Several students in the GPP Minor have documented their Practice Experiences by keeping blogs. Follow the links below to visit their blogs and learn more about their experiences and insights.
Benjamin Hans spoke with village leaders to a community about chlorine dispensers in Iganga, Uganda.
To celebrate the end of an extremely experimental stressful successful semester, the “Global Poverty” course graduate student instructors (all 482 of them) and the #GlobalPOV team came together to eat, drink and be merry. But then Bono showed up, per usual, and Prof. Roy promptly kicked all of us out of the house so the two of them could be alone, per usual. Some party. (And yes, bunny ears are still socially acceptable at academic functions. Just to
The #GlobalPOV Project’s in-class tweeting component was covered in the Fall 2012 edition of the Blum Center newsletter. In the article, writer Javier Kordi notes: Chipping away at the tradition of hierarchical education, the Twitter project restructures social relations within the classroom. . . . Being a public medium, Twitter allows anyone to join the conversation, but also forces Berkeley students to think of themselves as public scholars— everything they post falls under the scrutiny of the global community.” To read the full article, click
The #GlobalPOV Project’s story artist, Abby VanMuijen, and her live-action sketch skillz were covered in the Fall 2012 edition of the Blum Center newsletter. As a student, VanMuijen doodled her way to producing The Global Poverty Coloring Book, which students now use as a learning aid in Prof. Roy’s Global Poverty class. In addition to now working as our story artist extraordinaire, VanMuijen is teaching a DeCal class, titled “Visual Notetaking 101,” which attracts 150 students from departments all over campus. According to VanMuijen: I wasn’t magically bestowed with the ability to take notes the way I do. It was something I practiced every day, and taught myself how to do. I started “Visual Notetaking 101″ because I realized this is a skill that people can learn. Visual notetaking can revolutionize your entire outlook on your education, as it did for me. Seeing your thoughts and ideas and opinions come to life, even if just on paper, is empowering.” To read the full article, click
Prof. Roy yacked on and on about Bono. Abby did some doodling. Tara shoved a camera in everyone’s face. This vid resulted. Take a behind-the-scenes look into the making of The #GlobalPOV Project’s “Who Sees Poverty?” pilot video. [youtube
USAID invests up to $20 million in UC Berkeley’s global development
Kristin Hanes, a reporter with KGO Radio, visited Prof. Ananya Roy’s “Global Poverty: Challenges and Hopes In The New Millennium” class this week to explore and experience Roy’s use of Twitter as a teaching tool. Hanes interviewed Roy and talked to students during class (tisk! tisk!) to get their feedback on the process. According to Hanes: Students in a Global Poverty lecture at UC Berkeley are incorporating Twitter into class, which gives shy students a voice, and expands interactions in a class of
“Who Sees Poverty?” Let production commence! Today.
This semester, the Blum Center for Developing Economies welcomed five students from the Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (URAP) to assist Professor Ananya Roy and research fellow Emma Shaw Crane in the development of a book on the recently held Territories of Poverty conference.
Abby Van Muijen discusses the Visual Notetaking DeCal and the ways in which this learned skill can improve the learning experience both in and outside of the classroom.
How UC Berkeley professors, Ananya Roy and Tara Graham, are using social media in the classroom to help students become more engaged and foster a new academic community where all voices are heard.
At the Territories of Poverty Conference, Emma Shaw Crane discusses how to challenge traditional approaches to tackling poverty by leaving the academic setting and going into the field to ensure that theory “rides the bus”.
The Daily Californian, the student-run UC Berkeley paper of record, visited Prof. Ananya Roy’s “Global Poverty: Challenges and Hopes In The New Millennium” class this week to explore her use of Twitter in a large lecture hall setting. According to the article: By projecting tweets pertaining to the class on a screen, professors are able to use teaching methods that allow large groups of students to interact with one another and the professor during class. The tables have turned,” said Tara Graham, director of Digital Media Projects at the Blum Center and a lecturer in the campus international and area studies department. “We’re no longer in a world where ideas are conveyed one-to-many, but now we have a many-to-many mode of communication.” … “What this does is that there are so many kids that are speaking up, and because we run it live, they then engage in conversation with each other in a way that’s impossible in almost any classroom,” Roy said. “This is not anymore about my simply lecturing to them; I’m curating the conversation.” To read the full article, click
By now, it’s common knowledge that Twitter and other forms of social media are transforming the ways in which our students engage with each other (and celebrities) outside of the classroom, but what about the ways in which these media tools can transform student participation and interaction during class? Or, inversely, the ways in which the classroom can transform the tone of discussions and sharing on social media? And, in turn, the ways in which these digital platforms can empower a generation of digital natives to speak up and weigh in on matters of public importance? “There is nothing new about using social media in the classroom,” argues Tara Graham, a lecturer in the International and Area Studies Academic Program at the University of California, Berkeley. She has been using Twitter as a platform for dialogue and discussion in her classes on digital media and social justice for over a year. Graham’s workshop-style classes, however, are small in size, ranging from 15 to 20 students. The question follows: Could Twitter encourage substantive discussion in large lecture hall classes with hundreds of students? Graham teamed up with another UC Berkeley colleague, Ananya Roy, chair of the Global Poverty & Practice Minor, to put the question of scale to the test. Roy teaches a class on global poverty every fall that attracts at least 600 students. Early this semester, the two unleashed a live twitter feed into the auditorium, and the experience was
Here’s the (totally non-substantive but totally memorable) tweet of the day: Hey I just twittered and this is crazy, hi Ananya! So tweet me maybe?
On a rainy Wednesday evening, 23 UC Berkeley students from a broad range of disciplines gathered for class in a seminar room in the imposing University Hall—each taking a seat around a mysterious “Hello Kitty” stuffed doll. After a few minutes, the table was filled with seemingly unrelated products: cartoon toothpaste and toothbrush sets, a doggy-bag dispenser and a manicure set.
Nearly two centuries after Thomas Edison proclaimed that “We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles,” 1.6 billion people continue to suffer from light poverty—more than the entire population of the world at the time of Edison’s breakthrough. Having to rely primarily on kerosene—and an odd mix of other sources, including candles, fish oil, yak butter, twigs, diesel fuel, and even footwear— people are constantly exposed to dangerous fumes and fire hazards which contribute to a panoply of health problems and climate change.
UC Berkeley is traveling back in time. The campus is on track to reduce its carbon footprint to 1990 levels in two years, with the long-term goal of achieving carbon neutrality. The drive to accomplish this began in 2005 when a group of graduates, undergraduates and faculty members drafted a letter to the administration seeking to place a cap on campus carbon emissions. The administration replied with a challenge: to put together a practical, measurable feasibility plan.
The importance of anthropology in poverty alleviation and development work was showcased at a March 8 panel discussion hosted by the Blum Center for Developing Economies, where speakers highlighted how anthropology can help us understand economics, policy and the alarming rates of poverty that persist in the world.
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