Tag: Graphic Design

Simulated Election

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Simulated Election, GOVT112

Description & Process

As an experiential learning project in Comparative Politics, students work cooperatively to organize political parties, for which they draft platforms, design logos, produce campaign ads, and prepare for a public debate. This project has long been a successful part of Associate Professor of Government Sharon Rivera’s, but 2016 introduced a new element — interactive collaboration with Russian students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). The Russian students served as the press corps for the simulation, providing written and verbal feedback to the Hamilton students using the video platform Panopto.

Educational technologist Ben Salzman brainstormed with Professor Rivera to find the best solution for this international collaboration. The time difference between the two schools made a live collaboration difficult; responses would need to be recorded. Inspired by video blogs (vlogs), they settled on Panopto as a way to easily record videos to share privately.

Student groups chose fictional parties to represent in the simulation, with members of each group in different roles. Lynn Mayo worked with the groups’ policy team to research and draft party platforms. These platforms were used to inspire logos, in consultation with Digital Media Tutors skilled in the vector art program Adobe Illustrator. The groups recorded a press release on their policies and logos, which the MIGMO press corps critiqued, sending back videos with questions for the party leaders and recommendations on policy and feedback on the logos. Finally, the Hamilton students created campaign videos, which the MIGMO students reviewed, roleplaying characters like political analysts and Wall Street executives reacting to the ads.

The culminating debate between the party leaders was filmed and broadcast to MIGMO. The MIGMO students voted on a winner using an online Qualtrics survey, announcing the winner in a mock talk show. Finally, Hamilton students sent a thank you video to MIGMO.

Learning Goals & Objectives

This course is designed to introduce students to the basic theories and concepts used in the study of comparative politics, giving students tools to discuss how various types of political systems operate and compare and contrast the way politics work in democracies and authoritarian systems. As part of accomplishing this, students completing this experiential project will:

  • Replicate political campaign processes, based on a fictional political system
  • Creat a campaigning party, in small groups of students
    • Research and write policy platforms
    • Design logos based on party message
    • Produce campaign ads
    • Defend policies in a public debate
  • Collaborate virtually with students from Moscow State Institute of International Relations

Details

GOVT 112, Spring 2016

To complete this collaborative website project, there was:

  • 1 Workshop
  • 1 Working Session

DIY Chess Set

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The final project of Literature 219, a course on medieval and Mediterranean texts with a trope of chess, was to create a set of chess pieces that analyzed and built upon the texts. Pieces could be physical or digital, two dimensional or three dimensional, as fit each students capabilities and learning style.

To this aim, Visiting Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature Nhora Serrano planned several workshops throughout the semester, exploring different ways to create. Each student created a vector art pawn in a 90-minute Adobe Illustrator workshop, as an introduction to digital illustration taught by Kyle Burnham. The class met with Christian Goodwillie, Director of Special Collections, for a workshop about illumination techniques from old manuscripts. Students also practiced analysis in a public blog throughout the semester, interacting with one another’s writings.

After these workshops, students worked on their final chess set in earnest, in groups or solo. Students met with Professor Serrano to initially discuss and approve their project ideas; many also met with Burnham to further hone concept and technical skills. Ultimately, one group made a video re-enactment, one group made a collage, another group designed half of their set in Photoshop and carved the other half out of soap, one student made a clever deck of cards, and one created 3D models and an environment with Blender and Unity. Grading was based on a process paper, drawing inspiration from medieval and renaissance treatises read in class, explaining and justifying the choices made by the students.

Digital Pawn Process
Vector Sketch (left), Traced in 3D (middle), Added Visuals Signifying Meaning and Analysis (right)

Learning Goals & Objectives

This course will develop and hone skills in critical reading and thinking, and literary analysis through the broad sampling of literary works and modes of visual texts (e.g. illuminated manuscripts, film, chess sets) from the Mediterranean basin. As part of accomplishing this, students completing this culminating project will:

  • Interrogate the medieval literary trope of chess in a hands-on manner
    • Recognize and reproduce the medieval literary trope of chess and cosmopolitan play
    • Interpret and analyze the use of the trope as it appears in specific texts of the student’s choice
    • Practice hands-on visual creation skills in a variety of medium
    • Design and create a visual representation of analysis/interpretation
    • Explain and defend choices of visual creation in a public reception

After reading and watching several texts with tropes of chess and play, students were able to create visual pieces from a broad range of mediums from soap-carving to film, successfully interpreting and analyzing the texts.