UMW Alternative Breaks. There will be lots of student talent including One Note Stand, Eagle Bhangra, Save the Arcadian, and more! We will also be auctioning and raffling off amazing prizes such as professional massages, restaurant gift cards, and gift cards for family fun! This event is open to students, staff, and the Fredericksburg community. There will be $1 admission and all proceeds will go towards the cause. Please help us spread the word!
Science Fiction Author to Visit UMW, Feb. 6
Andy Duncan, an award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer, will visit UMW Feb. 6.
Andy Duncan, an award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer, will be reading from his work on Thursday, Feb. 6, at 5 p.m., in Combs 139. A signing will follow the reading. The reading is free and open to the public.
Duncan’s work frequently deals with Southern U.S. themes. He was born in Batesburg, S.C. and graduated from high school from W.W. Wyman King Academy. He earned a degree in journalism from the University of South Carolina and worked for seven years at the Greensboro News & Record.
His novelette “Close Encounters” won the 2012 Nebula Award for Best Novelette. “Close Encounters” is included in The Pottawatomie Giant and Other Stories.
He won the Theodore Sturgeon Award, and two World Fantasy Awards, and was nominated for the Hugo Award, Nebula Award and Shirley Jackson Award. The Night Cache was nominated in the Best Novella category for a 2010 World Fantasy Award.
Duncan earned an M.A. in creative writing (fiction) from North Carolina State University and an M.F.A. in fiction writing from the University of Alabama. Duncan also attended Clarion West in 1994.
His fiction has appeared in a number of venues, including Asimov’s Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales, SciFiction, and Escape Pod. He has also published poetry, essays, and reviews.
His fiction has received much critical praise. Mark Kelly in Locus has described Duncan as “One of SF and fantasy’s most distinctive voices.” According to Craig Jacobsen in SFRA Review, “ If Harper Lee and Gene Wolfe had a love child, Andy Duncan is it.” Mark Wingenfeld, in The New York Review of Science Fictioni asserts that “All of his stories ring true, as if they had the whole weight of human history behind them.”
Duncan currently lives with his wife Sydney in Frostburg, Md., and he teaches English and creative writing at Frostburg State University.
This event is sponsored by: The Department of English, Linguistics, & Communication; The Department of Modern Languages and Literature; Simpson Library and The Writing Intensive Program and the Writing Center.