2024 COHORT (BUENOS AIRES), PROGRAM RESOURCES
- Buenos Aires Syllabus and Travel Schedule
- Buenos Aires Roster
- Program pre-survey and post-survey
- Travel planning and assistance: Airline Route Reporter; Plan Travel with Others (joint flights, free weekend trips, extended travel before/after the main program); Plan Experiences with Others During Free Time in Buenos Aires (WithLocals and AirBnb Experiences offer supplemental activities you may wish to book with others); info on transiting Buenos Aires; info on communications while abroad; Spanish language primer; final pre-departure recommendations
- Drive folder (participants will receive a photo book after the program drawing on photos shared in this folder; please share pics in the sub-folders corresponding to a particular date/excursion to help with constructing this book; we are particularly interested in pictures of people and groups you have taken while engaged in cultural activities)
CHOOSING 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.
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.
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, some of the digital representations of culture that follow are introduced. Participants decide which representations can best showcase their selected cultural theme and complete a few projects that are embedded in a Google Sites portfolio page. Participants also prepare and share a lesson plan on their portfolio after returning to the U.S. that introduces one or more of the representations below to their students. This short article by Drs. Oliver and Wiseman and a former program participant illustrates how digital representations can be used to reflect a selected cultural theme.
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, some of the digital representations of culture that follow are introduced. Participants decide which representations can best showcase their selected cultural theme and complete a few projects that are embedded in a Google Sites portfolio page. Participants also prepare and share a lesson plan on their portfolio after returning to the U.S. that introduces one or more of the representations below to their students. This short article by Drs. Oliver and Wiseman and a former program participant illustrates how digital representations can be used to reflect a selected cultural theme.
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.
|
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:
|
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:
|
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:
|
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:
|