2023 COHORT (VIENNA), PROGRAM RESOURCES
RESOURCES TO HELP IDENTIFY A CULTURAL THEME
Past cultural themes studied by CIDRE educators have included cultural products such as art, architecture, literature, film, music, or laws. Also, cultural practices such as manufacturing, housing, schooling, sustainability, sports and rec, and use of space. This UNESCO constellation visualization of intangible cultural practices may be useful to identify a theme for study.  Educators have also studied cultural perspectives (values, attitudes, ideas) on topics such as religion, rights and resources for immigrant or minority populations, or politics. Hofstede's cultural dimensions help to illustrate a number of ways in which cultural perspectives can differ across societies. Educators should select a theme that can be researched both online and on-site while in the host country, ideally meeting with persons from the host culture to discuss the theme.​
VIENNA/AUSTRIA CULTURAL RESOURCES
MENU: DIGITAL REPRESENTATIONS OF CULTURE
As noted above, culture is a very broad term encompassing products, practices, and perspectives, and the ways in which these facets of "culture" can be represented digitally is equally broad. See the e-magazine ​Digital Meets Culture for some examples. During the CIDRE program, the digital representations of culture that follow are introduced. Participants draw from this "menu" to build a Google Sites portfolio page representing their cultural theme. Participants select representations/projects that can best illustrate their chosen cultural theme in consultation with peers and program instructors. Participants are expected to complete a minimum of four projects for their portfolio drawing from at least three different sections below. Participants can complete some projects in advance of traveling abroad, but we ask participants to complete at least half of their projects (two) on-site in Austria or just after returning home, to draw from their own observations and collected media. We ask each participant to prepare and share a lesson plan on their portfolio after returning to the U.S. that introduces one or more of the categories below to your students. For a preview of the six modes of representation that follow, read this short article by Drs. Oliver and Wiseman and a former program participant.
1. Written/Multimodal Representations of Culture
With the involvement of English/literacy faculty, all of our programs have had a heavy emphasis on writing frames that can be utilized to reflect on cultural identity and cultural themes. When merged with media, these texts become "multimodal" and take such forms as identity texts and poems, travel writing, book reviews, and film reviews.
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CC Jenny Scott
2. Augmented/Virtual Representations of Culture
Mixed reality projects fit along a continuum between reality, augmented reality, and virtual reality (Bekele et al, 2018). When a person is physically sited with a mobile phone, text, images, and augmented reality media can be pulled up to layer or superimpose cultural information over the physical scene. When a person is remote, cultural heritage can be represented virtually through VR headsets and captured 360-degree images. Resources on virtual/augmented reality include: Potential tools for virtual/augmented projects include:
  • The Clio (sample mobile walking tour constructed by 2019 cohort in Prague on the theme of Nazi/Communist oppression); augmented in the sense of walking around a city and receiving layered information about different waypoints on the tour; see handout on adding a waypoint to a crowdsourced tour in Clio
  • Other AR Authoring Tools: Metaverse Studio, Overly, ARToolKit, Google ARCore, StoryPlaces​
  • AR is typically driven by markers or coordinates that trigger pop-up media; FlipGrid AR relies on markers with the ability to generate a QR code for an individual FlipGrid video; someone interested in cultural storytelling could record a series of interpretive videos for different sites on FlipGrid and add those QR codes (images) to a map (Google Maps, BuiltStory) such that persons taking a tour could pull up videos at different stops along the tour; alternatively, you could generate a QR code for an open topic and share that code on a map, so when students reach a particular site, they can be prompted to reflect/respond by recording their own video (FlipGrid app and mobile data required)
  • for VR, you can manually capture 360-degree images with the Google Street View app on your mobile phone; import 360-degree images into ThingLink to mark up with hot spots (layered content); if you prefer, more formal 360-degree cameras can be borrowed from our College of Ed to capture scenes in Germany for building your own VR tours relevant to your cultural themes; see handout on creating content-embedded virtual reality experience using StreetView images and ThingLink (see example)
CC Nan Palmero
3. Mapped Representations of Culture
Mapping tools have played a key role in all of our study abroad programs with their uses becoming more specific over time. Drawing on Google Maps and in some cases GPS, these tools support the layering of cultural information within mapped placemarks with that information viewed virtually on a web browser. Cultural mapping projects have been undertaken to represent social justice themes such as colonization, slavery, apartheid, genocide, and discrepancies in economic resources across neighborhoods (Dawson & Mitchell, 2017; Fitchett & Good, 2012; Mercier & Rata, 2017; Rubel, Hall-Wieckart, & Lim, 2017). Potential tools for mapping projects include:
4. Documentary Representations of Culture
​Leveraging audio, video, animation, or photography, documentary approaches typically involve interviews, conversations, or observations along with some form of media capture to illustrate cultural-historical themes, taking such forms as:
  • Ethnographic Neighborhood or Site Analysis (can take the form of written reflections with photographs, or record one's self walking a site and making observations in selfie-style)​
  • ​Visual Analysis of Cultural Artifacts (see Visual Thinking Strategies; example analyses presented in Voicethread: Czech art 1, Czech art 2)​
  • Oral Histories (see StoryCorps and GlobalLives for inspiration); can be animated with our group Powtoon account to present a story
  • Duologue retelling conversation with a member of host culture (picked up during MeetUp group or AirBnb City Experience), can be animated with our Powtoon account (example 1, example 2)
  • Photovoice
  • ​Documentary Video (can be involved, or more simplistic with tools like One Second Everyday for personal storytelling which generates a video mashup)
  • Documentary Social Media
    • ​social media apps allow persons to share cultural information with friends or the public; see Driftr for sharing travel-related experiences with others; see TripCast to share travel updates with close friends, or collaboratively build details with others on a trip
    • social media campaigns fostered through popular apps like Twitter or Instagram can encourage groups to collaborate around designated cultural themes; could you set up a campaign for our group in Germany?
CC Nicolas Alejandro
CC Ian Clark
5. Representations of Culture in Informal/Experiential Learning Spaces
Informal learning environments such as after-school maker clubs that emphasize students' creative designs on projects of personal interest can be an effective forum for representing culture. Culturally-focused designs in informal spaces can be digital (culturally-relevant games), physical (robotics), digital to physical (3d-designed cultural objects fabricated on a 3d printer), or physical to digital (lego models photographed and merged with descriptive text). Resources for representing culture in informal learning spaces include:
  • Article by Hung (2018) on students applying cultural DNA (objects, symbols, behaviors, rituals, values) to a product design
  • Article on how 3d printing is transforming our relationship with cultural heritage; Article on 3d printing applied to cultural heritage
Potential tools for representing culture in the informal space include:
CC Mike Corbett
6. Inquiry-Based Representations of Culture
A final strategy to represent cultural themes is inquiry-based in which different data sources are researched to reflect emerging themes (e.g., primary sources and popular media, data sets, social media). This topic can relate to the "mapped representations" topic as cultural data is often visualized on maps. Potential tools for analyzing and visually representing cultural data include:
CC Eric Fischer