Teaching and Learning Activities: Prof. Deardorff and Jacques Morin discussed their experiences with audience response systems, which allow students to respond to questions electronically and teachers to receive automatically tabulated results -- all within the classroom setting. Jacques Morin spoke from his experiences as an instructional technologist supporting professors using these systems in political science, sociology, and women's studies courses. Professor Deardorff spoke from his experiences using these systems on his own to keep students engaged in introductory physics classes. Both felt these systems improve the level of students' engagement and excitement in lecture-style course. These systems' particular ability to rapidly tabulate results and allow the professor to show them graphically to the students provide a key difference from traditional Q and A methods in the classroom. Before implementing these systems, however, serious thought needs to be given to preparation time for learning the systems, writing effective questions, and being ready to adjust lectures according to responses. In addition, a professor needs to consider securing technical support for running the system in class, analyzing costs for the students, and examining these systems' connections to specific textbooks.

Computer Technology Used: Classroom Performance System (CPS) by e-Instruction, http://www.einstruction.com

"Adaptive Online Tutoring Teaches Flexibly & Improves Reading Comprehension"

Who: Prof. David Eckerman, Psychology; and Prof. Roger Ray, Psychology at Rollins College, Winter Park, FL
April 1

Teaching and Learning Activities: Professor Ray discussed his development of and learning theory behind MediaMatrix, an adaptive tutorial software system that delivers artificially intelligent tutoring services. The character of MediaMatrix's services constantly adapts to each student's personal needs for support and intellectual challenge. It adapts the display of text, prompts, and even the question format to address personal needs by making a constant comparison between a student's developing semantic network and a reference expert's semantic network. Both Professors Ray and Eckerman have developed psychology content within this software and have used it in psychology courses as supplemental or required reading. A recent study of an introductory psychology class using this system as an alternative to a traditional textbook found an average 20% increase in SAT/GRE types of reading.

Computer Technology Used: MediaMatrix, http://www.psych-ai.com

"Capturing, Transferring, and Evaluating Student Voice: The PALs Project"

Who: Jamie Bishop, Arts & Sciences Information Services
March 18

Teaching and Learning Activities: In this session, Jamie Bishop described how students in foreign language classes used a shareware program, WavePad, to "tape", edit, and convert their pronunciation assignments into MP3 files, which students then uploaded to Blackboard. The major advantage of WavePad is its ability to save directly in MP3 format without a separate step, and saving as an MP3 files allows easy upload into Blackboard. Bb's Assignment tool in particular gives teachers the ability to download all of these files from the gradebook as one packaged zip file. By incorporating this technology into about 14 sections of introductory French and Spanish courses last semester, pronunciation assignments was streamlined tremendously for both students and instructors. In addition, students who completed the assignments on their laptops reported feeling more comfortable doing pronunciation outside the lab setting and were more likely to redo the assignments.

Presentation available.

Computer Technology Used: NC Swift Sound,Wave Pad <http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad> and Blackboard <http://help.unc.edu/?trail=4780>

"Enhancing Online Presentations and Discussions with Macromedia Breeze"

Nick Moss, School of Dentistry; Steve Amendum, School of Education; and Todd Nicolet, School of Public Health
February 25

Teaching and Learning Activities: Macromedia Breeze provides tools for delivering multimedia presentations and engaging in synchronous conferences via the web. In this session, after a brief overview of the technology, two instructors from different fields discussed how they are using Breeze to enhance their courses, one web-enhanced and one online. Breeze is currently supported and used by a partnership among the Schools of Dentistry, Education, Pharmacy, and Public Health. Contact Todd Nicolet in the School of Public Health for more information.

PowerPoint presentation available.

Computer Technology Used: Macromedia Breeze Presenter and Breeze Live (now called meeting): http://www.macromedia.com/buy/volume_license/hed/breeze/

"Creating Rich Multimedia Presentations for the Web with Accordent"

Todd Stabley, Multimedia Specialist, and Tom Cox, Center, Manager of Video Services
Center for Instructional Technology, ITS Teaching and Learning
Dec. 3

Teaching and Learning Activities: Requests are increasing for ways to deliver lectures effectively to students at remote locations, as well as to capture lectures and interactions for later review by students . Many professors already publish their PowerPoint slides to the web for these purposes, but PowerPoint slides by themselves are not synchronized to a professor's voice and the slides alone are often a poor study aid. Accordent's PresenterOne is part of a growing category of software tools now on the market that are used to create multimedia presentations for the Web. PresenterOne combines Power-point style slides with video and can deliver both live and on-demand presentations. Earlier this semester the CIT purchased PresenterOne and has been evaluating the product. Its major strengths are its clear video, ease of publishing, and cost effectiveness. It does require that a professor be in a certain location using particular software during the lecture, and it can be cumbersome to use the built-in polling features and post-production editing. In this session, Tom Cox, Manager of CIT Video Services, and CIT Multimedia Specialist Todd Stabley demonstrated PresenterOne, discussed the opportunities and challenges of offering this as a service to the campus, and highlighted some sample lectures they’ve created for Biomedical Engineering 151 in pilot mode. Contact Tom Cox or Todd Stabley for more information.

Examples:

Biomedical Engineering 151 lecture on Transcriptional Regulation by Professor Mark Furth:
http://php.unc.edu/cit/multimedia/streamingmedia/accordent/bme/lecture25/

Romance Languages Professor Julia Mack showing students in her Salud (Spanish for Health Professionals) course how to use an instructional DVD:
http://www.unc.edu/cit/salud/saludweb/video/set-up/links.htm

Computer Technology Used: Accordent's PresenterOne

"Dentistry Adopts Digital Library-Textbooks on DVD"

Sharon K. Grayden, Director and Clinical Assistant Professor, and Amy Williams, Digital Media Specialist
Center for Educational Development and Informatics, School of Dentistry
Nov. 19

Teaching and Learning Activities: The dental student's backpack just got considerably lighter. Students no longer purchase 100 pounds of paper textbooks to access course content. A .6 ounce DVD, distributed during orientation, contains ALL of the dental textbooks they will use during dental school. Powerful software offers incredible search capabilities that take advantage of the computer as an important learning tool. With a click of the mouse students can search the entire library for all references to a specified query. Annotations/notes can be added and text can be highlighted, just like in paper books. The difference, digital notes are tracked and catalogued for easy access when it is time to study for the mid-term or final. Personalized study guides, with hyperlinks to the actual text, can be created to suit the needs of the individual learner. Faculty can copy images and link content into PowerPoint presentations to reinforce learning objectives or build review sessions. Contact Amy Williams for more information.

Computer Technology Used: VitalSource Technologies, http://www.vitalbook.com

"Electronic Assessment Software: SecureExam Student"

Greg Robinson, Senior Academic Technology Liaison, Office of Arts and Sciences Information Sciences
Nov. 5

Teaching and Learning Activities: Since 2003, as part of an OASIS pilot project, the departments of Music, Political Science, and English have used the Securexam Student electronic assessment software for in-class testing and placement exams. The software is designed for cheat-proof computer usage. With this software, students can take exams on their laptops in the familiar environment of Microsoft Word or Excel, and faculty can rest assured that students cannot receive aid from other files or the Internet during the exam. Early feedback from students suggests that having this software available for essay exams promotes better organization and easy editing. Some added that they type faster than they write. In nearly all cases, students say that they appreciate the opportunity to take exams in the same way that they write papers for their classes.

More information about Securexam on this campus can be found at http://www.unc.edu/~grobins/ss/ or email softwaresecure@unc.edu

Computer Technology Used: SecureExam Student, http://www.softwaresecure.com/student.htm

Information Technology Services at UNC-Chapel Hill

Teaching and Learning

ConsiderIT Archive

Fall 2004 - Spring 2005

"On Class Response Systems"