Come listen to  Kurt Fischer, Director of the Mind, Brain and Education Program, Charles Bigelow Professor of Education and Professor of Human Development & Psychology at Harvard University.   He will talk about “Mind, Brain and Education: Tools for Analyzing Learning Pathways” on Friday, December 4th at 1:30 PM in the LSRC Love Auditorium.

Dr. Fischer brings together educators and researchers in biological sciences, cognitive science and education to create a strong research foundation for educational practice and policy — informed by input from educators and includes the roles of the brain and genetics in learning.

Refreshments and conversation follow Dr. Fischer’s talk.

This seminar is co-sponsored by the Center for Science Education, the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience.  Check with Duke Center for Science Education for more information or download a flyer.

Owen Astrachan (Professor, Computer Science at Duke) invited a graduate of Duke, Ge Wang, to be a guest speaker to his Technical and Social Foundations of the Internet course (CS 82). Dr. Wang, at Stanford University, used Skype to connect with the 340 students at Duke, alternating between a video of himself talking, and sharing his computer screen for his presentation.

Astrachan reported “it just worked” and was delighted with how easily he was able to share a guest speaker with his students.

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After this was posted, Heidi Madden directed me to a video showing a Duke German history class using Skype to talk to photographer Vince Cianni about his original photographs of the fall of the Berlin wall.  Join them by watching the video.

OIT’s Learn IT @ Lunch series offers Duke faculty, students and staff an opportunity to get some information on new technologies in a relaxed setting. Two upcoming session might be of particular interest to Duke faculty:

• Wiki Tricks: DukeWiki Advanced Formatting – highly recommended for those interested in using Duke’s Wiki tool to better manage research groups, projects and documentation.
• VoiceThread – this session will be led by the developers of the VoiceThread tool: Monte Evans & Andrew Synowiez

Over 2300 Blackboard course sites have been automatically created for Spring 2010, based on data from STORM (Peoplesoft) .  Certain course types, such as Independent Study and Tutorial, do not get created automatically.  To see if your course site has been created, log into Blackboard and new courses will show up in your “My Courses” module.

If your course site does not show up, you can request that your course site be created by clicking “Request a Site” on our Blackboard Support web site.

By default, courses are set to “unavailable” and can only be seen by instructors and other course administrators (teaching assistants, course builders, etc.) and not by students.  Make your course “available” once you are ready for students to see the content.

If you run into problems, contact the OIT Service Desk at 919-684-2200 or by clicking “Get Help” on our Blackboard Support web site.  For assistance with configuring your course site to support your teaching goals, contact the Center for Instructional Technology, cit@duke.edu.

Most students have cell phones, and more than half of all US undergraduates own an internet-capable handheld device and more plan to purchase one in the next 12 months (ECAR Research Study 2009). Why not use them?

How?  Here are three ideas:

Cell phones and internet-capable phones can be used as polling devices, like clickers, to engage students during class. Poll Everywhere will supply an easy to use interface for small classes for free, or large classes for a fee.

Students could access information during class, to contribute to discussions or to inform critical thinking. How? Students could query Google or Google Scholar, access the library or librarian, use news sources, or specific applications for your topic.

Leverage student interest in texting to learn about their thinking during class, by setting up a backchannel, like Hotseat at Purdue University. A teaching assistant or other instructor can monitor the backchannel, and alert you to questions, problems, and student interest at appropriate points in the class.

Come to a discussion of using mobile devices for education, both in and out of class, on the second Tuesday of each month.

ProfHacker “delivers tips, tutorials, and commentary on pedagogy, productivity, and technology in higher education.” Recent posts focus on topics such as not making assumptions about students’ technical skills, simple ways to enhance in-class group work, and handling Twitter spam. ProfHacker’s editors Jason B. Jones (associate professor of English at Central Connecticut State University) and George H. Williams (assistant professor of English at the University of South Carolina Upstate) are joined by a cadre of faculty and student authors from a variety of institutions to provide 2 or 3 useful posts a day.