Below are the links for both the shared folder where we can make and share google docs for each panel & the schedule for the panels. Please feel free to jump in and play!

THATCampSE Schedule

Shared Google Docs

For the Domain of One’s Own program at Emory University, we are planning to launch some faculty development workshops to run starting at the end of the semester and running through the first part of the summer. We’ll have one or two face to face meetings at the start, and then run the bulk of the sessions online. We don’t really plan for these workshops to be massive, and they probably won’t be openly available on the web either–at least not this first time through. However, we do want to use some of the techniques and energy of the cMOOC in these workshops.

Perhaps we can discuss getting faculty who aren’t necessarily already super excited about digital pedagogy to participate in a MOOCified workshop and how best to bring them on board. Do we need to approach these differently from the way we MOOCify classes with our undergrads?

We’ve got the following rooms available in the GSU Student Center at 44 Courtland Street: Room 262, the Dorchester Suite; Room 270, the Lanier; room 274, the Sinclair; and room 278, the Lucerne.

Here’s a floor plan of the second floor. We’ll have check-in in the Dorchester and coffee and bagels in the Sinclair first thing Saturday.

Teachers often complain that it is difficult to motivate students to learn. Lee Sheldon proposed a novel solution to this problem: run the classroom as if it were a multiplayer video game. In Sheldon’s classroom, students are assigned different “quests” to complete (e.g., quizzes, exams). For each quest a student completes, he or she earns a given number of points (e.g., up to 5 points for a quiz, up to 400 points for an exam). After earning enough points, students achieve a new rank. Since ranks equate to letter grades (e.g., Level 1=F, Level 12=A), students are motivated to complete tasks and achieve the highest rank possible. Under this game system, students have a better grasp of how they are doing in class at any given time. They have fun seeing their scores rise and feel more in control of their own progress.

Sheldon’s “game” concept fit well with the content of his class: he was teaching students about video games. In this session, I would like to discuss the possibilities of using Sheldon’s game system in other courses. What benefits does the game system have for the humanities classroom? What challenges does it pose? How can one implement the game structure without distracting from the content of the course? Can the game be used in large, introductory lecture courses with 90+ people? What technology could be used to facilitate its implementation? I’ll start by presenting the basics of the game system, then open up the topic for discussion

Maps, while always an abstraction of reality, have a way of making the real more concrete.  As tools, maps are used to understand, reshape, and control the world. Until recently, the development of complex maps was, for the most part, only possible by those with power and money, but recent technologies put map creation and exploration into more hands.

I would like to lead a discussion on how we, as teachers and researchers, can democratize the creation and use of maps.   I can share some of the ways I am using maps in my classes and research—from simple tools like online map quizzes and Google Maps to more complex projects like the ATLmaps platform being developed by Georgia State University and Emory. I am very interested to hear from others how they are using maps in their work.

If “connectivism” as a learning theory is new to your eyes, MOOCs are probably not. Though most of the attention trained on MOOCs in the last two years have been focused on the x-brand (Coursera, Udacity, edX), cMOOCs, or connectivist MOOCs were the original flavor. Beginning in 2008 with the course “Connectivism and Connected Knowledge,” Stephen Downes and George Siemens began experimenting with what Siemens has called “a learning theory for the digital age.” I’ve followed Downes’s and Siemens’s work along with the work of Dave Cormier (who coined the term “MOOC”) and Bonnie Stewart, and it’s had a strong influence on my professional development.

More specifically, I’ve been adapting connectivist learning methods into my composition classes at Southern Polytechnic State University. I’d like to briefly introduce some of the principles of connectivist learning/teaching practice, demonstrate some examples of  from my classes, and open a larger discussion about the pedagogical implications of connectivist principles to other disciplines. My sense, echoed in Stewart’s “Massiveness + Openness = New Literacies of Participation?”, is that connected learning experiments foreground digital literacies that benefit teachers’ and students’ research, publishing, and collaborative endeavors.

As a scholar of early modern literature, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the way that digital tools can help us to understand historical topographies – places that no longer exist, voyages long since completed, or cities that blend the ruins of the past with monuments to the present. And within the humanities, there’s a burgeoning interest in digital spaces. For instance, take a look at:

• The Map of Early Modern London. Here, the English capital is reimagined as a hyperlinked environment, with historical facts and literary references embedded in popular destinations.
• @BenJonsonsWalk. In 1618, the poet and playwright Ben Jonson spent four months walking from London to Edinburgh to win a bet. After a manuscript recounting the trip was rediscovered in 2009, this Twitter feed reproduced the walk in real time. [Update: it looks as though the Twitter feed has just been suspended, but you can learn more about the project here.]
• The British Library’s Georeferencing Project. Through crowdsourcing, thousands of historical maps have been linked to geographical locations.

Given these developments, I’d like to propose a session where we discuss digital mapping – techniques for doing it and the relative strengths and weaknesses of it for our work. How can digital tools help us to map historical and fictional landscapes in our research, our teaching, our archives, and our libraries? What does it mean to organize information or data spatially? And how does the digital realm, as a space unto itself, inform the work that we do?

I’ve prevailed on GSU Library’s Associate Dean for Public Services, Bryan Sinclair, to come by our THATCamp on Sunday afternoon to talk with us about CURVE, the research technology center opening in the Library later this year.

He’s calling the talk “A New Type of Digital Scholarship Center”:

Bryan Sinclair of the GSU Library will lead a discussion/information session about CURVE (Collaborative University Research & Visualization Environment), the Library’s new digital scholarship center opening later this year. CURVE will serve as a resource to connect researchers in all disciplines and at all levels – undergrads to faculty – with data, technology and expertise to accomplish new kinds of research.

Don’t worry — Bryan is unconference- and THATCamp-savvy, so this will not be a conference-type presentation! Bryan is very passionate about CURVE, so we can expect some interesting discussion.

Hello! And welcome to THATCamp South East 2014! We are excited to be hosting at Georgia State University in the heart of Downtown Atlanta. We hope you can join us. If you love THATCamp as much as we do, now is the time! If you are new to THATCamp, please visit the THATCamp 101 and learn more about how it all works!

The dates have been finalized: Saturday and Sunday, March 29-30 2014.

All activities will be held in the Student Center on campus at Georgia State University, on the 2nd floor. Here is the searchable campus map.

• Doors will open at 9AM Saturday morning for socializing and coffee in the Sinclair suite 274. Here is a link to the floor plan of the Student Center.
• We will begin sorting proposals at 10AM and hold sessions until 5PM. We will be organizing a group outing for lunch to encourage further socializing and networking.
• Doors will open 12:30 on Sunday and sessions will run until 5PM.

Please visit our registration page to sign up.

• When you’re done with that – feel free to start posting any time! Post a Session Here.

When you are ready, please feel free to submit session proposals.

We are requesting a small $20 donation to help defray costs. Also, please make sure to indicate your t-shirt size so we can order the proper sizes and amounts by March 10th at the latest.

Valerie Robin (English Department) – vrobin1@gsu.edu

Jason Puckett (Communication Librarian) – jpuckett@gsu.edu

Background image by DijutalTim