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UCLA Center for Digital Humanities
Practical Use of Digital Media: Heritage Language Learners and GE Courses at UCLA
Presenters from CDH: Dr. Zoe Borovsky (Academic Services Manager), Dr. Annelie Chapman (Instructional Technology Coordinator), and Brian Lin (Media Assistant)
CDH
Heritage Language Reading Project
Hypermedia Berlin
background
Academic Services
Labs
Course Websites
Projects
User Services
Network Services
CDH Projects Applications once a year
Project Team:
Eugene Hamai
Project Technical Coordinator
Shawn Higgins
Media Specialist
Brian Lin
Media Assistant
Heritage Language Reading Project
Heritage Language Students – a definition A student who is raised in a home where a
non-English language is spoken, who speaks or merely understands the heritage language, and who is to some degree bilingual in English and the heritage language
Limited ability to read and write the heritage language
Heritage Language Reading Project
Goals Provide on-line
multi-media materials to teach reading to students with oral proficiency in Thai and Korean
Self-paced, self-correcting exercises
HLRP: Challenges Thai and Korean are Less Commonly Taught
Languages Instructors had different pedagogical approaches Thai has fives tones, only four of which are marked--
how important to heritage learners? Technical staff did not read the languages Instructors were not used to working with technology Grant proposal (funded by Dept of Ed.) was written
with minimal input from technologists
HLRP: technology
Why Flash? Hidden “requirements”:
Desire for more complicated and interactive exercises Heritage learners ARE tech-savvy audience
Cross-platform and cross-browser Font representation Exercise layout and functionality
No keyboard input – heritage students do not type in target language
Heritage Language Reading Project
the heritage site Teach, Practice, Test Beginning – Intermediate levels
Vowels & Consonants Words, Sentences Short Stories
HLRP: What we learned Get involved early: preferably when
proposal is written Be realistic: One language would have been
better Establish roles (e.g. who finds images) at
the beginning Technical staff cannot proofread a language
they do not understand PIs should sign off on grad student work
before implementing Test new material on paper—content
proofing takes time
Heritage Language Reading Project
What worked well Interactive exercises: Flash & action
scripting Student programmer who knew the
language and learned the technology Authentic content: stories about other
Heritage students Common spelling mistakes
Hypermedia Berlin
Asst. Prof. Todd Presner (Germanic)
Hypermedia Berlin Revamp a GE course using digital
technology Interdisciplinary: incorporate art history,
history, literature, architecture, film Focus on context as well as text: teach the
city in both time and place Use the site in the classroom, i.e., lecture
from it Integrate student projects
Berlin: the technologies
Need to navigate in both space and time Flash Zoomify
Hypermedia Berlin Username: berlin61 Password: spring2004
Berlin: The Challenges
GSRs with little technical expertise Create content templates in
Dreamweaver Enlist the help of tech savvy itcs during
lab sessions Undergraduates asked: does this
class have a text? Is this a lit class? Mixture of traditional and new media
assignments
Hypermedia Berlin
Why did it work? Faculty buy-in; Presner had tried before
and was less successful We used technology that GSR could learn
to add content: opened our lab as a project workspace, spent our time teaching
We used technology that students could learn to add content
Summary Humanities scholarship has fundamentally changed:
instruction needs to keep pace Students taking humanities courses have changed
(many more come from Heritage backgrounds) Interdisciplinary courses require multi-media on
demand—not just in the lab Initially students will ask:
where’s the text? but eventually: why should we write papers when we can contribute
our own digital projects? Sometimes, we can make it work!