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Research Teaching and Learning Community Studios: The concept of studios is borrowed from architecture, with some adaptation to serve our goals of fully integrating research, teaching and learning, and community connection in TLC. Studios are developed by one or more faculty members around topics of interest in technology, literacy, and culture, and they incorporate aspects of research, teaching and learning, and community. For example, a studio might focus on information architecture, or technology and development in children, or the digital divide. Participants may include faculty researchers in various fields, graduate and/or undergraduate students, professionals from the private sector, community members, outside experts or speakers drawn from other organizations. Participants may have short term or long term involvement with a studio. For example, an undergraduate may intern with a studio for one semester, a graduate student may make it the center of his or her dissertation research, a faculty member might join the team for a year or two, and so on. Each studio has relative autonomy to determine who is involved, and for how long. Each studio also determines what outcomes will result from their activities: a studio might create a strategic development plan for transforming a public library into a community learning resource center, another studio might share authorship of technical papers or make recommendations for the improvement of undergraduate education with technology. Studios also have autonomy in building the team that is needed; for example, a studio on knowledge ecologies might include faculty from psychology, sociology, library science, sociology, design, and rhetoric. A key component is an assured minimum level of funding for each studio, which ensures that critical research can be carried on without being compromised by funding sources. Funding sources would be asked to make contributions with the understanding that 50% (or some reasonable percentage) of the funds would go into the general pool, while the remaining percentage could be targeted toward studios or projects of particular interest. In fact, funding sources would be able to make research requests or indicate questions of particular interest as potential topics of study for studios. However, it would be up to the participants in studios to determine which questions or problems they would like to tackle. Studios would be expected to make at least part of their work public on a regular basis, through a seminar series, connections with an undergraduate class, brown bag lunches, workshops, or publications. The first step in establishing a studio is drafting a proposal for approval by the TLC steering committee. Once a studio is approved, funding is made available for the studio, and space is allocated. A studio must provide an end of year report and reapply each year, so that the steering committee can make decisions about how to allocate resources, and determine whether a studio continues to be viable. This also means that the number of studios can vary from year to year depending on resources. TLC Classes: We foresee the need for several different kinds of classes under the TLC concentration. These diverse class structures not only give students more flexibility in their involvement with TLC, but also provide a strong preparation for their professional and civic lives. They amplify conventional course structures to enrich undergraduate experience. The curricular structure, like that of the studios, is intended to bridge research, teaching and learning, and community connection: Class plus lab. Early in the concentration, students need to develop basic technical knowledge and skills that they will need throughout their coursework in TLC and beyond. However, regular class time is needed for discussion of core readings, theory, and practice, as well as for practical application of techniques in class projects. File management, web authoring, graphics techniques, email, and other fundamental skills should be taught in a lab that parallels the introductory course. Indeed, there could be a lab structure that runs from beginning to quite advanced work over the course of multiple semesters (e.g., CL 1: Basic web authoring, CL 2: Graphics and sound, CL 3: Scripting and web architecture, CL 4: Databases, and so on). Students would need to demonstrate proficiency in the techniques to pass out of the lab component of the course. We envision that the course without the lab would count as three credits, course plus lab would count as four credits. More technically advanced students coming into the intro TLC course could pass out of the earliest labs and take a more advanced lab, or opt to take the course for 3 credits, once they've demonstrated proficiency. These labs could be developed as standalone, self-paced and self-assessed guided tutorials (with some expert assistants for support) that might also be in demand for other courses across departments. In this way, students could take labs in anticipation of particular courses they are planning to take later on. This structure also allows us to specify, for upper division courses, that students must have passed or passed out of certain labs, thus ensuring that some minimal level of proficiency can be depended upon across the class. Class plus studio. Upper division students may elect a class plus studio, or an upper division course itself may include a studio component. Six credits with the studio work, three credits without. The studio component would engage students in working closely with a particular studio, in activities specified by the coordinator in a "studio contract." Class plus internship. Similarly, students at any level may elect a class plus internship option. These internships, as discussed before, are intended neither as vocational apprenticeships nor as volunteer service, although they may also have that effect. They are primarily academic research opportunities, intended to situate the theoretical and conceptual work students are engaged in in actual situations and real-world settings. Independent study project. This is self-explanatory, as we have solid models in place already. Capstone class/project. Again, the capstone class/project is detailed in our original proposal. [explain here] Portfolio assessment. As students progress through the concentration, they will develop a portfolio that documents their progress and achievement. This portfolio can serve multiple audiences, such as graduate school admissions, potential employers, or consulting clients. The Learning Record may prove to be a helpful model for the TLC portfolio. Composing the final portfolio could be one of the projects completed during the capstone course. Community connection Probably the most valuable contribution TLC can make in the community is to provide an arena where interested parties who might otherwise never encounter each other can communicate and work together. The boundaries that divide the university and the community, the world of commerce and the non-profits, students and professionals can become more porous, improving our understanding of one another. Another contribution we can make is in providing expertise to address persistent, challenging problems, and in researching questions of pressing public interest that are developing around technology, literacy, and culture. Finally, we can help shape the development and implementation of more humane technologies which will reflect the core concerns of the liberal arts. We can perhaps prevent or ameliorate some damaging effects of technology, and encourage technologists to be more responsive to human needs.

"What I've seen too often, when people use technology in the classroom, I've seen them teach people to play the stereo, rather than teach them to play the piano. The result is music, but in the one case, when you learn to play the stereo, you're merely just passive, you're just clicking switches. When you learn to play the piano, you're interacting with it, you're using it at a much deeper level, you're creating things, and that's much more... And, I don't know how many times I've seen people teach people to play the stereo. And it's just so short-sighted. It's training, not education. " Interview with Stefan Smagula         "I think radio in general, and audio - streaming audio in particular, are really overlooked by people who study technology. For a while, I was working on getting a grant to study radio in various cities around the country to see how - in particular, audio technology can foster a sense of community, whereas screen technology has basically failed to do that in any sustainable way. So those are some of the issues I'm interested in as it pertains to specifically to audio. ...Orality was one [issue to discuss]-- Related to that, "aural" issue with technology, is the Oral, or Orality (gesturing "from" mouth), and I think one of the strengths of TLC, as a curriculum - and I'm very excited about it as an undergraduate curriculum - is that, technology does not in any way facilely just equal computers; that technology is historicized, and viewed for social impact, as well as just in a kind of formalist way. " Interview with Rosa Eberly         I think (I certainly hope) computer education is better developed now than it was then, but i think there's still a black spot with a number of educators as to exactly *why* it's important for kids to understand computers. i'd argue (not one of my more popular positions) that this is a fairly broad phenomenon. "are you online?" "no." "but you *have* to!" "but why?" "because everybody else is!". there's certainly a "we don't fully understand it, but we know it's important" rush over the past few years. for some people that's paid off; the corrent bubble of tech-business people, for instance. but i think there's definitely a segment of people who are waiting for something, wondering why they spent two thousand dollars to send mail with their friends. Interview with Darren Bauler