Learning to Look 2004

2004 New Media Classroom
Summer Institute

"Learning to Look: New Media, Visual Resources, and Humanities Education"
at The Graduate Center, CUNY

June 13-18, 2004

hosted by City University of New York Faculty Development Program
and the American Social History Project,

The Graduate Center of the City University of New York and the American Social History Project will host one of ten regional summer seminars sponsored by the National Endowment of the Humanities for the development of multimedia instruction in the humanities classroom. The program at the Graduate Center includes a six-day institute (beginning Sunday afternoon June 13 until Friday June 18), a year-long online seminar, and follow-up meetings focusing on the successful implementation of new media-based instruction. The institute will be lead by David Jaffee, Department of History, City College of New York and Graduate Center, and Donna Thompson Ray, Director of New Media Education, American Social History Project/Center for Media & Learning, Graduate Center.

2004 Summer Institute
The theme "Learning to Look" addresses the expanding yet largely unevaluated realm of visual materials available on the World Wide Web. In the last five years, pictorial archival resources have expanded exponentially over the Web, from colonial broadsides to contemporary photojournalism. We are interested in enhancing the use of visual materials in teaching across the humanities and learning about the past as well as advance the critical viewing skills of students in history and humanities classrooms. “Learning to Look” will help humanities educators in colleges and universities, secondary schools, and museums and public institutions develop effective strategies for using visual documents in the fine arts, material culture, and popular culture.

The Institute will be located at the CUNY Graduate Center, providing participants with access to leading digital humanities projects such as the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, the New Media Lab, and the Visible Knowledge Project; innovative new media programs focusing on the visualization of the past, including The Lost Museum, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and History Matters; and new media producers and classroom practitioners with a decade of experience creating and applying Web-based and CD-ROM programming.

Participants will discuss new scholarship, examine new media resources, develop strategies for classroom implementation, and discuss individual and institutional implications of incorporating new technologies. Sessions will include:

hands-on activities using websites resources (examples include "Reading Portraits of George Washington," "FSA Photographs and Roosevelt's New Deal.") along with hands-on work with museum collections and artifact analysis
work with scholars and educators who have been pioneers in developing new media applications
discussions on advancing critical viewing skills in the humanities classroom
presentations on the scholarship of teaching and learning along with an examination of ways of assessing student learning
time for collaborative curriculum planning

2004-2005 Year-Long Faculty Development Program
Our collaborative exploration of "teaching with technology" will extend through the academic year via a year-long follow-up program that will engage participants in sustained and systematic assessment of efforts to incorporate new media resources into their classrooms and sites.

demonstrations of innovative classroom practices using humanities teaching resources available on the World Wide Web;
participation in an on-line seminar;
follow-up seminars, focusing on the successful implementation of new media-based instruction (two each semester).

Selection of 2004 Summer Institute Participants
Faculty, librarians, educators, and archivists at universities, colleges, high schools, and public history and cultural institutions should submit applications no later than Friday April 23, 2004. Teams can also submit applications (2-3 people from schools, school districts, and other educational, historical and cultural organizations). We ask participant's schools or universities to pay a registration fee of $500. CUNY faculty can receive a subsidy through the CUNY Faculty Development Program. Criteria for selection would include:

desire to incorporate new media resources into instruction and interpretation,
eagerness to explore intersection of visual and material culture education through the use of new electronic resources,
interest in participating in year-long faculty development program activities,
commitment to share results of media-based instruction and interpretation with other interested colleagues, and
demonstrated knowledge and experience using the web and new media in research and/or teaching.

Download guidelines and forms - Word File

Application as HTML:

For more information, contact: Professor David Jaffee, Department of History, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016 email: djaffee@gc.cuny.edu telephone (212) 650-7469 (CCNY)