One of the more affirming things I’ve seen recently related to Domain of One’s Own is Coventry University empowering their student workers to literally design their project. Ashley Armstrong, a second year Digital Media student at Coventry, was charged with re-designing their homepage, and the final result were pretty impressive:
That “empowering students…” tagline is not just rhetoric. And beyond design work, Ashley also works directly with Daniel Villar to get classes on-boarded, trains them on using WordPress, and generally supports Domains. This is something schools really need to do more of, using something like Domain of One’s Own as a platform for a broader conversation around empowerment, literacy, and community right now seems more pressing than ever. Making students central to shaping that platform speaks directly to what building academic community means in the 21st century.
While switching to the new theme I got a chance to chat with Ashley, and I was struck by how fired up he was about the whole project. He is presently searching out opportunities in industry as part of his degree process, and when I think about the opportunity Coventry has provided him to demonstrate his digital skills thanks to Domains it reinforces why this is much more than creating a portfolio for a class, Domains gives Ashley the ability to actually create the portfolio system!