2007 Winter Term Workshop Project Abstracts (displayed as they are submitted)
| Roger Dortch-Doan: Athletics |
| Strength and Conditioning Website |
| I want to create an Internet Website DePauw students can access in order to learn about Strength and conditioning. I want to include general strength training information, and provide video of exercises for students to learn from. This will also provide a link for a future strength and conditioning camp I will offer through DePauw. This site will also help students in my class to review and learn exercises and drills. |
| |
| Linda Elman: Modern Languages |
| Three Cultures of Medieval Iberia |
| In the medieval period, Christians, Jews and
Muslims struggled for survival and
supremacy on the Iberian peninsula. Despite
the social and religious upheaval, each group
flourished individually and contributed to the
development of a tenuous culture of
tolerance. Ultimately, Christian hegemony in
the form of the Reconquest dealt a blow to
Judaism, Islam and the followers of each
faith, in the form of forced conversion,
torture, expulsion and death. Despite the
Christian mission to eliminate difference,
modern Spain is a tapestry formed from
threads of these diverse peoples, languages
and cultural productivity.
Based on my recent sabbatical research
about the literature and history of medieval
Iberia, I am designing a multifaceted
curriculum, which will be taught as a topics
course (SPAN442) this spring, a senior
seminar (probably in the spring of 2008) and
separately (Jews; Muslims) as First Year
Seminars (2008 and 2009) combined with WT
study trips to follow the Ruta Sepharad and
Ruta Al Andalus, respectively. I envision the
Blogs to be an adjunct to the course material
as students actually (and virtually) visit the
relevant Spanish locations for these
populations and events.
With so many component parts, and multiple
reincarnations, this course seems suited for
its own web page, where I could link the
various elements and continue to expand the
course resources in a format both attractive
and accessible to the students.
First, I need FITS help to map the course with
an eye for what is a good web page design.
For the courses taught in Spanish, I would
like to prepare podcast lectures about the
historical background material that would
correlate to realia like maps, famous
paintings, photos of historical places and
architectural landmarks, all linked into the
web page. The podcasts could be utilized by
students outside of class time to free up
contact time for discussion. Additionally,
small groups of students would develop
podcast discussions, which could then be
made available for the other groups to listen
to outside of class.
There is no single text or select few texts
with all the fundamental resources we need.
Instead, there are many literary and historical
sources that may or may not be permissible
to be copied on a web page. (I may have to
use reserves and Blackboard to house some
of these materials.)
I am not really certain of the full potential of
this project until I get into the development
phase with the guidance of a tech team. I
have many of the raw materials for this
curriculum. Now I hope to organize
everything into an interactive learning
environment.
|
| |
| Hilary Eppley: Chemistry and Biochemistry |
| Investigation of Social Computing for the Virtual Inorganic Pedagogical Electronic Resource (VIPER) |
| A group of inorganic chemists from
several different PUI’s are in the process of
applying for funds to support the
development of an intellectual online
network of inorganic chemists. While we are
currently planning a NITLE workshop in
February to help our group develop the
expertise necessary to create such a
resource, I would like to spend a bit of time
learning about social computing like WIKIs
and other possible tools that we might
employ to give me a bit more background
coming into that February meeting. Below is
a description of the first step in this project
that highlights the kinds of resources I would
like to learn about and possibly prepare
some “mock-ups” in preparation for our
meeting.
The first step in the development of this
network will be a web site that would be a
virtual depository of course materials with
possibilities for peering editing. The web
site, VIPER (Virtual Inorganic Pedagogical
Electronic Resource) will serve as a platform
for cyber-enabled collaborative curriculum
development. This resource will enhance
the teaching and learning of inorganic
chemistry at PUIs by serving as a place where
instructional materials can be developed and
vetted with the input of experts from various
subfields. Although inorganic chemistry is a
broad discipline, inorganic chemists typically
acquire highly specialized training in
graduate school and postdoctoral
appointments within one narrow
subdiscipline. As the sole inorganic chemist
at a PUI, however, they are expected to
represent the entire field to their students.
In courses, this leads to challenges in
developing a complete set of curricular
materials that reflects the diversity of
inorganic chemistry in the lecture and lab.
At a minimum, by collecting multiple sets of
teaching materials, reflecting the expertise of
a variety of specialists in one accessible, on-
line location, VIPER will serve as an invaluable
resource for faculty looking to improve their
courses. The resources on the website will
include laboratory experiments, writing
assignments, links to classic and
contemporary literature articles that work
well in class discussions, discussion aids,
and a set of links to other useful websites
related to inorganic chemistry. Rather than a
mere repository, the platform of VIPER will be
a collaborative learning environment
enabling such items as wikis, discussion
boards, podcasts, visualization tools, remote
access technologies, and other emerging
tools for virtual, asynchronous networking. A
pilot version of the resource was created at
the third meeting of IC2I in September of
2006. However, it is located on an internal
courseware server (Sakai at Harvey Mudd
College) and is therefore not available for
wide dissemination.
Beyond simply sharing materials through
VIPER, our goal is also to foster discussion
and interaction amongst inorganic faculty at
PUIs. Users of VIPER can begin discussion
threads about “what works” and “what
doesn’t work” in the inorganic classroom,
textbooks, and comments about laboratory
experiments published both in traditional
print and on VIPER. Furthermore, it will be a
forum for discussing tips and
troubleshooting the implementation of these
innovations in the classroom. To facilitate a
sense of community, an on-line database of
inorganic chemistry faculty at PUIs will be
posted, organized both geographically and
by subdiscipline, together with contact
information. This will enable “ask the
expert” type interactions and help identify
potential grant reviewers from within the
community.
Through its multitude of resources, we
envision that VIPER will serve the needs of
inorganic chemistry faculty throughout their
careers. In particular, the myriad classroom
and human resources available through
VIPER will be invaluable assets to the junior
faculty member, sabbatical replacement, or
colleague who, for a variety of reasons, may
find themselves teaching outside of their
comfort zone.
|
| |
| Sherry Mou: Modern Languages |
| Managing "China on Screen" |
| This is a preparation of my “China on Screen” (AS 250) for the spring. I would like to set up a Blackboad or Moodle site for the class. Last time I taught this class was over a year ago, and I want to revise both the content and the format of the course.
These are some of the tasks I plan to do:
- update a web page and make sure all links are active
- set up a class folder either on Blackboard or on Moodle (or both)
- learn how to use DyKnow for several writing assignments (this is a W course)
The first two need to be done before the beginning of the semester; I don’t expect to finish all the DyKnow assignments, but I would like to have at least the first month’s covered.
(Wiki and Blogs are remote "maybes"; much will depend on how much time I have and what kinds of assignments I end up using. I'm happy to learn more about them though.) |
| |
| Jeff Hansen: Chemistry and Biochemisry |
| Moodle Course Management System |
| The goal of this project would be to develop
a course web site for a new course and/or
redesign a course web site for an existing
course. The web site would be delivered via
the Course Management System called
Moodle. The University is considering
moving to Moodle as a replacement and
augmentation for our current course
management software, Blackboard.
Developing this for my course(s) would
provide feedback for the decision process of
whether or not to make this switch. I have
not in the past used tools such as
podcasting, blogs, or wiki's on my course
website. Moodle may make it more likely for
me to use some of those tools. I would like
to explore that possibility during this project. |
| |
| Pascal Lafontant: Biology |
| Exploring pen/tablet-based and DyKnow system learning in biology |
| Having attended a FITS seminar on the use of pen-based and DyKnow system learning, I believe I could use this technology in my Bio 135: Organismal Biology course, and in Bio 335: Animal Physiology. I feel that this technology would be very useful in classes offered in auditoriums to provide me with flexibility in my presentations and notes. I believe this would allow me to highlight key points, coordinate sources of information in my presentations, and tailor my lectures to the questions and needs of my students.
Because I have limited knowledge of this technology, my primary objective for the project would be to learn about the capacities of these tools. From there, I would like to experiment with them in the context of a few lectures I have already prepared for my classes. I hope this project will allow me to begin implementing some aspects of this technology in my spring 2007 offering of Animal Physiology. |
| |
| Linda Martin: International Education |
| Innovative Techniques for Teaching ESL |
|
| |
|
