Hello everyone and welcome to Liquid Margin's Community in Composition, Annotation and English Education. Thank you all for being here. Today's guests are Laura Roche, PhD candidate in English, rhetoric at Indiana University. Alex Penn, visiting lecturer at Indiana University. Ramey Collier, assistant professor of learning design and technology at the University of Colorado Denver. I'm also proud to say that Ramey is our 2021 hypothesis scholar in residence. I've got a guest moderator today, Justin Hodgson, associate professor of digital rhetoric in the English department at Indiana University. And with that, thank you for listening to this introduction and housekeeping and now I'm going to turn it over to Justin. I'm going to start by taking a moment to sort of introduce you to how we got to where we are. And then maybe sort of situate some points in relationship to the connections between social annotation and writing studies more formally. But this, this project, which is now a nine member research team, right looking at, I don't know it grows every day I feel like I'm picking up people like I'm collecting cats or something. You know, we, we started in the spring redesigning our online first year composition course, which is, you know, a standard composition course like any other place but we have a multitude of options within that frame but we wanted to expand our offerings for online. And this was of course before the pandemic disrupted everything we had a plan, we were going to make some quick changes and as part of those initial conversations we thought, we would like to improve the level of engagement students have with some of the text that we require them to read that they then use to think through some of the key ideas and concepts from the course. And so we were making progress and Alex and Laura were on on the project team redesigning our online class so they both have extensive experience teaching online and teaching our W 131 course. And then we decided, you know, after the pandemic hit that we would take our little boutique offering and scale it up for the entirety of our freshman composition course which is roughly 60 sections of first year composition per semester, covering about 1,250 students. And so it became very evident right away that we needed to make some some changes to accommodate not only the different kinds of instructors who would be teaching this course. But people who've never taught online but very specifically instructors who've never taught it all before either. So many of them are first time teachers and the first time space and the first time online. And what remained, I think consistent for us across was the potential value we saw in hypothesis for helping recreate some of the community and engagement that occurs in our online space. And so this is literally one of those moments in life where the cart was actually before the horse, because as we built this thing. And they had dawned on us that we're going to have this huge data set now, all the students are participating in online through our canvas course. They're doing all their annotations and hypothesis and and they turn all their assignments in through these two digital repositories for the most part. So we would have access to everything they've written for the class that's greatable and part of their development, as well as all their annotations and that's when we reached out formally to working with Jeremy Dean and hypothesis and he in turn connected us with Jeremy to figure out well what what could a research project look like and what would it look like and how could we actually discern things of value from this process or product. But the reality is we just have way too much information. And so like we should do something with it. Okay, we should figure out how to make something out of this. And so we began this journey of trying to figure out what that looks like. And the more I've got everyone on the board we're all on the same page. I haven't missed these steps yet. And so then we began the process of going through IRB. And I have battle wounds if you'd like to you know they wear them deeply trauma through IRB. It's an ongoing fund service for those you've done IRB before. And, but we we got approved for our study got approved our protocols are in place and starting as of yesterday I think officially. So we are at the first stages of actually making sense of what we have and what hypothesis is doing but we have a lot of hypotheses, no pun intended about what the study might reveal to us and that includes not only thinking about social interaction as a writing activity, but as well as like the process of how those activities and impact student writing, how they lead to things like community development how instructors are teaching it, how that process relates to the engagement, whether or not they bring it up in a synchronous class. And so that's the larger frame as a quick, maybe a quick overview Alex you want to break down a little bit like how is our course work in terms of the structure so the people get a sense of, you know, the synchronous asynchronous kind of dynamic. So the current model we have is a mix of synchronous and asynchronous fully online instruction. So we ended up with our model because we had courses converted a little bit at the last minute in the fall, they were originally taught three days a week so we ended up with a model where that first day a week was replaced with asynchronous instruction and activities, and then the other two days were replaced with synchronous instruction via zoom. And so a place that a lot of the hypothesis stuff is happening, in fact, all of the built in assignments is in that a synchronous Monday class where normally students might in the regular classroom, read an essay over the weekend to come in and discuss it. What they do instead is read the essay over the weekend, make some annotations as they're reading, and then before coming to the next class, respond to their peers. So that is sort of both replacing the discussion that would normally happen synchronously but then also preparing students to have a little bit of synchronous discussion but to start in a more advanced way when they come to that synchronous zoom class. Does that sort of help for I am muted. Yeah, that's perfect I just I think it's important to understand the context within which we're using the tool. I think most folks who who know anything about social annotation will tell you it makes sense that it would connect to a class that involves reading text and writing I mean I don't think that's a stretch. I think about how it operates in the online space for us it's really critical to the experience it provides more so I think, at least as we approach it as designers, it was about the experience more so than just, how does it help annotate and engage the content. So it's a really fun dynamic to think about we were replacing an in class discussion component. Five times a semester with a social annotation activity that will lead into an in class conversation as a way of augmenting that experience and so that's sort of, I just want to make sure that listeners or viewers in the future would understand. It's not like a regular class for us it's this unique hybrid that was supposed to be innovative and fun and it was but then it became this one size fits all box for every instructor and W 131. And so that's sort of how we how we got there. And then of course we brought on Rami, and he complicated everything for us. But you know I mean you want to give some background to sort of what you see going on with our study like, and how it fits a little bit with some of the larger conversations. Yeah, you know I will and I just want to know first of all, how long I know to thanks Justin to you, Laura Alex just the whole team at IU because you know, in regards to the really dynamic that's happening at Indian University right now, and the work that's just in describing in the Department of English with social annotation this is a really large scale kind of fundamental shift and how students are interacting with texts, interacting with each other and interacting with their curriculum. And to do so at the kind of scale that that Justin and Alex and Laura will describe, and to do so really with a lot of intentional pedagogy instructional planning approaches to assessment. This is really unique and what has made me so excited about this work and I think what's really excited hypothesis as an organization is that across the board. So many schools K 12 and higher editor adopting social annotation because it's such an effective kind of replacement for the dreaded threaded discussion forum. There's a lot of excitement around really using social annotation to support the kinds of learning practices that we know social annotation encourages it encourages meaning making encourages textual analysis encourages peer to peer collaboration. And it's a really useful way of setting up future writing activities such as composing essays and thinking analytically. And so again there's just a lot of enthusiasm around social annotation right now, and the, again the real intentional approach that Justin and Alex and Laura the whole team at IU the whole team of the department which has taken to make this a kind of department commitment to really support a whole host of instructors again Justin mentioned. And we're talking about dozens and dozens and dozens of sections across multiple classes. Our work will, you know, ultimately touch not only thousands and thousands of students but potentially hundreds of faculty instructors. And this is a really consequential endeavor that we're embarking upon here. And so yes, there are a lot of questions to ask a lot of interesting research that we can do but I just really want to kind of start by pointing out just pointing out that this is really a unique kind of educational situation that that has kind of emerged in Bloomington and also online and we're just so excited about that. So just again, thanks there for that for that. We had a project in mind and it keeps growing every time we meet just you know. So we started out with W 131 is our focus and that's probably the primary area of our conversation today but for folks who might want to know we, we have expanded our data collection and our inquiry practices to include a series of literature courses introduction to fiction introduction to poetry introduction to drama, I believe. We have a couple other what we call L 200 classes that are related to the critical reading and writing. And then we have another section of classes called the W 170s which are topic specific courses that actually count for W 131 credit. And so we are including them. I think it's also important to recognize that IU, we have what are called two foundations courses two courses that are required by every student, no matter what your major and discipline and W 131 is one of those two foundations courses so it is required by everybody. And I think if, as this works, and it may end up causing us to also think about how social annotation could be pushed backwards towards our ACP credit and other transfer possibilities as students bring credits into the university to count for this experience but that's sort of the bigger bigger frame. You know, Laura, you want to take a minute to talk about like how this works in practice in terms of what is what is our actual hypothesis activities look like, could you break that down for folks. Yeah, so students in 131 at least will read five different texts throughout the semester, and they are responsible for using hypothesis to annotate those texts. So a lot of the instructors will prompt the students with a few questions to consider as they're reading the text some even plant questions in the text for students to come across as they're reading, but for the most part it's pretty student it there the instructors do, for the most part very little when it comes to actually guiding the student discussion it's very much student run and I think Alex and Justin and even rainy can speak to the advantages of that from a pedagogical and just like emotional perspective. But the, it's a pretty low stakes assignment as far as we've designed it I think it's worth maybe like five points. But it does hold the students accountable for doing the work because there's this sense of performativity involved where they have to converse with their, their fellow peers they know that people are going to be reading what they've written along. Beyond just the instructor looking at that and so it promotes more thoughtful I think engagement with the text and conversation with the students as a whole. Perfect. Let me within within our, again the two course that we have kind of like two trees if you want to think about that way we have the 131 side where instructors do their own thing and then there's all these other courses that have their own variation as well. In W 131, our actions with hypothesis require students to do three additive annotations and two responsive annotations. In each one of those additive components those initial sort of engagements with the text are framed around either prompt that we've provided as a generic prompt or the instructors customize. The second one's around a discussion question that the instructors are supposed to add themselves based on their theme and the readings they've chosen. And then the third one I think is a make it ask a question of the text. And so it's real formulaic and it's meant to be a starting point from which instructors work, not meant to control what they do it gives them some grounding to begin with and we did this all last semester. My hope and expectation is this semester when we're gathering data for the first time that those who had the experience last semester now feel more comfortable taking some liberties with reshaping those questions or reshaping those prompts to fit maybe a little more systematic with what they do pedagogically but also with their content and delivery. So that's sort of like the nuts and bolts of it all right from a compositional standpoint are our conversation begins really with how can we improve student writing right and at the core we want to help students not only to develop as writers but to develop, you know, critical thinking analytical skills and practices and our entire W 131 course as a core element of IU is built around analysis for the most part, learn students learning to critically read a text and to apply those ideas elsewhere. So one thing that's remain true in my years here at IU is that the better students understand those critical texts they choose that are chosen for them, the better they apply the ideas there's no, I mean there's no substitute for clarity of thought when it comes to being a solid and excellent writer, and you know that that approach to helping them understand the text is sort of where everything began for us because so much of their success in the class is dependent at least in part on how well they're able to read and understand and then leverage the ideas from those perspectives so we wanted to give them an extended space to think about engagement that doesn't just require the instructor to drive that process. And I think so far, given that we had a bit of a was it was it a workshop professional development activity yesterday, and we had about eight or nine instructors show up some of which have used it some which hadn't and given the conversations I think so far the preliminary presentations are it's working quite well right, at least from those who showed up but it's it's it's interesting to think about, you know the experience students are having and how that activity in social annotation is working for them in class or in this case from the instructor's perspective, what are they noticing what are they not and so I thought maybe we could go to go back to Alex a little bit here to talk about her experiences because of us. Alex is the only one that's actually taught this course with this tool. I taught the online course and help design it but we're not actually teaching it last semester so Alex is the only one of us here with actual experience on the ground for for this activity. Is that Rami doesn't teach for us right so no matter how much I keep asking him to he doesn't just sign up.  It's helpful to give a little background. I've been teaching online for a few years now in a slightly different version of this course that did not use hypothesis, and so, you know, I could see that students maybe didn't have as much engagement with the text as they would in a traditional classroom where maybe we'd hand them paper texts or require them to print paper texts or give them paper texts or something like that. You could also see that even though we have these synchronous classes where we met face to face and where I was able to form these personal connections with students. There was also this problem where students weren't really connecting as much with each other as they would in a traditional classroom and I was really struggling with ways to facilitate that. So to enter hypothesis this past semester hypothesis really allowed me to do two different things more more I'm sure but but two of the things it allowed me to do that I really appreciated war. On the one hand, got my students much more engaged with the texts and at a nitty gritty close to reading level so that when they went back to write their essays they could really incorporate details from the texts and and they just have much better engagement with the texts in class discussions and in their writing. And then on the flip side hypothesis created this space for my students to be with each other and hear each other's ideas and respond to each other's ideas where I was largely absent so I didn't do a lot of responding to or annotations I would grade them there's a very easy way to grade them in canvas but then that like did not show up of course so what they were seeing on the text was each other's ideas each other's comments each other's questions are very favorite my very favorite prompt that we had for them was ask a question of the text and very quickly I think students realize that really they should be asking questions to each other about the text and so I have one beautiful little example here if I can find it. We were reading Foucault, an excerpt from from birth of the present on panopticism, and one of my students asked this question that had four other students then respond to it she said, What do you think are some of the psychological effects of thinking that you are always being watched, but never actually knowing if you are. And so a whole bunch of students responded to this in really interesting ways that helped everyone understand the text better. And then in turn use that text to analyze our films, so I would say from for me my experience with hypothesis has been very positive in both practical ways, increasing that contact with the text that we always want, but also increasing the students contact with each other which has been really nice to see. Excellent thanks Alex. Yeah, it's, I mean we've been over this sort of practice and process and in terms of what are the what are the best outcomes what are the best forms of engagement and hopefully as we learn more from, you know, not only our instructors but the way we are analyzing and looking at information from them and from the student perspective we can get a better sense of actually what is working well for them, beyond just how well the tool itself is working and so I think the pedagogical component is absolutely important. We had a question, I think Jen had asked in the chat about seeing an example and in the system so I want to share my screen real quick and just show what it looks like for us in the W 131. Let me see if I can make this happen today. It's a tech event right so this should probably fail miserably the way right that's how it's supposed to work. We'll just share that can I assume we can all see that we got a non okay. Anyways, in our typical. This is actually a course from last semester, so I can show you some things but I can't show actual annotations because it would be a FERPA issue. Identifying students in that way but the basic structure is we have a weekly module set. This is what they do before the semester begins and gives them information and and things of that nature and we have resources built into our canvas modules for instructors on how to actually connect or stitch a text to a hypothesis you know how to use hypothesis hypothesis in the classroom we have some of that training material but for us it really begins sort of week two. We have this thing called Monday peer engagement which Alex mentioned earlier and Laura kind of went over a little bit. And we initially called it collaborative annotation because well we didn't know there was a thing called social annotation we this is what we thought it was a collaborative activity is the way we're thinking about it. So you would the students would see this all the green is what they would see. They would click that activity there and it would open up this act this assignment. And so it's week two gives them the purpose of the assignment, and then it breaks down their specific task, you know three annotations and two responses so each text they engage they have to have at least five sort of creation activities with it, or five engagements. And then the additives have the prompt the question and the asking a question frame that I mentioned earlier. And then the responses are basically respond to two of your peers and so students would come through here they have our little design canvas space, and we had all these fun little images and whatnot to make it a little more visually engaging. And then at the bottom, they would click this button. It's not working right now because it's currently blocked it so I don't accidentally open up hypothesis. But this is a button that would click and link out and that would open up hypothesis for the essay in a new window and the students can annotate it, how they see fit from that point, like any other hypothesis activity. And so you can see here like on this one we have the question this is I think on Cohen's essay on monsters, right. And so the question is why did I assign this essay for a class about monsters is the theme of the class and so that's the frame frame so far in this process Let me see if I can see that. Okay. Time for you. All right, so I'm gonna stop sharing to that. But it's, yeah, I mean it's it's relatively seamless process in canvas for those of you who are canvas users there's two ways of a stitching or creating a hypothesis activity there's one as an assignment, and there's one as like just a module element is an external tool. However, he want to use the speed grader function, which I highly recommend if you get into that process, then you need to actually set it as an assignment so that you can work individually through students annotation So each one of our students are required to do five, and in speed grader I can quickly pull up Sarah Smiths five right and I can just see them and. And for most of us I think our approach was we really thought of this more as a completion activity not a can I grade your intellectual engagement. And the process being it's an opportunity to to not only intervene and highlight things that are successful really great questions and bring them to discussion but also really. I think the phrase is it was course correct right. If a student is sort of drifting really far off from the point or as Alex often says, I asked him to identify the thesis and they almost always say the counter thesis is the thesis. You can insert your own comments at that point, privately in the speed grader with the tool but if you spending time with it at all you're probably familiar with this process as well but so that's our, that's at least one of our examples. I don't know exactly how it looks like in in all the literature classes because they, they have more control over their own design, whereas this is a campus shell a canvas shell blueprint course that we push out to all the instructors in 131. And it has all the design to features in it, but it's a that's the basic basic process so far. If I find if you don't mind jumping and picking up on a point that Alex mentioned a few moments ago, she was talking a little bit about some of the decisions that she's making as an instructor in her class with her students in response to the kinds of annotations and thank you for reading through that thread that was really awesome to kind of hear students thinking through that. I want to mention that given the course context that both again Laura Alex and Justin have also spoken to at this point. One of the interesting things from from my perspective as a researcher, but again also somebody who has taught with hypothesis in many of my classes for many years now. There's actually not a whole lot that's well known and well documented about how to teach with social annotation. Period. There's just not a lot out there, you know, first liquid margins. This webinar series is now filling a really urgent need. Again as social annotation becomes a more popular teaching and learning activity, particularly in higher education. There is a need to begin to kind of capture these anecdotal stories, you know, perspectives from professors kind of instructional moves. It's really important to make these stories more accessible, and to do this kind of like public, you know, sharing of practice as a way to kind of reflect upon effective instructional that said again is actually very little research about how educators actually plan their instruction, teach with assess and then reflect upon the use of social annotation. That literature really doesn't exist again we know on the student side of things that social annotation does a whole lot and we can get into that and that's again related, but distinct. And so what I think is so generous of everyone at at Indiana University, and what is just such an important commitment on behalf of the department and all the instructors has been a willingness to say, This is an opportunity to really also study faculty practice to begin to learn a little bit about some of the examples and dynamics that have come up so for example like again like Alex was sharing how much do instructors kind of step back and let their students kind of own the margins and kind of try and make a meeting on their own. What does that really look like and what does it feel like and how do you kind of plan to create that kind of flexibility. And when do instructors step in to try and tell people that they can't quite identify the right thesis and the right argument and so these are all things that we hope to learn as we not only study what students are you are learning, but also what instructors are doing. Had the mute sorry. The, you know, a rainy you raise a interesting comment I think the most fascinating thing about our workshop development thing yesterday with this the faculty who were teaching with this and I you came specifically from the questions and challenges instructors were having I think, you know it was a nice professional development moment to help guide folks in the use of the tool, and to think about its practices but I know Brian one of our instructors had mentioned, and then a couple others echo this sentiment which is they found that the students would do these really great annotations in the hypothesis activity, and then not want to repeat their information in class, but they felt like they didn't like why would I regurgitate this we already had this conversation in the threads. And so, you know this need to think about what does it facilitate conversation, or is it the beginning part for a larger or more extended conversation or moving in a new way. And so, you know Brian had some really interesting ideas about how he is adapting to that and, and looking for gaps and moving the conversation forward but I would I never like as we started this I never anticipated this, possibly closing discussion right in the classroom discussion, but it does raise those things those questions like you know how do we teach with it what do we do with it how does the, what practices are available that we know that might be best practices. And then how does it work across disciplines so me writing is one sort of frame, but you know I see this having obvious implications in history and sociology and, and any of the courses that require a sort of critical reading as a fundamental component of their course I just, I don't know the I think this question about the teacher thing, the teaching side of it is at the root of what we are after I know Laura that was one of your interests when we first started right. Yeah, in general I'm really interesting really interest I'm really interesting. I'm really interested in writing pedagogy. And so I am always sort of thinking about how do we get students to do this better how and how do we do it better how do we write with more clarity how do we convince students to write with more clarity without losing depth of thought, something that I have heard is an be an issue with students using hypothesis is not that they don't want to repeat what they've said, but that their annotation is significantly more thoughtful than how they write about the text in their essay so talking about, or sort of building on what Justin said about this being the start of the critical thinking process, rather than sort of the climax of it I am really interested and I decided to be a part of this project, because I want to figure out how we can help students understand texts as things we have conversations with one on one like me with the text, and I think hypothesis helps facilitate that because the conversation is larger than just the student and the text at the beginning, so that they can eventually evolve into writing an essay about the text that is foundational that does sort of go back and forth between I thought about this, and then from, I thought about it from this perspective and then I thought about it from that perspective, and sort of continuing the critical thinking process, rather than stifling it. If that makes sense. If that makes perfect sense well at least to me but I'm also a scholar in writing city so this is in me that's a, I mean one of my areas, we're we got about 12 minutes left I think right for any is that correct, we're going to 1245. Yeah, and I'm wondering if we should maybe open it up to yeah that's what I was thinking, if we could go to the q amp a that would be great if folks have questions that we can respond to or maybe help with, or at least tell you how we broke it. I would like to just ask a question because it's really germane to what you were just talking about about the conversation taking place in the annotation space, but then students like already said that, do you think in any way there's a generational influencer, so that this generation is more maybe comfortable speaking in the digital space. It just occurred to me when you were talking about. Yeah, I mean I know that, you know, in writing studies, for example, Lester Fagley did some work in the 80s and 90s about the role of chatting the use of chats and classroom spaces, and how that enabled voices in ways that it didn't, but it wasn't really necessarily generational was more about access to content engagement and actually having a voice in class so the more reserved introverts felt more comfortable as it was his claims right. And I think I initially I would say there might be something to that idea about students and their use of digital technologies, you know the quote unquote myth of the digital native as I like to call it. But at this point I think the pandemic wrecked all of our baseline. So, so if the idea was students were inherently more digital, they are excessively more digital at this point right and. I don't know to what extent that might play a role but that might be something for us to, I mean to look at. If we could find other studies that show maybe generational engagements. That might be a nice way of thinking about this. I'll just pick up quickly here and kind of invert for any question because, you know, for any I see your question is echoing, you know, really deep questions about practice, which is the extent to which educators are comfortable facilitating different kinds of in different kinds of settings and I think that if educators feel comfortable doing so students will kind of rise to that occasion. You know actually another member of our research team who's who's with us today Chris Andrews who's also at IU and is a learning scientist and getting his PhD looking at educator practice teacher learning. So we had this conversation yesterday following this PD session, which is that this dynamic between opening up a social annotation conversation that is digital is asynchronous that is in the margins, where students are actually having very rich, deep, meaningful conversation. And then they come to class. And the question is, does their instructor expect them to regurgitate what they've already said online, or has that instructor themselves. gone through a kind of reflective professional loading process, so that they understand it's time for a new kind of discussion out when we come together, whether it's face to face over zoom or it's face to face in a classroom when that's safe to do again. Does an instructor understand that there's one conversation that was the kind of rough draft thinking the kind of like maybe meaning making that Laura was just talking about I'm speaking back to the text, but I'm also speaking with my peers in to that text. And then what happens in that classroom conversation that is both different from, but connected to and building upon what happened online. And so yeah I don't know for any if it's generational, but I think that our team is also, you know, again thanks to and others are very interested in making sure that instructors have the kinds of dispositions and the kinds of skills to kind of sequence these kinds of discursive based activities to make them very meaningful for students that include social annotation but it uses that as a way to kind of augment other kinds of collaborative learning activities. That's great I just typed in the chat like as you as you're describing it makes me think of all the flipped classroom practices right and how instructors have to adjust writing has done that for a while right but, but this is like hypothesis come becomes like a flipped classroom kind of component man I think that's that's a great. I don't know I'm intrigued. I put notes down I'm going to revisit this later this is how it works right. I know we had a question, Nate you would you had mentioned I think Nicholas had a question that you wanted to bring up. I mean, and Alex was sort of riffing on it too. And I think it was, you know, around this, it sort of grows out of the discussion you just had in a way about how can discussion be different. Right, and it's part of it is this idea of, you know, our students, and because of pedagogy, being kind of trapped in a world where they're treating each learning experience as kind of a singular modular activity and how do, how can we draw connections across modules in a course or even across courses or across, you know, academic careers and you know can social annotation play a role in that. Yeah, that's a good one. So there's a in writing studies we have transference as a as a one of the core concepts that have emerged in the last you know, I would say decade and a half. Transference of skills transference of rhetorical capacities from the context of a writing class to family other classes on campus but then beyond the academic frame. I know we, you know, in W 131 we create it's a thematic thing, and the idea is to try and intentionally we've theme theme based elements and engagements and skills from unit one to unit two to unit three, and their activities that are designed for that. They always work. And, and if you get into when when education gets defaulted to canvas, right. If it's completely controlled by canvas and zoom, then it inherently orient students around modules and completion activities, rather than sustained engagement and so it actually takes significantly more effort to create that integrated kind of female element or through line, and how it works and it doesn't a regular face to face classroom. At least that's been my experience teaching online. And I haven't done it with hypothesis but overall that's been been the place but Alex you had some things you mentioned in response right what what did you have to say. And I must say this is largely hypothetical at this point because in the fall. I don't think I did this but it's something I want to do going forward is ask my students as one of their three annotations for every text I want to ask them to make a connection, either from another text we've read or a class discussion we've had, or to the real world, or to another one of their classes which I think there's some research around this being like a place where a lot of learning happens for students where they start making connections between their classes. So, you know, that's not like a immediate solution to this much bigger problem but I'm hoping that'll help students get in in the mode of thinking about how these learning experiences can go from being these discrete modular things to being these more interconnected cumulative things. Go ahead, right me. Are you sure. Okay, it does fall to in my opinion, the instructor to facilitate the those connections and to encourage the transfer of thinking and knowledge because students are so used to compartmentalizing not only their courses but the course work within their courses like in a test based culture. Students are learning learning learning, taking the test for getting to make room for more learning learning learning for another test. So, something that brought me into writing studies was the practice of mindfulness and encouraging students to be actively aware of the thoughts that are coming in that might seem unrelated but are actually tangential to and connected with the core. I don't know text that's being studied so encouraging students to sort of follow the distractions and think about where they're taking them and not I guess not discouraging somebody who's reading Foucault in their 131 class from thinking about how that applies to their psych 101 course that they're also taking so really keeping it open ended and saying yeah that's a really interesting question. Even if you don't answer the question like Alex was saying letting students respond to students is a really valuable way to continue the conversation. That's great. I'll keep this really brief which is just to say that you know to Nicholas's point here into again the comments have not been made. I think one of the unfortunate side effects among many of the educational aspects of the you know shifts to everyone online pandemic pedagogy. Everyone's now a digital educator is that there will be I think for many students are feeling that online learning is increasingly highly structured. Formal by default, very modular and sequential in a way that really can, some may perceive the limit the kinds of divergent interest driven and messy learning that occurs, you know, wherever maybe. I'm not too late here but I think that there are actually few, but some very useful learning technologies that show a very different possible future for digital online learning and I think that social annotation is certainly one of those where social annotation to get to this point right now certainly what Alex is just mentioning about making connections. Social annotation is inherently about these associative trails, these way in which cognition is distributed and stretched across people that you're in conversation with resources, ideas, and all of that occurs over time. You can't by definition be bounded necessarily to a class a semester, you know, modular one readings to module two readings, etc. And so, you know, once higher ed writ large kind of moves into whatever post pandemic phase of teaching and learning. We may eventually find ourselves in the next few years. I think that there will need to be a kind of pretty radical reset on what it means to teach and learn online. Once everybody's kind of again out of this emergency mode. And I think that few technologies and few practices will actually survive as kind of very meaningful things that we should continue to do. But I believe that social annotation will be one of those things. That's great. That's great. I mean, it's 1244 I know there's at least two more questions I think we want to touch on real quickly. Before we run out of time, and I'm happy to stick around for an extra few minutes just to respond to some things. The first one is Muffy had a question and I just lost it it was about how much time to faculty spend training students because you should notice that. I just hit the button and it all disappeared. Essentially that students are not digital natives I don't care what anyone tells you they didn't come with some grand ability to work with technologies. They might have an affinity for making things work, but many of them don't have any experience with your LMS and so for them it's a whole new learning curve. This online course design our very first day was required to be in person, and we would, we would walk them through all the technological considerations they would need for that class was a full class day of here's how to make this online class work. However, in the pandemic moment that is no longer the case. And so I can say that our faculty don't, we don't they don't intentionally provide a lot of training for students to use the system. So we have built in training modules into our canvas shell that students can view or walk it walks them through how to access certain materials, or how to participate there's even I think it once as a quiz like are you prepared for online learning like that kind of basic level of not only technological support inquiry but also conceptual inquiry. And so I think that we would all benefit more if students had a little more hands on training for how to use standard university technologies. But, and maybe actually since we touch every student maybe the the freshman courses where that should occur. And now it's it's sort of instructor dependent and then they mostly rely on the the few training module elements we have for students in our and the 131 design at least out of the other courses we work with, it's different but so that's that's the framework there. And the, oh there it is I lost it. The chat moves so fast. Alright, and then the way one more question about was that yeah the central question on and Curtis says, new kinds of discussions, which makes him ask, what are some of the things that can and should happen in the synchronous session that follows and builds on the asynchronous hypothesis session. And so that's this question so I'll leave it to the others here who maybe know more about this but what should what should happen in the synchronous classroom Alex you've done this what what is your go to strategy. Well I typed this a little in the chat. And I want to be sure we get to Rami kids or Rami sorry Rami because I know he has sort of some different and more interesting solutions but at one very simple activity I like to do is either by zoom poll or chat students vote on the answer to a question either a question that students have actually posed in in their annotations or one that comes out of their annotation so like one, an example of one that could come out of the annotations is like some people identified the thesis as this and some people identified the thesis as this and some people identified it as this which one of these do you think is the thesis. So if you do that a zoom poll like it pops up and then you can say like okay people who voted for this one, you know what made you think this so like that's that's the or it could be much simpler like so and so asked this what do you guys think vote yes or no in the chat. And then the nice thing is, if you do that kind of voting in the chat, you know who to call on you can be like oh so and so you said no. Why did you say no, because the sort of impromptu participation impromptu un-muting is harder to do in the zoom space and there's just some very little practical things but I think Rami has some much more interesting ideas you can probably share. Alex and I you're the expert here I'll just, you know just really briefly, you know, say that I put a few ideas into the chat but I really I'll just raise as a question, which is that I know a lot of people on this column perhaps a lot of people you know who are joined us in the webinar or who will watch and listen to this, I think are just really interested in the fact that these social annotation activities they don't kind of live alone. And they are going to be paired with other kinds of learning either assignments or activities that are very likely also collaborative or social in some way. And again, I think that there is not yet a kind of knowledge base for what that can look like. There again is very little if any research about what actually is effective in pairing these kinds of social annotation activities with other kinds of classes. I know what I've been in my classes, I love hearing Alex and Laura, Justin, Chris is you know here as well I kind of riffing out like what may work for them and their students. But I think this is a really important, you know, conversation to continue thinking about is how do we not only facilitate these really rich conversations with social annotation, how do they connect to the other things that we know we really care about as educators, and what we ultimately want our students doing. I think that including hypothesis hypothesis or social annotations in the writing classroom specifically changes how students fundamentally think about writing. When you picture somebody reading or writing they are doing so in isolation like it's the, it's a hermit in the corner, frantically scribbling, you know, or the, or reading, I suppose, it's a, it's a, it's thought of as this isolated activity when in really everything, all the research and writing studies shows that it is a social activity. When you're writing you are inherently responding to something whether it's your own thoughts which are a product of your environment, or somebody's comment and hypothesis. So it sort of forces students to think about the relationships, not only between them in the text but between them and their classmates, between their classmates in the text that it humanizes writing and reading practices in a way that I think can often and easily be overlooked. I'm going to jump in this is such a great discussion but I'm going to jump in we are over time we can keep going if the panel wants to keep going but I just want to let everyone know that if you have to jump off. You know, feel free to do so, but I just want to be a little cognizant of the time. Yeah, no my next meeting doesn't start till one so I got a few minutes, very good. This is great I mean I think you know I part at the core of what we want. We hope our research will do is to illuminate. Maybe some initial responses to these kinds of questions I don't. I don't think we have any great answers in terms of like definitive claims yet but I think we all have really wonderful interesting ideas about how we might do it or how we might extend it. And in our own specific context, and how that works I mean I'm, I teach mostly with digital media digital writing digital rhetoric, making things for media and I'm going to include hypothesis one of my courses this semester, and I'm going to have them focus on adding images into the text as a core component I don't know what that looks like and so I'm intrigued to see how badly I messed this up, right. I learned so much when we fail fail fundamentally right it's like I always talk about fast failure fun failure informative failure, and I really embrace those things as key components of how I teach and so I think taking chances and trying things and realizing that didn't work is just how we get better. Yes, they should be informed and position, but ultimately like oh I think this could work and then you're like no no that did not work at all. And that's how our online class got built right so if it's I think it's in its third iteration now of design and proofing so. But these questions have been fantastic I really appreciate everybody showing up today and asking us questions and you know poking and prodding the inquiry. So that's great. Well, I think we should probably wrap this up we're almost at the top of the hour, but I just want to say thank you to our guests you've been wonderful. Alex, Laura, Justin, Ramey, and thank you to everyone who attended. There will be a recording of this I put that in the chat but I'll just repeat that there will be a recording of this on the hypothesis website probably this coming Monday the 18th and okay day. Before or before that, and we'll also be on the liquid margins YouTube channel. I also dropped in a chat on a link earlier to another webinar that we have for people who just wanted to see. Have a more specific walkthrough of hypothesis as a tool and a demo. We do have another webinar series called hypothesis 101. We'll wrap up on January 20 next Wednesday. So look for that. And I will just say goodbye and thank you for coming to liquid margins this has been a really great show.


Hello, I'm Lauren Geis here with Lauren Geis' weather report sponsored by Mr. McGee's weather class. I'm here to give you a look into the weekend ahead as well as a forecast for the next seven days. To start things off, let's take a look at the radar. So you'll notice to the east, there's a large low pressure system dragging down all the hot humid air from the north into its counterclockwise spiral. But we're going to mostly be focusing on the low pressure system to the west. So this low pressure system is going to grow over between Friday and Saturday moving slowly to the east, bringing with it some humidity as well as chance of showers. However, the high pressure system that begins developing in between these low pressure systems will kind of counteract counteract the behavior of the low pressure system. So we'll see a little more mild, temperate temperatures as we move into the rest of the week. Looking at the weekend forecast, we'll notice on Friday it's going to be partly cloudy with a high of 65, low of 47. It's going to be a bit more humid today. On Saturday we'll have a high of 72 with a low of 53 with some bright sunny skies. This is going to be the day of the weekend, the best day to get outside. Still high in the humidity, but after Sunday with its high 58 and low 42, the lower temperatures will get some scattered showers, which will help dissipate the humidity. And looking at the week ahead, Monday will be very similar to Sunday, cloudy, chance of light rain throughout the evening afternoon and evening, high 52, low 43. We'll be trending with these same numbers throughout the rest of the week. Of course, between Tuesday and Wednesday we'll have partly cloudy skies with highs close to the 60s and lows in the mid 40s. Thursday is going to be the best day of the week, bright and sunny, high 56, low 43, and Friday is going to get a little more humid with some partly cloudy skies and a chance of rain in the evening. That is all. Thank you for tuning in. Have a great week.


Next is a confirmation of council appointments city attorney. This is was introduced at the last regular meeting Robert Ranked to be considered for appointment to the housing authority to fill the unexpired term of Barbara Knauf whose term expires for 23-2018 Oliver and Hammond. Thank you. Mr. Mayor move to confirm Thank you for that motion and support That's before us. Is there any discussion? Seeing none. Will the clerk please call the roll in passage. It didn't come up for some reason, but I 13 eyes. City attorney The members Appointment to the business improvement district Pamela Butler channel business owner Eileen Simmons property owner William Holbrook property owner Tyler Ott business owner and Chad Pellecek City government sign by the mayor Alderman Hammond, thank you, miss mayor move to confirm second. Thank you for that motion and support with the clerk Okay All those in favor, please signify by calling I Opposed motion passes Next is a special program Amy Wilson the director of tourism and planning for the Chamber of Commerce and Tourism is here to tell us about the 2015 Sheboygan tourism marketing plan Welcome Amy. Hello. Good evening. I Gave you all a packet of slides so you can follow along a little bit easier Tonight I'm just gonna give you a broad overview of the marketing strategy for 2015 if you'd like to discuss anything more detailed We do have a much more detailed plan that we follow in the office with our day-to-day strategies and our goals But we'll start with the first slide which is I'm gonna read these some across the top first and then the bottom on each page So these are just trends that we have right now. These are the trends. We look at when we're doing the marketing plan Generally, they come out in May every year for the prior year So we're kind of usually a little bit behind because we get these trends from the state from the third-party Marketing company that they hire in research company to look at the economic status of in the state in each county So as we look at visits to Wisconsin destinations between 2012 and 13 They were up 3.5 percent Hotel room demand grew by 2.7 percent average daily rate increased 3 percent and overall hotel room across the state was up 5.7 percent. So this tells us everything's on the rise right now In 2000 and actually this is true pretty much every year leisure travel comprises about 88 percent of visitor spending in Wisconsin So leisure travel is the highest market the largest market that we can shoot forward and target overnight visitors Compries about sixty seven percent of our visitors spending at seven point three billion across the state Day visitors about three point six billion The visitors spend about two point seven billion a year on lodging That's an increase of over four percent from last year and 2.7 was spent on food and beverage and that's a six percent increase from the prior year What's interesting is this is the first time that food and beverage has actually matched lodging It's usually a lot lower. So this tells us that everyone's going for the food and beverage and culinary experience Retail captured about two point three billion and that's also on the rise to a two point three percent and visitor spending for entertainment and recreation increased six point three percent tolling about one point four million or billion now the difference here is that The the last line recreation That's what we really look at because in our area our largest tourism asset is the outdoor experience and the lake So that's what we're pushing So if we go to the next page, you can see the nine-year room tax trend for the city of Sheboygan You can see kind of down by 2009 and 2010 where the recession hit that doesn't look any different than anywhere else across the state everything kind of taint But between 2011 when we kicked off the first marketing plan for tourism and between then and 2013 city room tax is increased by over 38 percent for this year our quarter one is up 7.47 percent quarter two is up 9.53 percent over last year and we just received quarter three room tax today and that's up 8.75 percent over last year if we look at the next slide where the chart is You'll see everything marked in pink. Those are projected numbers We don't have quarter four in obviously yet for this year and 2015 is projected if you look at the boxes in yellow those are the largest quarters on record So this year it looks like we're having a record breaking year right now, which is very good on the next slide We'll talk about the 2015 projections a little bit though We always project a little low to avoid risk One of the reasons for that is if anything were to happen beyond our control We don't want to commit money out to media contracts or buys that we don't have coming in so we we project a little conservative So city room tech projections for 2014 are a little bit more robust than they have been in the past And that's because now we're showing a two-year trend where we're hitting over 380,000 and collected room tax and we're projecting Actually for 2015 actually this is our third year. We'll hit over 380. So for 2015 we're projecting 370,000 so we are a little conservative. We're really hoped to go over that 380 mark But just in case this is a little bit different than 2014 this year when we didn't have that trend We projected about 353 to come in and we're gonna hit that 380 again third year in a row So and that room tax by the way is the 70% that comes into the chamber for tours and promotion and development and it does not include blue harbor and it also doesn't include the 30% that goes to the city's general fund Some of the risk factors that we're looking at obviously is whether we're looking at a fairly a little bit warmer winter than last year coming at Us, but with more precipitation. So hopefully that'll still help us with some travel Inflationary pressures are stagnant and in our area. We're usually in a pocket of the country where inflation kind of tends to hold pretty well Consumer optimism is up right now on the rise the feds telling us our large purchase loans and consumers are out seeking credit again And for larger purchases such as cars homes boats campers This is actually good for us. Some people think oh, they're spending money on that. What about travel? Well, we're a low-cost drive-in destination. So this is actually good for us if consumers are spending again I'm mid-term elections. We know the outcome of those but we don't really know about any policy changes that we're facing But everyone's facing those as well. So that's just something we're gonna keep our eye on So on to the next page our Competitive advantage, which we've been working on now for four years with the first marketing plan Has always been that we've been billing Sheboygan as an affordable drive-to destination With an abundance of low-cost or free family activities and recreational opportunities So well, we'll move to the next slide. So leisure travelers These are our marketing considerations are basically that we build our main marketing strategies and goals off of Leisure travelers within driving distance and with the most propensity for overnight stays. That's out of a 50 50 mile range Is considered someone who would probably stay overnight? So you see most of our marketing efforts You won't see around locally because that money is invested in Chicago and it's beyond Milwaukee And in the radius in the markets that we go after Like I said the one of the major things that we push in all of our marketing strategies or recreational Opportunities and family activities and we're also looking at different niche mediums and digital interaction, obviously right now we have oh The generations from millennial to X and Y who are comprising about 45% of the buying power right now So we're really focusing on the channels that they're most interested in So if we go to the next page this gets just as a chart a different way to look at it And it tells you shows you the leisure at 88% of tourists traveling through Wisconsin and sixty at seven percent of those as overnight stays The next slide shows you Recreation and entertainment had the highest percentage increase between 2012 and 13 and that was for the third year in a row So this is something that's really growing We go to the next page this just gives you a couple of the metrics of what we've been looking at now This is current. It's from January 1st through the end of October this year when we wrote the marketing plan And what you're looking at on the first chart is the weekly weekly web traffic for unique visitors brand new visitors Throughout the spring to the visit Sheboygan website decreased lightly in the summer and increased again in the fall with an overall increase of 2.52% And this is consistent with how we did our patterns now remember our room taxes It's having a record-breaking year right now one of the reasons for this pattern is that In peak season, we're generally near sell out pretty much in the county And that's just from road America from PGA from all of the promotions the hotels are doing that's our peak season So we pulled back on advertising at that time. Of course, we just had our biggest summer quarter And we put most of our advertising dollars into the shoulder seasons and you can see those pumped up So that didn't hurt us at all. That's what we wanted to see is we want buyers here in the summer But we want to see those increases coming in on the shoulder seasons So our media buys increased in Madison in Chicago and that resulted in increased web traffic This is next slide. Sorry Sue from those markets and with an overall increase in room tax dollars the key thing to look at there is Madison is we're just breaking into that market in the last couple years That's an outdoor really rec ready market And they have inland water and they like to really look at open water options to try out the same recreation And so that that market has been coming in pretty nicely for us If we look at that the next slide this just to give you an idea We do this for each city or everywhere that we buy advertising in but this is Chicago. It's a three-year trend the very white line is from 2012 and The middle color that peaches color is from 2013 the brown lines from 14 if you look you can see the trends where Pulling money off the peak season and putting it into the shoulder season actually helped us It grew the fall season and towards the end of the summer And we didn't lose anything in peak season and this is also explained by the room tax dollar patterns coming in So that's the basic overview If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them Alderman Warren. Thanks, mayor Any particular plans with the golf tournament coming up to try to capture more of those people to come into Sheboygan Then I know that's been a disappointment in the past that we've got all these people coming into Sheboygan County Are there any plans to get more of them actually to come into Sheboygan? there is There are some Things that they are working on with Kohler with a group at Kohler I don't know exactly how that's gonna pan out because in the past they've not allowed us to really put Visitor guides or different flyers on the golf course simply because they can't allow paper out there, which is understandable But one of the challenges isn't necessarily what can or can go on the golf course one of the challenges is When is it's the travel pattern when you go to a golf tournament and it happens pretty much in every city You expect that if you have a hundred thousand people here you might see cars through your downtown But that type of travel what happens is those people are very serious And they're spending a lot of dollars to go to that tournament So they will be up at four in the morning five in the morning. They'll be on the course They'll look at all the pre things they'll stay on that course all day They will go out to dinner at night But then you have to remember they're gonna be in bed by probably eight nine o'clock So it's not easy to pull them off the course when that's where they've invested their money and time But we are looking at things if nothing else putting some packages together and ways to get those distributed To actually help them want to come back maybe at a different time And that's more the strategy that the group is using this time Anyone else Amy, thank you so much really appreciate the report tonight Next we'll go on to public forum None this evening. Thank you Under mayors announcements I'd just like to remind everybody that today December 1st winter parking rules go into effect from 2 a.m. The 6 a.m. Alternate side of the street parking will be in place and the simple rule is to park for tomorrow So if it's an even day park on the even side if it's an odd day park on the outside I also like to remind people that shoreline Metro is hosting the jingle bus tour of lights If you want to catch the bus at the transfer right outside of City Hall here they will be operating on December 2nd and 4th and 9th and 11th and they have a bus that leaves at 6 o'clock and one at 7 o'clock and You need to bring along one perishable food item so that you can contribute that when you go through the Rotary making spirits bright display and That should be a fun tour for those people Okay, next we'll move on to hearings 2.1 is the hearing to amend the zoning map to change the use district Classification of the property located at 1238 Gilea Avenue from class nr. 6 neighborhood residential 6 to you are 12 urban residential 12 Classification is there anyone wishing to be heard if you'd like to step up to the front Please give us your name and address and you can make your statement Alice Richter 2208 cross-court Sheboygan home owner I Just don't know what reclassification means. I would like someone to explain that to me What what it is now and and what that will involve? Okay, I'd like to call Chad Pelle check up to explain that For those of you that don't know this is the former Washington school property on Gilea Avenue that Gorman Apartment development is proposing to convert to a multifamily residential Apartment building what the neighborhood that current zoning allows for one and two family and The new zoning allows for two or more families So under the current zoning they wouldn't be able to convert that property to a Multi-pult tenant facility as they're proposing because it's only zone to allow for one or two family Residential dwellings under urban residential 12. I think it is or six That would allow for them to do the proposed 40 some units 42 units that are in that property There is a condition in the zoning that has been added just for the council's sake As as we know of this property has to go through a financing piece with Weta And there's a contingency in there that should that not happen and should this project not move forward This property would revert back to the original zoning versus being an urban residential zoning So should they get the financing it'll ultimately be our urban residential Multifamily and if they don't get the funding and move forward with the project it would stay as it currently is as a neighborhood residential Thank you very much Chad. Did you have any other comments ma'am? And that's the same as what it's proposed to be It's by parcel, okay, so you're just going to be We're only rezoning the portion of the property that the school sits on so the Northern piece where the ball diamonds are is not being rezoned. I don't believe I Don't have the document in front of me, but I think it's just the parcel of the property where the where the building is For that for that for that development Yes, if this Gorman deal should fall through and the school district works with somebody else Then they'd have to petition again to do the same process Is there anyone else wishing to be heard? Alderman Hammond, thank you, mr. Mayor I move to close the hearing second Thank you for that motion and support all those in favor of closing the hearing, please signify by saying aye. Aye opposed Thank you very much that passes Well next we'll go on to the consent agenda, which includes items 3.2 through 3.11 Alderman Hammond Thank You mr. Mayor I moved to accept and file all reports of officers accept and adopt all reports of committees and put all Resolutions and ordinances upon their passage second Thank you for that motion and support the those items on the consent agenda or before us Is there any discussion? See none will the clerk, please call the roll for passage 13 eyes motion passes under reports of officers 4.1 is an RO by the city Planning Commission recommending amending the text of the official zoning ordinance in section 15.206 Detailed land use designations and regulations as to amend section 15.0264 e that will lie over till December 15th The remainder of the items in that section 4.2 through 4.7 we refer to various committees under resolutions Item 5.1 is a resolution by alderman donahue amending substitutes of resolution number 66 of 1415 relating to certain changes to the city's medical benefit plan for 2015 so as to allow otherwise Eligible retirees to participate in either the standard plan or the qualified high deductible plan alderman donahue Thank you your honor. I would move that the rules be suspended at this time Thank you second. Thank you for that motion and second on suspension All those in favor of suspension, please signify by saying aye. Aye opposed under suspension. Thank you Accordingly come I would move that the ordinance be put upon its passage Is there a second second it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion on the motion? Alderman borne Thank You mayor. I just have a question For the next year after that then I Believe I heard at a previous meeting that we're going to be going to the high deductible plan for all the employees Will that be the intention with this to eventually just offer the high deductible plan for the eligible retirees also? Alderman donahue do you have anything to offer your honor that is my understanding at this point any other discussion? See none will the clerk, please call the roll for passage 12 eyes one no motion passes Item 5.2 will lie over Items 5.3 through 5.11 will be referred to various committees Going on to reports at committees item 6.1 is an RC by law and licensing recommending the nine of beverage operators License number zero five eight five based upon her failure to accurately reveal all relevant convictions on her application Her record of vial license Related to the licensed activity in her record as a repeat law offender and her failure to cooperate with the committee Alderman Vander wheel. Thank You mr. I'm with the RC be accepted and adopted Thank you for that motion in support under discussion. Is Alicia bullock here this evening She's not we did invite her to our meeting two times. I should not show up Is there any other discussion? Will the clerk, please call the roll for passage 13 eyes motion passes Item 6.2 is an RC by the committee of the whole and was referred RC number 192 of 1415 by salary Engreavances who met and discussed the chief administrative officer's term and recommends amending section 2.341 of the municipal code that James and Moteo is hereby appointed as the chief administrative officer for the city of Sheboygan until August 23rd of 2016 Alderman Donahue. Thank you Your honor, I move that this report of committee be accepted and adopted second Thank you for that motion in support under discussion Seeing none will clerk, please call the roll for passage 11 eyes to nose motion passes Item 6.3 through 6.5 will be referred to various committees under ordinances 7.1 will lie over under matters laid over 8.1 Is our own number 183 of 1415 by the city Planning Commission who has referred general ordinance number 35 of 1415 in our own number 165 of 1415 to amend the zoning map to change the use district cat classification Located at 1238 Gilea Avenue from class in our six neighborhood six to class you are 12 urban residential classification Alderman Bellinger Thank You mayor. I move to accept a file and pass your ordinance second Thank you for that motion and support. That's before us for discussion Alderman borne Thank You mayor on that property. Is that going to be the Gorman company? I believe is the one that Chad mentioned is that going to be Subsidized housing or is there a chance that that could be some housing that we're going after on our plan to get more housing for Upscale apartments. Now, this is going to be section 42 housing and we'll have to look elsewhere for that market-rate housing Any other questions with a clerk then call the roll for passage David 13 eyes Motion passes 8.2 is a resolution number 93 of 1415 by Alderman Hammond Bellinger carousel and Donahue and cough amending resolution number 39 of 1011 authorizing the finance Auditor analysts to negotiate a settlement of certain liability insurance claims Alderman Hammond Thank You mr. Mayor move to put the resolution upon its passage second Thank you for that motion and support. Is there any discussion on the motion clerk? Please call the roll for passage 13 eyes motion passes Resolution 8.3 is Resolution number 94 of 1415 by Alderman Hammond authorizing Implementing a revised medical benefit plan design for 2015 for the Sheboygan professional police officers Association regarding health insurance coverage for 2015 Alderman Hammond Thank You mr. Mayor I'm not sure we need this resolution at this point Chief Amodio They settled so I don't know if we need this resolution anymore, so we can withdraw this. I'd like to withdraw that resolution, please. Okay. Thank you Next we'll go on to item number nine Discharged the public works committee Alderman Heidemann. I need a motion to suspend the rules I'm sorry Alderman Hammond. No problem, sir I moved to discharge the public works committee regarding resolution 95 1415 by all the person Heidemann regarding the acceptance of a temporary limited easement for the Taylor Drive bike and pedestrian trail project Okay, first of all, we'll take a vote on the discharge motion all those in favor signify by saying aye Most motion passes Oliver Heidemann. Thank you. I need to make a motion to suspend the rules second You have a motion in support to suspend the rules all those in favor of suspension signify by saying aye Opposed under suspension Alderman Heidemann, and then I take put the resolution upon his passage second Thank you for that motion in support. Is there any discussion on the motion clerk, please call the roll 13 eyes motion passes Next we'll go on to other matters city attorney Thank you, your honor Document 10.1 is an arrow by the city clerk submitting various license applications for the period ending December 31 2014 and December 31 2015 and June 30 2016 Those would be referred to law and licensing Next item is a proposed closed session Alderman Hammond. Thank you, mr. Mayor I moved to convene in closed session under the exemption contained in section 1985 1e Wisconsin statutes were competitive or bargaining reasons require a closed session for the purpose of deliberating regarding the review of submitted proposals on the city-owned property known as the Armory and develop long-term strategy regarded related to the Little Red School House Second. Thank you for that motion and support were the clerk. Please call the roll on the closed session 13 eyes Motion passes. We'll take a five-minute recess and reconvene


A pathogen is a microorganism that can cause disease. In this video, we are going to discover what they are exactly, how they can spread and cause infection, and how their spread can be reduced or prevented. Pathogens may be viruses, bacteria, protists or fungi. They are just microorganisms that can cause disease. Bacteria are microscopic. Even the biggest are only 10 micrometers long, which is minuscule. Once bacteria find their way into the body, they release toxins that make us feel ill. Examples of bacteria infections are cholera, typhoid, food poisoning, and gonorrhea. Although bacteria are very small, viruses are much, much smaller again. They are among the smallest organisms we know of. Bacterias not only enter your body, but they enter into cells and reproduce inside cells. They reproduce hundreds of thousands of times, and eventually cause the host cell to explode. The virus then passes out through the airwaves, bloodstream, or other route and can spread through populations. Examples of viral infections are the flu, influenza, measles, mumps, the common cold, and AIDS. Out of the thousands of species of fungi, a few can cause human diseases. They can cause minor skin conditions all the way up to life-threatening diseases. Some common fungal skin conditions are athletes' foot and ringworm, they are contagious and can pass from person to person through direct contact, or less commonly through contact with common surfaces. There are some opportunistic fungal diseases that can take advantage when the immune system is lowered for other reasons, such as cancer or AIDS. Protests are singles of organisms. Some protests can contaminate food and cause amoebic dysentery, which is an intestine infection and results in severe diarrhea. Protest pathogens can also be parasitic. They live in or on other organisms and cause harm. Malaria is an example of a protest pathogen that lives in the blood and is transmitted by mosquitoes. Watch the second part of this video to see how pathogens are spread and how their transmission can be prevented.


Public administration is the implementation of government policy and also an academic discipline that studies this implementation and prepares civil servants for working in the public service. As a field of inquiry with a diverse scope whose fundamental goal is to advance management and policies so that government can function. Some of the various definitions which have been offered for the term are, the management of public programs the translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day and the study of government decision making, the analysis of the policies themselves, the various inputs that have produced them, and the inputs necessary to produce alternative policies. Public administration is centrally concerned with the organization of government policies and programs as well as the behavior of officials usually non-elected formally responsible for their conduct. Many unelected public servants can be considered to be public administrators, including heads of city, county, regional, state and federal departments such as municipal budget directors, human resources HR administrators, city managers, census managers, state mental health directors, and cabinet secretaries. Public administrators are public servants working in public departments and agencies at all levels of government. In the United States, civil servants and academic such as Woodrow Wilson promoted civil service reform in the 1880s, moving public administration into academia. However, until the mid-20th century and the dissemination of the German sociologist Max Weber's theory of bureaucracy there was not much interest in a theory of public administration. The field is multidisciplinary in character, one of the various proposals for public administration sub-fields sets out six pillars, including human resources, organizational theory, policy analysis, statistics, budgeting, and ethics.