Media in Cars: Project-Based Blended Learning at Hampshire College

Media in Cars: Project-Based Blended Learning at Hampshire College James Miller Asha Kinney During spring term 2016, we are teaching an advanced seminar of nine students (three from Mt. Holyoke College) called Media in Cars. Supported by the Five College Blended Learning Initiative, the course aims to produce an online archive that documents the presence and influence of various media in the American automobile. Some of this information is historical, some is descriptive of the present day and some looks forward, using the car as a prelude to the emerging internet of things. Our central thesis is that media were not an obvious addition to cars, but quickly became a defining feature of automobility. Media transformed the experience of this small-scale built environment to the extent, in the autonomous car, of literally taking command. The class is organized into self-directing project teams whose members collaborate both virtually and face to face. We assemble to critique work in progress, refine project management skills and discuss assigned readings. For up to two weeks at a time, the students work online to pursue their team’s project. We use Trello for communication and organization, and an assortment of digital tools for creating, synthesizing, and showcasing research findings. We expect to use WordPress to assemble the archive, and one of the class teams is experimenting with Rhino and other modeling software titles to construct illustrative 2D and 3D examples of media in cars. We propose to recount the nearly year-long process of application, development and teaching, with an emphasis on practical obstacles and lessons learned