Digital Humanities
The Digital Humanities (DH) is an exciting field that offers us expansive opportunities as researchers and educators to map, visualize, and share research in ways that goes far beyond the bounds of the traditional. I bring DH methods to my research and teaching whenever possible, as it broadens the scope of what scholarship is capable of achieving across the humanities and encourages students to engage creatively with the Spanish language, Hispanic cultures, and technology at once. In my Spanish History through Art seminar (SPAN 497, Penn State Ronda Program), for instance, my students created StoryMaps in lieu of traditional course papers to trace the historical and spatial dimensions of personalized research questions in an dynamic multimedia format. The resulting projects visualize the data students gathered through their research, making it accessible for an audience beyond their classmates while evidencing as much quality and rigorous scholarship as any other assignment. Please explore the examples below from students who eagerly agreed to have their work showcased here:
Hybrid Courses:
I have extensive experience teaching elementary and intermediate Spanish courses using online instructional modules and homework platforms as supplemental to traditional, face-to-face instruction. The greatest advantage of incorporating systems like MySpanishLab or VHL Central to a curriculum is the added time it affords students to fully explore language and use it creatively in class. Communication is key to language acquisition and my communicative and information-based approach to learning allows real world situations to become the focus of students’ practice.
Like communication, culture is a crucial element of language learning. Technology can connect us to lands and peoples far away, opening up avenues for exploring the music, literature, film, art, dance, and other forms of cultural expression from nations across the globe. From studying the diversity of the Hispanic world through Gente de Zona's La Gozadera music video to studying the historical evolution of words in the Real Academia Española's digital archives and everything in between, technology and the web hold endless possibilities for exploring the outside world from inside the classroom.
Like communication, culture is a crucial element of language learning. Technology can connect us to lands and peoples far away, opening up avenues for exploring the music, literature, film, art, dance, and other forms of cultural expression from nations across the globe. From studying the diversity of the Hispanic world through Gente de Zona's La Gozadera music video to studying the historical evolution of words in the Real Academia Española's digital archives and everything in between, technology and the web hold endless possibilities for exploring the outside world from inside the classroom.
Teaching Example:
Click the image to the left to access a vocabulary and grammar presentation I created for a group of intermediate students of Spanish (SPAN 102, University of Lynchburg). As they typically do, my presentation models vocabulary and grammar topics (etapas de la vida, fiestas, relaciones personales, review of the preterit tense) and offers opportunities for practice via listening, reading, writing, and speaking activities. This presentation also has a cultural component: the life and legacy of Frida Kahlo.
Note that the presentation will be shown in "Slideshare," so original PowerPoint transitions are not animated. Click the "enlarge" button for full-screen viewing.
Note that the presentation will be shown in "Slideshare," so original PowerPoint transitions are not animated. Click the "enlarge" button for full-screen viewing.