Field Based Explorations

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MediaThread, a project created by the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning through the Digital Bridges Initiative is a service that allows you to blend your thoughts with multimedia sources and share them with others. MediaThread supports video, images, metadata, and many content websites listed below. Most compatible with Firefox, MediaThread is currently being used by Columbia, MIT, Wellesley, Dartmouth, The American University in Cairo, and many other institutions of higher education.

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Christine Calderon

02/12/13

Field Post #3

Notes for first visit Feb. Thursday 7th, 2013:

I came in with the students lined up against the wall outside of their classroom. It was nice to get friendly hellos from the students who seemed to like my presence there. When we settled down we went over the same routine as last Friday. They had Morning routine, which was to take out homework if they had any and to take out their math word problems and start working on them. While working on their problems the morning announcements came on and they stood up for the Pledge of Allegiance and they did fluoride. After their morning routine they go into reading and after reading they go into writing- these are the two classes I will be apart of on Thursdays and Fridays. Today for writing they where going to go onto the “rug” and sit around and read. They were finishing up their story of the week that had to do with inventions and inventors. When sitting in the circle it was curious that the students sat on the floor cross-legged and one of the students pulled up a chair automatically for the teacher. I found it interesting that the teacher had to sit on a chair while the students sat on the floor and looked up. Having just had read Freire this simple action spoke to me.  I too pulled up chair since it seemed like the “right” thing to do. It felt odd to me but the students and teacher didn’t seem to react too much to this action.

Hey everybody, I don't really know if this has any place in this Ecological Imaginings class, but maybe if we can imagine the preservation of women to be a form of ecology, not unlike the preservation of all plant life, animal life.

I just wanted to call everyone's attention to this excellent documentary currently being shown on PBS on Mon & Tues nights at 9:00 PM.  I imagine you guys have lots of time to watch films, yeah!  But this is an amazing series.

"Half the Sky" about gender based violence.

Here's the link to the first & second segment:

http://video.pbs.org/video/2283557115   

http://video.pbs.org/video/2283558278

Hello beautiful Serendip world! 

My name is Briana Bellamy, I'm a BMC alum '11.  Recently, I returned from an incredible year of living in Nepal, working on a project funded by the Davis Projects for Peace grant. The project was called Sharing Knowledge for Peace, and its basic structure and philosophy grew from something that may be very familiar to some of you: the Teaching and Learning Initiative (TLI). As a sophomore at Bryn Mawr, I became involved with the staff-student branch of the TLI as a student mentor with a wonderful man from transportation services. It completely transformed my experience at Bryn Mawr, and became a huge part of both my sense of community and personal development. The relationships I built through the reciprocal model of the TLI and the deep learning I experienced both in these relationships and in the reflection meeting had a deep impact on me. I went on to become a coordinator for the program, and even wrote my thesis about it, exploring the inner workings of friendship, community, and shared spaces. I knew there was something powerful about the dynamics at play, and I was curious as to how the model of intentional reciprocal teaching and learning relationships could be valuable in other settings. 

The VLogs

For our final web event, sekang, dchin and I reflected on the process of our class presentation and asked ourselves the questions we had asked others for the interviews we conducted.

*Both videos are long, so please allow time for loading before watching.

In the first video we reflect on our motivation for our class presentation, the process of interviewing strangers at Philadelphia train stations, the process of editing those interviews and how the product we created related back to the discussions we have had in Critical Feminist Studies this spring.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbZFJU-xkgU&feature=youtu.be

In the second video, we interview each other in the same style that we conducted the interviews for our class presentation.  We then reflect on being asked these questions and our new perspectives on documentary filmmaking. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDs50K5UBg8&feature=youtu.be

The Editing Process

While in Ghana, I couldn’t help but think about my group’s discussion of NGOs in Ghana and their work, and compare these things to the realities that we saw on the ground. I still have a lot of questions, but my post is long overdue, so observations + questioning will have to be sufficient for now!

During our project, one of the more resonant questions for me was, “How do NGOs collaborate and is this collaboration successful?” I think this question guided some of my observations during the trip.

Observations: Looking around the Dalun Youth Association (DYA) building, I saw some posters, asked some questions. All this happened very quickly, so I’m not 100% this is the correct information, but I’ll relay what I remember and wrote down.

DYA exists to bring the youth together – students gather here and “because they are together, they are stronger and can advocate for the needs of the community, what they see the community needs to develop” (field notes), like new roads to Tamale (which I would also advocate for, for both selfish and unselfish reasons). DYA uses sports as a tool for development – in this rural community, athletic competition is a perfect way to bring people together, both young and old. Once the people are gathered, the youth can spread their message of change. And this message is much more powerful coming from a vibrant, organized youth group.