Post-Conference Workshop
Jon McKenzie
Director, DesignLab and Professor,
Department of English
University of Wisconsin
Rosemary Bodolay
Associate Director, DesignLab
University of Wisconsin
Workshop Description
Integrating digital media projects into courses and curricula can present real challenges for many instructors and administrators, including the difficulty of evaluating multimedia work (“I only know how to grade written papers and exams”), collaborative work (“I know how to evaluate individual students, not groups of them”), work that remixes existing materials (“We have strict guidelines regarding plagiarism”), and work that combines all three (“I don’t even know where to begin!”). A closely related challenge: as we look forward and find ways to make, teach, and learn digital media, it is increasingly necessary to assess and report on our efforts. In the early phases of an innovative initiative, we may be need to prove its worth, even if emerging forms, assignments, courses, and programs do not easily fit existing assessment models. Our proposed half-day workshop explores both evaluating digital media projects and assessing digital literacies that takes place through them.
The two-part workshop concretizes ideas and issues described in our proposed presentation, “DesignLab: Democratizing Digitality via Smart Media.” In the workshop’s first part, we will share insights, models, and practices of evaluating student media projects gleaned from our experience as media instructors and as directors of DesignLab, a digital composition center. Our approach is that of studio-based critiques or “crits,” where in work is shown, discussed, and analyzed by the entire class. Thus, part one focuses on:
● looking, listening, interacting and sharing student work
● teaching a language for evaluating multimedia
● tapping dormant design sensibilities
● distinguishing conceptual, aesthetic, technical, and organizational criteria
● distributing the evaluative process
In part two of the workshop, we shift gears and ask participants to draw on their own experiences and share insights, stories, and resources pertaining to the assessment of digital literacies, including information literacy, technological literacy, and media literacy. We are especially interested in:
● defining expectations, skill sets, and competencies
● portfolio-based assessment
● surveys
● testing
● badges
● aligning with campus initiatives and assessment programs
Our half-day workshop is intended for instructors, administrators, and educational technologists.
Our space and technical requirements are a large, open room with projector and sound system, white board and markers, and moveable tables and chairs.
Biographies
Jon McKenzie is Director of DesignLab and Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-‐Madison, where he teaches courses in performance theory and new media. He is the author of Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance and numerous essays, including “Global Feeling: (Almost) All You Need is Love” and “Towards a Sociopoetics of Interface Design.” He is co-‐editor of Contesting Performance: Global Sites of Research, and his work has been translated into a half-‐dozen languages. McKenzie trained as a painter and later worked in NYC’s Silicon Alley as a writer and information architect. Along the way, he has produced media installations and video essays, including The Revelations of Dr. Kx4l3ndj3r and This Vile Display, and he has recently presented and given workshops on smart media and performative scholarship in South America, Europe, and the United States.
Rosemary Bodolay is the Associate Director of DesignLab and coordinator of the Media Studios at the University of Wisconsin-‐Madison. Before working on DesignLab in 2011 she had been with the Art Department (UW-‐Madison) teaching courses in artist video and digital technologies since 1997. Her video and installation work has been shown nationally and internationally and most recently has designed several video walls for museum interiors. In addition to her position with DesignLab, Rosemary is on the Steering Committee of the Community of Educational Technology Support (ComETS), is the co-‐coordinator of the Digital Salon, and on the Arts Assembly at UW-‐Madison.