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Research and Instructional Technology Portfolio

 

See also Instructional Technologist Resume

Instructional Projects

Administrative Support for 2008 Copenhaver Award for Innovation in Teaching with Technology, UCLA Office of Instructional Development (2008)

Compiled submissions and supporting materials for 32 nomination reports that were then presented to the Faculty Committee on Educational Technology. Updated master database to track nominees and award winners since the award’s inception in 2002. Interviewed 9 nominees from Asian Languages and Cultures, Chemistry, English, Life Sciences, Linguistics, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Psychiatry, Psychology, and Slavic Languages and Literature about their experiences using diverse instructional technology such as WIMBA voice tools, clickers, computer simulations, international blogs, and course websites. Transcribed and edited interviews for OID website. Wrote acknowledgement letters to all nominees and award recipients and facilitated presentation at awards reception. 

“What Is Genre?”: New Media Colloquium Online Project (2005-06)

Collaborated with Brent Alan James (Ph.D., Spanish and Portuguese) to produce an interactive, Flash-based website that invites visitors to explore their assumptions about literature, software, and genre as they encounter a single text in multiple framing environments. The year-long colloquium was supervised by N. Katherine Hayles (now Professor of Literature and Information Studies at Duke University) and involved participants from many academic disciplines. My partner and I demonstrated the site and fielded questions at a public presentation in May 2006. The project may be viewed at www.heatherwozniak.com/genre

Turnitin and Academic Integrity Workshop Series (2005-08)

Developed presentations and an online help site after conducting independent research on technologies used to detect plagiarism and copyright infringement. Focused on exploring the tool Turnitin (www.turnitin.com) and general strategies for encouraging information literacy and appropriate research habits. Organized an internal training session for Center for Digital Humanities co-workers and ran two workshops for UCLA faculty and TAs in June and September 2005. Also presented on this topic for the English department TA training program in May 2007 and May 2008.

Instructional Technology Resources Website (2005)

Led project to create comprehensive website where UCLA Humanities instructors could learn about the technological tools at their disposal. Included sections on Center for Digital Humanities support policies, campus computing labs and resource centers, online pedagogical tools, HTML and web design, image editing, audio and video capture and editing, foreign language tools, and introductions to frequently used software. Designed web templates in Dreamweaver according to UCLA graphic identity standards and trained co-workers on how to access the site and contribute content. Wrote several sections, including those on ArtSTOR Image Archive, Turnitin and Academic Integrity, and Dreamweaver MX 2004. The site may be viewed at www.humnet.ucla.edu/itc/resources

Ecampus Frequently Asked Questions Website (2004-05)

Led project to redesign online help for course websites when the UCLA Center for Digital Humanities upgraded to a new version of WebCT in 2004. Designed web templates in Dreamweaver according to UCLA graphic identity standards and trained co-workers on how to access the site and contribute content. Wrote web forms to allow students and faculty to report login errors, request guest access, and make other inquiries. Contributed sections on many tools and procedures (with step-by-step instructions and screenshots), copyright and fair use policies, and sample “showcase” sites. The site may be viewed at www.humnet.ucla.edu/itc/ecampushelp

Research and Publication Projects

"There's Something Funny Here: The Strange Humor of Eighteenth-Century Gothic Drama." Gothic Studies (forthcoming 2010).

“The Play with a Past: Arthur Wing Pinero’s New Drama.” Victorian Literature and Culture 37 (2009): 391-409.

Essay explores the development of New Drama in the 1890s, when English theatre critics clamored for an intellectual, literary drama suitable for the modern age. I argue that modern dramatists paradoxically focused on the stock character of the fallen woman because she provided an apt representation of the playwright struggling for agency and self-definition in the late Victorian era.

“Brilliant Gloom: The Contradictions of British Gothic Drama, 1768-1823,” Doctoral Dissertation, UCLA Department of English (2008)

This project shifts gothic studies from a text-based inquiry focused largely on novels to a media-based inquiry that incorporates elements of performance, including language, image, embodiment, and sound. I counter misconceptions about gothic drama and the gothic itself by examining a wide spectrum of plays from Horace Walpole’s The Mysterious Mother (1768) to Richard Brinsley Peake’s Presumption; or, The Fate of Frankenstein (1823) and placing well-known poetical dramas by Percy Shelley and Joanna Baillie in the context of the stage successes of James Boaden and Matthew Lewis. Several portions of this project have been presented at local and international conferences.

“Sites of Disturbance: The Gothic in Electronic Literature,” Website Companion to Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary by N. Katherine Hayles (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008), newhorizons.eliterature.org/essay.php

Essay introduces readers to gothic tropes and themes in contemporary digital literature. Computer and web-based works have much in common with classic gothic novels, from structural features of hybridity, fragmentation, and modularity, to a conceptual preoccupation with the boundaries between life and death, madness and sanity, human and machine.

Outreach and Communication Projects

Redesign and Migration of UCLA Graduate Students Association Website (2005-08)

Transformed GSA Website from a set of static informational pages into dynamic community tool. Added user-centered features such as a calendar, photo gallery, news feeds, and reservations system. Created “Web Resource Guide” to introduce officers and staff to the resources at their disposal and trained them on using these tools. Redesigned main site to incorporate a new logo and graphic identity. Created subsites for several GSA-sponsored programs and centers. Migrated all GSA sites to a new webhost, which involved the transfer and testing of 13 separate websites, 7 FTP user accounts, 7 MySQL databases, and 23 email accounts. Migrated main website and several subsites to Drupal content management system so that GSA leaders could easily add announcements, update content, utilize interactive web tools, and offer modular sites to other graduate student groups. 

Restructuring of UCLA Graduate Students Association Communications Program (2008)

Developed “Communications Policy” to streamline the flow of information between GSA leaders and the campus community. Informed students about GSA events, programs, and initiatives through print and electronic media, including quarterly newsletters, monthly emails, press releases, flyers, websites, and social networking sites. Held officers and cabinet members accountable for regular reports on their activities so that they could be included in such media. Revised GSA Codes to institutionalize these changes and make expectations clear for future leaders. Also utilized new logo (chosen the year before) to present a professional and unified GSA graphic identity and raise the visibility of the organization.

Marathon Reading Fundraiser, UCLA Department of English (2000-05)

Served on the planning committee for annual event to raise funds for student scholarships and promote appreciation for literature in the wider UCLA community. Coordinated readers and staffing volunteers, designed websites, t-shirts, flyers, and posters, and solicited donations from alumni and local celebrities.

Course Design / Teaching Experience

 At UCLA (2000-09):