Introducing the New FITS Faculty Coordinator:
Dr. Sherry Mou

The FITS Faculty Coordinator is a new position in our programs, modeled after the associate faculty development coordinators for the S, Q, and W programs.
During the coming weeks, Sherry will be engaging in conversation and dialogue with faculty members across campus, arrange follow-up FITS activities related to laptops in the classroom, and help coordinate the FITS summer workshop.

Sherry’s experiences with teaching and technology cover a broad range of technologies and methods, and her instructional philosophy focuses on improving students’ learning, always considering pedagogy first, technology second. She will be a great asset to the FITS program and we are looking forward to working with her.

Please join me in welcoming Sherry on board!

--Carol Smith.

In Search of Good Matches
Contributed by Sherry J. Mou, Associate Professor of Modern Languages & FITS Faculty Coordinator

Not being trained as a “techie,” I imagine myself rather as a matchmaker, who is in search of good matches between the faculty and the Faculty Instructional Technology Support (FITS) teams. I was matched many times in the past by previous FITS Faculty Coordinators.  I learned to use Blackboard, iMovie, iDVD, Dreamweaver, LUNA, GIS, and a few other things.  Some of these programs become necessary tools for my teaching and research; other programs served me for certain projects and became irrelevant afterwards.  Was the time learning those one-time-only programs wasted?  Maybe.  But the programs that work for me are indispensable to my teaching and research.  Sometimes, I figured, the important lesson is to learn that a program does not work for my needs.  Why should we learn new programs then?  I asked a guru in my field once, “Does all this high tech stuff really make our students learn to speak Chinese easier and faster?”  “No,” said my friend, “teaching and learning are and will always be done by people.  An excellent teacher can teach with hand-written stencils or a PowerPoint presentation.  Whatever you use, you need to make it work for you.”  That is my position and attitude as the new FITS Faculty Coordinator–I’m here to match my colleagues with FITS teams that are tailored specifically to help people making things work for them.

For more information, please contact:

Julianne Miranda, Coordinator of mitc – PAC117E,
jmiranda@depauw.edu, x4389

Jenny Colvin, mitc Graduate Intern – PAC11B,
jcolvin@depauw.edu, x6503

Holling Smith-Borne, Music Librarian – PAC11,
hborne@depauw.edu, x4443

Student Laptops in the Classroom: The January Faculty Survey
Contributed by Carol Smith, FITS/Instructional & Learning Services

In January, Terri Bonebright and I distributed a survey to faculty members to gather information about how students and faculty members used students' laptops in coursework last fall and Winter Term, including planned classroom activities and spontaneous use by students.

We asked the following eight questions:

Summary of results:
We received about 40 responses from faculty members, representing disciplines across campus – humanities, music, science, etc.  Responders included instructors who have intentionally integrated laptops into their classes, those who have not intentionally integrated laptops but whose students bring them to class anyway, and those who had neither.

Key issues that we noted from the data:

• Laptop distraction in the classroom: The good, the bad, and everything in between. The issue of students’ laptops being a distraction in the classroom, especially in discussion or lecture-based classes, is an area of discussion and needs follow-up dialogue with the faculty. Responses ranged from instructors who believed some students effectively take notes and engage in spontaneous Internet searches to augment discussion, to those who expressed concern that students were overly distracted by things like email or IM, to those who flat-out didn’t allow students to open their laptops.
  
  
• Those who have specifically integrated laptops have had generally positive experiences. They described a variety of ways of using the laptops and there was no single method that they all used.
  
  
• Those who responded are mostly open to possibilities and want to hear more about what their colleagues are trying and learning. Generally, Terri and I interpreted that those who responded are suspending judgment about the overall usefulness of students having required laptops until they and campus have had more experiences.
  

What’s next?
Terri and I are going to write a more complete description of the results and distribute it widely to faculty and campus. Sherry Mou also plans to arrange a number of FITS events later in the spring to address the ‘distraction’ issue and to provide a forum for faculty members to share their experiences and concerns.

To get the students’ perspective, Alicia Louden (START) is developing a parallel survey for students to (a) gather information about their experiences with using laptops in classes and studies and (b) learn more about their training and hardware/software support needs.

If you have not responded to the survey, it’s not too late! We encourage you to do so by emailing your answers either to myself (clsmith@depauw.edu) or Terri Bonebright (tbone@depauw.edu).

The annual Horizon Report is a collaborative effort between the New Media Consortium (NMC)* and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI)**. Each year, the report identifies and describes six areas of emerging technology likely to have a significant impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression in higher education within a year or less; two to three years; and four to five years.

The areas of emerging learning technologies identified for 2006 are:

• Social computing
  E.g., blogs, wikis, social bookmarking (i.e., del.icio.us), Flickr photo sharing, instant messengers (IM) and Wikipedia
  
• Personal broadcasting
  E.g., podcasting as well as video blogging
  
• Cell-phone-accessible educational content and services
  
• Educational gaming
  
• Augmented reality and enhanced visualization
  
• Context-aware environments and devices

The Horizon Report is the result of an ongoing comprehensive research project that focuses on ways emerging tools can be applied to teaching, learning and creative expression. The project’s advisory board, whose national membership includes faculty members, instructional technology experts and leaders in higher education (see www.nmc.org/horizon), explores current challenges in higher education and links examples of how those new tools and methods might be applied to address them.

Why is this of interest to faculty members at DePauw?

While the emerging trends described in the report range from those immediately available for exploration or adoption by DePauw faculty members to others that are still a bit “out there” for most of us, we have faculty colleagues here who have already adopted, or plan to adopt, some of the trends identified in this year’s report. For example, several faculty members have already integrated blogs or wikis (social computing) to facilitate course discussion or collaborative writing. An English instructor teaches a class on hypertext and gaming that investigates the impact of digital technology on narrative form (educational gaming). Some instructors in modern languages are hoping to use podcasting (personal broadcasting) to enable exchanges between students on campus and those in study-abroad programs next year.

Does this mean that DePauw should adopt all of the technologies noted in the report?  No, of course not! Rather, the report offers examples of instructors who integrate these new tools in ways that enhance teaching and learning in a variety of disciplines. Faculty members can take advantage of these examples to learn about possible ways to solve pedagogical and instructional challenges of their own.

View the complete Horizon Report online by clicking http://www.educause.edu/
LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=CSD4387.

Additional references:
**EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) – www.educause.edu/eli - The ELI is a community of higher education institutions and organizations committed to advancing learning through learner-focused strategy and IT innovation.

*New Media Consortium (NMC) – www.nmc.org

Staff Spotlight: Lynda LaRoche & Beth Wilkerson
Picture and Information Collected by Jess Sullivan, ITAP Intern, and Emily Frame, FITS Graduate Intern

Biography: On Labor Day in September of 2001, I started working for FITS - which has been a great experience. I'm a single mom with three terrific sons- Ben Mitchell (a Marine), Ethan Mitchell (a fisherman / hunter / beekeeper), and John Latta (a video game enthusiast). Last December I finished my associates degree in Computer Information Systems from IVY Tech State College - hooray! I enjoy spending time with my kids, learning new things and continually trying to be a better Christian.

Areas of Expertise: DyKnow, Blackboard, Project Management, Microsoft Office Professional, Databases, Reflective Writing.

Fun Fact: I participated in tae-kwon-do lessons with my kids.

Biography: My formal education was focused in the area of Applied Mathematics with emphasis on Computer Science and Physics. I obtained a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from Murray State University (Murray, KY) in 1988 and a M.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Illinois (Champaign, IL) in 1990. After receiving my post-graduate degree, I spent 11+ years as a Software Engineer in the Oilfield Services Industry programming 2D and 3D seismic interpretation/visualization systems. At present, in addition to being the FITS GIS Specialist, I'm also the project programmer for the CGMA (Collaboratory for GIS and Mediterranean Archaeology) project. My hobbies include singing, sewing, swimming, and most importantly, spending time with my family.

Areas of Expertise: Geographic Information Systems

Fun Fact: I have a relatively large antique sad iron trivet collection.

Lynda LaRoche (llaroche@depauw.edu) may be reached at (765)658-6600 or by visiting the FITS lab, Roy O. West Library (Lower Level).
Beth Wilkerson (bwilkerson@depauw.edu) may be reached at (765)658-6554 or by visiting the GIS Center, Julian 110

Introducing the New FITS Faculty Coordinator: Dr. Sherry Mou

"In Search of Good Matches"

Digital Audio Resources at DePauw

Student Laptops In the Classroom: The January Faculty Survey

Instructional Technology: News From the Field, "Emerging Learning Technologies: The 2006 Horizon Report"

Staff Spotlights: Lynda LaRoche and Beth Wilkerson

Monday, March 6th
EDUCAUSE LEARNING INITIATIVE Web Seminar
"Emerging Learning Technologies: The 2006 Horizon Report"
by Larry Johnson,
Chief Executive Officer,
The New Medium Consortium
1:00-2:00pm
ROW Media Classroom

Wednesday, March 8th
IHETS Virtual Brownbag Series
"Assessing Distributed Learning: Opportunities and Challenges"
by Patsy Moskal,
University of Central Florida
12:00-1:00pm
ROW Media Classroom
Pizza Lunch Provided!
(please RSVP Lynda Laroche, llaroche@depauw.edu or x6600 by Tuesday, March 7th)

Thursday, March 9th
Faculty Forum
"Mapping Transformations in Space and Time: The Use of Geographical Information Systems [GIS] in 19th Century Mexican Urban History”
by Glenn Kuecker,
Associate Professor of History
12:00-1:30pm
UB 231-232
RSVP Terri Bonebright (tbone@depauw.edu)

To view more events, click
http://www.depauw.edu/
univ/fits/events/index.asp.

April 6, 7, 2006
Purdue University
WIPTE Workshop on the Impact of Pen-based Technology on Education

"The First Workshop on the Impact of Pen-based Technology on Education will be held on the Purdue University campus in West Lafayette, Indiana on April 6 and 7, 2006. WIPTE is open to anyone with an interest in instructional technology. A wide variety of disciplines are embracing Tablet PC's and similar pen-based devices as tools for the radical enhancement of teaching and learning. This conference is intended to leverage this shared passion and to identify best practices in the educational use of pen-based computing so that all educators may benefit from this next generation of technology."

DePauw Presenters:
"From "Chalk and Talk" to Animate and Collaborate: DyKnow-Mite Applications of Pen-based Instruction in Economics,"
Mary P. English Dixon,
Michele T. Villinski

"Pushing Forty (Courses per Semester): Pen-Computing and DyKnow Tools at DePauw University,"
Dave Berque

"Use of Handwriting Input in Writing Instruction for Japanese Language," Reiko Itoh (former faculty member in modern languages at DePauw)

Laptop-Compatible Scanning Stations
for faculty members and students are now available in the FITS Center and digital media lab (dml)

Equiped with a scanner, Wacom graphics tablet, full-size keyboard, and external mouse, you just plugin and go!

Both stations are Windows & Apple compatible

For more info, contact Jin Kim (jkim@depauw.edu)

The 2006 FITS Summer Workshop
May 30 - June 2 & 5, 2006

The workshop will provide faculty participants with support and training needed to complete a course related project. The week is full of opportunities for faculty to participate in practical sessions and engage in discussion and dialogue with other participants.

Workshop details and a call for proposals will be announced soon.

For more information, contact Sherry Mou (smou@depauw.edu).

Faculty Instructional Technology Support (FITS) :
consulting and support for faculty to enhance learning through curricular innovations using technology.

Services that we offer . . .

• One-on-one consulting
• Workshops, seminars, and forums
• Equipment in the FITS Center for you to experiment
• Team-based support for projects

FITS is located in the lower level of Roy O. West Library

Hours:
Monday – Friday,
8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Evening and weekend hours can be arranged by appointment.

http://fits.depauw.edu

Student Technology Assessment, Resources & Training (START) :

• One-on-one consultation with students working on technology projects
• Customized and course specific training arranged in collaboration with instructors
• Standardized training and workshops 

START offers students support at 3 locations:

Digital Media Lab (dml),
Roy O. West Library,
Lower Level

Monday - Thursday,
8:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Friday,
8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Sunday,
7:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.

Julian Science and Math Center &
Tiger Services
( Student Union Building)
Sunday - Thursday,
7 p.m. - 10 p.m.

http://www.depauw.edu/it/start

Contact: Alicia Louden, alouden@depauw.edu