A combined session of a paper and two demonstrations:

The Inside Out Classroom: using cell phones to measure student understanding in real time on two continents
Anthony Curtis

Using an internet-based student response system, Learning Catalytics, an exam review for Biology for Health Sciences (BIOL 105) was conducted from Lima, Peru, and delivered to students at Radford University in real time during the HASTAC 2014 Conference; students used their cell phones for this review. Active learning during class where students participated using their cell phones, and other wifi capable devices, was regressed on their overall performance (F = 17.4; df = 1, 120; p < 0.01). Student affect was measured, and there was a significant difference among the student affect scores (F = 4.52; df = 3, 444; p < 0.01). Among the student affect items measured, only Progress Monitoring Information was significantly regressed on overall learning outcome scores (F = 5.45; df = 1, 103; p = 0.02). These data indicate a positive relationship between the use of cell phones for active learning during class and overall student performance. The implications for measuring student understanding in real time for distance and global education using learner-centered teaching methods are discussed.

Using primary texts as portals to scholarship
Ron Snyder

The JSTOR Labs team has developed an application prototype exploring the feasibility and utility of using primary texts as portals linking to relevant scholarship. The prototype uses Shakespeare plays as the primary texts and links specific lines in six plays to articles on JSTOR quoting play passages. This prototype was developed in collaboration with the Folger Shakespeare Library. The development of the prototype was based on the lean startup methodology that includes validated learning as a core principle. Involving Shakespeare scholars and students throughout the process enabled the team to quickly test hypotheses at key points in the evolution of the concept and prototype development. The prototype can be seen at http://labs.jstor.org/shakespeare.

This prototype represents an innovative use of technology supporting humanities research and scholarship. It leverages web-based technologies and text analysis enabling students and researchers to more easily locate relevant scholarship within domain-specific areas of research and study.

The database generated in the development of this application likely has research value itself. The database contains thousands of connections between Shakespeare plays and referencing articles on JSTOR. The distribution of article references across plays, acts, scenes, and lines provides a rich dataset for exploration. Each reference is also tagged with article metadata including title, author names and the year of publication providing many interesting possibilities for analysis and data visualization. In support of this research JSTOR Labs will make the match data available to interested researchers.

For HASTAC 2015 we propose to conduct a 20 minute talk in which we will:
• Discuss our motivation for developing the prototype - the validation of a hypothesis that primary texts can be used as a portal into secondary literature
• Briefly describe our application of the lean startup practices in the development of the prototype
• Perform a live demo of the prototype and share top-level findings
• Provide an overview the dataset containing the match data linking the plays and articles on JSTOR

Opening Education: Connecting and Collaborating on City Tech's OpenLab
Jill Belli and Jody Rosen

This session will demo the OpenLab (https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/), an open digital platform for teaching, learning, and collaboration launched in Fall 2011 by New York City College of Technology, CUNY (City Tech), a public, urban, commuter institution based in downtown Brooklyn. Part of a U.S. Department of Education Title-V grant to revitalize general education at a college of technology and built by a City Tech-based team using the open source software WordPress and BuddyPress, it provides a space where all students, faculty, and staff can connect with one another in an academic social network, create profiles and portfolios, and collaborate in courses, projects, and clubs, sharing their work with others at City Tech and beyond.

The OpenLab serves as a laboratory for networked, open collaboration and multimodal composing through which students can engage real-world contexts, skills, and audiences. As its name suggests, the OpenLab is both open on the web and a lab for experimentation. It is also experimental itself, in its goals to increase student engagement and reduce fragmentation at a large, diverse, and sometimes impersonal urban commuter institution. What we have seen so far has been promising: in only three years the OpenLab has become an essential part of the life of the college with 11,000+ registered members.

The OpenLab allows members across the college to communicate with one another and the world outside City Tech. This openness gives students visibility into other courses and disciplines, informing their choices of class and career; it enables faculty both to see what their students are learning and learn themselves from innovative pedagogies used by their colleagues; staff members can gain insight into course activities and student groups and use the platform to connect with students and faculty. As an open system, it also serves to make transparent the ways in which knowledge is generated and circulated. Both students and faculty members take risks not only in teaching and learning in the open but in experimenting with new tools.

Institutionally, the decision to move forward with an open-source platform instead of enterprise-level proprietary software highlights the benefits that come from having students, faculty, and staff compose and collaborate in an open, online, networked space. These organic opportunities allow multimodal composing, collaboration, and creativity to emerge in a bottom-up collectivity that gives members control over and ownership of their content.

The OpenLab’s design and ease of use enables students to connect their work across multiple classes, bridging disciplinary boundaries through the multiple rhetorical and educational opportunities afforded by the OpenLab. By bringing their work into the open, all members are encouraged to connect teaching, learning, and scholarship to the world beyond the walls of the college. In this spirit of openness, we have plans to share the concept and technologies behind OpenLab with the Digital Humanities and Educational Technology communities.